A/N Disclaim I don't own harry potter, anything you recognize is property of one JK Rowling. Special thanks to ChiaroscuroGirl for her wonderful betaing.
He always hated these kinds of fights, these knockdown, dragged-out, street-by-street city sieges. They always came with an increased loss of life, especially on the civilian side of the equation. The cities were never the same, despite the mech-attack-hardened buildings. It was impossible to truly harden the more sensitive infrastructure against all mech attacks, especially an army.
Just because he hated it didn't mean he didn't excel at this style. He watched with a certain amount of grim satisfaction as the small arms fire pinged off his armour. It did no other damage other than cosmetic. He turned his chain gun onto a man he saw setting up an anti-material rifle in the shell of a building, gutted by an early exchange. He felt nothing as the threat was blown away into nothing other than a fine red mist.
His danger sense flared as he swung himself in a one-hundred-eighty-degree arc, catching the swing of the surprise attack on the flat of his sword. He could imagine the other pilot's look of surprise as the chain gun ripped through his mech, causing the haptic feedback loop to fry the enemy pilot's brain.
Harry knew how much that must hurt. He had had less severe haptic blowback. He had been out for approximately a week with the worst buzzing headache ever. Even a minor overload had laid him out for a week straight, and he could only imagine how bad it would hurt to be killed by haptic feedback.
He did a quick sweep to ascertain whether the town was secure. Seeing a fellow Cygara pilot dispatch a final mech, he let out a sigh of contentment. The pilot had finished his job. Harry could see the ground infantry begin to come in and do the mop-up and the policing. He was happy, the rebels were just about to surrender, this had been their final holdout. The rebels were led by a crazy man who thought that all infidels deserved nothing other than death if he were feeling lucky.
What he did when he captured a town was give all the people a chance to "convert" to his psychotic religion, usually as a simple entrant, where most people were only able to eke out the smallest of lives for themselves. The real problem came if they refused. The old and infirm got off easy, they were executed on the spot. The able-bodied men were sent to mine for the requisite materials to continue building mechs. The young women were taken as pleasure slaves for Ockern and his inner circle.
The children arguably had it the worst of all. Children under the age of six were taken away from their parents and brainwashed to see the "beauty" of the religion, he had fought against them on more than one occasion, and their single-minded determination to do whatever their "god" commanded was unnerving at best, horrifying at worst. Once the religion got its tendrils deep enough into a child's psyche he had never seen them recover. It was commonly believed that the only release was death. Luckily the war against the rebels was all but over, this was to be the final push.
Fires burned across the battlefield, eagerly consuming all available fuel. It lit up the dusk that was the evening sky. The light was refracted by the heavy smog of dust and debris that was just now settling, leaving a heavy smog-like atmosphere, cast in a muted orange colour. The survivors watched on, their eyes hollow, their hearts and minds heavy from the brutal fighting they had been engaged in for the last three days. The horrors of battle were fresh on their minds.
"We did it, we finally did it." an old man said, letting his weary body drop heavily to the dirt, his face lined with sweat streaking through the blood and grime that accumulated throughout the battle.
"What are you going to do now?" he asked, looking down at his worn and calloused hand watching the light of the fires bounce off his rings, not looking at all like the victorious general that he was.
His proud visage finally slipped. It was just enough to glimpse the old man underneath, a man who had fought in far too many battles, too many life and death situations, a man who just wishes for a quiet life to seep through
"I'm not sure." came the reply, the young man looked no older than 16.
Yet his eyes told a different story, a young man who had seen far more than his 16 years should be forced to. Eyes told of countless battles, of near death, of ruthless murder, of friends' killing, of friends dying. But they still somehow said I will not bend, I will not break, I am here!
He sighed heavily, looking the old man square in the eye, something men 30 years his senior struggled with. "I will be here while you finish securing the push into Zyra, and I will be there to watch the surrender of the Zyran army, and I will be the first to congratulate you on your promotion to High Command, but then I must continue my journey."
"You could always wear the colors of Cygar permanently," the old man said, pressing gently.
Letting out a humourless sigh, the young man replied, "Perhaps, one day, old friend, but today is not that day." He looked up at the old man with something akin to sadness. This was not the first time that he was offered the ability to wear Cygar's colours permanently, nor was Cygar the only kingdom to offer such an offer. Cygar was merely the most recent.
"I could give you a forward command right now, I could get you a new core for your mech, any weapon, any attachment, name it and it's yours." the old man said, sounding almost pleading. "Just take the colors."
He gestured to a standard, almost broken in half, but the standard still fluttered in the slight breeze. The colour looked almost blood-like in the weird dusk, its golden-winged sword, looking like an avenging angel seeking retribution for some unknown sin.
