(Note: I do not own anything. This is purely for entertainment purposes.)

Here is the first in my series of these support conversations between the members of Squad 7. I got this particular idea from the Fire Emblem series. I'll show these all after a particular mission of sorts such as Vasel or the Barious Desert. However, right now I'm going to do them all after the Air Raid just to get them all started. Thankfully these people will be in groups of two, three, and maybe four. This'll help get through them much faster. I'll explain more in the end. For now, please enjoy this particularly funny due: Marina Wulfstan and Ted Ustinov.

April 18, 1935

Fort Amaranthine Shooting Range

1832 hours (6:32 pm)

After the Air Raid on Randgriz, Squad 7 had returned to Fort Amaranthine. Welkin gave them permission to relax for a moment in order to at least get some measure of R&R before their next action which at this rate would probably be in the next morning. As the Squad dispersed, Marine decided to spend her free time by practicing her sniper skills on the firing range just as the sun was beginning to disappear in the horizon. Even though she was already a great shot, maybe even the best in the whole Militia, this helped her to relax as well as keep her skills at top level. She had set up a row of empty glass bottles in a row upon a wooden table about several hundred yards away and was finishing with the remaining three with her GSR-M4 sniper rifle. And after firing a shot with her scope, the crouching Marina squeezed the trigger and our came a bullet which flew at such a high velocity it shattered the glass bottle into dozens of tiny shards. With a series of quick movements, she retracted the bolt of her rifle, released the spent shell casing, and loaded in a fresh one before once again looking through the scope of her rifle to line up the shot. And once again, her shot hit dead center, destroying the bottle with a clean and precise shot. As she finished reloading a shot and looked through her scope to the bottle, something surprised her. On the other end of her scope, she saw a human eye. Extremely close up and staring right at her. At first she thought that she had accidentally aimed her rifle at a person, but once she took her gaze out from looking through the scope she saw that it was just Ted Ustinov. He was standing right next to her, leaning on his left side heavily and looking through the other end of the scope with his eye so close to it that they were almost touching. Marina could only look at him with a look of annoyance upon her face as he now looked at her with the same stupid grin upon his face that he wore upon his face everyday.

Marina had already figured out why he was here, but just to make sure she asked "What do you want? Go away."

"Oh, come on. I just wanna tell you a joke. A joke can't hurt, can it?" pleaded Ted, wanting her to listen to his joke just once.

"Not interested. Leave," answered Marina as she readied her rifle and prepared to shoot, already beginning to block out Ted's voice.

However, Ted seemed to ignore her last comment and went on with the joke, saying "Okay. Well what do you get when you cross boiled cabbage, and an angry German? You get one very Sour Kraut. Huh? What do you think?"

As Ted waited for a response from Marina, he ended up getting nothing. No laugh, chuckle, hell not even a smile. Just the same blank response from Marina as she delivered to everyone. As the seconds went on with no response, it took the eardrum shattering gunshot of Marina's rifle to cause his smile to finally drop. As the ringing in Ted's ear began to fade away, he looked to see that Marina had taken out the last glass bottle. Now the only thing left out in the range was a wooden table covered and surrounded by little shards of broken glass in all different shapes and sizes. Marina, without another word simply got back on her feet and walked away from Ted. As he let out a sigh, Ted could only look back at what had just happened. Once again, he had failed to get a laugh out of her.

Before the war he was always the life of the party, telling jokes and pulling pranks while people would end up laughing from them. For some reason, Ted enjoyed it and liked the idea of making people laugh for a living. When the war against Germania began and he was drafted into the Militia, he thought he could use his comedic talents to help relieve the stress of the war on his comrades and make life feel just a bit easier for them as they fought the Germans on the front lines. And in just a few short days he had managed to get a laugh, giggle, and chuckle out of everyone in the Squad. Well, everyone except for Marina.

No matter what he tried, he just couldn't get anything out of her. She was the loner of Squad 7. Always looking to work alone and never seeming like she wishes to socialize with the other squad members. Some of the Sevens had already dubbed her "Ice Queen" due to her distant attitude. No one had ever seen her smile at all. she just never seemed to be in a happy mood at all. It just added to the mystery of this hunter from the Ardennes Forest. And for some reason, it was bugging Ted to no end. He had to make Marina smile. He just had to. And he wasn't going to stop until he did so.

