Chapter 1 : Battlefield

Flavia, Gracia and Bonny stood next to her on the wall, arms up in the air, trying to maintain the balance of the spell. Crowe was fine but she could feel her friends' hands tremble with focus and exhaustion. A few miles away, the clouds were gathering above the Imperial troops that were moving quickly through the small town. A cold sweat dropped rolled from her forehead, and she tried to fight the strain of her mind with a smile.

"Crowe!" yelled Pelna Khara in her ear. "Is it ready yet? We're not gonna hold for long!"

"Almost there!" she answered impatiently.

Geez, bunch of ungrateful whiny little jackasses, she'd like to see them try that shit, oh wait, they would all be hurling their guts out even before the end of the first spell...

"Crowe, wavered Bonny next to her, I'm sorry, honey... I can't..."

She had a glimpse of the lifeless body of her sister-in-arms falling on the floor, before feeling her absence in the spell. She just had the time to glance at her tired scarred brown face, her empty green eyes, her curly black hair sprawled around her head, before an incredible weight fell on their shoulders, and their stable stances wavered.

"Bonny, NO!" she cried.

She took off her hood and stepped in the middle between Gracia and Flavia. Slowly, Crowe went on the casting, reestablishing some kind of balance between Gracia, Flavia and herself. She couldn't feel her arms, she didn't even know with what strength they were still up in the air.

"Hold on, girls! For Bonny!" she called up to them. "Let there be light!"

Her friends gave her little laughters, strained by focus and exhaustion but still alive. It was when she heard the voice of Libertus shouting her name that she felt the heat in the air. With a victorious smile, she let go of the fire in the sky and the tornado formed itself, blazing through the clouds in an infernal glory.

"YES!"

Now that the hardest part was done, the tornado needed to last, but with one down...

Gracia, beautiful sweet Gracia, with her blond hair and her freckles fell down without any warning next to Bonny. She didn't have the time to call her name, the power of the tornado whipped in every muscles of her body, burning through her like a forest fire in a hot summer day, and she felt she wouldn't last long before exploding.

So... With two down, they couldn't restrain the tornado so that it wouldn't absorb their own ranks... How were they going to do that?

Crowe violently shook her head, as she heard the voices of all her brothers-in-arms being taken by the storm.

Did she hear herself think? Did she seriously thought that no one among the Kingsglaive would be burned by the tornado? Who was she kidding!

But she heard Libertus calling Nyx, and she instantly thought about them.

"Come on, girl! Hold for them, hold! For hearths and homes, for hearths and homes." she told herself.

"To all the troops out there," she heard Drautos voice in her earphone. "Retreat and come back home this is an order."

Alright, that's some good news. Let's get that shit burning... Hold up, what?! Retreat?! But she just finished the damn fire storm...

Flavia's body hit the floor, her long black braid escaping her hood, and she didn't even get the time to truly see her as a giant shadow appeared at the other side of the battlefield. Crowe, merely a walking exhausted shell, watched as the Diamond Weapon, the ultimate daemon under Imperial control, opening its giant armor, and hundred of thousand of missiles exploded out of it and rained over the little town and the Lucian army. The fire storm was starting to fade.

"Retreat!" yelled Pelna on the wall.

He ran towards her, and stopped at the sight of her three mage comrades, dead from exhaustion lying on the ground around her. She was focused on the gigantic daemon, destroying everything on its path in the distance, and more importantly, searching for her brothers, Nyx and Libertus, she suddenly saw the former running toward the beast.

"NYX!"

"Come on, Crowe, we have to get out of here..." Pelna pressed her by taking her arm.

"Pelna, he's not back yet! NYYYYYX!"

"Luche, you were with Nyx," Pelna contacted with his earplug."Where the hell did he run off too !?"

"Saving everyone, as always", answered a very annoyed Luche on the other side. "Libertus is stuck under a rock and he left to help him."

"What?!" Crowe exclaimed. "Libertus' still out there?!"

"We can't take care of them right now!" Luche shouted in their ears. "Our survival is top priority, and right now, this order will be hard to execute if every single bastard go to save another!"

