Hearthguard Cairn, Murica Embassy
The standoff remained frozen.
"Bring them to our base to clear the allegations," the dwarven commander insisted, voice echoing from inside his armor.
"And let you lock them up?" the MSG lead replied. "No deal. Send your investigators here."
High above the entrance, Levi peeked through the study window, carefully pulling the curtain aside just enough to look without committing to being seen.
"Well," he murmured, amused, "this is interesting."
He glanced back at the MSG commander inside the room. "Have we contacted anyone outside?"
"No, sir," the commander replied. "Our mana communications are jammed. We can't reach the fleet—or even the dwarves—for an explanation."
Levi returned to his chair, unbothered, and held out his empty glass. Mara refilled it without a word.
"Well," Levi said casually, "what do you think, Mara?"
"Whoever's behind this," he said, swirling his wine, "has been planning it for a long time."
"Mhm." Levi nodded. "They are more entertaining than the Vandorians, I'll give them that."
Mara raised an eyebrow. "What do you think their next step is?"
"What else?" Levi shrugged. "After this, they'll manufacture a—"
BOOOOOOM
The explosion shook the building. Windows rattled. Wine sloshed dangerously close to the rim.
"—firefight," Levi finished, smiling.
---
"One of our men is down!" a dwarven soldier shouted.
On a nearby rooftop, a steam-armor unit burned, fire and smoke pouring from its joints.
Both forces raised their weapons.
"Control, was that us?" The MSG operative barked into his comm.
"Negative," came the reply. "No shots fired."
"THAT WASN'T US!" the MSG shouted toward the dwarves.
He motioned sharply, signaling his men to retreat toward the embassy entrance—slowly, weapons raised, fingers tense.
"HOLD YOUR FIRE!" the dwarven commander ordered, though his hand-cannon remained trained squarely on the demons.
The MSG team continued inching backward.
BOOM BOOM
Shots slammed into the reinforced door behind them.
"WHAT!?" the dwarven commander roared. "WHO'S FIRING!?"
The MSGs didn't wait to find out.
RATATATATATA!
They opened fire.
The dwarven commander raised his shield as other steam-armor units responded with their cannons.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
RATATATATATA!
Windows shattered. Brass-plated dwarven suits fired from rooftops. MSG riflemen answered from embassy windows.
The three operatives outside dove through the entrance and slammed the door shut just as bullets hammered against it.
---
Inside the study, Levi and Mara continued sipping their wine.
RATATATATATAT!
"So," Levi said thoughtfully, "we're trapped?"
"Yes, sir."
"No secret tunnels?"
"No, sir. The dwarves chose this building specifically because it has no escape routes and is impossible to dig tunnels without them noticing."
Levi nodded slowly.
"Since they're master diggers," he said.
"That's right, sir…"
---
200 Nautical Miles East of Ravendawn
SPLAAAASH
An explosion geysered seawater across the deck.
"MAGES! SHIELDS TO MAXIMUM!" The Ravendawn captain ordered.
BOOM
Another shell struck the barrier, flaring into fire before it could touch the hull.
"WE'RE IN RANGE!" Someone shouted.
"HELMSMAN—HARD STARBOARD!" The ship captain roared.
The ship heeled sharply as it turned, exposing its upgraded broadside.
Thirty-two Murican-made WWII M3 37mm anti-tank guns lined the hull.
"FIRE!"
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM—
Thirty-two shells tore across the sea, streaking straight toward the dwarven destroyer.
---
20 Kilometers Away, Dwargonian Airship Patrol
A brass-plated medium cruiser airship cut through the sky a thousand meters above the ocean, its steam chimneys belching thick black smoke.
"Captain!" a crewman shouted. "Emergency mana-broadcast from a merchant ship—they're under attack by a Ravendawn vessel!"
"Location?" the captain snapped.
"Twenty kilometers southeast!"
"Full speed. Bring us in."
The airship banked hard, chimney smoke darkening as enhanced coal burned hotter.
Armored. Magically reinforced. Capable of reaching six hundred and twenty-five kilometers per hour.
The pride of Dwargonian engineering.
The dwarven captain stared ahead, jaw tight.
"…What is the Ravendawn thinking?"
---
Pentagon, National Military Command Center (NMCC)
The command center was chaos.
Satellite feeds flooded the screen—one screen after another showing the Ravendawn–Dwargonia firefight. Officers moved at a near run, bouncing between consoles, phones, and shouting matches.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T REACH THEM!?" one officer bellowed into a handset. "WE GAVE YOU RADIOS FOR THIS!"
