skycomv2: Well, James Rooney, "the small fry soldier" will soon prove to be a major antagonist. There IS a big cheese commander – Colonel Nicholas – but he won't have a relevant entrance until much later. I mean, I could introduce him, but it would be pretty pointless in this stage of the story.
Xanthera: You are going to leave a long review with your opinions and suggestions after you finish reading this blurb. DO IT. DO IT NOW.
And now, our two Imperial protagonists deal with the aftermath of running into a town like a pair of avenging angels…
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Celes watched the last Gallian hunter disappear over the crest of the hill, arms flapping and discipline gone, and sighed with relief, although also with no small amount of disappointment that he hadn't killed more of them. Operation complete.
It was then that Celes realized just how tired he was. Pipelining was incredibly taxing, using muscles normally not exercised in running, and as he lowered his carbine, every muscle in his core and legs decided to melt into a puddle of wet tissue. The light medical duffel on his back suddenly felt like a two ton weight, the rifle an anvil, forcing him to sit down on the spot, head reeling.
Lieutenant Karst was better, if a bit stiff, but then again, his formal walking pace always appeared so. It was with such a pace that the commanding officer strode to his subordinate, sidearm holstered and hidden once more. Instead of addressing him orally, though, the Lieutenant gently nudged him with a boot.
The former medical student started, and twisted his head to look. "What is it, sir?" The informal method of greeting was a bit of surprise – then he realized just how his voice sounded to himself, thin and distant. The blood rushing to his head made things hard to hear, disrupting his concentration and perception. He blinked. He knew that, he realized with consternation. Truly he was in a sorry state if he couldn't even dredge up minor facts of medicine from his brain.
The Lieutenant watched the changing expressions with an amused smile, waiting for Celes to realize they weren't out of trouble yet.
He wasn't disappointed; Celes swore furiously and lurched back up, hands pawing at himself searching for the proper kit. They slid over the stock of his carbine, adjusted the sweat soaked cloth over his brow and eye, and came to rest on the duffel. His eyes narrowed in comprehension, and he slid it in front of him, opening it and plunging his hands in immediately, confirming the presence of bandages, anesthetics, antibiotics, and more.
Those same eyes widened again when he realized the morality issue he had just brought down on himself - how could he enjoy killing, and yet still work as a doctor without hypocrisy? He shook his head, purging it of the bloodlust that had come over him in those moments of combat. It was over, and he never wanted to do that again. When he looked up at his commanding officer, who had obviously known just what he was feeling, he felt idiotic and unworthy of the smile still on the Lieutenant's face. Wearily standing up, he snapped a quick salute, half-serious, but also half-mocking. Receiving one in turn, he rushed off into the village, looking for the injured. He had lives to save.
Painting his smile into a more realistic worried expression, Lieutenant Karst jogged off to find the leaders of the village. Diplomacy was his role. Pacification was Celes's.
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"People of this village!" rang the resounding call. "It is safe now! The killers are gone! Come out, and bring your wounded!"
So Lieutenant Karst blared in his best parade voice, standing in what must have been the village center, despite its position ahead of most of the town. It was the same area that they had begun the fight. The area was marred by the dead man in the fountain and the corpse the fallen woman. More importantly, however, to avoid any bad first impressions, were the corpse of the now-headless militia woman and the young girl who had plastered herself onto his leg and sobbingly refused to let go. The Lieutenant took it in stride. She was not so different than his own daughter, then.
His voice was one of command, and its volume meant there wasn't a person in the hamlet that couldn't hear it, even if they were hunkered in a cellar. Slowly, other faces began to appear, at windows and through slightly opened doors. The sight of a man that none of them recognized, with his hawkish, almost noble voice, was almost enough to send them into hiding again, but the young girl and dead Gallian soldier were just enough impetus to guide the legs of one man into stepping out of his doorway, carefully watching his step and surroundings as if he expected some sort of trap was laid.
Almost as if that was a signal, the rest of the survivors poured out into the streets. There were calls for loved ones, screams of grief as they found friends or family dead, cries of anguish upon finding wounds. A general scramble ensued as men, women, and children combined filtered through the hamlet as they pursued the fates of the others in town.
