Author's Note:

Hello and welcome to chapter two. This time we get more action as Gatrie begins to exercise his new strength in battle. I hope you enjoy the chapter.

I own nothing.

Chapter 2

Gatrie looked back towards the camp.

"Its a squad of wyvern riders!"

At his call, Ike nodded (at least, that's what he thought the commander did), and continued to organise the army.

Turning his gaze back beyond the wall, Gatrie watched the wyverns continue their approach, frowning as he did so.

A group that size was not nearly strong enough to take their forces on, so why were they attacking? What did they have to gain?

The lead rider pointed at him with his axe, "Take down the giant!"

Oh, that's what they were trying to do.

Like hornets, the wyverns buzzed around his head, their riders brandishing their weapons. Instinctively, Gatrie brought his arms up to protect his face, and his armour warded off the blows like they were nothing.

With a shriek, the two hawks smashed into the enemy, beak and talons tearing their targets to shreds. They were joined by the pegasi and their own wyvern, granting him extra protection.

As the battle raged, Gatrie spotted the leader coming in for a sneak attack on Marcia, and he responded without thinking.

Swinging his arm down, he struck the wyvern with his palm, swatting it out the air like a bug. They crashed to the ground, and he lifted his foot and stomped down upon them, as those nearby winced. Upon seeing this, the remaining wyvern riders fled, flying without looking back.

Gingerly, Gatrie lifted his foot and gave quick look at the wyvern filled crater, he grimaced and carefully wiped his foot on the ground before looking to their aerial units, "Thanks for the help."

Janaff grinned, "Anytime, though it seems you didn't need as much help as we thought." He looked at the crater and pulled a face, "Makes a bit of a mess though."

Tormod was peering into it, "Wow, that's a lot of blood!"

Reyson swiftly excused himself and disappeared, while Maurim hastily pulled the boy away. Rhys meanwhile, stared up at Gatrie, "Do you need some healing?"

Gatrie patted his face, finding nothing beyond tiny cuts, "No, just some tiny cuts, that's all."

The healer nodded, then beat a hasty retreat from the crater, while Janaff shrugged after inspecting it once more, "At least it'll save effort in burying them."

After a pile of soil had been hastily thrown over the crater, Ike stood with Soren beside Gatrie.

"Gatrie, while it'll likely be some time before we can get you back to normal, I think today proved that you continuing to fight won't be a problem." Ike looked to his tactician, "Right Soren."

The mage nodded, "Indeed, in fact it would be foolish of us to not make use of this opportunity. Even more so since the Daein clearly consider you a threat." He stared up at Gatrie meaningfully, "Just don't step on our allies."

With that, he strode away, leaving Ike to give a smile of approval before following after him.

Not long after their departure, Oscar and Mordecai appeared, bearing three cooked boars. The green haired knight smiled, "We've sorted some food for you, you're probably hungry after that battle."

Gatrie grinned, "Thanks."

He reached down for one of the boars, then stopped, "Won't the amount I'm eating now start to seriously affect our supplies."

The blue tiger shook his head, "No problem. We laguz hunt well, keep supplies filled easily."

"He's right." Oscar added, "We have meat to spare so don't worry about it."

Needing no further encouragement, Gatrie began eating as several others came near, though it was hard not to be near him, since he was sat crossed-legged in the middle of the camp.

Rolf watched with wide eyes as he demolished the boars, "Whoa!"

Mist, however, was looking around thoughtfully, "Where are you going to sleep?"

Gatrie frowned, "I'm not sure." He looked down, "Probably not in the camp, I roll around in my sleep a lot."

With his current size, that was a serious problem, he didn't want to crush half the army by accident. He glanced towards the foot of the wall, "Maybe over there, should be far enough away."

As they spoke, clouds had gathered overhead, and now they dumped their contents upon them. Those who could, dived under cover from the rain, but Mist and Rolf remained.

After a moment, Gatrie shed one of his shoulder plates and placed it over the two of them, creating a suitable shelter.

Rolf smiled up, "Thanks."

The man simply shrugged in response, and raised an eyebrow as Tormod hurried over to them, "Is there room for me? Muarim is off with a provisioning group and Sothe doesn't want me around."

