I do not own Valkyria Chronicles. If I did, Selvaria would not have died. At least, not in such a miserable way. Also, I've been given permission by the author BlindFury the Ultimate to use some of his OC's. I will only say this: Oxford belongs to BlindFury the Ultimate, and is being used with permission.


DRAKE

I fingered the lance in my hands with a certain bitterness on my tongue that made me want to spit. It was an anxiety I just couldn't shake, and it was beginning to annoy me. My hands constantly flexed, never stopping for more than a few seconds as I gathered what I needed. Ammunition, mainly. I swept all the clips I'd gathered into the pouch on my waist as Otto's voice rang through the tent as he entered, "hey Drake, have you seen my survival knife?"

"Nope."

"Aw... I was really hoping I'd find it before combat started," Otto groaned, his helmet rattling slightly as he shook his head, "oh, well... maybe I'll check to see if Oxford has it. I did let him borrow it a few days ago."

"What for? Self-castration?"

There was a short silence before Otto stated "dude... you have one sick, twisted mind. I don't care what kind of issues you have, that was just dark and demented."

I shrugged, standing up and giving my handgun a quick check, "I guess that goes to show what I'm like. Dark humor, easy to set off... the whole deal."

Another silence. Otto shifted his weight slightly before he finished, "the assault starts in the next hour or two, and the general wants us all ready. You think you're ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be," I hefted the lightweight combat lance that I'd gotten to replace my old man's. While my old one had worked like a charm, this one was meant to give the carrier speed, not much heavier than twice that of an assault rifle. I strode past him without another word, and smirked as I took out the survival knife at my waist, "I don't think he's getting this back anytime soon," I mused, then sheathed it, and went to meet up with Leo.

It was almost time to move out.


I let out a curse as the first artillery shells proceeded to blast a hole in the Gallian defenses, driving them back even further from the wall and seeming to rock the foundations of the earth themselves. The sky was a light, rusted glow as the sun continued to descend behind my own country's lines, and I watched as the Empire quickly made short work of the first soldiers as the battle begun.

Valkyrur almighty, which idiot had been put in charge of this dump? Nobody could ever hope to screw up this badly on the battlefield-

As the communications radio I'd swiped before we had left camp blared in my ear, I rolled my eyes. Never mind. There was an idiot who could screw this up for Gallia worse than any other man.

General Damon.

Valkyrur. Damn it. All. To hell.

Why would they choose that stupid fatass after his screw ups in EW1? The idiot was a complete disgrace. His own father said so himself.

I shook my head, breaking free of my own thoughts and keeping myself in the present. Finally, Selvaria broke off from the pack, speeding off to the left while the majority of the Empire's forces took the right side, chasing the Gallians as they made a hasty retreat. Not wasting any more time than I had to, I bolted after her, the engineer and Oxford close in tow, and Leo making a dash for a nearby tower, handgun in his grasp and a sniper rifle slung across his back before he disappeared inside.

The takeover of Ghirlandio had commenced.

I swallowed, unable to believe the pace everything went at, even as I aimed and fired at one of the ragnite canisters below, detonating it and sending my own countrymen to their deaths. Whatever foot soldiers we came across, Selvaria made quick work of, leaving hardly anything for me or Oxford, and judging from the look on his face, he wasn't enjoying it, but he kept quiet, taking aim when he could do so, whenever Selvaria didn't see them first. The engineer stayed close behind her, his breath labored, his hand on the ragnaid canister he'd brought with him, and - wait. Ragnaid...

I cursed under my breath. I knew there was something I hadn't considered bringing. Oh well.

I nearly froze as we rounded the next corner. Facing us was what seemed like an entire regiment of soldiers before a set of barracks, all of them aimed straight to fire at us. But it wasn't them that worried me, nor was it the barely visible sniper in the guard tower above that took aim towards us.

It was the duo of tanks that sat behind the soldiers, the barrels of their cannons swinging about slowly until they were trained on us, that made me bolt, dodging behind one of the storage units that littered the area as the first shots were fired. The constant beat of gunfire echoed in my ear as I found Oxford at my side, cursing as his arm began to bleed.

"Damn snipers," he hissed, "no honor to them. None!"

I glared at him, then turned my attention to the other storage unit, across the road-like opening that the soldiers to fire across, and there knelt Selvaria, her gun at her side, her teeth grit, the engineer beside her. She touched the radio at her ear, and her voice blared into my ear as my own adjusted to match the frequency of hers, "Marksworth, do you have a clear shot?"

In response, multiple gunshots sounded, and I risked a glance around the edge of the building, watching as the bodies of several soldiers hit the ground. Leo's voice echoed, "I have a clear shot, but there's too many of them for me to take out in rapid succession. Sniper rifles don't have that large of clips, and it takes time to aim properly - is that tank aiming at me? Oh, crap it is! Crap! Crap! Crap!"

