Place: North Gate
Date: 5 February 1800 (right after Brahne dies and Garnet assumes the leadership of Alexandria)
Rating: R
Characters:
Fratley Irontail, dragoon
random Alexandrian soldiers that need to die because the bitches deserve it

Note: For those who have never played the game, 'Trance' is a state brought on by intense emotions or fear that causes the player to be able to do spectacular things (similar to 'Rage' perhaps from D&D but more pronounced). In the game one enters trance when their trance gauge reaches maximum, the gauge goes up when you receive damage from an opponent.

Run. Run. Run. Fratley had spent the time since his departure from the small village traveling from town to town, after finding Burmecia deserted of both enemy and friendly soldiers. What he had found, and what he had heard, angered him above all else. Even if he had no memory of this place, what was happening here was wrong. From what he could piece together groups of Alexandrian troops had actually been ordered to seek out the small villages and slaughter all the Burmecians they could. This was more than a war to Queen Brahne, it was genocide, and he would not stand for it longer.

But now they retreated, as suddenly as they came, the soldiers were retreating. Why? He knew that woman would not have had a change of heart, and he had trouble understanding why, but didn't care. The enemy soldiers had gotten so far as North Gate, the passage between Alexandria and Burmecia, but if he could help it not a one would get further.

Nearing the gate, he didn't even slow down in his run. The gate was open, maybe they had just went through. He drew his weapon, still running, blending into the dark of night. The first four Alexandrian guards he met, who were walking back towards the gate as if returning from patrol, turned almost simultaneously at the faint patter of approaching feet behind them, just in time to see his glowing eyes glare at them and his lance come across and split the neck of the nearest guard.

"One." he spoke briefly and was gone. The guards looked dumbfounded for a moment, before a twinge of tactical recognition stuck one of them.

"He jumped!" the guard yelled out drawing her weapon, quickly followed by the others and looking up just in time for one of them to watch a spear flung out of nowhere and impale them into the ground, energy from the force of the throw alone enough to have struck them down.

"Two." Fratley landed, ripping the spear from his prey and turned it around to immediately block both oncoming strikes from the remaining guards. Impossible, how could anyone be that fast? With a sharp glare, he flung his spear around. None of these evil bitches would escape if he could help it, and a third fell to the ground trashing as the hardened tip sliced right through armor and split open her chest.

Burmecia beaten by an army of these creatures? Female soldiers at that? It was insane. Their entire nation would pay until they were groveling at his feet. The remaining soldier stared blankly at him, sword trembling in her hands, "W-wait... we've been ordered to retreat! There's no need to fight us!"

"Idiot. You think such a thing erases your deeds?" the spear was brought up to block another advance by her, then brought around to land her on the ground with a swift blunt end to her kneecaps. Aiming the spear at her throat, he looked for a moment as if he might spare her. Only a moment. The next moment she had his weapon driving right between her eyes and out the back of her head into the ground.

Propping a foot against the sticky corpse, he pried his weapon free, "Four." In a blur, he was gone even as another pair of guards ran from the gate to meet this sudden threat.

Why couldn't he have been here? Why did he have to show up after everything was gone. Frustration and anger welled inside of him. At himself. "Ten." At these soldiers. "Fifteen."

General Beatrix. The one he had been looking for since the first soldier he met. They had bragged how their general had killed a hundred of his soldiers in a single battle. One hundred senseless lives lost to their greed. "Twenty." If only he'd been there. He could have stopped her, he knew it. His mind was tormented over this fact. This place he didn't even know, that he had no memory of, yet even so he had unknowingly betrayed it by not being here at its most needful moment.

"Twenty-five." The souls of Burmecia and Cleyra would not rest, they would not stop tormenting his mind until every invader lay dead. Until Beatrix herself was on the ground begging for his mercy, "Thirty."

The gate was clear. There had almost been no one here, and he hadn't even gotten to a third of her record. Pathetic. Why were they running? Had Queen Brahne really told them to retreat just as they were doing so well? Or had he had more of an effect by slaughtering random straggling soldiers than he had anticipated. Doubtful at best.

