Hi again everyone it's time for the 3rd chapter! Yay! Thanks to everyone who's reviewed, fav and followed this story. I really appreciate it and I encourage more people to review as well. Also I want to make a small point in regard to Louise's magic, I know it sort of sounds strange for her not to use magic, but I plan on not having her use magic until later on in the story. After all she knows that if she uses magic it raises a whole lot of issues, so I hope everyone understands. I hope you enjoy this chapter and as always I would love to have more reviews, I always love reviews. See you next chapter.


As Mason predicted squad 13 were not called into any major battle or any battle of any kind. The day after they had met one another they were sent to guard a small town which was, at least according to the army 'of a high importance' to Belfast though in reality it was so far from the main battle that the chances of the Confederacy attacking them were almost nil. And so squad 13 spent their time leisurely getting to know one another and basically doing nothing as they were most of the time bored with the lack of activity though Luna did call some of them to patrol the area just in case there were enemy attacks.

Within the two week period Louise got to know most of the squad 13 members and they were really diverse in gender, age, skill and personality as Louise had a good time figuring them all out and seeing what they were able to do. Back home she didn't really care about people and tended to only stick to herself, being the 'zero' of the academy hurt her a lot, but pride prevented her from telling people that…she believed that as long as she worked hard then she would be able to become the best mage. She would be able to become something more then just a zero, however that did not occur and she retreated further and further until she was all but an unknown entity at the school, something only to be ignored and ridiculed. But here…in this new world she could be somebody else, someone that could prove useful and also she was able to make new friends and for the first time in her life she was actually enjoying herself.

"It's really quiet around here isn't it?" Alexander said as he was looking out into the wilderness trying to catch sight of anything that caught his attention, "But I guess that's a good thing."

"Hmm? Oh yeah it's great," Louise said absentmindedly as she was busy watching Alicia getting more and more irritated by Adrian and was hoping to see the aspiring actress snap and yell at the pessimistic man before being broken up by Daniel. It was the funny thing about the three of them, it seemed that Adrian and Alicia were scared of Daniel because of his size even though he always gently broke them apart and talked to them to see if they can't be friends. It was quite hilarious sometimes to see the two of them squirm.

"Watching the starlet and Mr. Despair?" Alexander remarked as Louise smiled.

"Well it's as you said, it's boring and quiet here so there has to be some sort of entertainment right," Louise said as she peeked over to see the man who was asking about pay, Robert Danes, haggling another merchant about a piece of cloak. Apparently Robert comes from a merchant family, which explains his desire for money as apparently he was a terrible merchant and his father refused to give him money and told him to 'go and become a merchant' and thus Robert has resorted to anything to get money. Though because of this he has a keen eye for quality and marksmanship making him an excellent sniper as Louise sighed as she watched Robert kicked by Luna who berated him on being a poor soldier before ordering him out on patrol.

"Doesn't seem that there is a shortage of entertainment," Alexander said.

"Well at least we're entertained right?" Louise said as she continued to scan the area for an attack, before Alicia and Robert came up to relieve them, the two of them then came down from the tower as they went to a building that used to be an inn, but now serves as squad 13's barracks and a place to sleep which Louise was going to do seeing as how she served a night shift as she plopped herself onto the bed, "I'm so tired~" she said.

"Well at least you weren't up fixing up the defences," Alice Mayfield said as Louise turned to face her other best friend. Alice Mayfield was the daughter of a metalworker and is a keen engineer, she is always at ease fixing things and whenever Louise sees her, she is always fiddling around with something or other. However she has a tendency to complain about the workmanship of the defences or weapons, much to the irritation of several army engineers though she always manages to shut them up with a good solid punch as she was stronger then she looked.

"Oh yeah, how are they?" Louise asked.

"Better then before," Alice replied, "though if I had done it in the first place I wouldn't have to go twice to fix the blasted thing."