Upon the last word, a tank shell was fired, slamming into a tower somewhere behind us, reducing a good chunk of it to rubble. My heart hammered in my chest for a long few seconds before Leo's groggy voice buzzed in my ear again, "ugh... I'm okay. I'm not doing that again, though. Not until those tanks are gone. Sorry guys."

"Coward," Oxford muttered, risking a glance around the edge of the bunker, pulling back as a bullet just about splattered his skull, "damn..."

"Why don't you try getting shot at by a tank when the rubble could kill you just as easily as the explosion?!" I hissed, then strode past him and glanced around the corner, searching for something I could use to blow the tanks sky high, or at least cause a distraction with. I pressed the radio in my ear, chewing at my lip as I spoke, "Leo, is there anything you see that could be used to send those tanks to hell?"

I released the button, and waited a long few seconds for the sniper's response, each passing instant sending me into a slight panic. Finally, Leo's voice once again rang in my ear, "well... I can see some ragnite canisters at the base of the tower the tanks are sitting by. But they're too far apart for me to blow them up at the same time. You'd need something like a bunch of grenades or a really big lance in order for that to work."

I gave a long, slow blink as I once again glanced around the edge, my eyes searching the base of the tower. Sure enough, around the base were several ragnite canisters, all spaced far enough apart as to not set each other off should one of them be ruptured. I turned my gaze to Oxford, who was biting at his lip, trying to think of some way to get around them without being shot, his good arm hefting his heavy lance, his hands flexing. Not even bothering to gauge how far apart the canisters were, I poked him in the arm, breaking his concentration and getting his attention. As soon as his eyes were fixated on me, I held out my free hands, my own lance set against the wall, "could I borrow that lance for a second? I've got an idea that might get us through, but my lance isn't powerful enough for it to work."

He snorted, hefting his lance out of my reach, "what could you possibly do with this? You couldn't hope to lift it, let alone use it."

I felt my eye twitch, my teeth grate as my frustration grew, "let me see it for a second and you'll find out."

"No."

It took every ounce of restraint I had to keep myself from kicking him right then and there, "are you seriously going to argue with me on something that might just save our asses over the sake of your pride?"

"No. I am arguing with you on this because there is nothing that you could come up with that could get us out of this mess, and whatever you have planned is outright not only outright suicidal - it could get us all killed," Oxford loomed over me, his teeth grating against each other, his eyes in a squint, "I can tell from the look in your eyes, boy. You are not getting anything, let alone my lance, from me."

A second passed. Then another. Then another.

I closed my eyes, nodding a couple of times, then opened them again, my jaw set, "you know what? I'm done."

Within the next instant, I had the survival knife drawn, the steel flashing in the light as I drove it into Oxford's leg. As soon as it bit into the muscle, the giant began to topple, a shout of pain and shock escaping his lips as he swayed. Taking my chance, I leaped, and drove both feet into his barrel-like chest, and we both crashed down to earth, his hands going to the jagged blade that had embedded itself in the side of his knee, his lance clattering to the ground. I rolled away from the man as fast as I could before falling on the thing like an animal, dragging it and myself into the open and hefting the sight to my eyes. Even as the bullets ripped by me, sheer luck being the only thing that kept me from being hit, I somehow managed to aim between the soldiers and tanks at the wall between the canisters. I muttered a slight prayer to the Valkyrur beneath my breath, then pulled the trigger.

As soon as my finger twitched on the metal arch that would mean destruction for all in the path of the projectile, I felt my shoulder and chest nearly rip themselves open, my uniform doing nothing to stop the bullets from piercing my skin. Nonetheless, the rocket surged forwards, and time slowed to a crawl as I fell to earth, and the missile hit its mark.

The effect was instantaneous.

A series of explosions heralded the utter destruction that I had wrought upon the foe. I craned my neck as far as I could make it go as flaming chunks of metal rained down from above, the remains of the canisters and the tanks blackened from the tongues of flame that licked at them. But it was the tower that took what was left of my breath away. With literally half its foundations taken out from under it, the tower swayed slowly from one side to the other before falling forwards, like a slain giant, to the earth, the stone bricks smashing themselves apart as it hit the ground. I wheezed slightly, a grin spreading itself across my face as the unmistakable feel of bloodstains made themselves prominent in my conscious mind, "boom, shakalaka."

"DRAKE!" my radio blared in my ear again, Leo's voice one of utter horror as a hailstorm of bullets drowned him out, the remaining soldiers falling beneath the power of Selvaria's gun. I glanced upwards as the engineer made his way over to my side, falling to his knees as he fumbled for the ragnaid, muttering the same fearful, unintelligible phrase over and over again beneath his breath.

