Days Gone By Chapter 2

...I don't apologize for what I've done. I made my choices under the auspice of what I knew at the time, and what I could act upon. I'd once read that war is cruelty, and that trying to reform it is folly. The crueler it is, the faster it's over. I wonder, though, if the man who wrote that meant it to imply that the cruelty of war would dissuade men from fighting, or if he simply meant that through cruelty, there would be no men left to fight."

-preface, Days Gone By, A Memoir from the Gallian Front

Chapter Two

Alicia set the pace, and I followed along best I could. The morphine helped, but the more I moved the more it hurt, not that I let that slow me down. Didn't want to risk getting left behind, and it didn't seem like the girl was quite so willing to be accommodating.

I didn't blame her for that. I think she might have been a touch suspicious of me, honestly. I wasn't shocked by that either. Aside from the tenuous 'enemies of my enemies' that I'd been relying on to keep myself at least entrenched on one side of the field, this girl was town watch, and this? Was a small town. She probably knew everyone here, or at least most of them. I was a stranger, which made me a liability, and that didn't even include the mess of nonstandard gear I was toting around. I looked different, and different was dangerous.

Still, I probably bought myself some credit helping them, and I was hurt. That might have eased tensions a bit, or so I hoped. As it stood I couldn't really afford to make any more enemies, and honestly? There was something good about helping people defend their homes. Silver lining, I guess, in-between all the shooting and killing. It helped ease my conscience some, for what it was worth.

I snorted, catching Alicia's attention. She paused, taking a second to check our surroundings before turning to me.

"You alright?" She whispered, taking my grunt for one of pain, instead of dark humor. I gave her a strained grin.

"Eh, bleeding but still alive. Hurts like a bitch though." And all the activity of the last hour hasn't been helping. Still, she seemed to accept that, even if she winced a bit at my choice of descriptor. Odd, you'd think someone in her position would be used to profanity but then again, it takes all kinds.

"Okay. Just hang in there, we're almost to the aid station. Just another block and another alley." She said before turning back around. She moved slower, by just a bit. It was easier on me, thank whatever merciful God was out there for the help, if only a bit. Still, the streets were abandoned. I could hear gunshots in the distance, but I didn't spot anything worrying on our way.

I didn't miss the tired look Alicia had, though. She seemed to slump a bit every time we heard gunfire, and I could guess why. People were fighting, dying, and it was her friends and neighbors taking the worst of it. I wasn't so detached that I didn't see it, but I didn't say anything. We all got our weights to carry. This one was on her, though it didn't mean I couldn't sympathize. Were it my home? My neighborhood? No. This wasn't the time for that kind of thinking.

"So," I looked at Alicia, who was glancing back at me with a curious glint in her eye, "I've never seen a gun like that before." She said as she looked back around the corner. It was quiet, yeah, but we'd had to stop to avoid a roaming patrol. They seemed to have left, but it didn't hurt to take a second. We were in the home stretch anyway.

"Yeah? Doesn't surprise me." I said, watching our backs with a cautious eye. "It's a Sturmgewehr. Storm Rifle. Good gun. Reliable." I said evasively. Alicia turned back, and motioned me forward. We moved down the road, eyes peeled. It was quiet, but I could hear the sounds of men in the distance. Alicia was leading us towards the noise, though, and she did say the militia were massing at the station.

"Sounds Germanian. You from the Atlantic Federation then?" She asked quietly. I shook my head. I'd never heard of any Federation, but whatever it was, Germany was a part of it. Which was odd, really. I'd pegged myself during one of the world wars. The time period seemed about right for it, all things considered, but... maybe not. Germany was an antagonist in both wars, and now it seemed like they were part of what sounded like a loose affiliation of states with a centralized governance, kinda like the US. That... was weird. Even after WW2 Germany was split for half a century between the democratic west and the communist east, if I recalled right.

Huh.

"No. I'm uh, I'm from across the ocean." I eventually replied, hoping there was an America analogue here, or something, or if not, anything I could use elsewise. If I was where I thought I was, and maybe when I thought I was, I could roll the dice on that at least. Not great, but better than telling her that I was and risking getting caught up in the lie if she mentions literally anything related to this "Federation" that I should know but don't. It wasn't like I could tell her "Oh, it's just over that grassy hill over yonder." No, not at all. Vague would have to do.

She stopped, turned and gave me a sharp, disbelieving look. "A Vinlander? I thought you people were content to sit across the ocean and play war merchant. 'Leave Europan problems to Europa', or so I last heard out of your Congress. What are you doing in Gallia?" Ah, now there we go. I can work with that. Yeah. Also on the plus side it sounded like Vinland was functionally neutral then, if nothing else. Unpopular, maybe, but not directly affiliated either.

Still, Vinland? I'm not quite sure what to make of that. It sounded Nordic, though that wasn't saying much. Germania, Europa, Gallia, and now Vinland. All analogues for countries back home, similar, but indelibly different at the same time. I really needed to get a hold of a world history book, or at least a damn Atlas if nothing else. Hell, at this point I'd settle for a newspaper, even. I'm not in a position to be picky after all.

"Yeah, well, sometimes life takes you in strange directions. Especially when you don't have much choice but to keep moving forward." I said with a halfhearted shrug. "So I guess you could say it's just chance that I happen to be here." It was funny and a little sad just how honest that statement was, at least from one point of view. Call it a cosmic joke, maybe. Something to entertain a higher power, perhaps. Hell, I could have fallen through a rift in time and space like in the goddamn Twilight Zone for all I knew. This... this whole thing was insane, and it was just getting started. I wasn't naive enough to believe otherwise. I wasn't innocent enough for that kind of thinking any more.

Alicia just gave a half chuckle, a grin on her lips. "That's fair, I guess. Not going to say no to the help, anyway, even if you picked a heck of a time to show up. That makes you a volunteer then? Mercenary?" She didn't seem to be judging, really. Just asking. For that, at least, I was grateful. This was the Twilight Zone. I was lost in time, in space, trapped in some weird alternate 1930something where for all I know I could be stuck seeing the first shots of World War Two. The thought of it hit me harder than I was expecting, put into words.

