Chapter Text
The Wide World of Magic by Hans Zimmermann - published in 1945
The world of magic is far more diverse than we often realize. While the use of computation orbs is a common practice in Europa, mages worldwide have discovered a myriad of ways to harness magic, each with its own unique charm and power.
In Europa, we tend to think of the world as something we need to impose our will upon. This is reflected in how our magical arts have developed since the Enlightenment. Our magical arts use mental incantations, called formulae, that can be made extremely efficient through the use of computation orbs, which perform the majority of the mental work on behalf of our mages.
The cultivators in Zhangzi have a very different philosophy, so their magical arts developed likewise differently but were no less advanced than our own. They see the mind and body as part of one whole and focus on making their body into a mirror of their will. They do this primarily by infusing their bodies with mana, which they call cultivating. This allows them to use their bodies instead of external foci for the spells. There is a multitude of schools in Zhangzi that each teach their own form of martial arts. These martial arts act as their version of incantations to bring forth the miracles of magic into the world.
The science of alchemy, which was banned in Europa until our more civilized era, is also a form of magic different than computation orbs. It is primarily practiced in Persia and the northern portions of the Southern Continent. With it, they have learned to create artificial magical lifeforms known as homunculi and familiars. They specialize in temporarily transmuting materials into another substance, and they have found limited ways to store objects into sigils that some alchemists wear as tattoos.
While I could go on and on about the various magics of the world, it would be a mistake not to talk about innate mages. These mages have been transformed so thoroughly that their bodies are made of magic. Like homunculi, their bodies have unique magical properties. Like cultivators, their bodies can be used as a focus for spells.
One way individuals have become innate mages is when a computation orb malfunctions, resulting in an explosion. In very few cases, individuals actually survive due to the same magic that destroyed them, regenerating them. With their whole body replaced by the magic, they have gained the ability to use the powers of a computation orb without it. Arcane scientists are not sure why they even maintain the ability to complete preset formulae contained in the computation orb that went off, but that is just proof that we still have so much to learn about magic.
With the Great War behind us, we have just started to look at the broader world of magic available to us and challenge many of our misconceptions about how magic works. Through innovation and arcane science, even older styles of magical foci have found new purpose in this more modern age. For example, new synthetic materials and knowing precisely what makes illusion magic possible have resulted in new kinds of magical scepters that are comparable to computation orbs when used for illusions. The movie industry could not be more delighted as computation orbs are incredibly expensive, so these scepters act as a much cheaper alternative.
Still, the computation orb reigns supreme in Europa. Their ability to be customized and updated with more efficient formulae for whatever spells a mage may need regularly makes them the go-to for the most dedicated of mages. They are cost-prohibitive, however. Even mono-cores will set a person back a hefty amount. Dual-cores and above often cost a fortune and are only legally obtainable by mages with proper authorization, like those in law enforcement. Tri-cores are exclusively available only to the military and require the budget of a nation to fund the creation thereof.
Now, join me as we explore the wide world of magic together.
The History of the Mages of Interpol - originally published on the 13th of March, 1976
After the Great War, chaos reigned. Military-grade computation orbs scattered loosely across battlefields went to the highest bidder among the various crime syndicates of Europa. Gangsters and fringe political movements raided entire warehouses of poorly defended armories while Germania scrambled to reorganize its government after their defeat. Many mages across the continent just desired to have a computation orb again and joined any group willing to provide them one. Conventional law enforcement stood no chance against these magical gangsters who could withstand gunfire with humiliating ease and just fly away whenever.
Out of the chaos came the International Police (Interpol), sourcing mages from across the globe to meet the moment and return the world to order. No group was more famous than the Mages of Interpol 15. While their origins are obscure, experts believe that they started as an ad hoc deputized team in Germania during that fraught period of the provisional government before the Germanian Republic emerged. When the League of Nations formed to prevent another war and handle these international criminal organizations, this Germanian group became the basis for the mage branch of Interpol.
Adding to the mystery around the Mages of Interpol 15 was the fact that two of their most famous members, including their leader, Agent Nichts, obscure their faces and are only publicly known by pseudonyms. Their members had changed multiple times over the years, but their roster when they first captured the public imagination was:
Sonnetto - an artificial humanoid with striking red eyes, white hair, and living magical tattoos that leap off her skin to form various weapons and spell effects. Records indicate she was the product of an illegal human experiment in Persia. Once rescued by the Mages of Interpol 15, she fights at their side. Her regenerative abilities make her favored for making first contact in potentially dangerous situations.
Fang - a prodigy from Zhangzi who combines martial arts with magecraft. During the winter, his magic coats him like a second skin, so he does not need protective gear or even warm clothes. Unlike his teammates, he can quickly neutralize threats nonlethally.
