”The problem is not whether we can defeat the Republique on the field of battle. We have proven we can. The problem is whether the Aquileians admit defeat. The republican movement had their revolution smashed into the ground and numerous attempts to stamp it out killed who knows how many creatures. But it endured and struck when the time was right to overthrow King Moriset. We must be cautious about the will of the Aquileian people to resist and the lengths to which they will go to in order to make our occupation, justified as it is, as difficult and costly as possible.”
-Generalleutnant Alard Hakstroo, commander of the Imperial occupation of Westkeep, June 20th, 1012

June 27th, 1012
Imperial-Occupied Westkeep, Aquileia
46th Infanterie-Divisione “Imperium”, 71st Infanterie Regiment, 6th Kompanie

”Attention, all citizens of Ouestgarde: all civilians must stay within their residences from eight o'clock until six o’clock. Failure to obey this curfew may result in detainment or death. Only civilians with a special signed pass may be allowed out after curfew. Keep your issued passbook on you and current at all times. Report all suspicious behavior. Remember that proximity to a violent act places you in the most suspicion. A report may save more than those directly affected. Join the Kaiserliche Hilfsfreiwilligen to help restore peace and order to your city.”

The green-gray Ozelot half-track rattled down the ruined street under the newly erected loudspeaker tower, passing by burned out cars and the occasional wrecked panzer. The occupation was only two weeks old, and the Hilfsingenieure attached to the occupying division had not completed their work clearing the roads. But they had help, as a line of Aquieleian POWs were shifted out of the half-track’s way by landsers with bayonets on their rifles, hollering in broken Aquilan as they shifted the laborers aside. Not all of them wore tattered chalk blue uniforms, either.

Inside of the open-backed transport, five landsers sat in silence. One tapped her bootheel in an attempt to dispel her nervous energy. Another tapped his talons on the barrel of his rifle, likely not even conscious that he was doing it. The halftrack could hold eight plus a dedicated machine gunner, but their squad was a bit short for the time being. Made up largely of conscripts and reservists pulled from regional militias, they weren’t exactly the fighting fit for the frontline. Instead of the semi-automatic Gerund the grenadiers and others in the trenches bore, these garrison soldiers had bolt-action Kralle rifles instead, wore soft caps instead of coal-scuttle helmets and only had one submachine gun amongst them in the claws of the feldwebel. But they were expected, as well as ten-thousand other soldiers from the 46th and 99th divisions, to hold on to this ground. They were, in all honesty, little better than Landwehr.

Except this squad had with them a knight.

She sat rigid, still and silent before them, her faceplate down, having already boarded the half-track before the squad had even reached their vehicle back in the garrison motor pool. She sat across from their bronze dog squad leader Feldwebel Kordhel, and though the two hadn’t exchanged a word the squad leader seemed to understand she was now in charge. The tension in the half-track was thick, even as they had the noise of the city in early evening to distract them. The sky was overcast with summer clouds, seemingly casting the ruined cloud in a pall of gloom. Not that it needed help. The final fires had only just been put out, but there wasn’t a single avenue not affected by the fight, choked with rubble and ruin. Thanks to the vicious artillery barrages and close-range panzer clashes there wasn’t a structure left with more than two stories. The dead had been astronomical, Imperial and Republicaine both, and the civilians caught in between had likely suffered the most. If they had helped the MPA, they were arrested as guerillas and set to the labor gangs clearing the battle damage, tugging corpses and pieces of corpses out of the ruins. If they hadn’t been arrested, strict curfews had been put in place to keep them from wandering about during sensitive hours. The war, after all, wasn’t over yet.

The Ozelot turned off the main road, around a few cars (one of which was smashed by what looked like a panzer tread, the other still intact though the windscreen was shot out) and pulled into a lot next to a structure that looked very much like a tenement, more abandoned or burned out cars parked nearby. The building was old, though it too had suffered its share of battle damage. The plaster was pockmarked with bullet holes, one window had been blown out by an errant shell, part of the roof was gone. As the vehicle finally halted, the knight finally stood, and they could all see her iconography on her breastplate. Der Ritterorden des Krankenhauses, simply known as Der Ritterhospitalier. Judging from the ribbons hanging off her pauldrons, she was from the Rot Banner.

