Chapter Text
The Francois-Imperial War of 1894 marked a golden age of advancement in mage technologies, magical theory, and countless improvements ranging from common day uses to industry and medicine.
But at the same time said golden age has made progress on said magical wonders from the last century all but abandoned, their effectiveness has made even the most innovative Imperial become complacent in the thought that a mage will continue to serve the same purpose as the last century's war.
And should one look at the current state of the Luftmagierkorps he would see that the branch embodies everything that was just described: a branch of the army wrapped up in stagnancy, complacent in their role, and using the exact same tactics their predecessors developed, with spotters and mage infiltrators still finding a similar place in this war as in the last one with no improvements to their methods being visible.
Some, like Elenium Arms, have tried to boost our technology and material science to the point that we can overcome the stagnancy of the apparatus that calls itself the Imperial mage corps through brute force and hope that a miracle will arise from these new technologies.
But that isn't enough, not anymore, not with the kind of war being fought, where lives are spent like ammunition and men die in droves every day.
The first problem in the long list of problems with the Luftmagierkorps is logistical in nature, as technologies advance...
"On magic in warfare" (excerpt) by Lieutenant cadet Tanya Degurechaff, March 12 1923.
*-_
Ilfov, Grand Duchy of Dacia, September 25 1924
Erich von Lergen never thought he would enter another country as part of a conquering army.
He, of course knew that he would have to lead troops at one point, he wasn't foolish to think that an officer in the army wouldn't have to be in the battlefield at one point in time, but still, he never expected to see the conquest of a country happen before his eyes as quickly as this one, and certainly not under the current circumstances.
The current situation had developed so fast that Imperial high command was in shock, the Dacians sending nearly a million men into the Empire and being wiped out in a few hours was the first shock, then a local head of research in a so-called Division 13 had led a wing into Dacian territory, another strike to high command, and then they had captured the Grand Duke!
Truly, this world is mad.
And so over the course of an hour Lergen was told to get on a car, and he was taken from his inspections in Ransylvania to the ancient streets of Ilfov.
And as soon as he could he'd requested the Major's name, something about the way they operated made his ulcer hurt.
As he was riding through Dacia he got his answer in the form of a plain, unlabeled file that had been quickly airdropped by a mage courier.
As such, he was reading it right now that he had the time.
And he immediately regretted doing so.
Tanya von Degurechaff, a name that time and again came back to haunt him, first in the War Academy of Berun, then after the Norden Incident where she was awarded one of the most prestigious medals in the Empire: the Silver Wings Assault Badge.
After that, he had the perfect opportunity to keep the little warmonger away from the frontlines and in a relatively unknown research lab, where her presence couldn't be used by enemy propagandists to tarnish the Empire's image.
And then she'd shown up in the Rhine, the little girl had been there to "test equipment" and that brought him to the Rhine to talk with her, he had implied that she could get a higher rank if she left the front, a way to entice her to leave, the promotion originally was largely a horizontal promotion, one that would be mostly ceremonial and would keep her busy in the rear more than her current duties did, but Degurechaff had stayed and only left after getting the 50 kills necessary to be called an Ace-of-aces, probably to satisfy her bloodlust.
After that he decided a heavier hand was needed and requested that "equipment testing" in the Rhine front be prohibited to Division 13, and thankfully his request was approved after a review by the general staff.
And then Dacia had declared war, and had their army destroyed by Degurechaff to show for it, he could almost pity them, nearly a million men, it was a horrifying number to think about, a single battle wiping that many men would in any other era be considered a cataclysmic event, today that number was less severe, yet it was still a massacre which if it had happened to the Empire the person who had come up with the operation would have been shot on the spot if they were lucky.
After that, Degurechaff wasted no time in laying waste to the capital of the Grand Duchy.
Well, that was an exaggeration, but the fires her people had unleashed were destroying quite a lot of property from what he could see.
He knew that her demand for the Dacians' surrender was simply an excuse to make it known that it was her wing and only her wing that had broken the Dacians' backs.
He gazed out the window of the car, the people had finally finished putting out the fires from the munitions factory, but the ruins still smoldered under the surface, and the lack of a dedicated firefighter corps showed the people of Ilfov that they couldn't win against the mechanized foes arriving to their capital, not while the fires raged on, at least.
They fearfully cleared the way for the trucks and his car, amazed at the horseless vehicle, probably.
Further up the road he could see people gazing fearfully at the tanks that Degurechaff had deployed, they were mounted on the old A7V chassis but that was where the similarities ended between the outdated design and the beast stationed along the palace gates, its armor was sloped and strange, with it lacking the rivets he'd expected and instead having the armor plates be welded instead, and though it was certainly a very tall tank standing at 8'6” tall it was still smaller than the tank who's chassis it had been placed on, and instead of the bellows of smoke that he'd expected steam came out of the back instead through a small exhaust tube out the back, small enough to not get hit by a stray round or to have a grenade shoved into it, the turret of the tank had been placed further back than any tank he'd ever seen, the large turret housing three men, the tank's 105mm gun and its ammunition, and the computation orbs for the commander and gunner, apparently.