It was all so fast, too. Say what you will, but the last few hours were a whirlwind. I met a man, and he shot me for literally no reason that I could understand. I killed him for it. His friends came, and I killed them too. Then I ran, and killed more men. I came to a village under siege, and tried to help protect it. I killed again, and again, and again. Like a broken record. Over and over, I pulled the trigger. I didn't think about it. Didn't even hesitate. Mechanical, precise, with experienced hands and a kind of focus that scared me once the blood stopped pounding through my veins. But more than that, it's that I didn't feel anything when I did it. I felt no remorse. No care. No concern.

I felt nothing at all. I was numb to it. I think that's what scared me the most about this whole thing.

"Guess you could say that, yeah." I said after a moment with a strained half-grin as we turned the corner and saw bedlam at it's finest. There were maybe a dozen men and women milling about, setting up sandbags and hoisting up a makeshift watch tower. Boxes of bullets were being laid out, and there was some barbed wire being set up, and there was an air of tension, of fear, that was almost palpable in the afternoon air.

Some of them looked up at us, but Alicia waved them off. A few gave her nods or smiles, but most were carefully neutral towards me as she led me to a building with a bright blue cross on the side. It wasn't large, just a few rooms attached to a foyer, but inside were a mess of crates packed with grenades, bullets, assorted other supplies, a few chairs and tables, one of which had an inactive radio of some kind on it, and across a far wall lie a rack of older looking rifles. Alicia herself moved over to a box with a red cross plastered across the top and opened it, pulling out a couple of large, pill shaped devices before walking over and handing one to me.

"Here. Do you know how to use Ragnaid?" She asked, and I shook my head. The hell kind of medical device was this? I glanced down at it curiously. It was a strange looking thing, aside from it's odd shape. The top was domed with a bright, almost glowing glass bubble around what looked like a chunk of rock, while the bottom ended in a dispenser of some kind with a timer knob on it. Honestly? Kinda made me think of one of those weird medical gizmos from the turn of the century.

"No clue. Never seen anything like it." I shrugged, wincing. She nodded, bringing up the one in her hand.

"I'm not surprised. Ragnaid dispensers like this are pretty new. We just got this shipment in a couple of months ago and if you aren't in the army or the militia they're pretty expensive. It's actually rather easy to use, though. This knob," she flipped the device over, showing me the timer, "Is a three second activator. You turn it to the left and hold it over either your head or someone else's. The funnel at the bottom disperses medical ragnite particles in a cone under it, which can close cuts, heal bruises and restore burns, but doesn't help much with broken bones, sickness, infections, or poison." She said as she put hers down. I glanced at mine.

"They're heavier than air but they can be blown away with a good wind so be careful when you use it. Also, if you get shot, make sure you get the bullet out first, because this will heal right over it. And lastly, be careful about using it too much too often. Medical ragnite isn't particularly dangerous unless you use it in large doses. It can make you sick." Okay. Okay wow, so that's... different. I didn't know what ragnite was, but I assumed it was the little rock in the middle of the machine. Sounded pretty miraculous indeed, or so Alicia seemed to believe. But...

"This thing isn't going to give me cancer or something, is it?" I asked with some trepidation. These 'medical ragnite particles' sounded a lot like some kind of radiation and anything with the magical Rad word in it made me a bit leery. The way she phrased it sounded like it sped up cell reproduction somehow, but that had with it it's own list of issues.

Alicia blinked. "I don't... think... so? I'm not sure what you mean by 'cancer'. That some kind of medical thing?"

"Uh, yeah. It's... hm. It's like tumors that form on skin or organs that can shut them down and spread around through your body in the later stages. It can be caused by radiation, which this sounds like." I said flatly. The light bulb seemed to turn on there for her.

"Ah. That- no. It's just medical ragnite. They don't do anything to it. It's just the dispenser that's new. Nothing to worry about." She smiled positively. I went back to staring at the device. Asking about it would have looked odd, given the way she talked about it. Whatever 'medical ragnite' was, it sounded like common knowledge and the last thing I needed was to look either stupid or suspect. Ugh, this still seemed like a really bad idea, but... what choice did I have? In a little while Imperial tanks and troops were going to assault our little bastion here and I didn't want to walk into it with a big, gaping hole in my side if I could help it.

As it was, though, that was a long term problem. Right now I had somewhat more pressing short term concerns, and if I wanted to make it that far, then maybe a bit of recklessness was warranted in this case. Still, I got the odd feeling I might come to regret using these things in the future. If I had a future, that is.

"Well, in that case, bottoms up." I sighed, cranking the dial and holding the Ragnaid over my head. It took a second, but I could actually see a bright, almost sky blue glow slowly pour over my body. It didn't really feel like anything, but I could tell the pain in my side was diminishing, first a little, then a lot, until it was gone completely.

After about fifteen seconds the glow faded, and when I looked at the machine I could see the once blue rock in the middle was clear, like quartz. I set it down and unbuckled the side of the vest harness so I could really get a look at my side. Unsurprisingly, my blue tee was drenched in brownish red, and the underside of my vest was dripping like a fresh cut of beef. The bandages I'd hastily shoved under my shirt were soaked with flecks of barely set scabbing and bright red blood. That was a good sign. Meant that for whatever else that bullet hit, it didn't nick anything lethally important.

Under all that though... I ran my fingers over the completely healed gunshot. There wasn't even a scar aside from the fresh white of newly grown skin, and as much as I pressed down on it, I felt no pain. It was the same case where the bullet had left me, even more so, in this case. It was a bigger injury, but even that was gone. There was more to it than that, though. The soreness in my joints from running around all day was gone. The bruises on my body had vanished. The cuts and scratches I'd collected? Gone too. Even the pounding headache I'd gotten from today had diminished to nearly nothing.

