Note: Just like in the original anime/light novel, this fic is going to jump a lot between characters and timelines, so make sure to read the dates to avoid confusion.
Approximately 500 Kilometers West of Giadian Borders
April 2nd, Stellar Year 2142
Shourei stood on the roof of his battered Vanagandr and held out his hands toward the milk-white sky for the puffy white dots drifting down. He caught one, and there was just a moment where he could see the whole of its delicate, crystalline shape. Then the moment passed as it melted in the warmth of his palms.
"Didn't take you for the type to catch snowflakes, Captain."
He looked down and saw the formidable mass of Sergeant Bernholdt, a man made out of sixty percent rock-hard muscle, thirty percent scar tissue, and one hundred percent sheer, unbreakable will. The non-commissioned officer was dragging behind him a large sled loaded with the carcasses of two good-sized deer.
Rei wiped his hands on the sleeve of his pants. "Why wouldn't I be, Sergeant?" he asked, letting a very slight sarcastic note into his voice. "Aren't I just a shitty brat who hasn't even sprung hair from his armpits yet?"
The Vargus sergeant turned his head and spat on the ground. "Come on, Cap, you got no right to bring that back up. Been almost two years now. And I only said that to make it clear I wouldn't follow your orders if they'd get us killed."
There had been a small smile on Rei''s face. At his Sergeant's words Rei took a look at their surroundings, dense forests on a slowly-inclining hill, speckled with unseasonal spring snow, and that small smile faded.
"Looks like your fear came true then, Sergeant," he said solemnly.
When he closed his eyes he could see the battle all over again. Could see it well. In fact, he saw it clearer in his mind than he had fighting through it. In his mind's eye he and his men stood on a six-lane highway, their ten forest-green Vanagandrs circled to cover one anothers' backs. Ten kilometers to the north was the huge anvil of the advancing rebel forces, a force easily five times the size of theirs. To the south was the enemy's hammer: fifteen Feldress accompanied by a platoon of armored infantry. Impossible odds, he'd thought. There was no way of fighting through that kind of opposition.
So he'd given the order to flee.
Amid volleys of 120mm cannon fire and an endless barrage of anti-material machine guns, his squadron had broken through to the western forests. They'd lost one Feldress in the process, and another had been damaged to the point of shutting down just two hours later, and they'd been forced far outside of allied lines into unsupported territory… But in exchange, they survived. At the time, he had thought it was the right decision.
Now he wasn't so sure. Two weeks had passed and his unit had only drifted further from the Empire's borders. Maybe at first they could have doubled back and pushed through rebel lines to return home, but they hadn't. Instead they'd kept going, and at some point they left the rebels' influence and entered the Legion's. Once the horde of silver killing machines had been at their back and pushing them even further out from the Empire's borders, there was no hope of coming back.
The Legion were not built to work alongside human combatants. They had a rudimentary IFF system that let them distinguish between targets and non-targets, but all that meant was that if an Imperial Vanagandr stayed out of the autonomous drones' path, then they wouldn't automatically hunt them down. Getting too close to the Legion spelled almost certain death for anyone but the royal family themselves.
So they'd kept on moving.
A few days ago their Para-RAIDS had lost connection entirely with HQ, and that meant the already-slim possibility of support had dwindled to zero. Eventually, their Vanagandrs would run out of energy packs and ammo. As for food, their rations had depleted long ago, and if it weren't for his Vargus squad-mates and their exceptional foraging skills, the entire unit would have starved to death by now. At this point, they were on a death march with no hope of ever coming back. And all because he'd made the decision to run instead of fight.
When he looked back on that battle with the clarity of hindsight, he focused often on that fifteen-strong force moving from the south. He wondered, time and time again, if maybe he could have broken through them instead of running with his tail between his legs. The fighting would have been hard, to be sure. Many men would have died under his command. But at least if he'd succeeded, he could have returned the survivors back to base. At least someone would have lived, and that was more than they could count on now.
And there was a not-insignificant part of him that remembered his mother's sacrifice - and hated himself for not doing the same.
"Captain."
Bernholdt spoke his title with a brutal frankness, as if he were spitting the word out alongside a mouthful of poison.
"You made the right call. Don't doubt yourself. It would harm morale if the men saw your face right now."
Rei thought about that for awhile. The snow began to come down harder.
"We're going to die, Sergeant," Shourei said simply. There was neither grief nor pain in his voice. It was a statement of an uncomplicated fact.
"We would have died two weeks earlier if you'd ordered us to stay," the Sergeant replied with equal simplicity.
"At least we would have died on the battlefield."
Bernholdt raised an eyebrow. "Didn't expect you'd be that type either, Captain. Do you really believe in that warrior's honor crap?"
The open disdain in his tone was a surprise to Rei.
"You don't?"
