MidasMan

Decided to post one of the stories I was writing on SpaceBattles here. A Tanya the Evil x GATE crossover story. Just to show that I have not been idle all this time.

Hope you guys enjoy it!

The war was not going well by 1927.

Following the victory at Moskova and the Russy Federation’s government fleeing beyond the Urals, the Kingdom of Idola finally joined the war on the Empire’s side. Partly from seeing the way the wind was blowing, but mostly from promises of several of Francois’s African colonies as spoils of war. However, unlike my first life’s world’s fascist counterpart, the Idolans fought competently across the African front.

Then came the entry of Akitsushima.

The Aki’s watched the Reds flee behind the Urals, their primary industrial centers destroyed, armies scattered, and saw a chance to take Siberia. Following a successful battle and landing in the Transumar region they began a slow, but steady advance into the Russy Far-East. Additionally, they helped themselves to the undefended colonies of Alboin and the Franks across Asia.

All to end imperialism in Asia of course.

With the Albion’s stuck on their island, Francois huddled together in some remote corner of their African holdings, and the Reds on the run, it seemed certain victory was inevitable.

Then the blunders started to happen.

First Akitsushima declared war on Cathy.

They claimed that the Cathy intelligence agency sabotaged several munitions factories and railway lines in Manchuria as a prelude to invading the Aki protectorate of Joseon. The fact that Cathy was in a state of civil war, its territories long since divided amongst various warlords, regional governors, and the Cathy government proper who were all too preoccupied fighting amongst themselves to launch an attack against foreign actors was never discussed. Nor was the fact Akisushima could not provide any evidence of the sabotage or troop build up for this invasion beyond ‘trust us’. Sadly, this was enough for both the Empire and Idola to declare war on Cathy.

Not that big of an issue. Cathy was so far removed from the Russy and North African fronts that it was a moot point for the Empire.

Then Idola declared war on Magnum Rumeli: an amalgamation of the nations of Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, and Turkey of my first life. Idola cited ancestral territorial claims that dated back centuries and invaded when Rumeli refused to cede a third of its contiguous territory to Idola. Naturally, the Emperor declared war in support of his ally. Idolan troops seized the city of Tronia but failed to make any further headway into Rumeli proper; getting bogged down in the mountainous region of Hellas.

Then Iberia descended into complete civil war.

The incumbent republican government collapsed following a military coup. Seemingly overnight, every single ideological movement on the face of the world rose up and began fighting for supremacy. Monarchists, proto-fascists', communists, the incumbent junta, anarchists, syndicalists, ultra-nationalists, republicans, and a dizzying array of separatist groups name a few of the combatants. Thousands of people from across the world, volunteers from various world militaries, and common rabble alike flooded into Iberia to fight for their respective ideology.

The Emperor, knowing of the support Albion was sending to the republican movement, and after already committing troops to aid his ally in Hellas, along with our forces bogged down in Russy, of course sent forces to aid monarchists in the war.

And then, the Aki’s, in retaliation for the US oil embargo for the invasion of Cathy, bombed the Unified States Far East Naval Squadron based in Manila Bay and struck out at all their holdings across the Pacific. And once more our wise Emperor decided that since the Empire was already fighting two superpowers why not a Third Superpower!

So there it was.

At war with Albion in addition to all its dominions and colonies, the remnants of the Francois in Africa, the Russy Federation, the Republic of Cathy, Magnum Rumeli, all the varying factions in the Iberian Civil War, and the Unified States. All the while, the Empire was suppressing resistance movements in metropolitan Francois and in the occupied territories of Russy.

Just thinking about it makes my stomach churn.

Even with the stream of resources coming in from our new conquests, our manpower is all but gone. Who cares if we have oil from the Caucuses for our tanks and airplanes if there is no one to crew them? And wheat from Ruthenia? Try getting that all back home with constant partisan attacks on collaborators and ambushing isolated patrols all across the east.

And with the US’s entry into the war, there is no no feasible way for us to combat the enemy in production. No matter how many factories we seize or how many people we put to work in them we will always come up short.

Defeat is inevitable.

