“Skirmishing a demon seems to be an effective delaying tactic. It appears that these tactics are the most popular ones used by the Imperial Army. However, it is also clear now how utterly useless it is. It seems that for some sick reason, these demons will chase their prey no matter what. For sick satisfaction? For some sort of magical reward? A result of whatever puppeteered them? I have no idea.”

- Excerpt from Lieutenant Hans Hoffman’s Journal Entries.

+++

+++ Lieutenant Hans Hoffman +++

Ygeian Countryside

AUG 27, 1538 CE

“Sir Hans,” Alizée perked up in Hans’ direction as the two ate near his Wanderfalke. In front of them were the continuous lines of civilian carriages still trudging onward as they fled the demon assumed to be in their wake. “I don’t think we should run.”

“Alizée?” Hans asked. “Hey, didn’t I tell Adelyn to keep your blindfolds on? You don’t need to see it, okay? Just keep your head low, and everything will be fine.”

She frowned and raised her fist with a pout.

“But not everything is fine!”

“You can speak a lot of continental now, huh?”

“Hmph!”

“Okay, well, look,” Hans shook his head. “We don’t have the numbers or firepower.”

She tilted her head curiously.

“‘Fire…power’, what?”

“It means…” Hans facepalmed. “Okay, look, what I meant is, we’re too weak. We can only poke it and keep it at bay. That's the best we can do. It’s too strong with all that magic it can do.”

“I can do it too!”

“Nope, nope, nope, absolutely not.”

“I’m strong!”

Crap, letting her get those kills really started bad ideas to fester in her mind. Hans needed to act quickly. I gotta nip this in the bud now. Like a good adult would.

“No, you’re not, you should play with coloring pencils and drawings and you should be reading storybooks and crap. We’re close to defensible places and help now. Believe me, as long as we can keep that thing out of our backs, which we are doing, as best as we can, it’ll be fine. And you’ll be back in a safe room again where you can sleep and learn and do all of the children's stuff.”

Hans gave her a cheeky grin and a thumbs up.

“Okay?”

“But if we don’t remove that demon,” Alizée shook her head. “It will kill people. Lots of people. Good people. People that need not to die.”

“And if you try to fight it outside of Adelyn’s mech, I’ll have a good innocent girl that’d be dead,” he ruffled her hair. “Just keep your head low, and listen to Adelyn’s instructions, okay? It’ll be fine. Eventually.”

When Hans looked at her face, it was clear that the girl wasn’t convinced. Sure, he watched her kill a demon, practically blasting it away with her magic. Or saving his life from a monster, but…he didn’t know what powers she had. For all he knew, it could corrupt her, or worse.

Until I find proper answers as to what’s happening to you, I can’t let it.

That, and to let children fight a battle that adults must protect them from.

That would never go well with Hans’ conscience.

“Okay, look—we’ll do it. This time, we’ll ambush it and kill it.”

+++

Hans stowed away his journal as he stared at his displays. Parked on a ridge behind the convoy, Hans and Adelyn watched the road here for hours already, letting the people of Torei flee from these lands as they acted as rearguards since they could catch up relatively quickly anyway.

That, and Hans and Adelyn both finally received their well-deserved few hours of rest, with Hans watching over first, then Adelyn taking over later. Unfortunately, it was only two hours for both of them, so not exactly a lot, especially since the sleep they had ever since the evacuations was so low that their energy levels were just sapped.

Normally, even in intense combat, such as shelling or worse, soldiers and units could be rotated in and out. The responsibility to watch over a section of the frontline wasn’t something that a soldier would do for days on end without an ounce of sleep. No, there were always a lot of other soldiers or vehicles watching the front for the rest, and rotations happened.

This time around, there was none of those. Adelyn and Hans were one unit. A cohesive whole, the equivalent of a section. They couldn’t realistically switch roles and rest in alternative fashions while covering thousands of square kilometers and protecting hundreds of civilians without slicing their combat power by half every time they rotated between activity and inactivity.

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Really makes me wish that 1st Platoon was here. Hans smiled a bit. Goddamnit, I would have assigned Hedwig on night duty already. That guy can scream like a girl well on the comms if he sees that thing lumbering toward us.

He chuckled to himself a bit, before sighing.

Whatever.

Still, this ambush position was nice. Both Hans and Adelyn had their hulls hidden, with their turret being the only one sticking out of the terrain. That, and ahead of them, was four kilometers of unimpeded flat terrain. Briefly, he remembered how his platoon loved to set up in these kinds of environments during the early days of the war before drones became so commonplace on the front.

When they could just…sit in the open, and wait for Flandrian tanks charging in the open. Hans imagined that it would be how that thing would do the assault it must be planning to do—by charging in this flat terrain, hot in pursuit of its fleeing victims.

