1 Volume 1 Chapter 1 (RE): Gathering Storm

The crunch of damp leaves echoed through the damp forest.

The light rain transitioned into a heavy downpour.

Despite the rain the moon still permeated the clouds. The silver moonlight etched all things which made seeing objects easier, but color was not very visible.

Two sets of feet clamped on the soft layer of leaves which lined the pathway. Hurried breaths synchronized as the pair rushed past trees which extend about 20 meters in the air.

Several faint shouts could be heard from behind them as dim glows of light darted along the outline of the dark trees behind the pair.

The two kept running until they exited the foliage and into the moonlight. Rain kept pouring down and soaked their clothes. One was clearly a male and the other female.

The boy quickly took the girl's hand and leaped off the cliff. His other hand grabbed the ledge and launched him into the side of the cliff still clutching his partner's hand using their weight as a counter balance to increase momentum.

The tips of his shoes as well as the palms of his hand glowed with yellow light as he quickly recited something as he swung into the cliffside.

The moment his limbs touched the stone surface of the cliffside his arms and legs sank into the stone as if it was jelly.

The girl yelped as she held onto the waist of the boy as he sunk into the rock.

Then he stopped chanting and the yellow light receded.

His body and the forearms of the girl were stuck in the stone but they didn't fall into the drop into the abyss below them as the stone held them in place.

They were hiding in the shadow of the cliffside.

"Andrew, we could have fell!"

"I trust my abilities."

A few seconds later several noises came from the tree line.

Voices could be heard above them as twelve outlines emerged from that same tree line.

The figures were all male and of various heights and builds. They all wore bluish uniforms with light metal plates on top covering the breast and shoulders. They all holistered short sabers on their side but clutched small short carbines in their hands (AU: like cavalry carbines, one shot. They are kinda like Portuguese arquebusiers).

Several held torches which were the source of the light in the forest.

All of them cautiously inched forward towards the cliff. Doctrine dictates that extreme caution is to be taken in areas of potential ambushes.

A man who clearly looked like the senior officer stepped out after his men. His fancier blue uniform and heavier armor distinctively enhanced his image. A large golden boar was etched into the back of his uniform.

It glittered in the moonlight.

He angrily ushered his men forward violating this doctrine outline.

He grabbed the back collar of a soldier and pushed him forward.

"Fuck, where did they go?"

"Sir, they jumped off the cliff. Our training mandates that we express extreme caution!"

The officer turned to his subordinate who was jostled by him earlier.

"Nonsense the royalty wouldn't just kill themselves like that, their precious crown prince even sacrificed his life for them."

He completely ignored the complaint.

The officer pointed a gloved hand towards a squad of three behind him.

"You three, stay here. Company on me!"

The officer took the rest of the company with him with him as they turned left and traced the rest of the path leading down into another forest.

One hour passed. Then two.

The boy and the girl waited for the soldiers to leave.

The soldiers on standby grew restless.

"Fucking donkey of an officer. Wait here my ass. This rain will kill us faster than the cold. I rather throw myself off the cliff with the royalty."

"Fuck off Smyth, that's the last thing I want."

"Hey brother (AU: not actually brothers) I'm serious stop bickering, when this war ends I'm going home. I'm done with this crap. For the people my ass, 3rd prince Joseph can suck it."

"Watch your tongue Matthias. If the officer catches you, you're going to be hanged for treason."

"What treason? We already won the war! Crown Prince Phillip is dead, his army is also gone. The Grand Duke Nina is in prison and her faction is being purged. Thanks to General Nelson betraying them we easily swept their forces."

"What about the Master Marshal? He's still at large! Not to mention we have a very important task at finding the 4th and 2nd prince and princess."

Just then the officer returned with his squad.

The company which he led was drenched in rain and exhausted. The officer was glowing slightly which made the rain wash over him but did not wet him.

He beckoned the one named Smyth over to him and Smyth gave him a compass. He turned around a few times, adjusted himself then turned a bit more until he was satisfied.

Then the entire company left and headed back along the trail.

"Mhmmmfffff"

"Shhhhh, Adriana, quiet down. This might be a feint maneuver."

