Courtly Chronicles 4

[Tanya Degurechaff von Goethe aka Tenya Deguchiya aka Archduchess von Goethe, circa 1925, age 11]

The war was going well… if you listened to the papers. Dacia was swiftly dealt with by Major Weiss’s battalion and the 16th and 19th armies, more or less in accordance to the broad outline of a plan that Tanya had proposed, but America was still supplying the Francois with weapons and loans, and the Albish were helping the Legadonians, although it hadn’t gotten to the point of a war declaration yet. The Type 97 dual-core computation orb was ready, but the throughput of the manufacturers was low. Tanya had wondered how they created such a small clockwork computer with the quality of tools they had at hand, and the answer was quite simple: they had mages make the orbs with spells designed to refine the materials beyond current metallurgical capabilities, shaping them to a precision beyond current manufacturing standards, and assembling them with the expertise of literal watchmakers. It was incredibly expensive, and also very slow, making each piece basically handcrafted, and between the wasted material, limited labor pool, and scarcity of Elenium, the cost of each unit was comparable to planes.

Still, the spells were useful to know, and Tanya did not have time to overhaul production methods, as it would require too much experimentation and reinvention to make it work.

Unfortunately, the success of the type 97 allowed Dr. Shugel to do something no one ever expected him to do: Take a vacation. Orb R&D was paused, most of his resources retasked towards the deployment of the dual-cores. Instead of doing the properly patriotic thing and using his skills to help make the damn things, he abused his nobility and retreated to the palace, and as a result, Tanya von Goethe learned something horrifying: Archduke von Goethe was Shugel’s best friend.

As a result, Tanya found themselves on a train back to Berun after receiving a very troubling call about the type 95 project. Success. Given that the calculated output of the type 95 was comparable to One for All’s full power, the idea of the General Staff having access to a power that Tanya couldn’t overcome or outrun was one that struck them with a spike of fear. They didn’t fear assassinations, not with their precautions, but there was an understanding between Tanya and the General Staff that while they were willing to contribute to the war effort, it had to be on Tanya’s terms. Attempts at conscription will not end well for anyone. This included Tanya, so they could trust Tanya to be helpful. There was bluster around Tanya's cowardice, as pacifism was not seen as an adequate excuse, but after seeing Tanya's students in action, cooler heads prevailed.

That entire understanding was due to them not having anything short of an entire mage battalion able to strongarm them. If that changed… Tanya knew more than most, from their experience in international heroics, just how much effort can be expended based solely on the bruised ego of an authority, and while Generals Zettour and Rudersdorf were rational people, there was the chance they would be replaced with someone less so, or the war taking a turn for the worse. The logical course being to keep them in an R&D and teaching capacity is thus a flimsier shield than Tanya would prefer.

All of this was further exacerbated by the fact that puberty was right on schedule, but after the secondhand experience raising Nezumi preparing them, Tanya had gotten most of the existential crises out of the way years ago.

Tanya’s musings were interrupted by a mug of Visha’s coffee. One of the things that this world didn’t seem to get the hang of quite yet was the culinary variety and flavors only made possible by international trade and inexpensive refrigeration, and this problem was made worse by the family’s habit towards eating the finest foods the modern era had to offer. As such, even the palace food tended towards the lower end of Tanya’s refined palate. Visha, through some unknown witchcraft, manages to create coffee with these primitive tools that beat or drew even with any professional barista, and they had the advantage of modern technology.

“Ah, my thanks, Visha.” Tanya complimented, taking a sip. “I don’t know how I survived without good coffee.” Visha beamed at the praise. “Now, we should have some time to go over a few spells…” Tanya reached out and snagged Visha’s orb off of her collar. “...now, five-eighty nanometers, what color is that?”

“Yellow.” Visha immediately responded.

“Frequency?” Tanya snapped.

“Five hundred sixteen trillion hertz.” Visha answered, no longer tripping over her words when saying such large numbers.

