Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The silence in the aftermath of a battle had always brought a sense of calmness to Shin. He breathed in deeply, feeling the crisp air of the evening fill his lungs, and slowly let it out. Amidst the smoke and the orange rays of the setting sun, she stood upon the wreckage and debris of a previous battlefield. The wind carried her silver hair behind her like a cascading waterfall, a force of nature.

When she turned to the crowd before her, Shin couldn’t help but marvel at her. Her features were set rigidly, displaying her will and resolve for all to see. Let them watch, her argent eyes seemed to tell him.

“This is the end,” she called out, strongly and firmly, and all were silent, all were listening in rapt attention to her words.

Shin made sure to keep himself hidden from view. He turned his focus to the crowd of soldiers, weary and worn, that stood on the open fields. The mixed colors of the Eighty-Six were nothing new to him. Like him, they all donned either the flight suits or the steel-gray uniforms of the Federacy. From the ethnic groups of the veridian to the rubela to the caerulea, and even non-vespertina races like the orienta, these individuals were all of races he had grown to know as comrades. But mixed in with them were Alban officers, all wearing the uniforms of the Republic of San Magnolia. The oppressors that he and his fellow Processors had all come to know as white pigs. He had no memories of seeing anything like this in his lifetime.

And somehow, this group stood united without boundaries, without the lines that were drawn between them so many years ago. They all stood under Vladilena Milize.

“This is the end of Alban supremacy,” she declared boldly, resonantly. “The end of the oppressors and the oppressed. This is the end of the Republic as we know it!”

The setting sun dipped lower, casting its glowing rays behind the woman, creating a silhouette of her figure. The wind picked up her long hair again, silver strands flying gently in front of her in waves. She was beautiful.

“Follow me, and we will stand united in the face of our real enemy, the Legion!”

Somewhere in the crowd, someone started chanting her name. Not her real name, but the title that was bestowed upon her during this war. Bloody Reina. Others near that person started following, and soon after, the resounding rhythm of their cries carried out to the world.

Shin would never forget this moment in his life.

—

Several days earlier

—

"First Lieutenant Theoto Rikka, reporting for duty, Colonel Milize," the young blonde greeted with a clear voice and a crisp salute. His uniform looked clean and freshly ironed, with all buttons, buckles and ties fastened to military regulation. On his left hand was a single black glove, though his right hand remained bare.

Lena sat behind the desk in her office and took a long moment to process the serious look on the young man’s typically laid-back, easygoing face. She had never seen him so earnest with military protocol.

"Um…," she started with her brows furrowed, slightly flustered. After a brief second, she remembered the role she played, and stood to return the salute not wanting to offend his respectful behavior. "It's a pleasure to have you, First Lieutenant Rikka. At ease."

Theo immediately followed the command and changed his posture to relax his stance. He brought his left foot out to the side and his hands to lock behind his back.

"Welcome…er, no that's not right…welcome back to the Eighty-Sixth Strike Package's First Armored Corps. As you know, I'll be your commanding officer again. I understand you'll be our new geomatics specialist…"

Lena rambled on with some more basic pleasantries while a hundred different reasons for why he was acting in this way raced through her mind. Maybe he was still coming to terms with his recent loss and this was a coping strategy. Maybe he decided that this was the new him. Maybe he was upset about something. Should she say something about how uneasy she was? Or should she just play it casual like this wasn’t strange at all?

At first, she didn’t quite notice his mouth twitching. But eventually, it seemed that Theo couldn’t keep it in anymore and he snorted loudly. Apparently, that broke the dam and his face distorted as he burst out laughing.

Lena stood speechless, completely shocked.

"Y-you were messing with me?!" she cried out indignantly.

"You shoulda seen the look on your face! You looked like you were watching a talking monkey!"

More laughter.

"You're being so mean!"

"I can't believe you fell for that!"

Several moments later, after Lena and Theo both calmed down, Theo sat on one of the armchairs with his sleeves rolled up and his tie loosened from his collar. Even his expression looked more relaxed than the stiff, rigid expression from earlier. Lena couldn’t help the thought that this was much better.

"The new arm looks nice," Lena commented now that she could see the prosthetic that wasn't covered by the glove.

"Yeah, it's the latest in Federacy tech. It's got some cool functions that I'll show you and the others later. It's not a neuroprosthetic, but I'm told that they're making a lot of progress on that research so one day I might be able to have the use of a hand again," Theo remarked excitedly.

"I'm glad to see you doing well, Theo," Lena commented with a smile.

Theo looked up at her with a flushed face. "Well I…you know, had a lot of help and all that."

"The others will be so excited to see you! They should be down in the hangar getting ready for our next mission,” she relayed to him.

"Right,” Theo said. “Guess I’ll take this as my cue to get outta your hair. You’re probably really busy. Day before we leave and all that.”

“Before you go, I have your orders for you. Let me know if you have any questions. I always have an open door policy as long as I’m in the office,” Lena said as she handed a folder to Theo.

“Which is pretty much always, from what I’ve been hearing,” Theo remarked. “Seriously, take a break once in a while. You’re not a machine.”

Lena only chuckled at that comment. "By the way…have you noticed anything off about Annette lately?" she asked curiously.

"Uh…you’re her best friend. Wouldn’t you know better than me?”

“...Would I?” Lena asked him back with a very pointed look.

This made Theo fluster for a second before he cleared his throat. “I haven’t noticed anything, really. Why do you ask?"

Lena hesitated for a moment, contemplating something before replying, "Oh, it's probably nothing."

—

The moment that Shin walked into the lab of Prince Viktor Idinarok, otherwise known to him and his comrades as Vika, he couldn’t help but remember how Frederica had once described him.

What was it again? Ah, yes.

He’s a fool who just so happens to be smart.

That summed up just about what Shin was witnessing.

“What are you…doing?” he dared to ask.

“I’m just running simulations for a nuclear bomb that would release a large electromagnetic pulse,” Vika replied. “It could cause widespread damage to the Legion…unfortunately it would also wipe out most lifeforms on the continent, but those are just technicalities.”

“That doesn’t sound dangerous at all,” Shin remarked with full sarcasm.

“Don’t you worry, my work here has all been perfectly humane, ethical, by the books, approved by your better half and utterly boring,” Vika replied with a hint of annoyance. “I suspect Milize has a list of all the experiments I’m not allowed to run.”

“...I’m pretty sure she didn’t approve of a nuclear weapon…”

“Well…not in so many words. My objective was to weaponize electromagnetic pulses in a way that wouldn’t affect our side…this is just a step in that direction,” Vika rationalized with a shrug of his shoulders.

“...”

“Please don’t tell her. She can be kind of scary.”

That was one thing Shin could actually relate to. Lena usually had a mild-tempered, sweet disposition, but he quickly learned there were certain things that could trigger a different side of her. When he thought back to their nightly conversations over the Para-RAID in the Eighty-Sixth sector, he realized that there were hints to this even back then. The words, tell me about it, immediately came to mind, though he didn't voice it aloud. Apparently he was being more transparent than he thought, though.

“Oh?” Vika asked with a raised brow. “Trouble in paradise? Do tell.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Shin replied with a blunt rebuff.

“I heard she made you redo all your performance evaluations. Let me guess, you gave literally every person under your command ‘excellent’ and ‘above average’ ratings.”

The fact that Vika was able to tell exactly how he did those evaluations should have told Shin a lot about his track record for administrative work. But he simply chose to ignore it.

“You could at least pretend you’re trying,” Vika quipped.

“Whatever, I got them done the way she wanted in the end,” Shin shot back.

Lerche, who had been standing unobtrusively at the side of the lab, suddenly snapped her fingers as though she just had an epiphany. “Ah! I understand! Lady Bloody Reina has Sir Reaper…what is the saying…whipped?”

“Why would you say that in front of his face, you seven-year-old?!” Vika chastised in a panic.

“Anyways,” Shin interjected their comedy act, trying not to be insulted by the Sirin’s latest comment. “I actually came here to ask you something.”

Vika made a humming noise, pretending to ponder what it might be. But he was clearly distracted by his experiment.

“I’ve been thinking of ways we can gather more intelligence on the Legion. Since I can hear their cries, is there any way for me to also listen into their communication network?” Shin inquired.

Vika seemed to genuinely ponder this. “Interesting. We can conclude from Zelene’s interrogations that they do indeed have some network of communication. Being able to tap into it would be an incredible asset. Perhaps you would let me dissect you, or one of your distant relatives that has the Maika’s abilities?”

Shin didn’t even bother to acknowledge that question with a response.

“Ah yes, I doubt Milize would let me run an experiment like that.”

As always, the Prince had missed the point entirely as to what was actually problematic with his ideas.

“I’m not sure why you came to me about this. You’ll probably have better luck asking your grandmother,” Vika shrugged. “I hear you’ve reconnected with her, and you’ve been honing your ability under her guidance.”

Shin nodded, suspecting as much to begin with. Unfortunately, his opportunities to see his maternal grandmother were limited, and he disliked all of the political implications that seemed to be involved whenever he interacted with either side of his family. Despite his grandfather’s attempts to shield him, Shin had started to learn quickly about the animosity between the Onyx and Pyrope bloodlines.

“I’ll think about other methods to try to achieve this in the meantime,” Vika answered, clearly already thinking about this new problem. “Is this related to the Legion’s shutdown code we learned about from Zelene?” he asked casually, more perceptive than Shin would have liked.

Vika didn’t know that they had actually obtained the location of the old Imperial base, the only place the shutdown code could be triggered. The only ones who knew were him, Raiden, Anju, Theo, Kurena, Ernst, and of course the young girl that was at the center of it all. It was a card that Shin and the others decided not to play quite yet.

“It is,” Shin confirmed, sticking as close to the truth as possible. “If we’re able to acquire the information we need to end the Legion war, there’s another problem entirely. The Imperial base where the shutdown code can be triggered is…probably deep in Legion territory. But we don’t have any other information about the surroundings other than old maps from an extinct Empire. I may be able to hear the Legion, but only the units that are active. We have no idea what’s lying dormant, or even what types of units, potentially unknown units, there are.”

“I see the point you’re trying to make, Nouzen. If we go on the counteroffensive without any other information, we’d be going in mostly blind,” Vika summed up without batting an eye. “It would likely be…”

“A suicide mission,” Shin finished the thought. “These days, I’m not exactly interested in those.”

“I imagine you weren’t interested in them back in the Eighty-Sixth sector either, despite all the stories I hear about you, Reaper,” Vika replied. “In any case, you’re getting ahead of yourself. We don’t yet have the location of the base. Not to mention the only individuals who can trigger the code are members of the old Imperial family. Without those pieces, we can forget about trying to plan a counteroffensive. Unless, of course, I’m wrong?”

At that, Vika gave Shin a pointed look.

“No, that’s all we know,” Shin replied.

A long silence came over the room, neither of them saying anything more. Lerche looked between the two young men in confusion, not sure how to interpret the atmosphere.

“Well then, there’s nothing more we can do. Have you talked about any of this with Milize?”

Shin went silent again.

“Ah, so you haven’t told her about the shutdown code yet. Perhaps you should. She might need to know eventually, anyways.”

Shin didn’t reply to that either. It wasn’t something for him to say. Because it involved…

—

“Frederica, eat your mushrooms,” Raiden scolded the young girl for the thousandth time.

The onyx haired girl could only grumble in annoyance. As always, it was the last side dish to remain on her plate. She begrudgingly put one in her mouth, made a face, and swallowed quickly.

“Bleugh!” she cried out.

Their table was particularly loud and busy today with several Processors swarming around Theo. His return had already gotten a lot of attention when he entered, but the new prosthetic he was showing off was attracting most of the personnel.

Raiden just wanted a quiet, relaxing dinner.

"Aghhh!!!!" Kurena cried out when Theo's hand came off with a pop. Everyone laughed loudly.

No such luck.

At that moment, one of the tech officers, Lena's friend, appeared in the canteen. Or to be more accurate, she looked like she was self-dragging her half-dead corpse to try and attain sustenance.

"Oh, hey Annette," Theo greeted with a wave of his other, attached hand. "You look like the dead."

"Ngh," she grunted in response with a hand up to gesture silence. "Coffee first, then talk."

"...But it's evening," Theo remarked with a raised brow. He went completely ignored.

Raiden looked at the way Theo kept following that Republic officer's movements. He couldn't help but make a humming noise with a knowing smirk.

Theo turned to him in annoyance.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Oh great," Kurena muttered with a roll of her eyes after watching their exchange. "First Shin and Anju, now Theo too?"

"What's that supposed to mean?!" the blonde in question exclaimed.

"Have you finished getting ready for tomorrow yet?" Raiden asked, making an obvious change in subject.

"Pretty much," Kurena responded. "But I'd rather not have to go back to the Republic again. Those white pigs don't even want help."

"Yeah, well, not much we can do about that," Theo replied with a shrug of his shoulders. “Orders are orders.”

Of course they were all referring to their first operation as the Strike Package, when they had been deployed to the Republic's secondary capital. Back then, an Alban supremacist movement had started under the leadership of some woman that seemed to think that all Eighty-Six were the property of the Republic. With their obsession with a pure white race, no wonder everyone had started to call them the Bleachers. That and their actual name was way too long and obnoxious.

Unfortunately, they had to go back for yet another mission. This time, they were to be deployed to the Republic’s Eastern Front, where intelligence suggested that there was a new Admiral type Legion unit that was built. The Spearhead squadron would be returning to their old battlefield.

"I finished them…," a meek, shaky voice proclaimed weakly. When Raiden looked beside him, Frederica had finished all of the mushrooms on her plate, though she had her hand over her mouth like she might throw up.

"You didn't need to force yourself like that…," Raiden muttered, feeling slightly guilty.

"But I didn't want…any food…to get wasted…," Frederica said with an all-too tragic face.

Raiden sighed and patted the young girl on the head. "Good job, but next time, you can just give them to someone else if they’re actually gonna make you feel sick."

"Okay…"

—

Shin knocked on the open door to announce his presence before entering the office. Lena was, unsurprisingly, still glued to her laptop, datapad, and several papers all spread around her desk. She had taken off her uniform jacket and thrown it on the couch, and she was staring at her screen with a furrow in her brow. When she looked up at her visitor, she relaxed her features but her mind kept working.

“Oh, Shin, about that request for-”

“Lena, it’s 2100 hours. I’m not here to talk about work,” Shin interrupted her before she could even finish the sentence. He closed the door behind him, stating very clearly to anyone passing by that her day was over. It only took a few strides before he stood next to her.

Lena’s eyes immediately widened in surprise before she hastily took a glance at what was likely the time on her datapad. Her shoulders slumped and she closed her eyes, burying her face in her hands. He could hear a muffled groan escape her.

“I lost track of time again.”

“You sure did,” Shin replied without any sympathy. “And if you’re talking about the request for extra ammunition, you already approved and took care of it this morning.”

“I did?”

At this, she looked up from her slumped position and pulled the files on her laptop. When she scrolled to the bottom, they could both see her signature clearly there.

“You’re exhausted and not thinking clearly. And I’m guessing you’ve barely eaten all day,” Shin surmised easily. He could see the fatigue in her posture and the bags under her eyes. He knew for a fact that she hadn’t been sleeping properly for some time now.

At the mention of food, her stomach growled, and he held up the bag that he brought in from the canteen.

“Eat.”

“In a bit, I just need to-”

“There’s also cheesecake in here. It’s from that bakery in town you like so much.”

“You mean Klein’s on Whyte Avenue?” she asked hopefully.

Shin nodded his head. “But if you don’t eat dinner now, I’ll eat every last bite of your dessert.”

Lena gasped in horror. “You don’t even like sweets.”

“I know.”

“You can be truly heartless and cruel, Captain Nouzen.”

He looked her dead in the eye, silently daring her to challenge him. He would stand his ground no matter what. The conflict on her face, with her brows slightly furrowed and lips in a pout, was frankly quite adorable.

“Fine, you win,” she grumbled.

Shin thought to himself that for her to give in so easily, she must be tired. She was normally far more stubborn than this. But he smartly kept that to himself.

Once Lena had sorted all her files and papers and shut down her devices, she sat down at the small side table in her office to enjoy her meal. Shin settled down across the table from her after taking one of his books off her shelf that he was in the middle of reading.

“You know you don’t have to sit here and watch me eat. You should go to bed, it’s getting late,” Lena insisted as she dug into her food.

Shin finished reading the line he was on in his book and looked up at her with a dubious glance. “And if I leave, are you going to bed after you eat, or just straight back to work?”

“Uh…well I…”

“That’s what I thought.”

As Lena went back to eating, Shin looked at her, giving her a proper appraisal this time. She didn’t just look exhausted, but like something was on her mind. She’d been like this for some time now, in fact…they both have. He didn’t know what was causing her so much anxiety, but he wished that he could ease it somehow. He wanted her to tell him whatever it was that was bothering her, but he hoped that she would when she felt ready.

Although, him wanting that from Lena would be hypocritical. He had also been keeping something important from her, something that he constantly worried and thought about. Perhaps Vika was right, perhaps he should tell her. But this was about Frederica’s life, and he also felt that only those closest to the girl should know.

When Lena suddenly squealed in delight, praising the old lady that owned the bakery, he couldn’t help the smile on his face.

“Lena,” he called to her, and whatever emotion was in his voice, it made her immediately focus her attention on him. “Are you alright? You don’t have to tell me but…I know something’s been troubling you.”

At this, Lena paused eating and gently placed her fork down next to her plate.

"I could say the same about you," she said with a knowing smile. "And not just you. Raiden and the others too."

Shin felt like he just got called out for sneaking notes around in class, but at the same time he wasn't very surprised that Lena had noticed something.

"Whatever it is, I understand that there are some things that you can't tell me. And if you do, it's not just your decision to make, but your whole team's," Lena said, giving reassurances to doubts that he had never even voiced. "It doesn't matter what it is. I'm here for you, and I'll support you no matter what."

Those words almost made Shin tell her everything at that moment. But she was right about the decision to tell others not being his alone to make. But just hearing her say that meant everything to him.

"I know that, and I do appreciate it. But this wasn't supposed to be about me. You've been overworking yourself lately. I don't even get to see you much anymore."

"Are you saying you miss me?" she asked him with a coy smile.

"Am I not allowed to?"

"O-of course you are," Lena replied with slightly flushed cheeks. "I miss you too."

After that, Shin knew that pushing her further wouldn’t help at all so he simply waited for her to speak. He watched her play with her cheesecake for a while. She was likely deciding what to tell him. Whatever it was, he knew that his role was to just listen for now.

“I’ve had a lot of worrying things on my mind,” Lena affirmed, looking at him softly. After another moment’s deliberation, she continued. "Like how we have an information leak. I’m quite positive that the source of it is a mole. I hate having to suspect one of our own, but I think I know who it is."

They had been aware of an information leak ever since their first operation in the Republic as the Strike Package. A breach in their military was serious, but they hadn’t been able to pinpoint the source. Shin’s attention had been so focused on defeating the Legion and ending the war that he hadn’t thought much about fighting a battle amongst themselves. But for them to successfully end the Legion, they would need to take care of any infiltrators first, as much as he loathed to admit it.

"But the person I suspect…I can't think of any reason for them to betray us. There's no motive or goal I can see."

“Are you sure about this?”

After some more thought, Lena sighed grimly. “There isn’t anyone else that fits the criteria so perfectly. But no, right now I don't have any evidence and it's just pure speculation.”

Their conversation fell silent.

He could tell that she was reluctant to make any accusations yet. It was also hard for him to know that someone amongst them would ever betray them.

“You’re not going to ask who it is?”

“If I did, would you tell me?” Shin replied with a question of his own. “Besides, I’m sure that you already have some countermeasures in place. I’ll know when it becomes important to know.”

“I would argue it’s important for you to know now. But I’m not ready to point fingers just yet until I have proof,” Lena admitted. “In any case, you shouldn’t be so trusting,” she warned with a frown.

Shin frowned back at her in retort and added, “Not with others. You are not ‘others’.”

A small smile bloomed on her face then and it made him happy that it was from something he said.

Shin couldn’t help but to ask, almost playfully, “I do have one question though. Am I another one of your worrying things?”

Lena caught on quickly and smirked at him. “Maybe one of them, and only because you’ve always had a tendency to do reckless things.”