Sure enough the trio circled back and did a final check.

They swept the entire cliffside but did not check to look over the cliffside.

"Nothing here."

"Clear."

"All clear."

The three then regrouped and hurried back to their company. After they faded out of sight and footsteps turned to silence, the two emerged from the cliffside.

Once they reached the top Andrew collapsed into the arms of Adriana.

The outline of the two people revealed them as young adults. Andrew's complexion was more rugged than Adriana's but that was to be expected in this harsh world.

"Damn, that took way too much magic power and stamina to hang like that. My arms are sore from being stuck in the stone"

Adriana sniffled a bit. The cold rain gave her a red nose.

"Brother, we need to keep going. They are not just going to give up here. We need to reach Wallaceburg. The Master Marshal said that he would meet us there in two days from now."

"I know I know."

Andrew swatted Adriana's fingers which were systematically poking his cheeks as he lay in her lap. Her long golden hair tickled his nose.

Andrew's short blonde hair was matted with dirt and ground stuff.

"There."

Andrew spotted a cave entrance on the stone wall adjacent to them. It arched over part of the forest in which they had emerged from.

"We need shelter or this rain will kill us."

"Okay."

Then the two struggled to reach the cave. Andrew used what remained of his magic power to get one arm to the top. Then he used physical power to lift the rest of his body.

Afterwards he leaned over the short cliff and grabbed Adriana's hand while pulling her up. They would spend the remainder of the rainy night in this cave.

______________________________

(AU: This part is copied from Extra Chapter 1. I do however make changes.)

January 14th, 2XXX

The wind was very chilly that day. The weather forecasts predicted about 2 inches of snow. A silhouette of a man walked down the streets of New York City, New York.

"This is way more then 2 inches."

The Justin grumbled as he was wrapped in a flannel patterned scarf and a black winter jacket. His hands were gloved and shoved into his pockets.

He quickly walked to a door with access to the street. Trucks and cars passed by as normal but pedestrians were far and few.

He fumbled pair of keys from his left jacket pocket. It was a small metal loop with several small keys and one larger brass key.

He selected the brass key and inserted it into one of the keyholes. Then he turned the lock and moved on to the next keyhole. After doing this twice more the door unlocked and he went inside to escape the snow and wind.

Inside the door was a small room with a mat and stairs leading up and down. A hallway was on Justin's left which led to the shared laundry room and basement.

He brushed the snow off of his boots and started to walk up the stairs.

After reaching the second floor he entered through the heavy green metal door. On his left three doors down was his destination.

After unlocking the door with another small brass key with an orange star on it, Justin walked through.

He took his scarf off and put it on a peg on the wall. He then took his jacket and put it in the closet.

"Justin! Are you back?"

"Yes I am back."

Justin heard the shrill voice of his older sister.

Chloe Wang was about 5' 6", a 19 year old sophomore in college. She went to RIT in upstate New York but was home for the weekend.

"Since you are up and dressed already, take the trash out!"

"No you do it!"

Justin couldn't really argue with his older sister so he grudgingly gathered the trash bag from their small kitchen and headed out the door, down the second floor corridor and down the stairs.

He opened the back door of the corridor on the ground floor near the laundry room and entered an alleyway.

Back here were two large green dumpsters and a few alleyway cats.

Occasionally they get a few homeless people. There was one person wandering the alleyway but Justin paid him no attention.

After lifting the lid of the dumpster and chucking the trash in he turned around.

"Fancy a dollar?"

"Jesus you scared me."

The other person was directly behind him.

Justin could swear that he was at least several dozen feet from him when he opened the dumpster.

"Hey man, I don't got cash on me."

"Then anything helps, I can return the favor."

"What do you mean?"

"You will see, now child will you take this chance with an old man you never met before?"

"What are you the devil?"

The Justin stopped laughing. This was NYC, people got mugged everyday.

"Alright man, just for you. Here, $10."

Justin pulled a crinkled Hamilton from his pocket and gave it to the old man.

The old man chuckled and then raised his right hand parallel to Justin's forehead.

