From the Outside Looking In

by ertrunkener_Wassergeist

Summary:

Collection of different POVs to my story Born Into the Wilds. Mainly the Lucian view of what is happening sprincled with a few POVs of different Galahdian people.

Chapter 1: First Strike - Pelna

It was no secret that Pelna hated his job - at least the violent, fighting part of it. He had entered the Glaive to be able to provide for his family and nothing else. The wages were better than most other jobs for unwanted immigrants in the city. Not like Nyx or Libertus or even Luche. They had done it out of a sense of duty and deference to the debts owed.

But here he was now, knives slicked with something black and oily, out of breath and nearly out of magic. His stomach heaved because of one too many warps and he had to really concentrate not to hurl his guts out in the middle of the battlefield. Concentration he did not have.

Not after what seemed like hours of fighting. Not when something was hindering his borrowed magic from working at its full capacity. He spared the fraction of a second to look at the ominous structure that loomed over this massacre like a shadowy thorn. Sonitus would love to get his hands on the blueprints of this thing, like it had been part of this cursed mission that they do.

“… nee… rein…ment”

The voices through the communications system grew static.

This was not good. Not good at all. 

Pelna spit a mix of spittle and blood onto the dusty ground and leaped at the next MT. His muscles ached. His bones ached. Hell, even his fingernails ached.

He warped out of the way of a flame thrower accompanied by a hail of bullets at the last second. The taste of bale on his tongue grew worse.

This whole mission was a mistake. He had known it from the moment the briefing went through. A newly constructed base in a conveniently near place with few troops and no blooded commander? 

Yeah, right.

Over his lily not-so-white ass. It practically screamed ambush. The whole setup. But he had not said anything because whoever listens to the tech and communications expert?

How he regretted this choice right now.

Desperate rage bubbled inside his gut as another comrade right in front of him was shot down. Pelna couldn’t tell who it was. Maybe one of the newer ones. The uniform was not as customized as most others were. He was not the first, and would certainly not be the last today.

A roar like a great cat sounded next to him and Pelna whirled around.

Nyx’s hood had blown off during the fight, his hair wild, face streaked with dirt like old war paint and his eyes glowed like a coeurl’s in the shadows of the Galahdian forests. Every hair on Pelna’s body stood on end.

His instincts screamed at the obvious predator in their midst.

He knew the stories. Of course he did. Like everybody else with even a shred of sense left. The coeurl who took off his fur to be with a human he loved. He had seen Nyx hunt shortly before they had been forced to abandon their homes and since that day he knew that those stories weren’t just that. Then again, those who knew how to look had always known.

But it had never been like this.

It had never been Nyx with a coeurl’s eyes and a coeurl’s prowl and the grace of something that knew it could kill you within the fraction of a second if it wanted to. Nyx spun his blades and Pelna leapt out of the way as lightning struck the MTs surrounding them.

That was not the King’s magic. It was animalistic and wild and Pelna could do nothing more than watch with Axis and Luche and Tredd by his side as Nyx spun his kukris around, lighting traveling down his arms and into the blades.

His whole body spun, lighting struck again, and a kukri buried itself into the nearest MT still standing, bringing it down with a metallic groan and twitching limps, while the face of the next one was ripped off with bare hands and flashing teeth. 

Nyx fought with a snarl on his face and a coeurl in his shadow.

Pelna didn’t know how long this fight would last, but he realized with a sudden clarity which settled deep into his bones, that they were going to win. They would fight and they would win to fight again. 

This would be a story worth telling his children and his children’s children, ancestors willing.

Pelna aimed his dagger at an MT ready to snipe his raging friend and threw.

Chapter 2: First Strike - Cor Leonis

Summary:

Cor's view during the first chapter of Born Into the Wilds.

Featuring:
Cor's gut feeling and the author's lack of military knowledge.

Warnings:
mentions of injuries and death

Cor sat near the radio set in the military issued tent, arms crossed over his chest, and frowned at nothing. It was the early hours of the morning – dawn wouldn't set in for another two hours – and something within him was too restless to let him sleep.

At this point in time he had been a military man for well over half of his life and he knew to trust his gut feeling. And his gut told him that something was fishy about this whole situation.

As Marshal of the Lucian military, it was his duty to know the finer workings of the army as a whole, and not just the Crownsguard he had direct control over, ever since Clarus had stepped down to only focus on his duty as a King's Shield. He knew the people working under him, trusted them to watch his back and do what had to be done. Most of their duties fell under guarding the Citadel, the King and securing the dwindling numbers of supply lines going in and out of Insomnia.

