DC20: Some of it was a bit choppy, yeah, but that's quality control for you. And you hink you see where I'm going? :O
Soviet Sniper92: That second project is really an extra, something I can't work on for long periods of time even if I wanted to. (Which I do, but I force myself to work on this first.) I know the whole "multi-tasked into oblivion" story, so I hope to keep myself in the black.
What happens now? Welkin arrives on the scene in the ruins of Lia. What can the Gallians do?
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It was Fouzen all over again.
Welkin held his head in his hands as he sat on the turret of the Edelweiss, heartbroken beyond all belief. All around, members of Squad 7 helped the survivors of the shelling, whether it was doing their best to help with the first aid or digging for the bodies of those lost. Shock and disbelief were their two most prominent expressions – not even Largo, the Europan War One veteran, could keep a straight face.
Alicia trudged toward him, tears freely falling from her face. "Lieutenant…" she began, but her voice cracked, and she had to stop.
"Sergeant," was all the response from the nature lover. He didn't raise his head.
"Lieu- Welkin, Charles…" The expression on her face said it all. The spokesman hadn't survived the shelling.
That bad news was enough to stir the officer out of his stupor. "I'm sorry," he started, but he stopped himself before he said anything else. What could he be sorry for?
Alicia took a step closer, then abandoned all pretense of professionalism and hopped onto the Edelweiss as well. Settling next to Welkin, the two of them looked out on the ruins together.
There wasn't a single structure that had survived the blast. Twisted timbers and broken walls stretched towards the sky like the fingers of dying men reaching to the heavens, and huge pillars of smoke rose from the smoldering piles of rubble, thick enough to darken the sky above the entire town – what remained of it, anyways.
It was a depressing sight. It was so much like Fouzen, where an entire concentration camp had been burned down – each and every prisoner still inside.
Minutes passed. It was when one of the Darcsen inhabitants, busy at work digging out a house with three members of Squad 7, uncovered a shawl that a dull shock went through Welkin, reminding him of who they were also looking for. "Isara-"
"Your sister – "
They both stopped, surprised at the simultaneous realization but too pained to laugh at it. Alicia coughed into her hand, hiding her face in embarrassment. "Do you think she's alive?" she offered half-heartedly.
Welkin hung his head low. "I hope so, Alicia." Isara hadn't been seen for the entire time they'd been here, by now a few, long, painful hours. She was possibly still alive, buried underneath a rubble pile.
More likely, though, she was dead.
He shook his head to fling off the horrible thought. "Who called in the barrage, anyways?"
His second in command couldn't offer anything more than a shrug. "A reconnaissance team spotted some of the Imperials patrolling the area and thought that they had occupied the town."
Welkin wrinkled his brow in confusion, and turned slightly closer to Alicia. "When did we start patrolling? That's the job of the regulars – who still aren't here yet, might I add."
She could only shrug again, numb with shock and pain. "I don't know. But I think it has something to do with the attack that Charles told us, when we gave Isara to Lieutenant Karst's care."
Welkin nodded. Men in Gallian uniform, armed with Imperial weapons, assaulting the town's civilians without provocation? The story had been so irregular that he'd begun to write a report to send to the higher-ups, but he'd only been half done before he had had to leave, needing to touch base with Squad 7 once more. Charles had promised him that they'd finish when he returned.
Charles was able to help him no longer. His still form rested underneath a shroud in the town square.
They'd been so close to Lia already, simply coming to meet up with Isara and hopefully take her back to their encampment on Marberry beach. Instead, they'd received an order to head to Lia – and find "a surviving Imperial force", most likely the same force they'd met with earlier.
Information swirled and clashed, between what Welkin and Alicia knew, what the commanders knew, what the Imperials that they'd entrusted with Isara knew, and what the populace knew. In the end though, from their point of view the entire situation had devolved into one deformed mass, the entire fiasco unclear and clouded.
"Sir!" Brigitte Stark, otherwise known as Rosie by the flaming red of her hair, marched up to the Edelweiss. Her rifle was slung over her shoulder, as she held something in her arms.