"Come on Alice, you and I know that you're the most happiest when you're fixing things. If Luna didn't have you doing things you would've been sulking in your room," Louise teased.

"I do not sulk!" Alice retorted as Louise grinned as Alice then went and tackled her before tickling her as Louise began laughing, "Come here you…" she growled.

"Ok, ok I give, I give," Louise said laughing as she tried to fight her off. It was a common tactic that Alice used to get the upper hand on Louise, mainly because she was ticklish and her smaller frame allowed her to be pinned to the ground at the mercy of the other woman, as eventually they got tired of it as they were sprawled on the ground. "You should stop doing that…I'm gonna die laughing if you keep it up," Louise commented.

"That wouldn't be a bad thing," Alice said as Louise looked at her with a disapproving look on her face, "what? It's not!"

"Come on…death by laughter? How pathetic is that?" Louise remarked as Alice shrugged, "Now I'm never going to get any sleep, if I fall asleep in the middle of the battle I'm blaming you," Louise said. She didn't even bother taking off her militia uniform, a red-and blue uniform with squad 13's insignia stitched to her right shoulder along with her combat gloves and boots though she let her black knee-high stockings remain while her other clothes were discarded. It was too much trouble and she learned it take a long time to get them prepared…time you don't have in a battle.

"On the contrary I predict in three seconds you'll be asleep like a baby," Alice said as she began counting down, but already on three Louise was asleep as she giggled, "sleep well Louise," she said as she picked the girl up and placed her on the bed.

The next time Louise would wake it would be from Alice shaking her violently, "Louise wake up! We're under attack!" she yelled as a loud explosion rocked the sleep off of her as Louise sat up and grabbed her rifle, "Come on!" Alice said as Louise followed her out and she could already see that a part of the building had been blown out as Louise wondered how lucky she was that it wasn't her room that was being attacked as she clambered down the stairs just as the room she came out of exploded as she skidded along the ground before being picked up by Alice as they came out of the inn to see a battle going in full swing. Several of the squad were already engaged in a gunfight with white, armoured soldiers with a golden cross on their left shoulder signifying them as from the Divine Confederacy.

"How did they get here without us knowing?" Louise asked as she ran to a sandbag and crouched there as bullets flew over her head.

"I have no idea," Alice replied as she popped up and fired a few shots before ducking down again, "more importantly where the hell is Lieutenant Terry?" as Louise could not see their commanding officer anywhere at all.

"Don't tell me he's too lazy to even get his ass down here," Louise remarked as she saw Luna running full speed towards the squad before sliding towards cover before she fired her assault rifle at them.

"Louise, Alice! Flank their right, we'll cover you," Luna ordered as Louise and Alice got up and under the cover of fire skirted to the side where they went through several buildings before ending up at the right of the enemy flank.

"So how do you want to do this?" Louise asked.

"I don't know, grenade?" Alice asked, "I only have my rifle and three grenades. You?"

"Just my rifle," Louise replied as Alice sniggered, "hey I'm not an engineer like you, you know!"

"Alright, alright, grenade then rifle okay?" as Louise nodded, Alice then took out her grenade and unpinned it before throwing it right in the middle of the enemy squad as it exploded sending shrapnel everywhere before the two of them popped out of cover and began shooting anything that was moving. Three of the Confederacy fell before they had a chance to retaliate before Louise and Alice had to duck down again as the others retaliated, "damn it they have Stormtroopers with them." Stormtroopers was another name for the assault-class unit which were armed with more armour then the normal riflemen as well as being armed with machine guns, they were more dangerous especially in a group and even more so for lightly armoured soldiers like Alice and Louise.

"Well it wouldn't be a squad without a Stormtrooper or two right?" Louise remarked.

"Yeah unless it's on the opposite side," Alice said peeking over before ducking down again as a hail of bullets rattled against the sandbags, "ok we need to get out of here and back to the main line. Think we can make it past the Stormtroopers?"

