A/N 1:
DO NOT READ if you haven't read Chapter 37 of Third Time's the Charm. There are spoilers for that here, and I suggest that, unless you don't mind, you wait to read that far into Third Time's the Charm first.
-OxOxO-
Forty-eight.
It wasn't exactly a conspicuous number, considering that there were literally an infinite number of numbers, but he knew that it held special significance for the 203rd Aerial Mage Battalion.
That was how many aerial mages there were in the Battalion, after all. Forty-eight men and women, tested from the harsh heat of the Sahara to the biting, freezing cold in the Russy Federation.
Forty-eight of the best and brightest out of the thousands in the whole of the Empire that were fit to fly side-by-side with the best mage in the Empire.
Forty-eight people who had seen nearly every front – and every major battle, too – that the war had yet to offer.
Still. Despite their numbers, despite that number, they were losing.
He almost laughed at the absurdity; he was sure that this shock and terror was what their enemies felt when they fought the Colonel.
Another mage was cut down in a spray of bullets, and he ground his teeth as he saw her head jerk towards him, even as the Colonel fought her.
He ducked. He dodged. He weaved about. Hell, he even performed a few of those maneuvers that the Colonel had told them they could do if they just tried. Everyone just assumed only the Colonel could do because she was the Colonel, but, somehow, he managed them.
Any elation at the fact that he'd done them was immediately destroyed by the fact that it didn't matter.
He couldn't shake the girl, if the demon they were fighting could even be called that. Her brown hair whipped about her as she fought the Colonel and chased after him, and the heavy machine gun clasped in her hands might as well have weighed nothing as she whirled about and shot them out of the sky.
He tried again. Faster, moving faster, pouring more mana into his shields, pouring more into his flight spells, cutting off mana to even the oxygen spells that he knew he would not survive long without.
Still, she was chasing him. He cast a look over his shoulder, only to feel a piercing pain shoot through his leg and his body. He didn't need spells to tell him he'd probably been hit, and that his shield had been shattered.
Still, he didn't put any mana into the Pain-Reduction Reinforcement spells. It wasn't worth it.
He decided to forgo shields entirely – they couldn't stand against a fucking heavy machine gun infused with mana – and just try and outfly her shots.
It worked.
For three seconds.
Then she surprised everyone with yet another burst of speed. She outpaced the Colonel. She outpaced Serebryakov. She brought her gun around and took aim at him.
He didn't even have a chance to try and think of something to outdo her. The bullets streaked towards him too fast for even Reinforcement spells to help dodge them. He didn't have shields, and he couldn't waste mana trying to bring them up.
It was too late.
As the bullets approached, Grantz closed his eyes. He hoped that he'd at least distracted her enough so that Tanya could kill her.
He waited.
And he waited.
And he waited some more.
Finally, Grantz realized something. The wind wasn't whipping his eardrums anymore. He couldn't hear the anguished cries of falling mages, he couldn't hear the woman's constant, unending prayers. Even the voice in the back of his head, reminding him of how insane this fight was, had fallen silent.
He opened his eyes and looked around.
Frozen. Everything was frozen. The men that were falling, the men that were flying. The Colonel. Serebryakov. Weiss. Neumann. Koenig. Nothing moved.
Only Grantz's eyes moved. A moment passed, where he tried to exert himself, magically and physically.
Still, only his eyes moved.
He began to look around. Trying to find what had caused this. The maniac grin frozen on her face, almost as terrifying as the looks the Colonel could give them, told Grantz that she wasn't doing this.
Probably.
With no cause of his… predicament presenting itself, he began to count.
He counted thirty-six. That was how many people he counted flying through the air, still trying to kill this witch. He supposed that counting himself, he made thirty-seven, and that the woman in front of him made thirty-eight people flying through the air.
Then, with nothing else to do, he also counted the bullets heading towards him. He could see four of them glowing bright red, and, reflected in the light they gave off – it was cold and dark and even the moon had retreated behind the clouds – he counted eight more.