But, see, Hans and Adelyn were here. They could dissuade it once again. Maybe even kill it. Hans had been studying his thermal returns well during the last battle. Its core was hotter. More obvious to his thermals. He only needed to get one well-aimed shot and he imagined that whatever biological matter controlling it there (maybe a brain, or heart, or whatever) would eat a sabot round badly—killing it.

But such a pipe dream…

Hans shook his head.

It moves too much for it to be likely.

Still, if they could execute this well.

This quagmire could be over.

+++

“Laura,” Hans called on his comms. “Laura. Is your team awake?”

“Ah! Yes! Yes, we are. Apologies, I almost…”

Hans shook his head with a sigh, his thermals watching the distant forest kilometers away from them.

“Alright, just wake up and get into your positions. Captain, I’m loading a sabot now.”

“I’m going to try HEAT,” Adelyn replied, as her mech drove forward a bit onto the ridge. “See if it does things. AT mode.”

“Yeah, maybe it’ll do things,” Hans said. “But it might just fail at penetrating it. That metal armor seems tough.”

“Well, it’s not like it’s composite armor, so it won’t hurt to try.”

“Yeah, sure, sure,” Hans could finally see it—that white signature of an X-shaped object on his thermals. Once again, it was back. Still as unrelenting as ever. “Everyone, ready up. It’s coming. If it survives our shots, Laura, you know what to do!”

“I understand.”

“Alright—here it comes!”

The demon, Hans imagined, finally pissed at the cat-and-mouse game that they were playing, flew a few hundred meters above the ground, which meant that they were now exposed. The main guns of the Peacemaker and the Diligence both tracked the targeted demon, elevating upwards, with their fire control systems calculating solutions rapidly to ensure a hit.

“Alright, aim for the hottest part. Center point.”

“Copy—aimed and tracking!”

“Tracking too!”

With their sights zeroed in at that point, both of their mech’s computers began tracking it dead at that point. At this point, all that would matter would be whether or not the dispersion of their rounds would hit it or not.

Hold on, just keep steady.

“Ready fire!”

“Take the shot!”

Hans pulled the trigger—and the first explosion of the night lit up the fields. Two cracks, as two rounds flew up high into the sky. One of them was a 120mm HEATFS round from the Diligence, and the other was a 90mm APFSDS round from the Peacemaker. And the demon, still charging up whatever magic it was preparing, wouldn’t be able to respond. Good.

“Now!”

Preemptively, both Hans and Adelyn jumped out of their static positions, their mechs running in opposite directions to confuse the demon. In a split second, their two shots slammed at the flying demon, causing it to stagger—as some of its red liquid once again fell to the ground.

The weapons around it, flying muskets, both long guns and pistols, flew around it faster, as a rain of bullets fell on the ground. Hans and Adelyn both expertly dodged it just in time, as it loaded its next attack.

“Missed it by a few centimeters again!” Hans snapped at the comms, his gloved hand holding his control sticks hard. “Loading sabot again!”

“My shot was deflected!” Adelyn shouted. “I’m loading a sabot too!”

“Laura! Do your thing now and run!”

“I shall begin!”

Near the treeline, Laura’s magic lit up again as it charged. Her chants filled the comms due to her radio remaining on. Meanwhile, Hans and Adelyn both pulled themselves into an immediate break to prepare for their second shot. The demon was now staggered and suppressed.

Laura’s attack—should pin it in place.

“Pulirae!” Her voice echoed on the battlefield, as the white light from her three runic circles struck the flying demon. Hans watched as his thermal displays were overcome with a bright light, as extreme heat dissipated from the Virtus woman’s attack. This time around though, both Adelyn and Hans knew what to do once the demon began falling down into the ground.

Their main guns, tracking the center of the weakened beast, waited as the heat dissipated to the point that the white-hot center became fully visible to both of them.

“Alright! We have it now!”

“Firing!”

Two booms punctuated the battlefield, with Hans’ Wanderfalke and Adelyn’s Wanderadler firing at the same exact time. Their shots, with the sheer power of depleted uranium hitting the beast’s core, caused it to scream in the most painful, high-pitched metallic screech the moment they penetrated its armor.

The golden light of its armor died out, and Hans didn’t relent.

“Loading sabot again!”

“Gotcha! Double tap it!”

The two waited for their autoloaders to grab their rounds from their turret bustles, which contained their ammunition. Slamming it straight to their main gun’s breeches at different times, Hans reported that he was ready first—then Adelyn second.

The two pulled the trigger at once, and two more sabot rounds pierced its center.

The last thing that Hans saw on his thermals was the heat from the demon’s surface rapidly dissipating—until it was dead black on his display.