He shook his head softly, "I can't, I won't be tied down, once I accept the colours, you'll be honour-bound to land me. It may not happen today, and probably not tomorrow, but one day, one day there will be enough pressure to land me, and not to get too prideful, I'd assume it to be a dukedom, and you and I both know that I can't accept that, at least not yet."
The old man let out a slow small breath. He wanted to argue, but he knew that what the young man said was true. The young man turned his head and let his eyes rest upon the comforting sight of his sword, a masterwork of engineering a weapon befitting a warrior. It had been created out of the best steel in all of Kissindra with elegant runic script running up and down the centre of the blade. This signified the blessing of Solyndra, while the edge boasted a width measured in nanometers. The blade itself was enchanted to stay ever sharp.
The boy was the best mech pilot hat anyone had seen in quite some time, his ability to interface with his mech was among the best of what anyone on the continent could offer in terms of responsiveness his magic turning his 21-ton ravager class a seemingly natural extension of his body making it dance across the battlefield. In one hand his sword, an 8-foot behemoth that cut both man and machine apart with ease, in his other, a chain gun that shot rounds out at a blistering 5,000 rounds per second. Dealing death at range and speed that boggled all perception. His abilities and that of his mech were augmented by his unique form of magic.
To be a mech pilot required magic. That was the only way to connect with the core of a mech. The more powerful the sorcerer the better the mech would respond. A well-trained and skilled mech pilot was invaluable to a country's fighting force.
A newly promoted mech pilot or a weak sorcerer could do little more than walk forward in a more or less straight line, and occasionally turn their value to the army as a movable heavy weapons platform. But a true master could easily turn a hopeless situation into a runaway victory. Their ability to manoeuvre their mech with merely a thought could change the outcome in all but the most hopeless situations.
Once young Harry began to exhibit the telltale signs of having magic he was immediately taken to the grand Mechanist to be tested for compatibility with mechs. The young child took to mech piloting like a duck to water. Normally it took prospective children often as young as 7 or 8 months of meditation to even begin to sense a mech core.
Harry had done it within the first day of meditation, and by the second day, the child had already begun walking around the training yard in the mech. By the end of the first month of training, he was already sparring with and holding his own against children three or four years older than him. By the time graduation rolled around - his cohort graduated at 13 - he was already a well-decorated veteran of both the Telllimanus campaign and also the Pullan campaign.
It already earned himself the distinguished title of "Ace Mech Pilot'' for single-handedly killing 5 enemy mechs, many of them heavier and better armed than his light mosquito class mech. Serving out his time in the Makavian military, he left and became a mercenary, fighting for whoever had the coin to pay his exorbitant rates.
But seeing how he was the best pilot in the known world he had armies lining up to pay his rates and lock him down for the duration of campaigns. Soon after becoming a mercenary, he used not an inconsiderable bonus to transplant his mosquito mech core into his now familiar ravager class mech.
It was a medium-sized 21-ton mech that was a simple gunmetal grey except for a golden lightning bolt laid across an azure background the symbol of Harry Getthen, the name he had chosen for himself once entering the academy.
His caregivers as he thought of them - when he thought of them at all - were named Dallumar. But Harry had never felt like he truly belonged to them, they were abusive, unloving people, forcing him to wake early every morning from his cramped sleep spot under the heater to take care of the multitude of animals. The fat slob of a man would go back to sleep in the bed that he shared with his equally horrendous wife.
After feeding the animals Harry was then forced to come back inside and cook breakfast for them. Only then would they drag themselves out of bed and lumber downstairs and snap at him for every inane thing they could think of. The only time they were even remotely grateful for him was when they received payment from the empire for the successful procurement of a mech pilot. This amounted to a 1000 credit flinders fee, which led immediately to stuffing their fat gobs with as much luxury food as they could procure.
When he left for the academy, all he took with him aside from the bare necessities were his long-handled knife that was given to him by the butcher where Harry had worked before admittance to the academy and an old ratty baby blanket that was embroidered with the name Harry on it. This was the only thing his caregivers had found when they had found the boy.
They had rightly assumed that was the child's name. He was simply found in the woods and swaddled, sleeping peacefully with a fresh lightning bolt scar on his forehead when he was found, nothing else was known about the boy, save his apparent first name, Harry.
"You! You! You!" came a raspy voice, "You don't belong here" a very old wizened crone yelled, her eyes burning with barely repressed rage, "Begone! Foul cur, begone from this land foul! Demon, begone forevermore!"
With that final pronouncement, he felt magic wrap him and rip him from the only life he had ever known.
