Disclaimer: I own nothing save some of the story and the OCs.

Notice: Alright, due to both the absolute lack of space for the summary and several unfortunate experiences I have suffered through on other sites, I'll be posting the full summary and warnings here. I must please ask that you read through the entire page before continuing on to the story itself, for it contains details on the tone this story shall take, and due to several complaints about the content and direction of other stories elsewhere (including complaints that I had violently disillusioned people with my stories after getting them hooked on them, in spite of my obligatory warning at the top to try and avoid such incidents), I feel obliged to try and avoid such unfortunate events by using up my first "chapter" for these warnings and other unfortunate data so that any who feel unpleased with this fact and who wish to leave without suffering through the agony of being so affected later on may do so, and indeed any who are rubbed the wrong way for any reason may opt out.

Please understand that this is for you, dear readers, rather than myself, and that I fully recognize I may get into trouble over this matter with administration. I accept that. Because you deserve to know what kind of story you are getting.

First and foremost, I am a strong defender of the Atlantic Federation. I am saying this now because I have heard a lot of controversy and gotten a LOT of flack over my position, but in the end I believe that history fully vindicates me even if the canon hasn't yet. Far too many, from what I have seen, can only stomach their conflicts in a pure and unstrained white and black setting, and if the slightest hint of grey seeps in they quickly write it all off as being purely an indiscriminate blob of grey with no good guys, no bad guys, no heroes, and no villains.

Frankly, I have always been rather fed up with such a simplistic world view, particularly since many of the same people tend to simultaneously ignore the realities of war and politics in doing so. In one of the supposedly purest of the pure wars, WWII (at least in the West), the Western Allies (for the sake of the argument by sidestepping the unreliable and ludicrously corrupt and tyrannical KMT and CCP and ESPECIALLY the USSR) committed (amongst other things):

Copious violations of neutrality, sometimes fairly benign and unharmful (like the mass espionage apparti operating in the Iberian, Latin America, etc and the all-but-bloodless occupation of Tibet during the war) and sometimes harmful to the extreme (for how else does one describe the deliberate attacks upon some neutral governments such as Persia and Vichy France, the latter leading to the deaths of a few dozen thousand French and Colonial troops that were only years ago ALLIES?).

Getting in bed with very nasty groups (Stalin is, of course, the obvious answer here, but less apparent are the Chinese factions- untrustworthy to the extreme, every bit as despotic as and vastly more corrupt than the USSR and its' satellites- and even Poland, Ethiopia, and Greece- at the start of the war unrepentant dictatorships of whom the former had even acted to back Hitler's dissection of Czechoslovakia and had in no small way handed Hitler ammunition to support his aggression with their genuinely poor dealings with their nation's ethnic minorities).

Abandoning their loyal allies to the untrustworthy USSR and its' allies (the "Western Betrayal" of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Eastern Germany, the Baltic States, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, the Chinese KMT to Mao, etc etc etc etc).

The willingness to employ WMD banned by international law (the Nuclear Bombs- believe it or not- do not count mainly due to the "No post facto convictions" issue and the fact that nukes were not regulated at the time, but the widespread use of incendiaries and largely indiscriminate area attacks as a whole do).

The willingness to wage total war against the peoples of their enemies- including civilians- without remorse.

This list is but a small taste, and were I to expand it out to WWI or (God Forbid) the Cold War, it would doubtless get even longer.

Naturally- to avoid a potential onrush of complaints- this potted list of events has been strained of context and slanted and thus cannot give the whole story and thus discount many factors (Poland, Ethiopia, and China were the first to be attacked by Germany, Italy, and Japan and aid to them was less a matter of approval of their regimes and more of a matter of survival by checking the expansion of the Axis Powers to be and honor by trying to avenge the failures of said attempted interventions; the only plausible way to avoid abandoning Eastern Europe or China was to take the exhausted and overstretched Western Allies and drive at the numerically superior Soviet and Maoist war machines and hope that they could be driven back; Vichy France and Persia were hardly perfect neutrals given the high percentage of German war material and men both used and the use of Vichy colonies- both only nominal such as defacto independent Syria and actual- as springboards for German forces in the region, etc etc etc etc), but in many ways that is the point: wars are hardly all conducted on fields of honor according to Chivalric rules (indeed, it never really has been), and instead on far murkier and bloodier and more ambiguous grounds in which even the good guys do not emerge unscathed.

