[Guilty Gear fic] Magma to Ash
Feb. 13th, 2008 09:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rallamajoopMore war-era fic, it seems to be a habit of mine. I enjoyed writing this one - Ky is far more cooperative to write for than Sol, as a rule, and - well, I'd ramble on more about what went into it, but I'd only spoil the fic that way. Suffice to say that mood and pacing on this kind of theme suits me well enough that it might count as another bad habit, depending how you look at things. ^^;
Anyway, this is also another one of those ones I have to label 'no overt Sol/Ky' - you know the same way the drama CDs have no 'overt' Sol/Ky. >.>
BTW, next on the WIP list right now is the one with Ky and Millia, and I could use someone with a bit more familiarity with Millia's story to lend a hand betaing, if anyone feels like volunteering. (If not, well, it's only a couple of thousand words anyway, so it's probably not worth me losing any sleep over.)
Title: Magma to Ash
Summary: The absence of a certain Sol Badguy from the Order's ranks doesn't actually make Ky's job any simpler.
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 4750
A cold breeze blowing over the battlefield had begun to dissipate the stench of burnt flesh and Gear blood by the time the last of the wounded men and the bodies were being carried back into the airship. A thin trickle of blood was running down Ky’s arm inside his sleeve, sticky and irritating, but it would be hours before anyone from the medical division would have time to waste applying more than the roughest field dressing to such a minor wound. There was still nearly an hour left before sunset, but the sinking sun added something final to the scene. It was high time their attention was turned away from this place.
“How much longer until the enemy reinforcements will reach us?” Ky asked aloud.
The tactical division officer standing by his side answered without so much as a glance at the clipboard in his hands. “Ten minutes at most. We’ve confirmed at least a hundred Gear units, the majority in the large classes.”
“And the casualty report for our own troops?”
“The physical and magical divisions both reported heavy casualties. All survivors are under the care of the medical division now. Final head counts are still underway, however, we don’t believe more than fifteen men will remain unaccounted for…” the man trailed off uncertainly.
“Is there something else?” Ky prompted him.
“Sir…” the officer’s voice shook slightly. “Sol-sama is also unaccounted for…”
Ky managed not to flinch outwardly, although preventing himself from grinding his jaw at the news was beyond him. “Were any of the assaulting force unaccounted for?”
“No sir,” the officer replied quickly, fumbling with his clipboard, glad to have been given a question he could answer rather than be pressed with the much more difficult matter of just how his division could have lost the single most unmistakable soldier in their battalion. “A small contingent attempted to escape along the ridge, but were overtaken by our own men before they could retreat. It is possible some of the smaller classed Gears may have retreated into the forest, however, it was not considered…”
“And the final sweep of all corners of the battlefield has been completed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then we will complete our withdrawal immediately. Inform the airship’s crew we have five minutes to make it back into the air.”
“But… sir!” the officer protested helplessly, then suddenly found himself to be the subject of a piercingly cold blue gaze.
“Sol is one man. To expect the entire battalion to be put at risk on his account is inexcusable. Have we any other reason for further delay?”
“N… no sir!” the officer stammered. “Right away, sir!” With that he turned tail and fled back into the airship.
Ky looked towards the battlefield one last time. The only movement remaining was where the wind was disturbing the grass; even the few fires which had been scattered among the debris had burnt themselves out. The twisted shapes of the remaining Gear bodies in nearby view were uniformly cold and lifeless. There was nothing else in sight worth remaining here for.
Ky turned and made himself walk the whole way up the ramp to the airship without another backward glance.
***
Halfway through the return flight, the official reports from the battlefield began to materialise on his desk. They’d all require individual attention, if he was to collate enough information about what had taken place to produce a report of his own – hours of work, but Ky was in a position to welcome the diversion. The tactical division’s report contained nothing he hadn’t seen before – no evidence the Gears had employed any new tactics or introduced any new breeds or offensive capabilities in their numbers. Casualties in the combat divisions had been regrettable, but not unusually high for a battle of this scale. The report from the medical division (by far the shortest and most perfunctory, as surely its members had better things to be doing at the time) recorded no cases of poison or gas, that treatment of their wounded was proceeding well and a high survival rate was anticipated. The airship’s contingent could be made ready for battle again within hours if the need struck, although they could probably expect to be taken off duty for at least the next twenty-four once they returned to base. In all respects, it had been an unremarkable battle, just another small victory for their side.
The reports included a map of the battlefield and surrounding terrain. This region was long disputed territory, far from any official Order base. Any human settlement nearby would be long deserted. It would be days travel on foot from here to anywhere remotely civilised.
Also included among the assorted papers were names for all the men still officially left unaccounted for. The battle had taken place in a narrow clear strip running between dense woodlands and a steep edged ravine. Most of the missing men were believed to have been lost when two giant Gears, enraged by misdirected spellfire and smoke, had been sent charging blindly over the precipice, sweeping at least one unit of unfortunate soldiers down with them in their wake. Others might still be lying back there, buried underneath the piles of cooling Gear bodies, or have had their own bodies torn or burned beyond all recognition, or been swallowed alive. It was all no more than the usual hazards Ky’s men faced in this war.
Of course, it would be utterly unlike Sol to meet his end in any of those ways. It would be much more like him to have gone charging away in pursuit of some escaping Gear and forgotten to come back.
It would not even be entirely unthinkable that he’d left the Order on little more than a whim and had no intention of returning…
Ky had been staring blankly at the map in front of him for several minutes before he realised he was doing it. What he’d told his officer before had been blatantly untrue. Sol was far more than just one man – he was the single most valuable asset under Ky’s command. He was also perpetually teetering on the edge of becoming more trouble than he was worth.
He badly needed to get started on a report of his own before he let himself become any more distracted. Staring at maps or out through the rear windows of the airship for another half-hour wouldn’t allow him to see anything new.
Reporting might be tedious, but had long ago become routine enough to Ky to give him little difficulty finding the words needed to encapsulate a Captain’s perspective of the progression of the battle. Reports from the divisions under him would cover the rest of the detail. He had to hesitate briefly at the end though, faced with the task of listing the names of any officers lost in battle. It was hard to argue that Sol would qualify – the man had never had the slightest intention of ever rising beyond the rank of an ordinary soldier, and yet, inasmuch as the purpose of the exercise was to report the loss of indispensable personnel…
Ky had gotten as far as the first ‘S’ before he stopped himself and erased the character again. To reduce Sol’s disappearance to a simple name on a form – what was the point of that? Commander Kliff would expect a far better explanation than that if someone of Sol’s calibre – a man he’d personally recruited, no less – was lost, but Ky simply didn’t have one. ‘Missing in action’ [insert time and date] was the only information he was in any position to convey.
It was so very typical of Sol, he thought to himself (not quite noticing the way the drafted report was being unconsciously crumpled into a ball in his hand), to cause these sorts of problems for him.
***
Once they arrived at Headquarters, there were finally medical staff free to apply more than a rough field dressing to the wound on Ky’s arm. The process brought an end to the fairly pleasant numbness he’d been experiencing in that region for the past couple of hours and reminded him anew how badly it had stung when it was fresh, but not even the full attention of the medical staff could find anything wrong with it that would require more than an evening off duty to recuperate (which he’d have had in any case since that was the very least time he could expect his battalion to be taken off duty). Mentioning the pain when asked may have been a mistake, however, for it gave them exactly the excuse they needed to dose him up with painkillers and send him away in a state where he’d have little option but to obey their instructions that he was to engage in nothing more strenuous than a good night’s sleep.
He awoke late the next morning, groggy from oversleeping, to discover the world had provided him with no reason to get up any earlier. The report he’d turned in the previous day had been mundane enough to get him little more than a receipt in reply from his superiors. The update he was sent on the men under his command in the care of the medical division was mostly good news. His battalion would not be returned to even limited duty until the following day. Even Commander Undersn was unavailable to receive any news, being personally engaged in a serious defensive effort after an army of Gears had stormed a key tactical position in northern Russia. That last piece of information only made Ky itch all the more to be back on the battlefield.
It was going to be a long day.
He stopped by the medical wing again mid-morning for a quick check up on his arm, and had the bandages removed to reveal that barely even a mark now remained – they’d done a splendid job of it. In an attempt to ensure he’d done something more useful than brood that morning, on returning to his quarters he sat down and forced himself to read right through the considerable stack of copied reports he’d been delivered regarding other recent engagements along the frontlines of the battle. He learned quickly that the Gear force which had forced his battalion’s speedy retreat had advanced no further into Order-patrolled territory. The reports from Russia did little but elaborate on the details he’d already heard regarding the Commander’s absence. Most of the remainder were discouragingly familiar – minor skirmishes for the possession of land along borders which had been pushed back and forth by the enemy sides in increments of a few miles at a time for more months than he cared to remember. He could perhaps have occupied himself for a while by plotting out his own strategies for the capture or defence of those areas – the intellectual exercise of spotting where mistakes had been made or opportunities missed – but the knowledge of how futile that was in the larger scheme would only frustrate him, and he had enough useless frustration to bother him already today.
