Valkyria Chronicles: Red Alert Redux
By S. Solly/RedStormtrooper
A/N: In all honesty, I'll probably delete SnV:PKZ, but leave VC:RA up. This is due to the fact that this version, Redux, simply uses the idea of Valkyria Chronicles and Red Alert mixed together. By all means, they are two different fics.
Also, now that I've actually played (or rather, am playing) the game, I no longer have an excuse to just off Sevens off-screen.
---Barious Desert---
Rounds pinged against the side of the Edelweiss, coming from the massive Botamys' many machine guns. While Welkin's own tank could stand up to the machine gun rounds easily, the fire from the lancers behind the massive tank were a different story all together. Smoke poured into the crew compartment, and he and Isara where coughing, both covered with soot and oil.
"We can't take much more of this!" Welkin shouted over the grumbling of the tank's Ragnite turbine, as he wiped off a pair of goggles he now wore, to keep the black substance out of his eyes.
Isara offered no response, attempting to drive the tank to shelter behind some ruins her brother had knocked down with the tank's 82mm cannon.
---Within the Botamys---
A smug look appeared on Prince Maximilian's face as he readied the massive main gun to destroy the Edelweiss. The 340mm cannon had the smaller machine in its sights, and he began to give the order that would send Welkin to early grave.
"Fi...!"
The massive tank shook fiercely, as Max looked through a periscope to see what had happened. He was greeted by a long, arcing smoke trail. His smug smile turned into a frown.
"Ignore it; don't let the Gallian escape."
"Yes, my Prince!" the main gunner shouted, re-sighting the Edelweiss.
--- ---
Welkin swore under his breath as the Edelweiss' treads gave out, leaving the tank stranded as the Botamys' main gun prepared to fire.
He turned to his younger sister. "Is, I just want you to know... You're the best little sister anyone could ever hope for."
She nodded; Welkin couldn't tell any more through the smoke. "And you're the best older brother, Welks."
They braced themselves for the inevitable, and a thunderous boom was heard. They both covered their ears and closed their eyes, fully ready for their fate.
... which, oddly enough, didn't come.
"Is... are we...?"
She quickly checked her pulse, head, then pinched herself, prompting a small shriek from her. "Uh...?"
Welkin checked himself in a similar manner, then opened the hatch on the cupola. All the sooty-oily substance that hadn't settled fumed out of the tank. Welkin coughed a bit as the black colored smoke poured out, and Isara did the same, as she opened the driver's hatch. He turned around to see the Botamys' turret almost completely gone, and a large hole torn in its body, then looked over to his right, to see what looked something like a twin-cannon Edelweiss, but wider and slightly taller and longer, and painted a light shade of greenish-olive with a red star.
A man emerged from the second tank, and waved to Welkin. Both he and Isara were amazed that something not much larger than their own tank could pack enough of a punch to tear such a large hole in the large tank Maximilian was in.
It was at this time that Welkin turned to see what was on the other side of him; in the distance, some strange sort of truck had a large rack on it; another, otherwise identical truck, had a really large Anti-tank Lance on its back. Both were painted the same olive green as the tank, as far as he could tell.
--- ---
"No! We failed His Grace..."
Selvaria and a detachment of her men, dressed in black, and one of them in red, had arrived moments after the second rocket had struck the Botamys. The blue flames around her grew brighter, as she prepared to reduce the Edelweiss and the unidentified tank next to it to burning ruins.
"...you will pay!"
She charged her Valkyrian lance, and aimed it at the burning Edelweiss. The green tank next to it noticed, and rotated its own turret, directing a pair of 110mm cannons toward Selvaria and her men.
At the same time, she fired her lance and the tank fired its twin cannons. Before the shells could hit her, she swung her lance, sending one of the shells screaming off towards the remains of the Gallian force in the east. The second round, which she didn't expect, smacked right into her, knocking her off her feet.
She ordered her lancers to take down the two tanks, but as she did so, the green tank moved in such a manner as to protect Welkin's battered tank.
"Hrmpf... the Gallian can't pose a threat anyway. Take down that green one."