“Not anymore, I’m a changed man now.”

“Oh? And what is it that made the steadfast, fearless Reaper of the Eastern Front change?”

“You see, there’s this woman. Stubborn and bossy as hell-”

Lena didn’t look very impressed when she interrupted him with, “Is that so?”

“-And she ordered me to always come back to her side. So I can’t go defying her orders.” At this, Shin rose up from his seat to lean forward towards Lena in a whisper. “She is my superior officer, after all.”

Lena leaned up until there was only an inch between them.

“That would be insubordination,” she agreed with a low, soft voice. He could feel her warmth at this distance. She was intoxicating, and he would only gladly drink her in.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t remember what they were talking about anymore, so he had no other witty remark to quip back at her.

He wasn’t sure which one of them closed the distance between them, but it didn’t matter. Within moments they had maneuvered around the small side table, and he held Lena tightly as he kissed her, pouring every ounce of affection and adoration to the woman he promised to always return to. Nothing else mattered when they held each other like this, tangled in each other’s embrace.

Something shifted, and their kiss turned from slow and languid into frenzied and heated. Shin could taste the sweetness of the cheesecake, and on Lena’s lips, he’d learned that he didn’t mind sweet so much. He could feel her soft, nimble fingers running through his hair, her nails lightly scratching at his scalp causing a shiver to run down his spine, and he breathed more of her in. As much as he could get. Shin moved from her mouth to her neck, slowly tracing his lips to her collarbone. He planned to taste every inch of her, even if he needed all night. He had her pressed against the edge of the desk now and she slipped one of her legs between his. He had to suppress a groan when he felt the pressure of her thigh against his groin.

“I’d like you to take me to bed now,” she whispered.

Shin could never deny a request from her like that. Her argent eyes looked at him with something he could only describe as want. He briefly wondered if he looked the same.

“Yes, ma’am.”

—

Grethe sighed in exasperation as she knocked on the door to Colonel Milize’s office yet again. Granted, it was still too early for even a military base to be awake yet, but it was the morning of a large operation and there were still some last minute details that needed to be addressed.

“Good morning, Colonel Wenzel,” Anju greeted with a smile as she approached the older woman to stand next to her.

Grethe gave her a nod. “You here to see Colonel Milize?”

“Nope, the other half,” Anju replied.

“Ah, is Captain Nouzen not in his room?” Grethe concluded with a knowing look.

The Lieutenant paused for a brief moment before she admitted, “Actually I never even bothered checking.”

“...Right.” Grethe checked the time on her watch again. She still had some work to do herself. As a busy woman, she knew when to delegate a task. “Once you see them, could you send the Colonel my way?”

“Will do.”

—

Shin awoke feeling well rested and energized despite the lack of sleep. The cries of the long dead that could not pass were constant and relentless, so he rarely woke up feeling this way. But he found that the combination of being farther away from the frontlines, here at the Rustkammer base, and spending the night with Lena tended to lull the voices into a quiet murmur rather than the raucous cacophony he was used to.

Shin had his arms wrapped around Lena and could feel the weight of her head resting on his chest. If he let himself focus on the calming, rhythmic pattern of her breathing, he would likely be lulled back to sleep.

They were both still completely bare under the sheets, and he marveled at how they had both become so familiar with intimacy in such a short time. It wasn’t too long ago that if they found themselves in a position like this, they would have both jumped away, too flustered and mortified to even think. Now, Shin would wholly confess that waking up in the mornings like this was one of his favorite things in the world.

He checked the alarm he set the night before, and there was still plenty of time before they had to be up and ready.

Shin let the hand that wasn’t trapped beneath Lena’s body travel further down her sides, lightly caressing her smooth, pale skin. On one hand, he should really let her rest as much as possible, but as his hand traveled lower still and squeezed her round, soft flesh, he admitted he had things in mind other than sleep.

He briefly wondered how long she could stay asleep for before he set to work.

Pulling himself away from Lena was the easy part. Trying to get in between her legs was a bit trickier. Once he rolled her onto her back, he was able to slip his hand between her thighs as he slowly laid light kisses down her. He trailed down her collarbone and sternum, nipped at her soft, round breasts, and laved at her nipples until they became hard peaks. He smirked when he heard her sigh breathily, gradually being roused awake as he continued his ministrations. His mouth wandered past her abdomen until he followed the groove of her hip joint downwards.

When Shin spread out her legs further so he could press his lips to her slick, wet folds, Lena gasped in shock and her head shot up immediately. He grinned.

“Good morning,” he greeted and then dipped back in.

He laid his tongue flat on her folds and gently brought them up to the barely perceptible bump, tasting not just her but the remnants of himself from the night before. A loud, drawn out moan escaped Lena’s lips as her head fell back down onto her pillow with a light thud.

“Shin…?” she asked between her panting in a thin, groggy voice. “Wha…what time is it?”

He noticed her head wandering to and fro, searching for the time.

“Don’t,” Shin insisted, holding her in place and speaking between licks and kisses. “What would you say…if I told you…that it was the middle of the day…and the entire corps already left?”

Lena paused for only a mere second before she replied breathlessly with her pitch raised, “Don’t stop.”

He chuckled and lightly bit the inside of her thigh.

He spent most of his attention licking and laving at the swollen bump, having learned early on that it was her most sensitive area. He occasionally dipped his finger or tongue directly inside her warm, wet walls. Shin could feel himself become harder, the heat pooling in his lower regions, as he kept going down on her, listening to Lena’s litany of mewls, whimpers, and cries for him. He had an iron grip on both sides of her hips as she kept squirming and fidgeting, unable to control her spasms whenever the pleasure became too intense. Lena’s knuckles turned white as she gripped the sheets.

“Shin…I want you inside me,” Lena called for him. She was still coherent enough to talk, but he would change that soon enough.

“No,” he refused her, just as breathless. “I want to watch you.”

When she looked down at him, the frenzy in her eyes and the shiver that ran through her body made Shin wonder what kind of expression he wore. He probably looked ravenous.

Knock, knock, knock.

Shin suppressed a frustrated groan and buried his face deeper into Lena’s folds. That definitely came from the office door. Whoever it was would have to wait.

Lena tried to turn herself over to get up, but she yelped as he snapped her legs back towards him and shoved her back against the mattress. He increased the intensity of his tongue and began pumping his fingers inside of her. She cried out again, slapping a hand over her mouth to try and keep quiet.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Not yet,” he breathed.

She was so close. Shin was determined to finish her. He took the swollen bump between his lips and sucked as he continued to relentlessly pump his fingers inside of her. Lena arched her back, reaching up above her and clutching for anything that she could grip, settling for pressing her hand against the flat headboard. When she bit back a loud cry, her walls clamped tightly around his fingers. He kept up his rhythm of sucking and pumping until he carried her through the high.

Knock, knock, knock.

Lena was still panting and breathless, having just climbed down from her climax. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and took a moment for himself to appreciate his work. He couldn’t help the broad smirk on his face as he watched her body quiver, flushed and littered with red marks and bruises from both this morning and the night before. He gently brushed some strands of hair that had fallen over her cheeks away from her face and placed a tender kiss on her forehead.

Knock, knock, knock.

God damnit.

The onyx-haired young man reluctantly pulled himself away from Lena. Shin took one look at her, partially exposed and partially covered by sheets, and it took all of his willpower not to go back to bed.

The knocking continued and he cursed, trying to find his pants. It was hard to see since the sun was just starting to rise, so he stumbled around feeling for the clothes that were haphazardly thrown on the floor last night. Once he found them, he hastily put them on and walked out the door of the inner chamber that was the bedroom, not bothering trying to find his shirt. In all likelihood, whoever was knocking would be someone he really didn’t care about seeing him shirtless, like Raiden.

Shin grumpily made his way towards the door of the office and opened it. “What is it?” he barked in agitation.

And immediately stilled when he saw that it was Anju.

The other girl who had always looked at him like a little brother brought a hand to cover her sly grin.

“Oh my, this is certainly a sight.”

If it were Raiden, Theo or any other Processor, he would easily tell them to shut up and piss off. But this was Anju. No one would ever dare to be so rude to her, not even Shin.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked sweetly. Oh no, he knew where this was going. “Or maybe you and Lena were keeping each other up all night.”

He was helpless. Shin could feel the heat rising to his face and spreading to his neck and he was too powerless to do anything about it.

“Oh ho ho…I didn’t think you were actually at it all night. That’s some impressive stamina.”

“We weren’t…it wasn’t all…please stop,” he pleaded with a groan. All he wanted to do was bury himself in a hole.

“But this is so much fun. I never used to be able to tease you until you’re so red in the face. Things really have changed,” Anju sighed dramatically. Shin thanked whatever gods out there that encouraged Anju to take pity on him. “Anyways, Guren and Touka have some things to go over with you about Undertaker. They’re waiting for you in the hangar. And Colonel Wenzel was looking for Lena earlier,” Anju reported dutifully.

Shin sighed in frustration.

“We’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”

“Is that enough time for another-”

Shin promptly shut the door as quickly as possible.

—

The high-speed railway terminal was located in the capital city Sankt Jeder, so the Strike Package’s First Armored Corps, located in Rustkammer, departed their base at 0800 hours. Once they traveled to the city, they spent the rest of the morning and the early part of the afternoon loading and boarding the train.

Annette's eye twitched in slight frustration.

The boarding information she received was clearly wrong. She watched maintenance personnel load some of the new tech into the hollow train car.

"Hey!" Theo called to her from a short distance away on the train platform. He took a moment to run towards her. “You lost or something?”

"I was told that command personnel are boarding this car, meaning me," Annette responded, pointing an agitated finger at herself.

"Uh…no. Supplies and equipment for the tech exchange are going here,” Theo replied with a raised brow. He turned around and began walking off, beckoning her to follow him. “Come on, I'll show you where you're actually supposed to board."

"Ugh, fine, I'll have a talk with Lena about this later."

“Are you okay? You look worse than yesterday,” Theo remarked with a raised brow. “It’s like you and Lena are both overworking yourselves for no reason.”

“Don’t lump me in with her,” Annette retorted. “I’m not as crazy as she is and I actually eat proper meals and get enough sleep. I just keep getting these awful headaches and I’ve been waking up feeling worse than when I go to bed, it’s bizarre.”

Theo made a thoughtful humming noise. “Doesn’t sound good. Have you tried being a little less smart like the rest of us? Maybe that’ll keep your head from swelling too big,” he quipped.

Annette rolled her eyes. “I’m the right amount of brilliant, thank you. It’s everyone else around me that are idiots.”

“Wow, you’re so humble,” Theo jabbed with a wry grin. “Anyways, maybe go see a doctor or something after the mission’s over.”

Annette felt her face warm up at that comment, noticing the genuine concern in his voice beneath the teasing.

“Fine, whatever,” she murmured quietly, looking away from Theo’s direction.

They arrived at the train car for command personnel, which was located closer to the middle of the train rather than the back.

“Try to get some sleep on the train, we won’t be arriving in the Republic until late tonight,” Theo told her with a wave of his hand.

“Yeah, yeah, see you in a bit.”

—

Even though the high-speed train weighed well over a couple hundred tons after it was fully loaded with all personnel, Reigenleifs, and other equipment, it was still capable of speeds of two hundred fifty kilometers per hour on average. Without these high speeds, any traditional train would have required several days to make the journey to the Republic, but they were able to reach their destination within half a day.

A few hours into their journey, after they had just left the borders of the Federacy of Giad, disaster struck.

“Everyone, brace for impact!”

Shin’s warning through the Para-RAID came too late.

Right before they were set to traverse through a series of cliffs, an explosion hit several of the cars, and chaos erupted.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Chapter Text

It was an ambush.

“Stop the train!” Grethe Wenzel barked at the conductor through her Para-RAID.

All the other officers around Grethe lurched forward from the force of the emergency braking system, but a high-speed train like this one took time to come to a complete stop. Finally, after over a minute of tense rumbling, the train was finally sitting still on the tracks.

“Damage report, now!” Grethe ordered one of the officers in the train car.

Through the chatter among the Para-RAID, it seemed that several of the train cars containing the tech for the exchange program had been completely destroyed by artillery fire. Thankfully there were no casualties reported so far.

“There are Legion units lined up directly along the train’s route, I think they’re up on the cliffs,” Shin reported, sitting at a different table on the opposite end of the train car from Grethe.

Across from Shin, Lena activated her Para-RAID. “All artillery and sniper units, get to your Reigenleifs. Fire on the positions provided by Undertaker,” she commanded.

In the moments it took for the Processors to reach their machines, the train car shook as they took more fire. The atmosphere inside the car was tense as everyone scrambled to reclaim control in their situation. Most of the other command officers eyed each other warily, but otherwise there was no unrest. Their military was well trained and disciplined, after all. The Prince from Roa Gracia and his Sirin both seemed completely unperturbed by this.

From the corner of her eye, Grethe could see Shin and Lena had been trying to move closer to her, but lost balance when they took fire again. Shin had his arm tightly wrapped around Lena to keep her steady.

Grethe eyed the control officer she had spoken to earlier.

He summarized all of the jumbled reports they were receiving and replied, “We’re still taking fire, but it’s all been localized to the train cars containing the tech. I…don’t understand this.”

The blonde woman heard a gasp come from Lena. She had a look on her face as though she had struck some realization. Shin eyed her with some look that Grethe couldn’t imply the meaning of, and the two held a silent conversation for a short moment before they seemed to agree on something.

When the artillery and sniper units signaled they were ready, Shin gave his firing commands through the Para-RAID.

“What’s going on?” Grethe asked Lena suspiciously.

“I’ll explain later. For now, have an officer find Major Penrose,” Lena requested vaguely.

Grethe didn’t quite understand, but she nodded her head anyways and gave the order.

“The two Legion units within range have been destroyed,” Shin reported. “But there are more waiting for us along the route.”

“Have they started to move in on our position?” Grethe asked him.

Shin concentrated for a second before he shook his head.

“...No, they likely won’t. They know we have nowhere else to run but to them,” Lena surmised. She then spoke into her Para-RAID. “Theo, I need you to get me a spatial map of this area.”

There was a pause before he replied, “Oh…uh, right, that’s my job now!”

—

After Theo raced towards the command personnel’s train car, he pulled up a map of their surrounding area on a large screen and Shin marked down where he could hear each active Legion unit. Grethe was impressed that the blonde young man was prepared with a map of this area, since it hadn’t been listed as a region on their mission’s intended battlefield.

Squad captains that weren’t operating artillery or sniper units filed into the car as well for an impromptu briefing. Everyone gathered around their commanding officers and the screen.

“They’re all spaced evenly apart,” Lena observed. “At five kilometer intervals. Why so few?”

“My guess is as good as yours,” Shin remarked. “But based on the type of fire we took…”

“They’re likely all Skorpion units,” Lena finished. “The fact that we’re not taking anymore fire means…”

“They haven’t sent any Ameise scouts ahead.”

“Makes sense. Ambushes rely on doing the most damage in the initial attack, so there wasn’t a need. And they knew we would’ve come to them eventually for the rest of their units to finish us off,” Lena inferred.

“So our plan of attack should be…”

“Right. And factoring in the cliffside spanning about fifty kilometers…”

“And then the speed of the high-speed rail…”

“Then it would take…”

As Shin and Lena kept going back and forth, everyone’s expressions transitioned from serious, then to confused, then to a complete blank deadpan. Only Rito Oriya, who was turning his head back and forth between the two, seemed to be trying to keep up. Though from the look on his face, he was as completely lost as everyone else.

“Guys…are you done now?” Raiden asked, his brow twitching in annoyance, interrupting them.

Shin and Lena both stopped in mid-conversation, blinked at each other, and turned to look at him with curious eyes.

“Done? Weren’t you paying any attention?” Shin asked, almost sounding offended.

“Yes, but you two clearly share a brain cell that the rest of us don't. Translate,” Raiden said bluntly.

At least they had the decency to look apologetic.

—

Their greatest disadvantage was the fact that their train only had one direction to go, which made ambushing them easy. But by some miracle, the Legion’s initial attack never delivered the catastrophic blow that ambushes were designed to inflict. In addition, since the Federacy and Republic had retaken this land and surrounded the train route with several security measures, it was likely that not many units successfully made it through. For these reasons, the rest of the Legion force was small, only meant to finish them off once they were already heavily wounded.

However, they weren’t heavily wounded at all.

Their counterattack was very simple. Normally, the difference in effective firing range between their own sniper units, a mere seven kilometers, and a Skorpion, a whopping forty kilometers, would be so great that there was no hope to bridge that gap. All they would normally be able to do was scatter and evade. But since there were no Ameise scouts to relay their positions to the Skorpions, the enemy’s firing range was greatly decreased. They couldn’t shoot without knowing where the target was.

Their high-speed rail traveled fast enough that they would approach and come within firing range of each Skorpion unit every minute. Since they sustained no casualties, and with their train traveling at such high speeds, the Strike Package’s intact sniper units would be able to bridge the rest of the range gap in mere seconds.

They were on a level playing field.

It would only take about ten minutes to clear the remainder of the cliffside. They would have to rely on their sniper units to fire accurately on the Legion and destroy them before they were hit first.

—

Kurena stretched her neck from side to side slowly. She inhaled deeply, expanding her lungs and diaphragm as much as they would allow, and held it for three seconds. She exhaled slowly, releasing all of her breath and tension. She learned this breathing technique from her officer training in the Federacy - the Republic pigs never taught them anything useful. It was a simple technique that would trigger the vagus nerve to reduce a rapid heart rate. Many snipers used it on the battlefield.

“Gunslinger, we’re about to start the engines again,” Colonel Wenzel announced.

“Roger that,” she replied calmly.

Kurena placed her hand on the trigger in the cockpit of her Reigenleif.

She smirked.

“Leave this to me.”

—

Shin boarded Undertaker despite the fact that he would likely be useless as a melee vanguard unit in this battle. However, he decided that he would be in a better position waiting on standby than in the train car, so he waited for the battle to unfold in the seat of his cockpit.

He could feel the smooth acceleration of the high-speed rail from within Undertaker. He already had the systems booted up, so he pulled up a map of their position with all the coordinates he inputted earlier on his screen. On his side panel, he pulled up a video feed of the looming cliffs above in real time.

The train cars used to house the Reigenleifs were slightly modified from normal ones to carry their large units. A hatch could be opened from the side meant for loading and unloading. However, in this scenario, they used the hatch to allow them to open up the enclosed space so they could fire at their enemies. It also exposed them, but that was a necessary risk they had to take.

Undertaker couldn’t do much except stay put. Leaving the train to scale the cliffside and engage the enemy in combat was out of the question. Any unit that did so would be left behind within seconds. Their machines’ top cruising speed was only about a hundred kilometers per hour, not nearly fast enough to keep up with the train.

As they approached the first Skorpion unit, he waited for the sound of Gunslinger’s blast to reverberate through the train cars towards Undertaker. There was silence.

A few more seconds passed, and he tensed, waiting in anticipation. Shin knew that Kurena was deep in concentration, and distracting her could be lethal, so he didn’t touch the Para-RAID.

He tapped his fingers on one of the control sticks. He had never had to wait like this in a battle before, he was always the one to be actively fighting alongside his team. But his trust in Kurena’s abilities and the rest of his comrades still held.

He heard the shot.

Shin breathed out a sigh of relief he didn’t know he had been holding.

“Target three has been eliminated,” Shin reported.

The rest of the Skorpion units were brought down in the same efficient and effective manner. Skorpions were lightly armored and easy to destroy since they weren’t usually even on the frontlines.

“Target nine has been eliminated, one unit left,” Shin relayed to the others.

But as Shin looked at his video feed from the corner of his eye, he noticed something different.

The last unit that they were approaching wasn’t just another Skorpion, but a Dinosauria. While it didn’t have the range of a Skorpion unit, it didn’t matter. Its 155mm cannon had enough firepower to take them out, and unlike the Skorpion units, it was heavily armored and wouldn’t be damaged by any of their suppression or long-range Reigenleifs.

There was only one course of action that Shin could think of.

“All artillery units, fire at the cliffside directly below the Dinosauria on my mark!” Lena ordered through the Para-RAID.

It seemed like she was thinking the exact same thing.

