City Series:Volume6d Chapter4

Chapter 4: The Ruin Accelerates

7/24/1943 18:03 – 18:57

Oh, god. I’m just so flustered!

But, but

Um

I have to do something!

Vaterland

Top label: Connection between the Vaterlands (including Tristan) and the Ley Lines

Left label: Ley Lines

Middle label: Vaterlands

Right label: Tristan

Black arrow from Vaterlands to Ley Lines: Activates the Land / Adds German Lives / Provides Aerial Words Ability

White arrow from Ley Lines to Vaterlands: Phlogiston Extraction

Black arrow from Tristan to Vaterlands: Boosts Output / Pressurization Assistance

The Vaterlands are ley line acceleration reactors developed by the Geheimnis Agency. They activate the land around them by extracting and activating the ley lines which act as arteries for Lives. The pure ether extracted from the ley lines is also converted into Phlogiston fuel.

They were originally designed to draw out the possibilities of a land and guide the people carrying that land’s Lives, but these nationalistic ones were further designed to activate the land, provide good fortune, and extract Phlogiston.

The Vaterlands that Germany constructed in its allied countries and occupied territories during the war initially only provided their standard benefits, but they were later combined into a massive network using the ley lines and that was used to release German Lives from Berlin into the ley lines across the world. That made it possible for the German military to use Aerial Words on any battlefield controlled by a Vaterland.

In ’43, that structure was discovered by the Allies and around a dozen Vaterlands fell into Allied hands when German occupied territories were retaken.

Part 1

The concrete hangar was tall, wide, and windowless.

It was located below Hamburg Base.

The enclosed space echoed with the rumble of transport vehicles, the sparks of welding, and the scraping of automatic files.

The underground Grösse Panzer hangar had columns connecting floor to ceiling and a lot of equipment lifts on the walls.

One of the suspended platforms on the north wall was very noisy. Hanging from that raised platform was a white Grösse Panzer – the Neue Kaiser – and ten or so maintenance soldiers were working on it.

The wings had been removed from its back for maintenance.

The maintenance soldiers were in constant motion around Neue Kaiser, but someone else stood motionless nearby.

That person was Alfred. He wore a blue jumpsuit and stood next to the Grösse Panzer Werkzeug hanging from a hanger next to the suspended platform. He viewed the white sword with a blade nearly 4 yards long.

“Good,” he muttered before viewing his surroundings.

A polisher the size of a thick dictionary was attached to the bottom of the hanger. He picked up the stone and metal device in one hand and pressed the curved polishing surface against the blade.

He walked and pushed on the device to polish the blade. Sparks flew.

“It was more damaged than I thought.”

Then he walked backwards and pulled on the device to continue polishing.

Suddenly, he looked to the platform where the workers were holding a meeting on Neue Kaiser’s back. They were discussing how to adjust for a part of the plans they didn’t understand.

Alfred did not interrupt and continued polishing the sword.

Neue Kaiser’s secondary cockpit was still open.

Viewed from below, he could see a white line in the secondary cockpit’s ceiling. That was Rein König.

He looked back to the larger sword he was polishing and raised the scratchy voice of his artificial vocal cords.

“That Rein König is the same one the one-armed young man took from the Messiah and lent to the emperor. And then the emperor gave it to my ancestor…in response to a selfish request.”

He looked to the sword he was polishing.

“But you are only designed to look like that one.”

Sparks flew from the polisher.

“But that does not make you second best. Because I reforged you with my Busting four years ago after you were sliced through.”

He continued polishing through the sparks. The polisher caught a few times, but he pushed and pulled it through every time.

Hearing a voice calling him from the suspended platform, he looked up to see a soldier trying to work inside the secondary cockpit was pointing at Rein König.

“Lieutenant! I’m sorry, but could you please remove this? I am trying to work on the ceiling portion.”

“Remove it yourself and bring it to me.”

“B-but I can’t do that!”

“What, you aren’t interested in making light of a millennium of history? Just toss it my way if you want.”

Alfred set down the polisher and walked over. He grabbed the thruster sticking out from Neue Kaiser’s leg armor and made a light leap that carried him all the way up to the secondary cockpit entrance.

Once inside, he reached over the flustered soldier’s head and removed Rein König.

He answered the soldier’s thanks with a nod and then hopped down.