Masquerade - a thespian knowledgeable in secret languages and illusions. His ability to quickly change his disguise and perform it believably makes him ideal for infiltration. Where his illusions direct civilians to safety and misdirect dangerous individuals into traps, his disguises fill the crime world with paranoia that anyone around them might just be him.
Nichts - a short Germanian who is almost always seen with a flight helmet, goggles, and coat. She has led the Mages of Interpol 15 since its inception. While she specializes in taking down powerful mages in duels, her real strength comes from her strategic mind that keeps her team in control of the situation. She is very private about her personal life and is shy around the press. The mystery around her identity and motives created a vacuum for people to impose their ideals, hopes, frustrations, and politics onto her.
Some Cement Warehouse in North Ildoa - 14th of January, 1950
It was a good day to be Antonio Ciancimino. He and the boys had just gotten their hands on a fresh batch of illegally tweaked civilian computation orbs to be packed in secure boxes within the cement mix so that they would be shipping all across Europa soon. One of the orbs included in the batch was a precious tri-core to be sent to the big boss. None of the local rival gangs or the police would dare mess with them either. Not with mages like Antonio and his two closest subordinates around. Once the shipment was made, they would be rolling in the cash to bring back to their families and make all their dreams come true.
“Hey, Boss,” one of his goons called out. “I found this little kitten snooping around. What do you want me to do with her?”
Antonio turned his attention away from the merchandise towards this subordinate and, more importantly, the dame he dragged into the room by the wrist. She had very short hair, caramel skin, and tattoos on both of her exposed arms. More of these tattoos poked out of her collar and around her eyes. A tank top was more than an odd — scandalous evening, but a heavy cloak hid her unusual attire.
The man towered over the woman. His broad shoulders and heavy build made him an excellent brawler with or without the assistance of magic.
“So who might you be, good-looking?” the capo questioned as he held her chin to get a good look at her. Her eyes had a surprising crimson color. He had never seen red eyes like that before but had encountered weirder anomalies during the war.
The woman did not respond to his provocations.
“What? Cat got your tongue?”
Again, she did not respond. Her expression seemed almost bored as if she felt absolutely no danger in the situation. Instead, her eyes took in the whole room. They gave off a faint glow when they locked onto the shipment of illicit goods. Her mouth creased ever so slightly into a smile.
“This ain’t no ordinary dame. She is a mage!” Antonio attempted to shove the woman away, but before he could, a magical shield blocked him. He hopped back and clutched his orb around his neck. The capo knew that the strange woman had recorded what she saw. There were no computation orbs on her, but Antonio swore he saw her tattoo move. That was unnatural shit. That meant magic was afoot.
The woman flung off her cloak, revealing her Interpol Mage badge and modified uniform. Out of both of her arms, the officer had pulled out twin pistols made out of inky-black energy.
Sonnetto by Naze
“You are under arrest for illegally possessing tampered mage tech,” called someone from outside in a raspy Germanian accent. “Surrender now, or we will use force to neutralize you.”
“Yeah, right,” Antonio replied as he charged up his stolen military-grade dual-core computation orb and charged the Interpol officer with the fancy pistols. His green mage blade appeared on his right arm, promising to cut through anything it came in contact with. Thanks to his powerful mage tech, the blade he summoned was almost a meter long. “No one messes with the Ciancimino family!”
The Interpol officer wasted no time unleashing a flurry of optical formulas that bounced off harmlessly on his mage shield. Right before his blade made contact, a burst of magic launched her perpendicularly to safety. Antonio stumbled into several bags of cement. His mage blade cut several bags, sending powder everywhere and temporarily blinding him.
As Antonio spun around to charge at the waif again, he got a clear sight of what had happened in the last few moments. A tall man with black hair in an Interpol uniform dashed around Antonio’s non-mage subordinates, tapping the gangsters with his hands. Whatever body part he tapped caused that body part to go limp. The capo could sense the small bursts of mana this guy was using at the end of his attacks to do whatever that paralyzing martial arts. Magic covered him like a second skin, causing the mundane bullets to just bounce off him.
“Your tricks cannot overcome the power of Ildoan engineering,” Antonio raged. “Eat formula coppers!”
With that, he pulled out his machine pistol from his waistband and launched his own optical formula. One of the benefits of his model was that it let him redirect his optical formulas. No matter how many times the woman with red eyes dodged, he just changed its vector. She couldn’t hurt him with her puny optical formulas, but he could hurt her. It was just a matter of time.
Then, the woman split into three. He had no time to figure out who the real one was. He picked one, and it went straight through her and hit a wall, causing his energy beam to dissipate. He could tell the illusions did not come from her. Another look around revealed a short Interpol officer with a helmet shouting in Germanian as she easily managed a two-versus-one battle against both of Antonio’s mage subordinates.
“Chell, take the tri and run!”
