As the sun sunk lower and lower it outlined a rail-system that criss-crossed the sky above the industrial city of Fouzen. The dark shapes and billowing smoke gave the canyon-like structures the city was built in look darker and more foreboding with the lengthening shadows. The multitude of cranes fell into the twin rivers that split the town into three sections: two side areas and a central factory area that the peripheral refineries all fed into across a single bridge. The housing and refineries were both built directly on the cliff face with the slum housing at the bottom of the canyon near the river.
As they convoy passed beneath the closest set of rails Ranma noticed that she felt something, something horrible. The very air became heavier as they came closer and closer to this industrial area. In particular she could feel a concentrated area of weakening or dying life force at the base of the city that she assumed was the labor camp that the troops had been talking about.
Suddenly the ground started to vibrate and the bars and wheels of her mobile prison started to resonate and hum along with the deep rumble approaching. A mechanical monster came around a blind area in the mountain and Ranma got a glimpse of an absolutely gargantuan metal beast. The armored train's 40 meter bulk consisted of three cars and was equipped with the single biggest gun Ranma had ever seen. The front car was all sloped armor and a huge Ragnite engine with a single, double barreled machine cannon, the rear held what looked like a standard 45mm tank turret above a second double-barrel turret. The center was where the monstrous 280mm howitzer rested on a unique bed complete with a small crane to assist in loading massive shells. The armored train Equus was the mobile fortress that held rule over Fouzen and was General Gregor's command station as he oversaw the production of Fouzen.
As Equus continued to haul itself around the town, Ranma closed her eyes again and feigned unconsciousness once more. The longer she stayed lucid and aware the longer she found it was getting easier to find and stop this link to her Ki. It all traced back to her injury and, more specifically, something lodged in her flesh. It had not been the easiest thing to find because the shards of Ragnite stuck in her arm had rid themselves of the heavy Ki that they usually felt when she first came into contact with them and had instead filled with her own. The Ragnite seemed to be working like a Ki battery and was doing an excellent job of hiding itself within her Ki system as something akin to a secondary Chakra. The problem with them lay in the fact that the shards seemed to want to reconnect with any other large source of Ragnite technology. In the case of the column it was the Ragnite powered engines of the tanks in her armored escort.
The source of her weakness during the day was due to all of the running Ragnite engines as they pulled energy out the Ragnite infused fluid they used for fuel the process somehow also pulled energy from the Ragnite in her arm. It seemed almost like a much more toned down version of the draining effect that the bracers seemed to have on her Ki pool and by studying the feeling and the pull she was beginning to see how this could be used to her advantage but before she could finish her thoughts the caravan came to a halt.
Berthold Gregor was one of the Empire's oldest and most experienced Generals and had a very harsh and rigid look at what it was to wage war. He saw Gallia as a handful of peasants and those beneath the glorious might that is the Empire. The Darkscens he despised to the point that he viewed them as almost being subhuman. Thus it was this harsher view that drove him to create the Fouzen Labor camps in the image of a concentration camp that was 'work-until-you-die-or-I-kill-you' in nature. Production had been on schedule as of late and with the caravan of Imperial armor due to arrive any minute, he was anxious to see this Gallian Valkyrur for himself. To say that he was looking forward to this would be an understatement. The Valkyrur were a truly frightening force and he had heard about the might of Selvaria Bles on the battlefield. This one sounded a little different. From what Jeriik had reported, this one had flame-red fair as opposed to Selvaria's silver-blue and was…merciful of all things. Extreme power was great. Mercy got you killed. Or did it? His earlier conversation with that Darcsen punk with the bandana had a good point about workers dying being counter-productive…No matter they had arrived. Slipping his gloves back on and clicking his heels sharply on the floor as he exited his personal mine cart, Gregor stepped down the small flight of stairs and looked upon the prone form of this mysterious woman.
Compact. It was the first thing that came to mind when he laid eyes on the prone form of this red-haired Valkyrur. She was so…small. To have sheared the armor from a medium tank was no small feat and to have single-handedly dismantled fifteen advanced scouts and support gunners with nothing but a stick was inhuman. At the very least Gregor was expecting a statuesque figure more akin with Selvaria's stature of 5'10, yet this one was a good head shorter and slight of build on top of that. He analyzed what he could see with a critical eye and found that she was indeed extremely fit but her size apparently did not adequately showcase her power. It was a shame that she was missing her arm as Maximilian would not have a…complete specimen for his plans.
She could feel it. Someone was looking at her and it was not with just a lusting gaze or even one of admiration, it was calculated and she was being measured, categorized and broken down. It was unsettling the way that this presence was doing this but she played possum and let him look, she needed the time.
With a sharp barking of orders Ranma was once again on the move and listening in on solder's banter around her she learned a great deal about her current situation. It seemed she was where the group of Darcsens she had met earlier were to be sent: the Fouzen Labor camp. Soon she was being lifted and moved, cot and all, into what she assumed was a prison of some sort. She could feel Ki signatures all around her and they were not the healthiest of life forces. She was very close to the ball of what she now knew were either starved or overworked Darcsen POWs.
Feeling the pain these people were enduring Ranma swore to help these Darcsens as she had tried to do earlier in the forest. There were only two small issues with her plan: the insane amount of enemy military presence in the area and her lack of energy at the moment. She needed to rest if she was to help these people so with that in mind Ranma drifted off into untroubled sleep for the first time in weeks. A sleep so deep that she missed the sounds of a minor alarm and some gunshots as a certain group infiltrated their way into the camp. There was no direct threat to her so why bother with the waking world?