Having ridden in the other tanks of the Empire he wondered if the massive "medium" tank was comfortable to ride in, but then thought against it since it would mean having a more direct involvement with Degurechaff.
They were finally reaching the end of the day-long journey, at the very least.
The ducal palace was placed right in the middle of Ilfov, right next to it were the administrative buildings of the equivalent of the Reichstag and other offices of government.
His car quickly pulled through the palace gates and into the palace courtyard, where a dozen mages waited for him.
They were all clad in armor that would normally crush a man under its weight, yet, as mages, they stood as if they were merely wearing the clothes on their backs.
As soon as he got up and left his car he was faced with the person who'd orchestrated the current situation: Major Tanya von Degurechaff.
She was still as small as ever, but she had finally shaken off the malnourishment that had plagued her looks when he'd first seen her, though she still looks like she hasn't seen the light of day, with her skin being white like porcelain.
He saw her smile, and he almost stumbled, a bead of sweat forming on his brow, the grin looked too wide, like it would cut her face in two were it just a bit wider. "Good evening, sir! I hope you had a great trip through Dacia!"
She clicked her boots and saluted, completely unbothered by the armor that she wore.
"Good evening to you too, Major." He looked around, spotting a pair of mages moving a crate of foodstuffs to the back of a truck. "I see Dacia is treating you well."
She chuckled, it was a sound that made Lergen cringe like someone scratched a plate with a fork, and her smile widened more, her jaw somehow not falling off, and the sight would have made even the most seasoned of veterans pale and quiver like babies.
It spoke volumes about the courage of the men who served under her.
"Oh, sir, you don't know half of it, sir, they basically welcomed us with open arms!" She swept her hand towards the remains of the burning factory and Lergen looked back to the remains of a very ornate musket that had been torn in half that lay by the palace door, a drying stain was the only other indication that violence had occurred here recently, or at least the plume of smoke in its general direction.
What a monster that she is! Joking about the destruction that happened here on her orders! He bit his cheek to keep himself from declaring her the most evil person he'd met, he had, as an officer, to appear calm and collected, and as such he kept a placid and neutral facade.
Battlefield humor, that always works to endear superiors and fellow soldiers in a militaristic society such as this, even someone as reasonable and helpful as Colonel Lergen can appreciate a joke such as that due to the ingrained militarism in his subconscious due to years of propaganda. And seeing him bite his cheek to hold back a chuckle was all that she needed to know that it had worked.
She dropped the smile after a few moments. "However inviting they are, we still have matters of state to get to, sir." The little girl turned around, revealing the largest computation orb he'd ever seen mounted on her back, along with it on the small of her back was a pack, and a pair of strange cylinders that he recognized as some sort of grenade lay tied to the pack right beside a sharpened trench shovel, tiny droplets of blood still were stuck to the section where the handle and the shovel head met.
She was so small of stature and doll-faced that it was easy to forget this was a seasoned veteran of the Rhine and someone who had probably killed tens of thousands of people just yesterday, Lergen swallowed nervously. "Indeed we must, where might the Duke be?" He flawlessly recovered from that train of thought.
And here we go. Degurechaff thought. "We are housing him in the palace throne room, my soldiers are bringing him out."
And true to her word they did, the Duke was sporting a brand new black eye which had appeared during last night.
Lergen raised an eyebrow, to which Degurechaff quickly answered. "He refused our offer to come with us quietly, Captain Neumann knocked him out."
"I see." He approached the duke.
"Good evening, Grand Duke, I am Lieutenant Colonel von Lergen, and I am to take you to the Empire to discuss the conditions of the surrender of Dacia." He spoke in Germanian, he knew the man spoke it as well, as the briefing he received on the way here had informed him.
"And why should I even play along with this farce?" The man looked ready to spit on Lergen's face, and he couldn't blame him, were he in the same situation, Lergen would have done the same.
"Because the Dacian army has, as of yesterday, been wiped out, and the Imperial army has free reign of the Dacian homeland, as soon as we can move in, that is, which will only take a few months at most for us to do." He still couldn't believe the foolishness that the Dacians had been committed to when invading the Empire, honestly, unleashing a beast like Degurechaff on them felt like proper punishment for that.
The man looked down, cowed by the news that his army was crushed so easily, Lergen told his men to take the duke to the prison car they'd prepared for him.
"What will you do after this, Major Degurechaff?" He asked, hoping this stint was enough to satisfy her bloodlust.
Is he asking if I'd be willing to do something like this again? No way in hell! "I'll go wherever the Empire requests me to be, sir." There, a proper soldier's answer, not eager to move unless ordered to.
She's already waiting to be sent to another front!? If she goes to the Rhine again it'll be a public relations disaster, not to mention the deaths she'll cause with her bloodlust! I need to make her go somewhere else! "I've heard that the northern front has gotten much harsher." Vague, but the suggestion will steer her to the more sparsely monitored north.
Fuck, he's warning me about possible "requests" for aid. A soldier's life was pretty much like a salaryman's in some aspects, apart from the constant tiredness, there were the "suggestions" and "requests" from your bosses that meant do it or you're fired, or in the case of the military: do it or we'll drag you in front of a firing squad.