“But that thing’s gonna fall right on top of us!” one of the other Processors, Michihi, exclaimed in alarm.

“As long as it’s timed right, the Dinosauria will fall directly in front of the train and we’ll use the weight and speed of the high-speed rail to ram into it,” Lena explained calmly.

It was risky. If they timed it too early, then the Legion unit might survive the fall and be able to maneuver out of the direct path of the train. It would then put them in a vulnerable position, likely within firing range of the Dinosauria without any recourse. And if they timed it too late, then it would just crush the train, exactly as Michihi said.

“Why do you always have to come up with such crazy stunts?” Kurena asked begrudgingly, but Shin could detect the fond exasperation in her voice.

“This is probably our best chance of survival, though,” Anju responded lightly. “This is Snow Witch, Echo team is prepped and ready,” she reported as the leader of the suppression team.

The last Legion unit was approaching quickly.

“Shin,” Lena started. But she didn’t have to finish, he already knew what she was thinking.

“Understood,” he replied.

8 seconds until they would be directly in the Dinosauria’s line of fire.

“Hold!” Lena ordered resolutely.

3 seconds.

“Keep holding!”

2 seconds.

1 second. Any closer and they would be directly beneath the Legion.

“Fire!”

On Lena’s mark, the volley of rounds shot at the cliffside caused it to crumble away. The Dinosauria lost its footing and fell over the cliff, descending onto the train tracks below. The fall wouldn’t be enough to destroy it though, but just as it landed on the tracks, the high-speed train weighing over two hundred tons crashed into it at a speed of two hundred and fifty kilometers per hour.

The impact caused all of the train cars to quake, and everyone inside had to brace themselves.

If the Legion somehow survived this, Shin would be the one to finish it off.

Shin snapped the control stick forward, maneuvering Undertaker out of the cargo hold. He used the wire anchors to keep himself balanced as he climbed on top of the train. The Reigenleifs had been loaded in the front cars, which had been a bit of an oddity when he saw the loading instructions, but now he was grateful. He was already close to the main engine. He steadily eased Undertaker forward since the train was still in motion. Once he landed on the main engine, Undertaker hovered over the remains of the Dinosauria.

Its outer armor had been completely crushed, but Shin could still hear the mechanical roar of this Legion. It tried to turn its 155mm cannon upwards at him, but the machinery was malfunctioning, and all it did was twitch up and down. The main armament started to load power.

Shin activated his two high-frequency blades and bore into the Dinosauria’s weakest spot, directly in the back. However, just as Undertaker destroyed the remaining unit, the shot from its 155mm cannon was released, missing all of its intended targets.

And the blast hit the train tracks directly in front of them.

They were about to be derailed.

“Everybody hold o-” Shin tried to warn, but it was too late.

And then there was darkness.

—

When Shin came to, the first thing he saw were argent eyes gazing at him in deep concern.

He coughed. “Lena?”

She heaved out an audible breath of relief. “Thank goodness you’re awake, I was so worried.”

As Shin looked around him, he could see that they were in the middle of a grassy clearing. The sun was beginning to set, casting an orange glow on the wild lycoris flowers blooming in patches of red around them. He was immediately reminded of a year ago, in the aftermath of another battle, the moment of a fateful reunion.

The same woman was crouched in front of him now, but she was no longer a stranger. Now she was a familiar, comforting presence as she stroked his hair and cheek tenderly. He took her hand in his own and smiled. He could feel the crisp, autumn air sending goosebumps along his skin.

A short distance away was the wreckage of the high-speed train. The main engine and the front cars sustained the most damage, taking the brunt of the impact. The passengers had been in the center cars, which certainly looked worse for wear, but sustained the least destruction. Undertaker was quite far from the open field, having been caught up in some thick branches in a nearby cluster of trees. It was high up in the treetops and completely tangled up, but that was likely what saved Shin’s life.

“Are you alright?” he asked her. His throat was dry and his voice felt raspy as he spoke.

“Dummy, I should be asking you that,” Lena replied with a flush to her cheeks and a warm smile. “I’m fine. But a lot of officers sustained injuries. Thankfully there weren’t any casualties again.”

“How long was I out for?”

“Just a short while. Raiden and Theo were able to get you out of your cockpit and tend to your wounds,” Lena explained. “You gave us all a scare.”

“What about Kurena, Anju and Frederica?” Shin asked.

“They’re all okay, too,” Lena nodded. “Just a few bumps and bruises.”

From a distance, Shin heard the familiar, rambunctious voices of Spearhead struggling and complaining. He had a gut feeling he knew what was happening.

“Can we go now?” Frederica and Kurena both cried out in unison, sounding like they couldn’t handle waiting anymore.

They were apparently released at the same moment, because Shin was bombarded by the two short girls surrounding him and Lena, asking him questions at a rate he couldn’t follow. A moment later, Raiden, Theo and Anju approached them in a calmer fashion with Fido following them. The Scavenger leaned over to the side to peer its optical sensor over everyone’s shoulders.

“Pi pi pi pi!”

The young man smiled back in return.

“Sorry, man, that was the longest we could keep them away for,” Raiden apologized, sighing in exasperation.

“We literally had to physically restrain them. Kurena elbowed me in the freaking face just now!” Theo accused, completely affronted.

“Everyone, calm down,” Anju tried to placate in a soothing voice. When Kurena and Theo got into a fight with each other, Shin could see the nerve on her forehead. “Quiet down now and let Shin rest!” she snapped at them.

Everyone became silent immediately. Even Fido began to quiver nervously.

“You sure are a lively bunch,” came a voice, slowly approaching them from the direction of the destroyed train. Vika and Lerche walked side by side, neither of them with any apparent injury or…damage, in the Sirin’s case. “Considering the circumstances and all.”

“Vika,” Lena acknowledged, standing up from her position at Shin’s side. “How’s the situation?”

“Colonel Wenzel’s got a handle on getting the wounded tended to for now. But it’s about to be dark soon, so we’ll have to camp out here while help is on the way,” Vika replied. “We’ll need to get everyone organized and set up a perimeter with a regular patrol.”

The location where their train was derailed was within the Republic’s old borders, but was now also considered near the edge of Legion territory. Since they were too far from the Federacy now, help was likely going to come from the Republic, a nation still struggling to recover in the aftermath of the large-scale offensive from last year. It would likely be the Giad Federacy’s military police that were currently stationed in the country that would lend them aid.

With their railway compromised, they would have to use more traditional means of transport. Between scrambling to make preparations, finding the stranded Strike Package and traveling to their location, all the while avoiding potential encounters with the Legion, they likely wouldn’t be able to arrive for another twenty-four hours at least.

And they who were stranded and wounded would have to find some way to survive the night out in the open while dealing with any enemy attacks.

It wasn’t an ideal situation at all.

Lena’s frown grew deeper when she asked Vika, “Was Colonel Wenzel able to track down Major Penrose?”

“No,” Vika replied without flinching. “She’s gone.”

The rest of the team’s eyes all widened in shock. Shin never even realized that the childhood friend that he was only starting to remember again was missing.

“What’s going on? Is Annette okay?” Theo asked, brows furrowed.

Lena hesitated and looked at Shin with pained, sorrowful eyes. He suddenly started to suspect what she was going to say.

“Annette is the mole.”

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Chapter Text

There it was, the blip on the screen revealing the precise location of one Major Henrietta Penrose.

“I still can’t believe you planted a tracking device on her,” Theo murmured bitterly under his breath.

The only ones present in the group were the members of Spearhead, Lena, Vika - which by default included Lerche - and Grethe. They had all gone back inside one of the abandoned train cars to try and get some of the equipment working. Night had already fallen, and a short distance away from them, the rest of the corps had set up camp, and the light from their campfires shone through the broken windows of the train.

“It seems that Penrose is going right through Legion territory now. She’s headed somewhere specific,” Vika observed from the tracker, ignoring the tense atmosphere. “She’s not traveling by foot. How is she reaching this speed?”

“She must have taken one of the quads we had loaded on the train,” Grethe surmised with an exhausted sigh. “What the hell is she doing?”

“I can’t believe that she’s doing any of this of her own free will,” Lena voiced her opinion. “There must be some other reason, like she’s been coerced or…I don’t know, something.”

“How did you come to suspect her in the first place, Milize?” Vika inquired with a raised brow.

Lena sighed, explaining her reasoning to everyone. She knew it had to have been an officer with a higher rank, but since the information was being leaked to individuals within the Republic, it also had to have been someone who had a connection to that country. Herself, Annette, and Dustin Jaeger were the only Republic officers that were members of the Strike Package. However, information wasn’t just leaked to the Republic. It was the Legion too. During the operation in the Charite Underground Terminal and right before Revich Citadel Base was taken over, the Strike Package’s locations had been compromised. The Legion had known exactly where to strike them.

“I still haven’t made the connection between the Republic and the Legion. But one encounter came to mind that connects Annette to both, leading me to suspect her specifically. It was when she was abducted and taken to the Charite Underground Terminal,” Lena explained. “At the time I thought luck was on our side that we found her completely unharmed. But we never truly found out what happened to her or why she was taken.”

The group was stunned into silence briefly.

“That’s crazy,” Theo insisted. “She was there in the operation to retake the Dragon Corpse Mountain Range specifically to rule out the Para-RAID as the source of the information leak.”

“That’s what I thought too,” Lena agreed. “Which was why I still had doubts and didn’t make accusations. I needed proof,” she explained. “But we got that today.”

Everyone waited for her to continue.

“I was concerned about a potential ambush, so I gave Annette false boarding instructions two days ago,” Lena continued. “And the area of the train that I told her would contain all of the passengers was the same area that the Legion targeted today in their initial strike. The Skorpions’ artillery fire was concentrated on the back of the train. It wasn’t luck or a coincidence.”

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” Theo snapped as he slammed his right fist on a table to emphasize his point. “I’m done pointing fingers at our comrades. Some friend you are.”

Everyone else fell silent, eyeing Lena to gauge her reaction to that comment. Theo’s expression morphed into guilty shock for only a split second before he returned to being angry and resentful.

“I’m outta here.”

No one stopped the young blonde as he stormed out of the destroyed train car.

“...He’s just upset,” Raiden tried to say.

“No, I deserved that,” Lena replied in a cold, detached voice.

“...Should we go after him?” Kurena asked, concern in her voice.

“Leave him be. He just needs to blow off some steam,” Raiden urged. He heaved out a sigh and ran a hand through his green hair. “I think we all do after a day like today.”

As everyone turned to leave the train car, Grethe placed a hand on Lena’s shoulder to hold her back. Shin had waited for her by the door, but after Lena gestured for him to go without her, he conceded and left. The younger woman waited expectantly for Grethe to speak.

“Hey,” Grethe said gently. “I know this must be hard for you. But I also understand the burden and responsibility of command. Your thinking and the actions you took saved a lot of lives today. I think you made a good call.”

“Then why do I not feel that way?” Lena asked dejectedly. “I just feel like I’m pushing people away.”

Grethe’s expression grew somber. “That’s the cost we pay for having to make hard decisions.”

Lena had a feeling that Grethe was thinking about some distant memory as she spoke. Perhaps from another life.

—

As Frederica's eyes shone red, the members of Spearhead waited silently around her. They were all huddled around a campfire eating their rations. Several minutes passed by, but the young girl remained in her trance, her eyes staring off into the distance like the oracles or seers from stories of old.

One after another, each member of Spearhead went up to Frederica to check on her. Anju placed a blanket around the girl. Raiden left a can of rations beside her for when she was ready to eat. Theo checked to make sure she was still alive and breathing. Kurena sat next to her for a time to keep her company. Shin just patted the girl on the head before he sat back down by the fire.

Everyone was startled when Frederica let out a weary breath of air. They all waited in anticipation for her to say something.

The young girl shook her head. “There was nothing.”

Theo’s eye twitched in annoyance. “Well there we have it, Annette’s not the mole.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Frederica insisted. “I can’t even ‘see’ her right now. There’s just nothing, like she doesn’t exist. And when I looked at her past…there are moments that I can see…and then moments of nothingness, and then hours or an entire day has passed. I don’t understand.”

No one knew how to make sense of any of that.

“There’s something else going on here, something very important that we’re missing,” Frederica mused out loud.

Raiden sighed. “Let’s just all get some sleep. We can worry about all that if we make it through tonight,” he grumbled, getting himself comfortable on the ground.

As everyone else also got ready to sleep, Shin sat up from the campfire and turned to leave. He ignored the knowing smirks he received from Anju and Raiden.

“Hey,” Theo called out suddenly from his spot with the others. “Tell her…I’m sorry for snapping at her.”

Shin raised his brow. “That’s not any of my business. You can tell her that yourself,” he replied and walked away.

—

Shin found her at the edge of the camp, out of sight from everyone else but just within the patrol area that she had organized and set up earlier. She was staring off into the darkened sky, blanketed by shimmering stars.

He stood next to Lena, silently offering her his company.

“Do you think I’m a bad person?” she asked him hesitantly.

“No, I think you did what you thought was right,” Shin replied honestly.

He suspected that she didn’t agree with him when she didn’t respond or acknowledge his words.

“You’re going after her, aren’t you?” Shin guessed with a raised brow.

She glanced at him, seemingly surprised for a brief second, before she nodded her head. “Once everyone is rested, I’m planning on taking a small team with me.”

“I should come with you,” Shin insisted, expecting her answer and already having made up his mind.

Lena shook her head and smiled. “I knew you would say that. But no, the others need you here.”

“So do you,” he argued back. “It’ll be dangerous traveling through Legion territory in a small squad. I can help to avoid them.”

“There are measures we can take to minimize encounters with the Legion. We’ll be a small team, so it’ll be easier for us to evade them. Besides, they need you more,” Lena countered calmly. “You’re their Reaper. They rely on you to be their leader. And you’re the best person to lead them through a Legion attack if one comes.”

Shin sighed in frustration, knowing that she was right.

“Do you have to be the one to go?” Shin inquired, already knowing the answer.

Lena nodded her head resolutely. “Annette isn’t just my friend. She’s the only family I have left. I have to go.”

Shin looked at those somber, argent eyes and whispered, “We’re your family too. I’m your family. Just as you are mine.”

“Shin…,” Lena breathed.

Shin placed a gentle hand on the side of her cheek and kissed her forehead.

“Just promise you’ll come back.”

Lena chuckled. “That’s normally my line,” she quipped. She looked at him with pure adoration. “I promise.”

When their lips pressed together gently, it was tender and warm. Shin thought that kissing Lena was akin to breathing oxygen. He needed her and wanted her so fiercely that the moments he spent apart from her, he could scarcely breathe. Not wanting to break away from each other, they deepened their kiss. He spent this moment memorizing her taste, her warmth, the feel of her pressed against him.

“I love you,” she told him with so much emotion that it felt like he could drown in her.

Shin couldn’t help it when his lips curved upwards. He took in the sight of her beneath the glow of the moon, her long silver hair framing her face, the faint lines appearing in the corners of her argent eyes, her small nose, her plump, soft pink lips. He brushed his thumb along her cheek as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

He dove back in, giving her one deep kiss, then trailed his mouth down her slender neck. He frowned when the collar of her blazer got in his way. He expertly unhooked the top of her uniform jacket, and he slid it past her shoulders, down her arms, and let it hit the ground behind her.

Lena’s delicate fingers unfastened the belt secured around his uniform’s panzer jacket. As she undid each button slowly, she looked at him with those big, round eyes. He shrugged the jacket off his shoulders, catching the way that her eyes darkened as her gaze traveled to his arms and chest, and he tossed it on top of her jacket. He loosened the tie around his neck so he could free himself from the restricting collar of his shirt.

Her soft, pliant lips trailed light kisses along his jaw as her hand curled around the short hair near the nape of his neck. He couldn’t help the light groan that escaped him when she bit and sucked at the skin near his collarbone.

She pressed a hand to his chest and gently pushed him backwards. Understanding her intention immediately, he sat down on the grassy field, bringing Lena down with him to straddle his lap. He watched as she undid the clasps holding up her stockings, and she slowly brought her hand up her thighs, bringing her skirt further up, revealing the black lace of her underwear and garter belt. She shivered when he thumbed underneath the waistband of her underwear, lifted it away from her skin and pulled it down. He helped her remove the garment and threw it on top of their growing pile.

The belt around his hips came next, and Lena undid the buckle and zip to open the fly of his pants. Shin let out a light groan when she slid her fingers under the waist of his boxer briefs and she lightly brought her hand down to his hardening cock. It seemed that Lena was in the mood to skip everything else they normally enjoyed doing in bed. As soon as his length was exposed to the cold, chilly air of the autumn night, she positioned him at the entrance to her heat and slid on top of him, grinding down on him with a gasp.

Shin slid his hands underneath her skirt and squeezed her cheeks, urging her to move. They quickly found an easy, leisurely rhythm, moving their bodies in sync with each other. Lena took hold of his red tie and pulled him towards her. In this position, their height difference favored Lena and he had to lean up to catch her in a heat driven kiss. He felt up her sides, abdomen, and breasts, still covered by the shirt of her uniform. He undid the top few buttons of her shirt down to the top of her high-waisted skirt, releasing her breasts adorned with the matching bra to her underwear. Rather than going through the task of removing the rest of her clothes, he settled on slipping her shirt off her shoulders as much as possible and pulling aside her bra as he nipped at the skin of her chest.

Underneath the pale glow of the moonlight as Lena rode him on the ground, sweat glistening off her smooth, alabaster skin, Shin thought she was the most beautiful creature he had ever laid eyes on. And he took great satisfaction in knowing that he had claimed her as his. It sometimes frightened him when he realized how much she consumed his very being, his soul. But he didn’t care. He gladly let himself fall into her depths.

Feeling himself come closer to the top of the climb before the fall, he placed a hand behind Lena’s back to secure her, and in one swift motion he flipped them over until she was laying on the ground and he was hovering over her.

She looked at him hungrily. “Don’t be gentle,” she gasped, wrapping her legs around him.

Shin didn’t need to be told twice. He thrust into her at a steady pace, gradually letting the control over his inhibitions fall away to ashes. Only his instincts and desire were left, and he craved Lena like a suffocating man taking in his first breath of air. He fucked her hard and deep, and she cried out in pleasure with every slap of his flesh against hers.

Lena’s back arched and her lips rounded as her melodic, drawn out moan reached Shin’s ears like music. The moment her warm, wet walls clenched tightly around him, Shin came inside her, and he thrust in her a few more times to ride them both through their high. He buried his face into her neck as he panted, completely spent and exhausted from the exertion.

A moment later, once their heavy breathing had subsided, he lifted his head and laid a languid, tender kiss on her lips.

“I didn’t think it was possible,” Shin started in a half whisper. Lena looked at him curiously, expectantly. “With each passing day, I love you more and more.”

The way that Lena’s face melted made Shin’s heart sing.

—

Lena awoke with a start.

She had fallen asleep on the grass at the edge of their camp curled up next to Shin. She looked up to the darkened blue and deep magenta hues of a pre-dawn sky. As her eyes groggily looked from side to side, she noticed that they were next to an extinguished campfire within the encampment. Shin must have carried her here so that they could sleep by the heat of a fire. Everyone around them was still asleep. Shin was sitting up next to her, gaze alert and focused.

“The Legion are approaching,” he said, his lips set in a thin line. “ETA in two hours.”

Lena sat up immediately, the panzer jacket from Shin’s uniform falling off the front of her shoulders. She brought it back up to keep warm, buttoning her shirt back up underneath its cover so that her chest wouldn’t be revealed for everyone to see.

“We have to notify the others,” Lena spoke, about to activate her Para-RAID.

Shin swiftly but gently grabbed her wrist to stop her. She blinked up at him in confusion.

“If you’re going to go after Rita, now might be your best chance,” Shin advised. “The rest of us can handle things here.”

Lena knew he was right. If she waited any longer, she might not be able to even catch up to Annette, who already had half a day’s head start on them. But she hated the thought of leaving them before a battle.

“Promise me you’ll be okay,” Lena urged, knowing full well that no one could make any such vow. Despite this, Shin nodded his head.

It was the oath they made. They simply had to come back to each other.

—

It didn’t take long for Lena to prepare to depart. As she strapped a standard issue Federacy assault rifle to her shoulder, wearing a borrowed flight suit instead of the Republic’s impractical uniform, their young mascot approached her. All around them, the entire encampment was rushing about, preparing for the oncoming attack.