"I don't know you tell me," Louise said as Alice looked at her in askance, "hey I'm no strategist, I leave that to Lieutenant Terry…if he ever gets off his lazy ass."

"So true," Alice said as she peeked over the cover, "I guess we can make a dash for it if you really want to."

"Well the only other way that I see us getting there is if we risk getting shot while going from here to the building over there," Alice said as Louise saw that it was a good distance from the cover to the building and with the Confederacy shooting at them the chances of them getting shot was quite good. "Want to risk it? Or just wait for the others to draw their attention away?"

"Well it probably won't be long before they're d-dead anyways," Louise said as now that the adrenaline was not so high she just realised that she killed someone, she paled considerably as she took deep breaths to calm herself. This was a war and she knew that she would have to kill people, but it was still a little bit unreal to her as she felt Alice touch her shoulder as she gasped.

"Hey don't have a breakdown now," Alice said, "do it after the battle's over," as Louise saw that she was gripping her rifle so hard that her knuckles had gone white.

"I-I'm sorry…" Louise said, "I…I just…"

"I know same here," Alice said, "but if you freeze up now we're both going to be dead. Let's just concentrate on getting out of here first," as Louise nodded as they got ready to run, "on three…two…one," as they then ran full speed towards the building. As expected bullets began flying towards them as Louise could feel several whizz past her as her chest was straining to keep up with the exertion, she may have improved her physical condition by a mile thanks to the training, but it still hurt to run continuously as her legs were burning with pain. She wanted to stop, but she knew that if she even slowed down she wouldn't live through the fight as each step felt like her legs were made out metal, as she finally managed to get inside the building.

She looked back and saw that Alice also managed to get to the building safely as she sighed in relief, "I thought I was a goner there," Louise remarked.

"Come on we don't have time to stop," Alice said as Louise got up despite just wanting to simply lie there and rest getting out of the building and rejoining with the rest of the squad.

"Good work you two," Luna said, "now let's push them back," as the squad re-doubled their efforts to drive the Confederacy out of the town as they pushed them back, with most of their forces dead the rest of them retreated out as the squad cheered for their first victory. Louise felt relieved that the battle was over as she slumped against the wall still a little bit surprised that she actually survived a battle. Not to mention that she actually killed a few of the soldiers as she immediately felt sick before she then puked on the ground, could she really do this? Could she really become a soldier? What would happen to her? Would she eventually become just an emotionless soldier, a person that just killed people simply because she was ordered to do so? Would she become nothing more then a monster?

"Louise? Louise are you okay?" Alexander asked as Louise looked at him, he didn't look any different then before, he seemed to be quite normal despite what had just happened. And his smile…his smile seemed to be too abnormal in the situation as she growled.

"Why do you keep smiling?" Louise asked, "Why do you act as though nothing has happened? How…how do you keep being Alexander?" she knew that it was unfair of her to snap at him like this. But she couldn't help, but feel frustrated at her situation how did it turn out like this? All she wanted to do was escape from her life as a glorified prisoner, not thrust into a war that she knew nothing about as tears threatened to spill out of her eyes; but years of keeping her grief and frustration to herself allowed her to simply sob out now and again.

Alexander looked at Louise as he blinked a couple of times before he sat down next to Louise as she rested her head on his shoulder, "Well that's simple really. I just think about home, I just think that even though I've killed someone I've survived…although it's quite morbid I think that you just need to concentrate on what you want to achieve in this war. The most common thing of course is survival, however some are in it for glory or for another thing, I think it's important to concentrate on something and not think about all the death and destruction," he explained.

"But it's so hard," Louise said, "how…how can I keep on going?"

"Just think about returning home," Alexander said, "think about going back to your world and how happy people will be that you've returned safe and sound."

"Happy…I wonder about that," Louise muttered to herself.

"Did you say something?" Alexander asked.

