September 1, SY 2149
They had made camp that previous night further along the train tracks that ran due west. There were no buildings, barely any trees to make fire with, and overall had been a less comfortable experience than the night at SPEARHEAD's base. But, it meant that they were well and truly on their way towards the Gran Mur, and as they day went on, a gray mass started to grow on the horizon. When they stopped that evening, the walls of the Gran Mur shimmered as the sun passed behind it. They took shelter in a forest, and made a small fire to help cook the supplies that they had taken from SPEARHEAD, and started to wind down from their hike. It was a quiet evening. The sky grew in pinks and oranges as the sun passed further down towards the horizon, and there was distant hooting from a bird that no one could identify, but had heard stories about the nocturnal hooting.
There was idle chatter from among the VALKYRIEs, that turned into a full-blown conversation on 'if they should even call themselves that anymore' — which someone answered with; "well what should we call ourselves?"
There were jokes — quips about different names that they should call themselves. Someone brought up calling the group "Angels", which was voted on, but didn't reach a majority.
"Well, we're all following the Witch, aren't we?" Someone else asked. There were nods. "What about, 'The Familiars'?"
One of the boys in the group snorted; "Where did you hear about that?"
"I read it in a book once… The idea always stuck with me, but it was always about being a witch myself… Not really being a familiar…" The girl who had brought up the idea, said. The Witch recognized her as being one of the three members of E Platoon. An imaginative girl, at the very least. The Witch didn't think much about the comments, but still listened. It was refreshing to hear their voices after spending the majority of the day sitting in silence inside her Juggernaut. She leaned against a tree whose branches rustled gently in the slight breeze that moved throughout the camp, stoking the flames of their campfire ever so slightly and making the smoke do pirouettes in the air as it moved skyward.
"Well, for what it's worth, I like it." Someone else said. "It's got a nice ring to it."
There were murmurs of assent, a few people getting behind the idea, enjoying the idea of being part of a group like this, a common identity beneath a leader, once again.
Come morning, the Witch and her Familiars set off again across the countryside, there was a newfound spring in their step, not so much in the way that their Juggernauts moved — but in the way that the Familiars set about preparing themselves for the day's march. The way they made MREs for one another, and the way that they embarked into their Juggernauts, despite the long day of marching ahead.
She appreciated that, coming from them. It made the whole ordeal feel that much less lonely, despite her monolithic presence without a Para-RAID, or the shared camaraderie that these people had between one another from the time spent fighting together.
They came across that field in early evening, shimmering with tall-grass and the motionless husks of ruined Juggernauts. Some with their legs turned upward toward the sky like the exposed bone of a ribcage, missing all but four of its jagged protrusions. There were jarring holes in the cockpits of many of them. And those that didn't have holes, were missing their canopies entirely. It was when The Witch and her Familiars passed one of the canopy-less husks, did they realize that that the occupant of the Juggernaut was still inside — harness keeping them in place, despite their missing head. The image sent a shiver down the spine of The Witch, one that she barely recognized as having had happened. In front of her, Sabina's Bluebird stopped, and raised its 57mm cannon to the sky, indicative that she had opened her canopy for something. The Witch stopped in Aerial, and did the same. It was then that the Witch heard the noise of whatever it was that had caused Sabina to stop.
A rhythmic, clinking sound permeated the still air. A noise that rose above even the humming of her Juggernaut. A sound like metal hitting metal, where each hit changed the timbre of the noise, like it was successfully chipping away at whatever it was hitting.
The Witch gave a quizzical look to Sabina, who simply shrugged, and dismounted from her Juggernaut. The Witch switched off the engine of Aerial, before dismounting herself. Standing up and stretching her legs for a moment before dismounting from Aerial, and planting her boots in the dirt path that they walked along. The clinking continued. She looked behind her at the convoy of other Processors, all dismounting or having dismounted as well. The noise continued for a while, until a sound like a tuning fork rung out across that graveyard, before stifling itself in the tall-grass. The Witch walked among the Juggernauts for a ways, leaving Aerial behind, but keeping an eye out for any indication that this could be some sort of trap.
The metal-on-metal sound grew louder as she approached a Juggernaut slumped against the ground, its canopy splayed open and pointed towards the sky. The sound like a tuning fork rung out again, this time, not stifling itself in the grass, being caught by someone, who stood up on the side of the Juggernaut. The Witch reflexively reached for her gun on her leg, but repressed the urge, seeing that the person who stood up against the growing western dusk, didn't have a weapon raised at her. In one hand, she held a combat knife by her side, and in the other, held something clutched to her chest. The girl, who looked to only be a year or two younger than The Witch, looked down at her from her position on the Juggernaut's side, before turning away, and stepping down from the husk.
The Witch's body tensed at the sight of the combat knife, but became more relaxed when the girl didn't turn towards her, instead walking towards another overturned Juggernaut, and climbed onto it, before beginning swing her knife at the personal mark on the side of the Juggernaut — the clinking noise ringing out through the field once again.
