This Youjo Senki/ War of the Worlds crossover was commissioned by my patron Mackenzie Buckle.

Summary: The Martians have their own god who is pissed at Being X, and drives his believers to invade earth. Naturally, fueled by their own divine blessings, these Martians are not going to keel over to virus and bacteria. No, making them die is unfortunately Major Degurechaff's job.

Disclaimer: I own neither War of the Worlds nor Youjo Senki

The Martian Crusade

The Imperial High Command thought Operation Revolving Door was one of the most significant military achievements in the long history of warfare. And to be fair, they were right. With the elite 203rd Mage Battalion destroying the enemy communications, the Francois Republics' forces were disorganized and demoralized, ideal for the largest recorded encirclement in the history of war. Over half a million Francois troops were trapped, and the lack of centralized command meant a quarter of them died before someone of sufficient seniority could get out the order to surrender. Comparisons were already being made to Hannibal's historic victory at Cannae. Unfortunately for the Empire's generals, even as the fires of war raged across the Lowlands of Europe, a different fire lit the night sky, a fire that would burn away the world as they knew it.

It started with a truly magnificent meteor shower. Anyone who was not involved in a life or death struggle paused to admire the hundreds of glowing embers streaking across the sky. Then, however, came the reports. Instead of burning up in the atmosphere, all of those meteors seemed to have made landfall throughout the world. Over the course of a week, strikes were confirmed throughout Asia, Africa, and both Americas. In fact, the only continent that seemed to have been spared was Europe.

This suited the Empire's leaders just fine. They were focused on mopping up the remaining Francois forces and forcing a peace treaty, and had little thought to spare for astronomical curiosities. It was only weeks after what would later come to be known as the Night of Flames that they received the first hints that the world had irrevocably changed.


"And where do they suggest these massive armored units suddenly came from? The moon?"

I knew I shouldn't take quite such a sarcastic tone with someone as senior as General Zettour. Still, even he had to be aware just how ridiculous this all sounded. According to the message from our Ildoan allies, an unknown army had overrun one of their garrisons in Libya. The African colony was bordered on all sides by French and Albish territory, so perhaps an invasion was not too surprising. What was absurd was the Ildoans' claim that this army had originated not from French Algeria or Aegyptus, but from within the Libyan hinterland. The message also mentioned how the direction of the invaders coincided with the direction of the some of the meteor impacts that had scattered across the world a few weeks prior. The Ildoans were clearly unwilling to come out and actually say the words 'alien invasion', but the implications were clear.

"I'm afraid details are rather confused. Still, the accompanying photos are quite disturbing."

I glanced at the grainy pictures showing what looked like a massive metal tripod advancing on a fort. Proportions were hard to tell, but it looked to be almost a hundred feet tall. The actual crew and engine compartment, if that's what it was, looked around twenty feet across and was supported by a trio of metal legs. Emerging from the central module were a pair of what I could only call tentacles.

It was certainly nothing like anything I'd seen on this world, but I wasn't willing to discount a hoax. "Are they sure these aren't just some fake photos being distributed by the attackers to hide their true identities? It would be just like the Albish to launch a raid while trying to confuse us with disinformation."

"That is what you're being sent to find out. Your battalion is to go on a reconnaissance in force. You will cross the Alps to Genoa, where you will rest before flying across to Tripolis. Once there, you will scout out this attacking force and determine the threat they pose to our ally's African holdings. If they seem to be advancing, you will delay them while we prepare reinforcements."

I carefully hid my grimace. Now that the war with the Francois was almost wrapped up, the last thing I wanted was to get caught up in a new conflict in the Sahara desert. "General, that may be ill-advised. Until the peace treaty is signed, the Francois may still try something desperate. I feel it would be a mistake to remove a force as powerful as the 203rd from the theater of operations until the war is properly finished. In fact, this whole attack may be nothing but an attempt to make us divert valuable forces from Europe."

"Perhaps so, Major. However, it is a fact that the Ildoans have lost contact with every force in this enemy's path. If it is a distraction, it is one strong enough to genuinely threaten their control of the colony."

"Don't the Ildoans have mages of their own?"

Zettour chuckled. "I asked the same thing. Apparently, those of their mages currently not guarding vital points like their capital are all distributed in bits and pieces all across their Navy. It will take far too long for them to concentrate a useful force without completely disrupting their operations." Then, his eyes narrowed a bit. "Besides, we have been hearing disturbing rumors about some of these meteor sites. If there is something strange happening there, we need to know."

I mentally scoffed. Even in the 21st century comets and meteors were accompanied by doomsday prophecies, UFO sightings, and other such irrationalities. Dozens of actual meteor strikes? I suppose it's only because none of them happened in Europe that we weren't already inundated with panicked rumors. But whatever my opinion of this wild goose chase, I suppose something was attacking our allies, and I had my orders. It was most likely a large and fast raiding force of some kind, but I was confident they wouldn't be fast enough to evade the 203rd.