He slammed the phone down and spun, nearly colliding with another aide, then hurried over to Stan.
Stan stood rigid, eyes locked on the feed.
"Sir," the officer said quickly, "the Ravendawn Navy reports their patrol ship isn't responding. Their last message was… uh…" He swallowed. "They said they were being attacked by the dwarves and requested backup."
"What?" Stan snapped his head toward him. "They were attacked?"
He turned back to the screen, which very clearly showed a Ravendawn patrol ship hammering a dwarven civilian vessel with cannon fire.
"SIR!" another officer shouted. "A Dwargonian aircraft is approaching the Ravendawn ship!"
The display zoomed out, pulling back until the sheer scale of it became impossible to ignore.
A massive brass airship was closing fast.
Another officer shouted from across the room, "Admiral Rusalka's fleet is in range! They can scramble two fighters within ten minutes!"
Stan didn't answer.
He was staring at his laptop, where Lilith and Mo watched silently from the other side of the feed.
"Are you seeing this?" Stan growled. "And where the hell is Levi? This is a good time for a Foreign Minister to show up!"
"Sir!" another voice cut in.
Stan rounded on them. "WHAT NOW!?"
"W-we've lost contact with Hearthguard Cairn…"
Stan froze.
"…What," he said slowly, "the hell is happening…"
"Stan…" Lilith's voice came through the laptop, hesitant. "We cannot attack the dwarves first."
Stan closed his eyes.
"…fuck."
---
Langley, BICH Headquarter
Far from the noise, Mo sat alone in his quiet office, watching the same satellite feed play out on a single screen.
There was nothing he could do.
He reached into his desk, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and stood. Walking to the window, he pushed it open and let the cool air in.
He lit one, took a slow drag, and exhaled into the calm blue sky.
"…Looks like I lost the first round."
---
Hearthguard Cairn, Murica Embassy
RATATATATATATATA—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The battle around the Murican embassy showed no signs of slowing down.
Dwargonian steam armor units tore through the streets with alarming speed despite their bulky frames—boilers, pistons, thick plates of riveted steel.
The machines sprinted outright, slid across cobblestones on foldable wheels built into their feet, and launched themselves two stories high without breaking momentum. Some even scaled walls, clawed gauntlets biting into stone as they climb.
And worst of all—
Small-caliber rounds did almost nothing.
RATATATATA! RATATATATA!
An MSG operator leaned out of a shattered window and unloaded on a steam armor clinging to the building across the street. The shots landed cleanly, sparks flying across its plating—but the machine barely reacted. It paused, looked almost annoyed, then sprang upward and vanished onto the next floor.
"SHIT! THEY'RE FAST!" the operator shouted as he slammed a fresh magazine into his rifle.
The steam armor chose that moment to answer.
BOOM! BOOM!
Two cannonballs screamed past him and detonated against the wall, blasting stone outward and shaving off chunks of masonry. One flew close enough that he felt the heat brush past his head.
Windows all along the embassy erupted with return fire.
RATATATATATATATA—
This time, the rounds punched through. The steam armor jolted, claws scraping uselessly against stone before it lost its grip. It toppled backward, crashed through an awning, and smashed into the street four stories below with a thunderous clang.
"YOU IDIOT!" someone yelled from inside. "USE AP ROUNDS! REMEMBER THE BRIEFING!"
But speed wasn't the only problem.
Dwargonia had brought out heavy-class steam armor as well.
These were monsters—towering machines with reinforced plating layered thick enough to shrug off most direct hits. Each carried a massive tower shield in one hand and a cannon nearly as large as an artillery piece in the other. Concentrated AP fire sparked and dented the shields, but none of it slowed their advance.
One of the heavies rotated its upper body and leveled its cannon toward a second-story window.
KA-BOOOOM!
The blast obliterated the room. Smoke, debris, and shattered furniture spilled outward as the MSG squad inside vanished in the explosion.
The heavy units pressed forward, sliding over the street with heavy metallic screeches, shields raised as they closed the distance to the embassy—
—until one of them suddenly exploded.
The armor came apart mid-stride, its upper half twisting sideways as its entire lower section vanished in a burst of fire and shrapnel. What remained collapsed into the street in a heap of smoking metal.
From the embassy window, an MSG lowered his M32 grenade launcher, the barrel still steaming.
"Direct hit," he said, breathing hard.
Across the battlefield, the Dwargonian commander bared his teeth, eyes burning with irritation.
"…Send the spider in."