The woman, a twenty-three-year-old mage who was like a daughter to Antonio, boosted herself towards the crate containing the very special computation orb. Don intercepted the Germanian officer but took a mage blade to the gut for his trouble. The capo mentally swore he would avenge his comrade. Chell, fortunately, did not hesitate. Activating the tri-core, she blasted her way out of the cement warehouse and into the Ildoan skyline. It would be a difficult device to manage, but flight was second nature to mages.
Before Antonio could do anything, he saw a fourth mage, a man with a colorful mask cast a spell with an old-fashioned scepter that was long enough to be a cane. Then everything went black.
It was a bad day to be Antonio Ciancimino.
Fang adjusted his posture to pursue the gangster who had just fled.
“Do not pursue!” his commander ordered.
Rage boiled up in the man. These were criminals. They needed to be stopped before they seriously hurt people with the dangerous weapons they trafficked in. He had trained his whole life in magical combat in his homeland. No mere gangster could stop him, Fang believed.
“Why not!”
“We do not pursue targets alone.”
“I can take her.”
“Fang, if you do not stand down.”
Agent Nichts, as people called her, did not need to finish her sentence. They all had codenames except for Fang. Nichts was their commander, and they had to follow what the commander said. That did not stop the man from bristling.
“We don't have magic,” one of the gangsters who remained standing after Fang took out the rest pleaded. "You mages can’t legally attack us! I know my rights!”
Nichts turned to him. “Actually, we can. Now surrender, or you will end up like your friends.”
Fang did not actually like having the duty of fighting the mundies, but his nonlethal martial arts made taking down mundies easy and satisfactorily humane. His targets would stay stunned long enough to get them into cuffs and hand them off to the non-mage officers to process.
Tensions between mages and non-mages (also known as mundies) skyrocketed after the Great War, and several laws were introduced across Europa to prevent mage-on-non-mage violence. That did not mean Nichts was not right. Technically, if Interpol had reason to suspect that there was a risk that at least one suspect might have magic, a mage officer could be deployed to apprehend all of them. Additionally, the warehouse had enough computation orbs to give additional justification for not taking any chances. Honestly, they were lucky Nichts did not order blowing the whole place sky-high with an explosion formula, killing all of them. The Germanian shortstack could be brutal, but she always followed the rules to the letter.
The man surrendered, but not before crying out that Chell and the rest would get vengeance for what happened.
“I want everyone, the non-mages included, out of here,” Agent Nichts commanded. Her voice betrayed not a hint of concern for the gangster mage bleeding out on the ground next to her. “It will just be me fighting the dual-core mage.”
“I can help,” Fang insisted. “And what happened to not fighting alone.”
“That is strike two.”
Fang simmered. He was very new to Interpol and had never faced off against a dual-core, but the man from Zhangzi had faith that his magical tradition could overpower the capo.
Sonnetto, the woman with red eyes, shook her head, warning him not to do what he sorely wanted to do in spite of what his female commander ordered. It was humiliating enough taking orders from her. It was another league entirely to be treated like an inferior fighter. Fang had never seen Nichts really fight a difficult opponent, but the tiny woman did not look a day over twenty-two. How strong could she possibly be compared to him, a twenty-five-year-old prodigy in his prime?
The man had heard that some European mages were older than they appeared but had never really asked. It was hard for him to believe that people other than the ancient sages of Zhangzi, who lived among their peers on the tops of mountains, had uncovered the secrets of eternal youth. For starters, the European mages didn’t cultivate their magic like Fang and his master did. Cultivation was so basic to being a mage.
Remember many paths, my apprentice.
Fang banished the memory of his master back in his homeland. The crude technology of the Westerners could not hold a candle to several thousands of years of refining their cultivation arts.
Sonnetto and Fang moved the temporarily paralyzed gangsters out of the building.
The fourth member of their team, Masquerade had trapped the capo inside an illusion bubble. It could neutralize a few targets as long as they did not know what was happening. The Albishman could not keep up his bubble for long, but there was plenty of time for his teammates to get everyone out of the way for the fight between Nichts and the capo.
“Release him!” Nichts ordered from within the warehouse. The masked mage deactivated his spell, causing his eyes to return to their normal green color.
There was a loud crack as the fighting started, and then silence.
“You are the Devil, the…the Devil of the Rhine. Goddess, save me!”
“Don’t bother praying. Nobody's listening, and you don’t want their help, even if they are. Trust me.”
My Ildoan was not that great, but I did my best. The man must have recognized my magical signature because my face was barely visible with my helmet and flight goggles. It was not too uncommon to encounter a war vet during these stings. With power came both the means and opportunity to exploit it. All mages needed was a reason to justify turning to crime. Since the Great War was the first major conflict to really deploy computation orbs to such a degree, the various powers did not have a robust plan to prevent misappropriation and theft of the devices after the war. A lot of military-grade orbs had slipped into the hands of organized crime.
I sighed as I watched the man nursing a broken leg. I could have done much worse.
