Cloner4000: Are you calling for an awkward scene? :p
DC20: Thank you, sah! Corrections made. I'll make sure to not right so drunkenly in the future – oh wait a minute. *facepalm*
049 Faithless Observor: Yeah… the whole in/out danger thing is just what has to happen as long as they stay in Gallia. Don't worry – at the end of this last arc, they (finally) make their belated escape. Oh shat, spoiler. As for the absolute evil of the characters… I plan on revealing the reasoning for the Darcsen hatred later. Colonel Nicholas is a big bad who has a reason for his beliefs… a huge and legitimate one, one that is extremist, but well-intentioned (kind of). Oh, and by the way, it involves Theimer and his previously introduced "last thesis". Right now, though, it seems really heavyhanded even to me. In other news, defensive writing is defensive. :p
Okay, so here comes Valkyria Chronicles 2. OMFGWTFBBQLOLWUTROFLCHINESECOMMUNISTCHAIRMAN. Since we have no clues as to what events it will entail yet, I'll not let the idea affect my story. If its events can be incorporated, I will, but if not, then it will be yet another story that never happened. Sorry, Ramal. :p
Also, where the cell did I get the phrase, "Blue Unicorn of Gallia"?
One Gallian regular, armed with a gun and rum courage. One Darcsen militiawoman, unarmed and taken by surprise. One unconscious Imperial medical student come soldier, unconscious and suffering from wounds. Now all three meet in an epic clash… okay, more like hospital brawl.
More sensitive readers, be warned. There is some graphic, brutal, violence in here, along with depictions of attempted rape…
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Isara had just been shot two days before, but there was something completely different from a shot without warning to a cold-blooded hold up.
Had she not already known the pain and extremely high chance of death associated with bullet wounds, not only from her experiences with Squad 7 but on a personal basis as well, she might have wanted to just take the bullet right then and there.
She knew that being shot in life was nothing like flesh wounds the novels claimed them to be. That, and the position of the pistol gave her little hope of survival. No one lived with their brains splattered out in a narrow arc outside their skulls.
"Please…" she murmured, unmoving. Why was Ralf here? Why had he been drinking? Why was he armed, and why her?
And please what? Please tell me what you're doing? Please spare me? Please shoot me and get it over with?
The regular's only response was to grab her roughly with an arm around the neck in a chokehold, pressing her upright against him. She fought back, kicking at his feet, but the jab of the gun at her temple froze her solid again.
"Go ahead," he whispered into her ear, suddenly sinister and malicious. His proximity was disgusting – a lingering miasma of moonshine, rank with tinges of poisons and other substances not meant for human consumption, made it almost impossible to breathe, not like she was anyways. "Go ahead an' scream. No one cun har ya scream in heeyah. Wallz ah toooooo thick."
Like your accent, Isara wanted to rebut, but the press of his forearm against her throat suddenly cut off any air she could have used to speak. Spluttering, clawing at her captor's arm, lashing out with her feet – none of them had any effect. Slowly, the world began to turn dark around the edges, but she refused to give him the pleasure of hearing her…
A sharp sudden pain along her side was followed by the feeling of the world spinning around her; by the time she'd come to, she realized she'd been thrown down, knocking over chairs and tables in the process. The noise must have been immense – but no one came running in the long time it took for her to climb back to her knees. A chill ran down her spine as she considered Ralf's earlier statement, that no one would ever hear her – and the only other person in the room, Celes, was out like a light.
Ralf was strong, that much was apparent. She would never even stand a chance in a fistfight with him.
She looked back up just in time to see a hand snatch her collar, yanking her back upright – then into the air, as her feet left the floor. His coarse features filled her bleary vision; they were fixed in a predator's smile, a crocodile that had spotted a bare bottom.
One sharp exhalation later, she spat into his face, the only way to communicate what she thought of him that moment.
There was the clatter of metal, but before she could figure out where it came from, a blow smashed across her cheek, jolting her vision to the side, only to watch the world swing to the other side with a second open-palmed slap. He pulled her up off the floor again, dangling her from a hard grip on her shirt, and only then did she realize that he'd put the gun down to beat her barehanded.
She noted that even as a third blow sent her flying back with the sound of ripping cloth. When she hit the floor in a roll, there was a cold pressure against her chest, which she deduced must have been the floor against bare skin.
That was when she lost all rational thought, when his booted toe left an imprint in her stomach.
Thus began a cycle of brutal, systematic beating. She would stagger to her feet, only to receive a hit that floored her. She'd get hit again while on the ground, recoiling back upright away from it – and be too off-balance to answer the next blow again. Her arms bruised, her lip bled, her flesh crushed, her legs buckled. Furniture crashed, as she attempted to pull herself up onto beds or light chairs, or use them as temporary shields.
Isara never gave him the pleasure of hearing her scream.
She must have gone up and down a dozen times before she found herself unable to get up. Coughing out a spray of blood, she hazily felt herself being picked up and dumped roughly onto a table that was still upright. When she felt hands pawing across her body, her only thoughts were those of confusion.
It was when she felt her pants being dragged down her legs that she could snap back into action, throwing a punch into her molester's face. Something cracked. Not her knuckles.
The hands flew off of her with a cry of pain; immediately, she rolled off of the wooden furniture and dragged her clothing back up to its normal position. Futilely, she looked down and pulled at her shirt – the entire front had been ripped open, and for a few wasted moments she tried to reattach the loose ends.
