A dull sensation in Avril’s head rapidly expanded. A sudden, overwhelming sense of pain fired off in her head, compounded by the constant thud of her heart. As the blood pumped its way up into her head, the dull burning pain swelled into a sharp stabbing sensation. With each beat of her heart, so too did her head pound in unison. Avril instinctively placed her hands upon her head, pushing inwards to try and dull the raging fire within. When the pain became unbearable, her eyes shot open.
Upon regaining consciousness, Avril immediately sat up. Her eyes wildly darted left and right, desperately trying to make sense of her surroundings. The memories of her battle on the train flooded back in with each sharp uptick in pain. Avril continued clutching her head, praying for the pain to subside.
“It’s okay,” a familiar voice softly spoke from beside her. Slowly Avril turned her head to see Damien sitting next to her. His cat-like eyes made it hard to read his expression, but his tone was soft.
“What… happened?” Avril managed to say, still grappling with the pain.
Another voice called back from nearby, saying, “You fell my dear.” A few feet away, Fritz, the crazed man in goggles, was crouched over what looked like a pile of metal scraps. Avril tried to stand, but another jolt of pain caused her to collapse once more.
“Slow down,” Damien said, “you took a pretty bad fall.”
“Where…where are we?” Avril asked.
“Um, a cave… I guess?” Damien looked around. Indeed, Avril found herself propped up against the wall of a narrow cave. The ceiling was barely eight feet tall and the walls were narrow enough that only two people could stand side-by-side. As she looked around, she noticed there were a few more people in the cave. On the other side of Damien, Fritz was methodically examining the metal before him, and Louis sat beside him, helping by pointing at various pieces and making short conjectures about their function. Opposite to Avril, Maxwell was crouched over a woman Avril hadn’t seen before. He was wrapping a bandage around the woman’s arm while she sat wide-eyed and still. The only movements from the woman were the involuntary chattering of her teeth. To her left, Avril saw Laëtitia standing vigilantly by a pile of rubble in the cave. The tiniest rays of light could be seen making their way through gaps in the rubble, and Laëtitia carefully watched the world through them.
“You’ll be fine Levonne,” Maxwell spoke as he finished tying off the bandage. “It was only a minor wound. You’ve already stopped bleeding.” Levonne didn’t respond.
“How are you feeling?” Damien asked Avril.
“I’m… okay, I hope,” Avril quietly responded.
Without turning around, Maxwell spoke up, “That’s because you’re already on a bit of morphine. You fell and injured yourself.” The captain spoke with no emotion, simply stating the facts as he saw them.
“Well, thank you. My head still hurts though.”
“I didn’t give you a lot. Just enough to get you up again. We’re going to need to ration our supplies,” Maxwell explained.
“Thank you,” Avril said again.
“Just be glad you made it at all. Most were not so lucky,” Maxwell stood and turned towards Avril and Damien. “Damien, let me take a look at you.” Without protest, Damien stood up and allowed Maxwell to examine him.
“What happened? How did we get here?” Avril asked.
While Maxwell poked and pulled at Damien and his uniform, Damien managed to respond, “After you and that girl fell out of the train, more SIFs showed up. With the poison in the air and everyone going down, I thought that was it…” Damien trailed off.
“And then I saved everyone by telling them to jump off a cliff,” Fritz called out. Confused, Avril looked up at Damien again.
“He’s… not wrong. When more SIFs showed up, we saw Fritz hanging over the side of the train. Everyone who could hear him and move ran over. He threw us chutes and told us to jump into the canyon,” Damien explained.
“So this is…” Avril looked around, a horrified expression on her face.
“Everyone who made it down, yes,” Maxwell finished Avril’s sentence. He motioned for Damien to take a seat again. “When we got down here, we quickly gathered in one of the lower caves, then we blew the entrance with a breaching charge.”
“It was a goddamned massacre,” Laëtitia grunted. “When we all went to jump they shot up Chestnut. When he fell out of the train, Yelda just had to go after its body instead of following us. Now we’re just down another man.”
“She’ll be back,” Maxwell stated matter-of-factly.
“I know, it’s just been a while.”
“Then just focus on your duty. Whether she’s here or not is immaterial.”
“Yes sir.” Laëtitia ceased talking, turning her attention back to observing the world beyond the cave-in.
The next moments passed in silence. Still frozen in fear, Levonne continued to blankly stare at the cave wall across from her. Maxwell joined Laëtitia by the collapsed entrance, and Damien took a position opposite of them watching for movement from deeper in the cave. Eventually, Avril managed to steady herself and stand up. She wandered over to the two men crouched over the pile of metal.