I eyed the little machine on the table with some amazement. It was clear Alicia saw my reaction, because she had this knowing little smirk on her face.

"Told you it was fine. Pretty impressive, right?" She asked somewhat smugly, and I nodded.

"Yeah. Not bad at all. Still worried about the long term, maybe, but in order to worry about it I gotta get there." My tone was a bit dour, and it brought down the mood some. Alicia just chuckled at me, a bit ruefully if I had to guess, like she was tolerating a particularly stubborn old man. After a second though, I wound up grinning too. Shaking her head, she went back to the chest and fished out four or five more of the Ragnaid capsules.

"Here, take these. We've got enough to go around and you might need them. We've also got a lot of ammo, some grenades, some other stuff around here... take what you need. It's too much to take with us so we're trying to divvy out as much as we can." She motioned for me to follow her into the mess of crates, pointing out what was what as we walked past it.

"I'm not sure if you have what the Stig chambers. I haven't seen anything the right size yet today." I said as she paused, looking at me.

"Stig?" She asked.

"Oh! Uh, yeah. Sturmgewehr is a bit of a mouthful, so it's abbreviated as StG. So," I shrugged, "Stig." I shrugged. "Anyway, here," I pulled back the chamber, popping out a round of the 7.92mm Kurz it fired, before handing it to her, "think you got any of those in stock?" It was a long shot, but I held out hope. The fact that they even chambered 7.92mm was enough to get me going, but I started to droop a bit as Alicia's face scrunched up.

"Hm... actually, yeah. I'm just kinda surprised. This is the cartridge they used with a lot of older EW1 bolt action rifles. Low recoil, but the newer Mauser rounds have a lot more punch to them. I'm surprised a Germanian weapons manufacturer went back to this old thing instead of going with something newer. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of these floating around from the end of the war, so they wouldn't be hurting for ammo, but still..." She shrugged, handing me the bullet back before turning around to a stack of crated and reading down the labels.

"Eh, might be because of the size. Not as much power, sure, but the low recoil helps with accuracy and smaller bullets means less weight to haul." I shrugged. "Plus it's an automatic. Less kickback is always a plus."

She nodded at that. "Makes sense in context, I suppose. Ah! Here." She pulled out a crate from one of the lower piles, before opening it up with a flick. "Two thousand rounds of 7.92x33 Kurz. Take all you want, the watch's already upgraded to the Mauser. We don't even have anything that can chamber them any more." I smiled, nodding as I ignored yet another odd "coincidence" as the ammo for my rifle was both plentiful and apparently classified as obsolete. That meant, of course, that nobody cared if I took some for myself. Convenient, right?

"And it's okay if I just... take these?" I asked dubiously, but she just shrugged and smiled.

"There's way more here than we can use, and given all you've done for us today, you've earned the right to some free kit. Call it a payment on what we owe you for services rendered." She said as she patted me on the shoulder. "Anyway, once you're done in here, come find me. The watch commander, Mr. Laakan, will be interested in talking to you, okay?"

"Alright." I nodded, finding myself a seat at the table and pulling myself up. Alicia just gave me a grin and another shoulder pat before heading towards the door, hips swaying the whole way. Quite the sight indeed, now that I wasn't distracted by agonizing pain. I let my grin, and my gaze, linger a second longer than was strictly professional, but Alicia didn't seem to notice, or perhaps ignored it.

I let out a quiet snort as I shook it off, and didn't waste any time in fishing out a handful and an empty mag. I only had seven left, total, and only one was still fresh. I'd lost the other two somewhere and if things were the way I thought they were, I would be in dire straits if I lost more, at least until I could get someone to fabricate them anyway. Alicia had bid me adieu and made her way back out of the building to go coordinate with the rest of the militia. It was pretty apparent that she was serious about taking what I wanted, since she didn't seem bothered in the least to leave me alone here.

Fishing out a handful of Kurz rounds, I started sliding them into the first empty. It was steady, monotonous, as I snapped one round in after the next. My hands were shaking. I ignored it. Just focused on sliding in the next round, one after the other. Just... click, snap, click, snap, click- A bullet fell from my fingers, and cracked on the floor. I blinked, just for a moment, and tried to pick it up. But I couldn't. Blood was sloshing through my ears, as the sounds of gunfire rolled through my ears, my eyes wide, lost, as I gasped for breath. Thundering, rolling, boom boom boom I felt my heart thrumming in my chest as I slammed my fist into the table before me, my other dropping the half-full magazine as it grasped helplessly at my chest.

I could hear screaming in the distance. I could feel tank treads through the floor. The world around me felt like it was burning as my nervous hands slammed around my head, trying to blot it all out. The building was shaking, or was it just me? I couldn't tell any more even as I slumped to the ground on hands and knees, trying desperately to make it all stop. I could hear screaming, crying, begging, no, no please just make it stop I don't want this why why why why-

The world snapped back. The half full magazine was still in one hand, the other still with a round in my fingers. There wasn't any trembling. No shaking. No thrumming. No gunshots. Just quiet. Silence amongst the screaming. Click, snap, click, snap. My fingers moved mechanically as my mind went blank. What was happening, I wondered? What was that? It felt... real. Vivid. Alive. I... I felt it, in my bones. I heard it, the screaming, the begging. The crying.

I reached up to my cheek, but felt no tears. Just grime and gun oil. The metallic tang of brass and gunpowder invaded my nose as I rubbed my filthy, bloody hands along my face, and I looked down at the pressed steel magazines in my hand. The bullet in my fingers. Antiseeds. Plant them and watch something die. Ha. Ha, ha. I couldn't help but laugh at the memory as the rounds stitched up that man's chest. The light in his eyes faded. His friends came over the hill, and I shot them too. I ran to the town. I killed another, and another. Then the stand came, and I picked them off, one and again. Then there was pain, and rage, and I killed that one too. Then the radio man. He died gasping, I saw it as I twisted the knife. His pain, my pain, I bought his friends with it. Stole them like I stole his, with a grenade and a half a mag. I started the job. They finished it. I did such good work.