The Border Patrol had over the years been reduced from securing their borders, to watching the Niflheimr front and report their every move, while also keeping the threat of the deamons as low as they could. The members of the City Watch under Petra Fortis were tetchy with every part of the military except the Border Patrol. For a few years now, they had to share their duty as the police force with the Crownsguard, while the Kingsglaive used guard duty at the wall as a disciplinary action. It grated on them, and Cor couldn't blame them for that.

The last of the big divisions – and the youngest – was the Kingsglaive, and at the same time they were his biggest headache. Regis had had a good idea with drafting every willing refugee into his newly built special forces, but it had the negative effect of every Lucian native commander that may have been qualified for the job, refusing the post. Since the Kingsglaive was to be the only active fighting unit of the military, they needed a qualified commander.

Finding Titus Drautos for the job had been a stroke of luck.

The Captain was half Galahdian, half something else that apparently didn't matter because he carried a Galahdian name and had managed to nearly single handedly guide a group of refugees into the crown city. They had been part of the last wave that had been allowed inside the Wall before the borders had been closed for good.

Cor still remembered how the slightly younger man had looked then. Dirty, emaciated, but his eyes had burned with a fire that still managed to impress him to this day. And that ragged, wilful young man had flown through base training with a discipline that had amazed everybody. He had earned himself the trust of the Galahdians and that small handful of other refugees that made up the newly formed Kingsglaive, and had been made their captain.

However, there was something that didn't sit well with Cor. No matter how he trusted Titus and his capabilities as a captain. And that was why he sat here tonight.

Everybody higher up in the food chain of the military who had to deal with happenings outside the protective embrace of the Wall, had their informants. Most of them were members of the Border Patrol. Cor's own network spanned a bit farther, since he had been part of then Prince Regis's entourage on his journey to Altissia, but it had nothing on the assumed vastness of Titus's network.

It was mostly guesswork on Cor's part, which was why he never breathed a word on it to anybody. In their current situation they didn't need infighting on top of everything else. However, it was disconcerting that he couldn't even begin to guess where some of Titus's information was coming from. It didn't happen often, now far less than at the beginning.

Maybe that was why it was bothering him so much. That or hurt pride, but he thought he knew himself well enough to recognize the signs of it.

When he had heard about this truly reckless and stupid plan of Titus's to infiltrate a newly built Niflheimr base, because an informant of his had made allusions to plans of the rumoured magic suppressing technology, all alarm bells had gone off in his head.

He didn't know what had been said in the meeting to convince Regis of this plan and he still wasn't happy about that, but it was no use to cry over spilt milk. Instead he did as he always had since he had become part of the Crownsguard at age 14: he rolled with the punches and made his own plans.

Currently he was on a military exercise drilling his forces in guerrilla warfare in mountainous terrain, that just so happened to be relatively close to the new base. Clarus had stared at him as if he knew exactly what Cor was doing. Cor himself had all but dared Clarus to breathe a word about this.

The steady light of the lantern next to the radio station on the table burned in his eyes. Cor blinked. He checked his watch and then turned the radio on.

The reception was strangely spotty even after he fiddled with the buttons and switches. He cursed quietly. There was a reason he wasn't a radio operator. There was a whirring sound, more static, a click. Then a voice he could identify as Lazarus: “On my mark.”

He listened to the chatter as best as he could. Which was not very well, but he might have learned a new Galahdian swear word or two.

Another person stepped into the tent. Quiet steps drew near over the rocky ground of the haven and a hand pushed his away from the radio set.

“Didn't we say you would keep your hands to yourself when it comes to the radios, Marshal?” Dustin asked with a grin on his face.

Cor just raised an eyebrow and gave him an even stare, until his friend and subordinate huffed a quiet laugh and set a cup of coffee down in front of him.

“Here you go, Marshal.”

“Thank you, Dustin.”

Cor hummed in appreciation as he took a sip. Dustin was the only one he knew that somehow managed to make their military issued coffee into something palatable.

“I knew this was one of your gut feelings,” Dustin said. “Those are the only times you pull something like this.”

Taking another sip of his coffee, Cor watched as the other man dragged another chair over and started to fiddle with the radio. Slowly the voices grew clearer and the static less.

“I knew why I made you come,” he said instead of answering the unasked question.

Dustin threw him a reproachful stare, which Cor returned without blinking. He had been at the receiving end of Regis's, Clarus's and Cid's stares combined; he had grown immune to them a long time ago. Dustin knew that, too, and instead of saying anything else, simply leaned back in his chair, sipping at his own coffee. The two of them listened in silence as the Kingsglaives voices drifted through the tent.