He tried to raise his eyebrows in surprise.
He prayed that she wouldn't take out any more of them. Prayed that Serebryakov, or the Colonel, or maybe even the weight of sheer numbers would bring down the tyrant, the madwoman, before him.
The woman blinked her eyes, and he blinked back.
"Hello, my child. Do not worry. Your suffering will soon be ended."
Grantz grimaced, and then tilted his head. Why…
Was this… God? Come to take him on? To end his part in the war? Or was… she doing this somehow? To taunt him?
She grinned. "This one, Mary Sioux… she is my most faithful. Have you any last regrets or questions you would like to ask before you're sent to Heaven?" God said quickly. Grantz began to think, even as the girl's bright expression began to lose interest.
He might have been… critical of the Colonel in the early years of the war, but now, he trusted her more than he trusted himself. She'd been right about so many things absolutely no one had predicted.
The François fleeing to Africa. The Russy invasion. Even the Akitsushima Dominion, whose existence he had barely remembered, attacking the Russy's Siberian lands. And while she often gave them conflicting messages on religion, he had several pointed questions for God of his own.
The brief desire to ask why they were being sent to Heaven entered his mind, but he dismissed it. Saying something might get his doubts examined, and Grantz didn't want all the things the 203rd had done laid before him.
That sounded like a job for the Colonel, if anyone were to take the job. They just followed orders, no matter how much he… hated them.
How much all of them, including her, hated them.
He tried to voice his thoughts, but his lips failed to move. He was unsure of how to communicate and attempted to think of the words he wanted to say.
"Why? Why are we fighting? I thought it was to protect the fatherland, or to subjugate our enemies around us. But we did that. Again and again, we've destroyed our enemies, and time after time, the top brass keeps pushing for war with someone else. It doesn't seem to end."
He might have liked to phrase it purely as a question, but his mind let the desperation and fear and anger that he'd been feeling for… what seemed like years on end leech into the words. Still, he wanted his answer, no matter how much the Colonel would question him for 'whining.'
The Empire could have accepted mediation from the Allied Kingdom, or even from the Americans. However, time after time, the country had pushed for more war.
The Francois Republic. The Allied Kingdom. The Russy Federation.
He knew that everyone was tired. The Colonel was tired. The soldiers they supported were tired. His friends were tired.
Grantz was tired.
The woman tilted her head, and then a wide smile split her face. "Why… uh, for the glory of your country and the Lord, of course! What other fitting reason is there to fight? Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, yes?"
He spent a long moment trying to remember what it was supposed to mean when he finally placed it.
He glared. "'Fitting?' What is fitting about dying to a bloodthirsty maniac in the middle of enemy territory? I…" he trailed off. He took a deep breath.
"I signed up because I thought war was glorious, something to be happy to do, but there's none of that. Sure, mages have it a bit better than the men in the trenches, but there is no honor in this. We get shot down, crash to the ground, and we're lucky if our bodies are shipped back to Berlun."
She glared at him, and a new voice spoke up. He cast his gaze about and found Serebryakov speaking. "You do not find fighting for your glorious God?"
Grantz rolled his eyes. "We just fight and kill. We've bombed civilians, regardless of the Colonel's technical avoidance of any war crimes. We've used horrible spells that shouldn't exist. That isn't just inglorious, it isn't right."
Grantz felt something change. The lack of feeling in his leg blew away like snow in the wind, and he nearly shouted at the sudden pain.
But his lips didn't move.
He cast his gaze about, settling again on the woman. "So. You don't believe in God?" she asked skeptically.
He shook his head. "I am not particularly well-read, but the Colonel was very clear in saying that we'd get no favors from him. The François and the Empire believe in the same being, right?"
Something he'd said had been wrong. He wasn't sure what, but the increase of the pain in his leg told him that something was wrong. He tried to scream out, but he could only wail in his mind.
