The movie started off as most military propaganda movies did: with a message about how it was dedicated to the brave soldiers who served, and then it showed a group of old women gathering together in a diner to have breakfast together as they caught up with each other. It was a pretty standard way to start a military movie and I had no doubt it was going to flash back to the war at any time.

Surely enough, I was right.

While zooming in on one of the old lady’s faces, that face gradually transitioned until it looked about sixty years younger and showed the girl standing in a row of women going through basic training.

The movie was extremely predictable at that point. It showed the main cast meeting each other through basic training, went over the struggles they shared and triumphed over together, and then ended with them all being assigned to the same tank battalion. That part of the movie probably lasted for the first thirty minutes or so. The next thirty minutes were spent covering the girls’ treatment in the military proper. It covered things like some of the discrimination they suffered for being women, talked about how they were almost never deployed to instead let the man-led crews go out and get things done, and was full of that era’s sexism.

All standard stuff.

I had no doubt that they were downplaying just how bad it was for them, probably. The movie wanted to make it look like the girls had to face discrimination and difficulty in the military without making the military look too bad.

Then the first battle of the movie came.

In the middle of the night, an ambush on their military base sprung everybody into panicked action as a series of explosions erupted throughout the base. This led to the girls rushing to their tank, getting inside of it, and valiantly defending the base and inspiring everybody around to fight harder. Nothing too out of the ordinary there as far as military movies went.

The practical effects were all really good, too. I had to admit that the movie did a great job of making it an exciting battle full of suspense and hype, and it was satisfying to see everybody rally together around the girls.

Then, once the battle was over and the girls were victorious, the praise and propaganda began. The story of the girls defending their base with their tank made it all around the world and their faces were plastered on every friendly newspaper. The movie showed both men and women being inspired by the story and enlisting to serve, and then it showed the officials trying to keep the girls from fighting so that they could instead be used for propaganda. Having them fight meant risking their lives, and they didn’t want to demoralize the people by losing the new angels of the military.

But the girls refused. When the rest of their battalion was sent out, they were supposed to stay behind with Valkyria… but they went anyways. They had no intention of sitting behind being used for propaganda while their comrades-in-arms sacrificed their lives in battle.

Punishment was promised to them for disobeying orders, but their punishment had to wait due to the non-stop fighting that the rest of the movie featured.

Then the enemy’s counterattack began. It was the final battle of the movie. Enemy forces, desperate to retake the land they lost, pushed back and hard. They overwhelmed the friendly forces and utterly slaughtered them, and all the friendly forces could do was wait for air support to level the area with bombs. They had to keep the enemy pushed back for that to happen, though, which resulted in countless men and women dying in the fields as they struggled to even slow the enemy’s advance.

Before long, the battle was lost and the order to retreat was given.

It was clear that there was no holding back the advancing enemy, and to even try for any longer was just throwing the lives of good people away for nothing.

Yet, one tank crew stood tall among the battlefield.

Valkyria and her all-women crew stood their ground to buy time for everybody else to escape.

Admittedly, the movie got pretty emotional at that point as Valkyria took more and more damage, resulting in some of the crew members inside getting wounded. Yet, no matter how much damage they took, they stood their ground. Valkyria, under the masterful steering of her driver, dashed all throughout the battlefield, constantly taking up new positions, as the gunner took down enemy tank after enemy tank. Valkyria and her crew singlehandedly held the enemy off until air support could arrive and bomb the entire area… Valkyria included.

The defense against the enemy turned out to be successful. Yet, there was a gloomy feeling as the smoke-filled battlefield showed all the dead bodies and destroyed vehicles.

Then, as the smoke cleared, a crew of women with their arms wrapped around each other triumphantly emerged from it before the camera lifted up to show the smoking remains of Valkyria in the background.

And thus, the main meal of the movie was over. All it showed after that were some interviews with the real women who served with Valkyria, and that seemed to be the only part of the movie that Valkyria actually had any interest in.

Then the movie ended.

With the movie over, all attention was directed to Valkyria. Basically everybody except for me and her were crying, and it didn’t take long before almost everybody tried to give her a hug.

“Is—is something the matter?” Valkyria asked.

“That was sad!” Vala cried. “They destroyed you! You got wrecked harder than I do in my racing games!”

“A-ah… I suppose so, but… that movie was incredibly inaccurate.”

Vala stopped sniffling for a few seconds to blink and ask, “It was?”