The other two kids had no issue, and soon the three of them were huddled under the plate.

As Gatrie shed a couple more pieces of armour, others gathered around, and soon, several members of the army were using his armour plates for shelter.

While the army marched, Gatrie sort of ambled.

He could march, but his now far longer strides would cause him to end up far ahead of the main force, not an ideal situation, giant or not. As such, he moved at a far more leisurely pace, despite acquiring a couple of passengers.

Most of them were their youngest members, while the kids were more used to keeping up the pace than most their age (Tormod in particular, since he had lived amongst far faster laguz), they still didn't have the stamina of the adults. Until now, they'd simply passed them amongst those who had mounts (and Mist now had her own horse), so they could keep moving, but considering that their weight barely affected him, Gatrie had offered to carry them instead, saving strain upon their mounted units.

Currently, he had Tormod on one shoulder and Rolf on the other, the fire mage chatting enthusiastically at his ear. Sothe had been stubborn, insisting that he wasn't tired, but Mordecai hadn't believed any of it and had taken on his beast form and forced the boy to ride on his back.

Gatrie suddenly stopped, seeing something approaching from ahead. Janaff and Ulki, their keen senses having alerted them before anyone else, were already reporting to Ike.

"We have more Wyvern riders incoming." Ulki reported.

"And they have some crows." Janaff added, his face displaying slight distaste.

Ulki continued, "They seem to be targeting Gatrie again, at least, that's what they were saying."

Ike frowned, "How many?"

"Three times the amount that attacked last time, not including the crows, there's about six of those." The older of the two hawks replied.

"So, more flyers than the amount we can really handle." Ike thought momentarily, then spoke, "Gatrie, do you think you can knock some of them out of the sky and within the range of our ground troops?"

Gatrie grinned, "Sure thing Commander."

With that, he crouched down and carefully plucked the two boys of his shoulders, placing them on the ground, then straightened up. Already, their own fliers were forming up around him, Commander Tanith taking the lead, while Ike organised the troops down below, as such, they were prepared when the enemy arrived.

As expected, they swarmed towards Gatrie, and their own fliers swiftly intercepted who they could, those they couldn't get, broke through to Gatrie, but the mercenary was ready for them.

Now confident that he was robust enough to ignore most hits, he started to fight back, of course, he had no actual weapons to do this with, but he was so large his hands worked just fine. He smacked the wyverns away and down, trying to get them to the ground troops without forcing them to be near his constantly moving feet. A couple of times, he actually managed to snatch the rider off their steed, unceremoniously dropping them to the ground.

However, the crows were infuriating.

They were far quicker and more acrobatic than the wyverns, swooping in for quick strikes then retreating before he could strike back. Though they weren't causing much damage yet, they were aiming for his eyes in an attempt to blind him, and it was only a matter of time before one of them got a good strike in.

He then realised that they had a good number of trees around them, and an idea came to mind.

With most of the wyverns either downed or occupied with allied forces, Gatrie crouched down and wrapped both hands around the trunk of a sturdy tree. With a grunt of exertion, he pulled it out like a tough weed, tearing up the soil as its roots were dragged from their home.

Holding it just beneath the main branches, he swung the ridiculous weapon towards the incoming crows and fast as they were, there wasn't time to avoid the awesome reach of the root network.

With almighty squawks, several crows were sent spinning away, the sheer force knocking them out of their shifted forms. Most crashed to the ground, but some bounced off other trees and one even crashed into a sturdy oak face-first and slowly slid to the ground.

Those that were left decided to not take their chances and fled the battlefield, moving faster than anyone had ever seen.

Battle won, Gatrie heaved a sigh of relief, then glanced at the tree in his hands. Moving back to where he'd uprooted it, he slammed it back into place and twisted it a few times, as if to screw it back in. Carefully letting go, he stood back, leaving it standing firmly in place, though a little lop-sided.

Looking down at the army, he found many gazing up at him, mouths opened in absolute awe, and he rubbed his neck awkwardly as he addressed Ike.

"So, Commander, are we going to march again?"

PS-The best way to deal with crows...? Hit them with a tree of course! Please let me know what you thought, and I'll hopefully update soon.