Away, to the catgirl countryside.

The angry crackle of artillery gave them half a second’s warning.

Now they were truly cut off, buried beneath the rubble of a church.

One of them was more buried than the other. The Major’s long, beautiful black hair spread out beneath her, floating in a pool of her own blood as more leaked from her mouth. She was covered in rubble, and cried out in pain. Her voice echoed through the ruins of the once-magnificent ancient cathedral.

“Oh Goddess…”

He was there instantly.

“My legs… I can’t feel my legs!”

He sprang into action without orders, digging with his bare hands at the rubble. From others, a fruitless gesture. He was dislodging huge stones and metal debris and tossing them aside with thoughtless power. Getting her out wasn’t the problem, and he dragged her the short distance to a church pew.

“Yep. Broken as fuck.” With some help from their first aid kit, she was calmer; something to numb the agony. Or she was just losing feeling in her extremities. “Of all the stupid things to get me…”

Sasha had watched an awful lot of people die in an awful lot of ways, and though he’d try to deny the danger, the Major didn’t need some broken wreck of a man. She needed competent, clear-eyed analysis and help.

More than anything, they needed to get out of this building.

It rumbled above and below them, dislodging more small bits of the structure. Sending Dirt and rocks rumbling down around them in an unfriendly shower.

“If they’ve made us, there’ll be more where that came from,” the Major said. “Either way, this place is unstable. Sasha, you have to get out of here while you still can.”

Yes, with the Major in tow.

“No. You’ve got to leave me behind. I’ll… I’ll catch up to you later.”

Patently absurd.

He carried her like a princess as they made for the ruined, buried exit.

“Listen. I'm sorry for the many things I’ve done to you and your family. Putting you into this life, when you were too young to say no. All the experiments, the missions. But whatever the others say, you’re not just a weapon meant to kill people. Soon, this war will end… and you need to survive to see the end of it…”

The Major needed to live, too. No matter the cost. Even if he had to-

“No, you don’t get it. And there’s no time to explain. Look here, buster. You can get through that window up there. I’m not going to be doing much climbing. You need to get out of here, and you need to live, no matter what. That’s my order.”

There wasn’t time for an argument, like the Major said.

Because another shell brought the whole roof down.

-

The ground was shaking again.

This time, as Sasha awoke sitting up, he realized, somewhat to his relief, it was just the jostle and bustle of a train car in motion.

An all too familiar feeling, given the days of travel they’d put behind them.

The strange continent of Auzapari slid past their window in an endless slideshow. Stormy coastal jungles full of every kind of snake, especially the talking kind looking to sell rugs and beads at every stop. Rolling fields and meadows with herds of beasts running free, and humans astride them, competing with the smoke-spewing old locomotive in a one-sided race. Now, mountains peaked with snow rose to either side, as the track wound through narrow passes.

Stopping only long enough to take on one or two loads of obscenely topheavy rabbit-girls from the villages in the foothills.

So much life, outside the window.

Through each stop, the two of them remained. Sasha saw no need to leave their room, except for necessities. The Captain would often leave, going to and fro.

When she asked for status reports, he always said he was ready for combat. A nominal report, but one that failed to please this new authority figure. Eventually, he figured out from listening to other passengers across the hall that simply saying he was “okay” worked better.

The Captain was a different beast than the Major, though both were pretty girls hiding steel underneath. In the case of the Captain, that was more literal; in the moments her uniform shirt lifted up, it revealed rock-hard muscles and a rippling eight-pack beneath her fluffy exterior. Yet she was so cute and girly, bubbly, putting out an attitude of kindness so at odds with the military demeanor of the Major.

The Major was tall, where she was short. Feminine, versus more tomboyish. Long black hair, versus short peppy bubblegum pink. Clear, concise commands, versus frustratingly vague ‘questions’ and ‘offers’ and ‘requests’.

It wasn’t his place to judge, but contrasts were inevitable. Just in his own mind, to give him something to do as entire worlds he never conceived of slid past the tracks to either side.

The train powered onward, whistle blasting, lights shining through the night. By first light, they cleared the mountains, and were once again in open fields.

Farmlands, much the same as the one they were going out to build in Lilisburgh.

The crowds on the train thinned out, for few people were going to what the railroad maps said was the ‘end of the line’. It helped that said line terminated at the banks of the tiny inland sea, or enormous lake, whatever they called it. There was a big body of freshwater, visible over the hills ahead, and a town situated on its banks, spreading out long winding roads and scattered farmhouses and settlements to backfill the sheltered country.

Sandwiched between mountains and lake, this place felt as distant from the entire world as it was possible to be. Only this rail line went in and out, and even that was tenuous. As the Captain told it, rockslides weren’t uncommon.

Forests were thick, and knew little of the lumberjack’s axe. Farmlands grew tall, fields of wheat shimmering in the cool, clear morning sun.

Even Sasha, who knew nothing of this world, could figure they’d arrived long before the train started to slow.

“I did everything I could to get away from here,” The Captain said. “When I was a kid. I guess that’s not so many years past for either of us, huh? But we’re not kids anymore... C’mon, grab your stuff!”

Sasha did as he was told, and prepared to debark.

“... Oh no. I was hoping to have more time to prepare you, but welp. Just try to keep your head above water when you talk to the mayor.”

He only realized the fullness of meaning in the Captain’s warning when Sasha stepped off onto the train platform, and was promptly buried in a warm, soft, living avalanche.

A busty, enthusiastic, truly gigantic blonde.

“My, my~ Welcome!”