There was one report from an aerial engagement with Gear forces which had taken place only few hours after and several dozen miles away from the battlefield Ky had left the previous day. What caught his eye was a minor detail, an enormous magical pulse recorded mid-battle. The tactical division had attempted to attribute it to Gear weaponry, and failed, then tried to attribute it to colliding magical fire with the same result, and finally considered the possibility the reading had been an error to begin with, but found nothing to suggest it could have been anything but genuine. Eventually, they were only able to recommend that the reading be recorded for comparative purposes in the event any similar phenomena might ever be observed again. It was an uninspiring sort of mystery, with so little clue to its source, but Ky caught himself beginning to reread the whole report for the third time before he stopped himself and made himself go out for a walk instead.
His ‘walk’ quite innocently took him halfway to the tactical division’s wing before he gave in to the inevitable. If he didn’t ask, he’d only spend the remainder of the day wondering about what he might have learned.
The man at the main desk sat up to attention sharply when he spotted Ky coming in. The presence of anyone of that rank here would usually mean some kind of important official business.
“Just a minor point of curiousity,” Ky assured the man quickly, reminded anew just how much he was grasping at straws by pursuing this at all. “Provided it won’t interrupt any more pressing duties, I’d like to speak to someone from the fourth battalion regarding their report submitted after the engagement yesterday evening.”
He was shortly introduced to a young woman from the division who held the appropriate credentials. The look he got from people outside his own battalion on discovering they were talking to the legendary Ky Kiske himself was becoming a familiar one. The look people took on when realising that someone voluntarily read official reports in full was only slightly less so, but he was relatively pleased to note those were the only slips in her professionalism the whole time he spoke with her.
“This would be about the unusual magical surge we picked up?” she guessed before Ky could even broach the subject. But for that point, the expedition had been too unremarkable to attract outside attention.
“That’s correct. Can you tell me anything about it beyond what was in the report?”
“There are a few details,” the tactical officer told him, checking through a report of her own. There was a faint flicker in her attention, likely her wondering whether to read the record verbatim or try to dumb the technical aspects down for the poorly qualified field officer, but from her tone then on she appeared to have gone with something closer to the former. “It was a pulse reading, it rose and dropped away again very quickly, meaning either a surge phenomenon or a fast moving source travelling in and out of our vicinity. To be exact, two pulses were noted in quick succession, but without knowing the cause, we can’t be certain whether that was simply a feedback or timing problem with our instruments. The event took place after dark and during an ongoing volley of heavy spell and canon fire, so there was no reported visual confirmation from anyone at the scene. The closest comparison we could make was to some magical attacks used by Gears in the Megadeath class, but there were none present at the time. Unless it happens again, it’s likely to stay unexplained.”
Coming to the end of her report, she gave him a thoughtful look. “Unless you have an explanation in mind?”
“Ah, nothing more than a hunch,” Ky had to admit. “Nothing I can substantiate usefully. That’s everything in the report?”
“Unless you want specific numbers and graphs of the reading.”
“Too technical for me to make much use of,” admitted Ky, “but please let me know if anything similar occurs in the next few days. I’m grateful for your help.”
It had been too much of a long shot to begin with for Ky to feel too disappointed to have learned nothing to his advantage. He ought to have felt foolish for indulging a whim so far fetched, and yet…
Ky rested a hand on his belt plate, distractedly tracing his fingers over the shape of the shape of the word he’d engraved on it those long months before.
And yet, what else did he have?
***
Officers did not customarily dine with their men; rank granted them grander quarters of their own. However, reaching them without making a long detour around required Ky to pass through the general mess hall, already full of men by the time he arrived for the evening meal.
The sound of Sol’s name being spoken should not have stopped him in his tracks so completely. Sol had been missing then more than twenty-four hours, and it was inevitable that the disappearance of a man so well known, so widely respected and feared, should breed rumour and discussion. However, none of that prepared Ky for what he heard.
“…really gone? Sol-sama himself? And no-one even knows how?” spoke one voice.
“They say he just disappeared in the middle of a battle in a giant ball of flame,” declared another man, voice low with awe.
“I heard he was fighting a giant Gear with teeth as long as you’re tall, and he forced it over a cliff and jumped after it,” offered a third.
“I heard the same,” piped up a fourth, “and that he and the Gear were both enveloped in such a giant burst of flame that they both burnt to ash before they ever reached the ground!”
Ky did not keep his fists from clenching that time. He’d marched up to the table where all four men sat almost before he knew what he was doing. “Just what is the meaning of this?” he demanded.
All four could scarcely have looked more startled had Sol appeared in front of them himself. “K… Ky-sama!” the third spectator stuttered. “But… you must know about the disappearance of Sol-..”
“Sol Badguy is currently listed as missing in action,” Ky informed the men icily, “with no official presumption as to his state or whereabouts, nor any information to support any theory half so wild as the ones I have just heard discussed.”
“But… he can’t have just vanished!” another man argued helplessly. “There must be some explanation why…”
“Do you propose you will be able to uncover it by such idle speculation?” Ky snapped. “Surely any man fit for the Holy Order must have better means to waste his effort than by repeating such ridiculous rumours!”
No-one dared argue further. A chorus of ‘yes sir!’s and ‘sorry sir!’s erupted from all side of the table at once.
As Ky stalked away from them once more, he found all his appetite had left him completely.
By the time he returned to the hallway, exercise was the only remaining activity he could stomach the thought of – preferably the sort prolonged and mind-numbing enough to free him of all useless thought. He would often supervise training sessions with his men around this time of the evening, having long made it his personal goal to improve the swordsmanship of everyone fit to bear arms under his command, but the thought of further company did little to improve his mood. Whether thanks to the time that had passed or the stress or for whatever other reason, the calm he’d had earlier in the day had utterly deserted him now.
Objectively, he knew it was ridiculous to let a few ordinary soldiers reaching the quite reasonable conclusion that Sol must have met his end in some dramatic manner bother him so much. However, what objectivity he’d ever had had deserted him too.
It was never a good idea to try and take out one’s frustration in combat against an opponent. The occasions when he’d allowed himself to fight against Sol while angry had invariably lead to an even swifter and more humiliating defeat than usual. Ky had no need for a sparring partner simply for the purposes of training, however. He had an entire routine of exercises, refined and expanded each year since long before he’d been old enough to join the Order, which he used to keep his sword arm strong and skills sharp even when there might be weeks between encounters with the enemy. The training arena he had made for was deserted that night. He could have it to himself for hours if he needed it.
At the centre of the arena, Ky drew his sword and swung viciously through the opening motions of his routine. Lightning crackled down the length of the blade, harsh and bright. His shoulder still ached dully, but he paid it no mind, and before long he ceased to notice it altogether.
These were exercises so familiar he could execute them with almost no concentration at all. He had mastered this art to the degree that he could perform the most complicated of manoeuvres even in the midst of a life or death battle, when other men would panic and resort to any foolish flailing around with their own weapons. He could size up an opponent within a few moves, could spot a crucial opening a millisecond in duration. Even at his tender age, his skills were held in awe throughout the Order. Few of even the most experienced veterans could defeat him consistently – and Ky was confident that within a few more years of training, few would be able to beat him in even one match out of ten.
Few, but certainly not no-one.
Perhaps he’d never hated Sol quite so much as he did at that moment.
How dare the man even pretend to have met his end when Ky had never yet even come close to defeating him? How could Sol be gone before Ky had ever had the chance to earn his respect?
On his second iteration through his exercises, Ky’s movements became wilder – stronger and less calculated. The electricity which ran down his sword arced out to earth itself further and further away, and yet, it wasn’t until the light around him finally grew so bright that it drowned out even the haze of concentration that had been preventing him from seeing past his own eyes that Ky hesitated long enough to look around himself.
Shining streams of static traced through the air all around him, restored by his own power faster even that it could earth itself, lancing outwards from the tip of his sword. Even once he’d stopped moving altogether, it took several seconds to fade away. Even his own movements had reduced to little more than wild stabbing at the air.
It was quite the most ridiculous waste of power he’d ever seen. It wasn’t like him to lose control like this.
The mental echo of his own voice telling that officer that Sol was only one man sounded more foolish in his own head every time it repeated.
***
Most of that rage had left him by the following morning, lurking only on the edge of his consciousness as an unpleasant reminder of his own behaviour. Today at least he would have the far more pressing distraction of getting a battalion of men back into the air. Whatever else might transpire, the war would still be waiting for them.
The airship had barely made it off the ground a few scant hours later that morning when an alert came in about a new Gear attack. Two large class Gears had appeared on the outskirts of a small rural town only a brief flight away from them. It was an obvious assignment for an undermanned battalion newly cleared for limited duty.
The airship soared away, engines roaring at their maximum power. Even at their fastest speed, there would be no chance of reaching the town before the Gears did. Their best hope would be that evacuations would go smoothly, and that they would arrive before too much damage could be done.
Ky watched from a viewing balcony as his own tactical division monitored both their and the Gears’ progress. Before ten minutes of the flight had elapsed, the Gears were reported to have reached their target. It was little more than frustrating to see an attack unfold in this manner, when so many crucial minutes remained before there would be anything they could do, but the least Ky could do in the meantime was to keep himself informed of developments as they occurred. At least on landing he would be prepared for the worst.
“Magical readings indicate the Gears have commenced their attack,” a man reported from below. “Gears confirmed as type…” he hesitated, staring at the readout in front of him. “Wait… is this correct? They can’t be attacking each other!”