His eyes glinted from atop the wall as a group of soldiers ran from the distant encampment towards the gate. Ten of them? Good. He hadn't taken on that many at once before though, it'd be a strain. He fumbled through his bag and retrieved yet another high potion. It shouldn't be two bad. After all, he'd not used any of his magic as of yet. These creatures weren't even worth such a thing unless in large numbers. Pathetic monkeys. Without their black mage minions they wouldn't have even made it past this gate.

For that matter, where were the black mage minions? He hadn't fought a single one since a few days after the battle at Cleyra. Perhaps they were elsewhere. He'd heard they were attacking Burmecia's ally Lindblum as well, though they likely weren't getting the same treatment that the 'rats' were getting.

They were close enough. Damnit, there was another group behind them. He didn't care. Bracing himself, he took a jump, aiming his spear for what looked like the commander of the first group, watching with grim delight as the sheer force of the blow knocked the other soldiers back, landed, and ripping the spear out took up his stance again.

Drawn swords flailed, and he felt his skin burn as he was bombarded with magic and steel, Chanting Dragon's Breath, he was surrounded by energy, they were drawn back, and searing magical energy sliced into the remaining soldiers causing their skin to nearly boil off their body as they fell, strewn about. But fuck that took a lot of magic power to cast. He wouldn't be able to do it more than one more and a second group was already approaching, "Forty"

The next group was even larger than this one. Twelve? No, fifteen. This was absurd, though there must be a great deal of honor to be worth this much effort, "I will not rest... I will not stop."

Energy surged from his fingers, fur shown with an unnaturally bright light, and he felt the power crackling through his body. He glowed as the Trance took hold of him, and in a flash he was again gone, jumping high over the new group of soldiers. Readying his spear, he didn't throw. Instead they found themselves bombarded with bolts of his rage as they rained down on the entire group almost like a flurry of spears. Realizing they couldn't combat him until he came down, several soldiers turned tail and ran, only to find him before them again.

Trance exhausted, he landed directly in front of the fleeing soldiers, "I will not be denied my legend evil doers." A few moments later, another two Alexandrian scum lay soulless on the ground, "Fifty-five."

The remaining encampment was alarmed rapidly, and there was the general perception that they were being attacked by many more troops than the one that was hewing them down so effortlessly. panicked and moving from structure to structure in their temporary encampment, they searched for any sign of the one or ones that was doing this. Their only rewards for their searches was finding bodies strewn about from time to time as they were picked off. Sixty. Seventy. Eighty.

He may not have accomplished his goal at all if not for the fact that they had too many guards down to properly guard their supplies, and he spent at least half an hour in one supply room with potions and ethers to get his energy back. Eighty-Five. He was so close.

Still he continued on, and eventually the soldiers resorted to an outright retreat, forgetting their camp entirely, yet he seemed to find enough on their way out. One hundred.

Two more lay before him. One, legs maimed beyond repair and sobbing in pain. The second, against the wall with his spear tip to her throat. Before them was Fratley, holding the weapon with blood drenched hands, eyes glaring menacingly into them.

"Do you know what, Alexandrian scum? I'm at one hundred... do you know what that means?" he didn't smile, didn't show a hint of enjoyment, yet it must have been immensely pleasing to him.

No answer. She was deathly afraid of him. Disgusting. With a twirl and sudden movement, he impaled her injured friend.

"One hundred and one." he spoke to the still trembling final soldier, "I want you to go back, and tell your General Beatrix of this. I want her to know what has been done, and I want her to know,... that I will one day come for her and her Queen Brahne."

"Th-the... Queen Brahne is dead... Garnet will be queen..." the answer came out in sputters.

He brought his spear back up, "I see. Pity me with an explanation, if you will."

"Queen Brahne was killed by Kuja, Garnet is going to assume the throne, she ordered us to retreat from here in peace... don't you see what you've done?"

"No, pity me again."

"We were retreating! Your nation was safe."

"Well then, now it is more safe." he pulled his weapon back again, "Go. Do not allow me to see another of your kind within my borders....
...and if you see Freya tell her 'hi' for me."

As the bloody burmecian turned and calmly hopped away, the soldier broke back down into sobs.