However, this does not mean that all sides are equal or even close to it. Indeed, who here would care to place Chiang Kai-Shek- much less Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or the Japanese Junta- on the same platform as Roosevelt, Churchill, and De Gualle? And who indeed would truly proclaim WWI just a pointless war with no bad guys or good guys after looking at the records kept by the Central Powers- including blueprints for literal ethnic cleansing if not genocide- still around in Berlin, Paris, and Malta and compare them to the use of Q-Boats or the blockade? And if we truly care to muddle into the murkiest and ugliest waters to dredge up the blood of those long gone, who truly would compare or rank the Western Allies- as represented by NATO, SEATO, and a number of other affiliated organizations- on par with the Soviet Union, even considering several of the truly ugly things the former committed (does it match up to the GuLAG? Or to the systematic looking of the areas under the thrall of the USSR or its' allies such as Eastern Europe or even Central America?)?

This, of course, is not to whitewash the above offenses or to denigrate those harmed or killed in the above, for even if all books, films, and data period were rewritten to that effect with the purpose of expunging every last inch of guilt and any that remembered it, it would still be impossible to do so, for it is still written on the only record of history that truly matters: history itself. It is merely to showcase that even the best are highly imperfect and the politics of war and peace is no room for saints (indeed, it is no coincidence that one of the few times one has tried to play said game- the future Saint Louis of France- tried to play that game, he led his realm into a devastating defeat in an attempt to take the Levant and brought about not merely his own death but the death of the proto-French Empire).

Unfortunately, it is my sad experience with the rest of the Valkyria Chronicles fandom that it is disproportionately filled with such individuals that can only see the world as pure white/black or an indistinguishable Grey muddle. Perhaps I was merely on the wrong forums, and I certainly do not mean to imply that all fans are such minded individuals (or even that all of them are irrational or incapable of holding civil conversation, as I will be the first to attest many of them are excellent gentlemen and women fully capable of civilly but competitively discussing and arguing) , but there are enough of them that have made themselves big enough annoyances (including a few threats against personal life and property that I would prefer forgetting) that I feel obliged to write this out to minimize the potential backlash.

Warnings: This story will delve into darker territory than even most VC fan fictions, with the usual warnings for language and violence being upgraded (not to Saw levels, naturally, but people will suffer disfigurement and mutilation) and further warnings deserve to be added for disturbing political content (unsavory actions with unsavory parties will occur, racism, discrimination, sexual controversy- if not the act itself- etc will also feature) and dissing of fan favorites (not because I hate them- to the contrary in fact- but the MC here does not exactly share the opinions and biases of most fans or characters we have seen in the universe). If you yourself believe any of this might be too much, I must remind you that you are free to go elsewhere any time you desire.

I apologize if this seems heavy-handed, but my prior experiences have brought me to the conclusion that it is a necessary measure, and I beg of you to not blame me for the issues I brought up here (certainly, criticism is entirely welcome, as is complaints that I am drawing the plot or writing in a bad direction) as I gave fair warning and thus it is your decision to decide what to do.

Now that I have finished this, let me move on to the summary and additional notices.

Summary: Taking place at about the time of VC II, one of the Atlantic Federation's brightest and most seasoned soldiers is removed from his post during a moment of crisis in the ongoing war against the Empire and is dispatched to Gallia to fulfill a mission none have thus far succeeded in over the course of decades. In order to even attempt to do so, he must navigate the chaos of a nation tightly webbed with intrigue, conspiracy, treason, murder, ambition, and ideology that is on the verge of Civil War while confronting not merely old and new friends and enemies, but also his own past. In order to get anywhere near success, he will have to choose his allies carefully amongst the host of angels and demons all jockeying for position in the inferno, a task that is difficult enough in a fog of war where allegiances are unclear and change frequently without taking morality into account. Can he succeed without losing his soul? Can anyone succeed at all?

Further Notes: The aid of (a) Beta Reader(s) would be most appreciated, and any that are interested may simply PM me.

Thank you for your patient understanding, and I once again apologize for the length. However, now we may finally get onto the actual story itself!