He tried to pant, and, when that failed, he glared at the woman. "Besides. The Colonel said she'd slice you up into pieces, right? I'm not about to oppose her-"
A voice boomed from around him, the combined efforts of every living mage, bar one. "YOU WOULD FIGHT AGAINST ME WITH THE ATHEIST!?"
He tried to wince, but he couldn't. "No… but Tanya's proved she can pull off miracles, even if she denies it. I don't doubt that she'd put up one hell of a fight."
She was mad. Grantz could see it in her furious expression, but more than that, he could feel it from the tingle of magical energy licking his body. He waited, wondering just how long he'd have to regret not keeping his thoughts to himself.
Finally, she spoke again.
"You, who dare oppose your Creator and side with one known throughout Heaven as The Atheist, are cast out of Heaven. Your karma is void; your life is void; your very soul is void."
Grantz felt something change, and then he knew no more.
-OxOxO-
Neumann shook with rage. It was… horrible. Despicable. The worst perversion of everything and anything that could have existed.
Tanya von Degurechaff. Devil of the Rhine. White Silver. Mithril. She'd earned more names, but those were the ones most well-known. Reduced to…
He shook his head, listening again to the screams he could hear behind the closed doors. Serebryakov had taken one look at the Colonel and that… thing, kicked him in the head, and then slammed the door shut with a spell or two.
Or maybe it had happened differently, he didn't really remember, it was such a blur.
Another scream interrupted his thoughts. He grimaced.
He obviously didn't enjoy the suffering of others by any metric… but he could only sigh in relief as the screams of Loria echoed through his opulent household.
Viktoriya was taking her time with the bastard.
The Colonel had been unclothed, bruised and bloodied, bound in magic-draining Mithril handcuffs – a necessity, since she would have killed that disgusting bastard if she'd had access to her magic – and she'd been absolutely terrified.
She'd been begging God to save her, wondering why they hadn't shown up sooner. Neumann's gaze down the hallway, searching for mages, darkened.
He was angry that he could not help Viktoriya destroy that bastard, but he supposed that she had the most right to.
Those two women had been through more than anyone knew, he was sure.
He shook his head and focused on his job: shooting mages.
More of them were beginning to arrive, and Neumann was sure they'd be forced out soon. He didn't mind, though; they'd found the Colonel and would end that abhorrent man.
Suddenly, the screams were cut off by a sudden gunshot, a burst of static echoed in his ears, and all eleven of them left the windows, shooting straight up. Viktoriya burst through the roof, the Colonel held tightly to her chest, and all of them sped west. Towards their lines.
Towards safety.
After fifteen minutes of flying, things were dire. One man had died of exhaustion, and another two had been shot down in the ten-minute-long chase.
He clenched his teeth. That damn Bloody Valkyrie…
She'd killed almost half of everyone in the Battalion, and she could have kept on killing.
The Colonel managed to damage her gun enough to where she had been forced to pull out her rifle and abandon her strongest weapon. Another quarter of them had died, and then Tanya had managed to destroy her in a large, horrible explosion.
Russy reinforcements had forced them to retreat and prevented them from picking up the Colonel then. The higher ups had told them not to save her, and that they should pray she perished before she reached the ground.
The whole of them had been told about the depredations of Loria, and decided, unanimously, to save her. They had, and they might be shot for treason for it.
A bullet clipped Neumann's leg, and he cursed; the mages had caught up with them again. He began evasive maneuvers and prayed that the Colonel would make it back, even if he died.
Neumann could honestly say that he didn't mind. He looked ahead of himself and saw that another two of the 203rd were down. He grimaced, and then took a deep breath.
He was prepared.
He took one last look at them – his comrades and friends and family – and then he halted his momentum. The books told him that he shouldn't do this; slowing down at some rate was better than just a complete stop, since the g-forces a mage underwent could kill them if they stopped near-instantly, even with magic.