Four days later my battalion was flying across the Libyan desert, heading for the last location the Ildoans had contact with the invaders. We were perhaps fifteen minutes from our destination when Becker, our radio operator, called out, "Major, I'm receiving a transmission in the clear on multiple channels. It's a mayday! From Fort 260! They say they are under attack by giant mechanized units!"

"Let them know reinforcements are on their way!" I replied immediately. "Everyone, follow that signal!"

Twelve minutes of high speed flight and slight course change brought us within visual range of the battle. "Major... is that real?" squeaked my adjutant Lieutenant Serebryakov as she looked through a magnification spell.

I could forgive Visha her incredulity, I had a hard time believing it myself. Four ridiculously tall tripods, eighty feet if they were an inch, were darting around the artillery fire from the fort at speeds something that big had no business moving. Even as I watched, the 'eye' on the central module of one of the tripods unleashed a bright white beam that left the earthen fort's walls glowing red with heat.

My eyes narrowed as a machine-gun sent a stream of tracers at the tripod, only for them to bounce off a barrier before they reached the enemy. Magic would certainly explain how anyone got such unwieldy devices to work. "Keep an eye out, I'm going to scan," I called.

An active scanning spell was useful for detecting and studying magic, but was almost never used in the field. First, because any enemy you're close enough to scan, you're close enough to shoot at. Second, using the spell lights you up like a beacon to passive detectors and mage senses. In this case, though, I felt I needed to take the risk to try and understand exactly what I was seeing.

Sure enough, the devices had a very strong magic signature, but they seemed to be focused on what looked like a defensive shell and on reinforcing their own structure, probably how they moved so fast. The eyes from which they had shot that heat ray didn't show up on my scan though. That was disturbing, it meant someone had the technology to create laser weapons and we were only hearing about it now.

As soon as my scanning spell had washed over them, all the machines immediately perked up and turned to face us. That told me these tripods didn't have the kind of onboard passive magic detection that modern warships carried. To be fair, the tripods were too small to mount such an installation, but they had already shown multiple examples of technology beyond what I thought was state of the art, so I was not willing to take anything for granted. I very much doubted the Francois were behind this, but both the Albish and the Americans might have been developing this in secret. If they had only small numbers, then that would explain them deploying in Africa as a sort of test run.

By this time my battalion had closed to within 2000 meters of the enemy forces. Magnification spells showed six large tracked vehicles of no known design but made of the same gleaming alloy as the tripods approaching the fort. Clearly, this was the ground force complement backing up the walkers.

"This is Fairy 01," I called over the battalion channel. "Enemy is armed with energy weapons, tune your shields for anti-heat configuration. Company 1 will take the two walkers to the left. Company 2 will take the two to the right, Company 3 will take out the other enemy forces. Company 4 is reserve. Be careful, enemy has magical defenses and reinforcement, regular bullets likely ineffective. Use explosive or piercing spells and see what works best. Try to take prisoners, we need to find out who is responsible. Good hunting. Over."

By this time, the nearest tripod's eye had obtained a glow. Without any need for warning, my battalion scattered. The machine tried it's best to swat us with the energy beam, but the few glancing hits failed to transfer enough heat to overcome my troops' defenses. Although judging by the reports, some of us would be getting a nice tan before this was over.

My company closed in on our chosen targets. They both fired energy beams as we closed but with us maneuvering in midair all it did was warm us up. The beams were powerful enough to cook a mage, but only if he was foolish enough to stand still. Then the range dropped to 1000 meters, and it was our turn.

"The rest of you take the other one. The first one's mine!" I cheerfully informed my company. There was some faint grumbling as we split, and I lined up a shot on my prey. I didn't know how tough their shields were, so I decided to take no chances.

"O Lord in Heaven above. Give me the strength to smite these sinners in your name. Amen!"

The familiar rush of power filled me, and I immediately channeled it all into a homing explosive spell. The enemy clearly sensed the massive buildup of magic, as its movements grew frantic. To no avail. One second later, the spell detonated against the enemy's shield. Out of the smoke, the walker could be seen tumbling head over heels. Its shield had shattered, and its central compartment was badly warped and deformed. One of its tentacles and two of its limbs snapped off before it finally came to rest.

Before I could admire my handiwork any further, a panicked shout came over the comms. "Major! The others - "

I reacted immediately, twisting away from my current vector. A blast of heat passed right through where I would have been. Looking around, I saw the other three walkers had all abandoned their respective fights, and were barreling towards me with reckless abandon. Even the way they waved their tentacles screamed anger to my instincts. The rest of my battalion tried to intercept, but those waving tentacles starting hurling canisters into the air that exploded into thick black smoke.

