#86 fanfic

[akariamai]

Welcome to Spearhead

Shinei Nouzen x OC

Word Count: 2321

Like an infestation, war trickled into every aspect of the lives of those the Republic of San Magnolia deemed to be less than. Those who do not possess fair skin and light hair were sent to internment camps, located in the wasteland beyond the walls of the city. The conditions of the internment camps were despicable — almost uninhabitable. Memories of sharing a horse stall with her family of four were engraved in her mind. Her family was shove into the stall — still full of shit — were left to tidy what was now there new home. Old forgotten hay laid bare on the floor as her mother and father shared the same feeling of helplessness. Her twin sister scrunched her nose in disgust as the vile stench of shit infiltrated her nostrils. Her mother put on a courageous facade before attempting to imbue the stall with a sense of home. She invested a considerable amount of time and effort in her endeavors but ultimately failed.

The family of four was given a month of peace before their mother and father received recruitment letters, promising citizenship and freedom for five years of service. Their father, cursed with his sense of pride, mindlessly accepted. The thought of dying and never seeing his family again hadn’t crossed his mind once. It was his family that kept him alive through the dark horrors of war but captivating notions were not enough to stop the autonomous AI-controlled drones known as the Legion. He perished believing in a lie.

Her mother struggled with her father’s absence. He was her pillar of strength; as long as he stayed by her side, she would always prevail. He was gone now, participating in a war for false promises. She stressed for his safety and health, as well as the survival of her children. She proceeded to smile though it was far less bright. Her children needed her to be in the present; to survive the harsh realities of the internment camp. It wasn’t long before her mother was taken from the sisters, a rebellion against their suppressors turned deadly, and her mother became an unforeseen casualty. Her body buried in an unmarked grave.

“Promise me.” Warm gentle hands held onto hers, “Promise we’ll stay together. That we’ll always have each other.”

“I promise.” Reva whispered.

Once the two sisters realized their father wasn’t coming back from the battlefield, they decided to join. The people, now referred to as the Eighty-six, grasped onto the realization no one was ever coming back. There was no freedom after five years of service. It was a mere lie to get the Eighty-six to enlist.

Reva saw her comrades die at the hands of the Legion. Friends she once smiled and laughed with. Their forms left bruised and battered, while their spirits departed, leaving their bodies cold. She heard the pain-filled cries of her twin sister before she perished with the rest of their comrades.

“Wraith!”

Reva, during the heat of battle, fought her way towards her sister’s irreparably destroyed Juggernaut. Her emblem splattered in blood — her blood — and a lifeless corpse surrounded decimated bricks from the ruins of a nameless city. She fired at the Legion, who stood above her sister’s body, relentlessly. Her finger pulled on the trigger countless of times to ensure her sister’s murderer could no longer move.

“Fuck you!” She screeched, unleashing a rage she didn’t know she had. “Just die!” She didn’t know how long she persistently battered the once mobile machine but once her madness subsided, it was nothing more than scrap metal.

The handler, an older man with an unpleasantly croaky voice, declared, “The Legion are retreating, the other Juggernauts are unresponsive, you’ll be transferred immediately.” The transmission ended with no condolences or congratulations. The Eighty-six’s were nothing but lambs to the slaughter, destined to die for the Alba. An unfamiliar ache etched into her beating heart would unknowingly become a reminder of her loneliness.

She heavily climbed out of her own Juggernaut, the corpse of her deceased sister lying motionless a few meters away of her iron coffin. The reality of the situation seemed to seep in as the sky above began to weep.

Her sister’s name lingered in the back of her throat as she stumbled closer. Breathing almost became too difficult as hiccups threatened to erupted from her lips. Her salty tears camouflaged with the raindrops trailing down her rosy cheeks. Her sister’s lifeless body laid above a growing pool of deep crimson blood, her clothing drenched in red. Once vibrant sapphire eyes faded into a dull emptiness. Reva wanted to roar into the darkness in despair. Embracing her sister tightly against her chest, she instinctively sought to shield her sister from the rain, a futile gesture.

“I’m sorry.” Reva barely choked out. She laid a gentle farewell kiss on her forehead, praying to one day see her again, and used her bare hands as tools to lay her sister to rest in the Earth. The downpour made it utterly frustrating but she persevered. Her sister deserved a burial. Mud soiled her pants as she crouched down onto the muddied floor, her hands shoveling away the filthy water and grime.

