CHAPTER 1

Petra Ral was a proud member of WAC. When she was moved to London shortly after she finished her training in 1941, well, she was more than just a proud member. One of few battalions to be transferred to London for assisting the British Royal Army, she was excited. An excitement is probably an understatement. She had walked confidently on the grounds of what was to become her new home for the next few years, and gazed at the area full of runways, planes, and grassy patches, littered with several buildings. Led by a young british girl, she was shown around, and was quickly inducted into the large minority of women there.

It has been three months since she last arrived, and to say the least, she had become quite known around there. The cute american with the short ginger curls and red lipstick, who could throw a punch as good as any soldier flying in and out of here. She often worked as translating messages from the French Resistance members across the channel, and although she wished to be able to do what a man could do during this time, it was still great to be in London.

She sat smoking at her desk, the cigarette hanging out from the corner of her mouth. She took a long draw from it, then gazed around at the other girls surrounding her. Some of them were busy translating german notes or stubs of paper, sometimes messages, but she didn't have anything that day. Fluent in both French and German, she usually got the majority of translations, but today, today was slow.

Her head tilted backwards as she exhaled a puff of smoke, smiling softly to herself. She'd received two packages from home today filled with tubes of M&Ms, which had become her favorite snacks since moving here. A half-finished roll sat on her desk, pieces sprawled across some papers.

She let out another sigh, when someone tapped lightly on her chair with the side of their pen. She bolted upwards, and looked around to see the face of her friend—Rico. A british translator who'd she befriended not too long ago, after a bet for two cigarettes. Petra had won it in the end, but she'd shared one of them with Rico.

"Hey, not sharing a cigarette with your mate?" she asked, poking me in the arm with her pen. In response, I tossed the packet in her general direction, and she frowned when she caught the empty box, "God, you're really awful."

I snorted in response, and looked up at her. "Should you really be talking about how awful I am right now instead of translating an important document?"

"Nah," she responded, grinning, "I'm off as of now, and it's perfect timing really—I hear that Lieutenant-General Erwin Smith is coming here—todaay."

"And why the hell should I be caring about if he's coming?"

"Well I hear that they're coming to pick someone up to take with them."

"Them?" I glanced at her suspiciously, stubbing my cigarette.

"Yeah, something about a—"

"Ral? Is there an Officer Petra Ral here?"

In slight disbelief, she stood up from her chair, and saluted, gazing at the figure standing before them.

"At ease."

"Well bloody look who's here." Rico murmured, shuffling out of the room in the most dignified manner possible.

Erwin Smith was a big man, to say the least, and wore this constant heavy smile, weighed down by the constant worries that plagued him. He gazed around the room, calculating, then turned back to Petra. She straightened unknowingly before him, hoping that he hadn't heard her less than flattering comment from earlier.

"Would you be willing to show the grounds to me a bit today?" he asked cordially.

"Not at all, sir."

Petra took him around the army base, not quite sure what he was expecting out of this, other than maybe a bit of fresh foggy air. It was one of those days in London, and Petra was expecting it to rain later. She hadn't brought her umbrella—she hadn't even been wearing her uniform jacket when he had stepped into her office—and honestly, the most that she'd be able to offer the General beside her words would be some M&Ms hidden in her pocket.

They stopped to watch a plane land across the field by Erwin's request, and Petra didn't know what to say in the least. She guessed there wasn't much she had to say, but she felt awkward around him as he had this sort of knowing aura, like he had planned out of the rest of this war.

"Tell me, Petra," he said, breaking the silence. "How well do you like it here?"

"At the base, sir? Well enough, I suppose."

"Not just the base—you're american, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"How would you feel travelling with me and an elite team across the rest of Europe."

It was a statement more than a question really, and before she had stopped herself, she had let out a burst of laughter. It was obviously no more than a joke, and her emotions had already accepted that truth before her reason had.

Smith was polite enough to wait until she stopped laughing, and by then the plane they had been watching had been emptied of its pilot and passengers. Petra finally noticed it, and became aware of the General's presence. In an effort to repair her doing, she began to tread the waters carefully.

"I'm not quite sure… sir… if you really need a French and German WAC translator on your team of elites. If you're looking for someone who could help you during your cause, I'm sure I could—"

"Miss Ral, we chose you especially. Well liked among your comrades, and I've been told fluent in both French and German, two essential languages that we're needing. I'd rather you not ask why we've requested your transfer, but rather why we need you in the first place."

She nodded in response after a brief pause.

"We needed a woman on our team, in all honesty who could help us go around. Because honestly, four non-nazi men prancing around German occupied territory is not enough. We needed someone capable, and so your commanding-officer directed me to you."

"I don't mean to be disrespectful, General, but you're not just asking me to be some sort of… mannequin for this oh-so lauded team of yours, are you?" Petra's hand rested almost defiantly on her hip, and she reached into her pocket, itching for a cigarette, but instead finding her packet of M&Ms.

Smith chuckled, shaking his head. "We don't think lowly of you Miss Ral, we want you to become a member of our team. You will run the operations alongside all of the men on your team. I've approved of this, as well as your commanding-officer, and the captain of this small squad. It's true one of the factors taken into account was that you fit the profile we were looking for exactly, but several other women fit that profile as well. It just so happened, you were the most qualified."

"And I'm guessing that all the arrangements have been made… sir?"

"Your transfer papers, Officer Ral." he said, slipping them out of his coat. He hand a stack of yellow papers to her, which she held with uncertainty, as if he would take them from her hands, or show her that they were gag papers. But he smiled, then walked away, not saying anything else. He was an interesting man that she supposed she'd be learning more about the more time she spent with him.

She unfolded the creased stack, and skimmed through the papers, making her way back across the field to the mess hall where she'd break the news to her friends and comrades.

The top of the file was marked with a CONFIDENTIAL stamp in red, and immediately she knew that this wasn't just any team that he'd assigned her to. She gazed more carefully, and took in the information. She'd be meeting the rest of her team, on a nighttime flight to Free France in five hours.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This is pretty much the first thing I've written since my last fic, and for some reason I've been having a lot of trouble just writing on my own. Hopefully this'll help me out...
Previously posting on the Attack on Titan tag, I've decided to move my home over to the Shingeki tag and have found some time to write something off. Now off of full hiatus due to life in general, I bring you the WWII AU.