"Now what's that question supposed to mean?" the Sergeant asked, crossing his formidable arms. "Do you think we're all battle-crazed lunatics or something? Just a bunch of maniacs rushing to our deaths?"
He let the greater half of that question go unsaid. "Because we're Vargus?"
"As it stands," Bernholdt continued. "Your decision got us an extra two weeks to live and a nice hike through some pretty scenery. Don't think we aren't grateful for that."
Ah, Rei thought, disappointed in himself. I did it again.
For an outsider himself, he would have thought he'd be better at understanding traditionally misunderstood people. How many times had he been given a label, a description, an expectation based solely on his red hair? He'd gotten used to it over time - a person had to, when that was their entire life - but that never made it pleasant. And yet here he'd done the same thing to the Sergeant and all the other men under his command.
Without exception, every one of the soldiers given to him were Vargus. 'It's fitting,' his operations-commander had said with a tone that was both bemused and disgusted, 'to give the half-breed some beastmen to toy around with.'
Vargus lived on the outskirts of the Empire's borders in the dense northern forests. They were a kind of warrior-caste, given neither citizenship nor government oversight. In exchange for amenities, supplies, and relative independence, they were conscripted as elite warriors and called to the frontlines of every war. Few Imperial citizens even realized that the Vargus were human. In fact, Shourei had been asked many times by his fellow squad leaders what it was like to fight beside the "werewolves" under his command.
Most expected the Vargus to be battle-crazed and honor-obsessed. So had Rei, he was ashamed to admit.
Bernholdt must have seen his expression. The hard look on his face soon softened into an amused smirk. "Well," he said, "I'm not gonna lie, I do enjoy a good fight. It's fun. But when it comes down to it, I'd rather be breathing and bored than six feet under a battlefield."
"Yeah. Me too, Sergeant."
A moment passed.
Shourei looked out at the forest around them, the bare heads of hardy conifers slowly blanketing with snow and the disused lumber road stretching out west to God-only-knows where. He absorbed the feel of the Vanagandr beneath his feet, its sturdy composite plating and the deep silence of its inactive engine. He listened to the sounds of the men around him. Their conversations and their grumblings. The thunk of a woodcutting axe splitting logs and the hearty crackle of a bonfire.
Yeah, he decided. This was a pretty nice hike after all.
"Well, Captain, if you're done catching snowflakes and brooding, I could use some help cutting these guys up." He gestured to the two deer carcasses in his sled.
"Sure thing, Sergeant."
—
Being on the same side as the Legion did not keep you safe from them. Rei had been extremely careful in planning their route, always sending scouts ahead of them to make sure they'd have room to change their path around any autonomous patrols or, God forbid, battle detachments. He'd made sure to personally inspect all of their IFF tags and Imperial insignias to ensure that if they did run into any Legion drones, they'd have the best chance of being recognized as friendlies.
But sometimes shit just hit the fan.
He was sure the path was safe. His scouts had seen nothing, after all. And yet as their convoy was crossing over a disused bridge, he heard that unmistakable sound, and known instantly that his efforts had been in vain. That strange-pitched chittering that seemed almost organic; the sound of liquid micromachines as they filled and deflated hydraulic drive shafts.
Shourei looked to his leftmost screen. There, clear as day on his monitors was a Lowe - the hulking octopedal tank-types, each equipped with a massive 120mm cannon - accompanied by several scout-type Ameise. The pack stood with their silvered-steel legs planted in the depths of a shallow stream, water rushing by, and for a moment, just a moment, the sound of running water was the only sound they heard.
Did it work? Did they recognize our IFF signature?
The Lowe's cannon erupted in brilliant, brutal fire.
It was Freki One that took the hit.
Bernholdt's unit.
".:Scramble!:."
At his command the squadron burst into motion, thundering in all directions toward the treeline. Shourei took the drive stick in his hand and pushed it as far as it would go. Dullahan's engine whined. The cockpit trembled at the weighty impact of multi-ton legs upon the ground, and all the while Rei cursed his Vanagandr's sluggish piloting.
".:Freki Three, suppressing fire! Five and Six, kill those damn scouts:."
Johan, his gunner, lined up the machine guns and loosed a thundering stream of 12.7mm rounds in the vague direction of the enemy. Two seconds after, Dullahan's main cannon roared and a belch of his on muzzle flash blinded the forward optics momentarily. The sound of an explosion through his speakers was satisfying, but it was far too small a blast. Most likely they'd just killed one of the Ameise.
".:Captain, behind us!:."
Shourei glanced at the rear-screen far too late to see the Grauwolf descending on them, its bladed arms raised high. He yanked the drive stick. Dullahan groaned at the shift of momentum and the legs turned, but slowly. Far too slowly. Time seemed to crawl. All that he could see - all that the adrenaline allowed him to see - was the Legion drone's blade-arm shining so impossibly bright in the afternoon sun.
All at once.
