Unified Year 1923, The Sky above Norden
Tanya, at the tender age of nine, was having the time of her life. The great thundering on the land that was Norden cried out incessantly, with each mighty blow signaling the crushing of more lives under the neverending deluge of raw material being shot through the skies.
Wonderful! Those idiots deserve to be slaughtered for being so reckless. She sighed contentedly. "Fairy 08 to Norden Control, continue artillery fire on previously outlined grid positions for effect."
"Norden Control, roger. Continue observation until all combatants retreat."
Having nothing to do for the moment, she decided to admire the sight below her. Flying thousands of feet in the sky, she had a picturesque view of the hilly mountains, backlit by a clear blue afternoon with not a single cloud in the sky. Had she been a painter, she undoubtedly would have been inspired to take up the brush right there and then, in a futile attempt to capture the beauty of the peaceful scene.
Except, of course, she had not even the remotest inclination towards art, nor was this any sort of serene view. Looking through a pair of binoculars, she could practically make out the contorted expressions of uniformed men scrambling for their lives against the unending onslaught. A man would see his comrade ripped apart by a shell, their body flying like a grotesque and bloody doll through the air, only for he himself to be struck down moments later with a terrified expression on his face.
The enemy had long forgotten their original mission, all of their arrogant brinkmanship thrown out the window upon first contact with the despair of imminent death by an unseen foe. What was left were just scared and helpless men, crawling through the paths made muddy with blood. Some who had a limb or two blown off were carried along by their comrades, pure adrenaline preventing them from passing out from the excruciating agony.
And yet the war machine of the Empire still pressed on, working with a terrible efficiency. In such a situation, where the enemy had practically walked themselves to their graves, it would have been an embarrassment to the finest meritocratic organization in the world to have not capitalized on their blunders with the brand new weapons of the twentieth century.
They were the butchers of men, the faceless terror that reduced the value of human life to zero, then extinguished it without mercy. If the death of one man was a tragedy, then no words could truly describe the horrors of the battlefield. All the men of the Entente could think of was how truly absurd the situation was, the ridiculousness inherent in the tremendously wasteful action romanticized as war.
However, when cornered, humans have no choice but to fight to the best of their ability. And a certain Lieutenant Colonel Anson Sue, having come to terms with the fact that they were well and truly cornered, decided that fighting was the only option left.
His company of twelve mages flew as fast as they could through the shining blue afternoon sky, having picked out a lone artillery observer. Even if they couldn't save those who had already died, if even just one more soldier was able to go home to his family, then the men knew their mission would have been worth it.
Meanwhile, Tanya wondered why her radio signal had suddenly deteriorated. And despite whatever personality defects she may have possessed, she was nothing if not cautious. So when she detected a dozen mana signals blazing brightly towards her position without any notion of stealth, her body quickly flew into action.
After briefly warning control over the radio, she flew as high as she could into the sky, grinning gleefully at the chance to taste real combat. As the cold wind whipped across her, she flew ever higher, calculating what routes to victory she possessed.
Her confidence was not unfounded, as she possessed both of the qualities needed for greatness. A natural prodigy, both her mind and body were blessed at birth to an incredible degree, even if her mental faculties were somewhat twisted compared to other geniuses.
This fact was compounded exponentially by her devotion to the art of war. Almost every waking hour since she left the orphanage had been occupied by some sort of self-study, as she had no interest in the normal pleasures of youth. Even her times in the orphanage had taught her to be ruthless and decisive, giving her the harsh lessons that only reality could instill.
So, as she struggled to gain altitude before her attackers reached her, she had absolutely no plans of a suicidal last stand. Rather, she hoped to ward off the enemy by exhausting their mana reserves and picking off a few of their number.
Unfortunately for her, victory was unattainable, through no fault of her own.
Computation orbs were a relatively new invention of the twentieth century. As well as this, their intricate clockwork nature, being made up of countless moving parts arranged in an incredibly precise manner, caused the machines to be relatively prone to malfunction. The fact that Tanya was pushing her orb past normal flight height didn't help either.
So, the intricate device created by the finest minds of the Empire, capable of producing heaven's miracles on Earth, blew up.
Smoke and fire burst from the orb, a dark blotch on the sky. Luckily for Tanya, she had barely managed to redirect the majority of the explosion outwards with her active barrier, allowing her a brief reprieve from death as she fell from the sky.
She fell without grace, spiraling downwards like a falling speck of burnt charcoal. Through a herculean effort, she managed to retain consciousness during her fall, even if she did appear to be quite dead to all of the present observers.
Seeing this, Anson Sue paused for a brief moment, then shook his head. "Poor guy. His orb blew him up before we could." He barked, "And I thought Imperial engineering was supposed to be the best in the world!"
Sharing a quick laugh, the members of Sue's company quickly sped away to continue their mission, sparing no more time for the downed enemy. They would continue forward, and through sheer luck and skill, would minimize the Entente's losses in their ill-advised expedition. Although if they had realized the future consequences of their actions, perhaps the members of the company would have preferred to confirm their initial kill, rather than rush forward in haste.
As for Tanya, she was seething. Goddammit! My first mission and my orb just blows up?! Shit, shit, shit! I'm not dying like this!
Right before contact with the dense tree layer, she mustered the entirety of her vast mana store, and through no small effort, managed to cast an orbless spell that slowed her fall down by the tiniest fraction, and to summon a half-broken and crackling active barrier. Then, she promptly hit the mess of branches and proceeded to pulverize every bone in her body.
She laid there, unnaturally still, blood pooling in her organs, her head severely concussed, shards of red-stained white visible through various puncture wounds across her body. All across her body were small rivulets of blood, flowing on the miniature wrinkles and folds of her dull grey aerial mage uniform, guided by the water-resistant fabric. At the end of their journey, the droplets flowed off of her motionless body, dripping slowly into the dirt around her, giving the earth a rich hue.
Hours passed, each ticking by slower than the next. With each passing moment, the candle of life within her small frame burned slightly dimmer, all the while flickering and wavering, on the verge of vanishing altogether with the slightest breeze.
But miraculously, through sheer random chance, she was found on the verge of death by friendly units sweeping the area. With incredible efficiency, they carried her body to a nearby field hospital, where her bleeding was stopped long enough for her to be transferred to a proper hospital in a city, then to an even better hospital afterward.
The universe had allowed Tanya Degurechaff to live another day, in all of its probabilistic nature. And through that coincidental event, an outcome infinitely greater than its starting point could be achieved.
If a butterfly can cause a typhoon, then the failure of God to strike down a monster could cause any number of things. Through chains of events that span across the world and back, everything was connected in a sense. The recent discovery of quantum mechanics had proven there were no determined outcomes, only unpredictable possibilities.
So, it wasn't entirely impossible that the survival of one little girl, a poor orphan who had lived through the harshest winters of Europe with only her willpower, would escalate a war beyond even what was already unimaginable.
A massive war, a war of incredible proportions, a war that would encompass vast swaths of the Earth, from freezing tundra to blistering deserts, to the unknown and back. A conflagration that would force the best out of humanity, if only to kill each other with new and revolutionary forms of magic and science.
If that sort of war were to be escalated, the outcome would transcend unimaginable to reach the realm of beings beyond the universe. Only God, the Devil, or another unknown existence would be capable of comprehending the scale of the tragedy.
Something hitherto unseen, completely unpredictable. That was the nature of the fighting to come. And like nature, it would be cruel, unforgiving, and senseless, with an utter disregard for human life or suffering.
Much like a certain blond-haired prodigy.