“Indeed. While the overall events are more or less faithful to what happened, the specific details were all wrong. But… it was nice getting to see my crew again.” Valkyria held a hand over her mouth and laughed a little. “Goodness, they’ve all grown so beautiful in their old age. I never expected to see such young faces grow that many wrinkles around their mouths. They must have lived lives full of happiness and smiling after that.”

Everybody was intently listening to every word she said at that point.

It was Honey who spoke up and asked, “If… if you don’t mind sharing, can you tell us what parts were inaccurate? It’s alright if you don’t want to, but… I’m curious.”

“I would not mind in the slightest,” Valkyria said. “First off, the movie showed my crew as being a bundle of polite, delightful girls who were nothing but kind to everybody around them, even their superiors who they disobeyed. That was certainly how the newspapers made them look as well. The movie failed to portray just how stubborn and bratty they were. They refused to take anything negative from anybody and were a constant pain in their superiors’ sides, and proud of it. It also made the girls look as if they were being purposely protected by the military so they could be used for propaganda, but… the opposite was true. Their superiors despised them and purposely sent them into battle after battle, each one meant to be unwinnable. Yet, every time, we returned victorious. There was zero respect between my crew and our superiors. They also always talked about deserting with me to go and build a cabin in the woods as they were tired of dealing with the war. The movie, obviously, cut out any talks of desertion or anti-war sentiments in general. Oh, and they didn’t portray any of the sexual harassment my crew faced. Very few men treated them with any respect, and those who did were the ones directly saved by our efforts. Fortunately, those who did respect us protected them from those who didn’t.”

“I figured as much,” I said. “It’s not going to be effective propaganda if they show things like that.”

Valkyria nodded a couple of times before saying, “And the entire final battle was nothing at all like how it actually happened for us. Then again… I suppose given just how unbelievable our story is, probably nobody would even believe my crew if they tried to tell the truth about what happened. Hmm. I have an idea.”

“Yeah?”

Valkyria looked at Vala and asked, “Would it be possible for you to display my memories as a movie? It may be a bit too fuzzy for most of the events leading up to the final battle, but if there is one thing I will never forget, it is that battle.”

Vala was about to say something, but I cut her off and asked, “Are you sure? Watching a movie with actors and effects is one thing, but this… wouldn’t this be like reliving that battle?”

“I have replayed it daily in my head for decades now. I am at peace with it, Drake, but I appreciate your concern nonetheless.”

I still felt worried, but it was something that was up to her and nobody else.

“Y-yeah, we can do that,” Vala said. “As long as you’re sure you’re comfy and stuff with it.”

“I am,” Valkyria replied. “Besides, part of me wants to show off as I feel that movie showed very little of me. Of course, it makes sense for it to have focused on my human crew as it was a movie made for humans, but… I feel left out.”

“Alright, then, I’ve got this.” With a snap of her fingers, the surrounding area turned dark once more as a stream of light flowed from Valkyria’s head to the movie screen. “And done. Ready to start whenever you are.”

Valkyria might have been trying to act tough, but my arm was still around her. I felt her tense up and saw her take a deep breath. She was trying her best, but I knew she was worried. “Please continue,” Valkyria said regardless.

And with that, the movie began again, starting halfway through that final battle.

The movie was immediately far, far more graphic than before. The sheer brutality shown made the first movie look like a children’s show in comparison. The amount of gore and corpses throwing around the battlefield was disturbing on its own, but then there was also the constant sound of gunfire and explosions to the point where I could barely even hear myself think. All the smoke made it almost impossible to see what was happening, too.

And unlike the first movie, we had Valkyria willing to actually narrate it a bit for us.

“It was the deciding battle of the war. If there was ever a time for neither side to stand down, it was then,” Valkyria explained.

The sky was black with smoke, broken machines littered with holes were scattered across the battlefield, and some of the only illumination through the dense smoke blanketing the field were tracer rounds and explosions.

While most of the tanks on the field moved in predictable lines and formations, there was one tank in particular that sped across the battlefield as it somehow managed to avoid the majority of shots fired at it.

“Come on, come on, come on!” the tank’s driver shouted, almost flipping the tank onto its side as it turned to the side while already slanted on a mound of dirt and burnt grass. “You’ve got this!” She looked similar to the girl in the first movie, but was—well, to put it bluntly, far less objectively attractive. She just looked like a normal girl. As far as I was concerned, that made her look even more attractive since she didn’t look like a super model who didn’t belong in the middle of a war.