The lancers moved, to fire on the green tank's radiator. But then they came to a realization: the familiar blue glow wasn't radiating from the rear of the tank; instead, a pair of pipes coughed out gray-colored smoke. This realization was moments to late; the rounds had already struck the tank's rear, and the twin cannons directed towards them. As they ran, though, they placed confidence in their suits, to protect them against the twin shells.
Something the KV-110's commander was used to, as the vehicle rolled towards the lancers at an oddly high rate, that did not match up with the vehicle's presumed weight. The lancers turned to fire on the KV-110 again, as did Selvaria, but the vehicle was just as heavy as it appeared. It smashed into the Lancers, and rather than just pushing them aside, pushed them over, the vehicle's weight causing their heavy armor to collapse in on itself.
Selvaria's remaining men began running, though Selvaria herself stood her ground, as the tank rolled toward her. She held her lance out, and charged it again; suddenly, the KV-110 halted, the commander popped out of his cupola, and gave a "behind you" motion with his finger, pointing towards a pair of V2 Rockets.
She saw a second motion, with his other hand; it wasn't a particularly polite one, either.
Again, she charged her lance, and slashed it at the V2 Rockets, setting off their volitile warheads in a blaze of flame. The KV-110-2 attempted to squish her, but she swung around quick and hard enough to rip the machine open when her lance struck it, catapulting steel fragments into the old Valkyrian building.
Selvaria could see a blond-haired man in stained clothing emerge from the burning Botamys. "Your Grace!" she shouted, running towards the tank, not noting the fact that more of the green Edelweisses had rolled up from the Botamys' original direction, along with what looked to be shocktroopers with the strange-looking ADK-45.
--- ---
Alicia awoke to the sight of men dressed in green, holding weapons she'd never seen before. In a way, they resembled the Mags used by the shocktroopers, but that was only tangential; the banana-shaped clip, the long barrel, and the wooden stock and fore-grip, all made Alicia rethink the resemblance to the Mags.
Looking around, she spotted a familiar blue uniform jacket; that of Welkin Gunther. She attempted to get up, but moaned in pain, causing her to return to the sand below. At least, it wasn't so hot now that the sun had set.
Looking more closely, she saw that none of the faces beneath the steel helmets worn by the green-colored soldiers were familiar.
"Welkin," she began, somewhat weakly, "who... who are these people?"
"I don't know... honestly, I don't know." Welkin's voice had a far off tone, as though he was observing the soldiers like some sort of rare bug. The expression on his face soon turned from curiosity to horror when the Valkyrur temple behind them exploded in a cloud of blue ragnite dust.
"Stop! What are you doing?!"
Some of the men pointed their ADK-45's at Welkin. The rifle's bayonet only helped to make the already intimidating weapon even more so.
"That's a part of Europan history you've just destroyed. Even if I majored in biology, I know enough that..."
"...Silence! Your world will only know true peace under Communism; we must make it forget everything else. Even its own history."
The gruff voice drew the attention of Welkin, Alicia, and the riflemen.
"What do you mean, 'forget everything else?' What if the Dark-hairs try something funny like they did way back then?" the voice of Bridgette Stark called out towards the gruff voice's source.
"Because, Ms. Stark, your ideas of 'dark-hairs' and 'Valkyrur' will be lost to two things: the Sands of Time, and the Scythe of Communism. Nothing else shall exist; only total and complete equality."
"Who are you people, anyway?" Largo's voice sounded.
"We are Soviets; we attempted to liberate our world from the grasps of Capitalism, and give everything to the Workers, Laborers, and Farmers. If you're asking a bit more personally, I'm the head of this force, and the Marshal of the USSR, second only to Stalin himself."
The squad tossed a series of confused looks amongst themselves. After a few moments of silence, aside from the muttering of nearby Russians and Ukrainians, Isara stepped up to the man in the Olive Green officer's uniform.
"Marshal, does this, 'everything', include the... erm..."
"...'Darcsen Calamity?'"
"Ah... yes. How did you...?
"If there is one thing Europa shall not forget; it is that the Party sees everything."
The Squad shuddered slightly at this; though no-one paid too close attention to it, Alicia and Welkin blushed.