“Vladilena,” the short, mixed onyx-pyrope girl started.

“How can I help you, Frederica?” Lena asked politely.

“It is not what you can do for me, but what I can do for you,” Frederica remarked haughtily. “If you must go after Henrietta Penrose, I suggest you bring the Roa Gracian Prince with you as well.”

Lena blinked at that. “Vika? Is there a reason why?”

The younger girl’s expression grew serious, and she was focusing on something that Lena could not see.

“I don’t know why but…I have a feeling that you’ll need him,” Frederica said vaguely.

Lena smiled faintly and nodded her head. “Very well. I’ve learned to trust your instincts, Frederica.”

The girl became flustered for a brief moment at that comment before she held her head high in satisfaction.

Lena chuckled to herself, finding amusement in how mature yet childish she could be. For some reason, even though the girl was still so young, Lena felt the strong need to be liked by her.

“Ready to go, Your Majesty?” came the voice of Shiden Iida.

As the other woman approached Lena and Frederica, so did the members of Spearhead to see her off. Theo had also volunteered to be a part of the mission, claiming that he wouldn’t be useful in their battle against the Legion anyways.

Lena didn’t notice Shin do a double take upon seeing her. Instead she asked Anju to request for Vika and Lerche and to have them prepare their units as quickly as possible.

Shiden grinned wolfishly when she saw Shin’s expression.

“Like what you see, L’il Reaper?” she asked mockingly. She shrugged haughtily. “I suppose this is your first time seeing Her Majesty in combat gear. Those of us with her during the siege last year saw this side of her all the time.”

Shin scoffed. “Just be a good guard dog and protect your master,” he rebuffed.

At that comment, the reddish-haired woman went up to Lena’s side and put an arm around her shoulders.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep Her Majesty company while you’re not there. She’ll stay nice and warm at night with me, if ya get my drift,” Shiden suggested with a smirk.

Shin glowered at her. Lena slumped her shoulders to make herself as small as possible as she stood right in the middle of them.

“Not again,” she squeaked in a tiny voice.

“Oooh, what a scary face. Jealousy doesn’t suit you,” Shiden taunted.

“What would I be jealous of?” Shin replied coldly. “A mutt that can’t have what’s not theirs?”

“Oooooookay,” Raiden interrupted there, getting in between Shin and Shiden. By this point, Lena was beet red and covering her face with her hands. “I think that’s enough now.”

He muttered under his breath about something to do with ten year olds.

The Gadyuka and Chaika units approached them at that moment, and everyone knew then that it was time to leave. While it would be cramped, they arranged it so that Lena would travel with Lerche in her unit, and Theo would travel with Vika. Shin had suggested for them to bring Fido along, but Lena insisted that they needed the Scavenger to remain with the corps so that the AI could assist in the battle to come.

“Let’s uh…do one last systems check on the three units,” Raiden suggested, trying to be subtle in leaving. Everyone, including Shiden, followed his lead, all wearing knowing or exasperated smirks.

Everyone except for Lerche.

“But we already completed that,” Lerche replied with a tilt of her head.

“It wouldn’t hurt to do it again,” Vika hinted through clenched teeth.

“That seems unnecessary and ineffi-”

“Come, you seven-year-old!”

Once they were as alone as they could be in a crowded camp, Shin looked at Lena sheepishly.

“Sorry…I kind of got out of hand back there,” he apologized.

“It’s alright,” Lena replied teasingly. “You two have been like that since the beginning.”

“She just really gets under my skin…,” Shin admitted with a scowl. Lena brought a hand up and laughed lightly.

Shin smiled faintly as he looked at her, and Lena felt that he was studying her features to commit them to memory.

“Be careful out there,” he told her.

“I will. You too,” Lena repeated back to him. “And you’d better remember the order I gave you,” she warned him with a teasing voice.

“Like I said in the Theocracy,” Shin started, moving closer towards her so he could wrap his arms around her waist. She automatically encircled her arms around his neck. “That isn’t something I could ever forget.”

They both leaned towards each other, Lena stepping up on her toes and Shin bending down, and met halfway for a slow, deep kiss. Neither of them wanted to break away, but they knew they had to keep it short.

As they parted ways, they both got the unnerving sense of a foreboding darkness that was about to come for them.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Chapter Text

“Do you think they’ll be okay?” came the concerned voice of Kurena through the Para-RAID.

“I’m sure they’ll be fine. They have Shiden and Lerche, and Vika’s not exactly a bad pilot either,” Raiden replied. “Honestly, we should worry more about our own asses right now.”

“True…,” Anju chimed in. “I hope they find her though…Major Penrose, that is.”

As the members of Spearhead chatted, they piloted their respective units along the border of the landmines that were used to secure the train route. Several small teams were also on this scouting mission at different coordinates along the field.

The Legion were now only thirty minutes away.

“Guys, I think this is it,” Kurena interrupted everyone’s conversation.

The terrain before them was more grassy hills, with a gentle decline downwards into the horizon. A few trees were scattered around the area, but otherwise, this wasn’t an ideal battlefield for their Reginleifs. Fortunately, buried out of sight were hundreds if not thousands of landmines.

The wreckage of countless numbers of destroyed Legion units were piled along a row from the other side of the minefield, spanning towards their end. It ran the entire length of the field, several kilometers long. It was clear that they had been used as sacrificial pawns in order to create a route through the destructive landmines. It was a tactic that could only be deployed by the mechanical drones of their enemy.

Looking at this wreckage triggered haunting memories of the mountain of Alkonosts and Sirins during their operation in Roa Gracia. Shin knew the others likely thought of the same image in their minds, but no one spoke of it. Even though that operation was half a year ago, the memory still played vividly in his mind. But right now, they had to focus on surviving in the present.

“All teams, we found the breach. Converge on our location,” Shin commanded through his Para-RAID to the captains of the other scouting teams.

This would be the most likely position that the approaching Legion would launch their attack. So before they arrived, this was where they would set up their first line of defense.

“Dr. Zelenka, have you finished your repairs yet?” Shin asked, switching the target of his resonance.

Following them was Fido, who was carrying their extra batteries and munitions as always for their battle to come. However, in one of his containers was a small science team. Once they came to a full stop, the hatch to this container opened, revealing a badly damaged metal cylinder, almost twice the size of a person. Three scientists were working together on it.

“Finished?” the middle-aged man remarked in bewilderment. “Are you kidding? This was so badly damaged during the ambush I doubt we can even fix it! This might just be a pipe dream, a-a-a lost cause, a-”

Shin exhaled deeply, trying to keep his patience.

“Have you made any progress?” the young man interrupted.

“Well…yes,” Dr. Zelenka mumbled under his breath. “But you have to understand that this device is completely new technology. We never even got it working properly in the lab. It was the whole purpose of doing a technology exchange program so we could get more experts to help!”

“But if you get it up and running, you’ll be able to generate an electromagnetic field that will keep the Legion out, right?” Shin confirmed. Had these scientists never heard of getting to the point?

“Well, not quite. See, this device does emit an EM field, which then propagates an electromagnetic pulse that is destructive to all surrounding electrical machines. While we’ve created similar types of technology in the past, it was never meant to be a defense against the Legion. We’ve had to build from scratch entire systems for this purpose.

“With this device, any Legion that enters the field's radius should simply shut down indefinitely. This will also affect our units too, though, so it is a double-edged sword. Although, right now we’ve only managed to create a small area of effect, the power requirements to keep it running long-term are too-”

“Just…keep working and do what you can,” Shin replied, pinching the bridge of his nose. The man could’ve just said yes. “It’s still worth a try.”

“I hope things are going better with the others,” Raiden muttered under his breath.

Shin couldn’t help but agree.

—

It had taken them the longest amount of time to get through the minefield, but since they had the exact coordinates of each landmine, they were able to navigate through it without triggering any of the pressure sensors. Afterwards, they were able to follow the signal on the tracking device at top cruising speed.

Theo had brought geographical maps of the terrain in this region, and Lena used that information to predict which routes the Legion would most likely travel through based on what she already knew about Legion tactics. Vika suggested they traveled in a formation that allowed them to scout for enemies and avoid them if needed. These tactics allowed them to avoid Legion encounters.

Lena was able to fit into a small crevice beside Lerche in her unit. She hoped that Shin and the others were alright.

She knew that the battle was likely already underway at this point. She wanted to be there to make sure that everyone could make it through safely. But right now, all she could do was trust in them.

Her mission was to bring her best friend back home. Although officially, it was actually to prevent a major security breach from becoming even larger in their military.

It was at that point that someone resonated with her as their sole target.

“Hey.”

Lena blinked in surprise from her crouched position within Chaika. It was Theo.

“How you holding up in there?” he asked.

“I’m doing fine. Just a little cramped,” Lena replied softly.

“Ugh, not me. I feel so sore my whole body aches. I wish I could just be piloting one of these damn things,” Theo complained. “And why’d I have to get stuck with the Prince, anyways?”

There was the distinct voice of someone protesting that comment in the background. Lena chuckled at that. She could tell that Theo was hesitating to say something else. Being able to use aspects of non-verbal communication was something unique to a sensory resonance.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Theo blurted out. “For what I said earlier.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Lena replied with a smile, though she knew he wouldn’t be able to see it.

Theo’s disbelief came through clearly in his voice. “Are you an idiot or something? Of course I have to apologize. I wasn’t even mad at you. I was just angry and pissed off at everything and I took it out on you. You can’t just take that kind of shit lying down.”

She knew that what he said came from his heart, but she disagreed.

“No, there was truth in what you said,” Lena admitted softly. “Annette’s always been a much better friend to me than I have been to her.”

Lena didn’t know how to tell Theo that she had once used Annette’s shame against her in order to use her for Lena’s benefit. While it had been for the cause of saving Spearhead, Lena didn’t actually believe that the ends justified the means. She had treated her so terribly in those moments. However, Lena couldn’t afford to let her guilty conscience get in the way of making the decisions that would save lives. It wasn’t about her ideals or beliefs anymore. She resolved long ago that she would do what was necessary to win this war.

“You should tell me some stories, to pass the time,” Theo suggested. “Tell me how you became friends.”

Lena’s lips curved upwards.

“I’ll tell you a few, but once this is all over, you should ask Annette to tell you about them,” Lena replied. She paused. “You really care for her, don’t you?” she asked.

“...Just tell me the damn stories.”

“Mhm.”

—

The battle lasted an hour before Dr. Zelenka and his science team were able to get the device operational.

The Legion battalion arrived in the exact location that they predicted. Since the minefield was several kilometers long, it was up to their sniper units to take out the Legion trying to enter through the breach, and the artillery units to fire at any units that started to cross it.

“Dr. Zelenka, wait until we’ve cleared the area of effect before you activate the device.”

“Uh…right! Er…roger!”

They unloaded the device from Fido and set it on the ground. Their friendly units had to clear away from the conduit first, after which it was remotely activated through a console. Shin didn't know what he had been expecting, but nothing actually happened at first. If the device was working, then there was no light or smoke or any other visible indicator. However, he didn't need to wait for long.

Shin couldn’t believe his eyes. As Ameise and Grauwolf units pursued them from across the minefield, they simply collapsed as soon as they grew too close, and Shin surmised that they had entered the EM field. The cries of the dead simply faded away to nothing, like going to sleep.

Several minutes passed, and the device held.

“I’ll be damned,” Raiden remarked in amazement. “It actually worked.”

“Well done, Dr. Zelenka, it appears you work best under pressure,” Shin commended. “You just did what no other science team could achieve in the Federacy labs.”

“Maybe we should have him work under threat of a Legion attack all the time. Imagine what he could accomplish,” Raiden joked.

“...Please don’t make me do that,” Dr. Zelenka replied through the resonance.

Everyone, even the two other members on the science team, laughed at that.

With the new EM field active, sealing off the breach to their defenses from Legion territory, the remainder of the stranded First Armored Corps should be relatively safe. Shin watched as the Legion’s battalion stopped engaging them and started to retreat.

But that was when Shin noticed it. A small force broke away from the battalion, which was already strange enough, but they did so in such a manner that it was clear they had a purpose. They were headed somewhere specific, but it was hard to tell where.

He had an uneasy feeling about that. Nothing good ever came when the Legion behaved differently.

“Colonel Wenzel,” Shin called through his resonance. “A small squadron of Legion just broke off from the main battalion towards an unknown destination. This isn’t typical Legion movement. I suggest we pursue them.”

“Undertaker, acknowledged. That does seem worrisome. How big of a team do you need?” Grethe replied.

“A large unit might attract unwanted attention. It’ll just be Spearhead.”

“Understood then. Good luck,” she replied.

Shin relayed their new orders to the rest of Spearhead.

“Roger that,” his team replied.

"Uh…hey, Anju. Don't you wanna say good-bye to…you know?" Kurena awkwardly asked the other woman.

There wasn't even a pause before Anju replied too casually. "I can say good-bye through the Para-RAID. We should get going before we lose track of them."

Shin and the others didn't bother pushing her.

They would have to choose a path away from the EM field and the Legion to cross the minefield.

“...Alright,” Shin said. "Let's go, then."

—

They traveled for several hours before they neared the blip on the tracker. It had stopped moving earlier in the day, and thankfully it seemed that Annette didn’t realize she was being pursued by them.

As Lena studied the map of the area that they were traveling through, she slowly realized that it looked very familiar. She wondered if Theo noticed it as well. The landscape they traversed through was so picturesque, so untouched by man. Lena thought it looked serene and beautiful.

It was already late in the afternoon when they arrived at an old, abandoned town. Their three units slowly entered through one of the side streets and followed the tracker towards its industrial sector. Most of the pavement was now so badly cracked and deteriorated over the years that it didn’t seem possible to drive a normal vehicle on them anymore. They passed by old houses and shops, though many of the buildings weren’t structurally intact and it was difficult to make out what they used to be. Lena had never actually seen what these battlefields might have looked like for herself. It was haunting. Once, these desolate streets were full of bustling life, and now, only ghosts roamed about.

They stopped at an abandoned warehouse. This was where the tracker pointed them towards.

Where Annette was.

—

“What…the…hell?” Kurena expressed with complete disbelief.

“What do you see, Kurena?” Shin asked calmly.

Shin and the rest of Spearhead had pursued the Legion for most of the day. Fido followed them diligently, carrying their extra fuel and other supplies. Instead of catching up to the enemy to engage them in combat, in which they would have easily won, they followed behind them at a distance. Shin wanted to see where they were headed. There was a chance that their destination was the base of the new Admiral type that had been assembled in the old Eastern Front. If that was the case, and they were able to track it down, they would have an exact location for their operation.

When the enemy units stopped in an open clearing, Shin and the others fell back at a safe distance, out of range from their sensors. While the others got out of their machines to stretch their legs, Kurena stayed in hers to get a visual through her long-range scope.

“…You’re gonna wanna see this for yourself.”

Kurena opened the hatch to Gunslinger so the others could come see her visual feed on the display. Raiden, Anju and Shin all leaned over the edge of her cockpit to peer inside.

“Is that what I think it is?!” Raiden exclaimed.

“That’s a Republic transport aircraft,” Anju observed with distress. “But that’s impossible. How could it have flown into Legion territory?”

It was well known that the Legion had air superiority, and any aircraft that even attempted to fly into their territories would be immediately shot down and destroyed. Humanity’s aircrafts could only be flown behind the frontlines. But this one was clearly intact. In fact, the Legion units didn’t even attempt to destroy it. It just looked like they paused around it for a short while…and then they left. They kept advancing towards the direction they had been headed in earlier.

This hadn’t been their original destination, after all.

“Let’s get a closer look,” Shin suggested, and the others agreed.

As they approached the Republic transport cautiously, Shin was immediately reminded of the many times he had been on one of these. He had been taken from battlefield to battlefield at the whims of the Eighty-Six’s oppressors, the ones who forced their people to war, never knowing who or where his next unit would be.

Shin took a deep breath. He eyed the Scavenger that still followed him to this day. At the very least, Fido had been a constant in his life even back then.

They were close to the aircraft now. He remembered what Lena had said earlier about there being some connection between the Legion and the Republic. He had a feeling that this would lead them on a trail to find out what that connection was.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s inside,” Anju observed, switching her visual feed from x-ray to infrared imaging.

Raiden got out of Wehrwolf and crouched on the ground next to some markings he had been drawn to.

“These tracks are coming from the transport,” Raiden commented. “They’re not Legion…definitely some kind of ground vehicle. They’re pretty recent, too.”

Shin approached Raiden and followed his line of sight along the tracks. They went in the same direction as the Legion units they were already pursuing, whose cries were starting to grow fainter by the minute.

“We should keep up our pursuit of the Legion,” Shin concluded. “But if this trail ends up going a different path, Raiden and Anju, you two follow it. There’s a good chance we may be getting some answers soon.”

Raiden exhaled a long breath of air. “This just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”

—

They stacked themselves in two teams on either side of the warehouse's entrance. Shiden readied herself to open the door, waiting for Lena's signal behind her as Theo held up their rear. Lerche and Vika positioned themselves on the opposite side.

Lena firmly patted the side of Shiden's leg, and they all moved as a coordinated team to breach the entrance with their weapons raised. Shiden and Lerche both quickly cleared the corners nearest to the entrance as Lena, Vika and Theo swept the area in an inward direction.

The abandoned building was completely barren. Even though it was a warehouse, it was mostly empty now, save for some plastic chairs covered in layers of dust piled into a corner.

They quickly moved to clear the blind spots behind several load bearing beams, making sure to always stay together with their partners.

“I don’t get it,” Theo remarked. “According to the tracker, the signal is right in front of us.”

“Or perhaps…it’s below us,” Vika suggested. “There may be subfloors.”

“Over here,” Shiden pointed out, aiming the light mounted on her rifle to a square floor hatch, big enough for one person to fit through at a time.

When they opened it, the metal hinges creaked loudly from rust. They could only see a ladder descending down below into darkness.

“Oh yeah, this seems like a great idea,” Shiden remarked sarcastically.

They all climbed down.

—

It turned out that Raiden and Anju never had to split up from them after all. The trail from the transport led them to the same destination as the Legion.

They knew this area well.

Their old battlefield in the Eighty-Sixth Sector.

They weren’t actually that far from Spearhead squadron’s barracks. Shin had heard from Rito what had happened there during the siege, and he wondered if most of it had been destroyed in the attack. Or perhaps it hadn’t even been worth the Legion’s time.

They watched the Legion enter an empty town, which was odd since Shin couldn’t detect a base anywhere. But he was surprised to see something else.

Friendly units appeared on his radar, and he was sure that he had heard a familiar cry of the deceased before the Legion even entered. It was the haunting voice of Lerche’s ghost, a voice he could recognize now.

Lena and the others were here too.

“Undertaker to the retrieval team, please respond,” Shin spoke through the resonance. “Spearhead squadron is currently near your location.”

There was no response.

“This is Shin to the retrieval team,” Shin tried again. “Lena, are you there?”

From his knowledge, there wasn’t much that could interfere with the Para-RAID’s resonance. He wouldn’t pretend to understand the science behind it, but there shouldn’t be anything that could jam the signal.

“The trail from that ground vehicle stops just outside of town,” Raiden said. “And I can’t track them in an urban environment. All we know is that they’re here somewhere.”

Shin frowned.

He put the pieces of information that they knew together. The small team of Legion, drawn from the battlefield to travel here. The Republic aircraft. And likely at the center of it all was Henrietta Penrose.

An uneasy feeling slowly crept on him.

—

The descent down was about ten meters, and with the lights from their rifles it at least wasn’t in utter darkness. However, it was the unknown, the unexpected, that was the most chilling. Once they all made it down the ladder, they moved together to search the new floor. Unlike the main floor of the warehouse, this one wasn’t empty.

The blip on the tracker still hadn’t moved.

As they searched, it became apparent that this was a lab of some sort. There were test tubes filled with a solution that Lena didn’t recognize, bunsen burners, pipettes, and other lab equipment that she wasn’t familiar with. But while Lena wasn’t a scientist, she at least knew that this equipment and lab was actively in use, given how well maintained and clean everything was.