After landing, he raised Rein König toward the soldier looking down from the bottom of the secondary cockpit.

“Take good care of it.”

With that, he walked back toward the larger sword.

But he was interrupted by a voice from a speaker.

“Is Neue Kaiser doing well, Lieutenant Maldrick?”

The voice shook the underground space as a large form approached.

The giant green Grösse Panzer was in fact Army Division Chief Karl Schmitt. He kept his knee joints bent and used the plastic continuous tracks on his legs to slowly turn and walk.

Even ducking down, his head nearly hit the ceiling, so he felt like an entire building moving around.

The green giant stopped in front of Alfred.

“On your way up top, Chief?” asked Alfred.

“An entire underground hangar was cleared out for my personal use, so I am moving there. Where is your partner?”

“Our commander showed up earlier and took him away. She wants to set up an audience with the Messiah tonight and said she has a lot to tell her now.”

“The audience, huh? It’s at midnight like usual, isn’t it?”

“Is the Deputy Chief working on that too?”

“Yes, she said she was getting dressed up in preparation for the audience. What about you?”

Alfred shook his head.

“I’m sitting this one out.”

“Because Sir Heiliger is there? I hear you protested after capturing the Messiah last night.” Karl paused for a sigh that his machine body could not perform. “Try not to be so stubborn. We have more personnel and more problems than when Sir Graham was in charge, but most everyone has a high opinion of Sir Heiliger’s work here.”

“Only cause he’s kind to his men and has kept mission losses down to record lows.”

“Is that supposed to be a bad thing?”

Alfred took a look around. None of the workers paid him any heed. The hangar was full of motion. He hung his head a little but raised it almost immediately afterwards.

“He sees us like a family. I bet we’re filling the hole left by the wife and child he threw out. But we’re soldiers.” Before continuing, Alfred held Rein König aloft. “We still haven’t answered the questions Sir Graham left us with. We don’t need some great Messiah and we don’t need kindness or record low losses.” He lowered his voice. “And we don’t need to do harm while trying to protect something either. We need something else.”

He lowered Rein König and let it hang at his side.

Instead, he clenched his left hand. The hand with a red ring on the middle finger.

“At this rate, we’re just going to see a second Cologne.”

“We do have intel of another major bombing in the works. Bombers are gathering at an airfield on the UK’s eastern coast. Their rumored target is either Hamburg or Berlin.”

Alfred looked up when he heard that. The green Grösse Panzer was looking down at him.

“It is possible you will end up proving the thing you can’t bring yourself to put to words here,” said its vocal device. “Proving it to us, I mean.”

Part 2

All the lights were out in a small room and the chill of the night was seeping inside.

Two people stood near the window.

The enormous one turned aside from the window was Schweitzer with Der Held removed.

The one standing next to him was Lowenzahn.

They both wore their uniforms and faced each other in the light of the cross far to the east.

Lowenzahn’s head was lowered with her forehead against Schweitzer’s chest.

She was crying.

Her shoulders shook just once and she cleared her throat quietly.

“S-sorry for paying you a surprise visit and then crying.”

“You let your guard down after capturing the Messiah, didn’t you?”

She nodded.

“But I said something awful to the Messiah today.”

“Hm? Didn’t you leave most of your responsibility as commander with her? You have no more duty or obligation to lead us. Isn’t that what you told her, as our new master?”

“You could describe it like that…but it isn’t quite accurate. I said a lot I didn’t need to.” She grabbed his left sleeve with both hands. “I get so sharp-tongued when I say things I don’t really believe.”

“You’re also quick to kick people.”

That made her laugh.

“Ha ha.”

Her laughter continued intermittently before transforming into coughing.

“Don’t push yourself too hard,” he said.

She could only answer with a weak nod.

Tears dripped down her lowered cheeks. They caught the faint glow entering through the window and fell to the floor. The frequency of the falling tears was dictated by the trembling of her shoulders and her sobbing breaths, so they were intermittent but never ending.

She cried while trying but failing to swallow her voice.

“I’m…a terrible person.”

She inhaled, pressed her face against his shoulder, and stopped talking.

Her shoulders shook and she took a few rough breaths before getting out a trembling voice.

“But…”

“Lowenzahn.”

Schweitzer’s voice was enough to stop her shaking. Her breathing remained heavy and she left her face against his shoulder.

