Empire Southern Army HQ October 29 1924

( Viktoriya Serebryakov )

After a very successful war against Dacia, the Major started to work us even harder. It was considerably easier than the Rhine yet we took considerable amounts of damage ourselves against Naomi and had a lot of issues pinning down her location. She was not even a trained soldier which just proved to the Major that there were flaws in our training if we could not do as much as that. I would like to advocate the other side instead, that Naomi was just that amazing instead of us being lacking. A girl my age, which is still relatively close to the Major, invented her own orb, built it and went to war where she gave Imperial Mages a run for their money during a whole month and still survived in the end.

"Is something the matter Serebryakov?" The Major asked.

We were currently resting in her office with coffee as she passed through a bit more paperwork to finish up the reports, order for supplies and more.

"I was simply wondering what would happen to Naomi since it has been a few days since her orb was sent for examination." The Major actually looked up at me as I said those words.

"We actually received a report around midday regarding her orb. It seems that the research department could not pierce it's secret, they conducted several tests and every time they said it was a dud."

"That would be hard to believe considering how much damage we sustained due to it."

"Exactly the reason they are baffled, they simply cannot understand how a dud could inflict so much damage to the latest type 97."

"Could it be possible she wasn't lying and actually needed the rifle?"

"I don't know, we would need to ask her and hope she tells us the truth."

"Well Major, if you remember she did not refuse to work for us as long as the conditions were right."

That last comment created a pause as the Major went into thinking. We heard a knock on the door and I went to answer it. After I received the message I turned back to the Major.

"We are being called to the Lt. Colonel ma'am."

"Did they give us a reason?"

"Yes it seems to be about discussing the orb in question."

"I suppose they would ask for our opinion, alright let us not keep him waiting."

On our way to the office we picked up Lt. Weiss to have a proper opinion together since he was the first one to take a shot from her back when the invasion began. We arrived and noticed there were three chairs in front of the desk, this was not regular but nevertheless we remained standing and saluted.

"Thank you for coming Major Degurechaff, please have a seat." He invited us to sit as well.

"I was told we were to discuss the orb but the report has left me in the impression that it was a dud."

"I thought you would be the first to deny the results of the reports considering the damage done to our side during the war."

"While I admit the magical damage done to our side is extensive but I will not let go of the possibility that she might have lied to us."

"While I would normally agree with you, we have tested both the rifle and rosary but none of them produced the magic that could cause such damage. We have searched her and she has nothing else that could be an orb, she was also confirmed by Dacia to be their... 'witch'." He hesitated in using that term.

"Maybe it just works differently and that's why we cannot use it?" I expressed my thought.

"Maybe, we shall know soon, I have summoned her here." The Lt. Col. claimed and it ended our discussion short as we could hear footsteps in the hallway.

~approximately 20 minutes before~
( Naomi Desraft )

I am so bored out of my mind right now!

Two whole days now; I have been imprisoned while having nothing to do. Some people would envy the life of not working for your next meal and just laze around all day but this is not my preference. I need to do things, keep busy, I like to be lazy as much as the next guy, girl, but there needs to be some motion. I simply wake up to do some exercises and then laze around in between the meals and more exercises. The guard also refuses to chat with me but he is lucky since he has a deck of cards.

The cell I have is empty, bare, nothing but three solid walls with a grated window and the all famous iron bar door wall. I do have a sort of bunk for bed but its really nothing worth singing about; I slept better on the cold ground outside during the war. I should also mention that ever since that imperial soup from the front lines, the only food I received where prison rations and they were terrible; worse than Dacian dry army rations. Their bread is... something else, it is like swallowing a brick since it absorbs the water they give me and it's just a terrible feeling. What I wouldn't do for a good warm meal right now. Please God send me something, if you need a sound argument just ask yourself what good is a prophet in jail. The guard got up as the door clicked open and a group of four soldiers approached my cell, not like there were any other prisoners here to begin with. Coincidence in timing? I think not!

"Miss Desraft, you shall be accompanying us today." One of them spoke as the guard unlocked my cell, I should probably mention that they never once took off the handcuffs I had since the first day.

"Where are we going?" I asked as I walked out into the middle of the group.