While she drove, the gunner and loader worked together to fire off shot after shot of high explosive rounds at their enemies.

One lucky shot from the enemy managed to hit their tank, but it ricocheted off of the tank’s sloped armor. Another shot missed the tank but hit the ground right next to its right track. The following explosion destroyed the track and crippled the most valuable target of the enemy.

“Get us out of here!” the tank commander shouted. “We’ll replace the track and come back!”

“She’ll get us out! Don’t worry!” the driver shouted back.

The current Valkyria then narrated again by saying, “While we might have desired to desert and leave the war behind, we had no intention of allowing our companions, no matter how they treated us, to die at the enemy’s hands.”

Rather than try to fire back at the heavy tanks focusing fire on their own tank, the gunner focused on the enemy positions that were targeting their retreating infantry troops. Meanwhile, the commander opened the top hatch to stand up and mount the machine gun there.

Neither the gunner nor commander focused on the heavy guns targeting their tank—targeting Valkyria. Instead, they focused entirely on the infantry trying to rush their own. They dedicated themselves to protecting their infantry as they retreated.

Meanwhile, their allies watched in awe, filled with inspiration, as the commander exposed herself during the most intense battle of the war. She stood proud and brave as she whispered to the tank. Nobody, not even herself, could hear just what words left her mouth as whispers over the raging battle, but Valkyria knew what her commander wanted to tell her.

“We’ve never been defeated, and I know we won’t be defeated today as long as we have you. Keep it up, partner, and let’s show these bastards who—”

The sound of a large shell whizzing through the air could be heard from inside the tank. It sounded like it was only an inch away from hitting them, but they could not let the miraculous miss distract them from their duty.

Hearing the machine gun fire from their commander assured them that she was alright, too.

“We’re almost at the tree line! Don’t give up on me now, girl!” the driver shouted, pushing the tank’s engine to its limit as they rushed straight into a row of trees. While they wanted to protect the fleeing troops, they also needed to catch a break to repair the tracks and perform some quick spot repairs to keep themselves operational.

The other girls inside of the tank didn’t notice the blood dripping down from where the commander stood, but Valkyria did, and the current Valkyria trembled within my arm at the sight of it.

As soon as they reached the tree line, they plowed right through any obstacles and kept on going until they were safe in a small clearing hidden away from the battlefield.

“We—we escaped, somehow,” the loader said.

“Told you this girl wouldn’t let us down!” the driver shouted.

The gunner looked up at the commander who had been silent for a few minutes now. “Hey, you alright up there?”

“Yeah… I’m—I’m fine,” the commander answered and climbed out of the tank.

It was only when she was out that the rest noticed just how much blood stained where she stood.

The rest of the girls were quick to climb out of the trunk only to find their commander leaning against it, sitting on the ground next to the tank’s good track, while clutching her left arm—or rather, what was left of it.

“Get a tourniquet!” the gunner shouted. “What happened?! When did you—”

“We’re lucky it didn’t—tch, we’re lucky it didn’t hit us. A few inches lower and we’d be dead,” the commander answered.

The loader took the tourniquet out of the medical supplies kit and was quick to wrap it around what was left of the commander’s left arm.

“Marmar, get on that track replacement. The battle isn’t over yet,” the commander said.

It wasn’t that the driver couldn’t believe what she just heard. It was more like she refused to believe it. “Like hell it ain’t! Look at you! We need to get ya to—”

“What we need is to get back to the battlefield. We are not abandoning our allies. We are going back out there and finishing the—”

“I-incoming!” the gunner shouted.

As soon as the sound of an approaching tank reached their ears, so too did the sound of an explosion as it shot a round straight at their sitting tank.

The armor piercing round landed a perfect hit but fortunately managed to over-penetrate the armor, coming out through the other side before exploding into a tree in its path.

Machine gun fire followed, peppering the tank in small holes whenever the shots didn’t ricochet.

“We’re fucked if we stay here!” the gunner shouted. “We need to go!”

“You’re right,” the commander said. “They can’t see us from their angle, so stay low and crawl until we reach the bushes.”

“But what about—” the driver started to talk only to get interrupted as another round from the tank miraculously over-penetrated.

“I don’t want to leave her either, but we have to go or we’re all going to die or worse, get taken prisoner. You know what they’ll do if that happens.”

