Apologies for my tardiness, explanation after the chapter.
The bell-shaped chamber and its attached components crackled and sparked with energy as Richtofen and Richard approached a small control panel to its left.
"What exactly is going to happen during this demonstration?" the prince asked. "I already know something is going to teleport if all goes well, but are we sending or receiving?"
The black-haired scientist next to him briefly looked up before he continued his configuration. "We should be receiving, Eure Hoheit, Der Riese near Breslau should send a package of various documents of unknown origin found nearby there due to the Shift."
Richard raised an eyebrow. "Have the documents been investigated there?"
"Indeed they have, they are sending copies to us for Maxis and myself to study while we are here at Herbst. We are to compare findings and merge studies with doctors Groph, Schuster, and Porter in two months."
Richtofen pressed a button and began to guide the prince a few feet away.
"Eure Hoheit, I present…", blue electricity began to spark between the top and bottom of the teleporter.
"...one of the greatest inventions of our time!"
CRASH!
There was a bright flash as the teleporter finished its work, and once Richard reopened his eyes, a black briefcase sat neatly on a table in the middle of the once empty space in the teleporter.
"Gott im Himmel…", Richard began to walk slowly to the briefcase, each step bringing him closer to the impossible as Richtofen watched and smiled.
"It actually teleports…", Richard absentmindedly scratched the hair on his upper lip that marked the beginning of a mustache. He reached out and picked up the briefcase.
He turned to the scientist, "Do you have any idea what we could do with this?!", he asked with glee.
"With enough efficiency, we could transport an entire Armeegruppe hundreds of miles in just a day!" The Kings son placed the briefcase on a large table nearby. "Not to mention, if this could be miniaturized, attrition would be nearly non-existent! You certainly have my approval for this project, yes sir!"
Richtofen's smile widened, with the support of both the King and the Crown Prince, he and Maxis would have enough funding to last a lifetime.
But his thoughts of success and progress were interuppted when, quite suddenly, everything went black.
"Hurensohn!" A guard cried out.
There was a rumble throughout the underground facility.
"Was ist das?!" Maxis cried out from somewhere in the pitch black.
A mechanical beeping sounded throughout the room, a sound all too familiar to Richard.
.- .-.. . .-. - / .- .-.. . .-. - / .- .-.. .-.. / .- ...- .- .. .-.. .- -... .-.. . / ... - .-.. -.. .. . .-. ... / .-. . .-. - .-. - / - - / - - .-. / .. -. -.-. - - .. -. -. / .- - - .- -.-. -.-
The Vail Code concept had appeared in a housewife's garden in southern Potsdam a decade before, it was quickly adopted as the standard for wireless communication in Prussia, and Richard had studied it during his tutoring.
"There is an attack taking place above! All available troops come with me!" He yelled as the power began to flicker back on.
The sounds of his boots as he marched up the stone staircase were echoed by the fifty or so men following his lead. They reached the top quickly.
Richard pointed down the hall towards the exit. "Go quickly outdoors and follow Hauptmann von Arc's command until I return!"
"Jawhol!", the group quickly made their way outside, as Richard ran to his chambers.
He barged in the door and briefly noted that Ruby had left, likely to help in the defense. He quickly went to the bookcase and pulled a book halfway out, the bookcase slid to the side. Behind it, was a wall of various weapons and armors, acting quickly, he put on a grey cloak that matched his coat and pants, and a black Pickelhaube with a golden eagle emblazoned on it and a spike of the same color on top. The two articles completed his Oberst uniform, his personal rank within the Royal Prussian Army. He moved on to weapons as the boom! of a 7.7 cm FK 96 n.A. sounded, the light artillery hopefully blowing whatever it was firing at to pieces.
Richard quickly picked up his Mauser C96 and placed it in the holster on his hip. Next was his M1885 Reichsrevolver, which went in a secondary holster on the front of his belt. Then, his Gewehr 98, the soon-to-be standard rifle of the Prussian military went on one of the two rifle holsters on his back. Next, his Mauser M1897 shotgun, it took up the other rifle holster. Finally, his Blücher sword. Plentiful ammo for his weapons laid within the many pouches on his belt.
