City Series:Volume6d Chapter9
Final Chapter: The Ruin Arrives[edit]
7/25/1943 06:00 – 06:04
For now
It appears my personal battle has begun
Several commotions were underway in the morning sky.
The Allies’ Operation Gomorrah bombing group was in disarray.
They were working to rescue the survivors from the now bridgeless and sinking flagship, but they were also working to regroup their formation with their chain of command destroyed.
One small area remained still within all that movement.
The stillness was on the deck of the AIF aircraft carrier.
It was centralized on the black Heavy Barrel kneeling on the deck with the AIF members forming a circle around it in the cold air.
That Barrel was Schwarz Löwe.
It had lost its left arm and half its right leg, leaving it nearly destroyed.
However, the hatch to the secondary cockpit on its back popped open. The air inside formed a mist when it contacted the air at this altitude, but the wind soon swept that away.
A blonde woman in a black coat emerged. That was Hazel.
She looked back inside the secondary cockpit just once before silently descending to the deck amid the chilly wind.
Her leg gave out beneath her when she landed, so Corelle ran over to help her.
“Are you okay, Hazel!?”
“I-I’m fine. But Berger needs help!”
She looked to the entrance of the secondary cockpit above her.
…He still hasn’t released his Write Bring!
He was taking too long.
She suddenly lowered her head and viewed Schwarz Löwe’s damage. It had lost so much.
Her heart pounded hard in her chest. She stood up from Corelle’s arms and took a look around. Some of the AIF crew were running over with a blanket and such, but…
“Please! Can’t someone get Berger out of there!?”
“C-calm down, Hazel!”
Corelle held her tight and Hazel tried to fight it.
But Corelle held her even tighter, keeping her from moving.
She gathered all of her strength and looked to Schwarz Löwe.
There was no light in its sight devices.
She panicked and the emotion left her as a shout.
“Berger!”
She was immediately answered by a voice from within the secondary cockpit.
“Oh, shut up.”
The quiet voice drained all the tension from her shoulders and then a dark figure emerged.
It was Berger. He had only quickly thrown on a shirt and black combat pants and he took a look around before dropping down to the deck.
He slowly looked around again and then looked to her.
Their eyes met and she immediately broke from Corelle’s arms.
“A-are you okay!?”
She ran over to him. The chilled deck felt so cold blow her bare feet, but she didn’t care.
Just before she reached him, he collapsed forward.
“–––––!!”
She reached out on reflex and caught him. He felt so terribly cold and heavy.
She sighed and then felt something warm on her face.
It was blood. Now that she was close enough, she could see several red lines running from his head to his chin.
He also felt horribly unbalanced in her arms. She tried to hold him tighter, but she couldn’t seem to find his left arm.
“It can’t be…”
She gasped and felt something below her foot. She didn’t even need to look down because her instincts told her what it was.
…Blood from his right leg.
The wind whipped at Berger’s pants, showing nothing in the right leg. The bottom of the pant leg was heavy with the blood soaking it and the wind slapped it against her leg.
A coughing breath left his mouth. Then his actual voice.
“Hazel.”
She looked him in the face when he called her name.
Only then did she realize she was crying. In her tear-blurred vision, his bloody face displayed a small smile with no tension or concern.
He viewed her face with unfocused eyes and then closed his eyes like he was smiling.
“Are you crying again, Hazel?”
Then he slowly collapsed. First his head went limp, resting on her left shoulder. Then the strength left the rest of him, so his weight bore down on her and she couldn’t support him. She fell back onto her butt.
Her legs and hips sank into the pool of blood coming from his right leg.
He said nothing, so she shouted instead.
“Berger!”
Her cry reverberated out into the sky and the answer did not come from a person.
She heard a mechanical noise as Schwarz Löwe’s sight devices lit up.
Then a low rumbling came from its belly.
Its voice device spat out a mechanical system message.
“Combat record transfer complete – sent from Neue Kaiser to Schwarz Löwe.”
Neue Kaiser had sent its combat data to Schwarz Löwe before exploding in the sky. Almost like it was leaving something for the next generation.
…Did Berger wait to leave until that transfer was complete?
As if to confirm her thought, Schwarz Löwe’s sight devices glowed brighter and it took a kneeling step forward.
But its metal body did not last. Its joints broke and it collapsed with its right arm held out.
Even as it noisily collapsed, Schwarz Löwe pointed over to a corner of the deck.
Hazel turned her teary eyes that way.
Two objects stood from the very edge of the deck like gravestones.
They were swords.
One was the sword Werkzeug that Neue Kaiser had used and the other was Rein König. They were stabbed straight down into the corner of the deck and seemed to be facing each other in the wind.
“Oh…”
Hazel nodded blankly. She nodded again with Berger in her arms.
She saw the two blades shining bright in the morning sun.
They shined with a gentle, warm light.
Closing Statements[edit]
In July of 1943, around 70% of Hamburg was destroyed in an Allied bombing, but the loss of chain of command early on prevented them from completing a test of the burning effects of their incendiary bombs.
The Allies decided to hold a midsize bombing of Germania on August 23 of the same year to prove they had Germany in checkmate. As part of this operation, they planned to send all the world’s anxiety Lives back through the ley lines and into the Vaterlands. They worked out their plans so the peak effect would occur on August 23. They also planned to launch their newly-developed ACBS to destroy Germania’s dome, but after negotiations with the AIF, who had many German members, they agreed to cancel the ACBS launch if the AIF could bring down the dome before it launched.
Meanwhile, the Geheimnis Agency revealed that their commander Lowenzahn Naylor had been installed as a mechanical component for Tristan on Heiliger’s orders.
Now, who can prevent the ultimate mistake – people or machines?
That answer will be found in Germania, the Panzerpolis version of Berlin.
7/25/2001. On the morning a girl made a fateful decision.
-Michael Schrier
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