Everything seemed to be going fine. Until Glaive Khara's voice crackled through the speakers.

“Luche, call the Captain, now! We need an extraction team and Kresch won’t be enough.”

“That will take more time than we might have.”

“I don’t fucking care. Do it. I hope to the ancestors that Drautos has a good explanation for this fuck up. Otherwise I’ll haunt him from beyond the Gate.”

Cor didn't jump up or curse, even when he wanted to. Instead he went completely still. His gut feeling had been right. Again. Carefully he set his coffee cup down and turned towards Dustin who now wasn't the amiable friend sitting next to him, but his subordinate awaiting his orders. They listened for another few seconds.

“Go wake the others. We'll be on the move in ten.”

With a sharp salute Ser Ackers left the tent and not half a minute later the siren sounded. The radio gave a sharp whine and then the connection broke. Cor hissed and turned it off before leaving the tent. He walked towards the edge of the haven they were using as their base, and stared into the darkness. It wouldn't be too long now until the sun rose, which was lucky because the deamons could make their advance stop in its tracks, if they weren't careful.

Behind him he could hear people cursing and yelling while they tried to find out what was going on.

An hour, Titus had said over the radio. How was he planning to manage that when he was supposed to be in Insomnia? The Crown City was half a days ride away, if one drove without break. It could be done, if one went by airship. The thought made something heavy settle in his stomach.

Dustin Ackers stepped up next to him. “Marshal, we're ready to go.”

 

---

 

 

The drive took a little over an hour. Under better circumstances they could have made it in maybe 45 minutes, but they had to maneuver around a newly emerged daemon nest. Cor's face was a thunder cloud.

First light was a silvery wisp on the horizon when they drew to a halt, their vans hidden in a small group of trees. Cor could hear the sounds of firing guns the moment he jumped out of the van before it had truly stopped. He could practically feel Dustin’s disapproving gaze drilling into his back. Cor didn’t care.

It didn’t take long for him to organize the people he had taken with him. He had trained every single one of them and everyone had gotten the briefing while they were on the way.

They were to clear the terrain of enemies and rescue any survivor they came across. The people organized themselves into two teams which consisted of two units each. Cor examined the happenings with a critical eye.

In front of him stood 27 people waiting for his go ahead. Not quite enough for this kind of clean up and rescue but it would have to do.

“This is not an ordinary rescue mission,” Cor started, his voice hard and cutting. All eyes were on him. “Be careful out there; since the enemy managed to block communications the others cannot come to help you fast enough should something happen.” His gaze grew more stern than cold for a moment. None of the people in front of him showed any sign of hesitation. “Go, and may Bahamut guide you.”

At the beginning of his little guerilla exercise he had divided the four squads he had managed to take with him, into two teams. Team Steel consisting of Squads Shinryu and Almasy, and Team Wire consisting of Squads Qun'mi and Rui. The only squad at full capacity he had managed to take was the Shinryu Squad. The other three lacked either members due to sickness, injury or death in the field.

Now Cor himself lead Team Steel towards the sounds of fighting and Ser Ackers lead Team Wire towards the Base to stake out the situation there. Squad Rui was also to acquire all information they could from the Niflheimr network before the connection was cut, if it wasn't already.

They found what was left of Kresch Unit entrenched in a group of trees that grew on a small hill. Smart decision. Without prompting the two Squads with him split up, Shinryu for a frontal attack and Almasy slunk off into the undergrowth to get rid of the snipers and the commander, if there was one. Cor himself summoned his sword from the armiger; he could feel a strange resistance when he did so but ignored that for now, and charged at the MT trying to attack Squad Shinryu from behind. A few seconds later the rest of Kresch Unit joined the fray.

The fight was over within 20 minutes with only one causality on his side.

“You're damn late,” he heard someone grouch. Judging from the voice it probably was Sir Ostium.

“I apologize, Sir Ostium, but we had to pick our way around a deamon's nest on our way here. I hope our service was to your satisfaction,” Cor said in an even deadpan.

“Marshal!” the Glaive cried, his eyes growing comically large.

Cor suppressed a smile, his face settling into a dark frown. “We must make haste. Sir Bellum, tell me what you can about the situation on the base while we get there. Squad Almasy will stay here and take care of the people too injured to fight.”

“Ser!”

Sir Bellum stepped forward with a sharp salute. The Glaive was pale, sure signs that magical exhaustion wasn't far away, and covered in cuts and bruises, but seemed fine otherwise.

All in all, there were eleven people left able to fight. Cor nodded, satisfied. Together with Team Wire they should hopefully be enough.

