Editing City Series:Volume6d Prologue (section)

===Part 1===

The northern stars were scattered through the sky.

Below, a shadowy forest covered the ground.

Pale scarlet lights sat on the border between heaven and earth.

Those were city lights.

A massive structure stretched skywards past those lights.

It was a cross. A giant cross that seemed to pierce the sky. It stood in the darkness found past the scarlet lights, but the white umbrella of clouds surrounding the top of the cross was visible even in that darkness.

Those clouds were suddenly blown away by a whirlwind whipped up by something within.

It came with a sound.

A high-pitched metallic sound rang from the cross and spread in every direction.

That sound reached the forest, where it was answered by the stirring of the birds.

That stirring was followed by a change in the sky near the cross.

An umbrella of faint scarlet light appeared there.

The hemisphere sat at the top of the cross like an upside-down bowl and it grew from there.

After only a moment, the umbrella had grown into a dome large enough to cover the sky. The cross and the city lights in front of it were both contained below the umbrella.

The noise from the cross stopped, but a noise came from the umbrella instead.

The blowing wind crashed into the umbrella, producing a loud noise.

The umbrella did not even budge and the low, quiet, muffled noise continued without end.

The deep noise resembled a groan of agony as it filled the surrounding forest.

The shadowy trees accepted that noise.

But there was one part of the forest that ignored the noise and the shadows.

Scarlet lights ensured the trees cast no shadows on that part of the forest.

It was a long, straight clearing that contained several railroad tracks.

The trains traveling those tracks were always producing rhythmic metallic sounds.

A train whistle sounded as a train arrived on the leftmost track.

The forest shadows were eliminated by the train’s light.

Its light and noise were directed toward the lights of the city.

The train racing through the forest was a large plain steam engine freight train. The very front was equipped with somewhat sharpened black steel and it was pulling 15 cars loaded with freight containers.

The conductor’s compartment was empty and the wreckage of armored trucks was caught around the bottom of the train. That was the result of breaking through an inspection point.

The conductorless train’s power continued to increase, adding on more speed.

Meanwhile, someone was climbing onto the roof of the very last car.

After moving from the metal ladder on the side to the roof itself, the city lights illuminated her.

The woman stood up and faced the city.

She was skinny and colored red, black, and gold.

Her coat and skirt fluttering in the wind were the red and black. Her long hair dancing in the wind was the gold.

She added a new color to the mix with the scarlet lights and black sky behind her.

That was the gray of the sword Device she had drawn in her right hand.

She walked forward with the sword hanging at her side and she viewed the city. She brushed back her golden hair and directed her eyes dead ahead. The left eye was a brown feline one and the right one was a blue human one.

She narrowed her eyes to sharpen her gaze and observe the city more carefully.

“I managed to steal this Germania-bound train after I was found in Potsdam, but I had to leave my luggage behind in the station locker.”

The locker’s small key was attached to the choker she wore around her neck.

She stared forward.

As the train drew closer, she started to get a better view of the city sitting below the glowing umbrella.

The shape of the city came into view at the end of the straight-line railroad. As did the giant cross standing beyond the city.

She looked up at that umbrella opened in the sky.

“The Panzerpolis Project turned Berlin into Germania to fight the ruin said to be arriving in August.”

She lowered her gaze and viewed the cross through the racing wind.

“That cross is the new Geheimnis Agency HQ and the generator for that dome. It is called Tristan and it is actually a massive word accelerator that provides remote pressurization for the Vaterlands built in their allied countries.”

Her gaze continued to lower until it pierced the city at the cross’s feet.

The dark city’s shape could be made out from the position of the slowly approaching scarlet lights, but that shape was unusual. There were areas where the shadows cast by the buildings were nowhere to be found.

She shut her eyes when she noticed those empty areas.

“My school and our home don’t exist anymore, do they?”

Her words were swept away by the wind and answered by a noise behind her.

It was a whistle.

“Pursuit!?”

She turned back and her feline eye spotted a light. A train’s light.

A train was racing toward her along the exact same track.

It was a military armored train painted black.

It was fast.

“It’s catching up!”