"You have been summoned by the higher ups."

Gee thanks, that answers all my questions. Although sometimes you work too fast God, I won't complain, on the contrary I will even praise you as long as it doesn't blow up in my face. The walk was quiet until one of them decided to be a smart ass and put his hand on my head to lower it as we walked through a doorway. I don't even know why considering all four of them were taller than me and I can clearly fit in the doorway. I got angry and kicked him in the side of his left knee which made him yell as his hand let go of my head but I still spun around and in a big circular motion whacked his head with my combined fists upwards.

"Don't you fucking touch me!" I spat at him as I towered over his collapsed self. "I will make the message clear and simple, I will obey as long as you don't try anything funny and that you never put your hand on me. Shall we continue on?" I asked as I looked at the leader.

This is an era before prisoner rights were well documented and respected thus as a frail little lady, I have no choice but to fight at every occasion to prevent some ill intention men from taking advantage of things.

Not a single one of them were happy and they seemed ready to jump me for some good old fashion brawling, which I would lose due to my hands being tied and a lone young adult woman body against four trained adult male. Surprisingly they held it in and simply stared at me with piercing gazes and picked up the idiot from the floor. We resumed out walk quietly and not a single one of them tried to touch me, that's a good sign. I understand that sometimes physical contact is required but I will be damned if I allow them to touch me whenever they want, I do have some pride and honour to maintain.

We finally arrived to some office somewhere deep in the main building, well I call it that since its the biggest around and everything was mostly clean and organized. The leading soldier knocked before we entered into a fairly well sized room with a desk and a few seats in front, they seemed out of place and were probably brought in just for me or something similar. A quick sweep of the room revealed that the child soldier, Visha and another male soldier who was probably a mage stood on the right side of the room relative to me. There was a man sitting at the desk, he seemed fairly tall, with short brown hair. The guards came in the room as well and I was indicated at a seat facing the desk in which I sat, while they all stood behind me. This was a very uncomfortable feeling to have four men behind me in what seems to be an interrogation, A+ for atmosphere creation dear Empire.

"It is a pleasure to meet you miss Naomi Desraft." The man at the desk opened the discussion. "I am Lieutenant Colonel Eric von Rerugen and I was put in charge of you, or what happens from now on to be more specific."

"The pleasure is all mine." I got up and the motion for curtsy but wearing pants and with handcuffs it was a tad awkward, hopefully the message got across.

"I will first go through a few questions if that is alright with you."

"I am all ears."

"Are you truly the one known as the Witch of Dacia? Rumored to have invented her own computational orb and caused the Empire great losses as to heavy equipment and hospitalized a few of our mages."

"I never accepted the name but yes I am referred to often enough as a Witch and I come from Dacia. The orb was a collaborative work from my innate magic and my father's work as head of the national factory. As for the losses, I am uncertain for the kill count but I did indeed take down many tanks, artillery, planes and mages."

"Funny you mention your father..."

"Careful what you say next." I hissed at him while glaring. He took a moment to swallow and rest his hands on the desk.

"You mention your father helping you with your orb, yet from the reports of our local investigation he was very... distressed about you." I couldn't help but chuckle at that statement, it was very accurate.

"Let's just say that I am quite old for a bachelorette and was a bit too stubborn for his taste in that regards."

"I see, I can understand his worries then since you have also earned the name of Demon."

"I kept busy." I was trying to make myself comfortable but it proved a tough crowd especially the child soldier, she keeps her two very icy eyes on me without budging.

"Let us approach the two real subject here since they have nothing to do with our local research. Your computational orb itself and possible employment in the Empire."

"You will have to do better than the man who originally offered me a job here."

"Well the conditions have not changed, you have the same two choices but I can explain the perks of working for us."

"So be it, give me your side of the coin." I sighed as I crossed my legs and rest my hands on top.

"You would get the regular hours of work, we would of course assess your true skills and give you a job best suited. There are many opportunities but the biggest for you is to entirely skip the initial recruitment process as you were part of an army before and we will count it for you. We are ready to give a bonus for selling us your computational orb design."

"To be said plainly, regular work time, no basic training or paperwork delays and a sign up bonus if I tell you how it works."