The Colonel had shown them that they could do this with the Type 97. He'd never done it, but he knew that he had to do that – and more – now.
He turned around, deployed another Active Barrier, and sped off towards the right. Two chased him, while a veritable horde continued to chase after the rest. He smirked; he could avoid two of them for long enough.
He ducked. He dodged. He waved about. They couldn't land more than glancing blows on his shield. Soon, he'd swung around behind the rest of the pursuing Russy mages.
He began to pour mana into the Type 97. Mana enough to power an Artillery shot. Power enough to maybe even cave in several buildings.
He continued to pour in mana. He felt the Type 97 begin to heat up, and he was sure that his eyes were beginning to glow red. Just like the books said they would and how they said he shouldn't do what he was doing.
What they didn't talk about was the practical application of such a thing.
The Colonel, of course, had found one, and told them exactly how to trigger it.
Of course, she had also informed them never to do it if they had any other options…
He mentally shrugged.
Oh well.
He charged forward, dropping even his barriers, preparing for a fiery explosion to rip through him as his Computation Jewel exploded.
He was in the middle of the group, when everything slowed down. Slowly, the mages came to a stop. The whirling snow stopped. The wind in his ears stopped. The heat in his chest faded.
He tried to look around and found himself immobilized. He tried to curse and found that even his mouth was frozen. Only his eyes could move.
A Russy soldier in front of him moved. His head tilted downwards. Neumann prayed that this would end soon; he just wanted the survivors to escape.
The soldiers all cracked an identical smile. "Hello, my child. Your suffering will soon end. Are there any lingering questions you desire to be answered?"
He focused on the lightly bearded mage ahead of him, trying not to shudder at the bright red uniform he sported. "Will the others be all right? So many have already died…"
He shrugged. "Who can say?"
He tried to send him a disbelieving look, but all he was able to achieve was squinting eyes. "You can say. You are God, yes? Protect them! Even if I can't live to see it, this war should end soon. Just get them through it."
The Russy mages frowned. "You would demand something from me?"
He tried to frown, but nothing came of it. Still, he tried to make his words sound as forceful as possible. "Nothing will be gained from this war."
He heard soft, booming laughter. "A pacifist?"
"No. But Tanya-"
He was cut off. "The Atheist has not suffered nearly enough."
Neumann blinked rapidly. What? She had almost been…
Incredulity bled into his anger. "What do you mean? Suffered? She is a child. A hypercompetent one, to be sure, but a child, nonetheless. She has been put through too much-"
Again, he cut him off. "She is no more a child than you or I. And, she has only gotten as far as she has thanks to me!"
His voice was booming, but even he didn't sound entirely convinced by his own words. Then, the words were filled with renewed vigor and anger.
"She would have never been more than an orphan if I hadn't given her magic! She would be a rotting corpse if I hadn't given my blessings to her! All I demand is prayer and belief from her, and she has yet to offer either honestly, besides…"
Neumann was floored into mute silence. God continued to speak, after taking a moment to clear his throat. "All I demand is prayer from all of my children. Nothing much. Yet, day after day, more continue to stop believing. Why do so many humans cease praying? Why do they not ache for my blessing so that they might survive my war? Heaven needs their prayers!"
Neumann remained silent, for a moment, but he cast a steely gaze at the speaking Russy mage. "Your war?"
He scoffed. "But of course. What better way to inspire faith in my children than to make them fight? It took some doing, to get those men in Legadonia into power, but they were set on war. Everyone was. It just took a little spark from me."
Neumann tried not to let the thought slip out. He failed.
"God is not so… disgustingly cruel."
Neumann felt pain blossom in his chest – probably the beginning of the explosion of his Type 97 – and he let out a mental grunt. Nothing in his surroundings changed.
"You dare to tell me what I am?"
He tried to shrug. "You seem pretty set on telling the Colonel what she must be, if what you've said is true. I don't see why-"
He never finished his thought. Time resumed, pain exploded from his chest, and Neumann felt a lack of anything, for a moment.
