act30side

Erk...

Ghakh!

Watch out—!

Next.

Heyaaaargh!!

Reporting in, sir!

With Colonel Harold's support, we've brought all our current casualties back to safety!

However, as things stand for us, we still don't have a way to strike the enemy where it hurts!

Charge!

Make use of your arms! The enemy is one soldier! Surround her!

But...

Sir, wouldn't it be better for us to divert around her?

She's an army of one! She's got not hope of holding us if we just widen the front!

You... gormless idiot!

Was that meant to be a revelation to me?

Then why...

They didn't give you eyes in your head for nothing!

You saw what our men on Kjeragandr's doorstep were attempting, didn't you? All of them as smart as you, off to break the perimeter from somewhere else!

Compare that to the rest! Are <i>they</i> in as near as bad a state?

Sir, you're not telling me...

Private, I don't know what the hell I could be telling you—DUCK!

Guh...!

My hand slipped.

Done gossiping?

When in the hell did you get here...?!

Just now.

If you were counting on a few dozen men there to stop me, then you <i>really</i> weren't ready for me.

Tsk! Monster incarnate...

A few dozen won't do the trick? Then surely a few hundred will. How about over a thousand?

You'll learn. In the face of a real army, there <i>is</i> no army of one—

Clench your teeth.

What?

Keep your mouth shut when I hit you.

You don't want to bite your tongue.

A bitter slice of wind whistles through.

One against two thousand should be the pinnacle of despair. Her golden eyes tell of no such qualms—stern and still and steady.

She is the predator without dispute. She is the ruler over this battlefield.

Slight the affairs of one Ms. Degenbrecher, dare to even begin to scorn her, and you too are an affront to her.

—You'd best hope your own life meant as little to you.

Steady now, Madam Degenbrecher!

If my subordinates have cocked up talks with you, then it falls to me to apologize in their stead.

Oh?

You?

And how long can you shield them for?

Well! Ha-hah. Might I suggest... until I die a soldier's death?

*hiss*...

I'm no match for your namesakes! Clearly I've not the horns to lock with you in a fight.

Do you recall, Madam Degenbrecher, when I asked after your name?

I no longer see any time like the present. Might I be elucidated?

You have the guts to stall with me?

*wheeze*, *wheeze*!

Two of a mind can spare a word in no-man's land! It <i>is</i> done, you know... it's the done thing!

I barely even remember my real name. You can pretend I never had one.

Plenty of people in Leithanien's ruined streets without a name or a home.

—I'd heard tell of your Leithanian birth, but <i>never</i> had I known that to be your life's story...

I once read in the dailies how you pilgrimed home there. Adulation of the masses. Dinners with the upper crust.

Throw a trophy at a burdenbeast and watch them love it too. They don't tell the difference.

Don't let it fool you.

It's not a place where names change anything. No one's going to ask you when you're down in the gutter with the wastewater.

Yet now you've a name with... such power.

Power?

Not exactly.

It was a sunny day.

A Gendarmerie patrol rounded up anyone with no place to go on the corner. One of them was carrying a strange weapon I'd never seen before. No point. No edge.

No fine combat technique. No deep method to it.

No simpler way to bludgeon. No part was anything of mention. I watched as he took that thing to anybody who tried to resist, and caved in their skulls.

From that moment on, it's been clear to me what I have.

Not a code, or a creed, or a technique. Nothing that sounds nice out loud.

It's violence.

So that day, I named myself.

I <i>am</i> what I wield.

There's a Minoan school of thought, where they hold violence and victory as sisters. The two are inseparably close—they make one another.

A look at you, and I could be convinced.

Madam Degenbrecher, if you're violence in the flesh like you say... then who, exactly, is your victory dedicated to?

And finally, one last little quibble from me—though I do think—it may not be worth much in the asking.

That Gendarmerie who first enlightened you—was victory a sister to him too?

I did like his degenbrechers.

Good to use, but broke too fast.

Just like you, Craigavon.

Your arm's almost gone.

Hush-hush, Madam Degenbrecher! Spare me the truth.

I do happen to be command of my own regiment. A little dignity, if you please...

Were the clock turned back thirty... no, just twenty years, I'd only be too glad your opponent.

But as it stands, and though I hate to admit it, the reality's all too obvious—I'm one of the old ones now.

You don't look it.

Ah-ha, you think so too?!

Then I take it back—see, I've been telling them all, my mind's as sharp as ever!

It's just this blasted prosthetic leg—the socket always stings on rainy days...

Less talk.

How long until you give?

How long until I give is hardly important.

What matters is, Madam Degenbrecher, how long until you give?

You can try me and see.

Now both sides have made their move.

It seems Degenbrecher can still bear out for the moment. Harold is saving his strength, and his bombers and Casters are all but smelling the roses.

Your wine may not have been wasted after all, Enciodes.

What of Weiss and Matterhorn?

I've sent a team of Tschäggättä to find them.

Given what reports have returned so far, the two were likely taken by surprise.

Viscount Craigavon wouldn't place them in mortal danger. That takes senility, and he has none.