As he rushed from his room, the last thing he grabbed was a pack of Ersatztabak cigars. As he quickly made his way down the hall, he lit one in the process. Blücher sword in his right hand and C96 in his left, he ran out the opened double doors leading to the large courtyard.
There was chaos.
Well, not quite chaos, more like controlled chaos, or at least contained chaos.
There were hundreds of men on the ramparts, firing various weapons, mostly Gewehr 98's and a few Bergmann MG 95nA machine guns went rattatatat as they fired into various Grimm from their mounted positions, and up above, was Jaune, a Leutnant and an Oberleutnant were nearby him.
"Hauptmann!" Richard called, "Give me a report on the situation!"
Jaune's gaze snapped to him, brow furrowed and a scowl on his face. "The Grimm are attacking from all sides sir, thousands of them, most appear to be Creeps, Beowolves, and Ursa, but there are Deathstalkers and Nevermore as well. The defenses are holding up, Ruby is up in the north tower putting her marksmanship skills to the test, and Yang is circling the inner walls dispatching any Grimm that get over."
Richard nodded, "Any chance of air support? Perhaps the Kronprinz can initiate a naval bombardment to the rear?"
Jaune sighed, "I've been told that Herbst Luftwaffe base is experiencing its own attack, though one much smaller than ours." He turned to the Leutnant, "Get down to the radio room and tell the Kronprinz of our situation, see if they can relieve some of our stress."
The man saluted, "Jawohl, Hauptmann!"
Jaune rubbed his face with his hands, Richard took this opportunity to speak, "Don't worry Hauptmann, it's only a few thousand Grimm, we'll be fine." He offered something in his hand, "Cigar?"
Jaune smiled briefly, "Ah, no thank you Oberst, this attack just interrupted a conversation with my schwester. So I'm a little miffed because she is likely to exaggerate the story when she tells my other sisters. Can't wait to explain to them that, no I, in fact, wasn't about to go kill an entire horde in one strike."
Richard laughed, "Oh I'm sure it won't be that bad, now, if you'll excuse me, I must join in the battle."
Jaune nodded, "I'll call for you if anything relevant comes up."
"Good man."
Ruby's tail flicked from side to side angrily as she ruthlessly fired and fired upon the Grimm. She had been enjoying a small nap while practically bathed in comfy blankets and Richie's scent when a Behemoth had attempted to destroy the outer wall for its comrades and the power had flickered off for a few seconds.
She was rarely this angry over something this small, but now Richie was probably going to be wary about any new attacks for the next few days and she wouldn't get nearly the amount of loving that she required from her hubby!
Bang! The head of another Creep exploded, and the Beowolf next to it was torn apart by mounted machine gun fire.
The two Prussian Grenadier regiments stationed at Herbst were holding the walls well, there weren't any casualties that she could see from her perch at the top of the highest castle tower, and the seemingly endless horde of Grimm was slowly beginning to thin, very slowly.
The old dark blue and white uniforms of the Napoleonic days and the Great War had long since been abandoned, the even older bright colored blue and orange uniforms of Frederick the Great's time were even more outdated. They had instead been replaced by more modest alternatives, like grey and other dull colors, with the occasional red stripe on the edges of sections of cloth. Very boring in Ruby's opinion, at least the dress uniforms some of the men below put on in haste were more stylish.
Although just about everything Richie wore looked stylish on him, like that Oberst uniform he was wearing while talking to Jaune. Ruby licked her lips, her tail thumping against the floor she sat on.
Jaune briefly pointing to her position broke her train of thought, she blushed, shifted Crescent Rose back to the massive horde, racking the bolt as she did so, and began to re-engage.
Hi guys, sorry about being late, it was mostly me being a lazy POS and not having much motivation to write, I'll try to do better.
I've ditched the subplot I was starting a couple chapters ago with the Kaiserreich scenario in 1944, it just doesn't fit with the rest of the story, won't add anything to it, and would likely confuse the hell out of most people reading. So if you go back to that chapter those few paragraphs will not be there.