His dual-core resided safely in my possession after I stunned him with pain and tore it off him. I had a dual-core, too, and my optical formulas could easily pierce his bubble when I attacked him from an unexpected angle.
Masquerade’s illusion bubble had served not only as a miniature prison but also as the perfect trick to get the element of surprise on more capable mages like Antonio Ciancimino. I had read this guy’s file before this sting operation. He was dangerous, and I was taking no unnecessary risks with my personnel. The fact he recognized me meant he had encountered me and my battalion during the war and lived .
The gangster happened to be facing away from me when he popped out of the bubble. He wouldn’t normally move right away as he reoriented himself, making the sneak attack even easier to land, as had happened in this case. None of us war vets trained for Albish theater tricks. The idea of implementing them on a battlefield was as ludicrous as it was impractical, but in these dueling situations, they were one of my trump cards to win against these fools who didn’t adapt to changing times and circumstances.
I just came in from behind him at max speed, bypassed his barrier with an interference formula, snapped his leg, and took hold of his orb. It took no more than two seconds. He didn’t have a chance. My mental acceleration spells made these kinds of complex maneuvers child’s play.
After giving the all-clear, the mundane Interpol agents rushed in to take the capo and the computation orbs. We still had a mage on the loose, but with a tri-core, she could have already been a kilometer or two away at this point. I did not know how fast the newbie Fang was, but I doubted even he could outpace the new tri-cores. Each synchronized core in a computation orb exponentially increased the power and number of spells a mage could deploy. Fang was capable, but he lacked experience with European magic. It would look terrible if the newbie died on his first mission with me. Until I got him up to snuff, he could handle the non-mages.
As for the mafia mage I had killed, these things happened. It was hard to take out a mage without killing them. The guy had basically thrown himself onto my mage blade in order to make an exit for the other mage. It didn’t make sense, but two lives had taught me how irrational people could be. The paperwork explaining what had happened would be a pain, but no one would blink an eye at the casualty. If the gangster hadn’t been a mage, then I would be in deep trouble.
Fang, Sonnetto, and Masquerade stood outside, monitoring the surroundings.
“Okay, you three, we are headed back to HQ.”
I gave the man from Zhangzi a look, and he swallowed his words. He might not know which sport the three-strike system came from, but the idea must have been self-explanatory. It was a shame that baseball was not that big in Europa.
Sonnetto nodded and headed to the car. We could fly back, but the trauma of the Great War made doing such for routine travel tasteless. Masquerade took the driver’s seat, Fang the passenger, and the woman with red eyes and I sat in the back.
I pulled off my helmet and flight goggles and safely deactivated my personal dual-core Type 99 given to me by the Germanian government for use as an Interpol agent. When you were fighting military-grade computation orbs, you needed to fight fire with fire. Mages are hard to train, and I made it clear time and time again to the higher-ups that I am not sending a mage in with effectively a civilian orb to fight anything like what we had during the Great War. That was suicide.
I pulled my hair into a ponytail with a hair tie I had in my pocket. My long golden curls would have gotten in the way in a fight, and when I finally had an easy excuse in this life to have long hair, I was going to have long hair. I liked long hair, unlike Sonnetto, who had a pixie cut.
Pixie…how I still hated that word.
My helmet and goggles helped keep my identity a secret when out on jobs. I had even abandoned my old White Silver moniker for Nichts to further distance myself from my old self. It meant “nothing,” so hopefully, people should think there was nothing to investigate.
Okay…I admit I was bad at names, but at least I wasn’t as bad as Being X. Some of the names in this world were just silly.
Anyways, the fewer people who tied “short, blonde female Interpol agent” to the “Devil of the Rhine,” the better. Elya was busy enough as is. As far as the general public was concerned, everything my troops had done during the Great War was Lergen’s fault. Now, that man was writing books in some prison for the rest of his life or until Germania negotiated his release. It wasn’t fair, but life wasn’t fair. The man knew what he was getting himself into when he led the failed peace negotiations with Ildoa all those years ago. Just like I knew what could have happened when I told—
Sonetto tapped my shoulder.
“Are you okay?” she signed once she had my attention. “You look sad.”
“Do I?”
I didn’t know why I would. I would smile, but people told me to do that less for some reason.
“Not anymore. Do you want to do anything tonight after work?”
We hung out after work a lot. It helped for my subordinate to have someone who could translate for her. I always had a knack for languages and picked up sign language in order to accommodate Sonnetto. We even lived together as roommates. It was just easier since neither of us had anyone else. There was nothing more to it than that. There never would be.
I kept conversation with the chatty Sonnetto for the rest of the car trip. We talked about everything, and we talked about nothing. If there is anything the guys in the front of the Interpol car didn’t need to know, I would just sign back to Sonnetto. It had become a familiar rhythm for the two of us.
