“Into the Motherland…” Alice sang softly to herself, sitting against a small rock as the minutes ticked by, “the German army march.”

She stood up and watched the valley below, soon to be filled with Endolan invaders bent on subjugation and conquest. “Comrades stand side by side to stop the Nazi charge.” she quietly sang the next line. But would they? Would the students be able to fight, or would they run the moment they started dying? She knew the answer for herself, retreat wasn’t an option, they were all that stood between the Academy -Earth’s best chance at retaining sovereignty- and the Endolan force marching their way. 

“Panzers on Russian soil, a thunder in the East.” Or at least, a portal in the North. “One million men at war, the Soviet wrath unleashed.”

She sighed as she finished the last line of the song, raising her hands and looking at them both. When the time came -and she knew it would- would she be able to kill deliberately? More importantly, would she stay in control? 

She’d already killed one person, several years ago, and probably stopped him from killing many other people, but that’d been in the heat of the moment, and she still didn’t know quite what had happened. One moment she’d been sitting somewhere, probably waiting for something, the next there’d been a bloodied knife -her knife- in her hands, blood all over her clothes, and a body covered in stab wounds and clutching something in its hand underneath her.

There was something about a bomb, and investigations. Somebody had issued something to her, but it was all a blur. All she remembered from that time was the blood, it’d been all that occupied her dreams for months, there had been something… electrifying about it.

She shook her head to clear it, this was the wrong time to think about that. She wasn’t sure if there ever was a right time to think about it.

Resuming her walk across the top of the valley, she wondered what would actually happen when the Endolan force crossed through. Would they wait until they had passed before springing the trap? Appear as surprise reinforcements from the rear once the main group had engaged? She was relatively sure they wouldn’t be ordered to attack right as they were passing through, Jones wasn’t stupid.

At least, she was pretty sure he wasn’t.

Her revolver provided some distraction as she broke open the action and inspected the ammunition she had loaded, as well as what she was carrying on herself. She wasn’t sure whether to go with the multi-purpose rounds, or the armor piercing ones. Armor piercing would make a Titan’s day considerably worse, but go straight through a Demon, whereas the multi-purpose would make a Demon’s day considerably worse, but do much less against a Titan.

She sighed, sitting down, idly cocking the hammer and dry-firing, though nothing happened without the cylindrical magazine in place.

Alice huffed and jammed a magazine into the gun, snapping it closed and jamming it into its holster. There were Endolans to kill, at least soon.

She looked down the valley again, trying to see any sign of the approaching invaders before marching back to her original spot. She spotted Lily, and felt the faint notion to ask her how she was doing, but brushed it aside. There was another woman, wearing what looked like Hellenic armor and carrying a shield. Interesting. She was tempted to ask her about the rather large sword… cleaver… sharp metal thing, or even to simply know if anyone else felt the same dread she did, but she ignored the woman, and Lily, and kept walking. 

What would happen when it really came down to it? Her real concern wasn’t whether or not she could fight, she could definitely fight, but what would happen when she actually started fighting.

Would she just do what needed to be done and deal with it later? Or would there be a repeat of what had happened four years ago? Would the red mist clear to reveal red liquids, like last time? Would she simply die in that red mist? How many more people would die by her hands today?

She looked down at her hands again, the hands of a killer, but she supposed being a killer was a good thing here. 

Sitting down on the same rock as prior, she began singing to herself again, “Into the Motherland…”

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF3pv6WsJrs]Sabaton- Panzerkampf[/url]