"What is it, Corporal Stark?" Welkin asked tiredly.
"It looks like the soldiers who called in the barrage had a point. We just unearthed this from the spokesman's house." She offered up the object in her hands.
It was an Imperial helmet.
Welkin slowly reached out for the armor, taking the charred and dented object into his own arms – Rosie stepped back, slumping as she began to feel the weight of the crisis on her shoulders as well. Numbly, he wiped some grime away from the inside of the helmet – the faceplate had been lost somewhere along the way – revealing a line of stamped text.
Lance Corporal 29-4 Celestyn Faas Jacelern.
He passed the helmet to Alicia, letting her take in the bad news as well. After she'd swallowed the information as well, they looked at each other significantly.
Isara was dead, no doubt. She'd been left with Celes as her doctor when they'd left – and if Celes had died in the shelling, in his heavy Imperial armor, there was no way Isara could have survived either.
As he swallowed this huge bite of information, he noted in a detached fashion that they had another problem, though. Could they truly say that they'd trusted Isara to the hands of an Imperial?
At length, Welkin made his decision. "Good work, Rosie."
That was all his psyche could take though, with the knowledge of his sister's death, a fact he could not share just yet. It felt like the world was opening up beneath his feet, dropping him into a cesspool of tragedy. War was hell, and with that thought he threw the helmet into the ground with a shout. "DAMN IT!"
The scream turned the dozen visible heads of Squad 7 towards the sight of their cracking commander, and undoubtedly the rest stopped their work in shock. Hurriedly, Alicia hurried him into the Edelweiss proper, shielding him from the worried gazes of his subordinates.
The rest of the day passed by in a blur:
Alicia talked with a Sergeant James Rooney, who stuttered over his report of calling in a barrage after seeing Imperials enter the village, then being ambushed by a second group. He seemed shaky, but it was all attributable to stress and trauma, something that they were all under. Perhaps he had been wrong in ordering artillery so hastily, but they couldn't condemn him for it –
They stopped digging around the spokesman's house after they found a shred of Isara's shawl, recognizing the pattern immediately. There was no doubt that she was dead now. The Darcsen Nadine offered up the scrap to Welkin from her crouched position sadly, face speaking volumes about her feelings of loss –
Largo and Rosie talked with a few of the survivors, who numbered in the few dozen. Apparently, yes, there had been Imperials in town. When confronted with why, though, and asked why they hadn't fought back, the townspeople fell silent and turned away, shunning their militia uniforms. Welkin absently wondered if it was time for him to inform the rest of Squad 7 of the earlier attack, but in the end, decided against it once more. It would only fracture the militia more, something that they couldn't afford –
Alicia acted as Welkin's voice again, organizing a mass funeral for all those killed in the attack. Tearfully, Squad 7 helped the survivors began to dig the graves –
And then it was already the funeral proper as the sun set. No one could keep a straight face, not even the most hardened of them, as Rosie sang a song of goodwill, her gift to Isara that the Darcsen would never actually hear. The Darcsen shawls of the dead were propped up as grave markers, covering the new graveyard in a pattern of color, acting as a last remembrance to the dead. There were less graves than markers; not all of the dead had been found, including Isara –
And the army, almost a week late by now, finally rolled in force, throwing their weight around and taking credit for everything. They missed the looks of disgust that Alicia sent them. "If they'd been here when Isara got hit… we never would have had to go find a doctor. Never would have met the Imperials, never would have had to leave Isara… and she wouldn't have died…" Welkin had nothing to say on the situation. It was just a string of bad events, one after the other –
They returned to the Marberry encampment with the survivors, who were now little more than homeless refugees. The people, almost all Darcsens, took care to isolate themselves away from the militiamen, setting up their sleeping quarters far away from the soldiers' and giving them dark looks whenever they did pass near. Many of the members of Squad 7 flinched at the obvious animosity, but left them alone, knowing the duress that the refugees must have been undergoing after having their homes and families shelled into oblivion. Welkin and Alicia wanted to break the real news, but all talk of Darcsens led straight back to Isara, and that was a subject that they couldn't touch. In the end, the subject dropped from their minds entirely, as personal grief took them over –
A few days later, Squad 7 returned to base, delivering the survivors into the capital to be dispersed anew into other towns and cities as new homes. Welkin finished the report to the militia commander, Captain Varrot. But before he turned it in, undoubtedly springing countless investigations, Welkin uncovered a photo that had been taken of Squad 7 some time earlier and put it somewhere in the barracks where they could all see it, as a reminder to stick together despite the losses. The entirety of Squad 7 was posed in front of or on top of the Edelweiss, smiling brightly, all ready to fight for Gallia, captured in sepia tones.