"If you wish to dig into it, yes. In regards to the bonus we will cut no expenses since it is quite revolutionary even by our standards."

"You see, I have a distressed mother back home, what could you do about that since my family has lost its source of income?"

"We could make an exception and enroll her on veteran pension to support herself while you work for us."

He was putting in a lot, he was not afraid to give out money to hire me but the truth is, he told me that my orb as revolutionary which means I fucked up. I could not just sell it to them, I feel bad things would happen. I am mostly afraid of that job he would be offering me since both of us have no idea what it would be.

"I am sorry." This caused his brows to rise. "You are offering me a lot but it is a bit hard to ask me to work for the country that just conquered mine."

"Think of it this way, you are now an Imperial citizen so you would be fighting for your own."

"Cheeky aren't ya?" I chuckled at him. "Fine I can work but you make sure my mother gets her income, I am afraid she won't get far without it or myself around."

"That is wonderful news..."

"Not so fast, our issue right now is the engineering was the work of my father so it will take time for me to reverse engineer the orb." While completely false, I will hide behind this for now.

"Are you telling us you cannot replicate the rifle and orb you personally used in the war?"

"I can attempt but I cannot guarantee due to him doing a large part of the work and I burned his schematics." This caused a sigh from him. "I can on the other hand use both fairly well as your mages can attest."

"We will have to put that to the test since our own revealed your orb to be a dud."

Oh shit I forgot about that! I installed a security system out of good habit where the orb verifies the mana signature. At least that is the theory, I never really had someone else to test it with so I programmed it to only resonate with my own mana hoping it was somewhat unique. To hear it worked is both a relief and a source of stress since I will probably have to explain it somehow later.

"I can assure you it was the working version I handed over, your mage wounds did not come from a dud."

"Indeed well we shall wait for the orb to return, it is scheduled for this afternoon. We shall also attest to your skills with your orb but I do not recommend doing anything funny since we will have a whole wing of mages with us."

"This might be a funny question, but how many mages is a wing?" I was an army reserve, not air force so a wing to me is an unknown amount.

"Usually 36 but this one is reinforced, thus 48."

Now that's a lot of mages! Just thinking back on it, this wing was probably the one I was fighting, one against forty eight is not very good odds. Thank you Lord for keeping me alive, that is all I can say here. It seems I did the right call to work with them since I was now invited to lunch! Praise be to good food that is not prison rations. My handcuffs were removed and almost immediately I rubbed my wrists which were almost showing permanent marks. The marks will probably leave by tomorrow but it felt good to just rub it in. My four escorts were also dismissed under the reason that I was to be considered a soldier from now on, well at least for now.

We arrived at the dining hall where a few more got invited, it seems to be the custom to have the officers dine together and for this event I am the special guests. Well myself and the Lt. Colonel since the other three looked like mages and stood up when we arrived. A quick salute from the child soldier and they seemed more at ease but kept taking looks towards me.

"Miss Desraft here are the officers in charge of the wing who you gave much trouble to." The Lt. Colonel introduced briefly.

"A pleasure to meet you all." I did the same as earlier with a curtsy.

"Is that really the one we couldn't pin down?" The man with the roundest face asked.

"She is Naomi Desraft, a new volunteer to serve the Fatherland, her history made her a highly sought after candidate." The child soldier introduced me, she then turned to me. "I am Major Tanya von Degurechaff and I lead the 203rd battalion, I look forward to your contributions to the Empire."

"My deepest apologies, I still cannot take what you say seriously. Your cute face just doesn't match your attitude." I tried to smile it off but I was seriously off balance with her.

"Do not let it affect your work or your attitude towards your superior officers and I will let that comment slip." She glared in what seemed to be straight into my soul. Right, well guess I will do my best to not interact with her when possible.

"Maybe an introduction would be necessary Major Degurechaff." The Lt. Colonel coughed.

"You have already met my adjudant Viktoriya Serebryakov." I smiled at her. "He is First Lieutenant Weiss, my Vice Commander of the wing."

"Oh the green horn!" I exclaimed without thinking much.

"The what?" He himself reacted.

