What goes into a symphony of war?
The Major had arranged his orchestra long before the concert began. The players were brought in from all parts of the globe; they came with little skill but high ambition, and they were easily trained in the classical style the Major was so fond of. Their instruments were outdated but lovingly crafted, and each piece rolled off of the assembly line with echoes of the old war rattling in their barrels.
His first chairs were allowed to choose their own instruments, of course. Rip loved her musket and its cannon fire report; Zorin's scythe hummed as it arched through the air and the enemy, and the Captain's presence reverberated terror like the low, lingering notes of a struck drum. He valued them as background music, as the notes that would tie the symphony together. Captain was the only one left, now, but he had always been the most important. Here, near height of the performance, Captain's somber song was a battle cry—and if their armies fell and the music stopped, his song would be the requiem as well.
The Major twirled across the zeppelin before the eyes of a baffled Doctor. Foolish man. Couldn't he see he was conducting? Couldn't he hear years of toil giving birth to the greatest symphony man would ever know? It resonated through the raped and ruined London, crossed the sea on the backs of prayers and laments, and found its voice again in the flaming remnants of the Land of the Free. The Dok could never hear it, Major supposed, shut up in his lab as he was, accompanied only by the lifeless whirs and clicking of machinery.
But ah, to hear what he heard, to see your life's work come together in one ruinous, rapturous moment--!
He'd barely noticed the helicopter before it tumbled in pieces. Behind him Butler clicked his heels, and Major reluctantly pushed his masterwork from the forefront of his mind to compliment the newest addition to the orchestra on his skill. After all, he'd waited fifty years to see this symphony performed—what were a few minutes more?
A/N: Writing this was a painful experience. This has been sitting on my hard drive since the release of V7 chap. 10, which means I've been picking at it for almost two years. At least I finished it before the end of the series. That's a first right there, let me tell you.