Chapter 14 – The Naggiar Campaign – Part 7 Nowhere to Run

There were a lot of things Edy Nelson would rather be doing in the hot afternoon sun, and none of them involved running for her life through a trench in the middle of the largest battlefield that just so happened to be the biggest battle in Gallia's history. Yet here she was, doing that very thing while following a person she barely knew, someone who seemed to have taken an interest in her for goodness knows why. Still, all things considered, things could be worse.

I could be dead, Ramona and Homer could be dead, everyone could be dead...Gotta keep positive... Edy kept repeating the same thoughts over and over as she did her best to follow Eratria, who had been keeping up a rather quick pace for the past eight minutes. As she struggled to keep up, Edy thought it odd that someone who smokes as much as Eratria did could run so fast for so long. Then again what isn't odd about her? A sudden halt by Eratria caught Edy by surprise as she crashed into her and fell backwards onto the ground. Edy grimaced and rubbed the top her head as Eratria turned to face her.

"Why'd you stop?" asked Edy as Eratria helped her back to her feet.

"Because you're tired," replied Eratria. "And don't worry, those Imperials aren't going to catch us just yet with all that heavy armor they're wearing."

"I...I'm not tired!" argued Edy as she was bent over and gasping for air.

"Your acting skills aren't that bad are they?" sighed Eratria as she retrieved a fresh cigarette. "Take a rest already. A good soldier knows not to overdo it."

Edy remained silent but obliged as she leaned against the nearby trench wall and grabbed her canteen. Now that she wasn't worrying about staying alive for the first time since the battle began, her brain was finally able to register the fact she was thirsty, and badly so. She quickly drank nearly half the contents and soon discovered this to be a massive error. Her stomach couldn't take the shock of so much cold water at once and she immediately doubled over and threw up.

Ugh, great, she thought as she stumbled over to the other side of the trench when it was over and slid to the ground. She looked at her legs and saw that they were covered in sweat and dirt. I don't even wanna think about what my face looks like, and my hair....It'll take a week of washing to get it all clean. Well I'll have Ramona help with that; she's the one who had me wear it down like this for the battle anyway.

Realizing that Eratria hadn't said anything after her canteen mishap, Edy looked over to her to see that the woman was checking over her handguns, a lit cigarette in her mouth as usual. As Edy watched her, she started thinking about who, or more precisely, what Eratria was. Being a Darcsen-hater wasn't all that strange, but the degree at which she took it was; even Rosie never took it as far as Eratria did, which was saying a lot.

And then there was the whole mysterious deal with the way she looked... She might be dressed in the standard Scout female uniform, but she wasn't equipped like one. Other than her arm and knee armor, she wore no other type of armor protection that Edy could see. Her handguns weren't the standard issue sidearms that most of the militia soldiers received, and her sword sure as heck wasn't something any soldier she knew had. Even her rifle looked like a custom job; it appeared to be based off of the basic Gallian series but she noticed that it had a reinforced barrel and the stock itself was made of a completely different type of wood. Plus those weird smoke bombs and light grenade thingies; definitely not standard issue.

And then the fact that she hid her face with that cloak. No, not just her face, her hair too... What does it all mean? Wait, could it be? Was she a...Valkyrur?

Edy's eyes widened as she started to piece everything together. It all made sense to her now! Of course she would be a Darcsen-hater if she was a Valkyria; everyone knows that all Valkyria hate Darcsens, right? Her lithe body type and size was also similar to the Empire's Valkyria, other than a much smaller chest... And she did say that she had fought another Valkyria before; what else could beat a Valkyria except another one?

"Hey!" snapped Eratria as she beaned Edy in the head with an empty rifle clip.

"Huh?" Edy's attention was abruptly returned as she saw Eratria looking down at her.

"I said you've been staring at me for the past minute and a half," said the woman. "You're not going loopy on me are you?"

"N-no," mumbled Edy as she looked away. Not as loopy as you anyway... "I was just thinking about something is all."

"That's nice," said Eratria as she blew a cloud of smoke into the air. "Get up, it's time to go."

Edy glared at the woman for a moment but decided to stay quiet for the time being. As she returned to her feet, Ramona's voice came in over the radio.

"Edy, where are you?"

"Still in the trenches," answered Edy as she began to follow Eratria once again. "Shouldn't be too long before we get to you guys."

"Well that's good, but what are we gunna do about those armored guys?" asked Ramona.

"I haven't thought that far ahead yet..." admitted Edy as she rounded a corner...and ran straight into Eratria's back once more.

"Again?" sighed the woman as she looked at Edy.

"Can't you at least say something before you do that?!" fumed Edy as she stood back up.

"Pay attention next time," said Eratria. "At any rate, your friend's question is a valid one; what will you do about them?"

"I...I don't know!" answered Edy, throwing her hands in the air. "Am I supposed to come up with an answer for everything?!"

