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Keeping Your Advantage: Terrain and You, Week II [Monday, Period 4]

When students arrived in the Danger Shop today, they'd find it set up for rock climbing.

"Hello, students," Ghanima said briskly, giving some handouts to the TAs. "Today, we study mountains and rock climbing."

"The important thing to remember about mountains is that each one is different, depending on the size and location," she said. "High mountains, and mountains located close to the Earth's poles, reach into the colder layers of the atmosphere. They are consequently subject to glaciation, and erosion through frost action, and such processes produce the peak shape for which mountains are known. Some of these mountains have glacial lakes, created by melting glaciers. Mountains can be eroded and weathered, altering their characteristics over time, so even if you've been to an area once, it may not be the same as before."

"Tall mountains have different climatic conditions at the top than at the base, and will thus have different life zones at different altitudes. The flora and fauna found in these zones tend to become isolated since the conditions above and below a particular zone will be inhospitable to those organisms. These isolated ecological systems are known as sky islands and/or microclimates."

"Mountains are also generally less preferable for human habitation than lowlands; the weather is often harsher, and there is little level ground suitable for agriculture. At very high altitudes, there is less oxygen in the air and less protection against solar radiation Acute mountain sickness, caused by hypoxia - a lack of oxygen in the blood, affects over half of lowlanders who spend more than a few hours above 3,500 meters, or 11,483 feet."

"Today, you'll be learning how to scale these majestic landmarks." Ghanima gestured to the gear and the walls. "There's easy, medium, hard, and expert trails here today, you just have to follow the color-coded tape paths. Or, you can try making your own goals. Race each other, work in teams, or get a feel for some of the unconventional maneuvers you might have do in order to move about a mountain."

"I just ask that you warm-up on the easy and medium trails first, no matter how advanced you think yourself. I don't want anyone getting hurt during the second week of classes."

[Ya'll know the rules. The OCD is up, so you're free to roam!]

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She glanced over her shoulder at him, not totally surprised since she'd seen him on the easier trails, but a little surprised nonetheless.

"You're not so bad yourself," she managed, trying to pick up the pace a little bit to overcome his height advantage.

"Where'd you learn to climb like this?" Yes, Zack was making small talk during a race while hanging off a vertical rock-climbing course. It was what he did. "I'm a country boy, so terrain like this isn't all that new to me, you know? This is pretty fun!"

The fact that he could make small talk and still keep up with her wasn't really saying much for Triela's chances of winning. Unless he let her. Her breath wasn't short yet, but her tone was tight with concentration when she answered.

"I train for this sort of thing back home. Never know when you'll have to climb a cliff and shoot some people at the top."

"Oooh, so you're a fighter, too? I don't really shoot people, myself. Normally, I'm doing this with a sword, instead. And sometimes it isn't even people at the top, either."

Monsters were more fun to slice at, though.

Zack? Still keeping up, yes.

"A sword?" Normally Triela would sound unimpressed. After all, guns were so much more efficient. She couldn't quite muster up the proper tone at the moment, though. That was because she had pushed up the pace again and that required most of her attention.

"Yep, a sword!" Zack glanced over to see that she was pulling ahead, which simply wouldn't do! He couldn't carry on a conversation if she was way above him, after all. And so he picked up his pace just enough that he was nosing ahead of her again. "It's SOLDIER issue. And I'm pretty good with it, if I do say so myself."

It made more sense to use a sword in his line of work. Too many monsters were damn near bulletproof, and it was easier to equip materia into his sword, anyhow.

"We don't really do much with blades where I'm from," she said, voice even more strained as she tried to pick up the pace again. This time she was taking bigger risks, using her mechanical strength to throw herself past hand holds in an effort to make up ground and sort of duplicate his height advantage.

Moving in a way that took her completely out of contact with the wall's surface might have been no big deal if she had been a real expert, but it was definitely risky behavior for someone of Triela's skill level.

"I guess a lot of people around here don't," Zack mused, glancing sideways at her, a little concerned for her safety as he picked up his pace some more to match her. "It's weird for them to see me with a sword, or to hear me talking about one. Especially since we do have guns on my world, too. But a sword just makes more sense for a guy in SOLDIER. I have complete control of where it goes right up until it makes contact with the target, after all."