Also, if you haven't got it, Richard's father is Kaiser Wilhelm II, the real life last German Kaiser and Prussian King, who reigned from June 15th,real-lifeil his abdication on November 9th, 1918 shortly before Germany's defeat in the First World War. Richard is supposed to be an alternative to the Kaiser's real son, Wilhelm III, they are different in both appearance and personality however. Richard's siblings will be their real counterparts however.
The Vail code is Morse code, but using the name of the man who actually invented it, and not an artist who didn't contribute much.
All the Prussian weapons portrayed in this chapter are real, except the M1885 Reichsrevolver, that is a fictional advancement of the real-life M1883 variant, although weapons like the mounted machine gun featured here wouldn't be around until 1915, this will be explained later in the story. (It's because of the Shift)
Review Replies:
SuspectNutria: Welcome aboard! The story will emphasize more Prussian culture and activity of this time later, but I have to establish some things in Vale first.
Perseus12: Actually, Prussia wasn't taken from Earth, like in most stories of this vein, but actually copied, with the copy being placed on Remnant. This was briefly addressed during the Prologue.
joeyginise: Due to the Shift, Prussian tech is all over the place. Fun fact, the telephone Richard uses, which is about 10 years ahead of time, was used by Mr. Banks in the movie Mary Poppins, which takes place in 1910.
DIOS de la Nada (apologies because we're gonna be here a while) : In your Chapter 2 review, you seem upset that all the protagonists know each other even in the large world of Remnant, you said 'The remnant world is huge, but by magic all the protagonists know each other, what a coincidence match, right?
: V I get off this ship.' (That is copied and pasted from the review). Well, we have met four main characters, one of which isn't in the show, we have yet to meet Blake or Weiss, neither of whom know each other or the characters already shown, we also haven't seen any of team JNPR except for Jaune, and have no reason to believe they know each other or the characters already shown. Out of the 9 planned protagonists, we have met 4, and haven't even mentioned the others. Your review makes no sense, even if you assume that JNPR isn't going to be big in the story (which they will), we haven't seen half of team RWBY, the main protagonists of the actual show.
In your review of the prologue, you ask why I chose to have many children of humans in Prussia have Faunus children (in a way that made it sound like the most absurd and stupid thing you've ever heard btw, quite rude considering this is the world of fucking RWBY, with magic and brother gods and aura) this is because I needed a way to make Prussia tolerant of Faunus, and I thought this would be the best way, if half of the population suddenly started having children that had Faunus traits, they'd have to be tolerant or they would be discriminating against their own children. Mass immigration sure as hell wouldn't work (if anything it would have made Prussians intolerant towards them). You then say how Prussia helped win the Napoleonic Wars, ok, don't really know why you did that. You ask if this is historical rewriting, yes, I have put a country from early 19th century Europe into Remnant, I have rewritten quite a bit of history, about 80 years of it. It's a little obvious, I'm not sure why you asked this. You say that there are a few dates where different people were the King of Prussia, and appear to be confused as to who is, well, when in doubt, look to the most chronologically recent date and assume that is when it takes place. There is a reason I haven't mentioned Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia, because he was born in 1976, and mentioning him in a narrative story that takes place in 1898 makes no fucking sense. You state that Otto von Bismarck was the man that united Germany, I know, but this isn't Germany, it's Prussia, and here, Prussia annexed all the land in 1816, that we would call Germany in 1871. This is not real life and therefore won't have everything in common with it. You say Prussia is in the middle of the Imperialist era, yet they have 21st-century morals, I have not brought morals into play unless you count the previously mentioned Prussian Faunus, but that is literally only one example.
In your Chapter 2 review, you say 'I get off this ship', I assume that means you are going to stop reading.
Good.
SilverTails555: While I enjoy that pairing as well, I won't be in this particular story of mine. Maybe in a future endeavor of mine.
Please REVIEW GODAMMIT with any questions (that can't be answered simply by reading more of the story), encouragement, or mistakes you've noticed that you want to be fixed, and constructive criticism.
Apologies for the long Authors Note, this is (hopefully) a one-time thing.
Now, it's 1:16 AM, and I have Finals in about 7-8 hours, time to sleep.
Next chapter will come sooner than this one did.