February 21st, 1941
Reich Chancellery, Berlin, Nazi Germany
Stunned and processing everything that he witnessed, Pug saw at the entrance of the stairs was General Armin von Roon. Tall, broad shouldered wrapped in a black leather greatcoat with brown eyes that that looked forward at Pug like he no longer knew how to be surprised, he wore shiny black leather gloves.
"Commander Henry" was the words out of Von Roon's mouth in perfect english, "A moment, if you please."
Pug nodded as he still heard the echo of the explosion that Arlecchino conjured from the pistol. He followed Von Roon, who led he through a broad corridor lined with marble columns aways from the camera, the chatting, and Hitler;s constant triumphant praise of the new otherworldly alliance that had just been officially formed. As Von Roon led Pug in a quiet sitting room, he closed the door behind them with a soft but heavy thud.
"Unsettling, hm?" Von room exhaled, "I warned you that it would change everything, did I not?" Pug kept his face still as he responded, "I'm not sure that 'unsettling' covers it, General…You don't usually see scythes that make mushroom clouds, General."
Von Roon gave a thing but humorless smile and replied, "No, I suppose it doesn't."
He gestured toward a painting of Fredreick the Great over a fireplace
"You must understand, Commander….none of this was planned…..not at first. The initial encounter was a cockup as the British would put it in their own vocabulary. A mistake….A small one at first…One that should have ended in a report about a failed experiment and a reprimand to a few physicists on wasting resources."
Von Roon removed his gloves and places them on neatly on a table besides the coffee tray in front of Pug.
Pug said nothing. He wasn't sure if he could trust his voice at this moment.Then Von Roon continued, "A radar anomaly, a misreading of atmospheric distortion…terms that I as a military officer has no understanding or grasp of….I do not know much about this project only what I have heard from my fellow comrades in the General Staff when it first started. But this is what our scientists were chasing in their belief for progress. But curiosity is a dangerous thing, Commander, Christopher Columbus was curious centuries ago and look what happened to the Indians in America. During this discovery from our scientists, someone with rank notices and then expectations rise of course."
Von Roon paced once around a chair before settling opposite to Pug.
"The First two experiments failed while conducting it in East Prussia. Wasting equipment that had Göring lecture about using up electrical power, one would think that it would be the end of it after that as was costing to many Marks." Von Roon's eyes hardened next, " But then came the third trial, a last ditch effort before its shut down, the experiment to toy with the weather tore something open in the testing facility."
Pug leaned forward out of curiosity.
"A gap of light appeared like a mirror of blue hanging for no more than four seconds. If the Reichsmarschall were not there himself to supervise it, then none of this would have happened afterwards….it would be taken as something out of the words of a few desperate scientists looking to keep their project going. Of course, Reichsmarschall Göring reported this result to the fuhrer. He smelled the possibility of a weapon, a new frontier."
"And what happened after that? I assume that it was not all roses and bushes." Pug responded feeling more and more curious.
Von Roon let out a dry breath through his nose. Something that was closest to laughter from a disciplined Prussian and Conservative German Monarchist would give.
"No, Commander. It certainly was not roses and bushes. What happened next was chaos…controlled of course….but chaos nonetheless. The Reichsmarschall demanded a full reconstruction of the apparatus that we now call the Gate...Twice the size…..Twice the power…..The scientists protested claiming that they needed months, but Göring gave them one week."
Von Roon grabbed a decanter of French Cognac and two small crystal glasses.
"Care for a glass?" He asked.
Pug nodded as he poured into the glasses and handed Pug one of them.
"On the next activation, they succeeded again in opening what they called the aperture ... .A window of blue larger than before ... .stable enough for observation and on the other side winter. A landscape of ice, snow, and cold so intense that one could compare it the Russian Winter and still find the landscape some how worse. The SS Liaison on station at the time was eager for glory as if he was Amundsen with the combination of an armband and spirit of national socialism, where he approached the opening to step in and then, Commander, a figure approach."
Pug felt the hairs on his arms rise as he spoke, "A figure."