"The green horn, the new guy, only those new are foolish enough to go into battle without a helmet." I remember trying to shoot him when they destroyed the HQ of the Dacian army on the first day.

"When did I not have my helmet? I always wear my full kit."

"I clearly remember you not having a helmet when you invaded the Dacian Army HQ."

"Oh yes my helmet was sliced off that day, wait a second, you were the one who shot at us that day!" Oh good we now have a mutual understanding.

"Yes well that one did not work well so lucky for all of us right now." I chuckled, it did create a bit of an awkward setting when we all think back to when we all first met without meeting. Life can be funny sometimes, or God, I think they can be interchangeable sometimes.

"Didn't we shoot you with a crippling injury that day as well?" The one with strangely straight hair asked.

"Yes and no, you did hit but not fatal since I am still here but the damage is done and I have quite the scar in my sides. I am unfortunately damaged goods now so I hope one of you could take responsibility since I cannot get freely married anymore." That created an immediate wave of unease among the men here present while the child just tilted her head.

"Wasn't it Serebryakov that shot you?" She asked.

"Major!" The culprit spoke out.

"I am totally okay with her taking responsibility if we are to be honest." This created shock among everyone. "I mean if we see the lineup here and someone has to be responsible, I would take the beautiful Serebryakov any day over you guys." I laughed as I semi grabbed her in my arms and waved them sideways.

"Hard to argue against that." The man named Weiss caved in with a smile and a quick head shake.

"Indeed, in all the officers she is the best looking one." The straight hair one agreed.

"You guys!" Visha weakly protested as she somewhat accepted her fate in my arm but due to the situation I let her go. I will return, that I promise. I successfully broke the ice and somehow prevented them from introducing me as the one who shot at them. The other two were introduced as Neumann and Koenig and each of them lead a section of the Wing, roughly twelve each except for Tanya that oversaw them all and Visha who assisted her.

We proceeded to now have a rather casual diner, it wasn't that great but it was heavenly to someone like myself who suffered these past few weeks. Sausages, potatoes and barbed wire something, honestly I couldn't care less, it was much better than the brick bread. The talk wasn't much, a few questions about my life in Dacia and I returned them to learn about the Empire since in theory, it is now my country and my old lands will become like theirs. Small talk is stuff I was okay at, nothing too grand but not too terrible so I could get by without sassing anyone too much.

The dreaded afternoon came too soon as we gathered in another office where we found my old rifle, confiscated by that officer in the first town taken over, with some used ammunition by it. There were even some tools and few spare components they seem to have guessed could be used to repair it or something. Without much invitation, I just started working on it to see if I could do a bit of maintenance. Based on its state, it is mostly just burnt from overuse but the mechanism should be fine... and I spoke too soon, they opened it wrong or something. I must have made a face since the Lt. Colonel sighed.

"Can you fix it without your father?" He asked.

"I think so, this is one of the simpler tricks to this rifle but we can see here the damage done from shooting too many shots in short time intervals. So if you were looking into a semi automatic rifle, you will need to improve on my father's design." My old habits were kicking in, I could work as I explained the mechanism without cares, i did that a lot in my old life. "Let us not forget though that this rifle is incomplete without my orb, do we have an ETA on it?"

As if it was waiting for me to ask, we heard a group of people walking in the hallways and we all turned towards the doors. There was a short argument outside the door before it burst opened very violently and a tall man with a very steampunk looking monocle wearing a lab coat stormed in. He spotted us in no time and seemed to focus on me as he almost ran up and grabbed both my shoulders with a surprising amount of force, almost knocking me onto the table behind me, I was still sitting in my chair to work on the rifle.

"You have met God haven't you!" He was almost yelling with this huge smile on his face which honestly was close, way too close, I could count the pores on his skin. I immediately tried to kick in my earlier reflexes but couldn't move my arms and my legs did not have an angle to do anything.

"Get off me!" I spoke strongly as I tried to wring myself out of his grip.

"You have spoken to him, he has enlightened you has he not?! Share with me the gift of the Heavens!" Oh dear God he was in kissing range and this is definitely not my type of guy.