"...Aren't you supposed to be the leader?" asked Eratria as she tossed away her cigarette. "I believe that's part of the job. Are you completely inept at leadership? Or perhaps you slept your way to your current position..."

"What?!" Edy was nearing the breaking point with the woman but suddenly a thought came to her. Calm down, she's only going to feed off of anything I'd yell at her... If I really want to get back at her, prove her wrong...

"Well?" asked Eratria as her lips formed a smirk.

"...Explosives," Edy suddenly said.

"What?"

"If our bullets aren't working against them, what about things like grenades and lancer rounds?"

Eratria's smirk disappeared and a genuine smile replaced it. "There you go; looks like there's hope for you yet."

"Ramona, have Homer and Nadine pass out some extra grenades," Edy ordered over the radio. "If we can't shoot them, we can at least try to blow them up."

"Sure thing Sis," answered Ramona.

"Don't neglect the usefulness of the turrets," reminded Eratria. "They use the same anti personnel rounds that our tanks use. Those troopers' armor may be strong but they can't handle high caliber rounds like that."

"And you would know this how?" asked Ramona.

"Trust me," answered Eratria as she grabbed her cigarette pack.

"Yeah, sure," scoffed Ramona. "I'll put that on my list of things to do."

"I give up," sighed Eratria as she took out a cigarette. "I don't know how-"

Her sentence was interrupted by a sudden burst of gunfire that came uncomfortably close to the pair. A small group of the Imperial elites was discovered to be the source of the gunfire.

"Whoa, argue later guys," said Edy over the radio. "We gotta go."

As the two ran off one of the elites grabbed his radio.

"Targets found Sir; it looks like they're heading towards that base sitting on that nearby hill."

"It seems like there's more to those insects than I thought," answered Ty. "No doubt because of her. No matter, I want everyone to hit that base hard; don't stop the attack until it's ours!"

Just like Edy, there were a lot of things Ramona Linton would rather be doing in the hot afternoon sun, and none of them involved sweating like a porcavian while running around a dirty and dusty militia camp, all while giving out various orders at the same time. Playing the leader wasn't hard for Ramona, nor was it really a bad thing for her; it was her constant worry for Edy that was the biggest concern for her. Ramona wasn't the least bit comfortable leaving her Sis alone with...her. Eratria... Just the name alone was enough to piss Ramona off, let alone the fact the woman made every effort to irritate her whenever possible. But Edy was safe for the moment so she had to remain satisfied for the time being.

As she watched Homer and Nadine run around with literally armfuls of grenades, she wondered just how effective they really would be against these new enemies. She had never heard of armor that could repel bullets before, so who's to say grenades and such would work? The more she thought about the situation the less she was liking it. About the only good news was that there were no more waves of soldiers beyond the elites that were approaching - according to Marina anyway.

"Miss Ramona, we've given out all the remaining grenades."

"Huh?" Ramona looked to her left to see that Homer was poking her.

"You were spacing out," replied Homer.

"R-right, sorry about that," mumbled Ramona. "Uh, good job with the grenades."

"Um, are you okay?" asked Homer as he looked at Ramona's pale face. "You don't look so good..."

Now that Homer mentioned it, Ramona did feel a bit faint. "I think the sun is starting to get to me, Homer," she told him. "I'll be okay though, don't worry."

Homer wasn't totally convinced but decided to let her be. He went back to Nadine to discuss how much spare ammunition was left.

As he left Ramona began to feel increasingly dizzy and she decided to sit on the ground to try to clear her head. Generally the only time she ever felt like this was when she spent an evening drinking herself silly in one of Randgriz' higher end establishments. Even then the side effects were gone by end of the following morning. Come on, pull it together girl! She told herself as she closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. After about a minute the dizzying sensation went away and Ramona returned to her feet.

"Ramona, we're coming up to the base," Edy's voice sounded extremely panicked and the rest of her message explained why. "Those Imperials are right behind us, so we need some kind of covering fire or we'll never make it up the ladders!"

"Okay Sis," answered Ramona as she hurried over to Marina. "I need you to help me cover them Marina."

Marina gave her a confused look. "But...I won't do much good against them."

"We're all in the same boat," countered Ramona. "Even if we just slow em down, it'll be enough."

After a moment Marina nodded and grabbed her rifle. "...Okay."

" Elysse and Hector, you come too," said Ramona as she turned to the pair. "Let's see how well those guys can handle lancer rounds."

"You can count on me," answered Hector as he grabbed and loaded his launcher.

Elysse nodded and followed suit.

"H-hey what about meeee," asked Ted as the they ran towards the edge of the base. "Geez it was bad enough when only Marina ignored me."

"Almost there....Almost there...Almost...there..."