A violent penetration through the armor, composite plates peeling back and blowing inward. A scream of steel. The sickening whine of a high-frequency blade. The thick shunk of ripping flesh and a hot, wet spray across the left side of Rei's body.
He stared helplessly at Johan, separated at the shoulder. Split in half.
Then focus returned and Rei yanked the drive-stick again, pushed Dullahan into a pivot on its two back legs - both of them snapped at the sudden shift - and the Vanagandr made a full rotation, the Grauwolf's blade carving out through the cockpit's flank and leaving an open, gaping hole for the brisk air and bright sunlight to bleed through.
All thought and emotion vanished. Rei's focus was a narrow blade. He had nothing more. He was nothing more. Just hands and motion.
Dullahan surged forward into the enemy and buried the muzzle of its cannon into the drone's frontal plating.
Shourei reached over and placed his living hand on Johan's dead one. He squeezed down on the corpse's finger to snap the trigger.
The Grauwolf's face, if it could be called that, crumpled inward with a metal screech. The shell detonated in a plume of flame out the drone's backside, and the machine stiffened, twitched, and died. Rei wasted no time in pulling back, ignoring the splitting crank of the clutch as Dullahan once again abruptly changed gears. His black eyes were dispassionately cold as he glanced over Johan's mutilated corpse to read the radar screen behind him.
".:Freki Two, confirming the tank-type's destruction:." came the call from one of his squadron's Feldress.
".:Freki Five, Ameise destroyed. Combat has ceased; beginning area sweep:."
Rei nodded. ".:Acknowledged:."
His breath came out in a long, shuddering sigh as a sudden ache flooded through his chest. He saw Johan's corpse from the corner of his eye with a fresh, violent repulsion as all at once the smell struck him. An explosive copper-iron stench so thick he could taste it on every breath he took. His stomach trembled. His eyes watered. He turned and vomited onto the floor of his machine. A rich, steaming vomit still thick with chunks of the venison he'd ate less than an hour ago.
After he wiped his mouth with his sleeve, he took the drive-stick in his hand and moved Dullahan back onto the road. He did not intend to, but nonetheless himself moving to the flaming ruin of Freki One. The shell had hit the Feldress' cannon; an incredibly lethal blow if it detonated the munitions. And judging by the split, gaping profile of the mech, it almost certainly had.
"Sergeant," he whispered, looking down at the shattered Feldress.
".:Yeah, that's me:.
".:And I could use some help down here. It's getting a little hot:."
There was only a second for Rei to feel surprised before he shook it off. He dropped the handles for the smoke dispensers, switching them to flame suppressants, snapped the triggers and two white clouds of dry chemical foam flooded the ruined mech. There was little hesitation as he threw open the cockpit door and dropped to the dirt five feet below. There was even less fear as he threw himself through the shattered hole in the fuselage.
There was nothing but charred residue left of the gunner, and the pilot's seat - and thus Bernholdt - were buried under a pile of scorched metal. The hand the Sergeant had managed to wriggle out of the ruins was the same shade of burnt black. So was his face, soot-soaked to the extent that Rei hadn't even been able to tell it apart from the damaged machinery at first. But when the Sergeant looked up at him and grinned, the uncanny brightness of his teeth was unmistakable.
"A minute longer and I'd have roasted in this thing," he said before breaking into a coughing fit. "Gimme a hand, would you?"
Not much later, the convoy regrouped. Dullahan's engine stalled out mere minutes after everything had ended. It refused to start back up again. And needless to say that Freki One was utterly destroyed. They were down from eight Feldress to six, and that would almost certainly spiral into further losses down the road. But they could keep moving, at least for now.
After they made camp the Sergeant collapsed into a deep sleep he'd not awake from for almost two days. His burns were severe, and the infection set in quickly. Fortunately, medical supplies were one of the few things they had in relative abundance, as combat encounters involving Feldress typically involved either no injuries at all, or brutality to such an extent that no amount of painkillers could help. They had more than enough on hand to deal with an infection, even a bad one.
The Sergeant's rugged good looks would be a thing of the past, unfortunately. The scarring would cover the entire left side of his face. But he would live.
For at least a little while longer, they all would live.
Jeez, man, can tomorrow please come a little faster...?
Anyone else incredibly stoked for the finale? Yeah dude, I can't wait. If I didn't have a date tonight (we're going to a karaoke bar), I'd probably just, like, pop eighteen melatonin tablets so I could fall asleep and fast travel to the next day. The last episode was phenomenal, so my expectations are sky-high!
Random note: I re-read a few passages in the light novels, and it turns out that I was mistaken on Shin's mom's callsign. It's actually "Crimson Witch" instead of "Flame Witch," so I went back and updated the first chapter to fix that.
More importantly, in honor of the season finale, I am going to commit to updating this fic every Saturday. That includes tomorrow as well, so be sure to check in after finishing the episode!
- Verbosity