“…What?”

“I’m sorry, but could you let go of my arm? Without Der Held…I can’t do anything for you while you cry.”

She slowly lowered her head and hesitantly let go of his arm. Then she brushed back her disheveled hair and looked at his shoulder.

His prosthetic right arm was currently detached.

“So you keep it off in your room? Do you consider it separate from yourself, even though you used a part of your body to make it?”

He shook his head.

“I choose whichever answer to that question I like at the moment.”

“Then how do you think of me at the moment?”

Her Eingeweide device was an artificial heart. It could not be removed like his arm.

He saw her arms held lightly against her chest.

“What do you think while reciting your Ober Beweisen?”

“Eh?”

“An Ober Beweisen is your own Text. Since you use your Ober Beweisen to prophesy, you should already know that an Eingeweide device is a means to draw out your own strength.”

“My Ober Beweisen, huh?”

She suddenly reached behind her head.

She undid her hair. The long braid spun apart, starting from the bottom. The wave of separation stopped once all of her hair was loose. There were tears in her closed eyes.

“I rely on you for so much. I say to you what I want to say to others. Even though that only leads to regret. And I cry without telling you why.”

“Don’t worry about it. I promised I would trust you without asking for an explanation, no matter what happened.”

She looked up at him with damp eyes and a genuine smile.

“In that case…it’s about time I stopped lying.”

She pulled a small object from her coat’s breast pocket. The faintly reflected light revealed the shape of a key. The decorative gold key was about as long as her pointer finger.

“If you ever find you must know the answer, take this key to the old HQ. There you will find the truth about my prophecies, my parents, and so much more.”

“I will keep it with me.”

“Take good care of it. I don’t need it anymore, so it wouldn’t accomplish anything for me to have it.”

He nodded and held out his hand.

She placed the key in it.

He held the key up to look at it. He nodded again when he noted the dragon emblem decorating the back end of the key. Then he placed it in his shirt’s breast pocket.

“Lowen-”

He stopped before saying “zahn”.

She had removed her scarf and started unbuttoning her coat.

She tilted her head when she noticed him staring.

“What, you don’t like where this is headed?”

She sounded more troubled by the possibility than just teasing him, so he smiled bitterly. She initially responded to that with an angry look, but then laughed quietly.

“You can make up your mind after seeing this. I’m feeling blue today, so I’m short on confidence.”

She finished unbuttoning her coat.

She also walked past him to a bed that looked entirely unused.

She sat on the bed and removed her coat. When she placed the black garment on the side table, some solid objects clanked against the wood.

“Medals and sidearms are so heavy, aren’t they?”

She held her arms around herself as if to hide her chest. She turned to face Schweitzer who sat on the windowsill, but then she looked away and began unbuttoning her shirt with her arms pressed against her sides.

Her fingers slipped twice and her expression changed ever so slightly. Her cheeks grew a shade redder each time.

But that was all. Once her hands were down at her navel, she pulled the rest of the shirt out from her pants. Its hem spread out around her hips and she finished unbuttoning it.

Nothing remained to cover the skin showing through the slight gap between the two sides of the shirt.

“I never wear a bra. None of them fit me and I’m always wearing a vest or something,” she explained with the tone and expression of someone making an excuse.

She looked him in the eye just once there.

After saying something more with the ends of her eyebrows lowered, she grabbed her shirt’s left collar with her left hand. She hesitated for a moment, blushed around the eyes, and nodded a few times as if to convince herself.

She removed just the left side.

The rustling of cloth filled the room. She slid the collar down from her left shoulder and around to her back. With her shoulder bared, her skin shined palely in the dim light.

Her chest was exposed to the air.

The right breast was made of human skin. It drew a curve in the pale light.

But the left breast was a different story.

It had been replaced with a machine. From the top to the center of her left chest, black artificial muscles took the place of her pectoral muscles and white support muscles, metal tubes, and a metal valve were contained within.

She looked up at Schweitzer.

“Does it look cheap?”

He said nothing but got down from the windowsill. He moved around to crouch in front of her.

With her seated on the bed and him crouching on the floor, their eyes were at the same level.

“Is your pulse elevated?”

“Yes.”

“Then…I will trust in that.”

She looked up when she heard that.

