#timeline | ff7

Mercenary work was always a toss of the die. Sometimes you got a job that was easy and not unpleasant to do, other times you ended up with something that was difficult and just plain miserable.

Lightning's current job had managed to land somewhere squarely in the middle. By all means it should have been an easy job, simply tracking down a thief and retrieving what they had stolen. And indeed, tracking the thief had been easy enough, but actually getting back the items...

❝Look, just give me the materia and you can go.❞ Lightning pleaded with a sigh. She wasn't being paid to actually bring back the thief anyway and she had no desire to hurt them. The girl looked around Serah's age after all.

Born in Costa del Sol, Lightning's father died when she very young and her mother passed away when she was a teenager, leaving her to raise her younger sister Serah.

Tempted by the high pay that SOLDIER received, Lightning moved her and Serah to Midgar and signed up at the recruitment center. Managing to pass both the physical and psychological tests, as well as coming out of the Mako Bath with her mind intact, Lightning was instated as a SOLDIER 3rd Class.

Over the next several years she managed to rise through the ranks to SOLDIER 1st Class, and though there were time that she found herself doubting many of Shinra's actions, but she forced herself to carry on in order to give Serah a good life.

Things changed however after Serah was nearly killed due to a monster attack while on a trip to a town with a reactor. Although Shinra sent people to eliminate the monsters, they showed little remorse that it had happened in the first place, and that was the last straw for Lightning.

Knowing that she would not just be allowed to quit and not wanting to drag Serah down with her, Lightning entrusted her Serah to her fiancée Snow and sent them ahead. After some time had passed and Lightning was sure they were safely away, she defected from Shinra.