Von Roon nodded slowly as he continued, "Yes, according to Reichsmarschall himself, when he spoke to the Fuhrer, the figure looked feminine as it approached like a shadow at the threshold of crossing, it stopped…just merely looked at the liaison."
"And was the female figure Arlecchino?" Pug asked as the first thought in his head.
"Apparently not, it was the Fatui call a Mirror Maiden…but how we learned that after what happened next came, the SS soldier grabbed his sidearm but before he could give it a shot to the aperture, it suddenly snapped shut and vanished before."
"From their side I assume?" Pug asked.
"Yes." Von roon tapped the arm of his chair, " Our scientists insisted that controls were not touched by human hands and that maybe the machine overloaded. Naturally, Göring reports the event to the Führer, who sends me personally to run the facility and see anything else that might happen with my own eyes. In the first weeks, after arrived nothing happened, but then…."
_________________________________________________________________________________________
October 21st, 1940
In the research bunker of the Luftwaffe Experimental Station - Rastenburg in East Prussia
The generator room was never supposed to be this loud when the machine was idle. Von Roon knew that much, even if the mathematics behind it were sorcery to him. He stood in the observation gallery above the main test chamber where the lights through the bunker flicker like as if power to them was failing constantly. The only issue was that tonight there was supposed to be no scheduled test.
"Status?" He asked with voice carrying easily in the cramped observation gallery.
"Idle, Herr General," replied the leading physicist on station, Dr. Krantz with thing pale hair receding on the top of his head, "The main field coils are powered down. We are running only a diagnostic current."
"Very good." Von roon checked his watch which showed 9pm, " Then the generators should not sound like a Panzer Regiment at full speed."
Dr. Krantz opened his mouth for a second and then shut it.
"It might just just be a resonance in the…."
He never got to finish the sentence as a sharp clank echoed from one of the relay cabinets on the far wall behind him. One indicator lamp blinked from green to bright flashing red with another lamp and another lamp then so on.
"Who touched that panel?" Von Roon's tone cut through the room like a whip cracking.
"No one, Herr General!" Dr. Krantz yelped, "The controls are locked. We have not….."
The hum deepened as down in the test chamber below them, the aperture began to appear again with a much more brighter blue shine and large enough to fit a tank through.
Krantz went white as a sheet in shock, "This is impossible. We have not engaged the primary field yet."
"Then it is obviously engaging itself," Von Roon yelled with a cold weight on his spine, "Shut it down."
The order triggered a flurry of motion with switches being snapped and levers being slammed down to the off position. However, nothing changed….
The hum swelled into a throbbing vibration that everyone in the observation galley could feel through their shoes and boots.
"Main power is rising still!" someone shouted in panic, "We are drawing power from the auxiliary grid."
"Cut the line from the Auxiliary!" Krantz cried.
"We did, Herr Doktor! It…..It is still feeding itself somehow!"
Then suddenly everything went silent as two shadows approached the aperture and stepped through the blue curtain. Von Roon felt his pulse hammering in his throat as the figures stepped through.
"Main Gott!" Dr.Krantz whispered.
"Everyone stay still" Von Roon said quietly.
Then two figures stepped through but one was the Mirror Maiden wearing blue and white uniform that would make the most beautiful berlin woman blush but the other was a female for sure. However, this second figure was different from the Mirror Maiden, the person was just as tall but slimmer with outfit that reminded von Roon of a magician on a stage with the colors of teal, white, black, and metallic sliver. The slimmer woman held a weapon that was a cross between a sickle and a scythe.
Then suddenly a third figure stepped out….this one too a woman. But from the distance above, he could instant differences. She wore a white long fur coat over her, but it was not the coat that he was interested in. What really terrified Von Roon all of a sudden is the unnatural darkness of her sclera, the dark red cross shaped pupils that glowed like embers in a dying camp fire. Later, Von Roon would learn her name…..Arlecchino.
"Identify yourselves," he said sounding unshaken, "This facility is property of the German Reich. You have crossed into sovereign territory."
The two soldiers if that is they could be called did not react. However, Arlecchino did as she tilted her head a fraction as if mildly curious about him. Her reply came through not with an echo but with clarity that resonated through the chamber.