“I…”

“On three. One, two,” all four girls reluctantly got close to the ground to prepare for the rush to the bushes, “three!”

Protected only by their beloved tank standing between them and the enemy, the group of girls hurried over to the bushes and did not look behind them until they were out of the clearing.

But only three of them made it.

The gunner looked around before asking, “What happened to the commander?!”

It was obvious as soon as she asked where their commander was.

She was in the only place that she would be.

The one place that she truly belonged.

Smiling back at her friends who had been with her throughout the entire war, the commander clumsily climbed into the tank through the driver’s hatch and closed it over her.

The girls shouted at her to stop and to come with them instead, but it was too late for that.

“Let’s give this bastard something to chase,” the commander said, charging out of the clearing with Valkyria.

The girls might have hated what she was doing for them, but they weren’t going to let her desire go to waste. They made sure that they wouldn’t be seen as the enemy tank gave chase through the forest.

It was only a few seconds later that they heard the horrible, metal clanking sound of their tank’s armor being hit once again.

“My commander was always so selfless,” the current Valkyria said. “She would allow even the worst of fates for herself if it meant protecting the others.”

Back to the movie, the commander couldn’t drive and shoot at the same time, so she focused on just driving to distract the enemy. “We’ve been through a lot together, haven’t we? I remember when you still had a fresh coat of paint on you,” she said, taking her hand away from the steering mechanism for quick moment to inject some morphine from the medical kit into her.

Another shot hit the tank and ricocheted into a tree.

“That one came from—there’s two of them now? I never did like being popular,” the commander said with a chuckle as she weighed down the pedal with a heavy toolbox that Drake recognized as the one he found the picture of Valkyria and her crew in. With that, Valkyria could continue moving forward as the commander got into the gunner’s position to swivel the turret around and take a shot at one of the enemy tanks chasing them.

She missed.

“Damn. I was hoping to take down one of them,” she said and sighed.

With only one arm, reloading the turret was impossible for her, not to mention that it would take too much time away from steering Valkyria.

She already spent too much time away from looking where she was going.

Valkyria reached the top of a steep hill and couldn’t be stopped in time from rolling down its muddy slope.

They crashed into trees and tore through bushes as the commander was bounced around inside. All she could do was try not to get any more harmed… but then she realized it didn’t really matter.

She wasn’t going to make it out of this alive as much as she wanted to.

It was no time to cry, so she wiped away her tears and decided on her next course of action.

She intended to try and reload the turret to take as many shots as she could once the enemy caught up to her. There was no way they would let her escape and she already pulled them far enough away from her friends, so she could recklessly dedicate herself to destroying those who wished death upon everyone she knew and loved. No matter how impossible it probably was to load even one more shot, she planned on trying her best to do so.

But there was only one problem.

At the bottom of the hill, the tank crashed into a mound at the worst possible angle, resulting in the tank flipping over onto its side and tossing the commander out through the top hatch.

The commander almost blacked out from pain, but she managed to stay conscious enough to assess the situation.

“Sorry. I never was as good as Marmar at driving you,” the commander said to Valkyria, placing her hand on the turret before leaning against the metal hull. “This little thing is nowhere near as impressive as you, but it’ll have to do.” She took the handgun strapped to her side out of its holster before unbuttoning her shirt and taking her belt off. “Might as well get comfy.”

Two tanks reached the top of the hill.

And then one more joined them.

“I really hate being popular,” the commander said with another sigh. “You know,” she said to the tank while aiming her handgun at the tanks atop the hill, “I always thought of you as a sister. Weird, right? Marmar would probably call you her wife, but I always thought you were more like a sister to us. Just another girl in a fucked-up war with too much popularity.” The small-caliber bullets of her handgun did nothing against the tanks’ armor.

A high-explosive round impacted the ground behind her and the tank, almost knocking the tank over to crush the commander underneath it.

“Careful there. I know you’re not good at handling alcohol, but this is no time to get all wobbly on me,” the commander said. “But man… you’d think these bastards could at least hit a sitting target. No wonder we’ve survived this long.”

Eventually, only one round was left and chambered.

There were two options for her to decide between.

The first option meant firing another futile bullet at the enemy and praying for a miracle most likely only to get captured.

The second option meant killing herself to avoid a fate worse than death at the hands of her captors.

“I guess this is it then,” she said. No sigh left her lips this time. Instead, she was calm—relaxed.