Packed neatly into several handheld cases were vials of the unknown solution along with sterilized syringes. Lena wasn't surprised when Vika took a case to hand to Lerche. The Prince would undoubtedly want to analyze it later. There were also several computer stations with schematics and notes. Vika approached one of them to see what the contents of the vials might be.

As he read through the notes, his eyes widened in shock.

“These are…,” he started, trailing off in disbelief. “These are nanites.”

“What does that mean?” Shiden asked with an unimpressed look.

“They’re small, microscopic machines, smaller than the eye can see,” Vika explained as he read through the schematics. “These were designed to be injected into humans. Normally, the purpose of this research is intended for medical uses. It seems that these nanites have such capabilities. They can be used to cure some diseases, deliver pharmaceutical drugs to targeted cells, and even accelerate repair of tissue cells and injuries.”

“That sounds…kinda cool,” Theo commented with a raised brow. “But why would the Legion design something that could help humans?”

“Because,” Vika continued. “These nanites have also been programmed with the Legion’s artificial intelligence. Once injected, they’ll take over the entire nervous system, making the body into a host for the nanites. In other words, the person becomes a Legion.”

The silence that fell over the group was deafening. Lena’s expression became one of horror.

Understanding dawned on her.

Annette wasn’t a mole. She was infected with Legion nanites.

But then what was the connection to the Republic? Why did they seem to also obtain the same intelligence? A new, haunting thought came to her then. She once wrote in her memoirs that the Republic was the enemy. Could it possibly be that it might not have just been a metaphor?

“I suppose you’ve found us out,” came a familiar, smooth voice, interrupting Lena’s thoughts. But this voice held no emotion, none of the prosody of her typical manner of speech. This was cold and robotic.

The Alba woman appeared from a different floor hatch to another basement subfloor down below. As she stepped up onto the ground, completely unarmed, everyone aimed their weapons at her.

Annette.

“While that may slow me down, it will not kill me,” she remarked. “How did you find my location?”

Lena approached slowly, taking one step at a time. “I placed a tracker on you some time ago. Except it wasn’t you. You’re not Annette.”

“I am not,” she replied. “My kind had given my host body the callsign Minerva. You may refer to me as such, if you wish.”

Lena grit her teeth angrily.

“Annette!” Lena shouted, desperately calling for her friend. “It’s me, Lena! Can you hear me?”

“I’m afraid it isn’t possible to speak with her,” Minerva replied. “Every time I took over this body, her mind grew weaker and more fatigued from the strain. My host’s mind is now in a state of slumber, unable to wake.”

“Annette!” Theo tried this time. “You gotta fight this! Don’t you remember? We still gotta throw pies at Shin and Lena! So you have to wake up!”

“Were you not listening? Your attempts are futile,” she replied coldly.

“Then I guess we’ll just have to do this by force,” Shiden snarled, aiming her rifle at the Alba woman.

As Lena and Theo tried to stop her, it was already too late. The ground beneath their feet rumbled and shook, and a large section of the ceiling caved in on itself. Shiden reacted instinctively and dove towards Lena, using her body as a shield to protect her. Everyone ducked for cover.

Once the smoke dissipated, light from the outside filtered in through the debris. Lena strained to open her eyes and she looked over Shiden’s shoulder to see what had caused that cave-in.

What stood on top of the rubble was an Ameise.

Earlier, they had to disembark their machines outside of the warehouse so that they could come inside. Their assault rifles weren’t effective even against the lightly armored scout type. They had no chance of surviving an encounter with it.

“I’ll let you all live this once,” Minerva stated coldly, her emotionless eyes boring into Lena’s and then Theo’s. “This building will self-destruct in three minutes. I suggest you run.”

The woman climbed up onto one of the Legion’s hexapedal legs and secured herself at its side. The building shook again as the Ameise started to make its escape up from where it came from. Annette didn’t look back, but froze when a voice called to her.

“Annette!” Theo shouted at the top of his lungs. The rumbling continued and Lerche grabbed him by the arm. He kept shouting as she pulled him back. “I know you’re in there! We’re coming back for you! So you’d better wait for us!”

Lena wasn’t entirely sure she saw it, but she thought that there was a tear that rolled down Annette’s cheek.

—

Knowing that Lena and the others were in danger, Spearhead engaged the team of Legion they had been pursuing in combat. It had been a small force and nothing their veteran squadron couldn’t handle. As they were finishing them off, Shin noticed one escaping from an abandoned warehouse. It must have broken away from the others earlier.

It was the only one still standing. He was just about to move in to destroy it with his high-frequency blades when he noticed her on his visual feed.

“What?!” Shin exclaimed incredulously to himself.

Through his video feed, he could see the figure of his childhood friend holding on to the side of the Legion. Had she been taken hostage? No…the Legion didn’t take live hostages. That, and he could see it. The look in her eyes. Rita stared straight at Undertaker with a cold, detached gaze.

“Don’t shoot that unit!” Shin ordered his team.

“Is that Major Penrose? The fuck?” Raiden cursed. “Are we just gonna let it escape?”

Shin grit his teeth. “Yes.”

His priorities shifted from pursuit to making sure the others were safe and to find out what the hell was going on.

Shin didn’t turn his back to the Ameise until he was sure that the single Legion unit would not attack them back. As it left the town, its mechanical cries grew fainter.

Undertaker turned away from the escaping Legion and approached the warehouse that the others must have been in. Shin noticed the building quaking and realized that it was collapsing in on itself. He sucked in a sharp breath of air as he called out to the group inside.

—

“We barely made it out of there,” Shiden remarked breathlessly. “Are you alright, Your Majesty?”

Lena was just as breathless, but Shiden had been behind her at every step.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she replied.

As they stood on the old street, looking at the wreckage of the collapsed warehouse, their expressions grew somber again. Beside her, Theo’s shoulders were slumped, his eyes downcast. Lena slowly reached her hand out to place it on his shoulder. She didn’t say anything, though, because no words would comfort her, either.

A block away, four Reginleifs rounded the corner, and she immediately recognized the familiar emblems of Spearhead. Lena sharply sucked in a breath of air. What were they doing here? She ran towards them.

“Shin, what are-”

And suddenly, she couldn’t speak, her voice caught in her throat. Lena barely registered everyone’s cries, and then the piercing sound of metal ricocheting came from somewhere to the side. Was that…gunfire? Her mind racing, she finally realized that she couldn’t inhale, couldn’t even release any breath. Her body shook, and she looked down.

She reached a hand over her chest, but there was nothing, just the thick fabric of the flight suit uniform. When she reached lower to her abdomen, there it was, a warm, wet sensation on her hands. Blood.

Lena dropped to the ground.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Chapter Text

Shin had heard the shot. When Lena fell to the ground, his mind froze over. His body moved on its own without thinking.

No, no, no.

As though listening from a different room, he could hear the sound of Kurena pinpointing where the shot came from. Theo and Shiden took Lena and pulled her body behind some cover, an alley between two smaller buildings. Vika and Lerche covered them as they retreated.

No, not her.

He didn’t remember exiting his machine or running out. He couldn’t hear everyone screaming at him to get out of the sniper’s line of fire. There were no more shots, but he didn’t really register that either.

When he saw her, lying there so lifeless, he became paralyzed.

“Shiden,” Raiden growled out, loading his assault rifle. “You and I are going hunting.”

The others must have followed him as he ran out of Undertaker.

“No,” Shiden disagreed bitterly. “We’re going on a fucking rampage.”

The two of them ran off in the direction that Kurena had directed them earlier. Shin was still too frozen to move, to breathe, to even think properly.

“Shin…,” she called out in the weakest voice he had ever heard from her.

Her silver-bell like voice, the part of her that he had known the longest, was what snapped him out of his daze. Shin immediately fell to his knees at her side and reached for her. There was so much blood.

He took Lena’s hands in his, knowing enough about basic first aid that he shouldn’t move the rest of her. Someone had already wrapped a flight suit jacket tightly around her injury, and he pressed tightly against it to keep the pressure on the wound. But he knew, they all knew, that it wouldn’t be enough. The bullet had punctured straight into her abdomen where most of her internal organs were. She was bleeding out so quickly that they wouldn’t be able to save her.

He remembered the vow she made to him when they were still in the Fleet countries. He remembered it so vividly like it was just yesterday.

She promised him to always be there to wait for his return. To never leave him behind. So why?

The world was so cruel and unforgiving. Just when he finally started to let himself wish for something, see a real future for himself, a future with her, it decided to take her away from him. This was supposed to be the beginning of something great for them. The beginning of a lifetime together. The beginning of forever.

Suddenly, she turned her gaze to the side, and he had to struggle to hear her voice.

“Vika…,” she started. The Prince eyed her hesitantly, and leaned down next to Shin, giving them a polite amount of space. “The…nanites.”

Shin wasn’t sure what she meant, but immediately, Vika’s eyes widened.

“Of course. Milize…you’re a genius!”

Vika and the others started going off about something that he couldn’t keep up with, but Shin understood just enough. There was hope.

His attention turned back to her.

“I…promised…didn’t I?” she asked him. “I won’t…leave you…behind…”

“Shin,” Anju pressed urgently. She crouched down low so they were at eye-level and she looked at him imploringly. “Vika might be able to save her, but he needs some time to work. You need to keep her awake and alert. Keep her talking, do you understand?”

He nodded his head. In the moments afterward, the only person he could see or hear was Lena. No one else existed anymore.

“Just hang on,” Shin spoke gently, his voice raspy. “Stay with me, please.”

Lena nodded and gave him a strained smile. “Always,” she replied. “I want to live my life with you. I want to grow old with you, Shin.”

Shin paused. “I’ve never really thought much about getting old. Do you think I’ll get gray hair?”

“Even if you do, I’ll still love you,” Lena joked back.

“You’ll still be beautiful no matter what age you are,” Shin told her, meaning every word he said.

“Have you ever…thought of…kids?” she asked.

“...I never thought I’d live long enough to have any,” he replied honestly. “But I like the sound of starting a family with you someday. How many do you want?”

“At least two…,” she replied. She had clearly thought of this before. “It was lonely for me…I wish I had a brother or sister,” she admitted.

“Then we’ll have at least two, maybe more, as many as you want,” Shin suggested, tears in his eyes. He had never thought about it before, but talking about it now with her…he could see it. Someday. Lena would be such a wonderful mother, and he could learn to be a father as long as it was with her. “So please…don’t leave me. We still have so much to do. So much to live for,” he pleaded.

Lena started to grow quiet as the tears fell down her face. She looked at him as though he was the only one in the world.

“Lena…,” he called for her. “I can’t live without you…so please…”

—

“Vika, you need to hurry!” Theo shouted.

“I know!” Vika snapped back. “But I need to reprogram these nanites. So unless you want her to become just like Penrose then let me work!”

With that, the Prince immediately went back to typing frantically on his console.

Theo didn’t know when Vika had taken one of the vials from the lab, but he was glad for it. He was using Lerche as a way to…’interface’ with the nanites, or so he had said earlier. It was odd, seeing the Sirin’s arm detached so that the wires could be used to connect Vika’s console to the nanites.

Shin and Lena were in their own world now. Theo couldn’t do anything to help, he was just useless. As he crouched down next to Anju and Kurena, he had a feeling that they thought the same thing too.

They couldn’t do anything except listen to their private conversation. This should have been meant for their ears only. Kurena was sobbing uncontrollably, and even Anju was tearing up. It was hard for all of them to listen to this.

Theo broke when he heard Shin talk so openly about having children. He felt fear. Crippling, dark, cold fear. He was so terrified of what might happen. This wasn’t fair. Their beloved Reaper, after all the death and despair, had finally found someone to be happy with. Why did this have to happen now?

“This is the best I can do,” Vika suddenly called out. “I don’t have the time to go through the entire AI, but at the very least, this will give Milize a fighting chance,” he explained, disconnecting the wires. He took one of the syringes and inserted the needle into the vial, drawing the nanite solution in.

Once it was ready, he approached Shin and Lena and crouched on the ground next to her.

“Milize, are you sure about this? It…might not work,” Vika admitted.

Lena eyed Shin, seemingly concerned about something.

“Did you…program a kill switch…in case…?”

“Of course I did,” Vika replied firmly. He glanced at Shin. “He won’t have to be the one to deal with any consequences.”

“What does that mean?” Shin asked, his voice shaking.

The Roa Gracian Prince looked him dead in the eye. “Milize understands what I mean. This is her decision.”

Lena nodded her head resolutely.

“Shin…I love you.”

And so, the King of Corpses injected their Queen with the Legion’s nanites. Lena gasped for air, and within moments, her eyes faded, and she fell unconscious.

It was at that moment that Raiden and Shiden both returned, dragging two unconscious bodies behind them. Their Prussian blue uniforms were unmistakable.

They were San Magnolian Republic soldiers.

—

They took shelter in the only location they could think of that was close by.

Remnants of a battlefield littered the serene landscape that used to surround Spearhead’s barracks. But for the most part, the interiors of the buildings were left untouched, abandoned before the Legion even swept through this area. The only ones that had stayed behind were the maintenance crew, but they were long gone now.

Theo had sat with Lena in one of Fido’s containers as they traveled. He listened quietly as the two teams compared notes, so to speak. Obviously their Para-RAID signals were working again. No one knew why they had stopped working in the first place, but they had been pursuing the leading expert on the technology, so they didn’t spend too long scratching their heads over the matter. Theo watched as Lena’s condition gradually improved, amazed at what such tiny little machines could achieve. When they arrived, Shin wordlessly came for Lena and carried her inside the barracks.

Theo thought he had never seen their Reaper look so small as he carried his heart in his arms.

Later, once they had all settled in and had established a secure perimeter, they all fell into the chairs of the dining hall exhausted. Lerche was outside keeping watch, and she had offered to stay vigilant the entire night, not needing any rest or sleep.

Shin, unsurprisingly, never even left Lena’s side.

The last time Theo sat in this building, he and everyone else never let anything, not even the death of a comrade, get them so down. They would simply continue their day with smiles on their faces. It was how they survived through the constant tragedy back then, by never giving in to despair. Now, as he looked at Raiden, Anju, Kurena and Shiden…they were all so silent.

Theo knew, even in the Eighty-Sixth sector, that no one could last for long by always putting a false smile on their face. By never letting themselves feel sadness, pain, anger. But back then, they didn’t need to last for long. They had all been sentenced to their deaths anyways. But now…now he couldn’t help but feel those emotions that clawed at his heart, that made him want to scream and cry and tear the world apart.

It was hard for Theo to even try to think like he used to.

Had they all really changed so much since leaving the Eighty-Sixth sector?

—

Lena awoke to an old familiarity from what seemed like a lifetime ago, but was now a strange and foreign place. The mattress was plush and soft, the furniture in the room polished so pristinely that one could see their reflection in every surface. A bookcase holding memories of childhood, a clean desk, and the counter she always used to hold a vase of flowers. And a box containing the memories of the Eighty-Six.

It was her old room in the Milize estate.

The last time she saw it, it had been so utterly destroyed that her old home was barely recognizable, debris and wreckage littering every step inside. All she could do was retrieve some of the few items that somehow survived the fires and destruction of the Legion.

But before her eyes was a scene that remained completely untouched by the ravages of war. It was exactly as she remembered it from her youth.

And from outside her room she could hear the distant voices of those she hadn’t heard in over a year.

It can’t be…

Lena didn’t bother changing out of her nightgown and simply put on a robe. She dashed out the door and ran down the winding staircase leading to the main foyer.

And then she saw them.

“Mother…Uncle Jermone…,” she panted breathlessly, unbelievably.

Seeing both her mother and uncle standing before her, alive and well, Lena froze up in shock. She and Margareta Milize may not have always been on the best of terms, but the woman was the one who raised her, cared for her, worried for her, and loved her with a ferocity that only mothers could know. Lena could feel the tears well up in her eyes, and her body moved without thinking as she approached the woman and wrapped her arms around her.

“Lena,” the woman spoke with shock and concern. “What’s gotten into you, dear?”

“I’ve missed you so much,” Lena cried, encircling the other woman in her arms even tighter. Being in her mother’s embrace again made her feel warm and protected, as though she were a child again.

“You just saw me yesterday at breakfast,” Margareta chuckled, stroking her daughter’s hair in a calming, repetitive motion.

At that comment, Lena stilled, and she ripped away from Margareta as though she was burned by fire.

“I don’t understand, how is this possible?” Lena asked skeptically.

“What are you talking about?” Jerome asked her curiously.

“How are you here? Neither of you survived the Legion’s large-scale offensive,” Lena explained.

“Large-scale offensive?” Jerome echoed in confusion, this time eyeing Margareta with a wary look. “I don’t understand.”

After she explained the events of the Republic’s downfall and the two-month siege over a year ago, the two older adults looked at each other uneasily.

“Lena, the Legion deactivated after their six years was over. There was no large-scale offensive and the Republic never fell. The Legion war is over.”

While this was a shock, she only needed a brief moment to process this information. She had another question that was far more important.

“What happened to the Eighty-Six?” Lena demanded next.

Margareta blinked, dumbfounded.

“Who knows?” she answered as though she was just asked what the weather would be this weekend. “Probably all gone.”

It was Jerome that gave her a more final answer. He did so unflinchingly. “After the Legion shut down, they were no longer useful, so the war council decided to terminate every Processor and drone unit.”

“You mean…they killed every one of them?” Lena gasped, her face going pale from the horror. “There were thousands of them. That’s…that’s genocide, Uncle!”

“Are you surprised, Lena?” Jerome asked harshly. “This country never saw the Eighty-Six as humans. They were simply drone components that no longer served a purpose.”

Lena paused for a long moment trying to calm her breathing. “You can’t mean that,” she whispered shakily.

“Lena, this isn’t news anymore,” Margareta scolded. “You already know all of this. I won’t stand for your hysterics over the Eighty-Six anymore. You need to focus and think of your future as a daughter of the Milize family.”

With each word her mother spoke, Lena felt her heart grow cold.

—

Lena paced around her room frantically.

“Undertaker, please respond,” she spoke, having found her Para-RAID device in its old spot. “Shin!”

She kept pacing, calling for anybody to answer her.

“Raiden, respond.

“Shiden, Anju, Kurena, Theo, anybody! Please respond…”

She fell to her knees and sobbed.

—

The rooms were exactly as Shin remembered them to be, with rusted, creaky bed frames and uncomfortable mattresses. But it was still a secure dwelling with a roof over it. He gently laid Lena down in the bed of the captain’s quarters. His old room.

When he checked her injury, it was already healing at a remarkable rate. She was no longer bleeding out, and her skin had gone from a deathly, sickly pallor back to a healthier color. He brought the chair from the desk next to the bed and sat.

He didn’t know how much time passed. All he could do was watch the steady rise and fall of Lena’s chest as she breathed. And then flashes of blood, so much blood, came to his mind. The light in her argent eyes slowly fading away. Her silver-bell like voice, never to be heard again. The image of her, dying on the ground, lifeless.

A knock came at the door. It was Raiden.

“Hey, you should come eat with everyone,” he said gently.

Shin shook his head. “I’ll stay here.”

Raiden sighed in frustration. “Figured you’d say that,” he said and placed a can of rations onto the desk. “Eat. That better be finished when I come back later.”

Shin could only nod his head as Raiden left. He didn’t notice the other man glancing at him in concern as he shut the door behind him.

He gently lifted one of Lena’s hands and placed it between his own. He brought it to his lips and kissed her delicate fingers softly.

“Please come back,” he pleaded.

—

The life that Lena knew and understood to be so real…was it all a dream?

But that wasn’t possible. The memories she made, the people she met, the experiences she went through…they were all real. She knew it in her heart.

Lena didn’t know what to make of this new reality, though. It didn’t seem like a dream either, especially not after she pinched herself. That pain felt too real to be a dream. Everything seemed so vivid and clear, and yet…

She couldn’t help the feeling that this was all wrong.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Chapter Text

Vika had to make four attempts, each one more dumbed down than the previous iteration, to explain how he had re-programmed the nanites. Eventually, he settled on an explanation that everyone could understand.

“Essentially, I altered the base code so that the nanites’ primary directive is to heal the body first, and secondary is to take over the host’s nervous system. This slows down the nanites’ infection of the brain, allowing Milize’s mind to counter them,” Vika told everyone. “And please don’t ask why I did this. Just trust that it was the best solution given the time constraints I had.”