She used her right hand to wipe tears from her eyes.

Then she reached out and took his left hand. His flesh and blood hand.

“I see. If possible,” she said quietly. “I hope you can trust in me forever.”

Part 3

Hazel was in the base’s document/post room.

The 10yd room was crammed full of bookcases. The large door to the hallway sat open and stretchers full of small packages were being transferred between the delivery room and the hallway.

The room had four tables and Hazel was using the one directly in front of the counter to write a letter. She only wore a surgical gown, a coat, and slippers, so she stood out like a sore thumb among all the uniformed soldiers.

She had walked here after her chat with Lowenzahn on the roof and she had been sitting here ever since.

She had a stack of books on either side of her letter to help hide herself. They were all research books concerning the Messiah.

…What did the Messiah do after ending up in the past?

She had been so curious she had continued researching that without bothering to get any dinner. She had noticed one thing about the contemporary paintings and reliefs depicting the Messiah and the one-armed young man.

…That really is me, Berger, and the Sylphide.

“But almost all of the books say the Messiah was a Buster.”

She stopped writing when she heard an intermittent low noise from the hallway. Those were wheels carrying something heavy.

She had been hunched over her letter, but now she straightened up. She looked back to see several people in white coats pushing in a stretcher loaded with a waterproof wooden box. They saluted when they noticed her.

She quickly nodded back.

Joy filled their faces and Lives and they saluted again before leaving.

She blushed a bit and sighed.

…They’re so happy just having me here.

She looked down and picked up the pen to continue writing.

“Umm.”

But she stopped. She was suddenly curious about something.

…How is the Messiah described in ordinary stories, not just these academic books?

“What was her relationship with the Neue Kavaliers and the other people?”

…Was it like me and those soldiers just now?

She put down the pen and grabbed the thinnest picture book in the pile of books to her right.

It told the story of the Unreif Germaine. She opened it to find the six most common sections of the story illustrated in an old-fashioned style.

She took a breath and read the opening line.

“This is a story of when this country was still in chaos and full of anxiety.”

She flipped through the few pages and read about the Messiah.

“The Messiah gathered the country’s knights and worked to bring order to the people’s chaos and the dragons’ chaos. She worked to bring peace to the anxious land, sea, and sky.”

She gathered and fought alongside the Neue Kavaliers to suppress the rebellions and monsters cropping up all over the land.

Hazel stopped reading there for the time being.

…This must be what the Geheimnis Agency’s people expect from me.

With that in mind, she silently looked down at the picture book she held.

The illustration showed the Messiah battling several black dragons.

…They expect me to do this kind of thing, so their commander can’t tell them the truth about me. She can’t tell them I can’t save the world.

Lowenzahn knew what would happen in August and what ruin awaited them.

But only she and I know about that, thought Hazel.

…It’s the Geheimnis Agency and the Messiah who actually bring ruin to the world.

“And that’s what let the world survive this long.”

Hazel had taken a different path this time, but Lowenzahn was trying to correct for that.

Why was she trying to fulfill the prophecy herself instead of telling everyone the truth?

“No one on this base doubts or suspects me.”

…This is why Jeanne Schmitt kneeled before me back in ’39.

“I probably should pretend to be what I’m not since they have such faith in me.”

Her words fell to the floor and she eventually tilted her head.

“But is that really what I should do?”

She flipped through the picture book again.

A two-page illustration showed a party held below the starry night sky. The people surrounded a bonfire while they sang, dance, and ate.

At the top of the page, above the fictional night sky, the title “6th Section of the Ending God” was written large in old-fashioned language children would have a hard time understanding.

After unifying Germany, the Messiah and the knights had fulfilled their roles and returned to their homes.

But, thought Hazel, turning the page.

A dark illustration was drawn on the left page. It depicted a path leading from the party to the forest. The path vanished into the darkness and a one-armed man was walking down it with the Messiah’s sword in hand.

“The one-armed young man left a letter telling her to fight no longer and departed.”

The opposite page depicted the Messiah looking up into the blue sky and weeping. Large tears drawn in blue crayon fell from her.

“The Messiah wept.

“She was inconsolable despite the knights’ and the king’s best efforts.”

She turned another page and saw the Messiah stand before the gathered people in a wheat field that spread out around them like the ocean.