“Listen up!” the knight called to them all, her voice ringing behind her visor. “I am Schwertschwester Rosenkralle! I am here to help you secure this city, in the Kaiser’s name! My Order has committed to the frontline, and my Banner has remained here with the garrison and the wounded! We are ready to help the city heal. But before a wounded body can heal, it must have the disease carved out. That is what we are here for.”

She pointed up at the structure without looking, as if daring it to do something about her attention.

“A trusted source has informed us that an MPA stay behind cell is operating within this structure, likely with the assistance of local civilians. This cell has possibly captured a Reichsarmee codebook from the garrison. You will come help me flush the vermin out, and we will investigate to see if they possess the codebook in question. Assume all armed civilians inside to be hostile. If you see a firearm, do not hesitate to fire. Unarmed civilians are to be ordered aside immediately. If they do not comply, remove them by whatever force is necessary.”

“What if the armed griffons try to surrender, Schwester?” asked one of the landsers, a fresh faced young drake whose Herzlandisch was peppered with Katerin inflections. Feldwebel Kordhel growled, advancing on the soldier before checking himself and holding back, glancing over at Rosenkralle. This was, after all, her mission. The knight merely swiveled her head over to the trooper, who suddenly cowered in his green-gray fatigues, trying to disappear in plain sight.

“If they surrender, kick the guns away fast. Bring them to the floor. Check them for hidden weapons or explosives. Most importantly, don’t do it alone. Have somegriff covering you. Then push them out into the hallway and sit them down.” She swung her visored face back to address the squad as a whole. “Make no mistake. We are not here for a long fight. If this turns out to be bigger than we assumed, we leave and call in backup. Let the panzers deal with it. Our job is to find the hostiles and recover the codebook if it is here. But do not let your sympathy for them let you risk your life or mission. If you have even a shred of doubt about whether somegriff is trying to surrender or if they are bringing a weapon to bear, do not hesitate. Gun them down where they stand. Do you understand?”

“Ja, meine fraue!” the landsers all chorused. Rosenkralle grunted, nodding slowly as she tugged her Type-11 crystal rifle from where it was slung over her pauldron.

“That will have to be enough. Let’s see how it goes. Feldwebel!”

“Let’s move, sweep and clear! You think just because you’re behind the line that gives you an excuse to sit on your tails and relax?” Kordhel snapped, racking the bolt on his Krahe submachine gun. “Move in teams at all times! Remember your training, close quarters drill! Fix bayonets and for the love of Eyr, watch your corners!”

When the half-track had pulled up in the parking lot, Lionel Merle had just about shit himself. When the knight stepped out with the Imperial landsers, he had almost fainted. It was lucky, then, that he had remembered he was supposed to be lookout, and ran from the window.

“Belmont!” he cried, wings smacking painfully into the doorframe as they uncontrollably flared in panic. “Belmont!” He rounded a corner, galloping down the hallway as he passed room after room, the scavenged Modèle 1006A pistol he possessed bouncing in its holster against his flank as he ran. Finally, he found the door he was looking for, bursting through the door only to find himself staring down the yawning muzzle of a shotgun. With a gasp, Lionel felt a bolt of terror run through him as he tried to get his breath back into him. “Mon dieu! Belmont, we’ve got boche! Five of them, and a chevalier!”

The looted Grummond trench gun pulled back, revealing the holder to be a drake in his mid 30s, still wearing the dark blue jacket of an MPA fighter though it had clearly seen better days. His gray coat and feathers were covered by clothes scavenged from the city, such as a grimy white shirt and green-gray trousers that had belonged to an Imperial landser. Across his chest he also had the scavenged plate from a dead Stormtrooper, pockmarked with impacts from rounds that hadn’t quite penetrated over which he’d painted the Republicaine double-headed eagle and the word ‘Vive’ underneath.

“What?” said Sergent Pierre Belmont, beak hanging open in astonishment. “La vache! A boche chevalier?”

Before even waiting for Lionel to confirm, Belmont was quickly moving from where he’d been sittig and taking stock of his inventory. As a stay behind, it was his job to keep the spirit of Aquileia alive in the people remaining, those griffon and pony citizens who remained trapped in Ouestgarde at the dubious mercy of the Reichsarmee. Using looted weapons and salvaged radios, he stayed in touch with other MPA soldiers like him. There were a few Armee de Terre fusiliers left in hiding as well, having either holed up in basements or discarded their uniforms and blended into the population. Those who had previously been underground revolutionaries just a few years ago already knew their business, and were valuable in this case.