So she appreciates a superior like Lergen, warning her of this. She smiles. "Thank you, sir."
Lergen's ulcer reared its ugly head the moment she smiled, he hoped he'd managed to stir her away from coming back to the Rhine. "Well, Major, I'm afraid that I must leave, you're free to return to Division 13 headquarters, as the Imperial army is currently moving in."
"Wait, sir, I must ask, what should we do with the duke's family, are they to be released?"
"You managed to capture them as well…? Very well, we'll have to take them with us as well." Lergen sighed, not looking forward to the road ahead.
Tanya couldn't say she was looking forward to telling the members of Division 13 to pack up and leave immediately, either, the war maniacs probably wanted to raid a few more pantries along the way.
In the end they had to leave in the middle of the night as the Imperial army settled in and the Division 13 trucks fueled up.
Tanya decided to sleep on the trucks as they left, a driver making space in the cabin of one of the trucks carrying her men.
*-_
Parisee, the Francois Republic, September 27 1924.
“Well, ain't this a surprise? Mr. John! How've you been, friendo?” a thin and pale-looking man greeted the portly Mr. John.
Mr. John turned around and made sure to keep a friendly smile on his face to hide his shock at being called that name, his codename, in public, in the middle of Parisee of all places.
As he saw the man who greeted him his smile turned a bit more genuine, though he kept an eye for anyone else listening in on them. “Arthur Westley, as I live and breathe, how have you been, old chap?” John greeted his American counterpart, or at least the public American counterpart, as he was sure the Americans had undercover agents in Francois. Like anyone didn't, at this point even the Akitsushimans had people here.
Arthur let a hearty chuckle out. “Been here and there with my ups and downs, but otherwise pretty alright, my job with the Times and my other job keep me afloat, at the very least.” The man then looked John in the eyes. “But enough about me, I heard you had a troubled stay near the Empire, ain't that right?”
“Ah, that affair, yes, I was there when it happened, but don't be afraid I suffered no harm.” John patted his fellow spy's shoulder.
“So that means you saw the new toys the Imperials just got?” Arthur quietly asked John.
“Barely, but yes, I saw those armored mages.” When he'd seen the mages he'd been busy trying to pack as many files as he could inside a suitcase entirely too small, as such he didn't pay as much attention to them as he could've otherwise.
“Not just them, you didn't see the papers?” The man asked John, the answer to which was a flat stare John had seen in his superiors many times when a young analyst gave too much information for a briefing.
The man simply signaled for John to follow him, they walked a short distance from the bustling and well maintained streets of central Parisee and into an alleyway that led to the more rundown buildings just a few blocks away, there they stopped and Arthur opened the small briefcase he was carrying with him, his bony fingers fiddling with the complicated lock it used to keep files secure.
“Here it is.” Arthur smiled as he found whatever he was looking for, and pulling it out of the case John gave an impressed whistle.
It was a genuine Imperial newspaper, and while John's Imperial was rusty he could still read its title written in bold, black text: “THE FUTURE OF WARFARE!” it proudly declared, a child clad in the armor he'd seen in Ilfov stood proudly at attention on top of a tank that could only be generously described as beastly-looking. A child model? very obviously a propaganda picture for their new weapons.
“How did you get this?” John looked at his friend incredulously, the man gave him a sardonic smile.
“Well, for one, the Unified States still has an Imperial embassy and several consulates on our soil.” the man gave a sardonic grin that made John almost punch the man, almost. “But this one I got from my Imperial counterpart at the consulate in Minga.”
John made a mental note to tell his handler to investigate the members of the US embassy in the homeland while he spoke. “Interesting, may I read it?”
“You can go ahead and keep it, we've got a dozen copies already, think of it as a gift.” The man smiled wider, his grin almost splitting his face in half.
He clearly wants something. John mused internally.
“And what would you want in exchange for this “gift”, Arthur?” John gave the man a dangerous look, keeping his voice low, showing that he didn't want to be messed with like the last time they'd met back in Magna Rumeli.
The man chuckled. “Nothing much, we just hope that you return the favor in regard to this particular matter in the future.”
An information exchange it is, then. “I'll think about it, but I can't promise anything at all.” John tucked the paper into one of his coat's inner pockets to protect it from sight as Arthur closed his briefcase and fiddled with the lock again. “Why are you so interested in that conflict in Dacia?”
“The president has grown quite interested in the Europan conflict as of late.” The man shrugged as he was turning and heading for the opposite side of the street that they'd entered from. “And has become quite interested in buying the tech that'll come out of this little spat over dirt.”
A spat that has killed hundreds of thousands already, and has probably crippled the Europan economy as a whole for generations. John mused in his brain, watching as the man said his goodbyes and left, another figure stepping out of the shadows of the alleyway and following the man's steps before they both stepped into a car that was waiting for them.
John tipped his hat as he left, sighing to himself about the amount of work that had just been thrown onto his lap. Here's hoping that that nasty business in Legadonia ends quickly. He thought to himself, knowing that wouldn't be the case.
*-_
From: Brigadier General Kurt von Rudersdorf.