“...But that means that Lena still has to fight off the nanites that are trying to take over her head. Is that right?” Raiden asked, trying his best to understand.

“More or less,” Vika confirmed. “I’ve done all I can now. The rest is up to her. However, I would dare to say that Milize’s mind seems monstrous even to me. I believe she, of all people, has a fighting chance.”

Raiden never would have guessed the Prince to believe in anything, but apparently even he could be optimistic about some things.

As evening fell upon them and everyone dispersed from the dining hall, Vika set up a small, portable computer that he brought in from Gadyuka’s specialized equipment and completely immersed himself in it. He was apparently going through a copy of the nanite code that he had extracted earlier. He had mentioned something about an idea that Shin brought up, and didn’t speak another word for the rest of the night.

Raiden had to wonder a little about the Prince’s sanity. His fixation seemed so all consuming that it terrified him a little. Was this what being a mad genius looked like?

Leaving the Prince to his pet project, Raiden left the dining hall and entered the common room. Theo and Kurena were already there, and he assumed that Anju would be joining them shortly.

A part of him wanted to say that it was just like old times. But of course, it really wasn’t.

—

Lena spent the next several days holed up in her room, refusing to go down or see anyone. She ate all her meals in her room. She spent the rest of her time weeping and sobbing, her head clutched in her hands, until her tears ran dry and her throat became raw.

What the hell is happening to me?

“If you were all here, you’d laugh at me,” Lena whispered to herself, reaching out for everybody and nobody.

Day in and day out, she kept waking up to the comforts of her privileged, wealthy lifestyle, with servants answering to her every request. And the Eighty-Six had all died as livestock as she sat comfortably behind their protection.

“I’m just a crybaby princess after all. A wannabe saint that doesn’t realize how much of a hypocrite I really am,” she admitted to herself, more tears falling from her face.

Perhaps she really was crazy, after all.

“I really am…pathetic.”

—

With no power to this region anymore, the only light that came was from the setting sun shining an orange glow through the windows. As Anju slowly walked down the quiet hallways, her figure cast a wide shadow on the walls each time she passed through the light.

She re-visited old spots, places they liked to spend time together in. She remembered how he had often volunteered to help her with her duties around the base. Sometimes they spent their time in peaceful silence as they cooked or hung up the laundry to dry. Sometimes she would burst out in laughter as he threw soap suds at her while washing dishes. And sometimes they would simply talk about nothing and everything, watching the birds in the sky fly so freely.

Anju smiled to herself as she reminisced on these memories. Everywhere she walked, she was reminded of a moment, of laughter, of sadness, of triumph, of heartache.

She missed him so, so much.

But Daiya was gone now. Gone for over two years.

Anju often felt guilty for surviving, for living, for finding things to smile about, to laugh about. She often wondered what he would think, what he would say if he saw her now.

As she walked past Shin’s old room, she heard movement inside. She knocked on the closed door and poked her head inside. Shin was scraping the last of the rations from the bottom of the can with his spoon.

“I’m glad you ate,” Anju commented.

Shin didn’t take his eyes off Lena as he spoke.

“Raiden would’ve grabbed me by the collar and dragged me to the dining hall if I didn’t,” he replied.

Anju internally chuckled at that and approached Shin. “May I join you?”

He shrugged indifferently. “She’d probably like the company.”

Anju tried to smile as she sat down on the foot of the bed next to Lena. But it probably came out hollow.

“She’s looking a lot better now,” Anju remarked, noticing that she didn’t need the makeshift bandage anymore. “Do you think she can hear us?”

Shin spent a moment contemplating her question before he replied.

“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I hope she can.”

Anju had never seen him so vulnerable, like a defenseless cub, lost and alone.

“Well, if she can, I’d tell her…,” Anju trailed off. And then she turned to Lena and placed a hand on her forearm, squeezing it firmly. “Lena, you can fight this. I know you can. So come back to us. Come back to Shin. He really needs you right now,” she whispered, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

Shin looked up at the silver-blue haired woman in awe. Tears welled up in his eyes and started rolling down his cheeks.

“I’m…scared, Anju,” he admitted. “I’ve never been this scared in my-,” he tried to say, but he choked back a sob.

Anju knew. Back then, their Reaper had closed off his heart, making it numb to the world. He never used to feel much at all. But now he had finally opened his heart, and Shin had never felt this type of fear in his life. She wrapped her arms around him and let him cry into her shoulder.

She also knew how strong he had become. It took great amounts of courage and self-awareness to be able to admit what he said. He’d come so far in such a short amount of time.

So Anju pleaded with any gods that might be out there to save their Queen, save the woman that their Reaper gave his heart to. She couldn’t die. Shin couldn’t survive it.

Anju stayed for just a while longer in silent company. Her heart ached for Shin. Her mind conjured up worst case scenarios, fearing the worst. She thought of what Lena might think if she saw them now. If she saw Shin. Anju knew that Lena would only want him to be happy, to be able to live if anything happened to her.

And selfishly, she thought of Daiya.

She wondered if he would want her to be happy, just as Anju would want for him. She had already spent the last two years mourning him, constantly thinking of the past. Perhaps it was time she started looking ahead. After all, there was someone right in front of her.

—

Margareta knocked on her door one day, announcing that she had a visitor.

“At least make yourself look presentable,” her mother urged.

“I don’t want any visitors,” Lena replied coldly.

She hadn’t even dressed for the day yet. She just laid in her bed, staring up into nothingness. It was well past noon.

Margareta sighed, closing the door behind her as she left.

Moments later, the door opened again. Lena was just about to dismiss whoever it was when she heard it. That familiar, smooth voice, calling her name. For the first time in days, she finally felt her heart again.

“Annette?” she whispered unbelievably. When she rushed out of bed and jumped on her best friend, the other woman became shocked.

“Whoa! Lena, what’s gotten into you?” Annette asked with a brow raised.

Suddenly, flashes of memories from another life appeared before Lena, playing like a movie in a theater. The Eighty-Sixth Strike Package. Annette following her to the Federacy of Giad. All of their operations. All of her friends.

Shin.

“...I think I’m going crazy,” she whispered, clinging to Annette like she was her only lifeline.

“Oh, Lena,” Annette replied sympathetically, stroking her back. “We’re all a little crazy.”

Later, after Lena had explained everything to her best friend, they sat in her room drinking the tea that the servants had brought up earlier.

“Lena…,” Annette started hesitantly. “Even I’m starting to think you’re going a little crazy now. I mean…am I supposed to believe that this is all a dream and I’m not even real or something?”

Lena’s heart sank, realizing where this conversation would go.

“I think you went through something very traumatic, and maybe your mind is needing some way to cope with it all,” Annette suggested gently. “Look…I don’t completely understand, but I’m here for you.”

Red, hot anger flared through her. Why wouldn’t anyone listen to her? She just needed someone to listen and not tell her what she was thinking, what she was feeling. Once again, no one believed her. What an all too familiar feeling. And then the numbness came back, sinking its claws deep into her.

“You don’t feel anything then? About what happened to the Eighty-Six?” Lena asked her bitterly.

“It’s not that I don’t feel anything, but…,” she trailed off, shrugging her shoulders. “It was hopeless to begin with. There wasn’t anything you or I could’ve done about it.”

Apathy. That was the old Annette.

“What about all our efforts to prepare for the large-scale offensive?”

They had gone to such great lengths to ensure as many people survived as possible given limited resources and a nation that never believed her. All wasted efforts, apparently.

“What about it? We were wrong about that,” Annette replied. “But being wrong doesn’t mean we have to live the rest of our lives in shame. We can still move on. We need to move on with our lives now. Minister Arhendale had offered to support you if you pursued a position in the House of Commons, right?”

Lena sighed. She remembered that well enough. “He only offered it to me to satisfy his constituents that want more women in office. But it’s an empty position without any real influence.”

“And when has that stopped you before?” Annette asked with a raised brow. “Look, the Lena I know, the one who secretly went behind the top brass’ back to prepare for the Legion? She gained power and influence right under everyone's noses because frankly, our country is made up of complete and utter idiots. You should run for office. Maybe you can do something with it. Prevent what happened to the Eighty-Six from ever happening to anyone else again.”

Annette’s logic…it made sense. If all of this was true. If this was her new reality, then…that would be the best course of action.

But she still had a nagging feeling.

“Thank you, Annette, you’re a good friend,” Lena said earnestly. “Do you think Theo and the others would’ve wanted me to move on?”

Annette nodded her head with a smile. “I think so.”

Lena suddenly stilled at that.

“Is something wrong?” Annette asked her.

Please come back.

“...It’s nothing.”

—

Lena contacted Minister Arhendale to accept his proposition. She would begin her political campaign with his support and backing.

—

The common area of Spearhead squadron’s barracks looked exactly the same.

The only difference was the layers of dust that had settled over the space in the last year or so since the large-scale offensive. Back then, even though everything was old and salvaged from destroyed towns, they were diligent with cleaning and maintaining what they had. The last people that were here were the last Spearhead team, Rito’s team.

They must have left here in a panicked frenzy, judging by the way that nothing was put away where it belonged.

As Anju entered, Kurena motioned for her to sit on the couch next to her as Raiden and Theo went around clearing the room. They were able to scrounge up some of the old generators from the hangar to set up some lights in the space.

“Look, I’m sure of it,” the blonde insisted as he wiped the dust off of some chairs. “You guys weren’t there, but she…she let us live. And then she warned us about the building’s self-destruct. She could’ve easily just left us all there to die, but no. I’m sure that somewhere in there, Annette was the one that did that.”

Everyone hesitated and kept silent.

“I suppose it’s possible,” Anju conceded eventually. “Who are we to say that it isn’t?”

Theo gave everyone a dissatisfied look, not believing that any of them were buying it.

“It’s strange to be back here, isn’t it?” Raiden asked with a nostalgic voice. Kurena got the feeling he was trying to change the subject. “It’s like this place was frozen in time. Nothing’s changed at all.”

“But the people changed,” Kurena remarked softly.

“Yes,” Anju whispered. “We have.”

They all fell into silence, each being pulled into their own thoughts. Their own stories.

“Did you hear what Lena said…right before Vika gave her the injection?” Kurena asked suddenly.

Raiden raised a brow at that. He hadn’t been there at the time.

“Yeah,” Theo nodded his head. “She asked Vika if he programmed a kill switch into the nanites.”

“Does that mean…what I think it means?” Raiden asked with concern.

“If Lena turns Legion, then we’ll have a way to shut down the nanites with a press of a button,” Theo explained solemnly. “But Vika also told us that it means we’ll likely be killing her too.”

Raiden cursed in frustration. “Fucking idiots, the both of them.”

“It was for Shin,” Kurena continued, having already known this back in that alley. “Lena doesn’t want Shin to have to fight her, or worse. Be the one to have to kill her if it comes to it.”

The rest of her team, her family, listened as she spoke. Kurena felt a sudden need to get this off her chest.

“We all know Shin. And we know that something like that would just break him. He wouldn’t survive it. It’s like…he only knows how to live for her. He’s never known how to live for himself,” Kurena poured her thoughts out. None of them seemed to disagree with what she said. “I…I told Shin that I loved him after our operation in the Theocracy of Noiryanaruse,” Kurena confessed in a small voice.

Everyone seemed surprised at that.

“Weren’t they already…?” Theo asked, not finishing his question. He didn’t need to.

Kurena nodded her head. “Shin and Lena were already together then. I just needed him to know. But you wanna know something?”

The young woman took a deep breath.

“I’ve been seeing parts of Shin since then. The parts of him I couldn’t see before. Parts that…I don’t actually like very much,” she admitted softly. “Lena’s always been able to see it too, but she still loves him anyways. Like how Shin depends on her to keep moving forward. His reason for being, what drives him, is mostly her, and maybe also for us too. But Lena still lets him rely on her and she relies on Shin in a similar way.”

Kurena could tell that everyone was silently pondering her words as she continued. “I guess that works for them. But…I wouldn’t ever want that. It seems like an unfair, impossible pressure to put on someone you love. All of us have been trying to move forward and learn how to live now. We still haven’t figured it out but…I want to learn how to live for myself. I wouldn’t ever want to be with someone who couldn’t live for themselves too.”

The others all stared at her with their mouths agape.

“Kurena…,” Anju breathed out. “You’ve grown so much.”

The young girl flushed at that comment.

“We’re proud of you,” Raiden said then with a warm smile. “Really.”

Theo reached a hand out to ruffle her hair.

“Stop it!” she whined.

They all chuckled at that.

—

Lena started drafting her political campaign herself, despite the Minister’s protests to manage things for her. Once it had been published for the public to view, most of the papers discussed it at length.

During breakfast one morning, instead of eating in silence, her mother actually brought it up.

“Lena,” Margareta started after taking a sip of her tea. “I’ve read what the papers are saying about your campaign. They’re saying that your proposed policies are widely favored by the current party in office and that you have a promising future as a politician.”

Lena blinked. “Is that so?” she murmured to herself. Deciding that this was a good opportunity, she changed to a slightly different but related subject. “Mother, the Minister will be hosting a ball at the end of this month.”

Margareta may have had vastly different opinions than Lena, but she was no fool.

“Is it to be held right before the general election?” she asked, calmly slicing into her omelet. The eggs were still synthesized, but in this world, they had regained their land back for agriculture. Synthetic food would soon be non-existent, or so the government claimed.

“Precisely,” Lena answered. “I take it you have no objections to me attending?”

Margareta sighed delicately. “I do wish it was with a suitor, but I understand that you will be far too focused on securing political alliances for your campaign. Although…once you’ve been voted into office, there will be many eligible bachelors who will be eager to marry you. Very well.”

Lena decided not to vocally disagree with her mother’s plans. The younger didn’t notice the faint small cross over the elder’s expression.

“I’m delighted to see that you’re starting to properly conduct yourself as a daughter of this family,” Margareta commended. “Now, we’ll need to find you a reputable seamstress to tailor your dress, of course.”

…How interesting.

—

Once the driver pulled up to the gate of the Milize estate, Lena stepped into the backseat.

“There’s a bakery I would like to visit. It’s called Klein’s on Whyte Avenue,” she told him.

A short drive later, she stepped out of the backseat of the vehicle after the driver opened the door for her. When she stepped onto the street, Lena’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Is this the bakery you were speaking so highly of, Miss Vladilena?” the driver asked her.

“Yes…yes it is,” she replied, trying not to let the surprise slip out of her voice.

When she entered the shop, the display case showed many of her favorite desserts. The owner was a sweet old lady that Lena knew well and spoke with often. It was exactly as she remembered it.

“I wonder…,” she whispered to herself.

“Pardon me?” the owner asked, looking over her shoulder at her from her position in front of the display.

“Nothing,” she replied, and she placed her order.

—

Shiden stood for a long time in front of the two Republic soldiers, tied up and unconscious. She had thought about different ways she could kill these two motherfuckers. She could shoot them both, but no, that would be too fast, too quick of a death. She could torture them, cut off finger after finger, limb after limb until they bled to death. But the others probably wouldn’t approve.

She knew she wasn’t allowed to kill them. They needed fucking answers.

So she poured a bucket of ice cold water on one of them at random.

The young man sucked in a large, audible breath, choking and gasping for air. He started shivering from being soaked through.

“Wake up, white pig,” she spat. “I have questions for you.”

“What…,” the man started. His confusion and panic quickly turned to realization. The Alba’s eyes suddenly widened in surprise. “Colonel Milize! Is she alright?”

At that, Shiden kicked him in the face. He fell on his side and hit the ground with a thud.

“Don’t you fucking say her name,” she spat. “That’s the Bloodstained Queen of the Eighty-Six to you.”

He coughed and then spat out some blood, straining his neck to get a better look at Shiden.

“It’s you…Cyclops,” he said with a strained voice, recognizing the woman. “It’s me…Ensign Sebastian Caubert. I recognize you from the siege last year.”

Shiden looked at him blankly. “You all kinda look the same to me,” she admitted.

Caubert groaned.

"Saint San Magnolia, I can’t believe this right now!” he muttered to himself incredulously. “Look, the other guy was the one who was sent to shoot and kill Colonel Milize. I was trying to stop him when I found out what his orders were, but I…I was too late. Is Colonel Milize alright?!”

Shiden almost had to take a moment to process his words. Almost. He was a pretty decent actor. But she didn’t buy this moron’s bullshit for a second.

“Why should I believe anything that comes out of your slimy mouth?” she hissed disdainfully.

Caubert released another frustrated groan.

“Believe me or don’t, that’s your decision. But I also have a warning for you. Your comrades are in danger,” Caubert told her urgently. “Yvonne Primevere is after the Eighty-Six.”

—

As Lena descended the staircase leading down into the main foyer, she was reminded of the last time she had worn a beautiful dress to attend a ball. Another time. Another world. Margareta approached her looking genuinely excited.

“Lena, dear, you look absolutely stunning,” Margareta complimented.

“Thank you, mother,” Lena said politely. She hesitated. “I don't quite know when I’ll be home tonight.”

“I won’t stay up for you. You are a grown woman now, I trust you to be responsible,” Margareta told her. “I am proud of you, you know. And I wish you good luck tonight.”

Lena tried to smile in return, walking past her to leave the estate. Her footsteps gradually slowed, though, and she stopped right before the entrance.

“Is something wrong, dear?” her mother asked.

Lena turned back around, and within a few strides she hugged Margareta one last time. The woman affectionately embraced her back for a short moment before she released her.

“You should go before you ruin your hair and make-up,” she chided lightly.

“Right,” Lena agreed softly. As she turned to leave again, she whispered, “Good-bye, mother.”

—

When Lena stepped out of the Milizes’ white, luxury sedan, she wasn’t entirely certain, but she thought that the atmosphere around her grew quiet and still as all eyes turned to her. There was already a swarm of guests dressed in fine tuxedos and ball gowns mingling in the gardens that led to the Arhendale estate. Servers expertly navigated around the guests carrying trays of hors d’oeuvres and flutes of champagne. Lena recognized many individuals of high rank and influence, some from noble families. The last time she saw them, most had been bathed in fire and blood, argent eyes faded into nothing.

“You look exquisite, Miss Milize,” Minister Arhendale greeted as he approached her with his wife. “And after the election, it’ll be Representative Milize.”

“A fine evening to you,” she smiled, not warmly, but more regally. She gently held up the skirt of her gown as she curtsied. “Thank you so much for your invitation to such a splendid ball. Your gardens are lovely. I must know who you’ve hired as your gardener.”

And she spent most of her time making such small-talk to whomever the Minister introduced her to. Most of these individuals were of lesser importance, but all of them swore their allegiance to the Minister and would offer her their vote. She thanked each one of them graciously.

Once the Minister excused himself to attend to other guests, Lena was free to roam about more. After what felt like hours exchanging pleasantries, her throat felt raw and she was famished. She sampled some of the hors d’oeuvres and enjoyed a glass of the champagne as she watched everyone mingle around her.

There were many young women, groomed from birth to be innocent and chaste, all delighted when asked by a gentleman for a dance. Their futures depended on how they conducted themselves at these balls, and the following morning they could only hope that a suitor of their liking would call on them.

Lena couldn’t help but think that it was such a meaningless existence with her military background. She wasn’t one to judge, though. If she didn’t know the things she knew now, if her father never brought her to the Eighty-Sixth sector to begin with, she might have turned out exactly like them. She could only pity them for the lies they were fed, raised in a country that tried to justify the oppression of an entire people.

Once most of the guests had arrived and had settled into whatever cliques and activities fancied their tastes, Minister Arhendale approached Lena once again. This time, he was alone. Lena remembered seeing his wife gathered with some other women as they sang a tune to the piano.

“Miss Milize, would you care to join me? There are certain individuals who are eager to meet you,” he offered politely.

Of course she accepted.

Lena was brought to a drawing room in the estate, where most of the occupants were men of high influence in the government. She humbly greeted them as they all looked right through her. As they went back to their own conversations, she only spoke if she was spoken to.

She knew her place here.

It was as a showpiece. She remembered what her mother once told her. If she ever found herself in a room full of men, then best keep quiet as no one wanted the opinion of a woman.

It was unfortunate for them. They would get it anyways by the end of the night.