"Just you wait and see. I'll have you laughing before this war is over," mumbled Ted Ustinov as he watched Marina walk away to Squad 7's barracks.

"Yeah, like that'll ever happen," commented a voice behind Ted. He looked behind him to see his friend Melville walking up towards him. While Ted was trying to humor Marina, Melville had managed to hear and see his epic failure. He actually enjoyed watching Ted fail at humoring Marina, even though Ted probably knew that it was a fool's mission.

"Why don't you just give up? She's not going to laugh you know," said Melville, reminding his friend of the obvious.

"It's just she's the only person who never laughed at my jokes. I want to find something that'll make her laugh," noted Ted.

"I doubt that Marina has laughed about anything at all in her life, much less smiled. What makes you think that you can do it?" asked Melville, wondering about Ted's persistence about this.

"Come on. At least have me let her smile. It might be something nice to see," said Ted, hoping that Melville would at least be okay with that.

And after a few moments of silence, Melville finally gave in and said "Alright. It's worth a shot at least. We can talk over some bacon that I smuggled from the kitchen."

Melville was something of a big consumer of fine meats, if there was such like that. He'd eaten about almost any kind of meat known to mankind and quite enjoyed the taste of meat. The man was something similar to a carnivore in the animal world. He also looked forward to sharing his meat with his friends whenever he would get the chance. And as he and Ted headed back to Squad 7's barracks, Ted regaled him of ways in which the two of them would be able to get Marina to smile.

And that's it for my first Support Conversation for Squad 7. Sorry for it being shorter than any of my other chapters but I do plan for more here. Here is what I'm saying. I've separated each of these support conversations into numbers I, II, III, and sometimes IV. In each one we'll show how the progression of each conversation with different members of Squad 7 goes throughout the war aside from the main ones (Welkin, Alicia, Isara, Largo, Rosie, Zaka, and Jack I mean.) I want to show the relationship of these characters develop and change as the war drags on. I hope you all like it. And since these will be shorter than my usual chapters, it means I may be able to do several in a day. This means that I may be able to get these out faster (At least I think so). Here are the groups or couples I have planed out along with the number of their support conversations. The Ones with the Question marks are ones that may or not happen. I'm not sure if I can do another but I feel there should be another for this group.

- Marina Wulfstan, Melville Young, and Ted Ustinov (I, II, III)

- Salinas Milton and Freesia York (I, II, III, IV)

- Karl Landzaat and Lynn (I, II, III, IV)

- Claudia Mann and Nancy Dufour (I, II, III)

- Oscar Bielert and Emile Bielert (I, II, III)

- Vyse Inglebard, Aika Thompson, Fina Sellers, and Alex Raymond (I, II, III)

- Juno Coren and Aisha Neumann (I, II, III)

- Hermes Kissenger and Nina Streiss (I, II, III)

- Cezary Regard, Wavy, and Nadine (I, II, III, IV?)

- Jane Turner and Hannes Salinger (I, II, III)

- Leon Schmidt and Kreis Czherny (I, II, III)

- Kevin Abbott and Dorothy Howard (I, II, III)

- Audrey Heitinga and Rosina Seldon (I, II, III)

- Father Hendricks, Catherine O'Hara, and Coby Caird (I, II, III)

- Cherry Stijnen, Dallas Wyatt, and Ramona Linton (I, II, III)

- Montley Leonard and Knute Jung (I, II, III)

- Edy Nelson, Homer Peron, Walter Nash, and Jann Walker (I, II, III, IV?)

- Susie Evans and Noce Wordsworth (I, II, III, IV?)

- Musaad Mayfield, Nils Daerden, and Herbert Nielson (I, II, III)

- Mica Hawkins, Ramsey Clement, and Wendy Cheslock (I, II, III)

- Yoko Martens and Theold Bohr (I, II, III)

- Elysse Moore and Hector Calvey (I, II, III)

I may add more different Support Conversations if I end up adding more characters for Squad 7. In the end, I just hope that you guys enjoy these.

As usual, if you have a question or comment about this chapter or the story in general, simply send me a PM and I'll answer as best as I can. Also, don't forget to leave a review and to leave a comment on my Valkyria Chronicles Forum as well as to add to the polls I have there.

Until then,

- Heinkelboy05