To: Major Tanya von Degurechaff.
Date: October 30 1924.
Subject: Northern assistance.
To Major von Degurechaff:
I hope this letter finds you well, and I must thank you for your assistance in Dacia, however, it has become clear that those suits of yours can be a huge boon to us in the coming weeks.
As such, I am requesting your deployment to the Empire's northern reaches where you'll meet with me for a briefing on your assignment.
Telegram between the Imperial army headquarters and Division 13's telegram station, date of archiving: November 3 1924 as per military protocols.
*-_
From: Major Tanya von Degurechaff.
To: Brigadier General Kurt von Rudersdorf.
Date: November 1 1924.
Subject: Orders Received.
Understood, we'll be deploying our mage wing to assist in the northern front in any way we can, a list for suitable housing and equipment storage for our wing, technicians, and equipment will be attached to this letter.
Response telegram from Division 13, date of archiving: November 4 1924.
*-
Imperial Norden, Imperial Army air corps supply depot, November 7 1924.
"Alright, you maggots! Get off! You're wasting this precious vehicle's time with your idling, I want to see this equipment out in the next five minutes!" I commanded the members of my mage wing and the technicians we'd brought along to maintain the F-2's.
They didn't seem to need any more motivation to get to unloading as they moved the heavy equipment off the aircraft we'd landed in.
I walked down the plane's ramp into the frigid air of the north, a thin layer of snow coating the tarmac where our plane had been parked, to my left was an empty field, to my right was the rest of the tarmac and in front of me was the hangar/warehouse we would be using to house our equipment, two men carrying a crate full of rifles passed by me, one of them stumbled but I caught him before he could fall and drop the crate of weapons. "Careful, if you break those rifles they'll come out of your pay!" I threatened, he had the gall to chuckle but immediately apologized and ran off before I could get another word out.
I walked through the busy airstrip watching as a squad of technicians worked to get the plane we'd just descended from ready for another flight, they pulled hose from a tanker truck to refuel the massive plane, the smell of fuel reaching my nostrils I decided that I didn't want to stick around and hurried my pace.
Walking through the base and before arriving at the gate I found that Weiss, always the proactive one, had gotten a car and was waiting for me at the gate.
I walked up to the car which was dusted in a light layer of snow. Ma'am, I obtained an automobile from the motorpool for your use!" He snapped a salute.
"Good job, Weiss!” I patted him on the arm, I wished to pat him on his shoulder, but I was simply too short and flying to pat him would've just made me look silly and ruined my image as a prim and proper officer.
I quickly got into the car and ordered him to get in as well, he's halfway to the door when I do so. "To the headquarters, quickly." I order, he obeys with a quick "yes, ma'am!" And starts the car.
I peered out the window as we rode through town, trying desperately to distract myself from the freezing cold, without any AC or other commodities that cars in my time had the car was freezing, I could have sneezed in here and my snot would have frozen in my nose from how cold it was, and gazing outside the climate didn't make the situation any better.
What was once a prosperous and peaceful city now lay almost in ruins from a lack of maintenance, most of the men of the north had been conscripted into the Imperial Army's northern front, leaving few men to take care of the job of maintaining the buildings or do construction work or to produce the locally available materials to make the buildings, the women and children and elderly of this ruin of a town had been for the most part been evacuated too, leaving this city as a husk of seemingly better times in the nostalgic minds of the adults here.
I, of course, had no foolish nostalgic delusions, as the Empire has always been a poor host nation in comparison to modern Japan, not to say that Japan didn't have its fair share of problems, but it was much better than all of the countries in this world combined in comparison.
We continued on our way through the city, as we grew closer the buildings fell more and more into disrepair, as bomb craters from a bomber wing that had broken through the AA umbrella yesterday had managed to toss all its munitions at the city, missing its intended target by several miles.
The exposed concrete and brick continued all the way to the Imperial Army headquarters, until being cut off by an open field of bare concrete floor, fortified walls, machine gun nests and heavily guarded checkpoints.
I was made to continue on foot while the military police checked Weiss’ requisitioned car, which I didn't mind, stretching the legs after a long flight was a needed relief after being in the cramped interiors of an early 20th century plane that had a barely pressurized cabin.
"Major Degurechaff!" A gruff voice called out to me as Iarrived at the main headquarters building, the owner was a large and portly man whose uniform hid a musculature honed from years of training and exercise drilled into a young recruit, yet this was no recruit, this was general Rudersdorf, one of the more famous figures in the Imperial Army at the moment for his bold strategies in the field of battle, he had a mustache that would have made many men jealous and wore a cape whose neck was made of fur, underneath said coat was the typical Reicharmee uniform, which somewhat resemble Imperial German army uniforms.
"General Rudersdorf." I saluted crisply, putting a hand to my forehead and clicking my heels together.
"At ease, it's good to finally meet you, your reputation precedes you." He motions for me to follow. "Let us head inside, the winter appears to have come earlier than expected this year and I don't wish to become a block of ice."
I chuckle at his joke "I do not want to be a popsicle, either, sir."
"Popsicle?" He raises an inquisitive eyebrow at me.