Ha.

Ha ha.

Ha.

Oh Christ, what was I doing? I don't even know anymore. This was... this was too much. I... I wanted to be done. I had to be done. This was just... I don't know. I wanted to be a soldier when I was a kid. I wish I could be that naive again. This is... it's beyond imagining, yet too real all the same. Killing is so easy, once you start doing it. It's almost hard to stop. The rush of adrenaline. The cold numbness of the rifle. The kick of the recoil. The power of god in every trigger pull.

I wanted to be sick. It's strange, I always read that the first time was the hardest. The first kill, I mean. That it was supposed to haunt you or something but... I honestly couldn't recall anything about it. I remember the breathtaking impact on my chest, yeah. I remember the recoil, even the blood spray. I remembered the thunder. But I didn't remember the man. Not the first one. Not the second, either. Or the third, or fourth, or fifth. I didn't remember the twelfth. Or the twentieth. Just the blood. The screams. The begging. The crying. It all blurred together, and despite the horror of it all, or perhaps because of it, I just... I felt numb. Empty. Drained.

My hands brought up another magazine. My fingers found another bullet. Click, snap. Click, snap. I focused on the noise. On the job at hand. On the here and now. It helped drown out the noise.

With a dedicated effort I managed to get the six empties full up. It wasn't hard, they weren't that big. That aside, I took a second to look over the rest. There were a couple of things I thought useful. I had a canteen already, but I took another anyway. Could never have too much water. A compass, a laminated map, some charcoal pencils and a notebook all went into my chest pouch, and I hooked a pair of binoculars onto my hip webbing. I filled another hip pouch with as many free rounds as I could pack in, and another still with a few more Ragnaid canisters. I didn't have a backpack, and they didn't seem to have one here that I could take, so I was left trying to fit what I could in what I had.

When I woke up here, I didn't have a chance to really go through my pockets to any great degree. Aside from the three ammo carriers, and the rather obviously marked first aid kit, I hadn't had a chance to go exploring. As it turned out, I had more than I'd thought. One pocket held a small cleaning kit, little more than some rags, brushes and gun oil but you didn't need more than that. Another had a small pack of replacement screws and springs for, I assumed, the StG and my handgun, along with an instruction booklet on the aforementioned rifle, which, while probably useful, was for later. That seemed about it, aside from what I'd taken and I had a number empty pouches, besides, but that real estate had its own worth. Couple big, a couple small, to which went more ammo, more Ragnaid, and in one of the big ones, a couple of those stick grenades. They went in awkwardly, and I couldn't fit in more than two, but still. Free grenades.

Which, speaking of free... I walked over to a first aid kit on the wall. It was mostly empty, but there were a few things left in there I could use. Bandage rolls, mostly, but there was some medical tape, some antiseptic cream, a few gauze pads, and other odds and ends. All useful, and with a bit of work easy to fit into my somewhat empty first aid bag. No morphine syrettes, but given the prevalence of this Ragnaid stuff it was less of a concern for me. For now. Not to sound like an addict but my hoarding instincts were screaming at me to top myself off while I had the chance.

I wound up grabbing a few more grenades after shifting things around a bit. I had the space, and they weren't heavy, just oddly shaped. They fit in nicely in the empty ammo pouch on my chest, regardless, and in the pockets on my thighs. Between this and that, I had put on some weight, but not a lot. Altogether it was only around eight grenades, maybe a hundred loose rounds and ten of those miracle capsules, with assorted others. Honestly, it was the Ragnaid that weighed the most, but hey, an extra ten, fifteen pounds of those didn't pull me down enough to matter. I wasn't in super great shape, but I could haul the extra bit for a good while, especially after that glowing blue pick-me-up. Concerns or not, there wasn't any point in worrying about living a long life if you couldn't manage in the short term.

It wasn't long before I began to hear a commotion. My head shot up out of one of the boxes I'd been digging through, to the window where I could see men starting to move with purpose. There was shouting outside and it looked like things were really moving. I walked out into bedlam. Everywhere soldiers were checking weapons, loading stripper clips, pocketing Ragnaid and grenades while shuffling around sandbags and barricades.

There was a lot of talk going on, and it wasn't hard to pick up bits and pieces.

"...scouts said the Imps were moving tanks in..."

"...said he saw some heavy weapons coming in from the north. Cannons..."

"...troops are massing at the town center, by the windmill..."

"...heard tell of anti-tank lancers and mortars..."

"...used poison gas at Ghirlandio..."

"...some kinda Valkyrur war witch..."

"...had a huge tank that rolled over the walls..."

"...coming here 'cuz of General Gunther's mansion..."

"...said they're dragging townsfolk into the streets and shooting them..."

The rumors were sounding worse and worse. I took a quick look around, grabbing a few more grenades after a moment and shoving them into any pocket space I could find before leaving. A quick glance around told me that they were still getting ready, but it wasn't hard to find Alicia. She was standing at a crate with a paper map spread out over it, along with another girl with long blonde hair, and an older man with a full beard.

"...Preparations are coming along nicely, but we don't know how long until the Imperials get here, and we must protect the townsfolk long enough for them to finish evacuating... Yes?" The older man said, turning to me. "Do you need something, son?"

"Ah! Mr. Laakan, this is the man I was telling you about. The Vinlander mercenary." Alicia piped in from the side. Laakan nodded at that. He was large, more than six feet tall, and broad, like a man who worked hard for a living. He was tanned, wizened, with a full head of graying hair and a thick beard that wrapped around his head. He didn't wear the town watch helmet, but it was clear he was the one calling the shots.

"Right. Well, it's good to have you fighting on the right side, son. Alicia was just telling me about what you'd done for her and her friend, and I wanted to thank you on behalf of the Town Watch. Alicia here is one of our best. Losing her would have hurt us something terrible." He grinned, offering me his hand. I glanced at it, and a moment later took it in my own.

