Author's Note: I told you it was almost done, didn't I? Yes, I did. Now I have to actually get some homework and studying done, so the next one will be out later this week, maybe next Friday. Fret not, even if I don't make that deadline, I have not forgotten this. Nor is this the only project of this caliber I've been working on.

You who thought Marcus Thol was dead, cry in shame! For it is he, not Miho, who has taken the majority of my time. Those benefits will be reaped by those of you who are paying attention to all of my stories, not just this one; even if it is the only one currently being updated.

So rate and review! My style has changed, and I want to know if I'm still doing it right.

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Coughing and sputtering, Sergeant Mia Creed, Alpha Detachment Quartermaster, 1st Ooarai Defense Regiment woke from her nightmare coughing, sputtering and cursing. "What the fuck?!"

"Sarge, you were drunk again. I've told you before. You gotta stop this. You're gonna get liver poisoning."

There was a second's pause as Creed got her act together and remembered where she was. She slowly cracked one misty grey eye open and slowly rotated her head to face her.

"...Akiyama?"

"Well, it's better than Monday," Assistant Quartermaster, Corporal Yukari Akiyama sighed as the noncom groaned and began to rub her eyes open. Despite being so new to the Regiment, Creed held a respected rank and was never punished despite having abused it's privileges with abandon.

Yukari ripped the covers off with carefully constrained anger. By some miracle, she was never greeted with sight of Creed's naked form beneath the sheets, no matter how drunk she had been the night previous. The garment comprised a type of athletic shorts and a fitting tank top, both in a repulsive shade of olive drab.

And yet, somehow, Yukari often found herself admiring how Creed pulled off the look. She made the unnatural shade of baby vomit look natural, as if it were literally any other color on the spectrum.

Was it her confidence or the way she let her hair grow to just past regulation length? Her eyes or the shape of her modest, almost unremarkable figure? Or was it that scar? But regardless of the reason, Yukari hated Creed more for it.

"Monday? Then what's-"

"Wednesday."

"Oh balls," Creed huffed and aborted any serious attempt to get up. "Anything new from the Captain?"

"Nope. Except some hangover pills."

"Oh, that busty draconian hardass is finally good for something" Creed said greedily, hands groping about her nightstand for the expected container of foul-tasting pills. "The fuck? Corporal, did you take my medicine?"

"Take? No. I might have...accidentally put it on your desk. Which I should remind you is your assigned duty station at 0800 hours."

"0800? Why am I up at-"

"1300?" Yukari interjected flatly.

"1300!?" Creed gasped and hurled herself out of bed a little too quickly. Fortunately for her, this song and dance wasn't unfamiliar; Yukari already had a bucket waiting to puke into. When she was done some ten minutes later, Creed remarked "Damn, that was the best booze I'd had in weeks. Damn shame to waste."

"What happened to waiting until Friday?" Yukari asked bluntly as she handed her a canteen, trying to hide her building temper. "You probably wouldn't have wasted it then."

"Friday? Don't get your hopes up," Creed said with as much of a self satisfied smile as she could manage. "I got plans."

Of fucking some other hapless girl once she's drunk enough. "Have you no shame?" She demanded. "You're the Detachment's Quartermaster! You're supposed to be punctual, as infallible as the equipment you maintain! And you're nothing but a disgraceful slob! How dare you wear this uniform!"

Creed's face fell immediately and her voice took on a quality Yukari had never heard before. A tone that commanded obedience."I know what I'm supposed to be, Corporal. And I know what you're supposed to be. At your duty station. I'll be there in ten, no later than fifteen. Dismissed."

Yukari felt chills run laps around her back, but Creed's tone allowed for only way to reply, and it wasn't how she normally did it.

"Ma'am! Yes, ma'am!" she said, snapping a crisp salute before briskly walking out of the sparse barracks and began to make her way to their duty station on the other side of the depilated building.