"Don't bother," I wheezed, putting a hand on his as I struggled to sit up, "isn't that stuff meant for Selvaria? Wasn't that the idea?"

"I thought I told you to refer to me as 'general', soldier," the Valkyria's chilling voice sent a chill down my spine as I glared at her.

"Good to see you too," I snorted weakly, finally forcing myself into a sitting position, glaring at the engineer, "I told you, don't bother, you idiot. I'm fine."

"You are not fine," Selvaria hissed, suddenly standing over me. She grabbed onto me, and forced me back onto the ground as the engineer finally got the ragnaid out. Its chilling blue glow washed over me as he cut open my shirt, the wounds beginning to scab over once he'd removed the bullets from my body, numbing the pain enough for me to move, albeit with a lot of pain.

As I stood again, my gait somewhat unsteady, Oxford strode past, his glare set on me as he tossed the bloody knife and my lance at my feet. He never said a word as he picked his lance back up off the ground, and strode forwards, a slight limp in his gait as he walked, and without thinking, I kicked the knife back towards him. He turned, his gaze going from the knife to me as I removed the sheath from my belt, and tossed it towards him, "it's yours. Think of it as compensation for your leg."

Still, he said nothing, merely picking up the knife and wiping it on his pants before placing it in the sheath, and striding forwards again. But the glare in his eyes never left, telling me all I needed to know.

This isn't over.

"Soldier, we will speak about your actions later," Selvaria stated as I once again picked up my lance, "while I appreciate their intentions and their results, you still took unauthorized action that put yourself and those around you at risk, as well as the fact that you assaulted and wounded a superior. Also, His Grace's orders that we claim this citadel in as perfect a condition as possible. I will have to deal with you accordingly."

"Whatever," I huffed, hefting my lance back onto my shoulder, "I'm sure he'll forgive me if it means bringing this place under control. Plus, it can be fixed. And I would prefer to be called by my name. Drake. It's one syllable. It shouldn't be that hard to remember."

She sighed, then shook her head, once again taking the lead with me and the engineer struggling to keep up, Oxford having gone on ahead and Leo once again offering cover fire. As time went by though, I began to feel something else besides pain; something I could only describe as an echo from the past ringing in my mind, whispering to me from my own mind, as though saying "let's see how useful you are."

I felt my eyes narrow slightly as the pain numbed before disappearing completely, and my teeth gnash together in a sudden grin. The fatigue in my body dissipated in exchange for a feeling of near weightlessness, my blood pumping through my veins, adrenaline flooding my limbs as I suddenly found myself able to keep up with Selvaria with ease.

"Something wrong, Selvaria?" I shouted, vaulting over a barricade and tossing a grenade into a group of soldiers. There was a panicked shriek, and all five of them were consumed, their bodies sent flying in the funeral of flame, "you seem so slow all of a sudden."

As she turned to look at me, I took a long look at the lance in my hands, suddenly wondering why I had decided to use such a heavy duty weapon. Shrugging, I turned my gaze to the walls, searching for any other targets before continuing the dash forwards, caution thrown to the wind. By the time we had reached the bottom of the ramp leading down to the ground floor of Ghirlandio, there was almost nothing left; just a single tank as the remaining Gallians retreated out the back door, their movements panicked as they rushed, moving to get out of the fortress as fast as they could.

I merely brought my lance up, not even bothering to look through the sight before pulling the trigger. The shell punched into the tank, tearing through the armour and leaving it seem almost pathetic, like a dying dog trying to stand. As I found myself totally out of ammunition for my lance, I tossed it to the ground and drew my sidearm, though I no longer had any intention of shooting at the tank. As the tank moved to keep the most amount of soldiers at once out of the line of fire, I focused on the ones that I could see, every bullet ripping through their ranks and further thinning their numbers as they struggled to regroup and return fire long enough to escape.

It was only made clear when the shots of Selvaria's gun tore through their tank's radiator, sending it straight to hell.

They would be lucky to make it out at all.

As the action began to die down as the gates were finally shut, I felt fatigue begin to spread again. Slowly at first... but as though a dam had been holding it back, it smashed down on top of me, my muscles locking on themselves in a mixture of pain and sheer exhaustion. I gasped for breath, trying to keep myself on my feet, but the most I could do as I began to topple was keep my eyes open.

I looked up from where my eyes had fixed themselves to the ground to see Selvaria and the engineer, the latter looking just as exhausted as I felt. I watched the general's lips move, as though trying to speak, but whatever she said was drowned out by the laughter in my head. A powerful, proud laughter that continued to echo even as I fell.

"Yes," it called from the abyss of my subconscious, "yes! You will do very nicely..."

That's when everything fell into darkness.