For some, though, that agenda was finding out just what had transpired, and that meant confronting this strange newcomer who spoke with such authority. Lieutenant Karst soon found himself loosely surrounded by a quartet of men hefting improvised weaponry – a shovel, a cooking pot, for example. Unperturbed, he kept a hand on the little girl's head, patting it in the most reassuring way possible. He eyed the men; three of them were Darcsen, but one was definitely purebred Gallian. None of the Darcsens, not even those running elsewhere, wore their traditional patterned capes, but that was to be expected – with the Gallians obviously fighting to kill the Darcsen populace, the first instinct would be to ditch any blatant signs of Darcsen heritage, although it probably wouldn't matter in the end.
Face offended, one of the older Darcsen men dropped his hammer and began coaxing the girl away from the Lieutenant's leg, murmuring gentle condolences and kind requests. It proved quite fruitless.
Scowling, another Darcsen – a young man, perhaps in his early twenties – brandished his fencepost as threateningly as he could underneath Lieutenant Karst's chin, which was to say not very. His eyes, though, were cobalt flames, speaking of violence and hatred. "Let her go."
A normal person might have rolled his or her eyes. It was hardly as if he were keeping the girl near him on purpose. Instead, without any sign of embarrassment or malice, he reached down and joined the elder Darcsen in peeling her away from his knee. It took a little bit, but soon she was stuck to a leg of her own race. The elder Darcsen couldn't resist in the show of slight annoyance, but still warmly guided both of them away from the scene, hugging her close as he walked in a strangely inhibited gait away from, as he had apparently whispered, "the good man".
That was a good sign.
Unfortunately, the younger Darcsen's expression was still dangerous. Lieutenant Karst took the first step in conversation. "I am sorry for your loss, sir." He bowed his head. "We came as soon as we heard the shooting." He glossed over the fact that they had been searching for civilization in the first place, but it was hardly as if that were necessary for the Darcsen to know at the time.
"You're an Imp." The voice was flat, speaking volumes about the anger he was restraining. The fencepost drifted closer to Lieutenant Karst's neck, attempting to intimidate him as a blade would.
The officer sighed. He really hadn't expected his disguise to last any longer than seconds. Instead, he played that card on purpose, pushing for a change of view. "An Imp with considerably more open-mindedness than the Gallians. Look at your home and tell me you agree."
Even knowing that an Imperial stood in front of him, representing forced labor in camps and open persecution further east, the young Darcsen couldn't resist the command in the man's voice, and cast his gaze upon the dead Gallian. "She was protecting us," he offered uncertainly.
This statement was almost enough to make even the Lieutenant put his head into his hands and weep for the idiocy of prejudice. Said Gallian woman was in the process of being kicked by a vindictive little girl, the older man watching over her, not joining in but looking as though he wanted to. The mother's body had already been covered with a sheet, a white shroud that was quickly staining red. "You know as I do that that is simply not true. You owe us our lives."
With a growl, the Darcsen refuted as best he could. "We could protect ourselves."
"With a fencepost."
Realizing that the need for a weapon was past, and that it was doing little more than make him look silly, the Darcsen cast aside the wooden post and squared himself against the Imperial. "Fine, you ride in here like a Valkyrur to save the day from the greedy Darcsen." His voice dripped with sarcasm, referencing the ages old tale, one that was more often than not a source for the anti-Darcsen prejudice. "But that doesn't explain why an Imp would want to do so in the first place. Shouldn't you be running away?" He took a cocky step forward, getting into the Lieutenant's space in blatant superiority. "I heard the guns on the Marberry shore stop. The Gallian army has come to kick you out of our homeland."
"Actually, the militia, but true, I lost most of my unit on Marberry." The flat statement took the Darcsen by surprise, and he reeled backwards. The other two men, watching the confrontation, were affected as well. They raised their own objects threateningly. This man had fought against their saviors!
The Darcsen waved his hands, convincing them to lower their weapons instead. His face was now one of sympathy and yet confusion. Slowly, he offered a hand. "Charles, the spokesman of this village, Lia." The gesture was one to placate, as he fully realized the implications of the Imperial's presence. By all accounts, he should have been on the run before the Gallian army caught them. Indeed, Charles should have taken his fencepost and smashed his enemy's skull apart. But the obvious move of charity, to run in and protect Darcsens, of all people, was too significant to ignore.