Edy kept repeating the same two words as she continued to run as fast as she could through the long stretch of trench that led toward her destination. Every step brought her one step closer to it but also brought her closer what could quite possibly be her death. Getting to the base was going to be the easy part. The problem was that the base itself was situated on a two-story hill. That in itself wouldn't have been a big problem except that there was another huge stretch of trench that ran horizontally against it. This meant that she and Eratria would have a long ladder climb in order to get inside the base and potentially become proverbial sitting ducks while doing so. As she continued to run she was able to make out a a couple of figures at the edge of the base.

"It seems your friend came through," noted Eratria as she followed Edy. "How nice."

"Well of course she did! What were you expecting?"

Eratria snorted before giving a response. "Don't ask."

Edy gritted her teeth but continued to run. She didn't care if this woman was or wasn't a Valkyrur, she was at the point where she didn't want to be anywhere near her anymore.

"Sis hurry," said Ramona as the two arrived at the ladders. "I can see the enemy, so just keep moving; we'll do what we can to keep them back."

Edy and Eratria had no choice but to trust her and thus began the dangerous climb.

Marina watched through her scope as more of the Imperial elites began appearing in the far side of the trench. With no known weak spot on these enemies she tried shooting various body parts in an attempt to hinder their progress. Another head shot yielded nothing a deflected shot. A perfect hit dead center in the chest of another was met with the same results. Even shots that landed on the extremities were largely ineffective. Marina let out a frustrated sigh as she reloaded her weapon. She had never faced an enemy quite like this before and it was beginning to fluster her. Still, so long as Edy and Eratria made it up the ladders her task would be successful. After all 'it doesn't matter how many enemies you defeat in a day, so long as the mission is completed', as her father put it. As she aimed once again at the group she noticed the larger soldier she had seen earlier suddenly appear out of the group, his large weapon put away on his back.

"...Ramona, that soldier..."

Ramona lowered her rifle and picked up her binoculars. Is he that Ty the Immortal guy that Era-... she was talking about? Ramona narrowed her eyes as she watched the soldier begin to bark out orders to his men. I gotta do something fast or Edy and...that woman won't be climbing very far!

"Elysse, Hector; think can you hit that big soldier back there?"

Elysse scratched her head. "Um...Which one's the big one?"

"Yeah, they all look big to me," added Hector.

Ramona resisted the urge to facepalm as she pointed out the specific soldier.

"Uh, I'll try," answered Elysse, kneeling as she raised her launcher. "That's a pretty long way you know."

"True enough," agreed Hector as he also knelt down to aim. "Still I'll give it a shot."

As the two prepared to fire, Ramona risked a glance a down from the edge of the hill. As she looked down she saw that Edy and Eratria were only a third of the way up on their respective ladders. Ugh come on Sis pick up the pace, she thought as she crawled back to the others.

"Come on... hiiit," cried Elysse as she fired. Unfortunately, her words alone weren't enough to guide her rocket to the intended target as the shot never even came close to hitting the trench, let alone any of the Imperials.

Hector's shot on the other hand was far more accurate but his shot hit a group of elites that were heading for the ladders.

Ramona risked another glance to examine the results and saw that only one of the soldiers had recovered from the blast.

"Hey it worked!" Ramona gave a little fist pump as there was finally something positive happening. "Keep it up guys!"

Bolstered by the results, Elysse and Hector quickly reloaded their launchers and fired a second salvo. This time both rounds hit inside the trench, taking out a sizable number of the troopers.

"Hell yeah, we got this!" cheered Ramona as she stood up. "Yeah! Take that Imperials! We ain't scared of you now!"

Marina remained silent as she continued to watch the battle through her scope, taking the occasional fruitless shot. She did not share Ramona's enthusiasm, partly because it wasn't her thing and partly because she saw that even though Elysse and Hector had been successfully taking out the Imperials, there were some that made it through and were getting very close to the ladders. Looking back to what she assumed to be the leader of the Imperial attack group she noticed he had turned around and appeared to be doing something near the back of the formation within the trench. A moment later she found out what it was; he had reappeared with an Imperial Anti-tank lance in each hand. Marina couldn't help but marvel at how much strength the man must have, considering that Largo was the only person she knew that could carry a launcher with one hand and even then he needed both hands to fire it. But something was off... He wasn't aiming upward at the group as logic would dictate, rather far lower. Suddenly Marina realized why. He was aiming at Edy and Eratria!

"Edy look out!" shouted Marina over the radio as the soldier fired the twin launchers, in what was quite possibly the loudest anyone had ever heard her speak.

Looking back and seeing the rockets coming at her, Edy completely froze in place. Eratria, however, was quick to react and jumped off her ladder and towards Edy. She had enough momentum to grab Edy and get the two airborne as well. It wasn't nearly enough to get the two far enough away from the rockets unfortunately and although the rockets missed the pair, they did explode on the trench wall where Edy's ladder was. The explosions were close enough to send the two crashing into the opposite trench wall as well as collapsing part of the trench itself. Eratria took the full force of both the blast and collision with the trench wall, while also cushioning Edy from the collision.