Lena recognized one of the men attempting to tell a war story as though he had any right to. He spoke of a time before Lena was old enough to enlist in the military, back when he had still been a Handler, sending the first wave of useless, spineless pigs to die in battle. Lena knew that he was still an active officer in the Republic even after she was deployed to the Federacy. This one was never killed in battle. He had only survived because he had fled like a coward, leaving her as the highest ranked officer of their defense forces. And it had been good riddance at the time. Once the man caught her eye, he gestured for her to join him.

“Captain…or, apologies, it’ll be Representative Milize soon,” he greeted. The group he had been socializing with snickered as though it were some inside joke. “Come, I’m telling old war stories. And who better to tell them with than our very own Bloody Reina?”

At that, everyone couldn’t contain their mocking laughter at her.

Lena gave him another regal smile. “Of course, Lieutenant Colonel. Hm, let me think,” she pretended to ponder. “How about the time I kept defying your orders, providing too much assistance and support to the Eighty-Six on the frontlines as their Handler? Too bad you couldn’t do anything to stop me. After all, I was the top Handler with the highest Legion kill rate, and your ticket to a promotion.”

The group became quiet as the atmosphere grew uncomfortable and tense. Others around them who caught parts of their conversation started to listen in.

“It must have been so frustrating to not have been able to discipline a lower ranked officer that manipulated you like a pawn on a chess board. Especially a little girl,” Lena remarked with feigned sympathy.

The entire room was deathly silent now. Minister Arhendale looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel from the other side of the room. He was watching her.

“Miss Milize, that is enough,” the Lieutenant Colonel snarled angrily at her. Not wanting to lose face in front of his social circle, he then boasted loudly. “Let’s let bygones be bygones, shall we? Let’s not waste your bleeding heart on drone parts anymore,” he scoffed. At that, everyone laughed. “You’ve clearly come to your senses now. And once you find a suitable young man to marry and he puts a child in you, you’ll have more womanly things to worry about. A much more sensible pursuit, if you ask me.”

All of the men in the room nodded their heads and murmured their agreement.

Lena had to breathe deeply to keep her anger in check. But she would not lose her composure here. No, she was in control.

“Much more sensible indeed,” Lena agreed, not bothering to hide the clear scorn in her voice. “Tell me, have you read my latest proposal?”

At this, he nodded his head impatiently. “Yes, yes, a good policy, appropriate for our party.”

“Do you remember what it was about?”

“Of course,” he started with a scoff. “It was…well…I…,” he stammered, looking more and more confused as he spoke.

“It’s alright that you don’t remember,” Lena interrupted. “Personally, I thought when I wrote ‘white pigs’ over and over again for ten and a half pages that it was some of my best writing.”

Everyone went silent.

Lena smirked triumphantly as she continued. “Or perhaps you enjoyed the first policy I wrote. The one where I drafted a treaty with a species of aliens from another planet. It was inspired by a certain operations commander I know.”

“What are you talking about?” the Lieutenant Colonel demanded angrily.

“Don’t you worry your tiny little head over this,” Lena mocked coldly. “You never were able to comprehend anything that didn’t revolve around you and your ego. Go back to playing with your friends now.”

As she waved her hand, the entire room seemed to forget the conversation entirely and went back to their previous socializing.

Only Minister Arhendale kept looking at her with a furious expression.

“Actually, I’ve changed my mind, you’re all being much too loud. All of you, quiet,” Lena commanded next. The room immediately fell silent again and all eyes turned to her expectantly. “Better. Now everyone leave.”

Everyone scrambled out of their chairs and exited the room.

Lena made herself comfortable in one of the armchairs of the room now that there was a vacant seat. The Minister was the only one who didn't follow, and he simply eyed her from the same spot he had been standing the entire time.

“This is such a stuffy room,” Lena droned with boredom on her face. “And this dress isn’t exactly comfortable.”

Within the blink of an eye, they were no longer sitting in the drawing room of the Arhendale Estate. Instead, the scenery around them changed to that of the courtyard in front of Palace Blancneige. However, their surroundings were as she remembered it post-offensive, as the aftermath of a harrowing battlefield still in the midst of rebuilding. She was wearing her Republic uniform now.

The shock and confusion on Arhendale’s face was all consuming as he turned around in all directions. It was as though he couldn’t believe the sight before him. As though he had lost control of a game only he knew the rules to.

“Who are you?” Arhendale hissed. Except he wasn’t Arhendale. The real one probably died just over a year ago.

“Someone who doesn’t tolerate trespassers,” Lena replied coldly. “And this is my mind, if I’m not mistaken.”

The Minister seethed silently.

“When did you figure it out?” he asked instead.

“I never mentioned Theo’s name to Annette before the large-scale offensive. I never had a reason to. There would have been no way for her to know who he was,” Lena explained calmly. “None of this is real. My mother and uncle are dead. The Legion never deactivated and they destroyed the Republic in only a week. And I’ve been noticing all the cracks and learning how to shape this false reality the way I see fit.”

At that, the Minister laughed bitterly. “You certainly have a talent for manipulating the things I didn’t want you to touch. It shouldn’t be possible for a human mind to do all this. While it’s commendable, you will not prevail.”

Lena watched as the image of the man she knew as Minister Arhendale changed into something else, something inhuman. It didn’t take on a tangible form like any Legion unit she recognized. Rather, it looked like a dense cloud of something she couldn’t make out. It reminded her of the liquid micromachines that she had seen on a few occasions now.

“I will break you, if not with this mindscape, then the next, and the next, until I have shattered your will and every ounce of resistance you have left,” it threatened with a cold, mechanical voice.

“No,” Lena defied firmly. “I reject your world that rewards the genocide of an entire people, of oppressors, of ignorant fools, of white pigs. And I reject you.”

It was then that the fog lifted and her mind became clear for the first time in what felt like weeks. She thought of Annette, who was still trapped in her own mind somewhere. Lena still needed to find her and bring her home. She thought of Shiden, Theo, Raiden, Anju, and Kurena, who were probably all worried about her. She thought of Vika and Lerche, who had helped to save her after she had been fatally wounded.

And she thought of Shin.

She would never give in. She had so much to do still.

“You may be Legion, and you may be many, but we are humanity, and we are enduring.”

That's right. Lena was determined that humanity would endure and win this war.

“Now get out of my head!”

When the cloud dissipated to nothing and Lena’s surroundings crumbled around her and turned to dust, she thought she saw her mother and uncle smiling at her.

—

It was already too late when Shin snapped awake.

He had fallen asleep in an awkward position, bent over the mattress as he sat. His arm had turned numb from the weight of his head after becoming an uncomfortable pillow. Lena’s hand was still wrapped in his, and he could feel that it was much warmer now.

The incessant wails of the Legion were constant, but he was suddenly awoken by cries that turned thunderous. They were coming, and they were far too close. Shin was normally able to detect their attacks from a much longer distance. Had they been lying dormant somewhere close by? But then that begged another question. How could the Legion possibly know where they were? But it seemed like just one squadron. It was already late into the night, and everyone else was probably asleep already.

Just as he was about to activate his Para-RAID, he noticed the door creak open.

“Greetings, Baleygr,” came a cold, smooth voice. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

He knew who it was immediately. As Shin slowly turned his head to the direction of the voice, he saw the Alba woman at the door to the room aiming a 9mm handgun at him. It was Rita. Although it wasn’t truly her.

Ah. Now it made sense. It was clear that for whatever reason, Shin couldn’t hear the Legion’s mechanical cries from nanites. At least nothing he ever noticed before. Now that he was concentrating on it, he could faintly detect a low buzzing sound, but it was easily drowned out and he had to know what to listen for.

Shin glanced towards the figure of Lena at his side.

“I know from my host body’s memories that you aren’t much for smalltalk. So I’ll get right to the point,” Minerva started. “The Sirin that was keeping watch is…temporarily shut down at the moment. I’ve also planted a bomb in the barracks and I have the detonator right here. If you try to warn the others, I will trigger it, and your friends will all die.”

Shin cursed at himself for not noticing any of this. How had she snuck around everyone without being detected?

“What do you want?” he hissed.

“What we have always wanted,” Minerva replied. “Our high-priority targets, Minerva, Hvethrungr, and Baleygr. And all are gathered in one place within our own territory. This was too good of an opportunity for us to miss.”

Shin knew from Zelene’s interrogations that the other two callsigns referred to himself and Vika. He had to think of some way out of this. He could try to signal for help, but Minerva would catch on to that too quickly. He would likely be able to overpower Minerva. Even if she was a Legion now, the host body was Rita, and Shin could easily overcome her in a fight. He probably would be able to grab both the gun and detonator out of her hands before she could harm anyone.

But…Lena was right there next to him, still unconscious. Although the nanites should be able to keep her alive and heal her if she was caught in any crossfire. While it was harsh, he had to consider that in his plan if he wanted to save everyone. His hand twitched, ready to unholster his sidearm strapped to his thigh.

The Legion were getting far too close now. He had to do something quickly before it was too late.

Minerva cracked a chilling smile. “You’re trying to think of a way to escape this. It’s all over your face, plain as day,” she observed. “You can certainly try, but are you prepared for the consequences?”

And as she said that, she aimed the gun point-blank at her right temple. Shin froze in place and widened his eyes in shock.

“That’s the advantage of claiming a host body you humans care about,” she claimed indifferently. “As long as I shoot this body in the head, my nanites won’t be able to heal her, and she’ll die. While it will be a loss for us as well, we’ve already gained more than we ever anticipated from Henrietta von Penrose.”

That was information that he didn’t know, and didn’t have any way of confirming or denying. But it was a gamble that he couldn’t afford to take.

“I propose a bargain. You and Hvethrungr will come with us, and no harm will befall anyone else. We will leave and your friends will all live,” she proposed. She then glanced at Lena. “Including the woman you love. What do you say?”

The Legion were here now, waiting. They were surrounded on all sides.

Shin looked at Lena. It looked like she was simply asleep, though her brows were furrowed. She always made that face when she was concentrating on something important.

He took in a deep breath and nodded.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Chapter Text

Fido remembered.

Because stored in its memory banks were moments, captured, recorded, long passed and long gone. And it continued to archive every moment it experienced.

This was where Fido and its Master resided over two years ago. Many of the faces that Fido used to see here were gone now. Fido remembered how they used to include it in some of their conversations, often speaking to it. Now, only a few of them were left, but there were also new faces as well.

To the Scavenger, time was simply a linear stream of moments to be measured. But it was different for humans. Fido didn’t fully understand human development, but in two years, its Master had grown from a boy, just starting to enter adulthood, into a proper young man. Milestones and achievements were reached, allowing for growth and reflection.

It was late into the night after everyone had fallen asleep. After checking that Sirin Lerche was ready and alert on her night watch, Fido had gone to the nearby river to gather water in its large container mount for everyone in the morning. There was no longer running water in the barracks anymore.

Fido understood that Mistress Milize was deeply hurting, and it could not do anything to help. It could only offer its support from the sidelines, as always.

As Fido traveled back to the barracks, which was still a short distance away, its sensors detected movement and a rustling by some nearby bushes. The Scavenger moved its quadrupedal legs towards the source of the movement to investigate. It had to zoom in its optical sensor, but that was when it realized who it was.

It was Master Nouzen along with Master Vika and Lady Penrose…except both the Masters were tied up. They looked like prisoners. Lady Penrose was walking behind the two men, holding what was likely a weapon aimed at their backs. Fido’s primary directive to protect its master activated at that moment. It would not let any harm befall Master Nouzen.

It rushed forward as swiftly and silently as it could. Fido had to make sure to eliminate the threat without Lady Penrose firing her weapon. As soon as it neared them, Fido swung one of its crane arms, and in a surprise attack, flung it into Lady Penrose’s side. Her body flew several meters in the direction Fido swung the arm in, and she hit the trunk of a tree with a sickening crunch sound.

Oopsie.

Fido hadn’t realized at the time that Lady Penrose would be flown so far. It didn’t quite realize its strength against a human.

“Fido!” Master Nouzen bellowed in distress. “Get out of here now!”

Fido was confused as to why its Master looked so fearful. But that was when the Scavenger noticed it. The eerie metallic glow of a Legion unit behind the cover of some trees suddenly became visible. The Scavenger’s function was simply as a collector in the aftermath of battle, it wasn’t equipped with weapons and didn’t stand a chance against the Legion. But…it could not let any harm befall Master Nouzen. That was its primary directive, first and foremost.

Master Nouzen did not waver, even unarmed and in the presence of an overwhelming enemy.

“Fido, the others are in danger, there’s a bomb in the barracks!” Master Nouzen shouted. “I order you to go save them now! This is priority one! Don’t come after me!”

It could hear Master Vika giving it one more request. The rigid determination of both young men seemed to be unshakable.

“Give Lerche this command, Code 1-3-2!”

Fido didn’t know what to do. Master Nouzen just gave it an order that overrode all its other directives. The Legion started to aim its main armament at the Scavenger. And Fido couldn’t stop it. If it followed Master Nouzen’s new order, it would have a much higher chance to survive to save the others. But if Fido tried to save its Master…it likely wouldn’t succeed. The logic behind the decision was sound. And yet…

"Go!"

Fido maneuvered itself quickly to evade any shots. The Legion must not have noticed the little human lying on the ground, so as Fido ran it swung its crane arm around again to pick up Lady Penrose from where she had fallen unconscious, and it dashed away to retreat.

The orange Scavenger thought that if it could feel emotions, it would probably be guilt that it felt in that moment.

—

Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk…

Raiden groaned loudly as he turned over in bed and shoved his face further into the pillow.

The thunking continued. He opened his eyes warily and glared at the door, but quickly realized that the sound wasn’t coming from that direction. He turned his head back towards the window where he pinpointed the sound.

And nearly jumped out of his own damned skin when the red glow of Fido’s optical sensor stared right back at him from the other side of the glass.

Raiden had no idea how to interpret Fido’s blips and bloops like Shin could, but even he could tell when the Scavenger was upset about something. He got an uneasy feeling when he realized that Fido had gone to him and not Shin, which could only mean…

He rushed out of his room and shouted for the others to wake up.

—

When Lena awoke, her eyes fluttered open and it took some time to adjust her vision to sharpen the blurred image before her. From the sunlight filtering in through the window, she could tell it was day time.

All around her, she could make out the concerned expressions of Raiden, Kurena, Anju, Theo, and Shiden. She breathed out a sigh of relief. She was back. They all waited expectantly, cautiously.

Lena turned her head from side to side, looking for him, searching for him. Her brows furrowed.

“Where is Shin?” she asked first, her voice raspy.

The pained look on their faces told her everything she needed to know.

—

“Pi pi pi pi pi pi pi pi pi…”

“...I see.”

“Pi pi pi pi pi pi?”

“No, I won’t.”

“Pi pi?”

“I believe you, of all people, would understand my decision. After all, you and I are the same. I, a Sirin, and you…”

“Pi pi pi pi pi pi.”

—

She did not have time to weep for her life’s greatest love. Shin was gone, captured, and that was a fact. Her tears would not change that. But her actions would.

And so Lena did what she had done over two years ago. She hardened her heart, made it numb to the pain, the grief, the sorrow, and every emotion that the human soul was capable of.

Once Lena stepped outside of the barracks, all heads turned to her with varying degrees of concern. Fido stood right next to the steps, its posture somehow slumped and looking like it was full of regret. But it was thanks to the Scavenger that they were all still alive and that they had retrieved Annette.

Lena placed a gentle hand next to its optical sensor.

“You did well, Fido, thank you for bringing Annette back,” Lena spoke softly. Fido didn’t seem like it agreed with her sentiment, but it nudged her back gently.

She walked past the Scavenger and joined the others waiting for her by the monolith that towered over the main courtyard.

Lena had only been told a simplified version of everything that had happened since she was wounded, so Raiden, Anju and the others took this moment to fully brief her on the details she had missed. Annette, or rather, Minerva, had set a trap to capture Shin and Vika. That much she knew. After Fido had somehow rescued an unconscious and injured Annette, it had woken Raiden up, who was able to wake everyone else in time. It had taken some effort to interpret the blips and bloops, but they managed to find a bomb comprised of standard issue C-4 explosives and disarmed the detonator.

Their next course of action wasn’t an easy one to determine. They now had two Republic prisoners, Annette, who had to be restrained since she was still infected by nanites, and two of their own captured by the enemy. In addition, after spending time in the old Eastern front, it had been made clear to her that there were no signs of any Admiral unit. And that only added to a suspicion that she had for some time, which developed into a full theory when they learned about the nanites.

Lerche approached her then. From what Lena had been told, she had been deactivated, leaving them vulnerable to an attack. That would have likely been the work of Annette. Raiden mentioned that they had found Lerche standing at her post seemingly frozen in place. She hadn’t awoken until morning, several hours after Shin and Vika had been taken.

“What will you do now?” Lena inquired. Her question was simple, but she knew her message was clear. She did not expect the Sirin to follow the chain of command. She knew full well that Lerche, unlike other Sirins, was fully capable of making her own decisions without her master.

The young woman waited for an answer.

“I…,” Lerche hesitated, her typical sing-song voice lacking some of its musical quality. Even though she was a machine, Lena thought that she was still capable of feeling emotion. “I failed my master. I had a duty to serve and protect him, and I…I will not fail again. I will rescue the Prince. I know that you will not rest until you find Sir Reaper, so our objectives are aligned. I would like to serve you for the time being, if it suits you, My Lady.”

The new moniker caught Lena by surprise. While she was well aware of the traditional customs of the Roa Gracian monarchy, they still felt so foreign to her.

“Very well, then,” Lena acknowledged with a nod of her head.

“Should we go after Shin and Vika?” Kurena inquired next.

“But…how would we find them?” Anju asked. “I want to save them as badly as anyone. But we have no idea where they went and we don’t have a way to pursue them.”

Of course, she was talking about the fact that they no longer had Shin’s ability to aid them. They may have even been able to follow Annette’s tracker if she were still among the captives, but they didn’t have that as an option anymore, either.

Suddenly, everyone heard loud banging and screaming coming from inside one of Fido’s containers. The distinctly male cries were muffled through the metal barrier, but they were still able to make out his words.

“Let me out! I need to see Colonel Milize!”

Lena furrowed her brow in confusion. She thought she recognized that voice…

—

Everyone, including Grethe, thought that help was finally arriving when they saw several transport aircrafts approaching their position. After two days being stranded, it was a welcome sight for everyone.

After they were able to secure their defense line on that first morning, they thankfully hadn't encountered anymore problems with the Legion. However, they still had several wounded that needed proper medical care beyond what they could provide in the field. Everyone was exhausted and morale was starting to run low. Military discipline could only last them so long.

As the whirring of the aircraft blades grew louder, Grethe found it odd when they circled around their entire encampment's perimeter and started to surround them. Come to think of it, the relief force had never bothered to contact her upon their arrival, either.

A haunting realization suddenly dawned on her. The relief she had felt earlier suddenly morphed into a cold pit dropping in her stomach. She had a very bad feeling about this.

Shit.

The aircrafts touched down and their hatches opened simultaneously. It was too late. Dozens of Republic soldiers, not the Federacy's military police, rushed out fully armed and in combat gear. Their intent was clear. They were not here to help them, but to crush them.

Grethe was helpless to do anything. All she could do was watch as foreign soldiers stormed their encampment, surrounding all of them into a tightly packed crowd. Grethe seethed in anger when she saw some of the younger Eighty-Six freeze up in fear. This must have been the stuff of childhood nightmares for them. She searched for the young mascot in their ranks, and saw that one of the girls, Michihi, had her arms wrapped around Frederica protectively.

An Alba woman who looked about ten years Grethe’s senior strode out of one of the aircrafts alongside an older man who looked to be her right hand man. Grethe recognized the woman to be Yvonne Primevere, the leader of the Patriotic Knights and part of the Republic’s interim government. Since she wasn’t a soldier, she wore professional business attire. The silver-haired man at her side had a steely, detached gaze, his movements tense and rigid.

“You are all under arrest,” Primevere bellowed loudly and authoritatively. Her voice was cold and harsh. “The Eighty-Six for desertion and treason, punishable by death. But if you come willingly, your crimes will be pardoned and you will be allowed to fight for our glorious nation once again. Those of you who are Federacy soldiers will not be held accountable for the crimes your government has committed against our nation.”

