Brigadier General Lergen's Office, Berun, 24 September 1932

Lergen sat behind his desk, feeling a pinch in his abdomen that he hadn't felt for years, all because of a certain Colonel, the plans of a certain Colonel, and his feelings for said Colonel.

A certain Tanya Von Degurechaff came to mind.

Sighing, he reluctantly withdrew his hands from the paining body part and opened a drawer in his desk, withdrawing a well thumbed folder that simply read "Case File-The Desert Catastrophe"

It outlined the various exploits of the major Colonel since she was of 14 years of age.

Report Start

Her exploits, if ever released to the public, which I, Brigadier General Legen doubted would ever happen at least in my lifetime, except for the barest of crumbs, would make her join legends such as Napoleon and Alexander as one of the greatest tactical minds to have ever lived.

And yet...

She had been pushed to the backlines after her various exploits in the other continent due to the alarmingly high numbers of new tactics and dogmas established by her in her short yet too-long (in Lergen's opinion) stint as an officer of the rear after suffering grievous injuries to the Ace of the Americas, nicknamed God's Pawn for lack of tactical awareness and extreme hatred of the 'Devil'.

In that battle, the Colonel had trapped the Pawn in an encirclement and managed to finally kill her, and despite being unable to see the body, after years of carefully structured plans being rendered moot just by her presence in the battlefield. It is believed, without a question, that she had been defeated, utterly and then been forced to be subjected the Colonel's famous area-wide bombardment.

Yet still, she still managed to fire off one of her Optical Beams at the Colonel, substantially injuring her and causing the Colonel to lose control of her Type-95.

It is lucky they were 12000 feet over a desert.

The explosion thankfully, was delayed due to the Colonel's mana control and quote "good throwing arm enhanced by reinforcement spells"

She threw her Type-95 at the enemy, who, by pure happenstance, caught it like an idiot, and was then engulfed by an, as we understand it, explosion engulfed her being and all the air in a 1000 foot radius before shrinking in on itself.

And then, the world went crazy.

Any and all mana detectors aimed at the location of the battle and its vicinity of several miles, broke or exploded entirely, depending on the quality of the detector.

The survivors of the 203rd Mage Battalion and the Salamander Kampfgruffe, who had been stationed multiple miles away, reported that the next explosion, which took 12.8 seconds to occur, shook the world as they knew it.

In this intervening time, all the members of the 203rd, including their Commander, attempted to fly away and yet were caught in a type of vortex like phenomenon(note-Colonel Degurechaff took the liberty of christening this phenomenon with the name black hole when asked later)

at this time, the mage units were 6000 feet away from the epicenter of the explosion.

The commanding officer commanded all units to fly away as far as possible while she attempted to curb the disaster upcoming by "heading into the eye of the tornado"

Despite protests and her adjutant ignoring her orders entirely, the 203rd made it outside the blast radius estimated by their commander and reached the Kampfgruppe.

The explosion that then occured was said to be 'otherworldly in beauty' and unmatched in destructive prowess.

The sands of the desert turned to glass in an unknown amount of area, estimated to be the size of at least a small city.

A few hours later, the 203rd re-rentered the affected area to find their commander floating in midair,not a scratch on her, with no help whatsoever, and as clothed as she was the day she was born.

When later asked, she claims to have no memory whatsoever of that month prior to the ambush and subsequent explosion.

This is labelled to be an utter miracle.

ALso, as a side effect, it is noted that the Colonel can no longer use Operation Orbs of any kind whatsoever, for reasons entirely unknown.

It has also been noted that she has slowly yet steadily been losing touch with her body and is no longer as combat capable as she once was, despite, it is noted, that her natural body strength being over 6 times that of an average Olympic athlete.

End Report

Lergen sighed as he bent back and lied upon his favorite chair, sighing as he once more glanced through the nearly 4 year old incident which was the chief reason for the withdrawal of the Empire's enemies and their victory in the Great War.

This incident was where it started.

This incident is the one he attributed to the utter changes that came over the one he was once absolutely certain was evil incarnate with no room for good.

He sighed once more and put the case file back into his drawer, wondering if he would even recognise the colonel after years of no contact as she took her work with her.

He looked up and nearly jumped out of his skin, yet certainly jumped out of his chair, as he saw a beautiful young woman, with silver-white hair and heterochromatic eyes, one being as cold as the frozen north, the other being as wild and feral as a wolf looking at its prey.He didn't know why he had such a bad impression of her eyes, even though it is clear that she is a lovely, kind and sweet young woman, quite unlike a certain other young child with golden hair and blue eyes.

She was around 5'4" and bountiful in all assets, but this was only a cursory impression as his mind went into overdrive as he lost his footing and fell sideways onto the floor.

She was wearing what appeared to be a summer dress and a hat of some kind, leaving her shoulders free and letting her have free mobility, which she displayed promptly as she jumped over his table caught him and steadied him while she balanced herself carefully.

