#you can probably see both the nge and terror influences lol

[valtsv]

This sounds like an amazing scene. Please tell me more.

so Valentine and Reaver (tentative names, i'm still not sure i like them) are both extremely damaged people living utterly miserable lives in a pre-apocalyptic world. Valentine is a celebrity, a star soldier, a former no-name nobody orphan of the apocalypse who gained fame and fortune and success through apparent sheer good fortune, hard work, and innate charisma. but she has no identity outside of piloting. they lost their entire world as a kid when her town was destroyed, and as a result of that traumatic experience developed the belief that the only way she can ever hope to matter or be worth anything is by making a name for themself, making herself impossible to ignore, for fear of dying alone and forgotten. so they've dedicated their whole life to piloting, and sustain themself on the praise and adoration of the masses and her superiors, and have virtually no life outside of that, let alone plans or dreams for the future. she doesn't often let herself entertain her own personal desires, believing it's pointless; doesn't form connections with other people outside of the professional and transactional because they feel they have nothing else to offer. they're a shell of a person, a pretty face for the propaganda posters and a brilliant smile and shiny medal-laden uniform for the press and a machine of war to inspire the troops. and because of her single-minded total dedication to piloting, she's always first to volunteer for combat and last to accept any assistance or admit to any perceived weakness; their body is literally falling apart from pushing it too hard and hidden beneath their clothes is a patchwork of skin grafts and wounds that refuse to heal held together by glue and stitches and infection that's slowly spreading and killing them. but Valentine is determined to keep going until she drops or dies in combat, to be a martyr for the cause and for public opinion. she has nothing else.

Reaver is more or less the opposite. he's washed-up, a failure, out of time; a good soldier and a good man but a bitter, lonely, cynical wreck of a person. he was never recognized for his efforts like his peers, possessed too much candor and not enough charisma to ingratiate himself with his superiors, was well-liked but always secondary at best to those who burned brighter and were willing to compromise their principles and ethics in exchange for opportunities for advancement and promotion. he drinks too much, cares for himself too little, treats every opportunity to save lives like an obligation and every failure like an inevitability, pushes everyone away before they even get close out of fear of being hurt or abandoned again, and has generally made himself hard to love. at the same time, he's resentful, aloof and unapproachable, sneering with contempt at everyone around him and taking a certain grim satisfaction in self-sabotage and lashing out because it allows him to justify his misery. he and Valentine hate each other because he pities Valentine more than he resents them; he sees Valentine as naive, overconfident and shallow, a bright young thing that will be used til it burns, so he's cruel to her. and Valentine, in turn, is furious at Reaver for his selfish attitude, for allowing himself to descend into despair and self-loathing at the expense of potentially the entire rest of the world, for giving up the opportunity to do good and childishly railing against everyone who comes near him because he didn't get patted on the head enough for his efforts.

they absolutely loathe each other at first, because they see their worst fears in each other, their worst selves, who they could have been if things had just been a little different, and the brutal truth that they would be no better off or happier in the other's place. however, they're forced to work together and regularly be in close proximity to one another by the inexorably advancing apocalypse and budget cuts in military spending, and their bitter conflict helps to peel back the layers and walls they've built up around themselves and get them to confront how badly they've been failed and hurt by the rest of the world and begin to find solace in each other, in their shared experiences and pain and the love and comfort and hope and meaning they can offer each other.