"And you, General Armin Von Roon, have torn open curtains between worlds."
Von roon didn't answer as his eyes never left the aperture, while gasps erupted.
"How….How does she know your name?" a technician stammered as he nearly pissed his pants in shock.
"What do you want? And Why are you here?" was the demand from the General.
Arlecchino closed her eyes as she put her arms in her chest with something that might have been a smile.
"We seek," she continued, ""the one who governs your world. Your Führer. Your leader of men."
"Why?" von Roon asked.
Her eyes glowed brighter as she looked up at him with intimation.
"Because your world has touched ours, General. And such trespass cannot go unanswered, especially with your world having great potential for conflict…power…expansion. The Tsaritsa wishes to learn whether you are to be… an enemy, a puppet, or an ally."
Silence filled the air as the hum of the aperture deepened.
Arlecchino spoke again, "We will return when your Führer wishes to speak. Until then, General… do not attempt to open the way again."
Her eyes brightened one last time.
"And do not insult us by pretending it is your machine that controls the aperture."
The three women stepped back into the curtain as it flared then contracted inward and vanished, while the chamber went dark as the hum stopped.
Dr. Krantz slumped against a console and trembled like a man that had seen the end of the world.
"General…" one technician whispered, voice barely audible. "What… what happens now?"
Von Roon adjusted his uniform, smoothing the fabric with steady hands.
"Now?" he said quietly, "Now, gentlemen… I must contact Berlin."
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
February 21st, 1941
Reich Chancellery, Berlin, Nazi Germany
Pug found himself gripping the arm of his chair without realizing it. His pulse was still running as if she had stood in that Bunker and not Von Roon.
"So this was your…..first contact." Pug said with his voice low.
"The first formal contact," von Roon corrected with an edge of weary irony. "The moment we understood that we were dealing not with a weather phenomenon, not with the delusions of stressed scientists…but a structured empire."
He leaned back slightly, eyes narrowing in the reflection of memory.
"And one who does not, under any circumstances, ignore someone tearing a hole into her world."
Pug exhaled slowly. "And your Führer reacted… how?"
A faint smile ghosted across von Roon's mouth.
"As you would expect. He regarded it as destiny…..providence even. Proof that the Reich was chosen by history to bridge worlds together." His brow furrowed. "He demanded preparations for a diplomatic summit. He wanted to meet their envoys himself. To show them the full strength and grandeur of the Reich."
"And you let him?" Pug asked.
Von Roon's eyes flicked upward toward the ceiling, as though listening for echoes of the Führer's triumphant voice drifting faintly through the corridors.
"One does not stop the Führer, Commander Henry," he said. "One merely directs the current so it does not drown us. Remember when we talked about the pact that he made with the Soviet Union and divided up Poland. Great men can make terrible mistakes and maybe with greatness then they can overcome those mistakes….We are now seeing him possibly over come those mistakes."
"And with greatness," he continued, "come mistakes that ripple far beyond the borders of one nation. Poland is an example you know too well, Commander. We all do. Yet the Führer believes….truly believes…..that this… encounter…" He gestured subtly toward the courtyard windows, where distant cheers still echoed, "is the moment when history vindicates him. That the missteps with Moscow, the strain on logistics, even the British refusal to sue for peace…all of it will be overshadowed now."
Pug felt his jaw tighten. "Because of Snezhnaya."
"Because of a new world," von Roon corrected, eyes sharpening. "The promise of resources, power, knowledge that no earthly empire has ever possessed and the belief that he can shape these envoys into extensions of his will."
Von Roon's gloved hand tapped the armrest, slow and deliberate.
"In his mind, the universe itself has finally acknowledged the Reich. First Austria, then Czechoslovakia, then Poland, then France., and now…" His voice dipped into a heavy silence. "Now, Teyvat."
Pug felt a chill settle in his bones. "You make it sound as though he thinks this is all ordained."
Von Roon gave a soft, humorless exhale. "He speaks of it in such terms. 'A sign,' he calls it. 'A doorway meant for Germany alone.' He believes the Tsaritsa's envoys came because they recognized him as the inevitable victor of this age."