"Good day to you, enjoy your gift."

Then he walked away and turned a corner into the street.

"Wait! What? What did you do?"

Just ran and turned the same corner but the old man had vanished.

"What the hell?"

————————————

Justin went back to his apartment where he was greeted by his mother.

She worked the day at a financial business conglomerate.

"Hi honey, back from your job?"

"No, I just got back from taking the trash out."

Justin decided to hide his encounter with a mysterious old man.

Justin worked part time at the library so he frequents it often.

This time however his sister emerged from her room.

Her full body was visible as she entered the kitchen.

Wearing a black sweatshirt with an orange RIT logo on it she seemed like the typical college student. She wore really short sports pants which created the illusion of not wearing anything besides the sweatshirt.

She was not lacking in any departments but not overly exaggerated anywhere. She was very pretty but Justin didn't really care. She was his annoying older sister.

"Someone was too lazy to take it out so they waited for me to do it."

"As if."

"Haha very funny."

Justin's mom then walked into the kitchen and made four cups of instant coffee.

"Here take one Chloe. Justin, take the last cup to your older brother."

Justin reaches over and took his and his brother's cups. He took a sip of his and walked down the small hallway to his shared room with his older brother.

"Fuck! Revive me you cunts!"

His older brother Jordan was screaming into his mic while playing his PC game.

"Hey I got you coffee."

"Oh thanks, FUCK OFF AND FUCKING REVIVE M DIPSHIT! IF YOU DON"T FUCKING REVIVE ME SO I CAN HARD CARRY YOU SHITS I WILL SHOVE YOUR FUCKING MIC DOWN YOUR THROAT"

He continued to explode at his monitor as Justin went his his desk.

""I could do my homework but I have about three hours of downtime. I could play a bit of WoI2 (will of iron 2.)""

WoI2 is a 3rd person interactive historical WW2 simulator game where you complete focuses, train units, do decisions and interact with economy, diplomacy and all the other fun things. From espionage to nuclear warfare it has everything. All technologies are locked behind timed researches so it is strategic as you must think ahead of your opponents.

He started up his PC and ran the program. While waiting for his game to load as it was a large file, he put his headphone jack wire earpods in to tune his socially challenged older brother out.

Justin was browsing the workshop for the game for mods when he came across a mod labeled 'Alt-Monarchy Germany'.

After downloading the mod, Justin booted up Will of Iron II and installed the mod. This mod was set in an alternative Germany 1939.

At this time the world was seriously heating up as the vanilla Germany would blitzkrieg into Poland. This would draw Britain and France into the war and explode into the World War Two we know of today.

However this mod takes history down a new path where Operation Valkyrie occurred in 1941 and was to gives rise to Wilhelm X, a made up Kaiser.

By this time your nation, the German Empire or simply the Empire, has 99 infantry, 3 mountain, 2 light motorized, 4 motorized, 8 tank divisions and 89% of all German weaponry seized. Majority of the Luftwaffe (AU: German air force) and Kreigsmarine (German navy) defect to your side with their respective commanders since there are ongoing grudges with the army.

A good portion of the Heer (German army) also defect. Since Hitler's regime is unpopular in occupied territories of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland and France, you also obtain their hidden caches of weapons and one million volunteers, broken right? Wrong. You are plagued with numerous debuffs such as:

[Disorganized Army]

All Divisions:

- 120 attack

- 80 defense

- 10 piercing

- 25 organization

[Political Instability]

- 1.5 daily political power (PP)

+ 20% consumer factory

- 20 war support

[Far-Right Protests]

- 30 stability

- 10 war support

+ 15% consumer factories

+ 30% justify wargoal time

[Allied Partisans]

+ 0.3 intelligence gathering speed

+ 5 division speed

+ 0.5 scavenge

[Successor of the 2nd Reich]

+ 10 stability

[Civil War]

- 100 trade deal

- 50 acceptance of fascist diplomacy

+ 50 acceptance of democratic diplomacy

These were some crippling national goals. Justin needed to get rid of some, especially disorganized army since it made pushing tiles huge pains in the ass.