"A frozen treat for children in the Unified States." I responded. Have those even been invented yet? Were they invented at all in this world?
The next few hours are a blur, meetings with more people than I care to put a name to, introductions from other nobles who saw my actions in Dacia as heroic and notable enough to give me an introduction of them and their noble titles, a few of the younger and bolder ones made feeble attempts to court me, but the look of utter disgust on my face had been enough to make them give up on such prospects.
A few minutes later began the actual discussions of attack plans, which targets to prioritize, logistics planning, and the like.
By the second hour of that I felt like a husk, the constant whinging between members of the army and navy had left me so utterly tired that I don't know if even the salaryman would have been able to survive this meeting without Tanya's youthful body and energy.
And that was with only a few hours of planning, I didn't envy the aides who had to sit through dozens of these meetings every week.
I was dismissed after what felt like an eternity, and I feel like I would have praised whatever god was up there in thanks, unfortunately that would've meant praising That Devil, Being X, so I stayed quiet even in my mind.
As I stepped out of the room I wondered how it had come to be this way, I was to attack one of the greatest fortresses in the world to act as the army's offensive granted me and the navy a distraction to rush through the Legadonian countryside and knock them out of the war.
While I could certainly understand what they'd planned and it was a relatively sensible tactic to use, it seemed like the general staff had been hit with the idiot stick when planning this particular operation, and miraculously for them (and unfortunately for me) everyone involved thought that it was a great idea even though our logistics weren't ready for the deployment of the amount of men and equipment this simultaneous offensive and naval invasion would require.
They were basically hinging on this plan's speed to overcome any logistical hurdles that it might have, if this plan payed off, it would let the Empire focus on the bigger player, the Francois, but if it failed we would be left with a disastrous invasion and possibly a huge chunk of the navy lost.
This all meant that the operation screamed intervention from both Being X's so-called "Divine Intervention" and that of the glory hounds in the army wanting a successful breakthrough to get them a decisive victory under their belts.
I grumbled to myself spouting a muttered "Damn you, Being X." With as much venom I could possibly put into my voice.
I walked outside where the car was waiting to take me back to the barracks, beside it was the ever-loyal Weiss, who as soon as he saw me and opened the car's door for me and gave a professional salute, I got in and sat down, giving him a kind smile.
He, for some reason, flinched which made me raise a curious eyebrow. In any case, I told him to take us to the barracks.
We rapidly peeled off from the HQ, I didn't have the energy or force of will to stay here for any longer, our trip took longer than the one to the HQ, as our barracks were in the outskirts of town, near the naval docks, as they were previously marine barracks before they had to be emptied out due to a lack of recruits for the marines.
As I arrived at the barracks I was welcomed by Visha who had a freshly brewed cup of coffee for me.
I graciously took it and gave her a thankful smile and nod, she beamed at me with a smile that could have brightened anyone's day, it certainly did mine.
The barracks building was a two-story block of concrete whose first floor was half-buried in the ground, its construction made for utility over being pretty with bare concrete making up the entirety of its construction.
Stray weeds grew from the abandoned garden around the barracks, the building itself had dirt and grime coating the walls from a lack of use.
The interior was thankfully more neat and tidy than its exterior would suggest, with the floors made of planks of wood older than this body of mine.
"Visha, gather the men, we've got a mission." I told her, my squeaky voice echoing in the empty hall.
"Yes, ma'am, where do you want them gathered?" She nodded and stood stock still.
"Outside, tell them to bring their coats." Visha ran off at that, I walked back outside to a podium designed to address the soldiery and waited for the gaggle of soldiers coming out of the barracks building to stand at attention.
When Weiss and Visha arrived I finally addressed the gathered men. "Good evening, gentlemen, did you lot have a good time unloading our equipment?"
They all answered with a resounding "Yes, ma'am!" That delighted me and brought a smile to my face. They were so eager to please, the hallmarks of good subordinates.
"Congratulations." I spoke in a saccharine tone and almost mockingly applauded them. "The Empire has seen your performance in Dacia and has decided that we would be useful for the coming offensive that the general staff has planned…"
I gave a dramatic pause. "And the target of our weapons' wrath will be one some of you might know." I spun up a projection formula for my men of a familiar seaside fort. "This is the Osfjord, and the general staff has decided that they want it wrapped in a neat little bow, and I assume that we're all too happy to oblige, right, men?" I smiled at the men, all of whom looked ready to crawl into a hole and die. Which is to be expected when being told that you're going to be assaulting a fort the size of the Osfjord.
Nevertheless, they put on brave faces and at the top of their lungs said. "Yes, ma'am!"
I could only smile wider at their eagerness.
*-_
"Will you hurry it up already! I've been waiting for you for thirty minutes !" A Legadonian sergeant yelled at his fellow soldier, who was in the predicament of needing a latrine in the middle of a frozen forest.
"Look, I can't control this! That food they gave me yesterday was barely cooked!" The lieutenant complained to the sergeant.
"You always say that, hurry it up, we're ten minutes late on our patrol." The sergeant pulled out a cigarette from a pack in his left breast pocket. "Do you mind if I smoke? At least to pass the time?"