Ildoa HQ - 16th of January, 1950
Fang entered the training room with purpose. He had heard she was there, and the man was ready to give the woman a piece of his mind.
There she was with Masquerade. They had a small table between them with three cards on it.
“That one,” Nichts pointed to the left one. When her finger touched it, the card fizzled out of existence.
“Correct again! I really don’t know how you do it so quickly.”
“Years of practice,” she replied. “Your optical decoys are still much better than mine.”
“Years of practice,” he echoed with mirth. “It looks like we have an audience, my dear commander.”
The woman turned around in her seat to look the martial artist in the eye. “What can I do for you, Mr. Fang?”
“I want to know why you keep holding me back. I can fight the mages, too.”
“You aren’t ready. I haven’t trained you.”
“I am already trained.”
“Not against European mages.”
“Well, no one is trained against Zhangzi mages either.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“What is the point then?”
“Don’t be so hasty to risk your life, Mr. Fang.”
“You are underestimating me. You haven’t even seen me fight against a mage.”
Nichts turned back to her previous interlocutor. “Our game will have to continue another time.”
“No problem, dear. I was about to exit stage left.” Masquerade always jests and witty remarks. As he passed by Fang, the Albish man whispered into the young man’s ear. “She is in a league of her own. You have been warned.”
Fang blinked in confusion.
“Are you coming?” Nichts called as she made some stretches and then picked a training orb to use. Fang noticed they all had slightly different features, but he did not know what that meant yet. He moved closer.
“I will give you a test. If you pass, then you can fight up to dual-core mages one-on-one. A lot of mages these days can handle dual-cores, so it will be necessary that you know what they can do and what tactics they will employ.”
“What is the test?”
“That is ‘what is the test, commander’ to you. Until you have some discipline, you are to address me with respect.”
This stunned the man. His personal beliefs about gender bristled at this demand, but his desire to be allowed to demonstrate this ability won out.
“What is the test, commander?”
“It will be the classic of classics. All you have to do is hit me once in a spar while I am using a dual-core orb.”
This will be easy. She won’t even see him coming.
They took opposite sides of the training arena. A window to the hallway adjacent to the training rooms showed Sonnetto and Masquerade watching with interest.
Nichts’s eyes glowed blue as she took a stance with her hands behind her back, full of obvious openings.
She is mocking me!
“Ready when—”
He ran at her. With boosted speed, it should be faster than a normal human could possibly react. He swung at her left shoulder. Fang smirked with satisfaction as he watched in slow motion, his fist inched closer and closer to its target.
Then it hit.
…hit a magical barrier.
Nichts's mouth turned upward into something that could only charitably be called a smile. His mana-infused fist should have bypassed a mage’s bubble. This wasn’t a bubble but a barrier focused right on the trajectory of his fist. There was no way she was keeping up with him unless—
Fang didn’t get to complete that thought as she swept him off his feet with a kick. When his eyes opened, he saw her dummy mage blade phasing through his neck. Had it been real, he would have been decapitated.
“You are dead.”
“You didn’t say you were going to fight back.”
“I don’t know why you made that assumption. It is a spar. Of course, I am fighting back. Your opponents are not going to just let you keep attacking them.”
She offered him a hand up, but he was not going to touch a woman. His vows forbade it outside combat, training, or an emergency. Then the blonde frowned for a moment before her eyes widened a bit.
“My apologies. I will be more considerate in the future, Mr. Fang. I just assumed since you didn’t shave your head that…. Well, it doesn’t matter.”
Did she know of his vows? Why would shaving his head matter? Only a long-defunct school insisted their students shave their heads. How would she know about that school and not the modern and more widespread one that he was part of?
“It is understandable, commander.”
He was watching her now. Her combat style reminded him of something, but he could not place it.
They retook their positions on the opposite sides of the arena.
Their audience looked amused at his expense. Well, Masquerade was mostly enjoying his humiliation. Sonnetto had only the smallest of smiles. Her emotions were far more subtle than their Albish teammate.
Fang did not understand the women on his team at all. It was like being on the opposite side of the globe had turned everything on its head as well. He saw European wedding bands on neither Sonnetto nor Nichts, suggesting neither were married. As much as he raged at Nights, she had a beautiful complexion with silver-blue eyes and long, curly, golden hair. It was like a god in heaven had sculpted her himself. She shouldn’t have any shortage of suitors. Was she barren or something? What did her family think of her risking her life like this in a job like this? They must be scandalized. Was it because she constantly hid her looks in stuffy jackets and that helmet of hers when she was outdoors?
His opponent just did not make sense. Fang did not shift his analysis to Sonnetto, instead focusing on Nichts.
This time, he would not be caught off guard by her counterattack.
“Ready, Go!”
He charged at her again. Last time, she had simply tricked him. This time would be different. He felt it.