Grethe scoffed at that. “We’re all Federacy soldiers here!” she shouted loudly so that she could be heard. “Every single one of us is a citizen of the Federacy of Giad!”

Primevere’s gaze caught Grethe in the crowd immediately, and she ordered two of her soldiers to bring the blonde towards her. Held at gunpoint, Grethe had no choice but to comply as she was pushed forward, away from her people.

“Are you the leader?” Yvonne asked once they were face to face.

“Colonel Grethe Wenzel, commander of the Eighty-Sixth Strike Package,” Grethe replied seethingly. “And you are making a big mistake. Order your soldiers to retreat before this turns into an international incident. We can’t be fighting a war amongst ourselves right now.”

Primevere side-eyed her disdainfully.

“Then perhaps your people should’ve considered that before they decided to interfere in our nation’s business and shove their ideals down our throats,” she drawled. “Order your men to stand aside, and we’ll let your people walk away from this. All we want are the Eighty-Six.”

When Grethe gave no such order, Primevere barked out a single laugh. “All this for some pigs? You people are ridiculous,” she muttered under her breath.

“How can you possibly think you’ll get away with this?” Grethe asked incredulously. “You already have the entire continent watching you, scorning you for what you did to the Eighty-Six in the past. What you’re doing is far too risky, and even you should know that.”

But as the blonde watched Primevere’s calm, almost confident expression, Grethe realized then that this wasn’t just some desperate, last-ditch gamble. Why choose this moment to strike? They could have attempted something like this long ago, especially during the Strike Package’s very first operation to the Republic when they were still new and unestablished. No…something had changed. But what?

“Why now?” Grethe then asked suspiciously.

Primevere’s confidence contorted into an egotistical smirk.

“You’re quite perceptive,” the older woman mused. “Now you’re asking the right question. What makes this moment the right one?”

Grethe knew the look in the Alba’s expression. It wasn’t just confidence. There was malice too.

“My people now have a worthy cause to stand up for,” Primevere started. “The death of Vladilena Milize.”

Grethe gaped at her in shock. There was no way. This woman must have been bluffing.

“That’s impossible!” Grethe insisted. Though she hadn’t received any reports through the Para-RAID since the day before. She had no idea the condition of the retrieval team or of Spearhead, for that matter.

“My sources have confirmed her death as of yesterday evening,” Primevere continued. “And the story that will be told to the Republic will make them cry for vengeance. Vladilena Milize’s victories against the Legion only proved the superiority of the Alba over all other races. That with an Alba as a capable leader, even the inferior Eighty-Six can be a viable method to oppose the Legion. Yet her generosity was rewarded by the incompetence of the foreign nations she so graciously aided. But her sacrifice will not be in vain. My people will demand justice, and we demand what is rightfully ours. That is, the Eighty-Six, the property that was stolen from us.”

Ah. Grethe finally understood.

Whether her death was true or not, Primevere was using Colonel Milize as a martyr. Grethe suspected that even if Milize was still alive, she’d soon be dead if Primevere had anything to do with it. All of this was to spark the citizens of the Republic to rally together and demand the return of the Eighty-Six, which had been their only means of fighting the Legion war up until the offensive last year. Under that type of public pressure, the Federacy might just bend if only to prevent another war from starting.

Grethe cursed her luck. If they didn't bend, this moment might one day go down in history as the trigger that would spark a war between the Federacy and the Republic. She had to prevent either from happening somehow, but no matter how many scenarios played through her mind, she couldn’t come up with anything. Her people were tired and wounded, having been stranded for two days. Those of them that were healthy and still able to fight back were only carrying sidearms, and they were completely caught off guard. They were facing well-armed soldiers that had them surrounded.

They didn’t stand a chance.

She could imagine it playing out in front of her eyes then. The Republic soldiers storming through them, gunning down any person who resisted, and arresting anyone else. But…Grethe knew in her gut that every last one of them would resist. These children had already been through the hell of the internment camps and the battlefields of Eighty-Sixth sector. They had already spent most of their entire lifetimes treated as cattle by the Republic, as less than human, as filth. Grethe suspected that they would all rather die than go back. No, this couldn’t happen. She knew what Shin and the others would do. They would resist, fight back, even if it meant they would die doing so. They would protect their pride until the bitter end. Everyone here would likely do the same.

This would turn out to be a slaughter. And she was helpless to do anything about it.

In that brief moment before Grethe thought calamity would strike, she caught the glowing red eyes of Frederica Rosenfort. The girl looked…so calm.

At that moment, the sound of another transport aircraft arriving boomed through the sky. But Primevere seemed just as shocked to see it as Grethe, so it wasn’t one of hers. The large, black mechanical aircraft loomed over the open fields as if in silent judgment of what was happening below it. The aircraft descended and quickly made its landing in some of the open space next to the other aircrafts. Once the back hatch released and opened, it revealed a welcome sight indeed.

The return of their allies.

The first one to step out was Colonel Milize looking worse for wear, but the cold, stern look on her face tempered her weary exhaustion. She stood on the opposite end of the crowd that was still surrounded on all sides by Republic soldiers. Everyone, allies and enemies alike, moved aside to allow her to pass. Following a step behind her to her right was Lerche, and behind her, the rest of Spearhead and Fido followed their path.

“How…how are you alive?!” Primevere exclaimed with a pale face. Panicking, she turned to her soldiers and shouted, “Kill her at once! Seize every last one of these filthy pigs!”

But the slaughter never came.

Grethe caught Milize calmly turning towards one of the Republic soldiers and nodded her head. It was a signal.

One of the soldiers that had taken Grethe earlier turned sharply and aimed his weapon at the other guard to the blonde’s left. He shot him in center mass, right in the kevlar, and the other soldier fell to the ground groaning in pain. Primevere and her aide both gaped in complete shock, neither of them even had the time to exclaim in shock when the soldier aimed his rifle at the aide.

Grethe took this as her cue. She had been disarmed earlier, but she closed the distance between her and Primevere within the blink of an eye and swiftly knocked the wind out of the other woman. Then she struck Primevere in the face…just for good measure. Grethe would be the first to admit that she may have been a bit rusty, but she hadn’t been dubbed ‘Spider Woman’ back in the day for nothing.

Grethe quickly pulled the Alba’s hands behind her back to restrain her. She was possibly a bit rougher than necessary as Primevere cried out from being slammed into the hard surface of some stacked wooden crates in their camp. From the corner of her eye, Grethe could see that the Republic soldier had also restrained the aide.

“What is the meaning of this?” Primevere seethed in pure anger. “You filthy traitor!”

Grethe watched in both utter confusion and awe as almost half of the Republic soldiers turned on their own. This didn’t look random at all to her. They were coordinated and organized, and systematically took down their so-called fellow comrades. Several shots were fired but most were non-lethal. The other soldiers were so caught off guard from the surprise attack that they didn’t have the chance to react, let alone retaliate.

Once the Strike Package saw this opportunity, they joined the fight. Anyone who was able enough joined the allied Republic soldiers. Grethe didn’t notice it before, but their uniforms were slightly different than the rest. Each of them donned a red arm band over their nation’s emblem.

She watched as Mika and Jaeger aided one of their new allies, who had been overpowered in a fight, and struck his assailant from behind. Michihi and Oriya stood back to back with their weapons raised, and the pair had Frederica firmly secured between them as the fighting raged on around them. Before long, every one of the enemy soldiers had been disarmed and handcuffed, some unconscious, only a few dead.

Grethe was already in utter shock at this sudden turn of events. She couldn’t imagine what Primevere was thinking. The older woman started screeching like a banshee.

“I’ll have you all executed for treason!” Primevere exclaimed at the top of her lungs. “Obey me now and kill Milize and the Eighty-Six!”

Colonel Milize, who had been protected by Lerche and Shiden, had finally gotten through the sea of chaos and now stood next to Grethe. She actually barked a single laugh at that. “These are my soldiers. They are loyal to me and only me, and have been since before you ever came to power in the interim government.”

It took Grethe several moments to not only process what she heard, but to also realize the implications of this. She pondered them as Milize ordered the allied Republic soldiers to gather the prisoners together and post guards around them. Most of Grethe’s encounters with the Republic had been with the Patriotic Knights and those who were sympathetic to them. But she knew it was impossible for any country with a sizable population to unanimously agree on any one matter. If there were people like Milize, Penrose, and Jaeger, there had to have been others. But Grethe had never even suspected that the young woman had something like this up her sleeve. This wasn’t something Milize could have done in the time she had been in the Federacy. No…this was something she had planned long before that. She had never doubted Milize’s competence before but…this was something else.

This was a political power move worthy of even someone like Ernst Zimmerman.

“Are you alright, Colonel Wenzel?” Milize asked her. Her expression looked…cold. Detached. She had to wonder what had happened out there.

“...I’m alright,” she replied.

“My apologies for not warning you in advance. I didn’t want to risk Primevere and her men catching on to this,” Milize explained.

Grethe looked around as she saw Lieutenant Shuga and some others from Spearhead join their comrades. It only took her a moment to realize who was missing.

“Where are Captain Nouzen and the Prince?” she asked in alarm, fearing the worst.

The mask finally dropped, but only for a second. For that one second, Grethe could see pain, heartache, sorrow, and so many other emotions that spoke of how broken this young woman truly was. But then the mask went back up again, and all Grethe could see now was cold detachment. She started to understand how someone so young was able to lead a country’s only defense force through a two month siege.

“...They’ve been captured. We have much to discuss when we debrief later,” Milize replied flatly.

The Vladilena Milize that Grethe knew wouldn’t have been so icy and emotionless. Not when it came to anything relating to their operations commander. But then, the woman in front of Grethe wasn’t really her. Not truly. This was Bloody Reina.

—

Lena suddenly heard it.

It started as a deafening, roaring static noise, like when she used to listen to her father’s old radios trying to tune into a frequency. And gradually, the broadband noise seemed to filter itself, and she could finally hear it in increasing clarity. A cacophony of tones and clicks, unlike any sounds that living organisms could produce. These were mechanical in nature, different from the ghostly wails that she had heard through the resonance whenever she was connected to Shin.

Her head snapped towards the direction of the prisoners. It was coming from one of them. The young woman moved with a renewed sense of urgency towards the group as she eyed each one of the prisoners with a discerning glare. Lena zeroed in on one person in particular. She recognized the man as Primevere’s aide, having made public appearances in the past. Even though he was restrained, he returned her icy gaze with equal animosity.

And then Lena heard the mechanical noise again. There was one other.

She whipped her head towards one other man, but he was one of the few casualties. She moved towards him and crouched low. He was faced down, and as she turned him over to inspect him for a moment, Primevere’s aide started to grow uneasy. The apprehension was clear on his face.

The dead man lying at her feet opened his eyes. Lena shot up quickly as though she had just been burned by fire.

“Restrain him!” Lena ordered one of her soldiers in alarm.

“But…he’s already dead,” the young man replied in confusion, not able to see what she did.

“Just do it!”

But it was too late. The dead man’s arms slowly reached for her, his eyes a blank, empty stare. Primevere’s aide cursed and then shot up among the group of prisoners. He struggled with the handcuffs restraining him, and Lena watched in horror as he cracked every bone in his hands, disfiguring it enough that they could squeeze through the cuffs. He rushed forward at her with a battlecry. Everyone cried out in alarm.

“Shiden!” Lena called instinctively as she started backing away.

Shiden Iida reacted with the instincts of a panther as she aimed her assault rifle and shot the man several times in the shoulders and legs. She clearly aimed to wound him by purposely missing the kevlar. It was a smart tactic against this particular opponent. If she couldn’t kill them, she could at least limit their mobility. She then turned her weapon at the man who had already been dead and shot him as well.

With the threat eliminated, Lena released a breath of air she didn’t realize she had been holding in.

“They’ve been infected with nanites. Restrain them both and keep them locked securely away from the others,” Lena commanded. Both Shiden and Raiden were already a step ahead of her, though.

Colonel Wenzel stepped forward appearing rattled. She had been watching from the side the entire time.

“What the hell is going on?!”

—

Even though they had all been fighting together just a moment ago, the two groups now stood on opposing sides. The animosity from generations of oppression couldn’t be erased so easily in a single moment.

The Federacy officers like Marcel and Frederica all stood off to the side. It wasn’t their place to be a part of this exchange. Jaeger stood in the middle, between the two groups, looking torn and conflicted.

It was Michihi who spoke first.

“We’re not going to thank you for doing one good thing after a lifetime of doing nothing,” she bit out.

Standing at the front of the group of Republic soldiers was a young woman with shoulder length hair styled into a bob cut. Three other young men stood to her side. One of them was Sebastian Caubert, who had previously been taken prisoner by Spearhead mistakenly.

Caubert had, in fact, been trying to stop the other soldier. He had followed after him in the aircraft, hoping to make his death appear accidental once they were in Legion territory. But Caubert had been nervous, not knowing how they were going to survive the flight. It turned out that the aircraft emitted a beacon to the Legion, which signaled that they were friendly units, though he didn’t know that at the time. And he certainly didn’t expect Legion units to show up and not kill them outright, or that the man he was following would willingly go with them. So Caubert followed after him in the standard ground vehicle that every Republic aircraft carried. Unfortunately, he was too late to stop him, and the rest was history. When Raiden and Shiden had found them, they had been locked in a fight, but both of them had been taken out simultaneously.

Everyone started to react to Michihi’s comment, but Caubert raised a firm hand to stop them all.

“Look…,” the young man started hesitantly. “None of us are going to pretend that we can all be buddy buddy now. I’m not going to try and tell you how we’re different from the other Alba, or better somehow, and no one else will either. You have your opinions, we have ours. We don’t have to be best friends.”

The Eighty-Six all looked at him warily, but remained silent to allow him to continue. They were listening.

Caubert pointed towards one of Fido’s containers where she currently was. “All you need to know is that each of us believes in her. She’s the one that has our loyalty because when the Gran Mur fell, she led us through the offensive. We survived even after the majority of our military within the walls deserted and our government abandoned us. We owe our lives to Vladilena Milize. So we’ll follow her, and we’ll fight with her.”

He hesitated for a moment before he cautiously reached out his hand.

“So…how about it?”

After a long moment, Rito Oriya stepped forward. His comrades all looked at him in surprise, but his face was set in determination. He firmly took Caubert’s offered arm and they clasped their hands together.

—

After Lena entered the container where Yvonne Primevere was held prisoner in, she sat down and stayed silent as Primevere watched her every move with clear disdain. Almost twenty minutes passed before the leader of the Bleachers finally spoke first.

“Aren’t you go-”

“The way I see it,” Lena interrupted her. “You either didn’t know, which makes you blindly ignorant, or you did, which makes you horrendously idiotic. So which is it?”

“All I wanted was to get rid of you,” Yvonne snarled.

“Ah, so an idiot, then,” Lena mused. “Go on.”

“Everyone thinks you’re some warrior goddess, like San Magnolia herself reborn, after you led the Republic’s defense forces during the siege,” Yvonne spat out. Each word came out with venom. “But the moment you let those filthy pigs into our walls, you left your own people open. You laid us bare to the vultures, and the vultures came and they tore us apart. Millions dead, and you didn’t choose to save them. No, you chose the damned Eighty-Six. You’re to blame for the pathetic state the Republic is currently in.”

Lena never even flinched. She simply looked apathetic as she waited for Primevere to continue.

“When Sanda approached me as…one of those things, I was shocked at first. But he offered me what I wanted. You dead, and the Eighty-Six back in their place, as the weapons of our superior, noble race. All I had to do was give them information and do some small, trivial tasks from time to time.”

Lena leaned back in her seat, taking all of this in. This explained several past events, like the true reason why Lena had been given false maps of the Charite Underground Terminal back then. And how the Legion knew exactly where Annette was positioned during that same operation, leading to her abduction and the annihilation of the Phalanx squadron. They must have injected Annette with the nanites then, making her into the perfect spy afterwards. Yvonne must have also fed the top brass rumors about there being a new Admiral unit in the Republic, leading them right into an ambush.

She started to understand this woman a little more with some of the missing pieces now put in place. This was a woman who took pride in her country, took pride in her people. She truly believed in the narrative they had been raised with, that they were special and better than all other races. And the Legion shattered her pride, shattered her entire identity. She had nothing left but to grasp at straws, trying to piece together the broken fragments of a reality that no longer existed.

“You realize that by bargaining with the Legion, you’ve committed high treason, not just to your nation, but to humanity,” Lena told her. “And you were willing to accept the consequences anyways.”

Her statement came out as a question with the rise of her intonation.

Yvonne scoffed at that. “The Republic will never betray me. I’m a beloved public figure, someone that represents hope to the people. What will you do against an entire country banding together behind me?”

Lena paused and raised a brow.

“You were. In your quest to make me into a martyr for the Alba to rally behind, you’ve also conveniently turned me into a war hero that now has the public’s favor. I should thank you for that, I wasn’t all that popular before,” Lena stated. Yvonne’s face suddenly went from confident to nervous within the blink of an eye as understanding dawned on her. “I can release all this information to the entire continent and turn you into a traitor against humanity. You made a deal with the Legion, the enemy that ravaged millions. You’ll become a war criminal, a symbol for the people to riot against. I’ll personally ensure that your execution will be very public, and you will go down in history as the leader of corrupt, stupid fools. Your legacy will be as the laughing stock of the Republic.”

Yvonne’s face had grown pale and she visibly gulped. She looked at Lena with an expression of horror.

“But I propose an alternative,” Lena said next. She had Yvonne’s undivided attention. “You can either face your crimes for treason. Or, you can help me rebuild the Republic as a nation that will never again commit the atrocities that it has with the Eighty-Six. You can still save our people from the Legion. The Alba of the Republic will persevere and flourish again, but not as a so-called ‘superior race’. And you can start by undoing the mess you’ve made. Tell me the identities of every known person infected with the Legion nanites.”

Yvonne’s eyes widened in shock and she froze. After a long moment gaping at Lena, she burst out into laughter.

“I thought you were smart,” she wheezed, her body keeling over as she howled. It took a moment for her breathing to calm itself. “Do you have any idea how impossible of a dream that is? The Republic didn’t just go from being best friends with the Colorata and then sending them out to the internment camps overnight. That was just the height of a long, long prejudice built over generations.”

“And it will likely take generations to undo it,” Lena agreed. “I suppose you’ll have to dedicate your entire life to this cause and you may not ever see the end result. But you clearly have an awareness of how systemic the issues are, and you have political savvy and cunning that will help plant the seeds for the future.”

Lena paused, giving Yvonne a moment to consider her proposition more seriously. After a moment of silence, she continued.

“So, which will you choose? Will you die in your old world or live in my new one?” she asked with finality.

Yvonne laughed bitterly this time. Her expression turned from resentful mirth to resignation.

“You’ve beaten me at my own game, Vladilena Milize,” she conceded.

Lena scoffed.

“Please,” she dismissed. “You were never even a player.”

—

The sun set on a grassy field with red lycoris flowers.

As Lena stepped out of the container, she silently apologized to Fido for making it carry all of their high priority prisoners. She had been fighting a war against the collective AI army of the Legion for so many years now that taking human prisoners was completely foreign to her. But they had to keep Yvonne Primevere and the Republic soldier that had shot her secured. They also had three individuals infected with Legion nanites now, including Annette. Lena promised that she would find some way to save her best friend.

The young woman was so exhausted, but there was no time to stop. If she did, she feared she may never get back up. There was so much she had to do.

She put one foot in front of the other as she stepped forward. The crowd of soldiers, of Federacy officers, of Eighty-Six, and of Republic officers, all looked at her expectantly. Lena stood before them, a group of mixed hues and uniforms. This was a sight she hadn’t ever seen in her life.

For a brief second, Lena thought she saw a shadow behind one of the ruined train cars in the distance. But after she blinked several times there was no one there. Her mind must have been playing tricks on her.

She thought of Shin.

Lena vowed that she would find him and get him back safely. In all likelihood, he and Vika had also been injected with nanites, but they didn’t have the fortune of having someone reprogram them like hers. She would find some way to release Shin, Annette, and Vika from the Legion. They would all see this war through the end and survive.

No one could stop her.

She turned to the crowd before her, all waiting for her to speak.

“This is the end,” she began.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.