"Go ahead, I don't mind, I'm not some uppity politician's brat." The lieutenant called out, fully aware that smoking while on patrol was forbidden due to snipers, but this forest was in the far northwestern reaches of Legadonia near the Osfjord, so such a rule was next to useless.
Besides, the sergeant had a lit oil lamp on him, if a sniper somehow was there he would've already taken out the sergeant and the lieutenant.
The sergeant opened the little lamp, lifting the glass dome and put his coffin nail up to the flame, as he did the wind picked up suddenly and made the flame grow far more than it should've, making the sergeant drop the lamp, startled as the flame licked his hand.
The lamp sputtered and its warm flame died as it landed in the snow, spilling the precious oil that it relied on for fuel.
"Are you okay!?" The startled lieutenant called out, trying to get up from his makeshift latrine.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I just dropped the lantern." The sergeant touched the ground looking for the lamp, finding it after a few seconds of touching the ground in a blind search he cursed. "Shit, the oil spilled out."
"Dammit, can you at least light it again?" The lieutenant questioned the man while leaning against the snow-covered pine tree he'd made his latrine against.
"I think so, stay where you are, I don't want you to hurt yourself by stumbling blindly in the darkness."
"Don't worry about me, I can wait." The lieutenant sighed, gazing up at the moon to see if it would illuminate the forest a little bit to continue doing his business.
Then, in the time it took to blink, the shadows sprang forth like an animal towards him, and a gauntlet-clad had reached forth from the dark and smashed the lieutenant's head like an overripe fruit against the pine he'd been leaning on, the head splattering into gore like it was a water balloon.
"Wh-!" The sergeant was about to scream out at the sound of a human skull being smashed into solid wood, only to be silenced by a bayonet that sang a deadly tune of drawn steel gliding through the air, the blade so sharp and focused in its single task that the meat and sinew of the man's neck presented no challenge to the song of death the steely blade sang.
His rapidly spilling lifeforce and the gargling of his slit throat emitted sounding out like a quiet requiem to their owner's death.
The figure standing over the cooling corpse of the sergeant called out to its partner with a series of clicks that could only be called demonic, and the shadow-clad being's appearance only seemed to exacerbate such notions of demonhood.
It was small, covered head to toe in armor as gray as the clouds clogging the beautiful night sky of the Legadonian northwest, its armor had dull gems inserted into it that seemed to glow whenever the being's tiny shape moved, at its side lay a strange and long rifle held by a canvas sling, and where the being's face should be there was only a cold mask of steel that revealed nothing to the world, its eyes glowing a hellish green as it peered around for anyone close enough to spot it, finding nothing it sheathed the bloody blade it carried.
The other creature carried much the same equipment as the first, though it was considerably heavier than the first's equipment, it shook its gauntleted hand to get rid of the gore staining it, it failed to meaningfully clean anything other than the heaviest chunks away.
The smaller being shook its head before emitting three loud clicks from the metallic mask covering its face, at this signal the shadows of the forest sprang to life, moving surprisingly quiet over the snow.
Their silent prowl through the forest came to an end as they were met with the edge of the forest and the walls of a seaside fortress.
Seeing this, the beasts formed up into pairs, unnoticed by the defenders of the fort, who were busy trying to pass the time on what seemed, to them, as a safe posting.
The tiny beast from before, the one that commanded this hellish legion, looked at its thin wrist for something and then pulled out a pistol from a pack on its back.
The pistol's barrel was raised aloft, its wide brass barrel glittering ever so slightly as the last dregs of moonlight that had bypassed the shadows above were caught on it.
A tense second passed and then the trigger of the pistol was pulled, a bright flare emerged from the barrel, before the flare even had time to explode the beasts prowling in the forest emerged like a small tide of steel, the illusions that almost cloaked them from sight dissipating but still clinging to their forms.
Some of the figures flew, others ran faster than a speeding bullet, some even calmly walked while laying fire against the fort's visible machine gun nests, but all of them were heading in different directions, the pair that slew the patrol before flew up onto the fort's second floor and landed beside a shocked Legadonian soldier.
He didn't have time to even piss his pants before he was kicked into a wall by the smaller figure, the young man's body turning into mush barely held together by his skin's elasticity as he impacted the wall with tremendous force.
The pair then turned to the door the soldier was guarding, the taller one tore the door off its hinges with a grunt and it flew for a couple of meters before smashing into the far wall, the two moved in before the door even touched the ground.
They rushed through the facility, any guards unlucky enough to meet the increasingly bloody pair were slaughtered where they stood, their bodies marking the bloody trail these two carved, as they arrived at the second floor dormitories, which was marked very clearly for all to see the bigger one passed a cylindrical grenade to the smaller one.
The grenade glowed in the smaller one's armored grip, it tossed the grenade into the room unceremoniously and ran with its partner in tow, the dust from the grenade’s explosion engulfing the pair for a second before they emerged from it unscathed.
As the dust settled the two walked towards an intersection where six of the armored beings stood. “Status report!” Shouted the tiny one in squeaky Imperial, revealing herself to be a girl.