Instead of having her arms behind her back, Nichts crossed her arms in front of her. She didn’t even take a combat stance. This would be too easy.
He jumped into a flying kick. He expected to hit a barrier, but instead, without moving a muscle, her body glided across the ground fast enough to dodge his kick. Spinning around, he received a dummy mage blade to his torso before he could launch a counterattack.
“Dead.”
Fang’s left eye twitched. He could have survived most “optical formulas” Westerners used. It was not very different from the energy beam attacks that his master used. Losing to these mage blades was just humiliating. He was the expert at close-quarters combat.
“Look at me. What was your mistake?”
He looked. She had taken his side of the arena. Her stance was the same as it had been before. Then it struck him.
“You are floating a tiny bit off the ground.”
She smiled again. He shivered.
“Good observation, but what was your mistake?”
“I did not expect you to move when you did.”
“You expected me to do the exact same thing as I did before. European mages have many spells in their arsenal. You cannot just assume each will use the same ones to fight you. But that is not your core mistake.”
He racked his brain for what he was missing. After a few moments, Nichts sighed.
“Perhaps a few more bouts are necessary.”
This time would be different. He was just so sure. He knew she would use flight spells. All it took was adjusting his strategy to account for that possibility.
“Dead.”
She had stabbed him while he was thinking.
“What that isn’t fair—”
“Life isn’t fair. Your opponent isn’t going to give you time to think.”
She jumped back, only to unleash another attack. This time, she wasn’t giving him the initiative.
“Dead.”
He had gotten caught off guard by optical decoys.
“Dead.”
She had used a point barrier to trip him.
“Dead.”
She had mixed up the optical decoys by putting a bad one on herself to make her look fake while using a high-quality decoy to bait him into thinking it was really her. It was too devious.
“De—”
An alarm went off.
“Well, it looks like our training needs to come to a close, Mr. Fang. I trust you know that as per our agreement, you still don’t have permission to engage with dual-core mages.”
She put the training orb away, and the two ran to get equipped for whatever the situation was.
All the while, their team — Interpol 15 — got suited up, and Fang could not help but wonder where he had seen some of those martial arts techniques before.
Docks in Ildoa - 16th of January, 1950
Chell Bracchini and five other mages from the other branches joined her on the docks. There was Mikey, Nico, Alessandro, Andrea, and—
“What is your name again?” Chell asked the one female mage she didn’t recognize. The woman had a forgettable face and no style.
“Ellie,” she replied. “Luca invited me.”
There were like five Lucas.
“You a mage?” Chell followed up.
“Yeppers.”
Geez , I have an innocent kid in this group.
“Well, whatever. We need as many people as possible. I pulled some strings, and we got some really top-grade stuff here. Everyone take one.” Chell started passing out combat rifles and dual-cores out of a safebox they kept on a small, unassuming boat. “The blue shirts killed Don and nabbed Antonio and a bunch of our siblings. They should have known better. Now I got word from the big boss himself that he wants us to teach them a lesson. Get ready. They got some weird foreign magic. Even some of that Albish stagecraft. If you see a shortstack with a helmet, she is mine. Don’t even get close to her because she is the real deal. Germanian war vet through and through. The type who trains under artillery fire. She will carve through you like butter. I got the tri-core, so only I got a chance.”
As her subordinates activated their orbs, Chell noticed Ellie had her hand on her ear.
“What is wrong?”
“Oh, sorry, I am not feeling well. No sea legs. I am going to hop off the boat. Let me know when we are ready to go.”
“Sheesh, fine. I will have everything secure shortly.”
After Ellie left, the gangster could not shake the feeling of deja vu.
Then, all of those still on the ship sensed a massive explosion formula.
“Ah shit!”
“Well done, Masquerade,” Nichts called out, lowering her rifle slightly as she surveyed the carnage. The tri-core ascended into the sky unhurt, but only two of the dual-cores barely survived. Their magic was fading and only needed cleaning up. A grin sprouted on her face.
“Happy to perform.” With a hand gesture across his face, Ellie was gone, and the Albish man was back.
Nichts nodded. “Fang and Masquerade control the parameter. Sonnetto, you have the two duals. I got the tri. Out out.”
Fang sighed but got to work further securing the perimeter just in case they missed any civilians.
Glancing at his coworker, the martial artist had some contempt rise up in his throat that just had to come out. “Why did you have to disguise yourself as a woman? Does that not bring you shame?”
Masquerade began weaving a large hologram above the docks to warn all civilians that Interpol had cornered off the area. There were non-mage officers further assisting from a safe distance away.
“To answer your question,” the Albish man started. “It is somewhat of a theater tradition. Long ago, women were not allowed to perform on the stage, so men had to play all their roles. Crossdressing, magically or otherwise, is still common on the stage. There isn’t any shame to it.
“As for why I did it, people often underestimate and overlook women, in this case, to their demise.”