“I want ten watts of that on this target.” Tanya created an illusory mirror for Visha to fire at.

Visha focused, putting the large numbers through her brain and pointing directly at the target. After a little less than a second of concentration, a yellow dot appeared on her own face, the laser bouncing off of the mirror. Tanya frowned at the performance. “Visha, I even primed you, that was too slow. Now, same target, but red.”

Flushing in shame at her performance, Visha rallied her concentration and fired what Tanya mentally referred to as the ‘cat slayer’ formula in half the time, creating a red dot a little bit lower and to the right in comparison to the first one. “Better.” Tanya allowed. Now, for a vague instruction. “I want a barrier to sit on. We’re moving, remember.”

Visha focused hard, pursing her lips as she resisted the impulse to move them for her calculations. Tanya was tempted to call combat-capability in orbless casting impossible for brains that weren’t quirk-enhanced, but given how much of the process was shoved into their subconscious over the decades, they weren’t quite willing to give up teaching it. One of the discoveries made during this process is that the amount of power one could put into a magical formula orblessly was directly correlated with how quickly it was calculated. The more time taken in constructing the formula, the less of Visha’s A-rank reserves could be put into it. This was a fascinating discovery that explained everything about an issue Tanya was having when putting exceptionally complex code into the computation orbs.

As such, when Tanya tested the twelve-second cast time barrier’s sharpness by moving a piece of paper through the edges, they were not overly surprised when it popped like a soap bubble after cutting through two centimeters. “Tch. It was sharp, Visha.” She drooped at the admonishment. “Ah, we’ll go over the equations again. Few formulas are as useful as making three-dimensional shapes from barriers, given how comparatively simple the calculations are.”

“Yes sir.” Visha said, a little disappointed in her own performance, but Tanya knew that they were in this particular race for the long haul.

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Tanya’s eye twitched as they processed the madness in front of them. “...Father, I must apologize, as I could have swore I heard that you have a Legadonian civilian that you strapped explosives to in the hope that she would miraculously remain both alive and useful.” Well, given that the girl could only operate the thing when literally praying, ‘miracle’ was a bit more literal than Tanya was comfortable with.

Archduke von Goethe scowled at Tanya’s assessment of the situation. “Legally, she’s an Empire citizen.” Which was not the point. “Her father defected after the Council of Ten pinned the blame for the war on him.”

“Which you then rewarded by conscripting his daughter.” Tanya continued.

“Nonsense.” Shugel said, offended. “Colonel Sue managed to secure immunity from conscription for his wife and daughter in return for his vital intelligence on Osfjord’s defenses. Do not insult God and the Kaiser by implying that we would renege on such a deal.”

“She volunteered.” Insisted the Archduke.

“I had a vision from God!” Shugel declared. “That Mary here will be his voice to the masses, spreading his light to the enemies of the Fatherland.” The question was: is this an actual act by Being X? Or just the ravings of a madman? The functioning of the type 95 made Tanya suspect the former…

Mary cut in, tired of being ignored. “Our meeting was divine providence. I can help my father now.” Her eyes flashed a brilliant gold as the type 95 hummed in accordance to her agitation. “God wills it.”

‘Father’ grinned menacingly at the enthusiasm displayed by the young girl. “Miracles or no, she still needs to be taught how to fly and fight properly. I believe that’s your job, Tanya? With her prodigious talents, I’m sure she can handle an accelerated course.” Ah. So that was why the Archduke insisted that Tanya come to meet the girl.

How to say no? “Her military discipline is atrocious.” Tanya observed, and Mary’s immediate glower only proved Tanya’s point. “She’ll need to go through basic training before I can even consider putting her in my classes, and I’m too busy training them to create a supplementary course.”

“Just stop teaching that secretary of yours.” Shugel said. “There, plenty of time.”

Tanya glared at the arrogant noble. “Visha is my adjutant, not my secretary.” Tanya corrected. “Further, in order to properly train someone with the type 95, even if it doesn’t explode, will require far more space and disposable landscapes than a few minor exercises during spare moments.” Tanya missed UA… they always had excellent training facilities available.

