Ch 19: The Sign of Blood
"Alright," Marco flipped through the paper. It had information about someone who got injured. "Injured in the first battle, saved two of his comrades in the midst of battle before collapsing." Marco read.
"So, am I getting the medal?" The man across the table, the man who Marco was reading about, eagerly said.
"Probably," Marco said "I'm just here to give you an interview, and I'm also present when you get a medal. What kind of medal can you get?"
"The Sign of Blood, sir." The man said, "Given to soldiers who prevent the spillage of blood. Saving lives."
"And, tell me how it all went down. What's the deal? What Happened?" Marco asked.
The man thought back to where he was, where it had started. Where would he
start? Maybe he should start at the very beginning, maybe the stories of the old Mewni. The Mewni that drove all the monsters from their dimension. The Mewni he admired so, and the Mewni he saw rising up again in the new war. That had made him join the army.
He probably should start with the battle itself. How they marched into what the scissors ripped. The change of the air from the stuffy barracks, to the clear crisp air of a coast. They marched in columns, two by six segments of men, each equipped with armor and a sword. They were led by men on horseback, inspecting them. He was a medic, and he saw where they were marching towards. A delivery center, on the rocky cliffs. Cars moving in and out of it.
Marco probably knew all of this, so the man started in the battle.
"We were told to secure the building and everything in it. Cars took first priority, then people." The man said. Marco listened intently. "I wasn't there for the majority of the battle, I stayed back and treated those who were brought to me as ordered."
"Go on," Marco said once the man paused for a moment.
"The battle lasted the entire morning, by the afternoon we were winning and I was ordered to move into the building. I started working there. At this point, I had not even seen an enemy but I heard them. I heard cracks like lightning shake the ground, and shake the air. From the people I worked on, I gathered that the enemy had explosive projectiles, so they were using magic." The man looked at his bandaged arm. "Then… then the world shook with a force of 10,000 giant goat stampedes. Around me, the building gave way. Crushing everyone around me. I survived, but it got my arm good."
"What about the people you saved?" Marco asked.
"After the dust subsided, I tried to retreat back outside. But I must've gone the wrong way because I got to the main battlegrounds. That's where I found three soldiers, trapped in the rubble. Had it not been for me, they would've bled out right then and there because literally everyone else was trapped. I saved those three because they would've bled out before anyone else could. The others survived until-"
"Three?" Marco said.
"Darn it. I guess I won't be getting that medal after all." The man said, "I… may or may not have saved an enemy soldier."
Marco sat there, thinking about what to do when he spoke up again "He was bleeding out, and he was crying for help. At least I think he was, he was speaking a different language. I helped him out, it was the right thing to do."
"I'm not gonna report this." Marco said "What you did, was save a life. It doesn't matter what life you saved, you deserve The Sign of Blood."