“ma'am!” the men saluted while one gave a verbal report. “We've cleared the third floor and we're currently in the process of heading towards the guns, and we haven't taken any casualties.”
“Ignore the guns, we don't have time for that, blast the magazines.” They nodded rapidly and went off to do their tasks. “Serebryakov, let's head out, I need to check the other group's progress.”
Lieutenant Serebryakov nodded and followed her commander, they tore a hole through the off-yellow walls of the fortress and flew up into the skies above.
Gazing around they found that group 2 had decided to turn the secondary set of batteries and torpedo launch positions into a burning husk, the occasional ammunition cook off causing pops to spring out of the burning building, few people managed to run away, fewer left with Weiss’ and Koenig's group sniping them from the air with artillery formulas.
“This is Fairy 01, radio silence is lifted, all callsigns, check in!” The armored girl called out.
“This is fairy 05, we've dealt with the secondary batteries, we've managed to recover files that belonged to this fortress’ company commander.” Called the manly voice of Weiss.
“This is Fairy 09, me and the rest of the group have reached the primary magazines and have begun planting explosives, all callsigns within the primary fort are to fly up and away within the next 5 minutes!” The voice of one Rhiner Neumann called out, and Tanya smiled under the steely facade of her helmet.
“Good, then the operation can proceed as planned, launching a green flare now!” Lieutenant Serebryakov grabbed a flare gun from her pack and fired it up into the sky, another flare, a green one too, way off in the distance answered it.
The next few minutes passed quietly, with everyone rearranging themselves back into the wing formation to defend against any would be attackers from the garrison forces near the Osfjord, all the while both sides of the fortress became a funeral pyre for the nation of Legadonia as this invasion would surely break their army’s back due to the scramble to try and defend from the Imperials flooding into the country.
“Ma'am, this is Fairy 07! We've detected a magical surge!” a mage from the wing's air patrol called out over the radio, breaking the quiet silence Degurechaff was enjoying, a shocked look passed her armor-clad face. Mages, this far north?! Did Intelligence fuck up again?
“Where.” Degurechaff demanded calmly but firmly amidst the storm of panic welling inside her head.
“They're coming from the northeast, it's a wing in size.” The mage calmly stated the numbers of the enemy's force. A wing, did they know we were going to attack their rear? Or was this simply luck that they shored up their rear line defenses after what we did in Dacia?
Nevertheless it was a job for Imperial Intelligence and Division III B to figure out. Tanya wondered inside her head while bellowing out orders to form up into a defensive formation.
*-_
Dammit, how did those bastards get here? Anson cursed in his head while keeping up a calm facade to not worry his men about the situation they were heading to.
The alert had come ten minutes ago that the Osfjord was covered in flames, the inky black clouds having been spotted by a long range patrol heading back to rest.
They had immediately scrambled all available mages for this, a whole battalion's worth.
Problem was in trying to find the bastards who did this, as no magical signatures were spotted by the sensors other than their own.
So that meant that the Imperials had either inserted a marine infiltration unit to burn the Osfjord, had spies sabotage the magazines, or worse, had managed to stealthily deploy mages into the fjord, and he didn't like either of those three possibilities.
Suddenly something tugged at the edge of his awareness and years of training and fighting kicked in as he suddenly evaded a magically enhanced round fired at him, the round exploding past him and in the middle of his formation, catching two of the greenhorns that Anson had been tasked with training. They're mages, then.
“Everyone, scatter! They're firing from long range!” They did as they were told surprisingly quickly, giving Anson hope that they would grow to be great mages, if they survive this battle, that is.
“They're firing from the southwest!” Someone called out, Anson didn't have the time to figure out who, as he evaded two more rounds.
They're firing from outside the visual range! Anson realized as he tried to see where exactly the rounds were coming from with an optics formula to act as a pair of binoculars. And that rate of fire… they have machine guns as well?!
“Everyone, we need to close the gap! Otherwise they'll keep trying to snipe us!” he pointed southwest as he gave the command over a speech formula. “Keep heading in that direction, we need to get in close.”
The members of his battalion immediately formed back up into an attack formation and launched themselves in the general direction of the enemy, Anson let his magic flow into the flight ski that he wore, the pack on his back humming as he pushed it to its limit to accelerate enough to evade the incoming rounds.
Explosions rained left and right as they impacted his and his men's shields, some of them didn't manage to hold up against the constant bombardment and broke as the fire consumed the poor men who rapidly fell to the ground as nothing more than charred corpses.
Anson shook his head, he had to move on, he couldn't let their sacrifice be for nothing.
Eventually they managed to spot whoever it was that was shooting at them and it gave Anson a momentary pause; they were clad clad in metal, for one, the armor reminiscent of gothic plate armor with a modernized flair of stamped steel and its plates were far thicker than that armor that could be found in museums with the joints made of leather or canvas with loose chainmail covering them, the helmet they wore had a far wider visor with a piece of glass covering the burning green eyes that peered beyond the steely mask.
Anson evaded by the skin of his teeth as the mage fired a burst from the strange weapon that he carried, two of the rounds slamming against the rapidly decaying shell that his shield was becoming.