On the way back, she wasn't her normal self. She didn't curse the very name of Creed, nor did she come up with new and inventive ways to protest her behavior or try to change it. Instead, the noncom's commanding voice filled her head and sent chills back down her spine. The instant transformation, the way her hangover seemed to disappear from her consciousness, like the re-kindling of a determination.

Why would someone with such gifts just abandon them? Why live a life of lechery, of debauchery when she could be so much more? Yukari shook her head. She couldn't fathom it. It had been her sense of duty and desire to protect that had guided her hobbies. Which is why her bedroom at her parent's house had been devoted to the King of Battle, the mighty Panzer, and the premier training program known as Panzerfahren.

Just thinking the name brought up unpleasant memories and a deep despair threatened to resurge. With desperation fueling her efforts, she focused on the hate she held for Creed and the work load she had to do to keep this forsaken post in operation.

When she finally arrived a little worse for wear, she sat at the well worn secretary's desk and just then Captain Kawashima chose that moment to barge in and park herself before the luckless Corporal.

"I have limited time, Corporal Akiyama. Do you meant to waste it?" she demanded.

"Uh, no ma'am. What can-"

"Then where the hell were you ten minutes ago when I walked in?" her voice was quiet, calm and collected, yet the malice practically paraded behind it made Yukari shiver. This wasn't going to go over very well. Damn you Creed. Damn you to the depths of whatever hell you came from!

888

The door shut behind Corporal Akiyama, and Miho Nishizumi breathed a sigh of frustration. It didn't take a genius to see that her subordinate held her at about the same level as a pile of dog shit, and despite it, the girl kept trying to get her to sober up. Yes, she deserved credit, but Throne above was she a pain in the ass.

Miho gingerly stood and eyed the cupboard where the rest of her booze stash was and grimaced. Friday. She had to find a bottle of Lavaquilla before Friday. Otherwise Yuzu would be mad at her, and things were already rocky enough as it was. Four months. Terra, had it really been four months?

"Yes, it has. Glad to see you're settling in." The wizened and confident voice behind her was accompanied by familiar cherry scented cigar smoke. Immediately, her hand drifted to the one reminder of her past life. A tarnished solid gold pendant forged half a galaxy away, hanging from a chain made from a metal mined from a planet at the center of the galaxy. A good luck charm from another universe. A reminder of what was actually out there.

"Gramps," she acknowledged the grizzled old man, as she stepped out of her goddamn Ooarai Defense Regimental-Issue jammies and searched for a clean pair of socks. "I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to hear from you."

"Well, it's not like my necklace is a one way vox card." She didn't need to turn around to hear the shrug in his voice. "But I do apologize. Things...came up."

"Abaddon?"

"Abaddon."

"How bad?"

"On a scale from a grox bite to exterminatus, exterminatus would have been the less painful option. But that's not an option on Cadian soil."

"I..I'm sorry."

"They died for the Emperor," he said with weary but solid conviction, "And with their sacrifices, the Archenemy was denied. There is nothing to be sorry for."

"How's Uncle Kell?"

"You'll know soon enough," he said cryptically. He was a stocky man, solidly built, and every inch of him screamed military commander to the casual observer. His normally pressed uniform was now rumpled, torn, even stained in places. His chest of medals had a line missing from top to bottom-ish. The figured she spoke to wasn't actually there though; he was entirely a spectral, almost neon, blue and Miho could see the wall of the hanger behind him.

"Right now, I want to talk about what's going on with you."

"What about with me?"

"What have you learned about your mother and sister?" he asked.

"My..." her voice faltered as she tried to come up with an excuse. There wasn't any. "...time here wasn't the best spent."

"You've got amseac in the cabinet behind you, don't you?" he asked, disappointment flattening out any parental affection in his voice.

"A few bottles."

"120 proof?"

"150," she said with a wince.