"No thanks needed. I couldn't have just left them there. Wouldn't have sat right with me if I did." I said with an immodest shrug. "It's been a... bad... day. It's nice to salvage something out of it anyway." I sighed, before shaking off the dark thoughts that had tried to creep up on me.

"I understand that pain, son. It's been a tough day for everyone. We knew the Imps were coming, but this... this quick? Nobody saw this coming. We'd barely begun fortifying when the first tanks rolled up the road and it's been nothing but downhill from there." He said, motioning us over to a map propped up across a squat crate. Just a glance at it told me everything I needed to know, only confirming what I'd been experiencing all day. The locals were fighting gallantly, yes, but they were being pushed back, hard. From the look of it this was the last real bastion of support for the beleaguered militia and how long that would stand was measured in tens of minutes, perhaps an hour at best. It painted a grim picture in any case.

"So what's the plan here, then?" I said, glancing around. Militia were moving back and forth, and to be honest I felt like a bit of a third wheel. I didn't have much to contribute aside from a gun, and I wasn't sure I even wanted to commit that. Things were getting a little above me here, I thought as if I hadn't been drowning in the tides all day. I'd had enough of war for the day, honestly, even if the fighting wasn't nearly done yet.

"Not sure if you're gonna stay, huh?" He asked, not seeming to judge. Just an honest question. I gave a shrug and nodded, much to Alicia's dismay, it seemed. The old man sighed in some resignation. Didn't stop the girl from coming up and giving me a hard punch in the shoulder, before fixing me with a glare.

"Hey, what? You can't seriously be considering leaving now of all times!? We need you here now more than ever!" She snapped out, hard tone in her voice. Honestly, I could understand her outrage. This was the endgame, and I was wavering. I didn't blame her for her frustration at that, but...

"Are you honestly surprised? I've been in the shit all day, and spent a fair bit of it with a gaping hole in my side. Despite that I helped you and your friend because I couldn't just... live with myself if I left you to die, not when I could do something but this? You know what's coming. You fought the same fight I did." I snapped, shrugging her off. She crossed her arms, giving me a harsh glare, one I met pound for pound.

"That doesn't make it okay for you to just... to just quit! Not now! Not when we need every man, every hand, every gun! These are innocent people counting on us and just because things got a little bit hard, you think you get to walk away!?" The young woman snarled at me. "You said you helped Welkin and I because you thought you could, because you couldn't just abandon us. How is this different? How!?" I gave out a harsh growl, looking away. We both knew that it was, and it wasn't. I just... didn't have it in me to admit it. Instead I just, I just dropped it, and turned back to Laakan.

"It's nothing personal, old man. Just don't feel like getting killed today is all." I said finally, ignoring the look of disappointed disgust Alicia shot me. "Truth be told, I don't know what you're thinking here. I've seen those tanks in action, and a few militiamen with old rifles aren't going to cut it. They're going to massacre you and no offense, but I don't want to be a part of any desperate last stands this early in the game." I turned back to Alicia. "Sorry."

"Believe me, son, I know it's grim, but we have to try. They might not mean much to you, but these folks, they're friends, family... and the Empire is going to kill them to the last, make no mistake. Our scouts reported intercepting some transmissions, and apparently their General Gregor wants to turn this place into an example. They won't stop until every man, woman and child are dead." He said with a tired sigh. "Right now three squads of heavy infantry are preparing to attack from the north, followed by a block of tanks. We have an opportunity to slow them down, at least a little. We have to take it."

"Even if it kills you, huh?" I shook my head. This wasn't my problem. It's not my war, and this man, Laakan, seemed to get it. He was tired, old, weary and under all that? Scared. These guys weren't even soldiers, really. Just people trying their hardest to keep their families safe. If nothing else I could understand that. When you got right down to it, I was scared too. He understood that, I think.

"Even if it kills us." He nodded, before turning to Alicia. "Melchiott!" He snapped, and she hopped to attention.

"Yes, Mr. Laakan?"

"Take Evans and get everyone ready for the Imp attack. Tell them to get as many crates of bullets and grenades behind the barricades as they can. I don't want anyone running short. Also, see about getting the rest of the Ragnaid distributed. Tell them to stuff their pockets if they have to. I don't want to leave anything we can take behind." He said, and for a moment it looked like Alicia was going to say something more, but no, she just shot me a hard look and shook her head before running off. He turned to me. "Son, what's your name?"

I blinked. "Uh, Finch. Jerry Finch." I said, tilting my head. "Why do you wanna know?"

"Because I want to know the name of the man I'm going to beg a favor from. Do you have a minute?" I nodded. "Look, I know you don't have much reason to put your life on the line for us, and honestly, if what Melchiott told me is true, you've already done a fair bit. You shed blood on Gallia, for Gallia, damn the circumstances, and I respect that." He said, giving me a long, tired look. "I know you don't have much stake in these people, my people, but to us, you're already a hero. You saved the life of one of my captains and the son of a good man besides. You put your life on the line, bleeding and exhausted, to save my people, and that's more than we could have ever hoped for or asked. At the end of the day nobody could have asked for more, but we need to. We need your help for this. You've got a better gun and a better grasp of what's out there than most of my watchmen, and with your help... maybe we can save these people. Will you hear me out?"

I stared at him with hard, narrowed eyes. When I woke up, the Imps made me their enemy by attacking me without provocation. The Gallians helped me, yeah, and I took a bullet for them in return. I owed a debt, before, but I paid that back helping Welkin and Alicia. I didn't owe these people any more. I wasn't a soldier. I was just... just some guy in a bad situation. I could walk away now, run and evacuate with the rest of the civvies and I doubt anyone would bat an eye. This wasn't a game, a movie... I could die here. I probably would, if I stayed. That seemed reason enough to just go and not look back.