The best way was to win the civil war quickly. With all of the occupied land except Slovakia since it was a German direct puppet. Taking control of western Austria and Germany the borders were quite large.

Even with all this territory the Reich was not an easy enemy to fight. They controlled most of the industrial centers and had superior armed forces compared to the partisans in Poland and Western Europe.

Oil is a problem since Justin does not have access to the Romanian oilfields but the US is lend-leasing enough oil to sustain the effort. They also are sending rifles, ammunition, food stuffs, vehicles, tanks and planes as part of the Lend-Lease.

After about a hour he stopped his game to go eat dinner.

In the kitchen gathered around an undersized table was his brother and sister as his mother was making dinner.

Apparently Jordan got so pissed at his friends that he almost broke the desktop and Chole had to stop him.

"Chloe, why didn't you help make dinner."

Jordan was clearly annoyed that she interrupted his break-computer-tantrum.

"What? Is it because I am a woman? That's sexist you shut in gamer. Stop screaming so loudly, it's like you are having sex in there. If I didn't interfere with your sex livestream then you would have needed a winter job"

"Screw off would you? I was not filming a porno you cunt. I don't spend every waking minute in front of a mirror or making videos for your social media. Go post your breasts on SNS or something."

"How rude. There is more to me than my chest."

"Leaves more to be desired"

"Huhhh? Repeat that please?"

"Make me!"

The two siblings were about to fight with Justin sitting next to his brother trying to hold him back from lunging out of his chair.

"Come in kids, stop bickering. Jordan, apologize, that was mean."

"Sorry."

Chloe stuck her tongue out and Justin could see a vein bulging on Jordan's forehead.

"Man, stop. You are going to die from a brain aneurism."

Jordan then calmed down enough to eat. Justin couldn't get the image of the old man waving in front of his forehead out of his head. What did he do?

"Justin, pass the soy sauce."

Justin reached over to the sauce container.

Then he blinked twice. He swore he could see it glow slightly.

Then he passed it to his sister.

"So Justin, how is your love life."

"Don't tease me, you know the answer to that."

"I know, but at least you have a shot unlike a certain someone."

"WHAT?"

"Sit down Jordan."

"Okay mom."

Justin then pondered. He was quite busy and never really thought of what we would do. He was 18 already and never had his first kiss. His sister was way more popular than he was so she would know.

"What do you suggest?"

"Hmm, I will bring you to a party next Friday. 8:00pm."

"Chloe, I said no parties."

"Mom, this is for Justin. He needs to come out of his shell."

"Hmm, okay I will allow it."

Justin started to blink. When did his sister ever care this much for him? Yes she beat up another kid in his grade back in elementary school who picked on him but that was for her personal enjoyment.

They quickly finished dinner and went back to their rooms.

"You sure vixen, you are using me as an excuse to go to the party."

"So? At least you will go to one."

Justin could feel his veins exploding. Chloe does a real good job getting on his family's nerves.

"Haha, we will see."

Chloe then closed her door and Justin went back to his computer.

"Ah fuck. I forgot to pause the game."

The game has been running while he was away. What was supposed to be at 1941 was at 1948. He missed several years.

"Screw it. I'm doing my work, at least I got the achievement."

After closing the game out he started to his college work. It was around midnight where he got bored and restarted WoI 2.

He kept loaded his 1941 save file and kept playing.

Justin reorganized his armies and redid everything he did earlier. This time he would LARP to Berlin (AU: LARP refers to idiots who create border gore and snipe VP (victory points) in order to capitulate an enemy faster).

He gathered all of his tank and motorized divisions in central Germany and placed them under General Rommel. Then they pushed though the defensive pocket around eastern Germany and started to LARP to Berlin.

In a two pronged pincer attack from the south and west on Berlin. Justin almost took the city, which would end the war, when he glanced at his clock.

6:00am

"Fuck."

He looked around and his older brother was already passed out at his desk in front of the lobby screen at his computer.

Justin could feel his head grow heavy. Small tracers of light were swirling through the room. Justin was too groggy to notice or care for that matter.

Then he blacked out.