The Archduke scoffed, dismissively waving away the complaint “You’ll make it work. It’s for the good of the Fatherland. Did you not claim to be an independent combatant that coordinated with other forces? This is the same as that.” Tanya knew that attempt to explain hero work was going to bite them in the ass at some point.

Tanya looked over the determined Mary, every bit as committed to inflicting violence for a nebulous good as any hero student. Hang on, there’s an idea… if you squinted, she even looked a bit like Saint Mary… probably a coincidence. “If she’s going to act as an independent entity that’s supported rather than as part of a formation… That’s going to take at least a whole year to bring her to my standards. Starting after my latest class of mages graduate.” Now that Tanya thought about it, there wasn’t another one scheduled afterwards, as logistical difficulties with the type 97’s rollout prevented them from being able to equip any additional forces. They were planning on using that opportunity to start using that accumulated influence towards ending the war before it escalated more… Could they do both? Probably not. “You’d have to convince the General Staff that a singular mage would be worth all of this special treatment, naturally.”

“It’s the Will of God!” Mary said, still quite annoyed at not being involved in the conversation. “He has gifted me this relic to spread His Word, inspiring those who waver in their faith in His Mercy.” It really said something about the nature of religious zealotry that Tanya still was skeptical whether her vision was truly from Being X. It sure sounded like something that pompous windbag would say…

“...as I was saying, I’m not sure the General Staff will appreciate that you’ve continued the type 95 project on your own time, given that the reason it was shut down was how many mages you were killing.” Tanya knew this was an empty argument, but it was important that Mary know how close she came to death.

“Faithless wretch.” Shugel spat. “God told me that it would succeed, there was no risk at all.” Will the General Staff agree with that, though?

…Yes. Yes they would, because success retroactively justifies itself to men like that.

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As expected, the General Staff was quite excited to see results, even if they were limited, from the type 95 program.

“Under the current program, it takes six weeks of basic training in soldiery, one year of magical training, and an additional ten weeks in my magical combat course to train an aerial mage to the current standards.” Tanya said when asked how much training Mary would need. “While the Archduke and Shugel’s personal tutelage covers a large portion of that middle section, and while I haven’t had a chance to put Mary through her paces, it would be extremely ill-advised to dedicate a lesser amount of time to train her than we would any other mage, although with different focuses to reflect her role.” Tanya wanted to say ‘because she’s still just a child’, but these fanatical patriots needed more to be persuaded: “Even ignoring how bringing her into combat violates the spirit of the agreement with her father, losing the investment into the type 95 research by rushing her deployment would be a massive waste of resources.”

General Rudersdorf seemed to approve of the reasoning, given how he started subtly nodding along to Tanya’s points towards the end. “Tell me, Miss von Goethe, how much training did you receive, in your last life?” Mary gave Tanya a very strange look at that question.

“Three years.” Tanya replied. UA didn’t believe in early graduation, as there’s always improvements that could be made. It was quite possible at other schools to drop out and start working at any time after the provisional license was obtained and just take the full exam independently, but at UA, you took full advantage of being able to dedicate hours and hours just to get stronger. “That said, I was trained in a school, with peers to compete against and academic standards to meet. Without that, any training plan devised to create the same results wouldn’t be remotely similar.”

“I understand.” General Rudersdorf replied. Turning to the magical engineers, he continued: “And how much time did you two spend on her education before your success?”

“Three months.” Replied Shugel. “God chose her well, she barely needed to practice before mastering anything practical we put in front of her.” Academically, that sounded about right for someone who wasn’t also doing physical conditioning, marksmanship, more military discipline, and had the teacher’s full attention. Operating a computation orb had more in common with playing an instrument than using a computer, and given that the things explode if you screw up badly enough… making better user interfaces for computation orbs was something of a priority once the war was over.

