Chapter 11

Ranma's world consisted mainly of two things: Ice and Pain. The pain was ever present and seemed to only relent when she was conscious enough to pull into the Soul of Ice and away from it of her own free will. So encased in the technique was she that a constant haze of condensed water surrounded her operating table at all times. Kriena loved finding new and interesting things about her patient and marveled at being able to toss boiling water at the girl and watch it turn to snow before it touched her. Ranma had been awoken from her coma when the ragnite contacts in her new prosthetic plunged into the nerves left in her right arm. Ever since then it have been constant tweaking, jabbing and cutting from the psychotic bitch with bloodthirsty eyes. From what she could overhear from the guards, she was being held underground in a Gallian facility designed to create bio-weapons. She couldn't understand what had happened. Last thing she knew was fighting the Empire for control of Fouzen and, if these soldiers were truly Gallian, then she had actually helped one of them and still she was imprisoned. That dark-haired woman…what was her name…? Mary? Marina. That was it. Marina Wulfstan had the same uniform and matching crest. Then the pain returned and she couldn't form complete words anymore and retreated into the Ice.

Within the Ice Ranma had no sense of the amount of time that had passed but there were breaks when she would see someone different. A tall, statuesque woman turned up from time to time when Ranma was awaiting the pain within the Ice. Ranma saw her every so often come and go. She would sometimes touch her arm or face, sometimes simply meet her gaze with a pained expression and then walk away. She never learned her name, never remembered much but a pair of crimson eyes. Those eyes held such compassion sometimes and were so dead others. Ranma latched onto that pair of eyes as the only thing in this place not trying to inflict pain upon her and she held onto their image in her mind. She used them as a center, a focal point to return to within the Ice and soon it was this Ice maiden that she ran to for refuge. Her subconscious built an entire entity within her mind and used the eyes as a base. It told her she needed to get out. She needed to be free and her slowly growing Ki sang for freedom from this bondage. Alas the time was never right. While she could easily shear the bonds that held her she lacked the strength and stamina to break out of the fortress she found herself in. Every so often she would 'ping' with her ki to get a better glimpse of her surroundings and found herself disheartened at what she found. The place was a literal fortress with hundreds upon hundreds of life signatures and near a hundred signatures she had associated with ragnite engines and that meant armor as well.

At present there was nothing to do but sit and wait. She also liked playing with her new 'toy' when she was alone. While still foreign, the gauntlet was proving to be rather interesting and with each tweak, loath as she was to admit it, she gained better control over the unit and all of its hidden surprises.

Squad 7 was currently marching to meet up with the bulk of the Gallian army in order to begin an all-out assault on the seat of Maximilian's power: Citadel Ghirlandaio. Sitting square in the center of their oddly turtle-like formation sat the Eidlwiess. The troop moved out at half speed this time around as they made their way away from the bloody battle of Marberry Shore. The Eidlwiess had stormed an extremely heavily fortified position with the aid of specialized smoke rounds that had never been fielded before in any conflict. The long-range smoke screen had allowed them to advance to a position well closer than the enemy had ever anticipated and they were able to overwhelm the Imperial force stationed there through a surprise attack. The reason for the half speed was a special cargo that sat within Eidlwiess' belly: one Isara Gunther. The girl was laying on a makeshift pallet consisting of her ever-present shawl and the uniform jackets of Welkin, Rosie and Marina. Her breath came is shallow puffs that barely raised her chest but the real shock had been the ragnite fragments currently imbedded in her chest over her heart. The shards were varying in size and shape but an especially large one penetrated an unknown depth into her body and was slowly pulsing in-time to the slow beat of the girl's heart. There used to be glass shards from the casing that held a unique sample of ragnaid that Isara had acquired from Marina and it had taken the impact of a sniper round from an Imperial ZM SG-96. The large calibre rifle round had shattered the ragnaid but a large burst of energy from the canister blasted outward, vaporizing the bullet and the surrounding clothing, imbedding ragnite into Isara and blowing a crater into the sandy ground she stood on. The concussive force had knocked Rosie silly as she had been crouching beside the girl when she was shot and the offending sniper received an 88mm anti-personal shell for his troubles.