Pug shook his head slightly. "And you believe that?"
Von Roon's expression did not change, but something tightened behind his eyes.
"I believe and told by the envoys…like Arlecchino…." he said carefully, "that the Tsaritsa is many things….powerful, strategic, ruthless….but she does not kneel to any man; Especially not one from another world. I take the word of these envoys at face value because they are apparently what are called harbingers for their military, the Fatui. These Harbingers are like the meaning of the name where they foreshadow the strength and might of the Tsaritsa herself. For example, Arlecchino, she is the fourth out eleven and Pantalone is ninth. If you saw what Arlecchino can do, then imagine what the Tsaritsa herself or any above Arlecchino could do."
Pug stared at him, finally understanding the deep weariness beneath the general's polished exterior.
"You're afraid," Pug said quietly. "Not of the Führer. Of them."
Von Roon did not deny it.
"Any man who saw what I saw on October 21st and the events that followed afterward would be."
He straightened his coat, regaining the full posture of a senior officer.
"And now, Commander Henry," he said, "you have seen enough to understand why."
Hours Later in the newly refurbished Fatui Embassy in the Tiergarten's edge in Berlin
In a requisition neoclassical mansion that the Fatui acquired forcibly from a Jewish Family that nazi had long since moved. Soft lamplight washed across the neoclassical drawing room, pooling marble columns and gilded moldings remained. A set of heavy red curtains framed on tall windows that overlooked a dark Berlin street, while in the beyond the city kept moving with cars, boots, and distant songs.
The walls of the mansion had pale rectangles where they marked where portraits were once placed. However, one remained by accident where it showed a family of five with two boys and a girl.
Arlecchino's glaze remained on the children.
"They had three" she said quietly.
Across from her, seated on a velvet sofa was Pantalone as he glanced up from his papers.
"I am told, " he replied, "that they were a…'prominent banking family.' The Rosenfelds. This house and all its furnishings are now property of the Reich, placed at our disposal as a gesture of goodwill."
"And the Children?" She asked.
Pantalone adjusted his spectacles, the light glinting off the lenses.
"Relocated with their parents," he said simply, "Their files list transfer to a ghetto in Łódź. After that….well….Germany is still refining its policies."
The red crosses in Arlecchino's eyes flared faintly a she responded, "They stole a home from three children. For what? Optics? A Performance?"
"They're efficient at that," Pantalone continued, "Stealing…performing…conquering…humiliating even…That efficiency is why we are here, my dear Knave. They have organized cruelty and ambition into a state. We can work with that."
She turned toward with an eyebrow raised.
"You sound pleased."
"I am interested," was the response from the banker with a small smile, "Germany possess industrial capacity, disciplined labor, and a talent for obeying authority that shame half of Snezhnaya's ministries. They are at war with almost everyone and yet they still think in terms of balance sheets and resource allocation."
Pantalone tapped the papers in his lap.
He placed his paper down on a table as he pulled out a 10 piece Reichspfennig coin.
"See this currency that they use here? It is made of Zinc…a cheap, brittle metal that they resort to because their war devours all the cooper and nickel."
He flicked the coin into the air where it spun, a dull, gey gleam in the lamplight, before he snatched it back from the air.
"Their entire economy is this coin…a facade of strength built on the plunder and desperate substitution. They conquer their neighbors not just for ideology, but for scarp metal in their factories and the fuel in their. They are a predator, yes, but a starving one. And as I have learned many times before, a starving predator is a predictable one."
"That is a language I understand when I have my meeting with their ministers and the fat peacock himself."
Arlecchino's mouth twitched, the faintest hint of amusement.
"'Fat peacock'?" she echoed. "You mean Göring."
Pantalone's eyes glimmered behind the lenses.
"The very same. Reichsmarschall, head of the Luftwaffe and their four year plan, collector of paintings that do not belong to him." He flicked the coin once more, then let it vanish into a pocket. "He will want assurances that our 'miracle' can be reproduced on command. He will ask what 'trinkets' we can bring from Teyvat to level London or Moscow considering the plans that Hitler tells us for Barbarossa in months to come."