The Witch, said nothing, instead watched as the girl continued her task. Eventually, The Witch sensed someone next to her, and looked to find Sabina standing next to her — Sabina's footsteps had been muffled underneath the sound of the knife against the Juggernaut's hull.
"Who's she?" Sabina asked.
"Don't know." The Witch responded, quietly in turn. Genuinely unsure of who this girl was, she watched as the girl pried a piece of the personal mark away from the Juggernaut, before standing back up again.
"Qui es-tu? Who are you?" The girl asked, turning around to face The Witch and Sabina, still clutching something to her chest with the hand that wasn't holding the combat knife.
"…We're the remnants of LFRITH and VALKYRIE squadron…" The Witch responded in turn. "Who are you?"
"I'm what's left of DAWN." The girl responded with an accent that the Witch couldn't place. It wasn't like the coarse accent of the Giadian citizens that had been turned into Eighty-Six. It was something softer, something that the Witch might describe as 'refined' if she was to be prompted about the accent that she heard from the girl. "And this?" She made a sweeping motion at the Juggernauts surrounding them. "Is DAWN."
"…I'm sorry." The Witch said after a moment.
"Que faites-vous ici?" The girl asked in what the Witch assumed was her native tongue. "What are you doing here?" She clarified.
"We're headed towards the Gran Mur... To meet Bloody Regina, and try and defend what's left of the Republic." Sabina said.
"Ces cochons ne méritent pas votre pitié." The girl said, and didn't clarify what she meant.
The girl standing before Sabina and The Witch was a Caerula, with the eye features of a Veridia. At least, that's what The Witch thought in the growing dusk that swept across the field they stood in.
"What language is that?"
"Something dead, like the rest of what I love." The girl said in her accent, stepping down from the Juggernaut as she did. "Doesn't matter… What are you doing here, if you still need to head to the Gran Mur?"
"We heard your knife against the Juggernaut, and thought we'd investigate." Sabina said, not weaving in any extraneous details.
"That and it's about time for us to make camp anyways." The Witch added.
"I've already made camp, just by the forest nearby. Nothing's bothered me for the two nights I've been here." The girl pointed in the direction of the forest, her accent still seeping through in the way she talked — that mentioned forest, peaked above a hill just further along the path that the Witch and her Familiars would've been on anyways.
"Is that alright?" The Witch asked.
The girl nodded. "Tu as eighty-six n'est-ce pas?"
The Witch nodded in understanding just from the one word and the questioning intonation, before turning her head to Sabina, who turned around wordlessly — and started to gather the Familiars who had started to flock around the Witch as she stood, looking and talking with this strange girl.
The Witch watched her for a time, as she chipped away at two more Juggernauts, before eventually making her way to the camp on foot. The Witch followed her.
"What's your name?" The Witch asked as they walked in the dark, towards the flickering campfire.
"Thorn." The girl answered shortly.
"I'm sorry about DAWN, Thorn." The Witch said, respecting the the fact that she didn't say her real name. Maybe she was like The Witch herself, someone who couldn't remember her name.
"This isn't the first time I lost a squadron. But they were still my family… Famille." She punctuated that final word with her accent, a word that The Witch only knew because of how familiar it sounded to the a word in her own language. "They all were."
"I understand that." The Witch said. The taste of losing so much of LFRITH still fresh on her tongue and in the back of her throat.
"What about them?" Thorn motioned towards the camp. "They're yours, no?"
The Witch smiled smally in the low light of late evening. "They're not really mine per se… I'm borrowing them from a… A friend…"
Thorn nodded in understanding as they broke into the circle of people around the campfire, who had started to use the fire to start cooking MREs, and passing out the ones that were already done cooking. Starting with the youngest of the Familiars, and working their way towards Sabina — the oldest, and then the Witch and Thorn — who were suspected to be in the same year, and thus the same age as Sabina. No one really knew how old anyone was in relation to anyone else, really. They could suspect as much, however, just by determining what year of their conscription they were in, and using some simple deduction.
There was small talk, despite the fact that there was nothing left between the Familiars but familiarity. Something that they could still do. Ask each other about the state of one another's Juggernauts. What they thought about where they were headed — what they expected to find inside the walls of the Gran Mur, things of that nature. There was some conversation in more hushed tones about the nature of Thorn, and the fact that she was the sole survivor of her squadron. Some talked about the stars above, and how they flickered behind the tendrils of smoke that rose from the camp's fire pit. The Witch, Sabina and Thorn, didn't talk very much, if at all. The silence between them wasn't hostile or anything of the nature of negative, but was simply the silence that came with understanding of one another's situations. Of the fact that nothing needed to be said between them in order for them to understand one another.
"What's your name?" Thorn asked, eventually, looking at The Witch as she spoke.