"Ugh..." Edy slowly stirred and rose to her knees. Her ears were ringing and her head felt like it was going to split open. She had a close call with a grenade once but that didn't compare one bit to what just happened.

I'm still in one piece somehow, she thought as her head began to clear up. The trench collapsed; We won't be able to go back that way. Speaking of which, what happened to Eratria... Edy turned and found that Eratria was crumpled against the wall and still unconscious. In addition she noticed that the woman's cloak had been torn off in the aftermath of the blast. Crawling to her, Edy turned Eratria over on her back to check for injuries. Edy gasped as she noted the woman's now revealed long hair. Instead of the Valkyrian silvery-white colored hair she had expected to see, it was the unmistakably Darcsen blue-black hair that she was looking at. This woman's a Darcsen?! No, no, no; this is all wrong! This doesn't make any sense... Edy's thoughts continued to race through her head as she tried to take in this new revelation. Argh, why did she have to be a Darcsen? Anything else would have made sense! Anything! But then Edy recalled the fact that Eratria never said a last name for herself, and Darcsens have no last names usually. And then the one time she saw her eyes during their first encounter yesterday...They were the dark blue that were common amongst Darcsens. Somehow everything about Eratria made sense and at the same time made no sense at all.

Ramona's panicked voice came in over the radio. "Sis are you alright? I can't see you! Answer me, please!"

"Yeah, I'm okay," answered Edy as she began checking Eratria. "Eratria's been knocked out, but there's something you should know..."

"What's that?"

"Eratria's-"

A sudden noise from the debris from the collapsed trench interrupted her sentence. Looking up, she watched as an Imperial elite emerged from the debris.

"Damn, why'd he go and do that when I was right under those two girls," the elite grumbled as he stood up. "My damn gun's under all that crap now too...Huh?!"

Edy quickly grabbed for her Mags but realized it wasn't on her. Looking around she saw it was lying several yards away. Edy knew she only had two choices at this point- run and leave Eratria to her fate, or stay and fight. As much as she couldn't stand the older woman, Edy wasn't so cold-hearted as to abandon her. Besides, Eratria had a lot of explaining to do. Acting quickly, Edy scampered over to her weapon and pointed it at the Imperial, who, in turn, simply laughed at her.

"Well, well. What's this?" The Imperial stared at Edy through his helmet. "Looks like I might not be so unlucky after all! Once I kill you and that woman, I'll get promoted for sure!"

"S-stay back!" shouted Edy as she pointed her weapon at the soldier. The elite responded by slowly and deliberately pulling out a large combat knife.

"You really think that's going to do anything, little girl?" The Imperial laughed as he slowly advanced toward Edy. "I'm going to have some fun with you!"

Edy wasn't sure what kind of 'fun' he had in mind but she wasn't about to find out. Edy quickly emptied her Mags clip and watched as the bullets simply bounced off of the soldier's armor. She ejected the clip but her hands were shaking so badly that she dropped the fresh clip she had to replace it. And then before she knew it the Imperial was right in front of her. Using the only option she had left she activated her Flame Flail, aiming straight at the soldier's helmet.

"Woah! Hot hot hot!" The Imperial backed up a few steps and quickly tore off his helmet. Looking back at Edy his expression was nothing short of livid. "That's it! You asked for it!"

Edy ejected the empty FF cannister but before she could reload another one the soldier charged directly into her, causing her to fall backwards as well as losing her weapon. As Edy got back to her feet she was suddenly grabbed by the soldier and was thrown hard into the adjacent trench wall.

"Too easy!" The Imperial could hardly believe the ease in which he was roughing up this little Gallian mouse. He waited until she got to her feet before hitting her stomach as hard as he could. He watched as she fell to her knees from the pain before smashing his right fist into the left side of her face, causing her to sprawl backwards onto the ground.

There was never a time in Edy's life where she had felt so much pain at once; not even the horrible events of Marberry and the injuries she received when she rescued Ramona compared to what she was feeling now. She was no amateur when it came to melee fighting but this man was on a completely different level than her. As she slowly got back to her knees she could only watch as the Imperial shoved her back down to the ground and pinned her down with his left foot. Her eyes widened as she saw him raise his combat knife. Using every bit of her strength she was able to stop the killing blow mid-strike by pushing back on the man's wrists. It was only temporary though, as his strength outmatched hers and the knife was slowly pushed towards Edy's neck. Soon Edy could feel the sharp point of the knife pressing against the skin of her neck.

I'm...I'm going to die right here! Edy couldn't hold back her tears as she struggled to keep the blade from ending her life. Homer...Everyone...I'm so sorry....I'm-