He had a little sight. Then said :

"And it's the Hero we're talking about. He'll manage."

Pelna snorted and Crowe finally followed him willingly. The tone the second in command of the Kingsglaive employed while speaking about Nyx convinced her to calm down. Indeed, Nyx might be a simple Galahdian citizen, but he was the best Kingsglaive its troops ever had, and he was quite good at creating miracles. Unlikely, random, miracles.

With a last look towards her fallen comrades, covered by the shadow of the Diamond Weapon, the shapes of their bodies lighten by the flashes of explosions, she followed Pelna to the main camp.

"We can't even bring them back home..." she muttered weakly.

"They died for hearths and homes," Pelna said while putting a comforting arm around her shoulders. "They're home, now."

Still unconvinced, Crowe nodded slightly.

Finally, after long torturous minutes of waiting at the camp, Crowe heard a shout coming from above the wall, then another. Near her feet, a throwing dagger planted itself solidly. Then another. The next second, Nyx Ulric and Libertus Ostium appeared in an explosion of burning violet ashes, on their knees, and positively panting.

"Hey, Crowe," breathed the Hero with a pathetic, cocky smile. "What's up?"

"What's up?!" she yelled, incredulous. "Don't you "What's up?" me, you idiot! Do you know how worried I was? You'll be the death of me, both of you! How are you, Bert? What's with your leg?"

"Crushed by a fifty-ton rock is what!" grumbled Libertus, before pointing up a finger in a "hold on" kind of gesture, and turning on his flank to hurl his guts.

"It weighted two tons, at best." Nyx snorted.

"Well...", Crowe sighed. "I'm glad you're both okay, but Drautos' here, Nyx. He looked kinda pissed about you going off on your own."

While he swore, he extended his hand towards her, and she helped him up.

"Help me with Libertus, Crowe. Let's get him back up."

"Right. Come on, big guy!"

Slowly, they took each arm of their friend above their shoulders and they brought him back on his foot. They walked carefully, while carrying Libertus to the camp.

"Where are the girls?" Nyx asked to Crowe. "I don't see them around..."

"They didn't make it..." she confessed, sadness overwhelming her all of the sudden. "The weight of the spell on them was too great to bear... We weren't prepared enough..."

Nyx and Libertus remained silent, mourning with her the loss of their comrades, Flavia, Bonny, and Gracia.

When they stumbled on a rock, they nearly let go of Libertus who winced loudly at the shock. Crowe told him to "stop being such a pussy" and Nyx let out a hearty laughter.

Up on the hill of the camp, Drautos and Luche were examining the battlefield with binoculars. After dropping Libertus to the infirmary, Crowe turned around to see what they were looking at...

"Looks like Nifflheim troops are retreating, Sir," she heard Luche report.

Wait, what? Retreating? The hell? They had the advantage, didn't they? Why were they retreating?

"Kingsglaive!" Drautos called out to the troops near the vans. "The citizens were all safely evacuated! We're moving out! Prepare to leave at once!"

"Commander?"

Drautos turned around to face Crowe who was approaching him.

"Vane, Eterna, and Pedra's bodies are still on the wall. Requesting permission to retrieve them, Sir?" she asked, referring to her sisters-in-arms.

"We'll have another team take care of that, Altius." Drautos answered, looking at her sympathetically. "For now, go to your team and rest. You did well, soldier."

She accepted his compliment with a nod. He passed by her with a pat on her shoulder while she turned to look at the wall they were trying to protect.

"Did well", huh? She wanted to believe it... Had their fire storm actually been useful? Perhaps it killed a high-ranked officer, sent tumbling a great number of enemy troops... How could she know...? She was so confused, so tired...

Gods was she tired.

She turned back towards the vans, leaving one by one for Insomnia. Libertus left in one of the firsts. Nyx was waiting for her with Pelna and Luche, he had a little talk with Drautos and he looked really pissed off. She was going to ask him about it. Unless she slept the whole trip away, which was more likely to happen.

She gave a last look to the small town where the battle happened, deserted and destroyed, with half of it fallen in the dark of the gigantic breech.

So much for hearths and homes...