Say what you will, even at my most fatalistic I didn't want to die. Nobody does, really, but this was their fight. Just being honest about it. Laakan got it. It's one thing to volunteer for a fight. It was another to volunteer for a suicide mission. I certainly did, and while these people might have had my back, there are limits to what I'm willing to throw myself into.

I'd faced a question of courage, before. To fight or run. I chose to fight. That was the road I took, for better or worse, but this? This was different. This was fighting for a cause, a purpose, a greater reason than just saving a few lives. I could leave now, disappear into the influx of refugees that this war was doubtlessly generating, and that would be it. I would be free to do as I wished from then on. That wasn't cowardice, just good sense.

Was that the point? Why was I here? I had nothing but myself, as far as I knew. No family, no home, no purpose, but the clothes on my back. No commitments. No ties. Nothing binding me but me. Here, I was an island, a loner standing at the crossroads.

This was the precipice. The commitment. If I stood now to be counted upon, that was it. My place was set, my commitment made. There would be no more going back, no more room for doubting. If I chose to stay, to fight, to try and make a difference against the oncoming tide, I would forever be linked to the fate of this place, this town, and it's people.

I thought back to all I'd seen. All the killing, the violence, the brutality. I thought about the men I gunned down, and the men I'd seen die, and what's more, I remembered the execution lines. The rows of women and children and old people lined up and shot. They were butchering innocents in the street. Lining them up like the fucking gestapo and murdering them just for living here. It didn't matter who they were, they killed them just because, and that was something I couldn't just... just hide from.

Wrong or right, smart or stupid, that was a kind of evil I couldn't abide, even if God damned me for doing so. Even if it meant pulling the trigger again. Even if it meant more gunshot wounds and screaming and shaking hands. I inhaled deeply, letting the calm of the battlefield soak into me, before I looked at him, at Laakan, with a distant stare and a steely resolve filling me up. He saw it, and seemed to stand a bit taller. I took a deep breath, girded my loins and asked, "What do you need?"

His eyes lit up. It wasn't what he was expecting, I could tell. Twice now I'd almost walked away. Twice now I didn't. I gave him a grim smile, which he returned with a nod before leading me over to the map.

"There's only one way into the southern district, and that's through this main road here. We were worried that the Imps would run tanks through first, so we didn't position anyone to take advantage of the crossfire, but in this case, it seems fortune smiles upon us. This house," He fingered the map, pointing out a house tucked away at the far end of the street, "Gives a great overlook on both the main and side street leading up to the gate. I want you and a few of our better shooters to head over there and hit the Imps once they reach here," He pointed to a position on the map where a triangle had been drawn, "Where we partially collapsed this building to create a choke point. The side street is too narrow for a tank to get through, so this is their only way in. We'll catch them in a crossfire and take them out. Then you need to get out of there before the tanks roll in."

"Seems simple enough. How long would we have before the tanks roll in, though?" I asked with some trepidation. He patted me on the shoulder and gave me a solid smile.

"See the tower? The house you'll be positioned in has a clear view of it. When we see the tanks coming on down, the watchman up there will wave a flare. That's the signal to clear out. Go down the side street while we cover you. It shouldn't be too bad if we get enough of them." I looked at him, then back to the map. It... should... work. Seemed simple enough, but... no. It was too late to back out now. The plan seemed good. I nodded.

"Alright. Let's do it."

"Good. Wordsworth! Singer! Get over here!" He shouted, and two of the militia ran over. The first, a young man, maybe twenty, twenty one, had brown hair and fair features somewhat hidden by a bandanna over his head. The other, a young redhead with a smirk, came up behind him with a hop. They were... well, I wouldn't say kids. I was pushing thirty five, so maybe I was a bit colored on younger folks, but still, that girl couldn't have been out of high school.

"Finch, this is Noce Wordsworth, one of my captains, and Juliette Singer. Noce, Juliette, this is Jerry Finch." I nodded to them, shaking their hands. "We're going to try and catch those Imp bastards in a crossfire. Finch volunteered to help make it a reality. You know the house, Noce, from when we talked about it earlier. Lead him there, cover him, and help him kill some Imps. With a little luck you'll catch them totally off guard. Any issues?" He asked. Noce shrugged, seemingly ambivalent, and the girl, Juliette, shook her head. "Good. You all know the plan, so-"

"Commander! Commander!" Laakan was cut off, and we all looked up at the man on the tower. "Commander, Imps are massing down the road! Looks like they're getting ready to push!"

"Alright. That's your cue. Get going, and good luck." He said, dismissing us. I glanced at both Noce and Juliette, before taking off at a good pace down the side street. Both matched me pretty easily, and the short run only took a minute to make. I could already hear the first shots as we made it through the door to the two floor home and made our way upstairs through a staircase in the rear.

I sidled up against the wall opposite the road, looking down at the street below. Holy shit... that was a lot of soldiers. Counting up... five six seven... about ten with rifles, another five or six with those automatics... damn. Noce moved up beside another window facing out to the side street we'd just run up, and Juliette parked herself opposite him. I saw a group break off down that street as soon as they hit the intersection, but there wasn't any sign of armor on the way, thank the gods for small mercies.

"Eyes on fifteen, here, give or take. Lots of guns down there." I said, cocking my gun and flicking the switch to semi-automatic. I had seven good magazines, plus a fair few grenades to draw upon. I had the feeling that I would need all of it. Looking at the walls, I felt some worry. They didn't look very bulletproof, so we needed to make the first strike count.

"I have five... no six, coming down the road. I think I can..." Pondered Juliette as she lifted her rifle, checking the breach with a pull and a glance before shouldering it.

"No, wait till they've got their backs to us. We'll catch them in the crossfire." Noce shut her down. She looked unhappy with that, but nodded. I gave him a glance in askance, and he motioned to the still massing Imps down the road. We needed to be patient, despite the already intensifying battle down below.

"Do you think we should try grenades first? Soften them up?" Juliette said in an aside. I looked out, ran some quick numbers. Hmm. It wasn't a far walk from the door to this building to the collapse in the road, so if we were careful maybe...