Halloween, 1996, Department of Mystery, Ministry of Magic, United Kingdom
Lily Potter gazed longingly at the prophecy orb shining brightly on the bottom shelf of the hall of prophecy, the plaque reading
S.P.T to A.P.W.B.D
Dark Lord and Harry Potter
Lily knew enough about prophecies to know that the only way for a prophecy to remain white like this. It required both parties to remain active, and for the prophecy to be as of yet unfulfilled. Even though she couldn't touch it, she knew of its contents. Only those who the prophecy concerned could touch the orb. Otherwise, something very nasty would happen if someone had tried to grab it.
She wasn't quite sure what, but the Unspeakables she had been interning under for her seventh year at Hogwarts had assured her it was something extremely unpleasant. Dumbledore had shared the prophecy with her and James while convincing them to go into hiding.
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…
She knew that her Harry was still out there somewhere. That night had been a horrendous mess of just thing after thing going wrong. First Peter Pettigrew had come over to babysit baby Harry for a few hours, while both she and James had tried to get some work done. Then that evening they had gotten a call that the Bones manor had been attacked and that every available wand was required.
Dumbledore had tried to convince both of them to stay, citing the need to keep them both protected, if not for their safety then at least for Harry's benefit. James had overruled him by citing the long alliance between the Bones and the Potters, and more specifically the clause that stated that they were to come to one another's aid in a life or death situation, in pain of losing their magic.
And that was how she had found herself fighting back to back with her husband while Death Eaters had attacked the Ossuary - the Bones' manor house. She remembered with perfect clarity where she was when she felt the Fidelius Charm break.
Both she and James had apparated home only to find the top half of their little cottage blown off, as if a muggle bomb had gone off in its vicinity, with the epicenter centered around young Harry's room. No bodies had ever been found in the rubble.
The prevailing theory was that both Harry and Lord Voldemort died that night, but call it mother's intuition, Lily had never quite bought that story. She knew that her Harry was alive somewhere. Lily had found out that she and James were pregnant with a little girl, the day after the attack. So they packed up what little they still had and returned to Potter Manor where they tried their best to raise little Rose Potter, and a few years after Rose was born they welcomed little Jack Potter into their home.
It was during Rose's first year at Hogwarts there began rumbling of Voldemort possibly returning. It was during that year the Chamber of Secrets had been opened, and many muggle-born students began to get petrified, luckily it was found that young Ginny Weasley had been possessed by a shade of Voldemort. Luckily Minerva Mcgonagall had noticed and put a stop to it as soon as a young Colin Creevey had been petrified trying to take a photo of it.
In Rose's third year at Hogwarts, the TriWizard tournament had been hosted at Hogwarts. During the final task, a young Hufflepuff named Cedric Diggory was unwittingly used in a ritual to resurrect the Dark Lord. It was at that time Dumbledore decided it prudent to begin to guard the prophecy, of which Lord Voldemort had heard only a part from Lily's former friend, Severus Snape.
She shook her head in disgust, how could she have ever been friends with a budding death eater? It had been him to show her what magic could do. They had both grown up in the industrial town of Cokeworth, close to Lancaster.
She had been the only witch in her family, and he was a boy her age with the same wondrous talent. They had remained close despite being placed in rival houses, until fifth year. He had, inadvertently, or so he claimed, called her a Mudblood.
Of course, she had seen the warning signs even before then, disliking those who he saw as friends - Malfoy, the Notts, Mulciber, all the Dark Lord's current inner circle. But she had always seen the best in Severus. She still had seen the joyous, adventurous boy she had befriended all those years ago.
Because the Dark Lord had only heard the beginning of the prophecy it stood to reason that he would try to ascertain the remainder of the prophecy. That was how Lily Potter found herself in the basement of the Ministry for Magic gauding this prophecy.
She was just about to let her mind wander again when she heard the telltale click of boots on the stone floor. She quickly got into a duelling stance, sending just a sliver of magic into the amulet she was holding. This would alert the rest of the Order of the Phoenix.
The familiar garb of a death eater came into view.
"Hello, Severus," Lily spat, the vitriol clear in her voice. She would know that gait anywhere, "Glad to see you here to finally finish the job your master gave you all those years ago, Not that I would do you much good anyway."
She raised her wand, a blasting hex ready to be released at a moment's notice, when suddenly she heard a high-pitched, nasally voice say, "Step aside, girl, I shall be the judge of that."
She felt an unnatural chill run through her body as she once again came face to face with Lord Voldemort, his unnatural snake-like visage, his slit-like nostrils flared in slight annoyance, seeing her placed solidly in front of the prophecy.
"Such a shame to waste such a talent like yours," he said, twirling his wand between his too pale fingers, "But no matt-" His words were cut off abruptly when the clunk clunk of heavy boots echoed across the stone floor.
A/n Same chapter, this is the beta'd version thanks again to ChiaroscuroGirl