“There are no existing military armaments of any kind at that location,” a woman beside him reported. “No large magical generators. Nothing that should produce that kind of signature.”
Men and women all over the room were looking at each other for any kind of explanation now.
“What else could have intercepted them?” a man wondered aloud, bewildered. “What on earth is going on down there?”
Ky gripped the railing in front of him until it almost cracked under his fingers.
***
When the airship touched down, the smouldering bodies of two large class Gears lay waiting for them on the outskirts of the town. Sitting in front of them, looking faintly pleased with himself even from the airship windows, was Sol. His outer clothes were a shredded mess, even by the usual standards in which he was known to come back from battle. His coat was so badly torn it was literally held together by little more than a few threads; patches so soiled by soot they were almost black. Even the straps on his headband looked like they’d been recently fixed using string, and his hair had come loose to hang around it in even less order than usual. And yet, Sol himself looked as casual and bored as ever.
Of course Ky wanted to know where he’d been – how he’d managed to disappear from battle so completely to reappear again so far away, what on earth he could have been through to leave him in that sort of state. It should have been the least Sol could do to make up for all the grief he’d caused to outline every remotely relevant detail his commanding officer might want to know. But before Ky had even stepped from the gangplank, it was as though every thought he’d had in the last thirty six hours coalesced into the sudden realisation of just how useless it would be to press the man for any more details than he chose to reveal of his own accord. If Ky wanted the luxury of being at all glad they had Sol back, it would be better not to ask at all.
“I suppose you find it amusing to make us come all this way just to pick you up,” he said sharply, as he came to a stop in front of Sol.
“Just doing my job,” Sol replied, uninvested as ever. “Woulda been yours if you’d got here sooner.”
“I assure you, we came as quickly as that inconvenient rule requiring we report to base now and then allowed,” said Ky, meeting Sol’s eye for as long as he could bear. “Will it be any more than a waste of my time to ask what exactly is the meaning of all this?”
“Who knows?” said Sol, getting to his feet and raising his eyes towards the airship. “Fuck, I’m hungry. Any food on that thing?”
The futility of war had nothing on the futility of attempting to extract information from Sol.
Ky followed his subordinate back up the gang plank, amongst muffled gasps from the gathered men at Sol’s appearance. Not one of them dared come close to getting in the way of either of them. Men would surely find the way to spread the tale that Sol had battered his way through an army of a thousand Gears before they’d found him. For all Ky knew, it might be true. As soon as the gangplank had been raised, Ky gave the immediate order to depart.
Precisely how he was supposed to report this incident he had no idea at all.
***
Captain Ky Kiske of the fifth battalion reports the successful destruction of two large class Gears outside the township of Simera. Evacuation of citizens prior to the attack was completed successfully with no associated loss of life or injury. No significant injuries were sustained by any Holy Order personnel. Damage to infrastructure of the township resulting from the attack is reported as minimal. No follow up action is anticipated to be necessary.
In addition, the battalion reports the recovery of one Sol Badguy as a result of the same expedition, and consequently requests that the name of the same individual be removed from the official MIA list immediately.
Message ends.
11:45 AM, 19 March 2173
Anyway, this is also another one of those ones I have to label 'no overt Sol/Ky' - you know the same way the drama CDs have no 'overt' Sol/Ky. >.>
BTW, next on the WIP list right now is the one with Ky and Millia, and I could use someone with a bit more familiarity with Millia's story to lend a hand betaing, if anyone feels like volunteering. (If not, well, it's only a couple of thousand words anyway, so it's probably not worth me losing any sleep over.)
Title: Magma to Ash
Summary: The absence of a certain Sol Badguy from the Order's ranks doesn't actually make Ky's job any simpler.
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 4750
A cold breeze blowing over the battlefield had begun to dissipate the stench of burnt flesh and Gear blood by the time the last of the wounded men and the bodies were being carried back into the airship. A thin trickle of blood was running down Ky’s arm inside his sleeve, sticky and irritating, but it would be hours before anyone from the medical division would have time to waste applying more than the roughest field dressing to such a minor wound. There was still nearly an hour left before sunset, but the sinking sun added something final to the scene. It was high time their attention was turned away from this place.
“How much longer until the enemy reinforcements will reach us?” Ky asked aloud.
The tactical division officer standing by his side answered without so much as a glance at the clipboard in his hands. “Ten minutes at most. We’ve confirmed at least a hundred Gear units, the majority in the large classes.”
“And the casualty report for our own troops?”
“The physical and magical divisions both reported heavy casualties. All survivors are under the care of the medical division now. Final head counts are still underway, however, we don’t believe more than fifteen men will remain unaccounted for…” the man trailed off uncertainly.
“Is there something else?” Ky prompted him.
“Sir…” the officer’s voice shook slightly. “Sol-sama is also unaccounted for…”
Ky managed not to flinch outwardly, although preventing himself from grinding his jaw at the news was beyond him. “Were any of the assaulting force unaccounted for?”
“No sir,” the officer replied quickly, fumbling with his clipboard, glad to have been given a question he could answer rather than be pressed with the much more difficult matter of just how his division could have lost the single most unmistakable soldier in their battalion. “A small contingent attempted to escape along the ridge, but were overtaken by our own men before they could retreat. It is possible some of the smaller classed Gears may have retreated into the forest, however, it was not considered…”
“And the final sweep of all corners of the battlefield has been completed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then we will complete our withdrawal immediately. Inform the airship’s crew we have five minutes to make it back into the air.”
“But… sir!” the officer protested helplessly, then suddenly found himself to be the subject of a piercingly cold blue gaze.
“Sol is one man. To expect the entire battalion to be put at risk on his account is inexcusable. Have we any other reason for further delay?”
“N… no sir!” the officer stammered. “Right away, sir!” With that he turned tail and fled back into the airship.
Ky looked towards the battlefield one last time. The only movement remaining was where the wind was disturbing the grass; even the few fires which had been scattered among the debris had burnt themselves out. The twisted shapes of the remaining Gear bodies in nearby view were uniformly cold and lifeless. There was nothing else in sight worth remaining here for.
Ky turned and made himself walk the whole way up the ramp to the airship without another backward glance.
***
Halfway through the return flight, the official reports from the battlefield began to materialise on his desk. They’d all require individual attention, if he was to collate enough information about what had taken place to produce a report of his own – hours of work, but Ky was in a position to welcome the diversion. The tactical division’s report contained nothing he hadn’t seen before – no evidence the Gears had employed any new tactics or introduced any new breeds or offensive capabilities in their numbers. Casualties in the combat divisions had been regrettable, but not unusually high for a battle of this scale. The report from the medical division (by far the shortest and most perfunctory, as surely its members had better things to be doing at the time) recorded no cases of poison or gas, that treatment of their wounded was proceeding well and a high survival rate was anticipated. The airship’s contingent could be made ready for battle again within hours if the need struck, although they could probably expect to be taken off duty for at least the next twenty-four once they returned to base. In all respects, it had been an unremarkable battle, just another small victory for their side.
The reports included a map of the battlefield and surrounding terrain. This region was long disputed territory, far from any official Order base. Any human settlement nearby would be long deserted. It would be days travel on foot from here to anywhere remotely civilised.
Also included among the assorted papers were names for all the men still officially left unaccounted for. The battle had taken place in a narrow clear strip running between dense woodlands and a steep edged ravine. Most of the missing men were believed to have been lost when two giant Gears, enraged by misdirected spellfire and smoke, had been sent charging blindly over the precipice, sweeping at least one unit of unfortunate soldiers down with them in their wake. Others might still be lying back there, buried underneath the piles of cooling Gear bodies, or have had their own bodies torn or burned beyond all recognition, or been swallowed alive. It was all no more than the usual hazards Ky’s men faced in this war.
Of course, it would be utterly unlike Sol to meet his end in any of those ways. It would be much more like him to have gone charging away in pursuit of some escaping Gear and forgotten to come back.
It would not even be entirely unthinkable that he’d left the Order on little more than a whim and had no intention of returning…
Ky had been staring blankly at the map in front of him for several minutes before he realised he was doing it. What he’d told his officer before had been blatantly untrue. Sol was far more than just one man – he was the single most valuable asset under Ky’s command. He was also perpetually teetering on the edge of becoming more trouble than he was worth.
He badly needed to get started on a report of his own before he let himself become any more distracted. Staring at maps or out through the rear windows of the airship for another half-hour wouldn’t allow him to see anything new.
Reporting might be tedious, but had long ago become routine enough to Ky to give him little difficulty finding the words needed to encapsulate a Captain’s perspective of the progression of the battle. Reports from the divisions under him would cover the rest of the detail. He had to hesitate briefly at the end though, faced with the task of listing the names of any officers lost in battle. It was hard to argue that Sol would qualify – the man had never had the slightest intention of ever rising beyond the rank of an ordinary soldier, and yet, inasmuch as the purpose of the exercise was to report the loss of indispensable personnel…
Ky had gotten as far as the first ‘S’ before he stopped himself and erased the character again. To reduce Sol’s disappearance to a simple name on a form – what was the point of that? Commander Kliff would expect a far better explanation than that if someone of Sol’s calibre – a man he’d personally recruited, no less – was lost, but Ky simply didn’t have one. ‘Missing in action’ [insert time and date] was the only information he was in any position to convey.