“But one morning, the Messiah stopped weeping and gathered everyone.”

The next page showed the Messiah removing a red gem pendant from her neck and placing it around the neck of the youngest Heidengeist girl among the gathered people. She said something to the girl.

“Do not forget who you are. Never forget that and this hill will turn gold every year. And you will never build walls between any people of any background.”

Hazel turned another page. She was already at the final two-page illustration.

The Messiah slept in the darkness with a blue dragon curled around her.

And outside that darkness, the one-armed young man sat with his back to her and her sword in his arms.

Urge him on and wait / If you wish for something new

All hesitation will come to an end up ahead

Complete the circle or break it / If you desire something new

Throw out all hesitation and look back

The wind is with you, he is with you / Seek out something new

All hesitation exists to tear through that wall

“The Messiah said she would sleep for a thousand years at Alfheim and awaken once chaos returned to the world. Once she was asleep in her shrine, the one-armed young man returned. He spent the rest of his days guarding the shrine…until one evening he breathed his final breath.”

After reading the final line, Hazel remembered something.

…The Alfheim Meteorite Pit in ’39!

Her heart skipped a beat as it came back to her.

Corelle had said the AIF had stolen something excavated at Alfheim.

The illustration before her showed the Messiah surrounded in darkness and protected by the blue dragon while she slept. And she had said she would awaken again in a thousand years.

“What if the darkness here is actually the ground below Alfheim?”

…Why did she think she could wake back up in modern times?

She thought about it some but shook her head.

It was too soon to reach any conclusions. It’s just a picture book, she told herself.

“Urge him on and wait / If you wish for something new / All hesitation will come to an end up ahead.”

She repeated those words and closed the book. Then she hunched over, faced her letter, and picked up the pen.

She wrote out the rest of her letter so intensely you would think she was trying to tear a hole in the table. The tapping and scraping of pen on paper surrounded her as her hand moved rapidly left to right across the paper. Finally, she signed her name.

Just as she finished, some ink flew out and formed a splotch on the letter.

She reflexively wiped it up with her left thumb, staining the finger black.

“Oops,” she said and looked around, wondering what to do. She finally gave up and wiped it off with the sleeve of her surgical gown.

Then she sighed and folded the letter. She made sure it was folded straight and then grabbed the envelope she had placed nearby.

After some hesitation, she wrote the recipient’s name on the envelope.

“Dog Berger.”

She stood up, slipped the letter in the envelope, and placed it on the table.

She had to put away her stacks of books before handing the envelope over at the counter.

She had a total of 27, so she got to work putting them back where they belonged on the shelves.

The hem of her gown and coat fluttered around her legs as she moved quickly enough to have all but one of the books returned in only 7 minutes and 32 seconds.

Moving her body helped clear her mind. There was only one thing on her mind.

…I want out of this place.

She had a single reason for that.

“There must be a way to avoid needing to tell those kind lies!”

She held the last, and biggest, book in her hands and let out a determined snort when another stretcher arrived.

It carried a large waterproof box and a large plastic wrapper.

The writing scrawled on the side of the box said “to Germania”.

The men in lab coats placed it on the counter and asked the receptionist behind the counter to seal it and prepare it for shipment before they pushed the stretcher back out. They said they had another box to bring by soon.

The elderly receptionist gave the box an annoyed look. He pulled a packing slip and pen from his vest and began writing out the necessary information. Hazel watched it all.

…Geheimnis Agency bases are always so busy.

The AIF HQ was a lot more relaxed, she thought before turning toward the items on the counter.

She recognized the thing wrapped in clear plastic next to the wooden box.

“–––––!?”

It was her own bag.

She gasped. The bag stolen from the train station locker at Potsdam had been brought here and now it was right in front of her. Since men in white coats had brought it here…

“They must have removed the serum and examined its contents.”

In that case…

…Is the serum in that box?

The box hadn’t been sealed yet and the top was sitting somewhat open.

She clutched the book tight and held the top edge against her forehead so it covered her face.

“Um.”

…This is a gamble.

She nodded.

…But if the serum is in that box…

“I need to get out of here.”

…It’s my duty to deliver that to Berger.

She nodded again, deeper this time, which filled her body with strength. She faced forward.

She walked over to the elderly receptionist holding some cloth tape behind the counter so he could seal and waterproof the box. She interrupted just as he stretched the tape out and reached his arms around the box.