Then, a howling wind began to rush past his ears, and a deep voice rang out around him.
"You, who dare oppose your Creator and side with one known throughout Heaven as The Atheist, are cast out of Heaven. Your karma is void; your life is void; your very soul is void."
Then, the unending blackness around his body began to fade, and bright, red light met his eyes.
-OxOxO-
Koenig knew it was a matter of time. There were only seven of them now, including the Colonel.
They'd been told that the Type 97 was being discontinued because of an accident at the facility they were made at.
The Colonel – no, in the wake of her being saved, and her trauma, she'd been promoted from a Colonel to Major-General and told to enjoy life behind lines as soon as the war ended – had suspected foul play, but she had failed to tell them how.
She thought it had to do with Doctor Schugel's survival, but Koenig couldn't honestly believe that he could betray the fatherland to their enemies.
It might have been more plausible than he thought, though, considering what had just happened…
He looked up to the sky. Bombers, probably American in design, were flying high above them, dropping firebombs on Dresdun. He'd been inside the building with her when it had gone up in flames and had only been saved by being thrown out of the door by the explosion.
Now, he felt anger burning in his chest. He had been described as calm and cool-headed by everyone who met him, but he truly just didn't feel a reason to react outwardly towards much. But this…
He ripped his Type 97 out of his bag, threw it around his neck, and jetted upwards. His gun was firing away, and he was sure that he would die today.
It was fine. He had thought they would all die fighting, except the Colonel, who would waltz away with survivable damage, hand in hand with her faithful adjunct.
But she was dead now, along with most of them. A beer hall had been burned to the ground, and Koenig felt his blood burn as he shot mage after mage.
For the Empire. For the Fatherland. For Tanya!
He ducked. He dodged. He waved about. Still, it wasn't enough. He was shot, again and again. He tried to keep fighting, but in the end, it wasn't enough. So, he poured the rest of his mana into his Computation Jewel and smiled once as his vision darkened.
It was… very dark. There was nothing, and he couldn't do… anything.
It remained dark. For a moment or for a slice of forever, he couldn't tell, but the darkness did, eventually, fade.
When the light turned on, it was blinding.
Clouds and crumbling walls surrounded him. A seat of alabaster shone before him, while his own seat was made of wood. Before he could move, to try and figure out what kind of Cordiale base he was at, the seat in front of him changed.
One moment, it was empty. During the next, someone sat in it.
Flowing robes, flowing hair, and bright shining eyes; all were as pure white as the clouds. Koenig opened his mouth, but the being in front of him spoke first.
"Two of your compatriots have gone to Hell. Forty-two have gone to Heaven. Remember this when you speak."
He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "I suppose the Colonel and Serebryakov chose Hell?"
He narrowed his eyes as well. "Why would you think one who prays so much would descend into Hell?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "The Colonel told the rest of the 203rd as to why she prayed, and how Schugel had done something to the damned Type 95. She decided that she needed to tell us some of her secrets."
He narrowed his eyes, no doubt at Koenig's usage of 'damned,' but he didn't mind the look. Koenig relaxed his position, bringing his hands to rest behind his head. "Do what you wish with me. You are the judge here. If you send me to join Tanya, then so be it."
He glared. "She isn't in Hell."
That brought him up short. God could be lying, but nothing suggested he was. He was staring steadily ahead. Koenig tried to voice a question, but the being just shook his head.
"Once again, she's causing me more trouble than she's worth."
Koenig narrowed his eyes, and then straightened up in his chair. "I'd like to help her, if you wouldn't mind."
The being blinked, and then an expression of amusement appeared. It poorly hid anger behind it. "I have not yet been asked for such a thing in such a… carefree tone."
He shrugged. "You will or you won't; you seem pretty set in your ways."
One of his eyes twitched, and Koenig cracked a smile. The being was beyond infuriated, and Koenig sighed as the man stood, his face twisted in anger. It seemed he was off to Hell.