The Lieutenant smiled inwardly, although he wore nothing more than an expression of weariness and sadness, and took the hand. "Lieutenant Karst, leader of Unit 29-4. Walk with me. We have much to talk about."
And so the leaders of both Lia and Unit 29-4 discussed the attack, going through the streets to observe the damage. The two Imperials had been fast to arrive on the scene; in all, there were only a few dead, although a much greater number, perhaps some twenty, were injured in some manner. Lieutenant Karst offered his reasoning for the assault, that anti-Darcsen individuals were using the opportunity while the area was still confused and under neither Imperial nor Gallian control to follow up on their beliefs. For the use of Imperial weapons, Charles was able to offer his own idea, that they could not use the registered Gallian arms as they would most certainly be traced in the end back to their users.
They found themselves in agreement at every idea, and it wasn't long before they were fast friends. One had fought for the other, and now the other was prepared to return the favor in any way possible.
Lieutenant Karst smiled inside again. He had Lia's support.
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Meanwhile, Celes had won his own battle. Words speak louder than actions, and the sight of him bodily supporting a freshly treated, stitched, and bandaged man with what had been a fatal stomach wound as they walked out of an alleyway was enough to have the Darcsen populace scrambling to help him, regardless of whatever apprehension they felt at his one-eyed appearance, his hair so close to Darcsen blue-black and yet not quite.
Unable to properly work on the run, the former medical student had promptly turned himself into a current head surgeon, and worked the part to the full extent of his ability. The town square had been converted into a field hospital, going so far as to throw up cloth canopies to shield both the yet to be treated and recovering patients from the sun.
The village had no doctor of their own with the knowledge to treat wounds such as these – war wounds – but Celes was able to take that gap. He may have never gotten his diploma, but it hardly mattered, as he had had everything but the headmaster's approval.
His face was an interesting sight; with a surgical mask over his mouth and a band of gauze over his brow, only a single eye could be seen from his entire face. But what an observant eye it was, the source of input for those clever hands to work their own little magic.
Brusque, barked requests for tools and supplies were all that streamed forth from behind the cloth, as he practically danced around his borrowed operating table, his own tools and supplies augmented by those dug out of Lia's own facilities. His assistants did their best to keep up, handing him everything from alcohol pads to forceps, from ragnaid to bandages, from medical needles to painkillers, as he held back his weariness from combat with the looming problem of saving lives. It was hard to believe that so shortly before, he had wanted to do little more than end them.
The catharsis was welcomed. Celes hadn't felt this good for years.
His eye didn't actually see skin, blood, organs, or bones. He saw a diagram of a body, with glaring red arrows pointing towards what was wrong. His intuition supplied a diagnosis within moments of seeing his patient, and years of schooling formed step-by-step paths of action that he took as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Painkillers to calm the injured, complete anesthesia if the wounds were serious. A meticulously modified combat knife turned scalpal to open, forceps to remove and rearrange in preparation for healing. Sutures to seal, bandages to protect. Ragnaid if needed, especially in an implanted form – that was a surprise to most, who had never seen the procedure before. A small amount of inactivated ragnaid, perhaps the size of a small ball bearing or maybe a peanut, was embedded into damaged tissue before the wounds were sealed. The body's heat and metabolism would slowly activate the material bit by bit, and by the time the tissue healed enough to reject the matter, it would be all used up, broken down harmlessly. It was a recently developed idea, one that had worked marvelously without side effects – and in the eyes of the inhabitants of Lia, it elevated him to a godlike status.
Not that he noticed. He was too busy working.
Some were lost causes from the end, and all he could apply was a cocktail of painkillers – not ragnaid, for that was needed elsewhere, and the temporary curative effect would do nothing more than extend the person's pain. But not a single patient that he thought was even remotely savable escaped him into the realm of the afterlife.
It was when the last seriously injured patient had been stabilized, three shots that fortunately had clustered into a single lung of a young worker instead of spreading the damage, that they heard the incoming tank.
With shouts, the men of Lia scrambled to arms – many of the stolen Imperial arms had been abandoned, and now they wielded them personally. The wounded were hurried off into homes as quickly as possible, but carefully as Celes shouted out with frustration to avoid ruining his handiwork.