General Ruderdorf smiled, a fake one plastered to frame his decision as a compromise. “Well, if she’s truly so gifted, here’s what we’re going to do: Miss von Goethe, you create a curriculum on what she needs to know, then do your best to teach her those things. Once she’s completed it, even if it’s less than the time you allocated, she can fight.”

Well, it shouldn’t be too difficult to tack on enough tasks for it to take at least nine more months. Mary was able to keep quiet… mostly, but her self-importance would likely make it difficult for her to learn the necessary discipline and reflexive adherence to her superior officer’s commands that was a necessity for being a soldier. Further, there was no way Mary was passing Tanya’s tests without being sane enough to minimize collateral damage. “That is a reasonable plan of action, General. It will be done.”

After the group left the room, all parties satisfied, Mary finally met the end of her patience: “Why is this little girl the one that gets this authority? She’s younger than I am!”

Tanya stared at the girl, unamused. “Because I’m the subject matter expert, naturally. Don’t let this body or my ‘adoption’ by the archduke fool you, I’ve got forty years experience in magical combat.”

“But how is that possible?” Mary asked, after a moment to digest the concept.

Shrugging, Tanya waved off the question. “Asking God is the best way to get an answer you’ll believe, I’m afraid.” If she came up with a response that was either hostile or confirming, it would be a good way to determine whether or not the type 95 was actually something Being X was doing.

If it was… That presented an opportunity. If Tanya could use rationality and the bastard’s own words and actions to weaken if not remove Mary’s faith… Well, if Being X wants to pretend that this is an actual contest instead of an arbitrary punishment, that means that Tanya would want to try to win, after all.

As they walked past one of the many rooms in the General Staff’s offices, the group stopped as they noticed the activity in the room, which was filled with communication equipment. General Zettour was in the room, yelling at a phone in his hand.

“I am giving you a direct order, Sue.” Zettour growled out into the phone. “Give them six hours to evacuate and then burn that city to the ground. We will not let the Francois partisans get away with using Imperial citizens as human shields.” A hostage situation? Tanya didn’t like this…

Mary, having heard her father’s name, attempted to rush into the room, held back by Tanya gripping her arm and using a combination of reinforcement and weight formulas to halt her advance. “Don’t you dare use my father as a scapegoat!” Mary shouted, catching the attention of Zettour.

“What in God’s name…” Zettour said, looking at Mary in confusion, then to Tanya and the two magical scientists behind them. Then he turned back to his phone: “Sue, the Francois are the ones committing a war crime here. If Arenne remains under their control, the entire Western Army could collapse.” Tanya stiffened at the statement.

Tanya had tried very hard to insulate themselves from the specifics of the horrors of the war. As much as it pained them to know of how many people were suffering from tyranny, war, and famine, much like the Chinese communists Tanya had elected to just not think too hard on the subject, focusing instead on what they could influence. The best idea they had for preserving things was to build influence that could be used to prevent the second world war, ending the first one amicably enough to make a repeat not as inevitable.

But this… with a literal atrocity staring Tanya in the face… Before Tanya could finish that thought, Mary was tossed aside and Tanya moved closer to the General, manifesting the illusory copy of their last life behind them. With a voice filled with authority, Tenya spoke: “What’s the situation?”

Tanya had, with tone of voice and bearing alone, cowed heroes who were both higher ranked and even personally invested in a disaster, taking over command without a single scrap of real authority over a disaster. As such, when Tanya realized what they had done, the entire room quieting and looking at the projection, they once more cursed their lapse of judgment and did what they always did when they just moved: pretend they did it on purpose.

“The city of Arenne is a railroad hub and has been disputed for decades.” Zettour explained, rather than insisting that Tanya be arrested and executed for their crime. “The Francois has deployed mage commandos to stir an uprising among the partisans in the population, and have crippled the Western Army’s logistics as a result. If logistics don’t start flowing through by the end of tomorrow, the Francois will overrun them and savage the countryside.” He spat to the side in disgust. “We know exactly where they are, but we can’t use planes or artillery to kill them because they’re in the city. Sue has ordered them to evacuate, but he refuses to give them a deadline. He’ll destroy our army worse than he did the Legadonians at this rate. The Francois are responding with insults instead of compliance, the cowards.” Tanya recalls a similar situation that Deku resolved. The civilians weren’t explicit hostages, but they were de facto ones. The solution is the same.