Isara spoke again. "Marshal... who are you?"
The Marshal chuckled slightly. "Me? That shall be important soon enough; but for now, we have interfered enough with the order of battle. We shall work to return you and your tank to your own lines."
The Russians lead the remaining members of Squad 7 to the Edelweiss, which the Soviets had kindly helped repair, though the treads now appeared slightly different. Hopefully, not a noticeable difference.
As the Sevens rumbled off towards their own lines, the Marshal was approached by one of his subordinates.
"Comrade Marchenko, why didn't we detain them? Or, better yet, kill them?"
"In due time, comrade Moskvin, in due time..." the gruff voice of the Marshal said dryly.
An angered look stretched upon Moskvin's face. "Comrade Marshal, we have the technology to take this entire landmass with our own forces; we don't need these Gallians' help!"
"We might not need it, comrade Marshal, but it will be useful anyway. The more men and equipment we have, the shorter the road to liberating this filthy, backwards, capitalist-ridden world."
"What do you make of these... 'Valkyrur,' comrade?"
"They are hailed as gods and liberators for actions thousands of years ago. What damage have they actually wrought upon these people, as to inspire such backwards worship of genetic errors? There is nothing special about them; our own forces are advanced enough to send these people to the grave."
"Yes, comrade Marshal." Moskvin snapped into a salute, and left Marchenko to his own thoughts.
"Perhaps, though, one such error might help..." Marchenko said to himself, before he began to hum an old tune to a patriotic song to which he'd forgot the words.
He turned to the Botamys, and to the green-uniformed men collecting its pieces. Such a powerful machine... if used correctly, it could be devastating. The Empire holds no use for it right now, but the Union might, he thought to himself, as the men attempted to piece the machine together like a giant jigsaw puzzle.
"No... for the time being, comrades, we do not have the abilities to repair this thing. But we will. Soon enough, we will."
"Yes, comrade Marshal... but it couldn't hurt, could it? The more we put together here, the sooner we can use it ourselves," one of the men attempting to re-assemble the Botamys said.
Marchenko nodded understandingly. "Good point, Comrade Warrant-Officer. Do what you can, but we still have no place to hide such a massive vehicle."
The Warrant Officer nodded, and darted off, back to work as they began re-shaping a sheet of metal into the shape of the side of the tank's forward turret.
It was at this time that Marchenko remembered the song he was humming, and quietly began to sing the lyrics to himself.
"The armor is hard and our tanks are fast
And our men are full of courage!
Soviet tankmen ready for action-
Sons of their great Motherland."
He returned to humming the rest of Marsh Sovetskikh Tankistov, before noticing the young Captain Moskvin sulking. The Captain looked up from his etching in the sand, not surprisingly of a stick figure killing other stick figures with the unmistakable outline of the ADK-45.
"We should have killed them, Marchenko."
"Mind elaborating, comrade Captain?"
Nikolai looked up from his etching. "If we'd have killed them, they wouldn't have lived. They couldn't have told about us, and we could have kept our cover that much longer! For that matter, comrade Marshal, we shouldn't have interfered with them!"
Marchenko chuckled a bit.
"What is so funny?"
"There is something about that squad... something... different. I don't know what, but still..."
"Ok. So they had a few pretty women. I'll give them that. But we had no right interfering with them."
"No, Nikolai. You don't understand. Its like the trees back in Poland."
A surprised look on Moskvin's face quickly formed. "What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean, Nikolai. Those people are not normal. But I don't know how... yet, at least."
Moskvin still had no idea of what Marchenko meant. While the 'trees in Poland' helped him out, in that they'd have otherwise been ambushed by an experimental new Allied tank, named the Mirage tank, he couldn't see how Marchenko saw something strange about 'Squad 7'. They seemed to be just another group of soldiers that should be lying in a grave right now, preferably by his own hands.
"No, Sergei, I don't."
Marchenko sighed, walking towards a open space in the sand. He reached down,and pulled up on it, revealing a steel door beneath it. The Marshal descended down into the hole, and motioned for his captain and the rest of the men to follow him. For tonight, they were done.
---End Chapter 1---