It was so very typical of Sol, he thought to himself (not quite noticing the way the drafted report was being unconsciously crumpled into a ball in his hand), to cause these sorts of problems for him.
***
Once they arrived at Headquarters, there were finally medical staff free to apply more than a rough field dressing to the wound on Ky’s arm. The process brought an end to the fairly pleasant numbness he’d been experiencing in that region for the past couple of hours and reminded him anew how badly it had stung when it was fresh, but not even the full attention of the medical staff could find anything wrong with it that would require more than an evening off duty to recuperate (which he’d have had in any case since that was the very least time he could expect his battalion to be taken off duty). Mentioning the pain when asked may have been a mistake, however, for it gave them exactly the excuse they needed to dose him up with painkillers and send him away in a state where he’d have little option but to obey their instructions that he was to engage in nothing more strenuous than a good night’s sleep.
He awoke late the next morning, groggy from oversleeping, to discover the world had provided him with no reason to get up any earlier. The report he’d turned in the previous day had been mundane enough to get him little more than a receipt in reply from his superiors. The update he was sent on the men under his command in the care of the medical division was mostly good news. His battalion would not be returned to even limited duty until the following day. Even Commander Undersn was unavailable to receive any news, being personally engaged in a serious defensive effort after an army of Gears had stormed a key tactical position in northern Russia. That last piece of information only made Ky itch all the more to be back on the battlefield.
It was going to be a long day.
He stopped by the medical wing again mid-morning for a quick check up on his arm, and had the bandages removed to reveal that barely even a mark now remained – they’d done a splendid job of it. In an attempt to ensure he’d done something more useful than brood that morning, on returning to his quarters he sat down and forced himself to read right through the considerable stack of copied reports he’d been delivered regarding other recent engagements along the frontlines of the battle. He learned quickly that the Gear force which had forced his battalion’s speedy retreat had advanced no further into Order-patrolled territory. The reports from Russia did little but elaborate on the details he’d already heard regarding the Commander’s absence. Most of the remainder were discouragingly familiar – minor skirmishes for the possession of land along borders which had been pushed back and forth by the enemy sides in increments of a few miles at a time for more months than he cared to remember. He could perhaps have occupied himself for a while by plotting out his own strategies for the capture or defence of those areas – the intellectual exercise of spotting where mistakes had been made or opportunities missed – but the knowledge of how futile that was in the larger scheme would only frustrate him, and he had enough useless frustration to bother him already today.
There was one report from an aerial engagement with Gear forces which had taken place only few hours after and several dozen miles away from the battlefield Ky had left the previous day. What caught his eye was a minor detail, an enormous magical pulse recorded mid-battle. The tactical division had attempted to attribute it to Gear weaponry, and failed, then tried to attribute it to colliding magical fire with the same result, and finally considered the possibility the reading had been an error to begin with, but found nothing to suggest it could have been anything but genuine. Eventually, they were only able to recommend that the reading be recorded for comparative purposes in the event any similar phenomena might ever be observed again. It was an uninspiring sort of mystery, with so little clue to its source, but Ky caught himself beginning to reread the whole report for the third time before he stopped himself and made himself go out for a walk instead.
His ‘walk’ quite innocently took him halfway to the tactical division’s wing before he gave in to the inevitable. If he didn’t ask, he’d only spend the remainder of the day wondering about what he might have learned.
The man at the main desk sat up to attention sharply when he spotted Ky coming in. The presence of anyone of that rank here would usually mean some kind of important official business.
“Just a minor point of curiousity,” Ky assured the man quickly, reminded anew just how much he was grasping at straws by pursuing this at all. “Provided it won’t interrupt any more pressing duties, I’d like to speak to someone from the fourth battalion regarding their report submitted after the engagement yesterday evening.”
He was shortly introduced to a young woman from the division who held the appropriate credentials. The look he got from people outside his own battalion on discovering they were talking to the legendary Ky Kiske himself was becoming a familiar one. The look people took on when realising that someone voluntarily read official reports in full was only slightly less so, but he was relatively pleased to note those were the only slips in her professionalism the whole time he spoke with her.
“This would be about the unusual magical surge we picked up?” she guessed before Ky could even broach the subject. But for that point, the expedition had been too unremarkable to attract outside attention.
“That’s correct. Can you tell me anything about it beyond what was in the report?”
“There are a few details,” the tactical officer told him, checking through a report of her own. There was a faint flicker in her attention, likely her wondering whether to read the record verbatim or try to dumb the technical aspects down for the poorly qualified field officer, but from her tone then on she appeared to have gone with something closer to the former. “It was a pulse reading, it rose and dropped away again very quickly, meaning either a surge phenomenon or a fast moving source travelling in and out of our vicinity. To be exact, two pulses were noted in quick succession, but without knowing the cause, we can’t be certain whether that was simply a feedback or timing problem with our instruments. The event took place after dark and during an ongoing volley of heavy spell and canon fire, so there was no reported visual confirmation from anyone at the scene. The closest comparison we could make was to some magical attacks used by Gears in the Megadeath class, but there were none present at the time. Unless it happens again, it’s likely to stay unexplained.”
Coming to the end of her report, she gave him a thoughtful look. “Unless you have an explanation in mind?”
“Ah, nothing more than a hunch,” Ky had to admit. “Nothing I can substantiate usefully. That’s everything in the report?”
“Unless you want specific numbers and graphs of the reading.”
“Too technical for me to make much use of,” admitted Ky, “but please let me know if anything similar occurs in the next few days. I’m grateful for your help.”
It had been too much of a long shot to begin with for Ky to feel too disappointed to have learned nothing to his advantage. He ought to have felt foolish for indulging a whim so far fetched, and yet…
Ky rested a hand on his belt plate, distractedly tracing his fingers over the shape of the shape of the word he’d engraved on it those long months before.
And yet, what else did he have?
***
Officers did not customarily dine with their men; rank granted them grander quarters of their own. However, reaching them without making a long detour around required Ky to pass through the general mess hall, already full of men by the time he arrived for the evening meal.
The sound of Sol’s name being spoken should not have stopped him in his tracks so completely. Sol had been missing then more than twenty-four hours, and it was inevitable that the disappearance of a man so well known, so widely respected and feared, should breed rumour and discussion. However, none of that prepared Ky for what he heard.
“…really gone? Sol-sama himself? And no-one even knows how?” spoke one voice.
“They say he just disappeared in the middle of a battle in a giant ball of flame,” declared another man, voice low with awe.
“I heard he was fighting a giant Gear with teeth as long as you’re tall, and he forced it over a cliff and jumped after it,” offered a third.
“I heard the same,” piped up a fourth, “and that he and the Gear were both enveloped in such a giant burst of flame that they both burnt to ash before they ever reached the ground!”
Ky did not keep his fists from clenching that time. He’d marched up to the table where all four men sat almost before he knew what he was doing. “Just what is the meaning of this?” he demanded.
All four could scarcely have looked more startled had Sol appeared in front of them himself. “K… Ky-sama!” the third spectator stuttered. “But… you must know about the disappearance of Sol-..”
“Sol Badguy is currently listed as missing in action,” Ky informed the men icily, “with no official presumption as to his state or whereabouts, nor any information to support any theory half so wild as the ones I have just heard discussed.”
“But… he can’t have just vanished!” another man argued helplessly. “There must be some explanation why…”
“Do you propose you will be able to uncover it by such idle speculation?” Ky snapped. “Surely any man fit for the Holy Order must have better means to waste his effort than by repeating such ridiculous rumours!”
No-one dared argue further. A chorus of ‘yes sir!’s and ‘sorry sir!’s erupted from all side of the table at once.
As Ky stalked away from them once more, he found all his appetite had left him completely.
By the time he returned to the hallway, exercise was the only remaining activity he could stomach the thought of – preferably the sort prolonged and mind-numbing enough to free him of all useless thought. He would often supervise training sessions with his men around this time of the evening, having long made it his personal goal to improve the swordsmanship of everyone fit to bear arms under his command, but the thought of further company did little to improve his mood. Whether thanks to the time that had passed or the stress or for whatever other reason, the calm he’d had earlier in the day had utterly deserted him now.
Objectively, he knew it was ridiculous to let a few ordinary soldiers reaching the quite reasonable conclusion that Sol must have met his end in some dramatic manner bother him so much. However, what objectivity he’d ever had had deserted him too.
It was never a good idea to try and take out one’s frustration in combat against an opponent. The occasions when he’d allowed himself to fight against Sol while angry had invariably lead to an even swifter and more humiliating defeat than usual. Ky had no need for a sparring partner simply for the purposes of training, however. He had an entire routine of exercises, refined and expanded each year since long before he’d been old enough to join the Order, which he used to keep his sword arm strong and skills sharp even when there might be weeks between encounters with the enemy. The training arena he had made for was deserted that night. He could have it to himself for hours if he needed it.
At the centre of the arena, Ky drew his sword and swung viciously through the opening motions of his routine. Lightning crackled down the length of the blade, harsh and bright. His shoulder still ached dully, but he paid it no mind, and before long he ceased to notice it altogether.