As Ranma rested, a small group of the Gallian Militia had infiltrated the camp and rendezvoused with one Zaka, a leader in the Darcsen camps not three hundred meters from where Ranma slept. The plan was to take back the city of Fouzen from the empire and, as a side-effect of that action, free the Darcsen slaves. The Gallian Militia's Squad 7 had arrived in Fouzen and was set to move at dawn.
A tremor shook Ranma's room just as dawn was breaking and it was more the light than the impact of the custom made 88mm shell from Squad 7's symbolic tank. The Edelweiss was a 32-ton custom monster and was feared invincible by many of the Imperial army. The tank boasted heavily sloped armor and was the only unit in the war that currently used the ground-breaking innovation. With the speed of a light tank and the armor equivalent of what amounted to heavy armor, it was a terror on the battlefield.
Ranma immediately flung herself off of her cot and caught herself smoothly in a cat-like three pointed stance as a shell flew much too close for her liking and splashed down in the river. Sirens began wailing into the cool morning air as the raid began in earnest and Ranma failed to suppress a groan as every single Ragnite powered defense that the city had began springing to life with varying roaring noises. Equus itself was the source of power that drove Ranma into the floor as its massive engine spooled up and pushed to train out of its central housing above where Ranma lay. The pull on her Ki from this many directions at once was overcoming the block she had on her Ki and that meant, as much as she did not want to believe herself, she was stuck in this cell until that armor went away.
Up above Jeriik was not having a good time as these upstart militiamen were surprisingly skilled. The tank they brought with them was fearsome in its own right and had waded its way through anit-tank lance fire and had more than three armor kills of varied tonnage to its name an hour into the conflict. To top things off the Gallians were well organized, more accurate weaponry and a medic that seemed to be gifted with the luck of the Gods. Even with Equus firing from above the Gallians had pushed further into Fouzen than anyone could have predicted in the time they had. A shot rattled off of the side of the refinery he had taken cover behind and from his now prone position Jeriik could see a dark-haired sniper set up shop next to the Valkyrur's prison and immediately sited her.
Ranma was startled by the sudden thud as her guard detail seemed to collapse for no reason outside her door, rushed footsteps and then silence. Thinking that her luck may have changed for the better, Ranma hauled herself painfully to her feet and shuffled to the barred door just in time to hear a loud crack and the sound of a smooth pull of a bolt-action rifle. Leaning against the bars she turned her head just in time to see a dark-haired sniper take a round to the chest and hit the ground near her feet with a gasp of shock. Without thinking Ranma pulled one of the canisters of her special brand of Ragnaid from stuff space but the use of Ki that really was not all there resulted in her sagging against the door and dropping the canister onto the girl who clutched it in shock at both a person being there and the glowing canister falling on her.
"Im…Im alright…" the woman wheezed out as she pushed a hand under one the two small armored disks on her chest to feel the bruise. "Lucky for me the bastard was further…away than he should….be for a killing shot…good shot though…" She looked up at Ranma from her crouched position as she caught her breath and Ranma got a good look at her. Standing she would probably be slightly taller than her male form with short black hair that covered one of her eyes, sharp features and a very athletic figure. She was beautiful but in the way that a big cat was beautiful as it hunts for prey. "My name is Marina Wulfstan," she spoke in a professional tone now that she had her wind back and dark eyes stayed locked with Ranma's as she stood to her full height.
"Im Ranma. Nice to meet ya…Sorta…" Ranma managed to get out before she sank slowly to the floor as close to a dozen tanks rolled for the labor camp, and by proximity, her.
"Im going to get you ou—"
"No. No time…leave..."
Marina opened her mouth to argue but stopped as the engines broke through the last of the fog surrounding her senses from her earlier brush with Death. She had no choice, she was exposed if those tanks came any closer and she could not move herself and a crippled prisoner to safety. Glaring at the injustice of it Marina gave a single, sharp salute and sprinted away. Just as she made it around a building, the tanks came into view. At the head of the column was a medium tank sporting what looked like a double barrel flamethrower instead of its classic cannon for its main weapon. A weapon that began to turn itself towards the full labor camp beside her.
Ranma felt useless. This world was crazy. This war was insane. Her power was being sucked away and that girl…Marina, had taken her last Ragnai-wait. She had been given Ragnaid in the clearing after her self-amputation. She had drained it. Not the other way around. That was her key here!
"The connection goes both ways…"
She was the one with power, not the crystals. She was the one with the control, not the Crystals. She was one that would wield this power, not the Empire. Confidence rushed through her energy starved veins and she drank deeply of her inner power for the first time what felt like decades. Glaring at the tanks seconds away from committing mass-genocide, Ranma reached out to her bracer, anklets and choker for the first time and when they latched onto her meager Ki pool she in turn reached through the Ragnite in her arm and pulled.
Silence suddenly dominated the evening as every single Ragnite powered device within 200m of Ranma's prison shut down. The sound of rending, tortured metal cut through the sudden silence as the iron prison burst with a sudden blast of blue energy. Fingers of frost crept out in an ever-expanding ring around the twisted prison and Imperial soldiers backed away in fear from the supernatural ice.
In the upper areas of the city the Gallian forces stopped and stared as a bonfire of blue energy lit up the lower levels of Fouzen and illuminated an armored division and what looked to be the last stand of the Imperial forces left at Fouzen. As most of Fouzen stood still a secondary burst of energy lifted dust in a ring around the building and Ranma rose from the wreckage and howled her displeasure at the setting sun.
A/N I finally got my comp back! I thought I would give a good proper update (there is a definite spot were I would normally end a chapter but I had a couple scenes to add onto it. Thank you again for all of the reviews and for sticking with with me through this rather long period of failed updates. I apologize and will also say that with final projects knocking on my door the next update my take a little longer than my old standard of about ten days. That said I will do my best to update more frequently now that my means of writing is back in service!
Many thanks!
-Arkninja