As strange as it was, the squad medic had told them it was better to leave the ragnaid in the poor girl as apparently it was attempting to heal the damage done to her and was actually healing itself out. The flesh was being repaired and the fragments slowly forced out of her body. This phenomenon was extraordinary but it remained to be seen if the largest fragment was actually touching the girl's heart or not. If that was the case then Isara stood very little chance of surviving her miraculous brush with death. As hopeful as both the medic and the rest of Squad 7 was Isara teetered on the brink of life and death as she tried desperately to scoop backwards without toppling off the edge.

Selveria found herself in a strange situation as she pulled a chair close to the comatose Valkyrur with the crimson hair. The ever present machines whirred beeped and whined but Selvaria paid them no mind as she raked her gaze from toe to hair-tips along the prone woman. She was beautiful, compact and probably the most fearsome fighter this side of the planet as far as she had heard. Selvaria had spent the better part of the past week speaking to the survivors from Fauzen and was struck dumb more than once as the terrified men re-lived the terrors of the tiny woman. Even Kriena's false Valkyrurs had been approached by the silver-haired Witch as some tended to refer to her as and they too were in awe of the power and skill the red-head possessed. Among the troops the Demon Frost was being circulated as the stories continued to travel around the base.

Azure energy was something that all within Fouzen could confirm but those that had faced her in combat told of how she ice and frost had spread wherever the girl had touched. Some soldiers even showed her pieces of armor that had been cracked and split from being flash frozen. More than a few soldiers sported frostbite wounds as well. The crimson color of her hair combined with the impenetrable cold that surrounded the girl in both combat and even now as she lay asleep the air still felt frigid around her had contributed to her near legendary status as the Demon's Frost.

The more she heard, the more she respected and feared this girl. This was the biggest threat to her lord and she had become so enraged that she had bent her sabre out of shape while going through forms one morning and had to hand it in for repair. Seeing her without her signature sabre had led to the inevitable questioning and from there a suitable dressing down for even thinking that she would be dismissed for an untested and un-loyal POW. The more she thought about it the stranger her irrational paranoia became and she began to see the girl in a new light thus bringing her back to the present.

Selvaria now saw the girl for what she did when she first got the gauntlet: a reflection of herself. This led her to use the girl as a sort of sounding board for wayward thoughts that she could tell 'herself' but never voice to anyone else. The conversations were brief, one sided and inexpiably cathartic for the statuesque Valkyrur. As the days slid by Selvaria found herself sneaking down to the lab in order to get a few thoughts out of her head. The presence of Kreina forced her to seek her audiences deep into the night and soon was at the bedside nearly every day for anything from a simple pass to an hour the evening that the Gallian advance was announced. It was a…different experience to be able to speak her mind without the person being an object of worship or intimidated by her Valkyrur status. Even while she was collecting her information from the soldiers were all the same: scared. Throughout her life Selvaria had had no one that she was able to talk to freely and with the strange sense of companionship that Selvaria had for the lithe girl here as they both shared the burden of powers beyond human comprehension as well as the experience of being under Kreina's knife Selvaria revelled in the feeling.

Now it was the Gallian force just under an hour's march away that weighed down Selvaria and slumped her shoulders under the nagging feeling of unease at the sheer number of troops marching on Ghirlandaio. The howitzer artillery pieces that the Empire had dragged from the Keeps at home had begun belching 200 lb shells at the approaching advance and had so far had little success with anti-artillery screens and a Gallian Valkyrur at the head of their advance. The blue aura from her shield had blocked the vast majority of shots and she did not seem winded in the least. As this was a Valkyrur they were facing it was now Selvaria's turn to do what she had been trained to do: destroy the enemies of Maximilian, her Lord and Master. Only this time she had something else to do, someone else to pay a visit to before she faced an enemy in battle that she had lost to before. An enemy that was backed by the entirety of the Gallian front, all of which wanted to destroy her so they could have a clear shot at Maximilian. Selvaria was a prize that Gallia had been after ever since the battle at Barious and she knew just how badly they wanted her dead. She could not allow that.