She shouldn't have – Ralf came back with a vengeance with a gut-punch, sending her stumbling back, stars flashing in front of her eyes.
Everything hurt so much. There was nothing but the pain.
Black mist descended on her vision as she was dropped in a limp heap onto the same table once more. Her head lolled to one side, refusing to look at his mangled face – but she found herself looking straight into a mirror on the wall. She saw her own blood-marred features arranged in an expression of blank terror silently screaming for help, for the nightmare to end, to simply curl up and die.
But she couldn't; she couldn't fight, she couldn't blink, couldn't even close her eyes to the horrible sight in front of her.
The older man grunted with satisfaction, and reversed her earlier attempts on her clothes. With a feral smile, he reached for his own belt, but stopped to follow her gaze, hands pausing in their work. "Like what ya shee, slut?" he drawled, turning back to look at her face.
No, she screamed inside, but then she looked again - and reversed her opinion.
"Yes," she whispered. Ralf recoiled a foot, taken aback.
It was the only thing that prevented a hole from being blasted into his head.
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The bullet sped along its deadly course, but one panicked lunge later, its course ceased to be fatal. Instead of bone and brain, the slug connected with the reflective panel on the wall, breaking it into a thousand shining pieces.
Celes would have cursed, had he not been lining up a second shot already.
The Gallian jumped back from Isara's fallen form – damn him – pivoting to face the Imperial. Absently, Celes wondered just what kind of soldier could smell that strongly of alcohol and still move that steadily.
It was quite disturbing, he reflected as he fired the Gallian's own weapon at him again.
Ralf's earlier kick from when they had entered the camp saved his life – Celes's arm, broken a mere morning before, buckled underneath the recoil of the small shot, and the shot went wide –
And then the Gallian was on him. The firearm spun out of his hand as he blocked the first punch with a hurriedly outstretched elbow, and for a time there was nothing but the press of flesh against flesh, fist against muscle, boot against bone.
Lieutenant Karst's close combat drills paid off this time – there was a furious exchange. Swings were dodged, short kicks caught on minor parts of the body, long punches redirected. When the engagement first broke, Ralf had gotten the worst of it, with several good hits around the kidneys and a broken right elbow. Celes had only taken one hit of note, but it was a serious one: a stunning kick to the chest, the blow that had caused the disengagement.
Before he could recover, Ralf attacked again – ignoring the debilitating pain that he surely must have felt. Celes lunged back away from a kick that would have ripped off his jaw; when the Gallian was overly long in following through with the move, he smashed at the limb itself, breaking the man's ankle. Howling, the Gallian still was able to swing his weight around on his arms on a piece of furniture, connecting his foot with Celes's abdomen with enough force to send him staggering several feet back.
When Celes regained his footing, he was the quicker as Ralf tested his injury. Without giving him a chance to determine the extent of the damage, he made a fist connect with Ralf's temple.
Both screamed with fury, and they flew together into a scrum once more. They rained blows onto their bodies, not even trying to block, degenerating into two animals that clawed at each other to kill the other. Celes was getting the worst of it with every exchange, packing less raw strength than his opponent; but every time he faltered, Celes only had to see Isara's ruined face and body to throw him into a killing rage once more.
But when a hastily improvised weapon in the form of a wooden chair leg sent him bowling head over heels, tipping the scales of the combat, he admitted that he was the sure loser of that exchange.
Panting with exertion, dripping with sweat, and covered from head to toe with overlapping injuries, he was able to stagger to his hands and knees, head hanging, trying to summon enough willpower to stand. A few seconds later, there was the evil sound of a pistol's action being worked; blindly, he spun up from his downed position. Miraculously, his hands connected with a metal object – he had just enough consciousness to jerk it towards the ceiling when a thunderclap resounded between his palms. A shower of building material rained onto his face, but he stood unflinchingly, fighting to keep the gun away from him.
Both of their stances wide for support, Ralf growled as they struggled, he working to kill, Celes struggling to survive. Celes's bare feet gave him precious little traction; he stumbled back from the massive strength that his foe exerted, but the Imperial maintained a death-grip on the weapon regardless. His retreat ended against the wall – spikes of pain radiated from his back, and the warm wet sensation of running blood told him that he'd run into the ruins of the mirror he'd shot earlier.
Forcing himself to use the wall as an anchor – screwing the shards of glass deeper into his flesh – he cast his eyes about, looking for something, anything for an advantage in the fight. They descended upon Isara's body on the table – or rather, where her body had been laying a minute before.
Smiling, he realized that she'd escaped. There was nothing more he needed to do.
Slowly, losing out to the pain and disorientation, his willpower ebbed out of him. His death crept closer and closer, the pistol's barrel sliding down to a mere inch away from his forehead.
He closed his eyes. In his mind, he was already dead.
In fact, he thought he heard Isara's voice scolding him one last time.
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Another cliffhanger, because I'm a SOB. Too bad for protagonist armor… but hey, I can do my best.
And besides, you still don't know what happens after Celes (supposedly) scrapes by. So ha. Ha ha.
Tell me my errors and help give me corrections in your review. Keep writing quality high! Now PRESS THAT GREEN BUTTON NOW, and WRITE.
