“Fight for equality! Fight for your pride! Fight for your dignity! Utilize the new face of men's war machines against their magic - the Panther Mechs! Join the Republican Mech Cavalry Regiments in the nearest recruitment centers!"

- Provisional Government War Propaganda posters to recruit LSS Mech Pilots, City of Eirhow.

"Her Majesty Wants You - Nearest Recruiting Station."

- Royalist War Propaganda posters, City of Eutstadt.

"We beat her before - we'll beat her again."

- Lorathian Anti-Larissan War Propaganda, City of Redcastle.

+++

"So that's where it all comes down to?"

The sigh from Her Majesty was beyond lifeless, as she settled down in the seat of William’s armored SUV. The previous one had, unfortunately, been quite damaged by the blast during…well, Amelie preferred not to remember that missile strike. All she could say now about that event was that she really preferred being in the bunker more nowadays.

“At the very least, the offensive hadn’t been bogged down in the first of their defense lines. That would have been the true disaster.”

“Still, the casualties.”

“It’s a part of war.”

And she loathed it. She had already seen enough dead over the course of the battle, from the civilians to the common soldier. She even had a close call once with it. To die from war, she realized, was one of the worst ways to go.

She could hardly forgive the previous Queens of Orland now as the reality of warfare truly bore through her. How could they send millions of young men to such hellish conditions? Worse…how could she do the same?

Was there any justification?

What difference was her actions from the previous Queens of Orland?

And why…why were men like William and Kleist, or Albert for that matter, so determined to fight for her victory? It was a difficult question that she struggled to answer. What made her so special?

“You’re troubled, aren’t you?”

“Who wouldn’t be, William?”

The city they passed through wasn’t what Amelie had remembered. It was almost as if everything she grew up with were being taken away, one by one. The stores, the roads, the elegant architecture of Halia’s buildings, all seemed dirtied by the war. Some were gone, turned into nothing but rubble.

She looked at one of the famous Universities of Halia, the Sichten Institute, which once conducted advanced research on dimensional magic, but was now abandoned. While it still held its grace and elegance, and the buildings in the complex seemed pristine, there were no more lights. No more activity. Just stone-cold silence.

Stone-cold silence was the state of the center of the city. While the sound of distant warfare could still be heard, and they did pass through the occasional lines of civilians that followed the police and Royal Guard knights on the ground for the constant stream of evacuations, the city was devoid of true life. True activity. Only the rumbles of tank threads, the occasional dashing convoys of trucks and armored cars, or the fast metallic thuds of the LSS mechs that moved forward in groups to the frontline was the activity.

Or those lines of marching OAF troops that headed toward the front. That was it. There were no more civilian activities. Truly, her city had become one with war. The only business here was war, no more.

And if war isn’t your business…you must leave.

She just hoped that the evacuations were going smoothly at last. She wanted to fight a clean battle for once. One where her civilian subjects would not be in danger. Anything less would be a failure on her part, and she could not afford failure, again and again, she reminded herself. Failure would mean death for her subjects. Failure meant blood on her hands.

“Sometimes, you just cannot control the circumstances.”

“That’s no excuse, William.”

“Do you not like excuses?”

She gave her a side-eye. What kind of a question was that? Of course, she did not like to make excuses. It was…not good. It would not reflect well on her, being the Queen. If disaster struck under her tenure, that would be her responsibility.

“Of course I don’t. It makes you complacent. It prevents you from learning your lessons.”

“And are you learning your lessons?”

She wanted to say yes, but hardly could say yes. Instead, she fell silent as she looked at the passing, ruined streets as William’s SUV drove through the central city district. Did she learn her lesson? Surely, if she did, none of this would have happened.

“Slowly.”

“Better than nothing.”

“It’s not enough.”

“Everyone learns that way.”

“I’m not like everyone else. I’m the Queen. I’m supposed to be better. To be more capable. Able to lead. Able to learn. Someone everyone would follow.”

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“We are following you. But what you outlined are just the issues of a hereditary monarchy, and are not your fault. You were born for power as outlined by the system, but you are not ready for it.”

He’s blaming the system, not me. But I on the other hand am blaming myself. I’m such…

She supposed she conducts self-pity way too much. But who wouldn’t, at the scale of disaster her Kingdom faced in her reign?

William made a right turn, and just as suddenly, he pressed on the break and stopped. The vehicles behind William’s SUV were manned by members of the 16th - William’s battalion, stopped as well, and William pulled out his radio.

“What is happening?”

“Something.”

“Something what?”

He didn’t reply, as he began conversing rapidly through his radio. Outside, William’s men left their vehicles and began forming a perimeter around the convoy. Amelie’s heartbeat rose as she watched the event unfold, and instinctively, she pulled out the wand tucked in her dress.

If the worst ever arrived, she would be ready.

“Please confirm that, Echo Two.”

“William…”

“Just stay calm. Echo Two, are you sure there are contacts in that lane?"