Oh, I have no doubt the war will drag on for a few more years. A decade even if we win every single engagement going forward with minimal losses. And I doubt the reality of the situation will set in for the General Staff for some time. But history has shown me that in this sort of warfare that the states who can more effectively marshal and direct their resources will emerge victorious. Suffice to say, fighting a war on multiple fronts that span the length of continents all the while you are using vast sums of manpower to garrison occupied territories is not an effective use of a state’s resources.

But where was the famed “Argent Silver” in the Fatherland’s time of need? The “Devil of the Rhine” who could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?

I was in the hospital. Not for any battlefield injury. No, it was far worse than that.

Somehow, someway, through no fault of my own, I contracted the Spanish Flu.

Sorry, the Iberian Flu. Probably contracted it from one of the volunteers who went over to Iberia. Or someone who was in contact with a volunteer from Iberia.

It wasn't an epidemic yet. No mass graves from fatalities. No overflowing hospitals yet. I was, seemingly, caught in the first wave. Hell. people didn't even realize what it really was yet. More than once did I have to order the doctor to treat me for influenza rather than the typhus treatments he kept prescribing me.

If there were any positives to contracting one of the most deadly diseases in human history early in its run, it was that medical supplies were not scarce yet and the disease in question has yet to mutate into far worse variants. While there weren’t any antibiotics yet that could really treat something like this, the drugs needed to simply mitigate the worst effects while the body fought it off were available. The doctors gave me some strange glances for my demands for influenza treatments rather than medicine to treat my ‘typhus’.

A week later, and I was already feeling better. My fever had broken, the chills stopped, and my cough was under control. I was still bedridden, throat still sore, and my migraine was still there. But overall, compared to the millions that I know will die from this, I was getting off comparatively lucky.

So here I was. Bedridden for the foreseeable future. Forget about going out to staff HQ, I could barely get out of my bed without my legs breaking under my own weight. I might be getting off relatively easy, but this was still a deadly disease. I’d like to think my recovery is very quick, but I still need my rest and fluids.

Wiess and Viktoriya sent letters every day about how the battalion was faring. I, in turn, sent my own back to them with either affirmations to what they were doing or correcting anything I saw that might be incorrect. It was clunky and troublesome, but better than no contact at all.

“Why do you insist on denying me?”

That voice! Being X!

My eyes shot open and scanned the room. All around me were the usual sounds of a hospital. Patients, doctors, orderliness, nurses, all going about their lives. Yet I was alone in the room.

“Even with the possibility of death, fighting a foe you cannot simply bludgeon away, you deny me.”

From the corner of my eye I saw it. A single white bird sitting on the open window sill. Nothing of note to most. But for me, I glared at its unnatural eyes staring at me.

“In times of struggle and uncertainty, Man turns to faith to sustain itself,” the bird's beak opened and Being X’s voice echoed out. “War. Pestilence. Famine. Death. These are times when Man turns to the divine for answers; for salvation. Either for themselves or their loved ones. Yet you do not. Why?”

“Sounds like you need their suffering more than they need you” I spat back. My voice was hoarse and strained.

The bird shook its head. “Nothing of the sort,” his voice was calm and patronizing. “This is merely an observation.”

“Well you should have also observed when the Black Death covered Europe and people whipped themselves thinking that their show of ‘faith’ would cure them,” I growled. “But all their ‘faith’ did was spread the plague even further. And lets not forget all the other supernatural nonsense attributed to illnesses across the world. All faith does is cause people to act irrationally in the face of catastrophe".

“What a horridly warped view of faith,” Being X responded. Rather than from the bird, this time his voice came from a nurse who walked into the room. Her eyes glowed unnaturally as she looked at the clipboard at the front of her bed. “What good faith has inspired? A moral center? A common ground for discussion? The alms?”

“That’s not faith, it’s human nature,” I countered, voice crackling from my raw throat. “Almost everything you just said is the result of human nature. Morals are nothing more than agreed upon limits to society collectively agrees with to stop self destructive tendencies. Such as not murdering each other in the street for insignificant reasons. And a common ground for dialogue can easily be created by economic co-dependency. Faith, by contrast, creates divisions more than anything else. Any problem humanity faces is resolved through our own ingenuity, by abstract divine figure.”

Being X was quiet for a moment.

“I think I understand now.”

I glared at his avatar, “do you?”