Arlecchino's gaze sharpened.
"Barbarossa," she repeated. "The march east. The attack on the Soviets….their supposed friends that they have signed a pact with."
Pantalone nodded lightly, as if discussing weather.
"They are already calculating routes, rail capacity, oil consumption. They speak of it in millions of tons and divisions. They imagine it as a matter of numbers." His mouth curled, just a fraction. "That, my lady, is our advantage. Men who think wars are only numbers are easy to… assist."
Arlecchino stepped away from the remaining family portrait, the hem of her coat whispering over the parquet. She approached the low table, glancing at the folder on top of Pantalone's stack. Names written in precise hand, underlined in Snezhnayan script beneath the German letters.
"Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk," she read aloud, tasting the unfamiliar syllables. "Walther Funk. Fritz Todt. Albert Speer. And…" Her eyes flicked to the final line. "…Hermann Göring."
Pantalone's smile broadened by a hair.
"Our dance card for tomorrow," he said lightly. "The Reich's purse, its currency, its concrete, its dreams of grand monuments… and its most flamboyant predator."
Arlecchino set the folder back down.
"You have studied them," she observed.
"It is my habit," he replied.
"The Northland Bank will not gift them anything. We will structure 'cooperation agreements' with shared research institutes, joint resource ventures, credit arrangements tied to their war production. Every factory they build with our assistance will be a string we can pull later. Every shipment of ore, fuel, or crystal will pass through our ledgers."
Arlecchino watched him for a moment, the firelight catching the red crosses in her eyes.
"And the Tsaritsa?" she asked. "What does she gain from these men and their empire of zinc coins and stolen houses?"
Pantalone's tone turned almost reverent.
"Experience," he said. "Data ... .Access…..A proving ground for like it. They will take our gifts and hurl them at their enemies like these land cruisers that Dottore made. We will see how this world fights when given tools beyond its comprehension. We will learn what works and what fails before we ever have to test such things against our own rivals in Teyvat. Something that I am sure that Dottore will be most pleased to see in terms of results. Experiments that we can conduct that might be questionable without Celestia or the Heavenly Principles watching."
Later that night
United States Embassy, Berlin in Prariser Platz
Nobody in the United States Embassy could sleep easily anymore, even at this hour near midnight, the building sounded like a fortress that was under siege with typewriters cleaning in the back offices, the distant whining of a generator in the basement, the rumble of traffic circling the dark bulk of the Brandenburg Gate that was just byond the courtyard.
Pug climbed the staircase to the second floor on leg that started to feel heavier and heavier than they had been, even at the end of any sea watch that he did in his younger years. He paused for a moment outside the door marked 'MILITARY ATTACHÉS' with his name and the name of army partner 'Colonel William Forrest' on it and then pushed it open. The room was cramped for the two of them with desks piled with dispatches, a steel filling cabinet, and a portrait of a navy schooner as right beside Pug's desk. Colonel Forrest was not found anywhere at all.
Pug walked to his desk and sat in a chair as he grabbed a typewriter and began to write a report that he never believed would ever be written. Many ideas went through his head. How can all of this be described in a way that did not make him sound insane? How can one simply tell the President of the United States that one of Hitler's new allies came from somewhere that can be found on a local map? He pulled a sheet of paper with the letterhead of the US embassy on it and began typing for a while. Listing everything that he saw witnessed, felt, heard, and learned afterwards. He mentioned his discussion with Von Roon. However, the main things that focused on was the explosion that Arlecchino conjured and the experiment in East Prussia. He wrote the titles of Arlecchino and Pantalone as von Roon had given them: envoys of the Tsaritsa of Snezhnaya. He described Arlecchino's eyes, because if he left that out, some clerk back in Washington would assume he was being poetic rather than literal. After several pages, he began with his finals section, something that he was always good….the thing that had him predict the pact that Hitler made with Stalin, something he felt was coming in the weeks before the war started and put Pug on the President's radar for his insight.