"Well, you should know that a Chaos battlefleet is on its way. With the tides of the Warp the way they are, they will be here within a year, maybe two, maybe six months. Barring anything short of a miracle, the planet will die. I hope you have enjoyed your drunken debauchery, because either you quit now or you're going to die with the rest of the planet."

She felt a splitting headache coming on, and it wasn't from the booze. "I really don't need this shit right now," she growled.

"Fine." his voice was solid adamantium now, cold and unyielding. When she faced him, his eyes burned with a passion she'd only ever seen once before. "If you will act like this, then you are no better than the rest of your family. I thought you better. I taught you better."

This stoked her temper into a blaze. "Oh, you taught me better? I hardly call what you did teaching. I will act how the fuck I fucking want to, damn you and your fucking war!" Quick as a flash, her hand whipped into the weapon belt beside her bunk and came out with her service pistol pointed at the Warp specter. "Now get out. And don't come back."

The cold anger in Ursakar Elarian Creed's still even voice would haunt her in the months to come. "Then you do not deserve my name. Pray to your heathen god we never meet."

And with that he was gone, like he had never been there to begin with. But that didn't change the overwhelming feeling of sorrow mixed with loneliness and rage. Her last bastion of hope had crumbled, and at her own hands.

With a cry of rage, she whipped the pistol across the room, where it stuck itself in the dry wall separating her room from the rest of the hanger. "GOD DAMN IT ALL TO HELL!" she cursed as loud as she could before slumping to her knees on the floor. Yes, she felt better, but Akiyama would be asking questions about that later. Maybe she could pass it off as pent up rage at her own stupidity. Yeah. Seemed like something Mia would do.

"Sergeant." That voice. That hate. "Care to explain why you were absent at your assigned duty post?"

Behind the scowling visage of Captain Kawashima, she saw the cowering form of Akiyama and sighed. She had it coming. "I believe you already have the story. I'll accept whatever the Corporal said as truth."

"You will not! I want it in your own words Creed!" the Captain sneered. "And if I have to manually extract it, then damn it all, that's exactly what I'll do!"

"Fuck you. I trust the Corporal. Unless you mistrust her as well."

"I don't know whether or not to believe your fitness reports. They seem an awful lot like the Corporal's inventory reports. Which you should have been doing."

"They're done, aren't they? I taught well enough to handle it then."

"Corporal. That true?" the Captain's sudden switch made the poor Corporal jump.

"Ma'am! Yes ma'am!" she snapped to attention. "Sergeant Creed taught me how to the inventory reports in great detail after she arrived, ma'am!"

The Captain's scowl deepened. "Scheming little..." she trailed off and growled viscously. "Why did we have to get saddled with the shit kid of Kuro?"

And with that, Miho saw red and felt vertigo before blacking out.

888

Miho only dimly remembered being dragged between two people as she woke up in a spartan jail cell. And even more foggy was why she felt like shit in the first place. "What the hell?"

"About time you woke up."

"Akiyama?" she asked. Well, at least there was someone here she could depend on. "What the hell happened?"

"You assaulted a superior officer.

"The Captain?"

"...yes."

"Did I kick her ass?" Miho asked hopefully.

"Not really, but you made good account of yourself," she said. Her face. Something was off about it. Miho thought to herself.

"So why am I in here? It's not like this was the first time I punched that bitch." Miho asked, knowing she wasn't going to like the answer.

"On top of your other demerits, the President has decided to have you stand trial."

"A court martial you mean?" Miho asked with resignation. Then it hit her.

"No," the Corporal's face was almost glowing despite her carefully neutral expression. "A trial. You've already been removed from the Regiment."

"Are you happy now, Akiyama?" she asked quietly, as her eyes fell to the floor. She had to make her own choices now. Nothing already decided for her, this was all her own now. With her decree, the President had declared her unworthy of her protection anymore. And Miho could hardly blame her.

"I...don't understand," Akiyama said carefully.

"It doesn't matter. I just hope you find everything you desire," Miho said quietly. Did her Grandfather visit her? Was it another dream? Her head hurt too much.