“Excuse me.”

Her voice cracked a little and he turned his gaunt face toward her in surprise.

“Do you need something?”

“Um, well, could you send this letter for me?”

She held out the unsealed envelope and he quickly rolled up the tape.

He set the tape down, brushed off his vest, and politely accepted the envelope.

“To Germania? That will require domestic censorship. Is that acceptable?”

“Yes,” she confirmed, slowly reaching out her empty left hand to the lid of the wooden box.

He turned his back to place the letter in a stack indicating it needed to be inspected and censored.

Her fingers hesitated on the box in that moment.

…Should I really look inside?

Something made up her mind for her.

An alarm rang throughout the base and a voice came over the speakers.

“Alert! Night Security Team to active interception posts! An unidentified Grösse Panzer is approaching from the south!”

The phrase “unidentified Grösse Panzer” sent a tremor through her body.

The alarm continued to sound, seeming to soak into her trembling body.

She heard hurried footsteps and shouting voices from the hallway.

“Could it be?”

She reflexively lifted the lid in front of her.

She gasped when the wood creaked far louder than she had expected.

But she was through hesitating and continued lifting it. She checked inside.

Her hand was already reaching inside and pulling out what lay inside.

And…

“That’s not it.”

The box held four bottles of some kind of chemical. Even an amateur could tell this had nothing to do with her ampule.

She sighed, her shoulders drooping while the alarm drowned out all other noises.

…I was too optimistic.

She tried to force a smile, but then the wind blew in from the hallway.

“Eh?”

She looked back to see a new stretcher entering the room. This one carried a different 2ft box. That would be the other box the men in white coats had said they would bring by.

“Could it be?” she repeated, running over on reflex and yanking open the box in front of everyone.

A plastic case wrapped in a plastic bag was packed in with sawdust.

She smiled.

She reached out with her eyes on the men in white coats, the receptionist, and everyone else in the room.

“U-um, please wait for me! I swear to you I will someday – but probably soon! – come back for you as a Messiah no one can twist to their own purposes and then I will fix everything. I swear I won’t run away.”

She took a breath.

“So tell everyone to please wait for me!”

She grabbed the plastic bag, pulled out the case, and opened it with one hand.

It contained an ampule with only a small amount of its contents missing.

After confirming that, she shut the case.

She turned toward the group that was frozen in shock and she bowed.

“I’m sorry, but can you please put this back for me?”

She tossed one of them the book she held in her left hand. The man in a white coat caught the heavy book and staggered back a few steps, at which point she was already running out into the hallway.

She stuck the ampule case in her coat pocket and lightly held the card in the breast pocket.

She ran down the hall, slipping past people who turned to see what was happening.

She was now convinced that destiny could be changed.

Part 4

At half past 7PM, a bombing group centered on the US Air Force’s 8th Air Force began flying east from an airbase on the UK’s east coast.

A thousand bombers were set to spend approximately a week obliterating their target with the assistance of the newly developed radar-disruption tactic known as chaff. Operation Gomorrah had been planned using the data collected from the bombing of Cologne.

The flagship waited until the very end to take off last.

The AIF aircraft carrier was one of the flagship’s supply ships, so it too was one of the last to take off.

The carrier remained on the ground while Corelle and Pale looked up at the flagship and its escort fleet hovering in the sky overhead.

“That flagship is going to spend a full week over the North Sea commanding the bombing,” said Corelle. “And we’ll be there waiting with it the whole time.”

She glanced back at her RB-21 two-hull transport ship. It carried a single container.

“I finally get why you dragged that thing all the way here from America, Pale. We’ve only got a month until the ruin and we’ve got to attack Germania as soon as we rescue Hazel and Berger. There’s no time to return to America in between.”

“They’re all crazy if you ask me. Not one of them backed out after hearing what I said.”

“Of course they didn’t. We’re going to define our own destiny, not just accept the hand we’re dealt. No one’s forcing this on them. We’re all making our own choices and solving this together.”

She smiled and viewed the RB-21’s container. The B Number that indicated it carried a Heavy Barrel was written in thick gothic text.

She smiled again at the text that looked even darker than the dark night.

“What’s that B stand for? Barrel? Black? Or does it mean you, Berger?”

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