"Gas attack!" I heard Weiss warn over the comms. But activating our oxygen spells didn't change the fact that most of my battalion no longer had line of sight on the trio of walkers, all of which continued to charge towards me.

Luckily for me, I was an aerial mage. A rapid change in thrust had me rocketing up into the air, weaving in and out of furious laser blasts and smoke canisters. So focused on me were my enemies, that none of them even noticed when the rest of the battalion cleared the smokescreen. Ten seconds and a furious barrage of explosive spells later, all three tripods were smoking wrecks.

"Everyone, keep your oxygen spells up, no telling how long this black stuff lingers! Company 2 and 3, take out those ground units! Company 4, provide aid to the fort! Company 1 on me, we're on overwatch!"

Taking a height of 2000 meters, I oversaw the mopping up. Company 4 investigated the fort and reported what we had already suspected - the black smoke was indeed a chemical weapon of some kind. Almost half the garrison was dead or incapacitated. Thankfully, skin absorption did not seem as dangerous as breathing in the stuff, since the ones who managed to get their oxygen masks on had only developed some painful rashes on exposed skin.

Companies 2 and 3 made short work of the vehicles, which also had mage shells but not nearly as strong as the tripods'. However, within them was another nasty surprise. Spilling out of them like some kind of horrific infestation were swarms of cat-sized spider-like robots armed with blades and smaller lasers. The small lasers were too weak to seriously threaten our shields, though. My troops quickly learned to bombard any concentrations, and to use mage blades to chop individuals to bits. The machines showed no sense of self-preservation, which was good. If they had scattered instead of attacking, tracking them all down would have been impossible.

Even so, I was getting more and more concerned. The tripods and lasers might be feasible using present day technology and magic. Chemical warfare was nothing new to this world. But I would swear no one on the planet was anywhere close to developing autonomous fighting machines. Could this be another 'miracle' of technology provided by the execrable Being X, much like my own Type 95? If these were fanatics armed by that so-called deity, it would certainly explain their sudden obsession with fighting me.

Determined to solve the mystery, I flew down towards the most intact tripod. This one had all of its limbs and tentacles shattered, but the central compartment was still intact. I had just gotten close enough to spot the hatch when it flew open, and a horrible grey thing leaped out at me.

It was a tentacle monster. There were no two ways of describing it. The thing looked like a man-sized landbound octopus, only with way more appendages. I reflexively cut loose a burst of automatic fire at it. The creature was knocked back, but I was suddenly aware that instead of killing it, the bullets had bounced off a thin magical aura. An aura with a very distinctive golden hue. A shade of color I'd last seen on myself, less than ten minutes ago, when I'd prayed to Being X to use the Type 95.

That bastard! That unutterable, insufferable bastard! Not content with starting a world war just to persecute me, Being X now had to import actual aliens to carry on his vendetta!

"Explosive spells!" I ordered, even as I jetted back from the creature. Amazingly, it survived an entire salvo of explosives, even though it lost half its limbs. Writhing and bleeding and screeching, its remaining tentacles continued to carve deep grooves into the ground even as their golden glow faded.

Getting as close as I dared, I lined up my own explosive spell with its brain-case. So much for your alien from outer space, Being X!

I pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. In fact, nothing was happening at all. The whole world was frozen around me, a situation I was painfully familiar with. "Being X! Come to see me finish off your latest pawn?!" I snarled.

"Such arrogance, to think the universe revolves around you. No, I had nothing to do with the presence of these heathen creatures."

"Don't give me that! I know your blessing when I see it! That thing was one of yours!"

"While you are correct in that the creature was divinely blessed, that blessing was not from mine hand. Instead, in its last moments, it prayed to its own god. And unlike you, its prayers were sincere, and it's god answered. Fortunately, you, my little lost lamb, were here to show the heathen its error in reposing its faith in such an inferior being."

"Creatures worshiping a different god from a different world... but why the hell are they attacking us?! Nothing like this happened in my previous world!"

"It is here because of jealousy, that greatest of sins. A weaker being jealous of my majesty has sent forth it's servants to ruin my works."

"I don't believe it! So this mess is your fault after all! You pissed off some other wannabe god and now its cultists are here on a fucking crusade!"

"I can see you are as incorrigible as ever. But know this, these creatures have no place in my creation. So, by all means, you use the power I have blessed you with to crush them mercilessly! Go forth, and use my light to bring destruction to these heathens, and let the cosmos know my glory!"

That fucking bastard's put me in the middle of an interplanetary religious war! "Damn. You. Being. X!"

I was still screaming when time started moving again and a storm of explosive bullets tore apart the alien invader.