Vanargand

This article contains Fuga: Melodies of Steel spoilers, continue at your own risk.

The **Vanargand** is the Titano-Machina featured in *Fuga: Melodies of Steel* and is part of the final boss in the game. It was the most destructive weapon created by mankind during their discovery of Juno.

## History

The Vanargand is an Ace-class Titano-Machina created with the powerful Juno known as the Tanzanian Ace, which was controlled by Germany. Of the dozens of Titano-Machina that devastated the world before the Reset, the Vanargand was the most powerful and destructive of them all, and it unleashed widespread devastation across western Europe during the final days before the Reset. The Taranis was specifically created to stop its rampage, which it succeeded at by tearing out its heart-like core with the Soul Cannon's might.

When the Reset happened, the machine was sealed within the remains of France, beneath what would become the Free Lands of Gasco's capital Paresia, while its "heart" ended up in the mountains near Gasco's southern edge.

Due to her being separated in two and a millennia-long accumulation of self-loathing due to her fears of failing her makers, Jeanne's logical half, the Radio Woman weaved a tale to manipulate the new world's inhabitants, the Caninu and the Felineko, to revive her ancient enemy so she could destroy it for good. In that tale, the Vanargand was a Lost God, who was struck down and sealed against his will by a Steel Devil. Eventually, the tale became an object of fascination to a Caninu boy named Shvein Hax, who was told the tale as a bedtime story by his grandmother. Fascinated with the Lost God, and unwavering in his belief that the story was real, Hax made his life goal to release the God and destroy the Steel Devil that made it suffer.

Decades later, as the Supreme Commander of the Berman Empire's military, Hax used his influence to start a war with Gasco, personally led the invasion, used forced labor to excavate the machine's heart and installed it into the Bermans' own version of the Steel Devil, the Tarascus. Once he unleashed the power of the Managarm upon the Gascoan forces, he set course for Paresia, where the god of his bedtime stories laid buried beneath.

Despite the efforts of Malt and his friends to stop him and his forces, Hax was able to reach the caves beneath Paresia, entered the Vanargand and reactivated it, gaining control of its power. Soon after, the monstrous machine rose from its slumber and devastated the Gascoan capital, which ended up stuck in its back. Desperate to atone for her maddened half's mistake, the restored Jeanne and the Taranis climbed the monster's legs to reach the crumbling city, as the old wound the Soul Cannon dealt to it two millennia ago was still open. Once the tank reached the inner chamber of the Vanargand, it faced off with the Tarascus, while Hax used the Vanargand's power to devastate and sunder Gasco, breaking the country into an archipelago.

Upon witnessing the resolve of her crew, who were willing to keep fighting despite all odds, Jeanne was able to find a way to fire the Soul Cannon without sacrificing the children's lives. Using Jihl and her own energy to empower the weapon, the Taranis dealt a mortal blow to the Vanargand once more, killing Hax and wrecking the Tarascus. Promptly, the Vanargand fell apart and a massive explosion wrecked its body.

## Trivia

* Vanargand or **Vánagandr** (Old Norse for "**Monster of the Ván** [river]") is another name for **Fenrir**: a monstrous wolf in Norse mythology who was the son of the trickster god Loki and the giantess Angrboða. Fenrir was bound by the gods out of fear, but is said to break free during Ragnarök and kill Odin—the head of the Norse pantheon.
* Vanargand's design was originally made for Lares during *Solatorobo*'s conceptualization. It was also featured as its own then-unnamed Titano-Machina in the Little Tail Bronx Archive Starlet series of art books.