Hours must have passed as the daybreak glimmered through the dark clouds. The heavens wept no more, it’s tears all gone. It was the start of a new day without the constant presence she was familiar to; a sunrise her sister would never get to see. She solemnly limped back to her Juggernaut and returned to the deteriorating building she once shared with her squadron. Instead of dirtying the sanitize floors, she waited in her sullied clothing for her transportation.

~~~

The Alba men assigned to transport her to her new squadron showered her with dirty looks. Their light eyes acted as daggers; deadly if their glares could inflict pain. “Filthy pig,” They muttered under their breath, “Change!”

Reva didn’t bother to move. She had spent hours pondering over the loss of her sister. What gave these men, who were complacent when their neighbors were stripped of their human rights, the right to order her around. They were nobodies forced to work in close proximity to the Eighty-six, acting as mere errand runners with no true purpose or nobility.

“What are you waiting for?” They viewed her as nothing more than livestock; in need of control. They tenaciously held onto the perceived sense of superiority, ingrained by the institution that unlawfully detained the Eighty-six, over her being. Undisturbed by the objections from the men, she confidently moved towards her four-wheeled prison, closing her eyes once she found a spot that would be untouched by the machinery.

Once the men noticed she was not responding to their demands, the older man reached out his arm to drag her out without a care of her well-being. Despite her striking resemblance to a human, the “unnatural” color of her being prevented her from being perceived as such. His hand refrained from making contact with her form as she skillfully twisted his arm and forcefully directed his body to the ground. The Alba men before her have never seen the battlefield; they have never bared the hardships that came with war. They willfully lived ignorant of the truth behind “the war with no casualties.”

The younger man hurried to the aid of his comrade, assisting his higher-up, all the while casting wary glances at the girl, apprehensive that she might persist in her assault. “Are you okay?” The two men refused to take their eyes off of her as if she were a barbaric animal, ready to pounce at any given moment. Realization washed over them as they unwillingly accepted her decision and carried on with their assigned duties.

She remained unaware of the men successfully loading up her Juggernaut or her transport advancing to another battlefield — a battlefield she may very well perish. Her back kissed the metal plating, as the tenderness of her body hit her with the momentum of a speeding train.

Time slipped by before the entrance opened and the light flowed in like a never ending stream of welcoming ambiance. “Get out.” The men left her unattended, apprehensive of her being, standing by for her to step out and allow them to work. She ignored them, absorbing what would be her new home for the foreseeable future. There were two buildings in range of her sight. The first was a weather worn barracks’ hangar where the Juggernauts and other military equipment would be stored away, although the Eighty-six were not supplied with adequate gear or materials. The second was a rundown building; the place where she and the other Eighty-six would occupy themselves in. There was nothing glamorous about the building; there were noticeable cracks on the exterior and foliage sprouting to one day overtake the structure.

“So you’re the new recruit,” A man with an unkempt field uniform roamed closer to her. “Welcome to Spearhead.” He noticed the dried mud, flaking due to the movement of her clothing, and assumed the two Alba men must’ve tussled her around before transporting her. It wasn’t uncommon for the transport team to harass, even assault, the Eighty-six.

She nodded her head and gave him a pathetic smile. He was pleasant, she noted, by his subtle attempts to respect her personal space. By the condition of her clothing, it would be a rather fair assumption the Alba men physically attacked her; however, she would not get too familiar with him or the others in this squadron. Death awaited them, even herself. She will soldier on without the support of her sister, without a purpose to continue living. She will die on the battlefield; her existence disregarded while the life is scuffed from her body, countless of miles away from her sister’s resting place.

“The name’s Raiden Shuga; personal name: Wehrwolf.” To bear a personal name was a minimal act of respect Processors could offer veterans of the war, who returned from death’s door countless times.

Returning the sentiment, she offered him her true and personal name, “I’m Reva Nakamura; personal name: Hellfire.”

Where Wraith goes, Hellfire follows, a phrase old comrades used to comment. Two veterans whose coordination—without a single word uttered—reigns supreme among the other Processors. He was told, “They were two halves of a whole, you would never see one without the other.” Yet, here Hellfire stood without her other half; presumably dead and Raiden knew better than to mention it.

Instead he acknowledged her, masking the recognition of her personal name, “I’ll show you around, introduce you to the others. Some are busy with chores but you’ll see them afterwards.”

The Spearhead squadron had plenty of members, each a veteran in their own right, each with a story to tell. No matter how often she was transferred, seeing new young faces left a horrendous taste in her mouth. They were all going to succumb to the Legion; it was not a matter of if, but a matter of when. Death cradled them, awaiting for their gut wrenching cries of anguish and grief; to carry them away from the suffering of this bleak existence.

Forever wasn’t meant for them. It was more for the last person standing to uphold the memories of the deceased, although those memories will only persevere if they manage to stay alive. Living, however, does not guarantee memories will stay intact — memories fade through age or vanish in death. They were not meant to linger for eternity. Their sacrifices will not be remembered by the generations to come, only lost in the sea of nameless corpses.

“Reva, given a new change of clothing by Anju, a comrade who bore some resemblance to the Alba with only her eyes countering those thoughts, stepped into the dining room. After being given a bowl of soup, she sought to sit alone but instead was ambushed by her comrades surrounding her with probing questions. The one who lead the charge was Kurena, a rather young girl with chestnut-colored hair and catlike Topaz eyes. Once she heard the infamous Hellfire was sent to their squadron, she couldn’t contain her curiosity. Reva was nothing like the image she had conjured up in her mind. She’d imagined an unyielding woman harden by the numerous battles she’d face, instead the person before her was a girl like her.

“How did you get the name Hellfire?”

“Where were you from?”

“What do you like to do in your free time?”

Reva swallowed another spoonful of soup, made from overgrown fresh vegetables the group scavenged from the ruins of the nameless city. It was better than the horrendous rations the Alba sent the Eighty-six.

“My family comes from the United Kingdom of Roa Gracia, but I was born in the Republic.” Certain questions were ignored; they carried memories she’d wish to forget. Instead of being offended for the unanswered questions, they assumed unpleasant memories were tied to them, and moved on. They were strangers to her, after all, she didn’t need to speak to them but she did.

The group spoke about themselves as well, giving her the opportunity to enjoy her meal uninterrupted without pausing to answer questions. They collectively mentioned their captain would always be found with his nose in a book, Theo pencil in hand would sketch away in his notebook, Kurena bears the role of the group’s cherished little sister, to which she whined was not true, and so many more.

Shin, one of the many nicknames he’s been given, sat away from the group. He listened to them giving the newbie insight on each member of the squadron; an attempt to get her familiar to them. Another name he may have to carry before his death; another burden to shoulder in the battlefield. At the moment, he was content that his friends were cheerful. Moments like these were scarce. Each day could be someone’s last.

Masterlist