"Oh. Um...thank you?" Akiyama said awkwardly, before almost coming to attention. It was in the way her legs convulsed. She'll go far, Miho thought, she might even reach command level one day. Good instincts too. "I'll take my leave now. The trial is about to start."

"Alright."

The Corporal just looked at her former superior with a mixture of what? Curiosity? Pity? She wanted this to happen, and it was coming. So it came, Miho said internally. There wasn't anything she could do to make her situation better. Not without the President's support. And if the President knew of this, that meant Yuzu did too.

Miho's head dipped lower towards the floor. Terra, she really had screwed up. Who would have thought that a daughter of the Nishizumi family would fall so low?

Her pained laughter echoed down the empty halls of the jailhouse.

888

When they came for her, it was mid afternoon of the fourth day. The post-school rush was in full swing, cars honking noisily and people bustling about under the din.

She lay on her bunk, now clad in the prisoner's drab yellow leotard. She was thinking of how she would deal with outside life when she heard them. Boots, her mind registered. But why? It's right after school the President should still be in her uniform. Along with Yuzu, Miho's aching heart wrenched at the mental image of Vice President's face twisted in feigned happiness. The clomping of the boots stopped and the door to her cell clanged before it squeaked open.

"Sergeant Mia Creed?" a stern voice asked, one that Miho had almost forgotten.

"Isobe? Is that you?" she asked, bringing herself to a sitting position just in time to catch a bundle of clothes and to see the two girls she'd dubbed as "subbies" carry in her personal arms locker. "What's going on?"

The Captain of Delta Detachment didn't immediately reply, despite the shock evident on everyone's face. To her own credit, she waited until the subbies had gone before speaking."There's a truck that's going to be here in ten minutes. Get dressed and loaded for HR."

"Isobe, what the fuck is going on?" Miho demanded, stripping off the leotard and stepping into a set of cargo pants clearly taken from her room. The short Captain ran a hand through her hair and struggled to get the words formed.

"Twenty minutes ago, a small terrorist band attacked the mall complex and is holding hostages. They're lightly armed, but they know what they're doing. They've barricaded themselves in the librarium in the lowest level and are demanding that we release a captive we've been holding for some time unlawfully."

"Okay. Not standard, but then again, terrorists ain't the normal type," she said, trying to keep the shock from preventing her lacing up her boots and shrugged on her combat jacket before punching in the code on the weapons trunk. "Who's the prisoner?"

"Kawashima wouldn't say. The President just looked at me hard and said to get your ass in gear."

"And the Vice?"

"She looked like she was about to cry." At least she's handling this like normal, Miho was able to breathe easy and let her heart to rest for a moment. "Who are the hostages?"

"Candidates for the Panzerfahren team."

"WHAT?!" Miho almost dropped the magazine she was loading into her pistol. "What the fuck?"

"It happened a day or two ago," Isobe said casually, "The President said we need to bring some pride back into our school. So that's how we're going to do it."

"And why is it important that they're candidates for the program?"

"Because we identified their captors."

"Okay. Gimmie faces and names," Miho said. Subconsciously, her voice was regaining her lost sense of command.

"Well, one of them. And by her, we got who they're working for."

"They're working for someone? Who would ally themselves with a terror cell openly?" Miho asked as she buckled her ballistic vest before filling it with magazines for the suppressed MP5 inside.

"That bitch, the Matriarch."

Another shock. Another pause in what she was doing. "You're absolutely sure that's the puppet master?" Miho asked.

"Yes. Beyond a doubt. Kuromorimine has officially denounced them as a renegade group, but we've got our doubts."

"And you're right to have them. Any of the captors named Maho or Erika?" Miho asked, venom evident in her voice.

"Not that I know of. The one we identified was a tanker reported to have died in the finals match last year, shortly before we popped you out. Marichia Takara."

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++Thought for the day: A mind in distress finds comfort in being more horrible than its enemy++