Fang swiftly dashed from location to location while maintaining a communication incantation with the only other guy on the team. He had to admit Masquerade had a point. He kept underestimating Nichts, and she exploited this fact to shove his face. Her magic had all sorts of unexpected tricks. His pride and sense of superiority blinded him from being sufficiently cautious.
My master would be so disappointed with me.
A scream caught Fang’s attention. He darted at superhuman speeds to the source. A stranded dock worker needed his help. The civilian said something in Ildoan that Fang could not understand.
“I help,” the mage declared in his broken Ildoan. Fang offered his arms to carry the man to safety swiftly, but the dock worker went wide-eyed and pointed behind the mage.
The very air crackled with magic. It felt like the time he met one of the ancient masters who had flown down the mountain to speak with the students and give them guidance. It was like they were made out of pure magic. Fang turned around and saw what had caused this unusual reaction.
“What the—”
Chell climbed in the air at a rapid pace to escape the explosion.
“Shit shit shit shit!”
She turned around and prepared for combat. Her shield was at full power. It would take multiple dual-core mages to take it down. Tri-cores were so much stronger than anything she had ever used before. Magic crackled up and down her limbs as she threw every enhancement formula she knew into them.
That Interpol agent who had killed Don flew up at her at a shockingly fast speed.
“Take this, you monster!” Chell screamed, spraying magic-infused lead at the tiny officer. Her target dodged everything and just kept climbing higher into the air. Instead of flying straight at Chell, the agent was just going up.
The gangster knew that she could outpace the dual-core she sensed on the helmet-wear woman. Chell went into pursuit. This was her opportunity to get revenge for Don and the family. Despite the slower speed, the Interpol agent kept dodging.
Eventually, her gun ran out of ammo. They had gotten up really high so that they could touch the clouds. Chell knew well enough how to keep all the necessary spells to survive and fight at this height. She had fought for Ildoa against the traitorous Germanians during the war.
“Why are you running?!” the gangster screamed with a voice amplification spell and then reloaded her rifle. “You are outmatched alone.”
The Interpol agent did not reply. Instead, she changed her active orb to some weird clockwork contraption. Chell could feel with her magical senses as the cores in the strange computation orb.
One.
Two.
Three. Chell broke out in a cold sweat. They were evenly matched.
Why would she bother taking me so high up if—
Chell didn’t have time to complete that thought as the impossible happened. A fourth core activated. There were rumors that the Germanians had found a way to synchronize a quad-core, and many mages suspected the Devil of the Rhine was the owner of this impossibly dangerous weapon.
The air filled with unbelievable and eerie magic. The Interpol agent’s helmet and goggles peeled off as magic started to transform her appearance. Three pairs of transparent, angelic wings appeared behind the blonde, now yellow-eyed, doll-like Germanian. Her hair roiled in the air and glowed like it was made of fire.
“Dear Father Joseph!”
Was this the true power of the quad-core? Was magic really a gift from God and a sign of his influence? The fact a quad-core could turn someone into was clearly an angel surely meant that the Church had spoken the truth.
Is this God punishing me for my sins?
Chell did not want to die — not like Don. She desperately unleashed the biggest explosion formula she could.
The quad-core user darted away from Chell’s attack, and then the gangster sensed six explosion formulas all around her. There was only one opening to escape them before they went off. She went for it without a second thought.
A cacophony happened behind her. She did not bother looking back. Chell was happy to have gotten out of there in time.
Phew! I made—
Before she finished that thought, an optical formula punctured her shell and went straight through her abdomen.
She knew I would escape that way. Fuck. I guess…this… is…the end.
Her consciousness started to fade.
But not without….
Chell tapped her computation orb and started overloading it.
The look of fear in the eyes of that Germanian…Don would be avenged….
Sonnetto finished off the two straggling dual-cores. While she would have struggled if they were fresh, the woman had nothing to fear, even if she made mistakes. There was a reason why Nichts trusted her with the dangerous jobs, but regardless, it still warmed her heart every time Nichts took notice of her hard work. Only Sonnetto knew how much their Germanian commander suffered in private, in her mind. Something bad happened — several bad things probably — in Nicht’s past, and Sonnetto vowed to do her best to support the blonde woman.
A massive explosion caught the white-haired Interpol agent’s attention. She looked up to see her commander battling it out with the tri-core. Then another even larger explosion happened. The tri-core user had just self-detonated. Nichts got caught up in it.
Sonnetto did not hesitate. She dismissed her conjured weapons and pushed everything she had into activating the various flight spells inscribed on her skin.
Nichts was in free fall. Her oxygen, pressure, and force reduction spells appeared to still be active, but the explosion had jostled the Interpol 15’s commander out of her flight spell. If Sonnetto did not get there soon, even those spells that kept Nichts alive high up in the air would peter out.
You can’t die, Nichts. I owe you everything. You are my own family. Please be alright!