“There they are, everyone, fire at will!” He screamed that last order at the top of his lungs as he fired a volley in response.
The chaos of battle rapidly descended onto the skies of Norden, the frantic furball of aerial combat developing as the enemy tried to outwit and outmaneuver one another.
But it was clear one side had the advantage, both technological and tactical: the Imperials threw out as many illusions as they did bullets and grenades, and they threw a lot of both, for while the Legadonian rifles barked angrily at their owners’ commands, the Imperials’ roared mightily and threw plenty of burning lead to back that roar up.
Anson, amidst the chaos, had managed to spot a pair Imperials hanging back, both clad in that same armor, one was tall and one short enough to probably pass as a child, and figured that they must be the commanders of this operation.
And, to Degurechaff's miserable luck, he was right, the two aces fighting like dogs over a bone, their rapid and spontaneous turns and evasions being done at spine-shattering speeds, neither gaining the advantage in the rough dogfight.
But Tanya wasn't a fool, she knew that fighting a dogfight completely straight was for idiots and incompetents that let themselves be ambushed and couldn't break out of such situations, so she threw out illusions as much as she could, distracting the man while she casted multiple fireballs and snapped at him with bursts of gunfire and dropped magically enhanced grenades that burst like bombs, the magically enhanced preformed shrapnel exploding a few seconds later like bomblets.
These movements, could it be? Is this you, Rusted Silver? After all this time you come back to haunt me and my men again? Anson wondered in his mind as he roared at the damnable devil that had slaughtered his men all those years ago, firing a volley of high explosive death at the seemingly immutable being.
In a kind response to his threat of ending her life Degurechaff tossed another magically enhanced grenade, this time letting the fuse cook for a second to hit closer to the man.
Anson managed to evade the explosion and its secondary explosions by the skin of his teeth, somehow managing to evade the burst of gunfire he got as a gift for dodging the grenade.
He's really good, but those enhanced senses can only get you so far, as can ability and experience. Degurechaff then flared up the time dilation spell, up until now kept in reserve for a situation that actually demanded it, the world around her slipped into a crawl.
She flew down to the man who was fighting her, the poor bastard hadn't even noticed that she was already by his side, checking her surroundings in order to not get hit by any stray shots she found that her men were currently in the process of wiping the floor with the Legadonians and Visha was currently busy blowing up a pair of Legadonian idiots that had the same idea as the man in front of her.
Turning around, Degurechaff considered capturing him, it would have been easy, just cut his gun in half and punch him in the face to knock him out, but she honestly didn't want to deal with the trouble of keeping prisoners alive and healthy, the north would have enough problems fighting a war as is, keeping prisoners fed was simply a logistical challenge that they had yet to overcome, if they could overcome it at all.
So Tanya made her decision with a flareup of familiar magic.
And Anson found himself having the wind punched out of him by a tiny armored fist that plunged into his torso, a glowing mage blade shimmering and humming over the steel-clad forearm that owned said fist, looking down at his opponent he found himself gazing into an abyss of hellish green fire, the eyes underneath the visor cold and calculating, giving little regard to the corpse their owner had just made, he was promptly kicked off, falling to the waters below.
As the impact shattered his defensive shell and pulped many of the bones in his body he prayed, he sincerely prayed for God to keep his daughter safe, for his wife to leave for the Unified States before the Imperials locked down the country in their bloody grip.
Alas, the only answer he received for all his prayers was the deafening silence of the cold waters of the north sea.
Up above Degurechaff stood victorious, heaving, undoing her helmet's strap, pulling it up and gulping down water to wind down after the tense engagement. Who the hell was that maniac?! Who in their right mind charges through a furball like that?
She rapidly breathed in and out regaining her composure after a few seconds.
“Major, are you okay?” Asked a worried Visha.
“I'm fine, what about you?” Tanya asked, remembering the engagement between her and those Legadonians.
“I'm fine, ma'am, two Legadonians got through, but I managed to take them down.” she says while flexing her arm, an useless gesture inside the heavy armor she wore, Degurechaff rolled her eyes at this.
“Good, then we're done here.” Degurechaff smiled genuinely. Finally, we can rest up after this for sure.
“Visha, would you be a dear and tell the fleet that they have cleared the skies and they're free to move in properly?” Degurechaff asked the taller woman, almost forgetting her role as a military officer and falling back into her salaryman persona.
“Yes, ma'am!” Visha nodded, smiling back at her, clearly happy that this mission succeeded. And of course she would be happy, this operation will look very well in her future curriculum.
The major is smiling at me, she must be happy because I got my ace status finally! Visha thought while contacting the fleet below, the ironclad forms of the ships glowing in the warmth of the rising sun.
Hopefully I won't have to go back to doing things such as this too soon. Visha's thoughts unknowingly aligned with her commander's for the briefest of seconds right then and there.
And as the Imperial marines entered the city the Osfjord so jealously guarded the Imperial flag that stood proudly over the burning Legadonian flag marked the beginning of a new stage in the war, a new and frightful era, one where the Empire could focus its strength into a single front, for better, or for worse.