“I’ll lead the civilian evacuation myself.” Tanya replied, lifting off and flying out the door to the nearest exit. “Once completed, military operations can resume from both sides.”

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[Major Charles Dubois, Republican Mage-commandos 2nd company]

Charles was beginning to think that this whole plan wasn’t turning out how it was supposed to. The Imperials had the city more or less surrounded, and have been demanding that they evacuate the Imperial citizens.

Which was nonsense, they were citizens of the Francois Republic. They wish to be free of Imperial tyranny, like any man would. The upper brass was sure that the Empire’s military would never shell where so many civilians were, so magic was fully able to be used without a care for stealth.

They didn’t even need to keep Arenne for very long, according to the Albish. It was a critical train hub, and the armies would run out of supplies within the week if they could just stall the Empire from conquering the city.

They had managed to impress a good portion of the city’s men into a militia, which will make invading the place with infantry nigh impossible. The ones that didn’t? Well, they’re prisoners for now, a few executions had kept the rest in line. Once the threat of the Imperials has faded, they can get to properly integrating them back into the Republic.

But now… The Imperial jackboot had changed, with a completely different man making the announcement to evacuate. They gave the citizens mere hours to leave before bombardment would begin… and Charles thinks he might be serious. That would be a war crime, wouldn’t it? As horrible as the Imperials were, Charles knew they took the laws of war seriously.

The absolute worst part, where Charles was concerned, was the reports from the magic detectors. Apparently, a beyond-A rank mage had flown to the place, alone, all the way from Berun at impossible speeds. ETA?

Right the hell now. “Attention, citizens of Arenne.” Rang out, in German, an immensely loud, feminine voice from the skies. “This is Argent Silver, and you are safe now, for I am here.” The message repeated in Frankish. Who the hell was this? “Refugee camps have been erected by the Imperial Army, which will shelter the noncombatants for the duration of the conflict.” Again, the message was repeated in Frankish. The next statement was purely in Frankish. “Attention members of the Republican military: Attempts to stop or otherwise inhibit the evacuation of anyone from the city will be dealt with. The noncombatants in this AO are under my protection, and the taking of hostages will not be tolerated.” Seriously, who the hell did this bitch think she was?

Suddenly, she dropped from the sky onto the prison camp where they stashed all of the Imperial scum, small, wearing a white dress as her eyes shined with a dangerous light. “This is unacceptable.” Resounded that same voice, but quieter. Addressing the prisoners, she waved her arm dramatically, taking a deep breath before continuing. “Stand, all of you.” The prisoners listened, his mages looking at Charles for direction.

Right, he was in charge here! “Sit down, you Imperial scum!” Charles shouted, flying into the air to meet this tiny girl. “Who the devil do you think you are, Imperial bitch?”

The girl looked at him, bored, glancing down to the rifle he was pointing at her face across the four meters or so that separated them. “This is a humanitarian mission, Major. I am here on no authority beyond my ideals.” She replied in Frankish. Her accent was a little strange, but plenty intelligible. “These are noncombatants, I see not a single military uniform among them. Seeing as how military conflict is unavoidable, I am volunteering to take on the duty of evacuating the noncombatants so you can all get to killing each other without any war crimes getting committed.” She glanced at the prison camp. “Any more war crimes.” She said, as if correcting herself. There was no war crime here!

This is why women need to stay away from battlefields! War is more than just killing each other! “You expect us to just let the Imperial Military walk away with Francois citizens?” He spat, rising in elevation so he could look down on her.