Right as Nichts’ spells started to fade, Sonnetto caught the barely conscious small woman and, with a bit of willpower, enveloped her in her own spells.
“I got you. I got you.”
Nichts…Tanya said something lost to the wind, but Sonnetto didn’t need to hear her to know what her commander had said.
Interpol Office, South Germania, 18th of January, 1950
Fang had countless questions after what he had seen on those docks in Ildoa. Who was Nichts? What was Nichts? That magical wreath of flames he had seen on Nichts during that battle was just like the legends of those possessing the Mandate of Heaven.
The black-haired man had asked around for any information he could about her. Some told him what he already knew - Germanian, hardass, prone to going overboard, and a confirmed bachelorette. Others gave him new insights. She was a war vet from the Great War, which was over two decades ago, and possessed mage longevity like almost every veteran from that war. Her actual age was a mystery, but he did find out that her actual name was Tanya von Degurechaff. The “von” in her name indicated that she was a noble of some kind.
Fang did not know he had disrespected nobility. He counted himself lucky that he still had his head.
Over the past couple of days, his commander had trained him ruthlessly until he understood all the tricks and spells European mages might pull on him with a computation orb. Once he stopped underestimating her, the cultivator leveraged his arcane abilities to outmaneuver and overpower Nichts. It only took a second training session to land his first blow on Nichts. His celebration was short-lived because she revealed that she had only been using a mono-core training orb because, of course, she had.
“Remember I said you needed to hit me once when I was using a dual-core? Your test is not over.”
It had been seven days, and he was starting to get used to dual-core’s much stronger capabilities. Nichts had told him that his arcane ability put him somewhere between the strength of a dual-core and a tri-core. He was just way more dependent on training on what he was going to be fighting in order to reach his current combat potential.
All this training finally resulted in Fang coming up with a theory that explained all the oddities that made sense of his commander. Tanya von Degurechaff was really, behind her pretty exterior, a reincarnated Akinese master. The woman used karate and kendo techniques in her magical attacks that came from the Akitsuhima Dominion. She thought she could hide them, but Fang was nothing if not a battle junkie. He had fought against the other top students from Zhangzi and Akitsuhima. He knew all their techniques.
Being a reincarnated Akinese master explained how she knew about the school that sought reincarnation over eternal youth. This school believed that a virtuous life would see one born at a higher station in life. That meant Degurechaff must have been practically a saint in her last life to be born in this life with magical ability and noble status.
Only masters of this school retained the memories of their last life. Fang had ambushed Degurechaff in the breakroom and flatly asked her if she was a reincarnator in Akinese. The woman clearly understood what he had said but then pathetically pretended like she didn’t. He gave her a very knowing smile that clearly indicated he wouldn’t reveal her secret.
After all, why would he get in the way of a recipient of the mandate of heaven? She was destined to fight the other recipients to be ruler of the world as prophesied by the ancient masters. Her secrecy must be part of her strategy to have as much of an advantage over her opponents as possible. Fang didn’t bother explaining any of this to her since she was obviously a wise Akinese master who would know all this already. She would be offended.
He couldn’t wait to see those battles. They would be so awesome! Just thinking about them made him giddy. Until then, the cultivator would train under her. He didn’t even care that she was a woman anymore. Masquerade had been right. She really was in a league of her own with or without her quad-core orb.
I sighed in resignation. Fang was such a handful. He learned so quickly that I was going to have to get creative soon on how to help him progress. I instructed him to memorize all the different computation orbs. Unlike fighting, these more intellectual tasks took him much longer as long as you did not make them a condition for another spar or seeing a new spell. If he was motivated, he would quickly finish any task.
Prodigies like this guy really made old soldiers like me feel useless. I guess this must be what it felt like being a normal violinist watching an eight-year-old play Paganini. “Soul-crushing” seemed the most apt phrase. Still, with any luck, it would be several years before they started fighting on equal terms. People called me a prodigy and an ace-of-aces, but I cheated as a reincarnator and had that cursed Type 95.
A few days ago, Fang had come up behind me in the breakroom. He had said something I think was in Japanese, but I was too busy keeping my battle instincts in check. He was lucky I didn’t neuter him or worse. Then he gave me the stupidest smile I had ever seen. Was my subordinate hitting on me or something? I gave him the benefit of the doubt for being from another culture, but if he did something like that again, I was going to write him up.
I didn’t want to have to get rid of the young man. I still needed to get one more mage to get our team back to full fighting strength.
Laying on my twin bed, the old photo of the 203rd I kept on the nightstand caught my attention. It was from during our time in the Russy Federation when we had thought the war would soon be over. How wrong we all were. I had even let myself hope for once. My face scrunched in some kind of emotion I refused to acknowledge. For my own sake, I laid the photo frame down. It was hard being away from them for so long. I just wished things could have been different.