"It's a thought. The herd is thinning out..." I said as the militia really started to open up. The Imps shot back, moving up in groups of three slowly under the hail of semi-automatic fire. "Yeah. Grenades out. Lets surprise 'em." Noce said as I pulled one of the mashers loose. The crossfire was thinning down as the militia went to reload, and the Imps seemed to be readying a charge. Now was the perfect time to ruin their day.

We slid open the windows as much as we could. Down below the Imperials had huddled up under some of the steeper embankments, and they'd about made it to the debris barrier regardless. We pulled and tossed.

"Grenade!" Screamed one man, but it wasn't enough to make a difference. The rippling blasts sent metal fragments all over the Imp firing line, shredding several and sending more to the ground. Men were screaming in agony, rolling on the ground, bleeding everywhere. One man had no legs, another, a gaping hole in his chest, and more still were pulped like ground meat. There was so much blood, so many injured, so many dead, mutilated, torn up and ripped apart. I swallowed hard, killing my feelings and snarled.

"Open up!" I heard Noce shout, and lined up my first shot on one of the machine gunners that had avoided the worst of the damage. Metal plating or not, it wasn't thick enough to stop the jacketed Kurz rounds I put into his chest, sending him down before zeroing on a new target.

The cracks of Noce's and Juliette's rifles punctuated the chaos, but I didn't stop to look at what was going on there. They seemed to have the side street covered well enough between the two of them. I had other problems.

In the interim I'd managed to tag another two soldiers, but the rest had started peppering the window I was using as cover. The grenades had broken the first line, but there were more men moving up and they weren't nearly so forthcoming. I dived, hitting the ground as the wall was torn apart under a hail of fire, sending glass and mortar all around me as I kissed the floor and covered my head with my hands. I could hear men yelling from outside.

"They're in that house! Second floor, street-side!"

"Move in... pin them..."

"Militia in the house behind...!"

Noce moved to cover me, but I heard him cry out as a stray round punched through the wall and into his leg, sending him down into Juliette's arms as she ran to catch him. I head stomping downstairs, moving towards the staircase behind us, but my shout was drowned out under the sound of gunfire as it tore up more of the wall. I rolled hard to the side, out of the line of fire and reached for my rifle, but it was too late.

The door slammed open, and a man with one of those automatics just opened up on the two militiamen. Juliette didn't even get a chance to scream as the weapon pulped her head and chest, tearing a chunk clear out of her cheek before boring a hole through her skull and ripped into Noce, who tried to dive to the side but didn't quite make it as bullets tore into his stomach.

I flipped over onto my back, rifle up as the Imp soldier saw me and tried to reorient, but I didn't give that motherfucker a chance as my StG spit out five rounds in rapid succession, catching him in the chest and sending him slamming back into the wall at the back of the staircase. I heard a shout, and flicked my rifle to full auto, opening up on the wall, tracing it down through the floor along the staircase. I heard a scream, and the sound of a man tumbling down the steps as I got to my feet, pulling another grenade and tossing it side-handed through the door.

There was another scream that was punctuated by a dull, cracking thump, as I picked myself up, staggering over to the two militia that had come with me on this god awful venture. I didn't need to be a doctor to tell that Juliette was gone. Her head was barely there. Noce was a different story. Gasping and gurgling, his guts were all over the place. The soldier had nearly torn him in half, and the amount of blood all over the floor around him. He looked at me, tried to move, tried to say something, but it all just came out as blood. He spasmed once, twice, and then slumped.

"F-fuck!" I grit, grabbing my rifle tight in shaking hands, adrenaline thundering through my veins as I got to my feet. This was a total clusterfuck. I glanced out over the street through the newly perforated wall and saw that most of the Imperial troops on the ground were dead or dying. The grenades had done a fair bit of damage, killing or maiming more than half of the soldiers down there, but the other half had put up a hell of a fight. Some had gone after us, while the rest tore their attention between the entrenched militia ahead and our flimsy position behind.

Still, mission accomplished, right? Right. The word tasted like ashes in my mouth. Most of the Imps down there were down or out, and it should be safe enough to move. All I needed was the signal. I looked out over to the tower down the road. There wasn't a guardsman up there. What?

A rock fell down into my gut as the ground began to shake, and I ran to the windows facing the main inroad. What greeted me was the tilted barrel of a tank. My eyes went wide, and I dived back as hard as I could as the cacophonous boom rattled my skull and sent my vision spiraling. The blast was deafening, and all I could hear was a sharp ringing as I pulled myself up unsteadily. My rifle was on the ground some meters away, undamaged, it seemed, but that didn't help me as another man in crimson clothing charged through the staircase.

I drew my handgun and rolled back hard, pulling the trigger over and over. One, two, three, four, five, I pulled, my dancing vision sending my rounds everywhere. My head was spinning, and I couldn't focus. I heard footsteps. One, two, three... and then a thump as a body landed near my feet. My vision cleared after a moment, and what I saw stunned me.

A dead Imp soldier was lying on the ground, helmet rolling away. There were five holes in the wall, four ringing a fifth in chunky splatter, and when I looked at the helmet, I could see a divot in one side of it, and the back totally blown out. He was hit twice, and from the look of it, one went right into the visor. The man was stone dead.

I stood, staggering a bit as I holstered my handgun and retrieved my rifle. At a glance it looked fine, so I wrapped the strap back around my shoulder. The wall the tank had shot was just gone, leaving a gaping wound in the side of the house that still smoldered with the remnants of the explosive shell. Nothing remained, though I was lucky the blast itself left me unharmed aside from the ringing in my ears. I moved to the hole. The tank that had shot the house had moved up.

The one behind it... well...

"Fuck." I swore as I found myself staring at the face of the commander from the next tank over. We stared at each other for a second in blatant disbelief before I jumped to my rifle and took aim. The man had already ducked down into the tank, sealing the hatch before I could draw a bead on him and the turret was already turning towards me.