“I’m not a soldier.” Was her blunt reply. “I’m unarmed and more importantly not wearing a military uniform. I will defend myself and the noncombatants, but I can’t end the war by myself. What I can do is ensure that these people will be evacuated away from the battlefield, to minimize the collateral damage. Attacking evacuating noncombatants is a serious violation of the Hague Conventions.” Charles was beginning to wish he actually read those things. She glanced back down to Charle’s rifle. “And put that thing away, you’re embarrassing yourself.”

That’s it. Charles lined up his shot and started squeezing the trigger, but in an eyeblink, the girl was right in front of him, cutting right through his mage shell and ripping his computation orb right off of his uniform, her thumb sinking into the center of it and shutting off all of his magic, somehow doing so without the thing exploding. Her other arm supported his weight easily, as she used the first one to cut his gun in half, tossing the pieces down onto the ground, finishing him off by moving her arms to squeeze his forearms tightly enough that he was sure she broke them. Finally, she dropped him into some kind of weird harness made of what Charles was pretty sure was a mage shell.

“Now.” She said as she looked over his subordinates. “Does anyone else want a medical evacuation? Or should the civilian evacuation proceed unhindered?” His second in command immediately called out for them to attack the irregular combatant.

Charles could only watch as each and every one of them, closing into melee with their mage blade bayonets so as to avoid friendly fire, each were disarmed with contemptuous ease, as the witch’s reflex enhancement far eclipsed what their orbs could output. After each disarming, they were placed into their own mage shell prison thing… mage manacles? Charles was going to call them mage manacles.

She created visible discs of magic in front of the prisoners. “Sit on the barriers. Parents first, set your children in your lap.” Instructed the Germanian whore. Turning to his soldiers, she continued. “If you have a medical camp nearby, I can take you there, or I can take you to the Imperials. Your choice.”

Charles spat in her direction as the prisoners followed her instructions, three sets of barriers taking dozens of parent-child pairs into the air, presumably with more mage manacles. “Imperial witch, if you’re going to make us into prisoners of war, at least be honest about it. You make me sick.”

She chuckled at his insult. “Don’t pretend that you weren’t going to shoot me. I’ll deliver you to whatever base you wish.” She moved to address the remaining prisoners. “I’ll return, remain here or go east to the Imperial lines, I’ll find you. It would be most helpful if you were to collect other noncombatants in your group.”

Work done, she rose into the air with everyone, and moved at a speed that startled Charles, given that he could feel only the barest fraction of the movement. Within a minute, the Imperial dogs were on their feet at a fairly standard-looking refugee camp, a bunch of completely undefended tents with a flag denoting the place’s status. The ones she released cried out praise and blessings onto the witch, calling her a messenger from God or other such nonsense.

“You.” The Germanian witch said, pointing at Dubois, who was holding a bulky radio. “Contact your superiors and inform them I am delivering wounded to the appropriate place, and either tell me where that is or ask them where they want you.”

“Ah… Mademoiselle, it is a magic radio. It’s meant as a booster for the communication formula and cannot be used without a computation orb.” Dubois admitted.

“What frequency should I use, then?” She said without losing a beat. Dubois, the traitor, rattled one off, and she immediately started talking: “Republican Forces, this is Argent Silver. Do you copy?” After a moment, she nodded to herself. “I am here to evacuate civilians. While I’m at it, I am also evacuating wounded. Where do you want them, or should I turn them over to the Imperials?” A beat. “Yes, you have several wounded forces. Where do they go?” After a long pause, she nodded once more. “Understood. I’m sure you’re tracking this magic signature, but I will be arriving within minutes.”

Within two minutes, they were one hundred kilometers away, in a medical tent behind the French Lines, and within another ten minutes they were at the magic detectors, seeing the bitch back at the refugee camp, presumably with a second load of Imperial shitheads, before spiking the mana signature so high that they could probably detect it in Albion.

“Who is this?” Asked a very curious Colonel Moreau. “The Empire’s secret weapon?”

Charles could only shrug.

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