“These parts are obviously extraneous to the memory function,” Fritz said.
“Sure, but they’re in better shape than these parts, so we can at least replace this plate with this one,” Louis countered.
“Of course, let me just get my welding torch out. Mind passing yours over?”
“Look, I'm just saying it’s not gonna work if you break it any more.” Avril leaned over the two, and looked down at their project. Most of what lay before them was a literal jumble of metal and wiring. However, at the head of the pile was the featureless head of a SIF. As Fritz and Louis poked and prodded at the pile below it, the head would occasionally jerk. Despite the blank faceplate, the machine jumped at the men’s touch like a person wide awake during surgery.
“Is that a SIF?” Avril looked at the machine with wide-eyes full of fear.
“That’s correct Ms. Tiene. In fact, it’s the very one that you so bravely kicked off the train just an hour ago.” Fritz looked up at Avril, a wicked grin on his face. His eyes remained obscured behind his reflective goggles. As she looked down at the madman, she could only make out her own bruised expression in the reflection of his goggles.
“We found it near the entrance to the cave outside,” Louis explained.
“And quite fortuitous a find it was,” Fritz continued. “It’s rare for us to be able to recover much of these machines so close to working condition. Normally they self-destruct to avoid capture, but it seems the fall that knocked you out also did the same to our friend here.”
“What are you doing to it?” Avril asked.
“Fritz wants to see if he can get it running again. He wants to get access to its memories; figure out if it has any useful intel,” Louis explained.
“Success means we won’t be blindly walking into the lions’ den. It also means that you should be promoted for aiding in such a capture,” Fritz flashed another unsettling grin at Avril before he turned back towards his work, slowly bringing tortured life back to the pile of scraps.
“I don’t think so, First Vanguard Avril Tiene will still require basic weapon retraining upon return to base,” Maxwell turned to face both Avril and the two men. Fritz, however, dismissively waved his hand above his head.
“It’s fine, the write up and the promotion will probably cancel each other out, or whatever.”
“Wait,” Avril spoke up, “Are we going back to Dever?” Avril looked at Maxwell, meeting his stern gaze. He opened his mouth to answer her question, but was cut off by a loud, singular “ding” as though a kitchen timer had just gone off. Confused, both Avril and Maxwell quickly turned around, searching for the source of the noise. Levonne suddenly snapped to attention from her catatonic state, and instinctively reached for her rifle on the ground in front of her. Both Laëtitia and Damien whipped around from their posts at opposite ends of the cave, rapidly spinning as they aimed their guns.
“It’s nothing, it’s nothing,” Fritz said aloud. With one arm he motioned for everyone to calm down, and with the other he pointed to a tiny pouch on his belt. He lifted the flap and reached in. “Tell me, which of you here is able to hit their shots?” Despite their heightened awareness, all eyes unconsciously turned to Louis, who remained crouched at Fritz’s side.
“What for?” Maxwell asked, stepping towards Fritz.
“For a good reason. Now I ask again, which of you is the best shot here?”
Louis stood up. “I am.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Very well,” Fritz pulled his hand out of the pouch, producing a singular bullet. He casually tossed it to Louis who reflexively caught it in his right hand. Looking down at the bullet, Louis saw two words engraved into it: Chloe Abail.
“What’s this? Who’s Chloe Abail?” Louis turned the bullet over in his hands. As far as he could tell, it was otherwise perfectly normal.
“It seems Ms. Abail would be our leather-clad, poison throwing, train crasher.” Fritz bent down once more to resume his tinkering.
“How did you know that?” Louis asked once more.
“I didn’t,” Fritz flatly stated, “but it says right there who she is, no?”
“But I mean, how?”
Fritz motioned once more to the pouch on his side. “Agnir,” he said, “The pouch produces a special ammo that is good for killing specific people.” Fritz continued working as though his sentence made perfect sense. Avril especially stared at him in complete confusion.
“Agnir?” Avril sounded the word out in her mouth.
“More simply, magic.” Maxwell declared.
“Correct my friend,” Fritz threw a thumbs up without turning around.
“And my understanding is that it’s exceedingly rare, correct?” Maxwell looked down at Fritz.
“More or less, Maxwell. Useful Agnir like this is definitely not common.” Fritz replied.
“Okay… and I’m just supposed to shoot her with it? What happens then?” Louis asked, still turning the bullet over in his hands.
“She’ll die, obviously.”
“And if I miss?”
Fritz gave a heavy sigh before looking up at Louis. “Are you sure you’re able to hit your shots? You’re sounding quite nervous if I must say.”