A beat.

"You, uh, might want to be careful doing that, huh?"

His admonition that she should be careful only caused her to pick up her pace.

"I suppose that makes sense, but you have to get pretty close to something to hit it with a sword." Not that Triela didn't get awfully close to people, but the option for range was nice.

And it was at about this point that she missed a grab and had to scramble for a new handhold, barely catching a ledge with the fingers of her right hand before she would have gone off the wall entirely.

"If I need distance, that's what magic is fo-WHOA."

Zack ground to a halt as she almost went plummeting, looking at her wide-eyed.

"Are you okay, Triela?"

Yes, he was already making his way toward her in order to offer her a hand.

"I'm fine," Triela said. She didn't sound panicked or worried. Truth be told she hadn't even had an adrenaline spike when she'd missed her grab.

She shifted slightly, frowning in concentration, and got her left hand onto a decent hand hold. She wanted to flash him a disapproving frown for turning back to help her, but he was too earnest to actually snap at.

Okay, okay, she looked like she was going to be okay. Zack could resume breathing, now.

He waited where he was, watching her intently to be certain she was on her way again.

"That was a good catch," he offered. Because that kind of felt like the best he could come up with, in case of damaged pride or something.

"I'm fast." Even that comment made her think he was being condescending. Triela might have been a bit touchy...

Of course she couldn't think he was too condescending. He was too... nice or something.

If there was any one thing that Zack could boast, it was sincerity. He didn't really have a condescending bone in his body.

"You are," he agreed. "We don't have far left to go. Are you still up for finishing the race?"

"Of course," she grunted, pushing herself into motion again. And while it may have been stupid, she was right back to taking risks as if to show that it had been a freak accident that had caused her to slip rather than her trying to do more than she really could.

Zack sighed a little as he saw her doing the same thing again, and this time he allowed himself to fall back a little, lagging behind her just so that he could keep an eye on her. So what if he'd lose? If she fell, at least this way he stood a chance of being able to catch her.

"Of course," he agreed, pushing on from below her.

Fortunately for Triela's pride, she was too busy paying attention to her ascent to realize he was deliberately hanging back in case she fell. Equally fortunately, she didn't fall.

She reached the top and looked back with a triumphant sort of grin. "You're good at this" she allowed, impressed a bit in spite of herself.

"I'm SOLDIER," Zack replied as he reached the top, grinning at her. "It's sort of my job to be good at this, really."

He went quiet for a moment, looking downward again.

"Are you always so bent on winning?"

Triela frowned slightly. "I'm the best." She said it in a tone that sounded more like 'I have to be the best' to everyone who wasn't her.

"Yeah," Zack agreed, taking note of that tone and tactfully resisting the urge to pry at it too deeply. "You sure had me beat."

He was not going to sound worried. He was not going to sound worried. Okay.

"So, how are we getting down from here? Same way we came up?"

He could climb down. He could jump down. But he was half convinced that if he jumped down now, she'd follow suit. So maybe climbing was the better option at this point?

At that question Triela's smile went from polite to genuine. "Oh, that's the fun part!" she exclaimed. She pulled a long coil of rope from a small bag hanging at her hip and clipped it through her climbing harness. Her smile widened when she spotted the anchor near the top of the trail and she clipped her rope through it too.

After a couple of tugs to make sure nothing was going to come loose, she glanced over at Zack. "You ever done this part before?"

"Not quite like this, no," Zack confessed, glancing back toward where he'd done the medium course.

Really, he was all about jumping off of things. Out of helicopters, through glass skylights, and so on. Free-fall was kind of fun.

"Maybe I'll just follow your lead."

"Okay." She took a couple of seconds to go over the proper way to rig a harness, just in case he didn't know, and then she beamed.

"See you at the bottom."

With that she plummeted off the trail again, hair whipping out behind her as she used the rope to control her speed and move in long controlled bounces back toward the ground.

Zack made certain that his gear was all set up properly, and then he stared down at her, reaching one arm up to scratch his head.

Huh.

Girls were weird.

He lingered on that fact for a few moments, and then he started making his way down after her.

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Keeping Your Advantage: Terrain and You, Week II [Monday, Period 4]

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