But after two weeks, Belmont had only gathered a few who were willing to bear arms. For the time being, he had used this abandoned housing tenement to keep their stockpile of arms and hidden materials away from the garrison’s eyes and use it as a place to train the beginning of his resistance. The Imperials had so much going on lately, they should have gone unnoticed, able to build up slowly and continue their work harassing the boche until they grew large enough to link up and commence operations with their comrades across the city.

That damned codebook, he thought. What had seemed like a feat of good luck and Imperial inefficiency had allowed one of his recruits, Reine, to get a job as a courier with the garrison. A stroke of good fortune, especially this early on into the occupation. But then, Reine had come back with something unexpected; a Reichsarmee codebook for their communications. True, not as valuable without the encrypting machines, but with it they could listen in on the enemy’s radio communications for a time. Still, it had been very risky, and might have garnered attention.

‘Well, the boche finally decided to do something about it,’ he thought as he quickly rallied his few fighters together, passing out their meager supply of arms. As well as his trench gun and Lionel’s pistol, they had gathered up a snub-nosed police revolver, two MS-36 bolt-action rifles and a single MAC-40/2 submachine gun. Reine had been given the revolver so she could be quietly armed when outside the garrison, the two rifles had been handed to two pony shopkeepers who hadn’t received a day of firearms training before the war came to Ouestgarde and the MAC-40/2 had been left in the trusted claws of André Hébert, a fusilier who had slipped into the ruined city as just another battered civilian. Between Belmont and Hébert they’d been trying to get the others caught up in understanding the basic fundamentals of firearms combat, but they just hadn’t the time.

Now, their carelessness had come to bite them in the hindquarters. Lucky him, Hébert had some experience with booby traps, and had already set up their contingency.

“I think they’re inside,” Reine said quietly as she closed the door all the way. “They’ll clear the lower level first.”

“See any more?” asked Belmont, quietly passing out ammunition and trying to be the very picture of an MPA stalwart that he was supposed to be.

“Non,” said one of the pony shopkeepers from the window, carefully watching from his vantage over the main entrance. “Just the six of them. There are two staying in the half-track.”

“Merde!” hissed Hébert as he carefully slid back the bolt on his MAC, frustration rolling off him in waves. “Why’s there a chevalier with them? Should have just gunned them down in the open…”

“Oi!” Belmont snapped, immediately heading off that train of thought. Hébert may have been an experienced fighter, but he certainly lacked the discipline to keep his beak from running. “Keep your head. We knew they might respond in force. We’ve got a plan, and this is just a scout team.” Belmont paused, considering all the information rushing at him carefully before he added on “And those salauds don’t go down easy. Trust me.”

He glanced around, meeting the eye of each of his fighters carefully, nodding to reassure them.

“Now, we just wait until they get up here.”

Every room was empty.

It was disconcerting to enter the building, moving down the central hallway between the various tenements and checking to look for signs of habitation, only to find nothing at all. Much of it looked like the residents had, at some point, just left everything behind and taken off. They found scattered empty cans and torn sheets that showed evidence of past squatters taking shelter, but not a soul could be found regardless. Books had been scattered from shelves, silverware and platters damaged and shattered respectively. Valuables had been looted obviously, but by whom or where they went there was no sign.

Schwertschwester Rosenkralle led the way down the hallway, taking point with her crystal rifle at the ready, head on a swivel as she checked room after room from the doorway, her weapon quietly humming with arcane energy as her enchanted armor plating scraped and clattered with her movements. Following behind her, the landsers cleared the residences out in two teams, one to either side. Kordhel led one team, his weapon far more suited for the tight confines than the rifles of the others but also far more experienced as he checked corners, doorframes, anywhere a guerilla might hide with the barrel of his weapon first.

But every room was empty. Touched by time and overlaid by dust, and certainly damaged by looters or the battle. But empty.

The squad cleared the first floor, slowly mounting the stairs as they moved to the second story.

Reine carefully checked the cylinder of her revolver, snapping it closed with quiet, delicate movements of her claws.