I gave a desperate throw to the side with my entire body weight and managed to topple the chair down with both of us along. I quickly scrambled up but in the motion he grabbed my leg and I fell flat down on my face. I did not get another attempt as he turned me over to once again pin me down and quite literally breathe down my neck.

"We have both been blessed by the Lord and we must simply praise his work. Why do you not wish to share you gift with I, a devout follower?"

Oh Lord, this is the kind of heretic who killed me before, why do I have another? Is it already my time to die again? I started tearing up, no matter how prideful I was, I could not get over how weak I am now. I could not shake him off or anything and he kept breathing down me. The shame and humiliation is beyond me.

"Please, get off me." I was almost crying.

"Not until you share your gift..." I never cared to listen as I tried my best to struggle free, this stupid devout pervert was just too much, I wanted out. The more I fought the more the tears came out and the more I realized how unfair his strength was genetically since he clearly did not exercise much from his muscle state. My salvation came from two strong arms grabbing him and dragging him away. I was also dragged away but in a much gentler manner from smaller arms. It only took me an instant to recognize Visha and grabbed onto to her, curling up inside her arms while still half on the floor. I couldn't hold it anymore and let the tears flow, this was just ridiculous to have such a crazy bastard running around, harassing little girls such as myself.

"What is going on Dr. Shugel? Why were you doing that?" Lt. Colonel Rerugen was asking questions.

"She was blessed by God, she has secrets to magic we have yet to understand, it is simply beyond us mere mortals to understand yet we must study both for our faith and science." He broke into a mad laughter.

"What are you talking about?"

"Her orb, is the work no amateur could do! The internal design, the way it computes and works is simply more advanced than the type 95 I developed with the help of God. She has to be a child of God and have been guided for years to reach this level of work."

"Are you telling me that the orb she used against us, from a backwards country in terms of era, was in fact more advanced than ours where a good portion of our budget is dedicated." The child soldier asked.

"Yes exactly! That is precisely why it HAS to be the work of God! She had no budget, no resources, no instructions of mentor. It is simply her genius and the guidance of God that she could achieve it."

"Wasn't the orb a dud?"

"Yes it is to us mere mortals but I assume she is even beyond our mages, she must be special!"

"Her hair does turn white when she uses magic." Weiss commented, please no more attention to me, focus on the madmen who almost killed me under his weight and perversion.

"HAHAHAHAHAA LIKE AN ANGEL! SHE IS TRULY A CHILD OF GOD!" The madmen just lost it yet no one here had the will nor the strength to argue with him while I stayed there crying in Visha's bosom. Working for the Empire suddenly sound extremely displeasing and a decision I will come to regret.

Author's Notes

Hello everyone, first of all, a grand apology to everyone for being extremely late for this one but I have legitimate reasons to be late described below for those who care, else, thank you all for sticking with me even with the grand delay and I promise to increase quality and speed from now on. Sorry this one is shorter than the others but I felt like ending it there was a good choice(?) but more to come for sure.

Rough estimate: one more chapter by the end of May, after that a hiatus of roughly 12-14 weeks before coming back and we shall see from there depending on how things go but I promise you all, this story is not dead and will not die until the madmen gets the last laugh.

Here is why I was so late since August:
-August: acquired a house and mortgage, go me, also time of last update
-September, company had a floppy release (I am a Software Developer fyi) and so it was a very intense month of fire fighting
-October, team leader finally comes back after 13 months of maternity leaves, I got hired when she was gone, I am almost immediately put on Employee Improvement Program (shape up or get out)
-November, doing new job thanks to the program to test my skills, I over perform and am thus removed from program but due to fire still there from September, paperwork never got done (this is my first and final mistake)
-December, get Bonus for year accomplishment, go me! New Project along with Christmas made no time
-January, terminated for business reasons, no joke that is the official story (note its been 3 months since the shape up warning thus legally time to let me go without fighting hence why it was a mistake to not push the issue due to fire fighting), I also realized after that since the warning, I had been doing the Team Leaders job, not my own, she basically got 3 months of no work thanks to me.
-Spent next couple of months hardcore fighting to find new job to pay mortgage, wasn't easy so with paychecks coming in soon I can relax a bit and go back to writing, very sorry for delay again