This section had a titled of: Preliminary Personal Assessment of Situation. After a while, he finished that section and with a click from the Typewriter pulled the sheet off and signed his name to it. He read through everything that he had written and could not help thinking in his mind.
"Victor, this is sounding insane. This could be a career ender, but so was the prediction about Hitler's Pact with Stalin and you were right in the end and the President told you to write to him personally on my ideas and assessment…anything important. So I guess I am just doing my job, we will see how the President reacts to it as this is important" were the words that went through his mind.
He folded the pages carefully, slid them into a heavy brown envelop, and sealed it. He then grabbed an ink stamp and placed the following on a corner of the envelope:
PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTAL.
Pug stared at the words for a long moment. On impulse, he uncapped his pen again and, and beneath the stamp added in block letters:
FOR THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
"You've really done it this time, Victor," he thought. "First you tell the President Hitler's going to climb into bed with Stalin, now you tell him Hitler's shaking hands with a woman from another world."
He turned out the desk lamp and stepped into the corridor.
The embassy at night always felt different where is less like a diplomatic mission, more like a ship riding out a storm in hostile waters. The hallway lights were dimmed, the air faintly tinged with coal smoke and floor polish. Somewhere far off, a typewriter rattled and stopped…A phone rang once and was hushed. Downstairs, the Marine on duty at the front hall desk snapped to attention as Pug came down the last few steps.
"Evening, sir," the Marine said.
"Is Mr. Taylor still on in Communications?" Pug asked.
"Yes, sir. Last I saw he was going over outgoing pouch manifests."
"Good." Pug tapped the briefcase lightly. "I've got something that has to go in tomorrow's bag. Most secret, for Washington. I'll log it with him."
The Marine nodded and resumed his post as Pug turned down the corridor toward the communications office. He found Taylor, who is a thin man with rolled-up sleeves and ink stains on his fingers, sitting at a metal desk under a shaded lamp, going through a stack of forms. The safe in the corner stood open, the battered leather diplomatic pouch lying on the table beside it.
"Commander Henry?" Taylor blinked, pushing his glasses up his nose. "It's late. Everything all right?"
"That depends on your definition," Pug said. He set the briefcase on the table, opened it, and laid the envelope down. "I need this entered into the pouch for the next courier. Mark it as Personal and Confidential for the President. No copies, no detours."
Taylor read the stamp in the corner, and some of the color left his face.
"Yes, sir," he said quietly. He took the envelope as if it were made of glass, checked that the flap was properly sealed, and then slid it into the mouth of the pouch. The heavy leather creaked as it swallowed the new weight.
Taylor pulled the drawstring, knotted it, then turned the key in the small brass lock.
"I'll note it in the log and tell the Ambassador first thing in the morning," he said. "Courier car leaves for Tempelhof at 0700. Weather permitting, the plane will be in Lisbon by nightfall."
"And from there," Pug said, "it's just a hop across the Atlantic."
"Yes, sir."
Taylor hesitated. "May I ask… in general terms… what it's about?"
Pug considered that for half a heartbeat.
"In general terms," he said, "it's about the fact that the war we thought we understood isn't the war we're actually in anymore."
Taylor swallowed and nodded. "I'll make sure it gets there, Commander."
"I know you will," Pug said.
He signed the pouch register where Taylor indicated, the scratch of his pen oddly loud in the quiet room. Then he straightened, suddenly aware of how tired he was.
As he left, he cast one last glance at the locked bag sitting on the table….plain, scuffed, anonymous. Somewhere inside it was a neat stack of embassy paper that might change the way the men in Washington looked at every map on their walls.
Back in the courtyard, the cold hit him like a slap. Above the dark rectangle of the Brandenburg Gate, the winter sky was low and cloudy, hiding the stars.
"And somewhere beyond that," he thought, "there's ice and a woman with red-cut eyes who thinks our whole world is a question on her ruler's exam."
He drew his coat tighter around himself.
"The ball's in your court now, Mr. President," Pug murmured under his breath.
Then he went back inside, letting the embassy door close behind him with a soft, heavy thud that sounded, to his ears, very much like the end of a chapter.