“Merde. Here they come,” said Lionel from the door he had his head pressed up against, pistol in claw as he listened to the noise out in the hallway. “Think they’ll come down this far?”

Belmont pulled back the slide of his shotgun a hair, double checking once more that he had loaded the slug shell first. Against enchanted armor it might not do much, but if he could get a round through the visor slit or hit the enchanted barding underneath, he’d need as much power behind that one shot as he could get.

“Guess we’ll see,” he muttered. The fact that the boche were on the same level as them was sinking in, never mind the fact that there were several walls and doors between them.

“Shut it,” Hébert hissed as he trained his weapon on the door, gesturing everyone to the side so he had a clear shot. Beside him, Reine thumbed back her hammer, Belmont leveled his trench gun as well, Lionel pressed up against the wall and quietly hyperventilated and the two ponies glanced to one another as they clutched their rifles close.

They cleared the second floor in the same way as the first. The silence was oppressive. This deep into the building, they no longer had the comforting, distant rumble of the half-track outside or the distant sound of trucks and panzers to reassure them. One landser opened a door and spotted a flash of moment, lunging forward in panic. In her fright, it turned out she had bayoneted a sweater, hanging on a coat rack just inside the doorway. Another soldier abruptly cried out, staggering back as a trio of large rats skittered across the floor.

Rosenkralle glanced back and locked eyes with Kordhel. The bronze dog shook his head, and the knight sighed. She had assumed the rebels would hide in plain sight, using civilians as living shields as they fired on every iron cross they spotted. It was the reason she had accepted this assignment, as she had thought it would be a simple cakewalk. A few dead MPA stay behinds and the rest would give in and they’d have a long line of prisoners to take back to the stockades. But the atmosphere was oppressive, and the landsers with her were raw rear-echelon garrison troops. Her first mission leading regular troops since she had earned her knighthood after a period of being a mere schildknappe, and she had misjudged all the signs.

Perhaps it was time to leave and call in the Feldjagers to-

A voice spoke up from right behind her.

“Meine Fraue, you should come see this!”

They had found a locked door at last.

Hébert glanced back at Belmont. The MPA sergent simply flexed his claws, talons clenching his trench gun tightly. The tension in the room was at an all time high. From out in the hallway, the sounds of Reichsarmee boots thumped and clunked, gathering around one spot. The sound of clattering armor plate stomped back to where the landser had called from.

Then, the rattling of a doorknob, locked and resisting all efforts to open normally. A pause. All sound seemed to halt, as if the building itself was holding its breath.

Then the pounding as a massive form barreled towards the door.

In a shower of splinters, the lock burst out of the doorframe as Rosenkralle used her weight and bulk to blow it in. Crystal rifle raised, she strode into the tenement as she switched her aim from corner to corner. Behind her, Kordhel stormed right in, submachine gun up and scanning. Behind him came the entirety of his squad save two, who stayed out in the hallway to cover their rear. The landsers spread out, sweeping to cover each direction as they went.

“Clear right!” Rosenkralle announced, having peered into a foyer, empty and shadowed with only a few pieces of furniture.

“Clear left!” said another trooper, having gone in the opposite direction and peering into a bedroom.

“Clear front!” Kordhel announced, sweeping his weapon over a small kitchen.

After a few seconds of nothing else coming out of the shadows to come plunging down on the Imperials with a vengeance, Rosenkralle announced “Room clear. Area secure.”

“Found something, meine fraue,” Kordhel announced, moving into the kitchenette. Scattered across the table were a few tools, a disassembled Reichsarmee radio, a cartridge box and a red covered paper booklet with the words Codebuch für Funkschlüssel and the Reichsarmee iron cross emblem on the front. “I think we have our missing codebook.”

“Secure it,” Rosenkralle stated, fighting to keep the relief out of her voice. “We’ll take it back to the garrison. They’ll likely have to change the codes regardless. But at least we’ll have something for our efforts.”

“Got it,” Kordhel replied, shifting his weapon to reach out and take the book. Then he paused. Something seemed a bit off. The book didn’t look right, though the cover was correct. Concerned, he reached a paw out and carefully opened the red cover, brow furrowed. His eyes shot open in shock as he realized that under the cover was a farmer’s almanac, the red cover merely stapled to the front.