Louis narrowed his eyes looking down at Fritz. “Of course I can. Vivoran guides my bullets.”
“Ah, right, of course,” Fritz replied. His tone bordered between sarcasm and boredom, though his fixation on the machine in front of him cast doubt in Louis’ mind as to Fritz’s intentions.
“Faith or no, Louis’ beliefs do not change that he’s our best shooter. More importantly, does the Agnir make the bullet do anything unnatural?”
“Well of course it does. The bullet is attracted to the person whose name is engraved. So long as you’re on target, it’ll aim for a killing blow. And before you say anything, I don’t get how the Agnir works exactly, so if you care enough to learn why, go ask one of the Court Mages.” Fritz rolled his eyes and turned back to his work. Louis shook his head, pocketed the bullet, and skulked off. When he settled into a spot on the ground elsewhere, Maxwell turned back to Fritz.
“Can you make more of those bullets? Maybe a few more to give to the rest of us or even more later if we run into other human operators?”
“Nope, only the one. It only produces one such bullet every month or so.”
“Are you serious?” Maxwell asked.
Turning around, Fritz lifted his goggles. He made an exaggerated face as he sarcastically said, “Agnir!” Fritz held his hands up by his face, wiggling his fingers like an amateur stage magician who just finished his routine. However he was met only by Maxwell’s signature glare. He sighed once more and spoke, “Look, Maxwell I know that all this stuff goes over your head, so I’ll be clear: Agnir is real. Unlike gods like Vivoran, it’s not a matter of belief, it’s a matter of study. Like I said, I don’t fully understand it either, but Agnir is a powerful force that, if utilized properly, would be of massive benefit to any operation. Ask your boy over there with the glowing weapons, he’ll corroborate.”
Maxwell shook his head. “I understand Agnir as much as I need to,” he said, “I simply want to take stock of our situation and figure out what we’re working with.”
“Then I suggest you count the ammo you have left, instead of hoping for more to appear out of thin air.”
══════════════════
Avril walked away from the two Infantrymen and stood beside Damien. The two stared into the darker end of the cave; Damien’s eyes were keenly focused, awaiting movement, whilst Avril merely stood by and let her mind wander for a few moments. The two stood in silence, from behind, the sounds of Fritz resuming his work on the SIF were interspersed with Maxwell and Laëtitia taking inventory of the ammo and ordinance the group still had.
“Did no one from the other units really not make it?” Avril broke the silence.
“Yeah,” Damien replied. “Those two, Fritz and Levonne, are the leaders of the 80th and the 78th respectively.”
“Maybe some others jumped from the train? If Fritz had extra parachutes he’d obviously come to our car and hand out what he had left, right?”
Damien shook his head, sighing as he did. “Louis said he went to Levonne’s car in the middle of the fight. When he looked in, it was mostly the bodies of her troops and a bunch more SIFs. He couldn’t help Levonne and ran back to our car. Fritz said that he saved a couple parachutes and went to Levonne’s car after ours, but only Levonne was left by the time he got there. They jumped out together and regrouped with us near where we found you.” Damien spoke almost coldly, though that was just the Myeran way: death on the battlefield was common and expected. You quickly grow detached from it most of the time.
“What about Fritz’s own men? Surely there’s more from the 80th that survived if they had all these parachutes.”
“Nope,” Damien was curt. “All his men fought to the death against the SIFs.”
“He abandoned them?” Avril was incredulous.
“I don’t think so. I’m sure he tried to help out, at least at first. Though unlike our troop, the 80th were a lot more likely to think like their captain. They probably recognized the danger and were… just willing to fight as long as they could.” To her side, Avril noticed Louis listening in to their conversation, and shaking his head as Damien explained the situation to her.
“It’s a bit worse than that,” Louis said. He spoke quietly, trying to avoid getting Fritz’s attention.
“How so?” Damien asked.
“Fritz wanted to try to have his unit pretend to defect so that they’d get taken straight to Norone. But judging by where we are, I don’t think they were taking prisoners.”
“By the Father…” Damien’s voice trailed off, taking in Louis’ explanation. Avril also lowered her head. Her mind was filled with images of her fellow Vanguards who so quickly dropped dead around her not long ago. She pictured the scenes in the other cars, imagining herself as Louis and Levonne. Terror crept up Avril’s spine as she imagined the brutal massacre that would shake up someone like Levonne who has so much more combat experience than her. She then thought of Fritz’s men. Suddenly, a different emotion came out altogether. A sense of incredulity at the thought of facing your death so assuredly as Damien said. She may have been a soldier, but Avril hardly thought about what that would truly mean when it came down to the war with the UBM. She shuddered at the idea.