"Everyone calls me 'The Witch'. I don't remember my name." She explained. "Otherwise, I'm Aerial."
"I've heard of you. A legend like that dead Reaper." Thorn said.
The Witch's stomach sank when those words were spoken. 'Dead Reaper'. A further confirmation that he was truly dead from the Special Reconnaissance Mission.
"Better him than us." Someone who was listening nearby said. Someone else swatted him with the back of their hand.
"Don't talk like that about someone like the Reaper. He did more for the Eighty-Six than anyone else ever could." That second person said.
The Witch turned back to look at Thorn. Part of her mind itched with memories of the promise that she had made to Pharact. A memory about looking for a Caerula and a Veridia, with striking eyes. The Witch looked at Thorn, who only spared a glance her way, still picking at the MRE that she held in her hands. The Witch thought about saying something. About saying something about the Processor who had been looking for someone like Thorn, but she wasn't sure that this would actually be her. She thought about saying something to her, but resisted the urge.
"What about you? You look like you're in charge just as much here." Thorn said to Sabina.
"I'm Sabina. Personal Name is Bluebird."
"You look like you're looking for someone." Thorn said, bluntly.
Sabina stopped in her tracks, her spoon nearly dropping the chunk of MRE to the ground in the sudden jerk of a stop that she did.
"Quelqu'un à qui tu tiens, hein?" Thorn said.
Neither Sabina or The Witch knew what was said.
"I wish you luck in finding her."
"How did you—?" Sabina started, realizing how futile the question could be in this case. "How could she even be alive after all this?"
Thorn shrugged. "I believe that anyone who wants to bad enough, will find what they're looking for... Whether that's a grave or not? That's up to her."
The Witch suppressed a shudder at the coldness that Thorn spoke with. It wasn't unfriendly, or dishonest, simply accurate and honest in what she said — and that's what gave it the coldness.
They didn't talk much more after that point.
That night, the C Platoon leader, a girl with the personal name of 'Two-Tone', woke her up. The Witch half-expected to see the sun high in the sky by the time she woke up, but instead was met with inky darkness, and the flickering of stars in the night sky.
"Wh-what is it?" The Witch asked, sitting up, and noticing that no one else had been woken up.
"Come and see for yourself." Two-Tone said quietly, before weaving through the mass of sleeping bodies, towards where she had been keeping watch from. The Witch stood up, sleep still hiding in the corner of her eyes, and followed her towards the outskirts of the camp, and clambered part way up a tree, where Two-Tone had been keeping watch from.
The Witch looked where Two-Tone pointed — northward, a direction that they hadn't come from, nor had they been headed. Simply a direction that ran parallel to where they had been or where they were going.
Northward, glinting in the moonlight that shimmered down from the heavens above — did the Witch see the silver wave that was indicative of Legion units moving on the horizon.
That silver wave shimmered on the horizon for a time. Looking to be almost motionless in its glimmering. But as the Witch watched, she could tell that there was some movement. That those Legion units that in no way could've detected them, were moving westward, the same direction that she and her Familiars were headed, but not moving towards them — of that the Witch made certain with bated breath. In a way, that wave was almost beautiful in its movement across the northern horizon. The way that it seemed to creep along, and how there was a concrete end to the mass of shimmering units.
"Reinforcements for the ones inside the Gran Mur?" The Witch asked Two-Tone, quietly — who simply nodded in response. "That's more than I've ever seen move at a single time."
"Probably because they're trying their damnedest to make sure they cut down the Republic." Two-Tone said, leaning back against the trunk of the tree. "That's what I'd do, at least… Since that Princess is presumably putting up a fight inside the walls."
"Y-yeah…" The Witch thought about the message that she had heard, from Bloody Regina. From SPEARHEAD's Handler.
"What do you think? Should we move in case they find our smoke trail?" Two-Tone asked.
"I think…" The Witch had to think about this for a moment. Weighing the pros and cons of moving everyone now, versus waiting until morning to move. "I think it'll be better if we let everyone sleep. They don't seem to have noticed us… And we haven't seen any other movement for days, so I don't think we're being trailed… Does that make sense?"
Two-Tone nodded. "Well then, I'll let you go back to sleep. Unless you want to take over watch." The Emeraud girl grinned at her in the moonlight.
The Witch simply shrugged. "Up to you, since I'm already awake."
"I won't say no… And its only a few hours until dawn anyways." Two-Tone said.
"Fair enough. Go get some rest."
"Cheers." The Emeraud girl scrambled down the tree as quietly as possible.
The Witch adjusted how she was sitting in the tree, leaning back against the trunk of the tree as she did, and tried her best to get as comfortable as possible during the remaining time that she would be on lookout, until dawn broke, and everyone started to wake up.
When morning came, Thorn was gone, as was her Juggernaut. No one heard her leave, not even The Witch, who had been awake for the last few hours.