“Damn those bastards!” he snarled, reaching and grabbing the forgery.

A soft click rang out.

“Oh…scheiße,” the dog managed, spotting the tripwire attached underneath the book and the hole carved in the dining room table.

A heartbeat later, the explosives attached under the table detonated.

“Go!” Belmont cried, and the door where the resistance fighters were hiding flew open. He and Hébert were the first out, weapons raised. The landsers left guarding the hallway at the booby-trapped room (just one unit down and across the hall) were still dazed and responding, just now peering in through the door. They didn’t even realize what had happened when a shotgun blast and a rattle of automatic fire took them both, and they collapsed in a heap.

The two soldiers moved in on the doorframe, one on either side, glancing in to look over the room and the damage. Hébert whistled at the scene. Every landser that had packed into the room had been shredded by the landmine and frag grenades he had hidden in the room, rigged up to detonate when some idiot picked up that fake book. Blood and shrapnel covered the walls and floor, feathers still settling once more. Of the poor sucker who had set off the mines, there wasn’t much more than ragged flesh and diced organs.

“Putain, that worked better than I thought. Look at all that, nothing but raw poultry.”

Hébert stepped into the threshold as Belmont glanced around from the doorframe, the other resistance fighters crowding around him to look over his shoulder. Something didn’t look right. Something was missing. The MPA sergent started counting bodies.

And then one of the landsers popped upright, coughing and gasping, her face a ruin of shattered beak, shrapnel wounds, tattered uniform. One of her eye sockets had been torn apart, and Belmont could almost swear he could make out some bare skull. The sounds she made were a desperate, agonized gasping noise as a mouth that couldn’t suck in enough air tried anyway.

Hébert fired a three round burst into her head, and the landser collapsed again like a wet sack of grain.

“What was that?” Reine called out from the hallway, trying to look over Belmont’s shoulder, her wings flared in alarm. “Hébert, are you alright?”

“Oui oui, I’m fine ma chérie,” the fusilier replied, glancing back down at the corpses again, clearly wondering if he needed to body check any more of them.

From the room off to the right, the sound of scraping steel rang out. Belmont’s eyes widened, but before he could say anything in warning, a bookshelf that had fallen over the doorway shifted.

“Merde!” Hébert snapped out, his MAC-40 flashing around as he jammed the trigger down, spraying the bookshelf at point blank range. Bullet holes pock marked the wood for a split second before the furniture rent itself in a shower of splinters, and a flash of steel glowing with blue runes flashed out, messily beheading Hébert with such force that his torso was smashed into the wall before it slid down in a bloody wreck just as savage as what he had rent on the landsers.

“No! Merde!” cried one of the shopkeepers, lunging back for the door directly behind him. “Get to cover!”

“Run! RUN!” Belmont hollered, immediately pushing the others back in a blind panic. By all the cruelties of Maar, it -had- to be the chevalier left alive after all of that!

The massive armored form lumbered through the doorframe, enchanted sword clutched in one claw, crystal rifle in the other. By the three, why did she seem to almost take up the entire hallway? Reine screeched, firing her revolver as the crystal rifle blasted away. The first beam missed the fleeing resistance fighters, but Reine’s bullets were barely making a dent in the enchanted plate, and by the time the formel realized and turned to flee, the Imperial had straightened her aim, squeezing the trigger again. The hallway glowed blue as the beam smashed into the back of Reine’s head, carved away half of her skull and erupted out the other side, flash frying what was left of her brains and boiling away a good portion of blood, ironically leaving little to spatter on the walls and floor. Reine’s corpse collapse to the ground, her head a ruined mess as her legs twitched, wings flaring and smacking around in her death throes.

The pony shopkeeper who had leapt away fired his rifle from nearly point blank range, the round smacking off the Imperial’s helmet. If he had hoped for the visor, he had missed and the bullet spanged off into the woodwork. The bolt was clumsily cycled, and another shot rang out to just as useless effect. But the chevalier had reoriented, and the magitek weapon flared again, blowing the pony’s right foreleg away and destroying the rifle, peppering the equine with vicious shrapnel. For a split second, the shopkeeper howled and thrashed in pain and agony, though before he could draw another breath the enchanted sword flashed again, destroying part of the doorframe and beheading him as well.

The screaming ended.