Peaceful.

She performed her duty to the best of her ability and could be proud of herself. Her friends were most likely safe. Air support would help cover the retreat for the rest of the troops. She just had to hope that they would get there in time.

All that was left for her was to use that final bullet.

Another shot from the enemy missed them.

“Well, they’re not coming down here, and I’m going to die of old age before they hit us, so I guess I’ll help them out. Don’t keep me waiting too long, alright? I’m sure there’ll be all sorts of muddy forests for us to get stuck in together wherever we’re going.”

The tanks at the top of the hill halted their fire. Instead, some infantry members accompanying the tanks descended the hill with weapons drawn and aimed at the commander. They weren’t firing, though, which meant they intended on taking her alive.

She lifted the gun to her head and—

And she hesitated.

Her finger was on the trigger, but she couldn’t bring her shaking hand to pull it.

She didn’t want to die.

She didn’t want to kill herself.

She wanted to see her friends again. She wanted to hug them and laugh into the night just like they always did to keep each other sane during the war.

Tears ran freely from her eyes as she pointed her gun at the approaching soldiers.

Regardless of what may happen to her after they take her, she wasn’t going to waste her last bullet.

She was going to take down as many of the enemy as she could.

If she got captured, fine.

She didn’t care.

All she cared about was getting revenge for all those she already lost—all she cared about was taking down even just one more enemy if it meant one less enemy to threaten those she cared about.

She pulled the trigger without any hesitation.

The bullet flew through the air hit one of the enemy soldier’s in the shoulder. It didn’t kill him, but it made him shout a curse at her in a language she didn’t even understand.

She pulled the trigger a few more times only to hear empty clicks.

Fear and regret filled the commander’s eyes. For all the bravado she just felt, she looked like she wished she would have used that bullet on herself now.

I couldn’t blame her.

If it weren’t for hearing that she was out of ammunition, they would have opened fire on her. Instead, those approaching her knew that she was no longer a threat.

But there was another threat.

Something that refused to let the commander be captured.

Somebody that refused to let those she cared about be harmed.

The metal surface that the commander was leaning against disappeared only to be replaced by the soft warmth of another person.

“Rest your eyes. You did your best,” the woman said, wrapping one arm around the commander’s waist as her other arm pulled the commander’s head down to rest against her chest.

Next, the commander heard what sounded like the tank’s cannon fire, but she had no idea what was happening. It sounded just like the tank’s turret, yet the tank somehow vanished only to be replaced by a strange woman.

No, it wasn’t a strange woman.

The commander knew exactly who it was holding her.

She knew exactly who the one saving her was.

Those approaching them were blasted away. The tanks at the top of the hill tried to fire down at the commander and the woman, but three shots in quick succession took care of the tanks.

“Val… Valkyria?” the commander asked, looking up at the woman who looked just like she did while sitting next to me in the present day. Only, she was also wearing heavy, protective armor resembling the style of the tank she was. The tank armor resembled a mechanical exoskeleton of sorts that featured a huge, heavy tank barrel over her right arm and a shield of armor over her left.

“The one and only, at your service, Eliza,” Valkyria replied.

“Damn… if I knew… you were this beautiful, I’d have been thinking of you as my wife this entire time, too.”

“Perhaps after the war, commander. For now, I must return you to the others before they worry too much.”

“There’s more enemies that way. You should just leave me here and—”

“Then they will be broken and you shall be returned to our sisters. Now then,” Valkyria paused to lift her commander up with her left arm, hugging her against her body to protect her with that shield of hers as she looked up the hill they fell down. “Just this once, commander, allow me to take the lead.”

“Heh. Alright then… Val. I’ll leave it to you. Maybe… take a nap in the meantime.”

Valkyria knew that her commander didn’t have long left with how much blood she lost, so she didn’t waste any time as she charged up that hill where even more enemies were surely waiting for them.

And when I looked at the current Valkyria sitting next to me, the expression she wore was the same one that she had from the movie—from her show of memories. She looked every bit as determined as she did back then.

Maybe it was wrong of me, but I wanted to see her make their enemies pay after what they did to her and her crew.

Fortunately, Window was doing the parenting job and covering up Luca’s eyes whenever any corpses or gore was shown.

And then there was Lavi who… looked unbelievably hyped up and was sitting on the edge of her seat with a tail wagging faster than I’d ever seen before.

That made sense given her interests.