In the middle of them all, Isara stood proudly in front of her handiwork, smiling, unaware of her ultimate fate.
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Colonel Nicholas calmly flicked a bit of ash of the end of his cigarette, before bringing it back to his thin lips. His solid frame rested in an imposing fashion behind an impressive wooden desk, in a relatively opulent office – silver hair matched his beard and mustache, marking him as one of Gallia's aristocratic officers in the regular army. Rooney's knees were practically shaking as he stood in front of the powerful figure, knowingly full well what the man could do to him.
"You've done good work, Rooney," he drawled, sounding almost bored. "You managed to clean up your mess a little bit in the end. Creative use of artillery."
Rooney saluted and narrowly avoided decapitating himself with his own hand. "Sir! Thank you sir!"
"Unfortunately, you never did hunt down those Imperials." Although the Colonel's expression never changed from boredom, a predatory tone crept into his voice.
"No sir! They had overwhelming numbers, sir!"
The Colonel laughed, a humorless bark. "I don't truly care about a bunch of Imperials running around. Actually, I'd prefer them to survive as long as possible. We haven't caught them yet either. Some of our army patrols are speculating that they've already escaped – no mean feat. That might also have to do with the fact that several of them disappeared completely." He didn't sound like he cared, however. "Impressive."
Rooney stayed silent, unaware as to what the Colonel was getting at.
"Back on topic. You only ever managed to cleanse one village, Rooney. You did a good enough job, but it was still nothing like the five you promised me that you could get in the delay I made."
He tried to salute again – realized his hand was already at his brow, and froze instead. "The first village somehow was ready for us, sir! They ambushed us as we attacked, and went so far as to use themselves as bait, sir!"
He raised bushy grey eyebrow. "Oh, really? That is interesting." He took a pull from the cigarette, letting a stream of smoke blow out into the air. "However, there were survivors. Not many, mind you, but still, there were. They aren't talking yet, but news might get out. We'll silence them before they get settled into their new homes and jobs. At least that Welkin Gunther was so kind as to go through the official channels, so we have all the paperwork." The man gruffly tapped a folder on his desk – full of documents, it looked important to Rooney's eyes. It probably was, too.
"In any case, I guess I can forgive you this time. The situation is still salvageable – but it's going to take me a lot of resources to clean up these survivors. You won't be participating in that, though – I'm going to get you transferred into the intelligence department. There's a job I want you to do…"
"Sir, I don't know, I think I'd rather stay in the militia – " he began to protest.
"You are going in intelligence. Did you not say you were mine to command when I gave you this marvelous opportunity earlier?"
Rooney pulled a shaky nod. "And I thank you, sir, but after these experiences, these complications, I don't think I'm cut out any longer – "
"Nonsense. You will be transferred in intelligence as a… promotion… for your deeds in encountering an Imperial remnant. After all, your 'experiences' should make you even more suitable for this job. Consider it my way of saying thank you."
The Darcsen hunter saluted again, awkwardly jerking his hand back and forth. "Sir!"
The colonel smiled, a cat in cream. "That's a good Darcsen hunter. Really, the Empire has the right idea about those pigs." He coughed. "Excuse me. Now, we'll be sending you to the Federation for this…"
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This entire blurb has the feeling of a "really dead montage", but… we all know what's actually going to happen.
I really am rushing through here – I want to return to my main characters, damn it! :p
But just what arse-pull am I going to use to bring them back to life after they even went as far as finding remnants of their clothing?