These were exercises so familiar he could execute them with almost no concentration at all. He had mastered this art to the degree that he could perform the most complicated of manoeuvres even in the midst of a life or death battle, when other men would panic and resort to any foolish flailing around with their own weapons. He could size up an opponent within a few moves, could spot a crucial opening a millisecond in duration. Even at his tender age, his skills were held in awe throughout the Order. Few of even the most experienced veterans could defeat him consistently – and Ky was confident that within a few more years of training, few would be able to beat him in even one match out of ten.
Few, but certainly not no-one.
Perhaps he’d never hated Sol quite so much as he did at that moment.
How dare the man even pretend to have met his end when Ky had never yet even come close to defeating him? How could Sol be gone before Ky had ever had the chance to earn his respect?
On his second iteration through his exercises, Ky’s movements became wilder – stronger and less calculated. The electricity which ran down his sword arced out to earth itself further and further away, and yet, it wasn’t until the light around him finally grew so bright that it drowned out even the haze of concentration that had been preventing him from seeing past his own eyes that Ky hesitated long enough to look around himself.
Shining streams of static traced through the air all around him, restored by his own power faster even that it could earth itself, lancing outwards from the tip of his sword. Even once he’d stopped moving altogether, it took several seconds to fade away. Even his own movements had reduced to little more than wild stabbing at the air.
It was quite the most ridiculous waste of power he’d ever seen. It wasn’t like him to lose control like this.
The mental echo of his own voice telling that officer that Sol was only one man sounded more foolish in his own head every time it repeated.
***
Most of that rage had left him by the following morning, lurking only on the edge of his consciousness as an unpleasant reminder of his own behaviour. Today at least he would have the far more pressing distraction of getting a battalion of men back into the air. Whatever else might transpire, the war would still be waiting for them.
The airship had barely made it off the ground a few scant hours later that morning when an alert came in about a new Gear attack. Two large class Gears had appeared on the outskirts of a small rural town only a brief flight away from them. It was an obvious assignment for an undermanned battalion newly cleared for limited duty.
The airship soared away, engines roaring at their maximum power. Even at their fastest speed, there would be no chance of reaching the town before the Gears did. Their best hope would be that evacuations would go smoothly, and that they would arrive before too much damage could be done.
Ky watched from a viewing balcony as his own tactical division monitored both their and the Gears’ progress. Before ten minutes of the flight had elapsed, the Gears were reported to have reached their target. It was little more than frustrating to see an attack unfold in this manner, when so many crucial minutes remained before there would be anything they could do, but the least Ky could do in the meantime was to keep himself informed of developments as they occurred. At least on landing he would be prepared for the worst.
“Magical readings indicate the Gears have commenced their attack,” a man reported from below. “Gears confirmed as type…” he hesitated, staring at the readout in front of him. “Wait… is this correct? They can’t be attacking each other!”
“There are no existing military armaments of any kind at that location,” a woman beside him reported. “No large magical generators. Nothing that should produce that kind of signature.”
Men and women all over the room were looking at each other for any kind of explanation now.
“What else could have intercepted them?” a man wondered aloud, bewildered. “What on earth is going on down there?”
Ky gripped the railing in front of him until it almost cracked under his fingers.
***
When the airship touched down, the smouldering bodies of two large class Gears lay waiting for them on the outskirts of the town. Sitting in front of them, looking faintly pleased with himself even from the airship windows, was Sol. His outer clothes were a shredded mess, even by the usual standards in which he was known to come back from battle. His coat was so badly torn it was literally held together by little more than a few threads; patches so soiled by soot they were almost black. Even the straps on his headband looked like they’d been recently fixed using string, and his hair had come loose to hang around it in even less order than usual. And yet, Sol himself looked as casual and bored as ever.
Of course Ky wanted to know where he’d been – how he’d managed to disappear from battle so completely to reappear again so far away, what on earth he could have been through to leave him in that sort of state. It should have been the least Sol could do to make up for all the grief he’d caused to outline every remotely relevant detail his commanding officer might want to know. But before Ky had even stepped from the gangplank, it was as though every thought he’d had in the last thirty six hours coalesced into the sudden realisation of just how useless it would be to press the man for any more details than he chose to reveal of his own accord. If Ky wanted the luxury of being at all glad they had Sol back, it would be better not to ask at all.
“I suppose you find it amusing to make us come all this way just to pick you up,” he said sharply, as he came to a stop in front of Sol.
“Just doing my job,” Sol replied, uninvested as ever. “Woulda been yours if you’d got here sooner.”
“I assure you, we came as quickly as that inconvenient rule requiring we report to base now and then allowed,” said Ky, meeting Sol’s eye for as long as he could bear. “Will it be any more than a waste of my time to ask what exactly is the meaning of all this?”
“Who knows?” said Sol, getting to his feet and raising his eyes towards the airship. “Fuck, I’m hungry. Any food on that thing?”
The futility of war had nothing on the futility of attempting to extract information from Sol.
Ky followed his subordinate back up the gang plank, amongst muffled gasps from the gathered men at Sol’s appearance. Not one of them dared come close to getting in the way of either of them. Men would surely find the way to spread the tale that Sol had battered his way through an army of a thousand Gears before they’d found him. For all Ky knew, it might be true. As soon as the gangplank had been raised, Ky gave the immediate order to depart.
Precisely how he was supposed to report this incident he had no idea at all.
***
Captain Ky Kiske of the fifth battalion reports the successful destruction of two large class Gears outside the township of Simera. Evacuation of citizens prior to the attack was completed successfully with no associated loss of life or injury. No significant injuries were sustained by any Holy Order personnel. Damage to infrastructure of the township resulting from the attack is reported as minimal. No follow up action is anticipated to be necessary.
In addition, the battalion reports the recovery of one Sol Badguy as a result of the same expedition, and consequently requests that the name of the same individual be removed from the official MIA list immediately.
Message ends.
11:45 AM, 19 March 2173
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2008-02-14 12:42 am (UTC)Aw, thanks, it's really nice to hear my style works for people that well. <3
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Date: 2008-02-13 09:19 pm (UTC)Only, I think you should changed the "-sama" to something English, because the Holy Order probably doesn't use Japanese as its main language (especially considering how Japan and most of its people got wiped out). :O French or English would be my guess -- maybe "Commander" instead, or something?
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Date: 2008-02-13 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-14 12:08 am (UTC)Only, I think you should changed the "-sama" to something English, because the Holy Order probably doesn't use Japanese as its main language (especially considering how Japan and most of its people got wiped out). :O French or English would be my guess -- maybe "Commander" instead, or something?
Seems to be a bit of a sticking point with a few people. ^^; You're right about it being an English speaking society, but it's probably a case of me trying a bit too hard to stay true to some of the subtleties of how they're referred to in the drama CDs. Ky and Sol are both referred to with '-sama' by the other men, and though Ky does occasionally get referred to by his rank, it seems to be something used only in more specific situations (and even then it's still 'Captain Ky' or 'Commander Ky' rather than 'Captain Kiske', which is pretty odd in itself). The other problem is that I find it very telling that the suffixes imply Sol gets just as much respect as Ky despite the fact he's got no official rank whatsoever, and you'd lose that completely if you stuck to referring to characters by rank instead. :/
Or maybe it's just a case where I've written too much fic for FMA (just as clearly an English-speaking world) and failed so completely getting Al to refer to his brother as anything other than 'nii-san' that I gave up in disgust at getting the last of those pesky little Japanese-y bits out of the text. ^^; Funny how conventions like that vary from fandom to fandom. If it's bothering this many people though, I probably should see if I can come up with something different for future use.
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Date: 2008-02-15 11:04 am (UTC)I understand that the suffixes just can't be translated, but it always seems a bit jarring to me when I read translations, particularly when it's not set in Japan. I kind of think translations should be accessible to every single person reading it, even if he or she has no prior knowledge of the original language.
In the case of your fic, I think "Sir" is a good alternative, or "captain." For the extra formality, you could probably use "Kiske" instead of "Ky," since it IS a western society and that's how people would usually be addressed. I personally feel it's acceptable to adapt things like this to fit the culture it's intended for? Because yeah, "Commander Ky" sounds kind of weird in a military setting. Then again: the last names in Guilty Gear can get kind of awful.... "Sir Badguy" is just kind of UMMM.
In the case of making the report, instead of "Sol-sama" or "Sir Sol" (which really could be misconstrued as stuttering), I think the guy could just have used Sol's full name. "Sol Badguy is also missing." It's more formal than just his first name, but doesn't sound as out-of-place (to me) as "Sol-sama".
As far as acceptance of Japanese honorifics go: I think it's also the difference in medium. For the most part, the GG fandom is limited to the video games unless we really want to make an effort. Video game translations, in general, remove all honorifics, so the fans won't be familiar with them. In contrast, because anime keeps the Japanese audio and a lot of fansubbers (or even official subbers, nowadays) like to keep honorifics, the viewer gets used to them.
(I realize that GG has Japanese audio, but the translations don't. I'm also not sure how often honorifics are actually used, but I'm willing to bet it's marginally less than in a standard-length anime, especially since it's a fighting game. Not counting that new one.)
;) Just my two cents.
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Date: 2008-02-17 06:34 am (UTC)I kind of think translations should be accessible to every single person reading it, even if he or she has no prior knowledge of the original language.