“Yes,” he walked the nurse out of the room. His voice came again from the bird. “I see now that your continued apostasy was an error of my own design.”

I did not like where this was going.

“I brought you to a place where I believed you would face great challenges and dangers. I made you a child without family, and thought my intervention brought you into a conflict unlike any you could have imagined in the hopes that this would be enough to acknowledge your own failings and ask for salvation. To thank me for showing you your own hubris.”

How does that make any sense? He toy with my life, changed my body, made me languish in an orphanage in my formative years, then forced me into a war I wanted no part in, nearly died on several occasions, and he had the audacity to think I would thank him for it?

If I wasn't so weak, I’d get out of this bed and crush that damned bird with my bare hands!

“It was never your fault,” he continued. “It was mine for not understanding. A horrid misunderstanding. But now I see what needs to be done.”

Before I could question Being X on what he was babbling about, I saw the nurse return. A large syringe filled with an unknown liquid in hand.

“I see now that you require a greater test of humility to acknowledge your failings,” the nurse flicked her forefinger against the needle as she locked the door behind her.

For the first time in years, I was filled with genuine terror as the nurse walked over to my bedside.

“This world’s challenges and tribulations were not sufficient enough for you to reflect on your own, moral, failings. I shall do better this time.”

The nurse braced her arm against my chest; the suddenness of the impact took all the air out of my lungs. In my weakened state, and the woman pressing her full weight down on me, there was little I could do other than bare my teeth and let loose a string of curses as loud as my crackling voice would allow.

The jostling of the locked door knob and quick knocks offered the slimmest glimmer of hope.

“For this time, shall send you to a truly wicked world,” I felt the needle tip rest against my neck. No matter how far I craned my neck away, the needle followed.

“A world of unabashed wickedness and vice. Where violence reigns and false idols twist mortals to their whims.”

The shouting from beyond the door grew louder. As did the banging and jostling. I could faintly hear the calls for help just beyond.

“It is a stagnant world. One where only a few have heard of My wonders and the salvation I offer. These pilgrims and faithful are martyred. Butchered like chattel by demons and monstrous creatures for knowing the Truth.”

My fingers dipped into the exposed skin of the nurse’s arm and dug deep. My nails drew blood, but in my weakened state I could not wretch the appendage off me. All I could do was scratch and swear at what was happening. My hysteria no doubt contributed to the increased foot activity from the hallways and the demands to open the door.

“In their hubris, one of these false gods will soon enable a Great Change to overtake these lands. During this Change, your actions will bring the word of God to the masses and free them from the poisoned words of these false idols. You shall shepherd them to Salvation.”

I felt the tell tale prick of the needle breaking the skin on my neck. A let out a guttural scream as the liquid flowed into my veins.

“You shall be my Apostle in this new world. To spread my message. To smite all the demon gods that reside there. To smash their false idols.”

I feel the insidious substance course through my very being. So cold that it burned my insides.

“Only overcoming this challenge will you reach your own salvation.”

Everything after his last sentence became fuzzy. My breathing became more labored by the second.

The door burst apart with a flash of magic.

Gunshots rang out.

The possessed nurse fell over, her dress spotted red with her own blood as she was slid off me by a soldier. I could feel a hand running along the injection site on my neck.

I tried to tell them what happened, how that woman was possessed by something and she was as much a victim as myself, but the muscles in my jaw no longer listened to me.

Someone was yelling something at me. To stay up? I couldn't really tell anymore, everything was so muffled now.

A heavy weight came over my eyes, forcing them shut.

Then I felt nothing at all.

----

On August 16, 1927, the Empire lost one of its greatest heroes.

While a controversial figure in European circles, her image and legacy live on in the hearts and minds of Germania to this day.

-Excerpt from the New Amsterdam Times; “Remembering the Fallen of the First Great War” Published October 21, 1997.

------

“Your majesty, the Empress is dead.”

Emperor Molt Sol Augustus paused from his musings as the messengers’ words rolled through his head. His wife had entered labor in the middle of the night. It was now midday, the sun reaching its zenith over the Imperial Capital of Sarada; its rays shining through the windows of his personal study. He had asked about her condition every so often in the morning, and had planned to pay a visit her in person when he finished his affairs at court today.

The Empire waits for no one, not even the Emperor.