Darkness engulfed his vision.
-OxOxO-
One month.
One long, stressful, lonely month.
No superiors. No subordinates. No family.
He smiled sadly. One friend, for most of it.
Weiss could confidently say that he was very, very lonely. His family had dried up, killed by the attacking Russy or in some bombing raid. Whatever the cause had been, he was out of family.
The letter had been right, however.
Everything related to the Type 97, the Type 95, and the 203rd mage battalion was being disposed of. Only Schugel remained, living as a monk in some rural backwater in the countryside.
Maybe he was the smart one. He had gone somewhere where he couldn't be killed unexpectedly, except by, perhaps, a natural disaster.
Weiss wouldn't run.
The Colonel had given him one last, post-mortem order.
She had asked him to consider everything: the futility of the war, the fact that both she and the Siouxs had been blessed with 'holy' powers. Every inconsistency in her behavior. The Type 95.
Everything.
He had wanted to call her – or rather, him, as the letter had told Weiss – insane. But the Colonel wasn't insane.
She might do seemingly reckless things, she might have become heartbroken when others cheered, and she might have used the poor excuse 'it was just a slip of the tongue' too many times to count.
She wasn't insane.
The death of the last man of the 203rd besides himself had convinced him. He had nothing against the mage, but he was, objectively, unimportant. He wasn't highly ranked in the 203rd– or even in the Empire.
Despite his unimportance, he'd been assassinated. Shot in the back of the head by an old man who didn't even remember doing it.
So, he'd done what she asked. Contacted Viktoriya's friend, Elya Roth, convinced her of the truth. Then they'd completed her exhaustive list of things Tanya wanted to do during and after the war.
They'd helped in the peace talks, if only a little bit. They'd referenced the 'Fallen Silver,' handed off her notes to the General Staff, and watched, thankless, as the Empire had implemented them and argued for something that resembled a just peace that might last longer than twenty years.
They'd introduced economic ideas to the right people. The economy should get back on track fairly quickly thanks to Tanya's ideas, including agreements to avoid trade wars.
They'd even presented several ideas for inventions that she had wanted to get created 'in the name of drowning Communism in a tsunami of consumerism.'
Some were championed – the concept of a cure-all antibacterial agent called penicillin; using electricity to make non-magical Computation Jewels, or 'Computers;' and concentrated light beams called lasers – and others were not. Weiss had no doubt that she would eventually be remembered more for these inventions and economic ideas – those that had been picked up now and those that would come to be later – than for her warmongering.
Based on her writing, he guessed that that was what she would prefer.
They'd donated all the money they'd gotten, the rest of his and her pay, and even Serebryakov's 'Treasury' that she'd managed to win through cards. To any and every organization, in the Empire and abroad, that would help in the cleanup or was anti-war.
Then things had quieted down. For five days, he'd been waiting to die, to have someone try and kill him.
At this point, he wanted it to happen. Everyone he knew was gone, and he couldn't honestly say that he could ever move on. He'd sit in some house somewhere, or at a desk doing meaningless work, and want to have died with everyone else, or wished that they were alive with him.
Suddenly, a knock on his door interrupted his thoughts. The woman the general staff had assigned to him as a liaison during his leave walked in, placed a cup of coffee at his desk, and then left.
He looked at it for a moment, before chuckling. It wasn't even subtle; there was a pill bottle next to his coffee, marked 'Cyanide.'
He rose, and opened a drawer in the Colonel's – no, his – desk. Inside, an object laid. He thrust his hand in.
He grabbed his pistol, put it to his temple, and shot himself in his brain.
It was magically enchanted, and it tore out large chunks of his head. As pounding footsteps streaked towards his room and screams began to echo through the building, he smiled one last time.
He'd be rotting in Hell, right alongside the Colonel, Serebryakov, and at least a few others from the 203rd.
He'd been through Hell on Earth.
How much worse could the real deal be?