That would certainly be true for dubs and official translations, but I'd say it's a rather different case with fan translations. The fact is, there *are* so many cases where it becomes an important plot point whether a character refers to another with '-chan' or '-san' or no suffix at all, and when it's a translation being done just by fans for fans, it quickly becomes much easier to assume the audience does know the difference (or to leave a couple of quick plot notes in the intro at most) rather than go through the ugly business of trying to substitute in character calling each other 'little so-and-so' or whatever you have to do to force it into English.
And then you have what I'm doing here, which is writing fanfic which doesn't even have much to do with events in the main games - instead it's inspired largely by material from an obscure set of drama CDs for which there are only fan-translations available, and that translator (who I have every reason to believe has a much better understanding of what titles would be appropriate in translation than I do) left in the '-sama's as they were. It's what I'm used to seeing used, and so I was working on the assumption most of my audience would be in the same position. ...actually, I exaggerate - I didn't even give it that much thought. Really, as I said before, I'm so used to seeing the odd bit of awkwardly untranslatable Japanese creeping into even fanfic set in arguably English-speaking universes that it was a bit surprising to find out there was a good chunk of my audience that might see things differently in this case.
...wow, that got a bit rambly, sorry about that. ^^; It's not really that big an issue, and even I wouldn't want to see any more throwaway Japanese showing up in fic than there absolutely needs to be. But I hope you see where I've been coming from.
Then again: the last names in Guilty Gear can get kind of awful.... "Sir Badguy" is just kind of UMMM.
Yeah, that would be another problem. ^^; Fortunately, 'Sir' is usually applied to someone's first name, and last names in GG seem to get conveniently fogotten even at the best of times. I've rambled on a bit about the issues and/or potential points of amusement I hit trying to call Sol 'Sir Sol' further down this post, so I think I'll pass on repeating them all here when I've already rambled on so long. Anyway, the long and short of it is that it's clear a lot of the people reading would be more comfortable with me substituting in English terms, and I'll definitely keep that in mind if I run into the same kinds of titles in my writing for this fandom in future.
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Date: 2008-02-13 09:43 pm (UTC)I really liked the way you've deipicted the days of the Order ^_^
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Date: 2008-02-14 12:36 am (UTC)I really liked the way you've deipicted the days of the Order ^_^
Glad to hear it. ^_^ Canon shows us so little of that era that you have to invent and infer a lot to fill in all the gaps, and in the end you mostly just have to hope that your interpretation will work for other people too. ^^;
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Date: 2008-02-13 10:07 pm (UTC)BAIT
♥
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Date: 2008-02-14 12:40 am (UTC)yet. And who knows what the age of consent might be in the GG-verse anyway. >.>no subject
Date: 2008-02-13 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-14 12:54 am (UTC)But I'm glad you enjoyed it other than that. =D As I said at the top, it was a very enjoyable image to play with.
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Date: 2008-02-13 11:16 pm (UTC)The only thing I'm having a bit of trouble with is the use of -sama, as others have already pointed out, I believe. It just seems strange to keep the suffixes, even though they're in the dramas. It makes it seem like the characters are really speaking Japanese to each other, which I'm not sure I buy. Inventing a rank would've worked better for me. Uh. Sorry if this sounds mean, because I totally don't want it to. >__>"
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Date: 2008-02-14 01:06 am (UTC)I'd better point you up-thread for stuff on the suffix issue (or I'm only going to wind up rambling again, though it's sort of fascinating what you do and don't get away with in different fandoms sometimes, given that I've been critised for leaving out the '-san' type stuff in some of my fic in the past. ^^;)
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Date: 2008-02-14 03:06 pm (UTC)*nods* Your explanation sounds entirely reasonable, and I can definitely see where you're coming from. I often have to hold myself back with some of the Japanese-language fandoms, as well--those suffixes just hold an amount and form of respect us Westeners can't really express with language, and I know it seems lacking if one has to go back to using the usual "Sir" or "Commander".
given that I've been critised for leaving out the '-san' type stuff in some of my fic in the past. ^^;
Wow, that's certainly news to me. I admit I look at the Japanese suffixes from a translation point of view--whatever can be transposed in some manner or form without requiring ridiculous lengths of explanation or imagination, I try to transpose. I admit I give some leeway when a fandom is set in Japan or if a character is of Japanese origin, though of course your view on that might be a different one. And it is not a major issue by any means... just a little something that made me blink and tilt my head a bit. Like I said, it's a retarded nitpick, and it definitely doesn't dampen my enjoyment of the story. ^^
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Date: 2008-02-15 12:45 am (UTC)I think the matter of suffixes is probably more just one of those conventions that settle in in some fandoms and not in others - maybe more so if (as you say) it's obviously a Japanese speaking environment. Kind of a matter of what people do or don't wind up getting used to seeing in early fic or in the subtitles of whatever fansubber gets around first, or whatever else starts it. There are a lot of times when whether a character refers to another as '-san' or '-kun' or whatever that does mean a lot in ways that there just isn't an English equivalent for - to the point that I've even seen the odd official English translated manga that leaves them in. Then you've got people like me who pick up enough Japanese that before long they wind up grumbling about how impossible it is to find phrases in English that have the same effect as 'shaanee na' or 'fusakeruna' - nevermind the really impossible ones like those pesky suffixes, and it all winds up very confused. ^^;
Hrm, maybe I could get 'Sir Sol' to work if I took it as being a title he probably isn't very keen on either thanks to all those knighthood implications, but the men keep on using anyway because it's a Holy Order convention and they don't have anything better, and they've got show him some kind of respect because the alternative is unthinkable. Erg... but then that would turn that first line into “Sir…” the officer’s voice shook slightly. “Sir Sol is also unaccounted for…” and then instead of him addressing Ky as 'Sir' first it just sounds like he's stuttering with Sol's title. XD; I just can't win.
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Date: 2008-02-15 12:45 pm (UTC)Poor Ky. XD He'd develop one of those terrible headaches before long from desking himself whenever the subject threatens to arise in his mind.
Then you've got people like me who pick up enough Japanese that before long they wind up grumbling about how impossible it is to find phrases in English that have the same effect as 'shaanee na' or 'fusakeruna' - nevermind the really impossible ones like those pesky suffixes, and it all winds up very confused. ^^;
Geez, don't I know it. Lamento is the same way--there are phrases/monikers you just can't translate very well, like "Shironekochan" or the ever lovely "ero-neko"; they sound flat and downright weird in English, and trust me when I say that I'm absolutely not happy with having to stick to "pervert cat". It's just... blah. Not the same.
*patpatpat* You just do what you think is right. :)
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Date: 2008-02-16 01:49 am (UTC)Oh yeah. >< English equivalents of stuff like that come out so awkward that I find myself translating them back into Japanese when I run into them just so they'll make sense (especially when it is just the kind of nickname that's so specific to the characters or the world that there's no reason it should make sense to outsiders anyway). And this would be why I watch all my anime subtitled and buy nearly all my manga in Japanese - you just lose so much in translation otherwise even if they do do a good job.
*patpatpat* You just do what you think is right. :)
Sounds nice in theory, but in practice, I'm probably better off going with what won't put my readers off. There's no real right or wrong in fanfic, and when it is mostly just an issue of personal interpretation, I'm only going to look silly and defensive if I make too much of it. ^^;
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Date: 2008-02-14 09:56 pm (UTC)The words you present and the ideas they convey are always wonderful. Excellent writing as always, Rallama-san! =D
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Date: 2008-02-15 12:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-25 12:11 am (UTC)I loved the fic! Sol is such an apathetic ass. X3
It's great to see some action in the gg fandom. Seems like I used to know a lot of people who were fans, but not anymore... :/ I hope you feel inspired to write more!
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Date: 2008-02-25 03:14 am (UTC)Seems like I used to know a lot of people who were fans, but not anymore... :/
Yeah, I guess it comes from there being basically no new story to have come out since the GGXX days (excluding Overture, but that turned out to be more confusing than anything else and hasn't had an English language release in any case, so it hardly even counts). Maybe we can hope that when AC+ comes out it'll liven things up again.
I hope you feel inspired to write more!
Nothing to worry about there. ^_^ I've already written a fair bit for this fandom (all listed under here (http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=rallamajoop&keyword=My+fic+-+Guilty+Gear&filter=all) if you're interested) and I've got plenty fic more in the works right now too.
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Date: 2008-02-25 03:28 am (UTC)Even though there's no new story, I dunno...I still love the universe. Overture seems too weird to really count as the same universe.
Woooo fic! I'll be happy to read it!
I have to admit I am a big Ky fangirl and will read anything with him in it. ^^;
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Date: 2008-02-25 04:51 am (UTC)Sometimes makes me write new stuff faster too. *cough*Even though there's no new story, I dunno...I still love the universe.
Oh, me too, but I'm still relatively new to the fandom. It's not too surprising to find out that people who've been fans since GGXX came out have gotten bored waiting for a continuation and moved on to other things, even if it is such a shame a world as awesome as the GG one doesn't get more attention.
Overture seems too weird to really count as the same universe.