Lieutenant Karst brusquely stopped Charles with a swung arm from running to Lia's edge, with nothing more than a half-empty automatic rifle to confront a tank. "As admirable as your bravery is, stopped by seven sixty-two a tank is not," he said calmly. Letting the young spokesman see his own incredulous expression in the reflection of his glasses, he turned away and produced his binoculars, deciding on just what was coming.
"Them again." The racists had gotten a tank, apparently, and they were charging it full speed towards Lia. Inwardly, he felt a sense of disappointment – he recognized that tank as the same one that had made such a mess of his unit at Marberry, unique, like no tank in the Imperial files. Lowering them, he began connecting the dots. That one Gallian militiawoman he had talked to had been fighting alongside this tank…
With a sigh, he regretted having to kill her squadmates, but he couldn't very well let them run rampant and kill them all. He barked out orders, to get away from a direct confrontation but to hide once more, to try and lure the tank close in where they could swarm over it and render its armored superiority moot.
And the townspeople followed, sliding back in cellars, ducking into alleyways and behind walls. One even saw fit to hunker in the recently cleaned fountain. They were truly his. All he had to do was pull through here, and Lia would find a way for his remaining men to escape guaranteed.
Soon, they were crouched in waiting, tensing as the massive and yet sleek vehicle rolled past the fence and between the first houses, waiting for the Lieutenant's signal.
The tank rolled to a halt in front of the improvised medical facility, blocked from further progress. The signs of treatment were obvious, and confusing, just as Lieutenant Karst had hoped. He waited, judging if this was the time, if the tank was not going to try and barrel through the equipment, measuring distances from the hiding places to the tank's hull.
And he gave the order, a sharp bark that reached every fighter ready.
"Go!"
Like a sharp sudden jolt of lightning, Celes bolted from underneath a shroud, where he had posed as a corpse. Crossing the ten or so feet that separated him from the tread, he dodged around to clamber on the lower rear of the tank, dodging the radiator that emanated a fantastic amount of heat – truly, the tank had rushed to the battle as soon as it could. Knife in one hand, carbine clasped in the other, he hammered the next few steps to the turret, jumping on top of it, preparing to damage anything he could reach. He had to distract the tank before it saw the rest of his rushing compatriots.
The enemy did him a favor though, and opened the hatch for him.
Cursing with surprise and frustration - he hadn't expected to have to face off against anyone in person! - the corporal flipped the knife in his hand into a forward grip, skulking closer in preparation for a killing lunge, a lunge that he sincerely hoped he would not have to make.. How he wished he had a grenade! Wedged into the radiator, it would make this business of antitank combat much more palatable. Now they had to deal with the crewmen themselves, and that meant possibly having to kill them. Swallowing his disgust, he prepared to make the strike anyways. It was that or let everyone else die.
But what happened next surprised everyone.
A Gallian lieutenant, as obvious by the cap – there hadn't been a lieutenant in the racist detachment – rose out of the hatch instead, staring at the pointed end of the blade, hardly expecting such a turn of events.
More importantly, he was the same man that the two Imperials had encountered in the Kloden Wildwood, the same man who had honored Fritz's death, the "friend" of the Lieutenant.
Even more importantly, he cradled an unconscious Darcsen girl in his arms.
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Long chapter is long! I didn't have much to do today, and I'm already working on the next blurb. I hope this made up for my lack of relative speed.
In other news, I'm wondering if I couldn't take a spin on assigning Celes the role of the growling, masked Imperial soldier in the beginning of Chapter 2, where Isara and Martha are staring down the barrels of two Imperial guns before Welkin comes in with a fencepost. The dialogue there is on the surface plain insulting – but more I read it, the more it could be read as a double entendre. Not that kind of double entendre, you pervert.
In other other news, I've noticed the ability to insert an actual formatted line on the website instead of this line of asterisks I've been using. Can someone tell me how to do that? Thanks in advance, mate.
In other other other news, when I get five (or more!) reviews from here (23), I'll post a character profile for Celes like many others have done with their own OCs. When I get ten, I'll post Lieutenant Karst's. (Oh gods, it's going to look so retarded…) A few potentials will probably be made up, though, to accommodate for the unique Imperial side.
Give me your ideas, reviews, complaints, compliments, notices of typos, anything! An attention-whore is me!