"Huh? Oh no I didn't say anything," Louise said with a smile, she had never told Alexander about her family circumstances. It was still a painful wound for her, she didn't want to think what her family would be doing now that she was missing for almost a month and a half. Would there be a search for her? Certainly Henrietta would help in the search as she cared for Louise greatly and no doubt her older sister Cattleya would continue to plead to her mother to search for her, but have they given up? Have they thought her as completely gone? Or worse dead? The mere thought that her family had given up on her was painful and so she never thought about it.

"Alright everyone gather around," Luna said as the squad gathered around her, "good work on fending off the Confederacy. Everyone did a fine job and I'm glad to see that none of us are seriously hurt despite the fact that they got the jump on us." Louise looked around and she was surprised to see that no one was seriously hurt, she had expected in a war setting that there would be a few people injured by the fight, or even killed, especially since they were not really trained for combat. Louise didn't know whether to put that as a miracle, skill, or just pure luck.

"Why did that happen?" Adrian asked as he glared at Alicia and Robert, "I thought you two were supposed to be looking out? Some sentries you two are."

"Hey they got us by surprise too you know!" Alicia retorted, "One moment they weren't there and then the next they were there."

"Enough!" Luna shouted bringing their attention to her, "We're not going to blame anyone, everyone makes mistakes and we'll learn from this mistake," she said as Alicia looked away in annoyance while Robert had the grace to actually look embarrassed. "Right now our top priority is continuing to hold this city, I suppose that command was right in sending us here seeing as how we got a full platoon heading towards us."

"Any tanks with them?" David asked shifting his anti-tank rifle.

"Not that we are aware of though I doubt they don't have any, therefore we'll double the number of sentries," as some of the squad members grumbled at that but Luna ignored them, "Alice would you please re-check our defensive structures to see if they can be reinforced."

"I've done the best I can with them!" Alice exclaimed, "No matter how many times I go there the result will always be the same: eventually it'll just crumble away."

"I know, but could you please just check it?" Luna asked as Alice sighed, "The rest of you go get some rest. I'm going to report back to Lieutenant Terry."

"By the way where is our illustrious lieutenant?" Adrian asked, "Why wasn't he here fighting with us? Or does he think he's more valuable then us mere soldiers?"

"I…I don't know!" Luna said as Louise could see that she was highly embarrassed by this, no doubt Mason was in for a good beating, "I…I lost him when we were running towards here."

"Hmph, no doubt he's just run away and hid while we were risking our neck. Why should we even fight for him? Why is he our commanding officer?" Adrian asked as some of the squad members agreed with him.

"That is…" Luna said though she had no idea how to defend her brother.

"I wasn't hiding," Mason's voice cut in, "in fact I was scouting the enemy position."

"You were what!" Luna screamed as Mason stood there with a bored expression on his face, "Why the hell would you do that?"

"Ah that's simple…so I know what the enemy is planning," Mason said as he held Luna at bay by simply pushing her back as her arms weren't long enough to do anything to him.

"You were doing that instead of leading your men?" Luna asked.

"You were doing fine on your own," Mason replied, "besides I have an approximate number of hostile forces. They're camped close to here, naturally, and they have around 10 Stormtroopers left, 15 scouts, 5 anti-tank units and one light tank." The squad members then began to mutter amongst themselves nervously, "But not to worry!" Mason exclaimed, "For I have a plan to rout them all."

"Hey, hey we're not the army here," Adrian said, "how do you expect us to defeat them?"

"Oh that's simple," Adrian said, "we just hijack their tank and use it against them."

There was a brief moment of silence from everyone before they all gave cries of shock, "Y-you're insane!" Adrian exclaimed, "Hijack their tank? Do you think they're all idiots?"

"No, but I do have a plan that will ensure that we are able to drive them off and we get a light tank in the process, sounds like a good deal yes?" Mason said with a coy smile as Louise had a feeling that whatever plan he had was not going to be an easy one to work with.