The muffled transmission wasn’t clearly heard by Amelie, as her eyes darted around the abandoned road. The buildings ahead were silent, and there were swathes of abandoned cars beside the road as well. Something…something wasn’t right.

“William…is there…”

Her eyes went wide, and her heartbeat almost stopped. Dread filled her veins, just as her instincts to activate her mana overrode her mind. Her body called, and her gift answered. Defend. Defend. Defend her life.

The sudden shot slammed right in front of the windshield - the thing almost cracking. It was bulletproof, but the size of the bullet that hit…

“SNIPER!”

William’s men dispersed just as quickly when he shouted, and so did their weapons, as lead was unloaded haphazardly in the sniper’s general direction by their guns. While Amelie was frozen, her mind snapped back into action as she pulled her wand, her eyes suddenly glowing blue.

And so did William. In a slight, abject sense of error, he had misjudged the sudden reverse of their SUV and slammed straight into a streetlight, which collapsed down at their vehicle. But a sudden burst of blue light pulsed the metal off from hitting their roof directly, and the debris fell to the side of the street.

Close call.

She hadn’t done that spell for a while, but it certainly worked.

“I do apologize for my driving skills, but thank goddess you pulled out your wand now.”

“What do we do?”

Another shot pinged at the SUV’s tires, and immediately, they were without it. Now, Amelie and William were both sitting ducks.

“Well, we would definitely have to leave.”

“I…the windshield isn’t going to hold, isn’t it?”

“Two or three shots, give or take.”

“I-I’ll try to cast a shield on both of us.”

“You sure?”

“I will.”

William looked at his men outside, who were still firing controlled bursts at a building three hundred meters ahead. Somewhere around the 17th story of what appeared to be an abandoned office building was where the shot came from, and they were saturating it with gunfire. Perhaps, if they could simultaneously suppress and exit the vehicle, their heads would be intact.

“Alright, I’ll radio them to conduct suppressive fire. You do your thing.”

“I won’t disappoint you.”

She focused her mind as more of her mana activated. One by one, the formulas that she had memorized appeared, and she began conducting mental calculations to derive the best ones to create a field around the two of them. She aimed to manipulate the gravity around the two and form a thin energy field around it that could stop the bullets headed her way.

Luckily, she had a preset of the spell in her wand’s database and only had to manipulate it to suit the environment. And with that, she chanted it in her mind.

[Barrier]

It was a blue field, which materialized around their SUV. Upon seeing it, William called out for his troops to begin the suppressive fire. The command immediately jolted each soldier up from their covers, as their rifles began to spit fire together.

The two took the opportunity rather quickly, as they both exited the dead SUV and flopped into cover. Amelie herself kept the magical shield on both of them before she turned it off upon finding cover. No need to waste mana.

“Well, this really is unfortunate.”

“William, did you call for help already.”

“Of course, I did.”

“How far?”

“Three minutes.”

He pulled up his submachinegun, which Amelie had only seen once before, and fired at the distance. The two of them were holed up behind a damaged civilian car, red in color. Amelie herself kept her head down, as she really only had her wand with her. And while she could probably do some really great things with it, she would rather not, because a screw-up in such a situation would be awful.

She wasn’t a Knight or a combat mage. Fantasize all she liked, and even if she knew the spells (which she did), she didn’t know how exactly she could implement them in a practical sense. Outside of perhaps defending herself in desperation.

But still, I need to do something.

But the sniper was too far. There was nothing she could do. Perhaps she could send a beam of concentrated laser on that building, but, that would just be property damage.

Then again that doesn’t really matter. They are shooting at that building after all.

She really needed to do something. A scream emanated ahead of them. One of William’s troops suddenly dropped from the battle in blood. Gunfire from below - the road ahead itself, began pouring in.

“Shit! There’s more of them!” One of them shouted.

“Can we hold?” Amelie asked William, who replied with a grunt.

"Echo Three is still en route.”

“They're just a few minutes away, right?”

William didn't reply to her, but instead barked his orders as he fired back at the OIA agents.

“They’re charging at us. Men! Fire back! Don’t let them get Her Majesty!”

Amelie watched as a surge of combat cries came from William’s men. The controlled burst of their weapons fired at the advancing, urban camoed, hostile troops. Amelie gave a quick burst of her wide viewing spell at them and saw that the group had OIA patches on their shoulders.

More importantly, she saw where each of them were. There were twenty-four of them, all scattered in covered positions around the road. They advanced at them rapidly as they hopped from cover to cover to get to her.

So that guy wants me gone.

Well, she expected as much.

Amelie mustered all the courage that she could get, and she looked at her options. She needed a way to fight them off quickly. And since she had magic, perhaps, it was now time to use it seriously. But how?

How would she use it? She looked again at the battlefield. The bastards were now fast approaching, and William’s men were being forced back. Many were dropping. She needed to act.

Come on…come on…oh. That’s…a crazy idea.

But maybe, it would work.