Probably because it is all set in some weird AU version of the GG world. And, I mean, I often like AUs usually, just not when they're marketed as part of the main world and only turn out to be AU when you're halfway through. *sigh*
I have to admit I am a big Ky fangirl and will read anything with him in it. ^^;
Well, you'd be in luck then, because I think I've written, oh, maybe one fic ever which didn't feature him in some major role. XD Needless to say, you're not the only Ky fangirl around here.
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Date: 2008-02-26 03:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-26 05:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-26 12:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-30 06:15 pm (UTC)As much as I love Sol/Ky, I must admit that I usually kinda prefer them not to be "together" in the War timeline, since technically Ky is about 15 and Sol is about 200 and it makes me just a tad uncomfortable. So, the whole "they clearly care for each other a lot but it's nothing physical yet but it put the basis for potential future sexiness" is perfect to me :)
The other problem is that I find it very telling that the suffixes imply Sol gets just as much respect as Ky despite the fact he's got no official rank whatsoever, and you'd lose that completely if you stuck to referring to characters by rank instead. :/
Out of curiosity, how do you know that Sol has got no official rank whatsoever? I mean, we know that Ky is his superior officer, but Ky is a captain, so couldn't Sol be a sergeant or a lieutenant or something?
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Date: 2009-05-03 02:06 pm (UTC)As much as I love Sol/Ky, I must admit that I usually kinda prefer them not to be "together" in the War timeline, since technically Ky is about 15 and Sol is about 200 and it makes me just a tad uncomfortable. So, the whole "they clearly care for each other a lot but it's nothing physical yet but it put the basis for potential future sexiness" is perfect to me :)
I know what you mean. (I'm personally not too bothered by war era Sol/Ky, mostly on the logic that there's actually just enough wiggle room in the timeline for Ky to have made it to eighteen a little before the war ended, plus he'd have to be unnaturally mature for his age to be leading an army at all, and even if anything did happen between them it obviously wasn't anything stable or lasting - but the younger Ky is portrayed, the more iffy it gets). But as I'm sure you can tell, "they clearly care for each other a lot but it's nothing physical yet but it put the basis for potential future sexiness" is something I really love exploring too. ^_^
Out of curiosity, how do you know that Sol has got no official rank whatsoever? I mean, we know that Ky is his superior officer, but Ky is a captain, so couldn't Sol be a sergeant or a lieutenant or something?
Well, I've read pretty much everything canon has ever told us about the war (even translated some of my own (http://community.livejournal.com/guilty_gear/258224.html) once or twice), and if Sol had had any kind of rank, I'm pretty sure it would have been referred to somewhere. In particular, Ky gets referred to specifically as 'Captain' several times in the Side Red/Side Black drama CDs, whereas no-one ever mentions Sol having any kind of rank - and he's such a complete disciplinary nightmare to his superiors that it's pretty hard to imagine him ever being promoted. At the same time it's pretty obvious that most of the other men are so scared of him they'd probably treat his orders like an officer's, and Ky obviously thinks he'd make a good Commander if the need arose, but outside of that everything implies he's just an ordinary soldier - albeit one with some pretty extraordinary skills.
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Date: 2009-05-03 08:16 pm (UTC)Is it just a lazy non-canon mistake (they didn't feel like making a brand-new sprite with Ky wielding a different sword and using less powerful moves; would make sense, since their teenager Ky looks exactly like the adult Ky), or did Sol really steal the Fireseal after Ky had already become leader of the Order?
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Date: 2009-05-04 12:29 am (UTC)Someone must have been a bit confused about that one. The reality is that Kliff retired from the position of Commander, but he went on fighting with the Order until the end of the war. The AC+ ending isn't the only scene that shows him doing this either - he also took part in the very last battle with Justice, which was obviously well after Ky had taken over.
The writers do get a little lazy with who's using which weapon when from time to time, there's been the odd piece of artwork of Ky with the Fuuraiken before he should have been made commander, and of Sol with the Fuuenken before he left the Order, but at least in *this* case it makes canonical sense.
(If you have any other questions, feel free to shoot them my way!)
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Date: 2009-05-04 04:57 pm (UTC)1)So, to make this absolutely clear: first Ky becomes Commander of the Order and receives the Thunderseal, then Sol steals the Fireseal and leaves the Order, then Sol defeats Justice, and immediately after Ky arrives and seals her away. Right?
2)Another thing that confuses me: after stealing the Fireseal, is Sol a wanted criminal or not? Because, even ignoring Ky's unwillingness to arrest him (sure, Ky chases him, but it seems like he only does that to ask for a duel, not to take him to jail), it seems like nobody else ever even tries to arrest Sol. We never see Sol chased by cops or bounty hunters or anything. Heck, Sol himself is a bounty hunter, how could he cash in the bounties if he himself is wanted? Wouldn't they try to arrest him the moment he walks in the police station?
3)And about Ky's age. All his bios I've read state that he met Kliff when he was 10, was told to come back 5 years later, did so, and joined the Order. Meaning that he would have to be about 15 when he joined the Order. So why do so many fans say that he was already in the Order at 13?
Ok, he was already a Captain in the Battle of Rome, which took place 2 years before Justice was sealed away, when he was supposedly 16. But Ky's birthday is in November, and the 5 years could be 4 years and ten months or something like that. You could say that he joined the Order when he was 14 years and ten months old, took a couple of months or so to get promoted to Captain (it's a ludicrously short time, but it's not like GG has a particularly realistic timeline anyway, and if they are willing to give the leadership of the Order to a kid who has only been part of it for less than a couple of years, might as well make him a Captain after a couple of months), turned 15 in November 2173, and fought the Battle of Rome in December 2173. That way he would still be 15 in 2174 and 16 in 2175.
It takes some fanwanking, but it's not impossible. And even if you say that he was 17-18 in 2175, that would make him actually even older than 14-15 in the Battle of Rome, certainly not 13. I don't understand where the "Ky was in the Order at 13" thing comes from.
4)Five years pass from the moment Sol leaves the Order to the first Guilty Gear game. Is it ever stated in canon if Sol and Ky ever see each other during those five years, or are we left to assume that the first GG game is the first time Ky and Sol meet since Sol left the Order?
5)Finally, I found this two pictures, which supposedly come from Ky's and Sol's fourth ending in GGX+.
http://www.guiltygear.ru/images/gallery/ggxplus_sm_ky4.jpg
http://www.guiltygear.ru/images/gallery/ggxplus_sm_so4.jpg
But, according to the GameFAQs Guide I read, there is no fourth ending for Ky and Sol, both of them only get three endings. So what's with the two pictures above?
Again, I realize I ask a lot of questions, and it can be annoying. So, if you don't feel like replying, plese just ignore this comment ^^
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Date: 2009-05-05 04:04 am (UTC)1) That's about the size of it. If you want more detail on how Justice was defeated and sealed, you should be able to find the text from her story mode in XX on GameFAQs, and from memory there were some story mode videos on youtube too.
2) Good question, actually. This is one of those things canon never goes into a lot of detail about, but the impression I get is that Sol is very much a wanted criminal, but so dangerous that your average IPF officer would be insane to try to take him down. For Ky, though it's partially my own interpretation, I get the impression that the fact Sol's a wanted man is mostly just an excuse for him to track him down, whereas the reality is that personal issues between them (Sol leaving the Order and effectively betraying him, plus his own need to have Sol acknowledge him in combat) are a bigger part of what's driving him. Perhaps more to the point, there aren't any other IPF officers who are playable in the games, and Bridget's the only other bounty hunter, so there isn't much opportunity to bring it up.
Very little about Sol's bounty hunting is ever covered in the games, though in the Lightning the Argent novel, there's a scene where Ky is going through a list of bounties that have been turned in recently and finds one claimed under the name of 'Anonymous' and instantly guesses it was Sol, so I presume that's Sol's usual way of turning state-sanctioned bounties in. Whether the way the system works allows Sol to turn bounties in without giving people any idea who he is, or whether the officials are simply willing to turn a blind eye to criminals taking money for hunting down other criminals, I can only guess. In Lightning the Argent we do also hear that Sol's going after a bounty that some unnamed party has put on the head of a wealthy man (who was, as it turned out, one of the badguys, though the government didn't seem to know this), so it sounds like he may also make a decent amount of his living by taking private jobs.
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Date: 2009-05-06 10:41 pm (UTC)1)I could find the Story Mode of Order Sol and Justice, they were very useful to fit the pieces together.
But, I couldn't find the Kliff Story Mode anywhere...
It appears that, in its ending, Kliff is training a yet-to-become-Captain Ky (he is not wielding the Thunderseal), so it looks interesting.
http://www.guiltygear.ru/images/gallery/ggxxacplus_sm_kl1.jpg
On the other hand, that "Ky" is wearing green, not blue, so he might not be Ky after all.
...Sometimes I think Ishiwatari is confusing us on purpose.
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Date: 2009-05-14 04:38 am (UTC)That may or may not be Ky, I'm not actually familiar enough with the AC+ story mode to know. Since we've got no idea what the different colours of the uniforms mean, that may well be the uniform Ky wore before he was promoted to Captain, though for all I know it's just as likely it's just some other random blond guy.