He cleared his throat as he felt her press upon his side thinking that she is rather gifted in both the width and height department where it mattered, and asked,"Miss, can you please let go of me, I'm quite well enough to stand now." much to her clear amusement.

She cleared her throat as she moved back across the table (around this time, not over) and said, much to his horror ,"Colonel Tanya Von Degurechaff reporting for duty sir, and it is not a bad thing to be having such an excellent fight or flight response, but please, keep an awareness of your surroundings as you delve into your work, fascinating as it is to watch a man dive into his work utterly unaware of his surroundings, I would very much like to have that meeting you scheduled me for, sir, and hopefully, our last talk will be jovial and free from the stress inflicted upon you by work."

Lergen stood still, then collapsed back onto his seat, which Tanya had kindly(?) set back for him before speaking, stunned by what she said.

"You... I... WHAT?"

Tanya chuckled once more and said to him, not unkindly ,"Sir, just under four years ago, I was prepared to die for my men, which was unexpected, to say the least, even to me. I had lost many men prior to that final battle, and surprisingly, wasn't ready to lose more."

A silence filled the room as she took a deep breath and Lergen watched her with confused eyes.

"I had decided that I would not care to live, if I didnt have anyone to share my life with. So I took it upon myself to redirect the secondary explosion, which could have very well blown up the sky, well, more then it already did, if i didnt redirect that blast downwards, and changed all the mana to only give out heat."

"Having all that mana coursing through me changed me, healed me and showed me the way to finally end the war, once and for all. So I blew up the desert and changed the winds of war ever so slightly in the Empire's favour, tipping the scales, so to speak, to scare the shit out of the Allied Kingdom and Francois and the Republic and all the other go-getters."

"And yet, somehow, I survived the experience, with the vast majority of the mana still residing within me, simply striving for a release, a vent, you see."

Saying this, she dropped a massive amount of papers and folders on his desk." These papers consist of all the results of the experiments I ran and the effects of the environment on mana, and the usage of non-Operation Orb run magic."

Then she dropped seven folders on the other side of his desk. "These are the various plans I came up with for the enrichment of the Empire and advancement of technology, I however, wish to state that any orb like the type-95 should never be created ever again, no matter how extreme the situation. Period."

Lergen looked them over and looked back at the woman he now recognised as the Shining Siver, truly living up to her name.

Even so, he hesitated, opening his mouth asking ,"But, why me? why not Von Zettour? or Rudersdorf?"

To which she said ,"I find you to be the most adaptable General, sir, regardles of my prior feelings for the military generals, prior."

Again, he opened his mouth, but was made dumbstruck by her next line, one he never thought to hear, "after all, I am on my deathbed, this is me finishing all prior commitments and finally living up to my name as an Argent."

Lergen immediately protested, for even though he had many prior misgivings of her, they never turned out to be true. "But Colonel, why? You are not suffering from anything, have freed yourself from the follies of your youth and even managed to somehow become rich off investments."

'Oh please, call me Tanya, Im not going to remain Colonel for very long."

"In truth, that day,as I stated before, I had been subjected to more mana then ever before thought possible, with no medium to act as a broker."

She looked at him and said, much to his shock ,"On that day, the Devil of The Rhine took her last flight and died at that very moment, and I was born."

She twirled around on the spot as she said "This is not even my original body, I had died, body disintegrated before the mana rushed backwards and remade a new body, totally identical, yet flawless in structure, rendering me great physical and mental strengths, whilst similiarly causing me to lose any hopes to live past my current age of 18"

"She stopped twirling and looked at him with the same stare she always had, that seemed to suck the life out of him and said "I have met with and consulted Doctor Schugel, for even though I greatly detest him, he is very much a very good scientist, and we agree. My body will collapse and turn into mana two days after my birthday, on the 4th anniversary of the end of the war."

Saying this, she gave him a salute, and told him ,"Glory to the Empire!"

And marched away, as dignified as ever.

Erich Von Lergen looked in awe at this prime example of a soldier, no ,a human being, walking away, a spring in her step as if she did not just confirm that she would be dying for the empire long past the end of the war.

He looked through the files she had given him and his hands trembled.

These were welfare schemes, they say so themselves.

They work for the betterment of orphans, crippled soldiers, war veterans, and many, many more.

He slowly got up from his seat went to his door, and saluted the end of an era that had never been, and phoned the General Staff to have an emergency meeting.

He would not let the greatest hero of the empire die with no legend to her name.

And thus, the greatest Hero of the Empire, the Shining Silver, wasto be forever remembered for her valour in battle and great strategic thinking, and moreover, for her heart that saved millions of lives from destitution before they were even born.

And thus, the story of Tanya Von Degurechaff came to an end

But the story has just begun for Tanya, for she had yet to live a life truly of her own.