Source of my Strength

Chapter 1

The rain came down and the thunder boomed above us. With each flash of lightning more and more of our adversaries could be seen gathering, increasing their numbers beyond the insurmountable amount that it already was. This was only supposed to be a simple mission to exterminate a single Aragami near an abandoned air craft carrier. A scout team had noticed a single Quadriga in the area. It was near the ocean; right along what was left of the Golden Gate bridge of San Francisco. While it had been mostly destroyed, small portion's of it remained. We used that to make our way to what remained of the carrier and locate the Quadriga. Our team had brought down the colossal beast but unknown to us, the Quadriga was all that was keeping an extremely large number of Ogretails in check. With the only predator that threatened them in the area now dead, they were free to surface and infest the area. They weren't that strong individually but a large number of them could prove formidable for even the toughest God Eater squad. We were holding our own but at the rate we were going we wouldn't last long. I could see my comrades tiring from the long winded battle, our leader Shinji Otaru most of all. I kept my eye out for the iconic, golden Fenrir insignia on the back of his black, hooded jacket since it was the easiest way to notice him in the chaos. I was trying to stay as close to him as possible without breaking our formation.

"Everyone stay together!" Shinji called out. His voice was almost drowned out by the roars of the Aragami and the storm raging above us. "Alisa, stay close to me! I'll cover you!"

"There's too many of them! We aren't even making a dent in their numbers!" I shouted back after firing a few fire bullets into a pair of them taking them down. My clothes were drenched as were everyone else's and my silver hair was sticking to my face. I held on to my God Arc, shifting it back to blade mode and slicing through an Ogretail that had jumped at me.

Sakuya Tachibana was harrying the beasts from afar with her sniper type God Arc while keeping us alive with recovery bullets as our Medic Sergeant. Kouta Fujiki, our scout, was closer to the action but still kept his distance while unloading explosive shells into the crowd. It felt like we had been fighting for hours but it had really only been several minutes. I even saw Soma Aragaki our Assault Sergeant and the best close range fighter in our squad, getting forced back by the sheer number of Ogretail that were attacking him. After killing another, I took a look around the battlefield. We had already killed many of them but their numbers looked endless. Then something made my heart skip a beat. I couldn't see Shinji anywhere.

"Shinji!" I called out as loud as I could.

No answer.

"Shinji can you hear me!" I was still trying to keep my mind on the fight but worry was starting to take over. I was so preoccupied with looking for Shinji that I didn't notice an Ogretail coming from behind me. I turned just in time to be struck by its tail. The attack was quick and it knocked me to the ground hard. Before I could ready my weapon it had me pinned down with one of its legs. It opened its jaws wide revealing several jagged edged teeth.

Is this how it ends?

"Alisa!"

I heard my named called and recognized the voice immediately. Shinji's God Arc tore through the Aramagi holding me down showering me in its blood.

"Alisa are you okay!" Shinji's face was full of concern as he extended a hand to me.

"I'm fine. Shinji what are we going to do?" I said taking his hand. He helped me to my feet as I wiped mud and blood from my face.

He looked to the others then to the increasing number of Aragami before us.

"Alisa I want you to lead the others in a retreat. I'll cover all of you."

He can't be planning to play the decoy can he? "Shinji no! If you stay behind alone you'll die!" I yelled.

"I'm the leader of this squad. It's my responsibility to take care of you guys." He shouldered his God Arc and turned his back to me.

"Everyone we're falling back! Sakuya! Kouta! Cover our retreat with some explosive shells if you have any! Let's move!"

Sakuya and Kouta fired two blasts into the crowd sending a few of the beasts flying. Soma charged through a group of them swinging his large weapon in a wide arc and taking them all down in one blow.

"Alright let's go! We're outta here!" yelled Shinji over the roar of the storm.

I followed him as we ran through the monsters taking down only the ones that got in our way. Sakuya and Kouta were doing a good job of covering us as we ran. We quickly joined up with Soma in the midst of the battlefield and dashed towards Sakuya and Kouta's position. As we ran I could barely make out the image of something among the Ogretail mob; something that didn't belong. It wasn't until it rose up that I noticed it and the realization hit me like a truck. That unmistakable scorpion tail was arched up in the air and directed at us.

"Shinji! Soma! Look out!" I screamed as loud as I could. Soma noticed immediately and dove for cover but Shinji had just killed an Ogretail and wasn't able to get out of the way in time. The Borg Camlann's attack came swiftly. I narrowly avoided it but Shinji, unable to dodge, instead blocked with his God Arc. But the force of the blow added with the unstable terrain made even more treacherous by the storm, made him lose his footing and fall over the side of the ruined bridge.

"Shinji!" I ran to where I saw him fall despite Soma trying to stop me. I killed the Ogretails that got in my way and finally got to the spot to see Shinji hanging on to a metal pipe that was sticking out of one of the broken slabs of concrete. He was still holding his God Arc but I could tell that his grip was weakening. "Shinji hold on! Give me your hand!"

"Get out of here Alisa! Go with the others and escape! This fight can't be won!" he yelled at me.

I ignored him and grabbed his arm. With all the strength I could muster I pulled. I couldn't get a solid grip on the wet ground and due to fighting for so long fatigue had started to wear me down.

"Alisa go now! Forget about me and go while you can! That's an order!" Shinji yelled again.

"I won't leave you! I won't let you die! I can't!"

"Look out you two!" Sakuya's voice rang out over our screams.

"Alisa let me go! Let me go now or we both die!" Shinji called out.

I looked up to see the Borg from before drawing its tail back for a strike that was aimed at Shinji and I. There was no time to think so I did what came natural to me. I held onto Shinji as tight as I could and shut my eyes. I heard Shinji screaming my name as well as the others yelling at us to move. The Borg's tail slammed into the ground right between us, just missing us but shattering the concrete below us and causing us to fall down into the churning sea below. As we fell I reached out and desperately tried to grab Shinji's hand as he did the same. Just as we were inches apart we were swallowed up by the waves.