“Complications in childbirth your majesty,” the messenger saw Molt’s silence as permission to continue.

‘That much was obvious’, Molt turned his attention from the documents detailing the latest rounds of talks with the guilds to address the man directly.

“And the babe?”

“A healthy girl, your majesty.”

A girl?

Not the worst outcome. He already had three sons to keep a watchful eye on in the future. Another would simply be asking for a civil war upon his death.

But another daughter. That would allow him more flexibility in marriage agreements to bind his dynasty with another for the foreseeable future. And unlike young Pina, this girl would be the daughter for the Empress, not a mere concubine.

Yes, this was better in the long term.

"Where is she now?” Molt inquired.

“In the nursery, the midwives are seeing to her now your majesty.”

‘Not far then’, Molt thought. ’I believe I shall see her now’.

He organized his desk before promptly standing up. Walking to the door, he motioned for his praetorians to follow.

Walking along the marble floors and general opulence of the Imperial Palace he passed through throngs of people who kept the affairs of the palace running. Servants. Vassals. Clerks. Guards. Serfs. Slaves. All who he passed paid him homage. Bows. Curtsies. Prostrations. All signs of subservience and submission to the man whom all in the Empire held fealty to.

As he came upon the nursery, he caught sight of his eldest sons Zorzal and Diabo along with a gaggle of maid servants and a collection of praetorians. While his second born looked saddened by the situation from the passing of his mother, Zorzal seemed inconsolable. Being consoled by the nearest maid as he cried into her dress.

Molt held his expression of disappointment back.

The damned boy was far too old to be weeping like a girl. Death comes for all eventually. If he wished to be emotional, he could have at least had the decency to bawl like a toddler in the seclusion of his own quarters rather than out in the open for the masses to gawk at.

What respect can he possibly command if the masses knew their ruler wept at the first sign of death?

If something as mundane as this is all it takes for him to lose his composure, Molt truly dreads the type of man he will grow up to be. Weak and spineless!

The Emperor regarded his second son with a curt nod, and ignored the weeping Zorzal and he entered the chamber.

The nursery was as opulent as any room in the palace. Clean marble floors. Luxury fabrics from the east were strewn across the room; they waved softly from a light breeze coming from the open windows. Light flooded in from the large glass panels on the ceiling and the openings to the side. Portraits of birds and young wolves hung from the walls. A large hearth billowed a warm fire.

At the center of the small room was a crib; flanked by another pair of praetorians. He recognized them as his former Empress’s personal guards. They bowed as he walked to the crib.

Looking down he examined his newborn daughter for the first time. Given her silence, he almost thought that the girl had died on the walk over. But no. the girl was quite alive. Her pudgy form wriggled in the soft blankets below. She must have sensed his presence, because just a moment later, her eye locked with his.

From a simple look, he could tell this girl took more after him than her mother. Maybe it was the way the sunlight came in, but he saw something. Her eyes were a sharp blue just like his own. And as he looked at her, she gazed back at him. As if she was examining him as she was examining her.

She seems to be a sharp one, Molt concluded.

He looked over to the pair guarding her.

“Does she have a name yet?”

“Yes your majesty,” the guard told him. “With her final breath, her majesty named her ‘Tanya’.”

“Tanya,” the Emperor rolled the name off his tongue. A good enough name for a princess.

As if responding to her own name, the babe began to bawl and cry up a storm.

Molt laughed at the volume of her cries. Not a mute after all it seems. A fine set of lungs!

The emperor allowed himself a soft smile at the sight. It was strange. None of his other children had ever moved him in such a way as this hours old infant had. For whatever reason, he felt a connection to this child he felt with none of his other children.

“I want regular reports on her wellness,” he informed the guards without taking his eyes off Tanya. “No fewer than two a day; once in the morning, once in the evening.”

“Yes your majesty.”

Not that he felt he needed reports. Molt was sure he’d be visiting her on a daily basis regardless. There was something special about this girl, he could feel it.

‘Yes. I think there are great things in the future in store for you, Tanya Augustus.’

Spoiler

MidasMan

"Wait a second Midas!  An Artist from Osterriech who was active in the Post-War Years? Are you saying that the man who made that was alternate history Ad-"

 

Yes. 

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