“Units Roh and Firn are sitting fr... ducks,” stated Sir Bellum while they jogged through the trees at a brisk pace. “It was a trap. According to Sir Lazarus, General Ulldor is here and set the whole thing up. He couldn't tell me how many there were exactly before the connection was cut, but he said there were more than Captain Drautos reported.”

Not enough. That was not enough information. Cor hoped that Team Wire had been able to find out more.

Dustin Ackers was waiting for them by the entrance gate. A broken down MA Veles laid near it in a crumpled heap along with a squad of magitek soldiers.

“Report,” Cor barked the moment they arrived.

“The base is empty with the exception of the drill ground. It's been closed off and until now we haven't been able to get in. Squad Qun'mi is currently trying to hack into the electronics to open the gates. There is some kind of shooting mechanism that goes off when you try to climb over the wall. Three people have been shot, but luckily no one has died yet.”

Cor frowned in discontent. Behind them people were cursing. Sir Ostium being amongst the loudest.

“Ser Ackers!” called a young woman, running up to them. Her name was Energa Curro, the youngest and newest member of Squad Qun'mi and a budding stealth specialist. She skidded to a halt the moment she saw Cor and saluted. “Marshal! We have managed to hack the gates. Waiting for further instructions, Ser.”

The Marshal's long legs practically ate the distance towards the drill ground. “Squad Qun'mi will secure the gate and take out the automatic shooting system. Rui will continue with securing what information they can. Shinryu and and Kresch will follow me in the assault. Concentrate on the heavy hitters first.”

They arrived at the gate and Cor gave the order to open it. Sir Ostium was the first person through. The situation on the drill ground was a strange one. The enemy had been eliminated entirely, with no hint towards if General Ulldor was still on the premises.

With sharp eyes Cor took in his surroundings. Black marks, some still smoking, were littered around him, the highest number being situated around a cluster of Glaives surrounded by a staggering number of fallen enemies. There were MT torn limb from limb, twisted metal everywhere, and the heavy smell of ozone in the air.

He stepped further inside, ignoring the loud questions of Sir Ostium and Sir Lazarus's attempts to calm him down.

There, at the heart of destruction, in a circle of fallen MT and MA Veles, laid Sir Ulric, clearly injured, and being supported by Sir Khara and Sir Arra. Startling greyish blue eyes caught his. For some reason they reminded him of a lightning storm. Sir Ulric threw him a feral smile, all bloody teeth and cutting edges. Cor couldn't really say why, but to him it looked like a promise.

Notes:

Hello all!
I'm not really happy with the second half of this, but after the third rewrite I felt it wouldn't get any better and said f*ck it.
Now would probably a good time to tell you all that the only experience I have with any kind of military is what either Google tells me or what was taught in my classes on the 1st and 2nd World War during university, that's to say not much. But for anyone who wants to know: a Squad of the Crownsguard consists of 9 people, including the squad leader. Irl a Squad has something between 8 and 24 members. A Unit in the Kingsglaive is the same as a Platoon (Troop) irl and consists of 16 people at least and 50 people at most. Kresch Unit had 20 people at the start of the operation. Technically the two Teams Cor has should be called Platoons, but since Team Wire doesn't reach 16 people and they're not official Platoons I decided against it. Sorry for the confusion ^^;
Hope you all had fun reading.

Until next time!

Chapter 3: A Coeurl's Eyes - Axis Arra

Summary:

In which there is a debrief and all parties involved know something is up. Neither knows what.

All Axis wanted to do was to go home, kiss his wife, hug his children and take a long, hot shower. Instead he stood in the Captain's office, just after having left his mandatory after-mission check-up, and tried to ignore Marshal Leonis's icy stare.

Said Marshal leant against the wall to his right, so he had the Captain, Axis himself, the door and the windows within his field of vision. Paranoid bastard.

“Luche – Sir Lazarus – already gave me his report, but I would like to know what exactly happened from your perspective the moment you noticed Sir Ulric started to act... strange, shall we say," the Captain ordered, acting like the Marshal wasn't in the room at all.

“Yes, Captain!” Axis snapped out and straightened even more, to give himself a few more seconds to get his thoughts in order.

Something wasn't right about this whole situation, about what had happened, but he couldn't put his finger on what was bothering him so much. It made his skin crawl and his stomach twist uncomfortably. But he would keep quiet about it, just like he always did in situations like these, until he knew what exactly was going on. He would listen and he would watch, and only then would he act.

The Captain raised an eyebrow.