It had been a few weeks now and Ranma was starting to notice that the pain was less real and more acting on her part. The blue armored guards were omnipresent and those twin unicorns on their crests were starting to piss her off to no end. The red-eyed woman had been by several times and had actually sat down and talked to what she assumed was her comatose body. Close to a week ago Ranma had begun acting the part of being in excruciating pain when in actuality she had managed to block out almost all of it by retreating to The Ice but once her Ki system accepted her new addition the pain was just a dull ache as Kriena tried to force more energy into the gauntlet system.

The Gauntlet was an amazing piece of technology and Ranma was not as opposed to the device as she had initially assumed she would be. The material conducted Ki at a similar rate to normal flesh and the veins of Ragnite gave her an unparalleled channelling system that would act as focal points for her techniques. The only drawback was physical control. She could not yet form any hand gestures that she tried without fumbling something or slamming her hand shut like a bear trap. That experiment had almost blown her cover and if the plate of medical tools had not been jarred off of the table and masked the movement she probably would have been doped into oblivion. Currently her red-eyed compatriot, Selvaria as she had finally introduced herself as, was sitting at her bedside and worrying over her Lord's safety as all of her Lord's enemies were apparently nearing the front gates. It sounded like it was nearing a time where her escape would be possible and Ranma latched onto that feeling as her saviour Took one last hard look at Ranma and kissed her lightly on the forehead before shouldered a weapon of some sort and walked away.

The kiss was tender and Ranma could taste the self-doubt and sorrow interspersed with a fierce determination to fight in the woman's aura. This was someone that Ranma could respect. From the stories that Selvaria had told her Ranma could identify with most of what the silver haird woman had endured in her life. Selvaria had had an extremely trying childhood and was subjected to torture on a level that even Ranma had trouble coming to terms with. Selvaria was honor bound to another who did not always seem to have her personal safety at the forefront of their agenda, one Maximilian. Serving a master Ranma was very familiar with due her strict sense of honor but to follow someone as blindly as Selvaria did seemed to be a little on the extreme side. Selvaria's personal problems aside, Ranma now had a much better view of how the two countries at war were related. Gallia, the faction that had her currently incarcerated, had twin unicorns on a shield as its crest and was predominantly blue. The Empire, who Ranma assumed was marching on them, had a red crest with a two headed eagle clutching an egg and a sword as its banner. The two factions had begun fighting when the Imperials invaded Gallia in order to push through her to get to their true enemy on the other side of her borders. The only thing they did not count on was the presence of Valkyrurs such as Selvaria and extremely heavy resistance. Some of what Selvaria was saying did not add up thought. The factions seemed to get skewed in some stories and the way that she described a few of her encounters had gears turning in Ranma's head. Soon she would be free of these chains and soon she would seek her vengeance.

As Selvaria strode out through the gates of Ghirlandaio to lead her troops Gallia started to return artillery fire. The first few shells Selvaria blocked with her deceptively small Valkyrian shield but one slipped past the net and slammed into the ground near the base of the entrance. The resulting shockwave sent ripples of energy down into the labs bellow Ghirlandaio and Kriena, who had been making her way towards her armor to prepare for combat, stumbled and fell against the emergency breaker for her laboratory as a whole. Instantaneously the lab went pitch-black as everything shut down as the fail-safe was designed to do. In that instance Ranma acted and seemed to simply disappear from her restraints as they fell noisily about her cot. Kriena never got a chance to regain her breath before she felt the razor edge of the gauntlet's heavy blade pressed up against her throat as a pair of glowing blue eyes filled her vision.

Ranma was free.

A/N

And I am back at the most awkward time for an update I could possibly think of. First up I apologize for the lateness of this update as it has been a LONG time since I have updated. Writers block has set in as any creative juices I have are all being sucked up by the horrifying sponge that is schoolwork (and Mass Effect 3)...bleh...That being said this chapter answers a lot of questions that people have been wondering about in the reviews and as such I sincerely hope you enjoy!

Thank you again for all that reviewed, faved, read, all of the above really.

Enjoy!

-Arkninja