I glanced back. The stairs were too far away, and the cannon would collapse the fucking building before I even got halfway down anyway. There was only one way out of here. I knew it. I had to do it, if I wanted to live.

I ran full tilt at the hole in the wall and jumped! I was flying through the air as the cannon fired, and I could feel the pressure wave from the shell as it blasted past me, missing me by so slim a margin I could feel the backwash.

The building behind me exploded into a ball of fire as the tank round hit, the force of the blast so hot I could feel my back crisp and the building gave a shuddering, shrieking groan as the second tank shell hit bodily inside, shredding wood and plaster alike as the windows blew out in a frightening display as all the while I flew.

The tank was coming up fast! Too fast! I was tumbling ass over teakettle, and landed on the turret of the vehicle hard enough to drive the air from my lungs as I hit with bone-jarring force. I almost puked from the impact as I wrapped around the hard metal of the tank's armor, feeling my ribs creak from the effort.

I stumbled, rolled really, as I clambered around the body of the tank, bullets pinging perilously close as Imperial riflemen tried to force me off my moving, makeshift enemy cover. I hung wildly from the barrel of the main gun, keeping myself as far from the automatic next to the turret as I could while I brought my rifle around to bare. A flick of my finger put it on automatic, and I swung it right, under the barrel where an Imp gunner was trying to draw a bead.

The StG roared, and a burst of four rounds tore through his chest and neck before I pulled it out and pointed it to my left, one handing the precarious weapon as I pointed it at a man with what looked like engineering tools to my left and pulled again, stitching him up as he tried to get his gun on me. Another man came up behind him, right into my field of fire and I emptied what little was left of my magazine into him too as the hatch to the lower compartment opened right under my foot, almost forcing me off as a man with a pistol tried to shoot me.

I braced, kicking him clean in the face and sending him flopping down as I put all my weight on the hatch, crushing his chest between it and the hull of the tank. He screamed as his chest caved with a sickening crack and spit up blood as I swung the hatch open again and slammed it down for good measure before dragging the dead man out of his seat and pulling a grenade. I yanked the priming string and dropped it in, before slamming shut the door.

The turret hatch opened above me as a man with an officer's cap tried to climb out, but it was too little too late. Fire belched out from the view port below me as the man above cried out and then flopped like a boned fish against the turret and slid back in with dead, glazed eyes.

The tank in front of me stopped, and I could see the turret turning at me far too quickly. I moved to get off, to try and get out of the line of fire but the gun was already almost on me. I winced. I didn't have any illusions about what would happen next.

Then the turret stopped, and started turning back. I stared incredulously at it. Why?

Then the side of the forward tank exploded. I ducked from the heat of the blast and the shrapnel, flinching as a wave of pressure washed over me. The tank that had been turning towards me was torn open, the side exposed, ripped wide like an overripe melon. The turret still moved, but a second roar from what sounded like an artillery cannon blasted through the turret altogether, ending it. Around the corner rolled what looked like a fucking Panzer in Gallian blue just a moment later, burning hard rubber as it tackled the dead Imp tank in front of it out of the way with a sharp crunch, and around me I heard shouts and cries of shock.

That snapped me back. I ejected the dead mag out of my gun and shoved it into my dump pouch before pulling another out of my chest rig and locking it in. The gun cocked with a satisfying snap, and I rolled around the side of the immobilized second tank. Behind it were several soldiers, all backing away as I drew on them and opened up full bore.

Behind me a deafening roar erupted as the chuffing of a heavy machinegun let loose over my shoulder, pouring down the other side of the street. The Imperial soldiers yelled, panicked, running for any cover they could find and clearing out as fast as their legs would take them. The line was broken. We won.

Across my lips a savage grin grew. We won. High on adrenaline, I stood, I roared! We won!

"Hah! Fuck YOU!" I pointed down the empty street, devoid of retreating Imperials now that the fighting was done. I sucked in fresh air, tainted with the flavor of smoke and gunpowder though it was. I'd never had anything so delicious. Never in all my life.

"Hey!" I turned, and blinked. It was that guy from before, in the brown coat. He was standing there, waving at me with a big grin. I laughed. I couldn't help it. Holy shit, I made it thanks to that guy. I waved back, smiling as I walked over.

"Hey yourself, kid. See you've been busy since we last met." I chuckled, leaning against the still humming blue tank.

"Yeah, well. You know how it is." He said modestly and I gave him a look. You know the one, with the perfectly raised "who do you think you're kidding" eyebrow? That one. "Uhm, hey, you look like you've had a bit of a rough go of it. You alright?"

I took a look at myself. Covered in dust, carbon, bits of the house, bits of people... fuck. I was a mess, but... I was still alive. As the adrenaline started to crash, and it flooded out, I couldn't stop myself from laughing, from chuckling, from gagging as it all rolled over me. I ran a dirty hand over my face. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to do a lot of things. I was shaking, I could tell, and I took a deep breath, my limbs feeling like jello.

But mostly? Mostly I just wanted to sit down. Goddamn, but did I want to sit down. Welkin climbed out of the tank, sliding down the side and I felt a hand drop onto my shoulder. I glanced at him.

"Need a ride?" He asked with a half grin. I shut my eyes and took a deep breath before nodding. He climbed back up onto the forward plate and offered me a hand up. I took it, and hauled myself up as he got back into the command throne. I didn't follow, instead moving behind the turret and dropping down onto the hard, flat backplate before leaning against it, shutting my eyes as the tank gave a rumble and started to turn back.

I listened to the sound of stone under the treads, tasted the smoke, felt the cool metal and rested. I just... rested. Just sat there and left my eyes closed. The day was done. I was done. It was done. Today was done, but tomorrow would come again, and inside, a bit of me ached for that, but that was a problem for then. For now? I breathed deep the air of victory. From it I drew no comfort. As it should have been. As it should have been.