“The first time I noticed something odd was going on, was when our magic became more and more energy consuming and less and less effective, maybe halfway through the fighting," Axis started. “Shortly thereafter communications were out and we were trapped there, now blind and deaf to anything outside. All of the surviving Glaives met in the south-east corner of the square, to better defend ourselves. One of the last surviving rookies broke formation and got killed for it, which was when Nyx – Sir Ulric – became...”

Axis wasn't quite sure how to continue. The image of Nyx fighting fucking MTs with his bare hands and teeth, and winning still haunted him every time he closed his eyes for longer than a second.

“Became what, Sir Arra?” the Captain demanded with a barely there undertone that made Axis' scalp prickle.

“It's hard to explain, Captain.”

“Do it anyway.”

The corners of Axis' lips curled downwards into a slight frown. It wasn't often that the Captain was this terse. Was it because Marshal Leonis was also in the room? Then again, this mission had only been a success in the sense that not everybody had died, and that was only due to Nyx Ulric and Cor Leonis.

“It was like... from one moment to the other his human consciousness had taken leave, Sir. He was fighting like... like a coeurl in the Galahdian jungles.” Axis did his best to ignore the stares both men sent him. “He moved and jumped like a Galahdian coeurl, and he used lightning like one as well. After that, half of us were busy dodging the lightning and the other half, including myself, were busy watching Sir Ulric's back, since we figured he was our best chance at surviving this.

During the fighting, despite our best efforts, Sir Ulric was clipped in the side by a bullet, but I doubt he even felt it at first. He just continued as if the wound wasn't there. It was only after he took down the last MA Veles with only two strikes, that Sir Ulric stopped. I didn't have a good look, but it seemed like he landed on his injured side and the pain must have startled him out of his... haze.

Sir Khara was the first to get to him and he called for me shortly after, since I always carry an extra potion for emergencies. When I got close, Sir Ulric was asking about pack and if it was safe, and he kept muttering about Galahd, but I couldn't really make it out since the words were very slurred and I was trying to keep him from bleeding out. Then Marshal Leonis arrived with reinforcements.”

For a few heartbeats the office was silent. Axis was glad his report hadn't come out in one incoherent mess like he had feared it would and the other two occupants took their time absorbing what he had said.

Both men weren't easy to read, and while he saw nothing on the Marshal's face but his usual frown, with the Captain it was easier. He looked like he hadn't wanted to hear what Axis had just told him at all. It was in the way the tendons on his neck flexed subtly and how the corners of his mouth curled ever so slightly, like he had eaten something sour. Axis stayed in parade rest and waited.

“Thank you, Glaive Arra," the Marshal spoke for the first time since Axis had entered the office. “Do you have anything more to add?”

He considered it for a few seconds. Ulric's face flashed in front of him, pale from blood loss and half out of it from the pain.

But his eyes.

They had still been the startling blue nearly all Ulrics had had according to the stories, but they hadn't been... human anymore, for lack of a better word. Seeing those eyes had made Axis feel like looking a wounded coeurl in the eyes. It had nearly made him freeze on the spot out of sheer instinct alone.

Axis had never thought that the coeurl blood in the Ulrics was still this strong. Adrastea Ulric and her coeurl husband had lived such a long time ago that it had seemed simply impossible. Clearly he, and everybody else who had thought so, had been wrong.

The Captain should know about this. The man needed to know. This was a total game changer. It could make any future fights either so much easier or so much more difficult, depending on how this was handled.

He took a deep breath to tell the Captain exactly that, but those weren't the words that left his mouth.

“No, sir," he said.

Captain Drautos shot him a searching look as did the Marshal, but neither of them commented on the probably too long pause.

“Very well," said the Captain in a gruff voice. “You may go now. You have a three day's leave.”

“Thank you Captain.” Axis gave a quick salute. “Marshal.”

With that he strode out of the office, thoughts whirling. Later, he admonished himself. Now he would go home, kiss his wife, hug his children and take a long, hot shower.

Notes:

Hey guys!

I'm finally continuing this one :D
Axis strikes me as a person who keeps himself to the background, always watching, listening and assessing the situation. He needs to be absolutely sure about all the variables before he decides on a course of action and is very observant because of this. I hope I did that justice.
Next chapter is a tossup between a Titus POV or a Regis POV. Thoughts?
Also if you want to see a POV feel free to drop a prompt into the comments or over on tumblr. My handle is ertrunkenerwassergeist

'Til next chapter!

Notes:

The promised outsider povs have started.
This first one was a request from over on tumblr. If you're interested in more of my ramblings about my Galahdian headcanons and worldbuilding, or my thoughts about the Astrals and magic and Lucis Caelum family history visit me there under the name ertrunkenerwassergeist.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of Born Into the Wilds