“Kader! Ton aus!” the Imperial shouted out, taking the brief moment to resheath her blood-soaked blade, advancing with the glowing rifle raised as she tried to get to a more secure position. “Überlebende! Ton aus!”

No response. Quiet had settled on the building once more.

In another room, Belmont, Lionel and the other pony shopkeeper by the name of Coraline Étoile huddled, deathly silent as they quietly willed the Imperial to go. Her entire squad was down, she was all alone. Surely, this would push the formel to retreat to her half-track and call for help. That might give them enough time to grab what they could and flee. Hideouts were a dime a dozen in ruined Ouestgarde. With half of their group wiped out, they’d need to start over again, and Belmont had the feeling these two wouldn’t stick with his resistance cell regardless.

“Attention, Resistance Fighters,” called the Imperial in stilted, difficult Aquilan, muffled by her helmet. “I am ordering you to surrender to Imperial authority. This is your final warning.”

Fat chance, thought Belmont. He hadn’t given up when the city fell, he wasn’t surrendering now.

A light clink came to his ears.

Belmont’s eyes snapped over to Lionel, who was staring straight down from where he’d tried to become one with the wall. His boot had nudged an empty bottle and knocked it over. All three of them became still as statues. Had the Imperial heard?

A clatter of boots, the brightening glow in the hallway. The chevalier had them.

“Lionel, down!” Belmont hollered.

The drake didn’t need any more than that, throwing himself down to the ground like a long lost lover, feathers flying as his wings flared, retracted, flapped and shook. The first blast blew a hole the size of a bowling ball in the wall right where the griffon had stood a second ago, the next one a few feet to the left, the next a few feet after, following the sound of Lionel’s desperate attempts to live. The griffon crawled, lurched and clumsily rolled behind an inner wall and a bookcase as his environment continued to erupt into splinters. Coraline, not so lucky, wound up taking another bolt as the Imperial fired her tenth shot, blowing the pony off her hooves with a massive gaping hole in her chest.

The Imperial rushed the doorframe, the magitek rifle clattering to the floor as, with the ring of steel the sword came back out. She seemed to take up all the space available in the tenement as she advanced, looking around for a target but not finding one, a plate armored juggernaut of fearsome death. She glanced into the next room, advancing on Lionel’s position…

When Belmont kicked open the closet door he’d been hiding inside, trench gun leveled. The first shot bounced off the Imperial’s plate, but the power of the slug round from mere feet away still caused her to stagger, enchanted sword slashing. Half of the room disappeared into yet more wreckage as the wild swipe annihilated a coat stand, a grandfather clock, a cabinet and meters of peeling and faded wallpaper, but Belmont had thrown himself to the floor as well, hurriedly racking the slide, an empty shell flying out of the chamber. The Imperial advanced, sword raised, and Belmont knew this was it, do or die, a matter of seconds as he pulled the trigger again.

The chevalier’s head lurched backwards, her claw automatically flying up towards her visored face. But the reflexive motion lost the strength halfway up. Her other claw loosened on the sword, causing it to clatter to floorboards. The Imperial staggered backwards, wings flaring erratically before she smashed into the paneling, sliding sideways as she jerked and gurgled, trying to somehow rise. But that was a little difficult when the slug had punched clean through the visor, into her left eye. Having lost momentum, it had erupted out her skull, ricocheted off the enchanted plate of the interior and come back again.

By the time she stopped moving, Schwertschwester Rosenkralle had been dead for several seconds. Her corpse had merely needed to run out of energy and momentum.

Silence returned to the structure. In the distance, Belmont swore he could hear the rumble of engines, the distance buzz of the canned announcements from the loudspeaker tower. Maybe some of that noise was the half-track crew, trying to figure out what was happening and radioing for backup. They couldn’t stay here.

Belmont realized his claws were clenching the shotgun so tight, his talons were beginning to dig into the wood. Letting out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding, eyes still locked on the dead Imperial, he racked the slide. The empty shell popped out, ringing merrily off the floor. The corpse did not rise.

Swallowing, Belmont called out “Lionel? C’mon, we’ve got to go.”

This building was no longer safe. It was time to start over.

Author's Note

This chapter was unabashedly inspired by the SFM animation on YouTube called "Patient Zero" by TheParryGod. Check it out, it's practically art.