Sensing that he may have scared Avril, Damien looked over at her, and quickly tried to come up with something to say. “Hey uh… what did you think about my gun turning into a sword?”
As her attention turned to the memory of Damien’s bout with the SIF, Avril said, “Yeah, that was cool… How did you do that?”
A relieved grin on his face, Damien explained, “I call it blade shifting. I just imagine the weapon I need, and the weapon in my hand changes into it.” As a demonstration, Damien pulled a standard issue pistol from his side. As he held it in his hand, the weapon began to glow white before changing shape and eventually transforming into a combat knife instead.
“Woah. Can I see it?” Avril reached for the knife. However, as she took it from Damien, the knife began to glow white again and then rapidly changed back into its original pistol. “Wait, did I just do that?”
Damien chuckled and shook his head. “Nope, it just only works in my hands. When I drop it, the weapon turns back into its original form.”
“Damn. Well, could you maybe teach me one day?”
Damien thought for a moment. Eventually he said, “Well, the thing is, I don’t really know exactly how or why it works. I went to a court mage once and they declared that it was some form of Agnir, but beyond that I don’t really have an explanation. I’ve been able to do this all my life. The first time, I was playing with sticks as a kid and then suddenly I was holding a full-sized sword. Now, it’s basically second nature.”
Avril handed the weapon back to Damien. She then relieved herself from the post, taking a spot on the floor next to Louis. She tucked her knees up to her chin and idly watched as Fritz continued to mess with the SIF carcass. Eventually, she felt herself drifting off to sleep once more, her head still pounding from her fall some time ago. As the world began to fade to black and Avril’s head began to list, she was jolted awake by a slight rumbling in the ground. Snapping to attention, she placed both hands on the floor to steady herself. The others in the cave moved similarly, with those standing leaning against the cave wall for stability while Fritz made a point to keep one hand on the SIF.
“An earthquake?” Fritz posited.
“Maybe they started moving the train?” Levonne looked up at the roof of the cave with wide eyes.
“Neither,” Laëtitia said. “It’s got to be—” Before Laëtitia could finish her sentence, she was interrupted by Yelda’s head suddenly popping out of the ground. Avril and Levonne both let out quiet yelps as they recoiled away from Yelda. Yelda herself shook her head side-to-side, causing loose dirt and pebbles to fly out of her hair. She then took a quick moment to look around the cave, and upon making eye contact with Maxwell, she quickly began to emerge. First her arm, then her back, and then her full body. When she had fully climbed from the ground, she gave a quick salute to Maxwell.
“Reporting back, sir,” Yelda declared. As she held her pose, Maxwell looked her up and down. Her uniform was completely filthy, covered in dirt, and scratched up. However, Yelda herself seemed practically unscathed, with her skin only showing minor signs of scratches and burns that likely came from the fight on the train.
“Did you recover him?” Maxwell asked.
“Yes sir, though I need some assistance,” Yelda explained.
“Very well. Damien, Louis, give her a hand.”
Yelda reached down into the hole she emerged from, and pulled up a limp bear arm. She strained herself as she tugged on the arm, and as the two men joined her in pulling, the hole gave way as the body of Chestnut emerged from the ground. Dumbfounded, Avril stared in utter disbelief at the sight before her. Just as when she watched Damien’s gun turn into a sword, she had no words for the act of the three soldiers hauling a bear’s body, much less out of a tunnel in the ground.
When Chestnut’s body had been fully recovered, Maxwell simply stated, “Do it further in the cave.” Yelda nodded in affirmation to her captain’s order and began to drag the bear deeper into the tunnel. Damien turned, only to catch Avril’s exasperated gaze. He laughed to himself before mouthing “agnir” at her. Meanwhile, Maxwell followed Yelda, though he did not offer to help her drag Chestnut’s corpse. Avril then shared a glance with Levonne, who looked just as taken aback as herself. Louis retook his seat on the floor and Damien returned to his post, this time watching as Maxwell and Yelda disappeared into the darkness.
Not long after, a bright light seemed to emanate from the dark reach of the cave. It was similar to the light Damien’s weapon emitted as it transformed, though this was brighter to a much higher intensity. Avril had to shield her eyes, though she still tried to peek through the gaps in her fingers. After a few moments, the light faded. From the darkness, Avril was once again blown away as she watched Chestnut, now walking and breathing, come to the front of the cave. All the while, Yelda was hugging him and running her hands through his fur. Before she could ask any questions, however, Maxwell stepped out from behind the two.
“Alright, gather what you have. It’s time to continue our mission to Norone.”