Continued - broke the comment character limit
Date: 2009-05-05 04:11 am (UTC)We do know that Ky was 16 when he was made Commander, and that he wasn't yet Commander in 2173, so he couldn't have been more than 16 at that time. A lot of people seem to assume that he was still 16 and fairly newly promoted at the time of Justice's defeat (and I think that's where the assumption he was as young as 13 when he joined comes from), though there's nothing I've seen in any of his bios that definitively states this. So from that, he could have been promoted to Commander any time between 2173 (Battle of Rome) and 2175 (end of the war), meaning he was at least 16 and at most 18 in 2175, and therefore would have then been between 21 and 23 in 2180 (Guilty Gear 1), and between 22 and 24 in 2181 (Guilty Gear X and XX).
The one number we *do* get out of the manga says that when Ky first met Kliff was 15 years before present day events. The manga is set sometime between GG and GGX (2180 or 81), so that would mean Ky could have been anywhere between the ages 6-9 at that time, and if he did join the Order five years later, then that would put him somewhere in the range 11-14. For the good of my own sanity, I prefer to put him closer to the oldest end of that range.
Of course, that's all assuming that the writers have a definite answer in mind at all and haven't just been making up numbers as they go along. Given the number of inconsistencies in the rest of the series, that may not be such a safe bet.
My personal theory is that he's within a few months of being made Commander at the time of the Battle of Rome, since it's clear that he already knows he's going to get that promotion by that point (otherwise, why would he have asked Sol to take over the job from him when he didn't even *have* it yet?), so Kliff must be well on the way to retirement. This also has the advantage of making Ky as old as the timeline allows, but there's nothing really definitive to say either way.
I hope all that blather answered your question, it's unfortunately about the shortest answer I've got. ^^;
4) It's specifically stated in GG1 that they haven't seen each other since the war.
5) In GGX+, there were a few images that turned up midway through the story modes. Those two would be a couple of examples of that.
Re: Continued - broke the comment character limit
Date: 2009-05-06 11:20 pm (UTC)Like, in the Devil May Cry Fandom, it's generally acknowledged that Dante is 28 in DMC1 and 18-19 in DMC3, despite the fact that his age is not stated anywhere in canon. That's because the director and producer of the series stated those ages in a couple of interviews. But because those interviews are very old, it's pretty much impossible to find them now. So, newbies are told by vets that Dante is 28 in DMC1 and 18-19 in DMC3, even though there is no official source to check for that.
The "met Kliff at 10, joined at 15" thing is so common, so well-known, something at least semi-official must have started it. I'd definitely say, either an interview, or at least a spoken answer to fannish question at a Convention.
Of course, when you are dealing with a series that changes things all the time (originally Justice was supposed to be a guy, originally Dizzy was supposed to stay with the Jellyfish pirates, etc), a possibly-decade-old statement that can't be checked anymore doesn't exactly matter much...
Still, I personally think Ky really was 16 and fairly newly promoted leader at the time of Justice's defeat. Because, even though Ky already knows that he is going to become leader at the Battle of Rome, he also says that he is just a novice Captain, implying that he was only recently promoted Captain.
Personally, I think it happened like this. You know how Big Companies look for gifted kids in junior high and high schools, then grant those gifted kids full scholarships, so that the kids may grow into the kind of highly educated adults that the Companies want to employ as directors? I think Kliff noticed that Ky was a genius with an enormous potential, thus he had Ky specifically groomed so that one day Ky could take Kliff's place as leader. That way everybody in the army would know that Ky is going to become leader even several years before the actual promotion.
But, as you say, no canon really backs that up, so I'm just speculating. Plus, I have to admit that I want Ky to be 16 when Justice is defeated, because I want Ky to be as young as possible in the games. Sol is immortal, Ky isn't, and GG has a habit of jumping over the years... I wouldn't want the next GG game to be set 5 years after Overture or something, making Ky well into his thirties... Yeah, I'm shallow like that ^^"
4) AWWW! :(
Out of curiosity, stated where? If it's in a dialogue, we could at least get the consolation prize of a nice Sol/Ky exchange
overflowing with Unresolved Sexual Tension. Hope springs eternal!5)GGX+ sounds sweeter and sweeter... I'm so horribly envious of Japanese players.
Re: Continued - broke the comment character limit
Date: 2009-05-14 04:36 am (UTC)Actually, I'm pretty sure it's just dead wrong. I haven't seen it cited anywhere reliable, whereas I have seen a number of things that are dead wrong (eg, the idea that Bridget joins the Jellyfish Pirates in an XX ending, or the idea that Overture was set nine years after GG1) repeated over and over, simply due to a mistranslation that got passed on. You can (barely) twist canon enough that it could fit, but it doesn't seem that likely to me. (Also, I feel obligated to point out that if Ky was fifteen when he joined the Order and sixteen when he defeated Justice as you suggest below, that would have to mean he joined the Order a year after the Battle of Rome. Oops. =P)
Still, I personally think Ky really was 16 and fairly newly promoted leader at the time of Justice's defeat. Because, even though Ky already knows that he is going to become leader at the Battle of Rome, he also says that he is just a novice Captain, implying that he was only recently promoted Captain.
Yeah, also a good point. Unless they give us any new information it really is down to personal interpretation - just keep in mind that people working with other numbers aren't necessarily wrong, just looking at the same facts a bit differently. And honestly, in a series as confused as Guilty Gear, I'm pretty impressed they haven't outright contradicted themselves on his age anywhere (yet).
Plus, I have to admit that I want Ky to be 16 when Justice is defeated, because I want Ky to be as young as possible in the games. Sol is immortal, Ky isn't, and GG has a habit of jumping over the years... I wouldn't want the next GG game to be set 5 years after Overture or something, making Ky well into his thirties... Yeah, I'm shallow like that ^^"
Heh, well, I have to admit that part of my personal take on the idea Ky could have been as young as 13 when he joined the Order is, "well naturally they had to start him off as young as possible so he doesn't overtake Sol in age during the series". *g*
Out of curiosity, stated where? If it's in a dialogue, we could at least get the consolation prize of a nice Sol/Ky exchange
I would need to double check - I think it's in the bios for the game. It honestly may be more one of those things that isn't stated specifically so much as heavily implied by everything else we know. Unfortunately, there's so little dialogue in GG1 that we get very little information on exactly how their reunion went down.
Naturally, I am writing fic to fill this gap. *cough*(And personally, I kind of like the idea, because it makes their reunion when it happens all the more dramatic.)Re: Continued - broke the comment character limit
Date: 2009-05-14 06:20 pm (UTC)If misinformation is so widespread, I'm even gladder that you are helping me out ^^
About the "Kliff saved Ky 15 years ago", I've been thinking, maybe it was a homage to the way Kliff himself was saved? Kliff was saved by Sol when he was 6 years old (a different timeline I've seen says that Kliff was 7, not 6, but I can't tell which one is correct and which one is a mistranslation) and later became Commander of the Order, so then Kliff himself goes on to save another 6/7 year old child who later becomes the new Commander of the Order.
IF that's the case, IF Kliff really recruited a 11/12 year old child in the army, then I really, really hope he at least had the basic human decency to make Ky stay behind the farthest line until Ky turned 14.
Then again, apparently nobody in the GG Universe finds it objectionable that the children May and Bridged are the Second in Command of an infamous pirate ship and a bounty hunter respectively... Heck, Ky cheerfully encourages Bridged to go after dangerous criminals X(
Still, that's just speculation. As you pointed out, it's very possible to look at the facts differently and get different numbers.
Naturally, I am writing fic to fill this gap.
Awesome! Your fanfictions are fantastic, I'm so glad you are writing more :D
Re: Continued - broke the comment character limit
Date: 2009-05-10 07:43 pm (UTC)I was rereading the entry, and I just noticed... I actually sound quite pushy in my comments, especially the last one.
I tend to get very, very enthusiastic about the things I like, especially if they are new and offer a lot to discover. I'm all about intaking as much info as possible as quickly as possible, and discussing it with the other fans.
But, that way I tend to get overeager and obtrusive, and I realize that can be very, very annoying.
So, I wanted to apologize ^^
Re: Continued - broke the comment character limit
Date: 2009-05-14 04:48 am (UTC)And hey, clearly you've been through a western comics-fandom or two, I'm sure you know what it can be like. ^^;
Re: Continued - broke the comment character limit
Date: 2009-05-14 05:46 pm (UTC)But, at the same time, I have to admit I'm selfishly relieved. When you stopped replying, I was worried I had accidentally offended you. I was all "great, I've been in this fandom for like a month, and I have already screwed up?"
...I was a little paranoid because one of the people in my flist turned out to be one of the scary fanboys. I always considered him a nice person, but then I mentioned that I just got into GG, expressed some opinions on the series, and suddenly out of the blue he started bashing me O_o
When I pointed out that calling somebody an arrogant idiot for having different personal opinions on videogame trivia was uncalled for, he threw a huge hissy fit. So, yeah...
It was especially shocking because I've been a fan of The King of Fighters series of fighting games for about ten years, and in all that time I've never met any particularly rude fans. I had just assumed the GG Fandom was the same way, I never imagined people in my own flist could go Mr. Hyde over it :(
Anyway, yeah, I'm a fan of American comics too. I'm very curious, so I always try everything at least once. It doesn't matter if it's Japanese manga, Korean manwa, webcomics, American comics or European comics, if it's good I'll read it :P