Southern Confederation — The March at Noon
The sun was white and high. Its light poured down over the plains, hard and clear, gilding every rifle barrel and helmet crest in the endless army arrayed along the border. The mountains behind the Reich army looked like gray ghosts. Ahead stretched the confederation's flat, golden fields, dotted with villages and, far off, the spires of Kesselbruck.
Then the trumpet sounded.
The Reich marching band struck up a thunderous rendition of the German national anthem — "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles…" Brass blared, drums rolled, cymbals clashed. The sound carried for miles, echoing across the plains like a moving wall.
Two hundred thousand boots began to move.Boom. Boom. Boom.A living drumbeat. Rows of infantry stepped forward as one, rifles slung with bayonets gleaming, banners rippling. Cavalry followed, hooves pounding in perfect rhythm. Engineers wheeled radio trucks and artillery carriages. Flags snapped overhead. Dust swirled around them like smoke.
The Reich was moving.
Village of Maldenfeld
Houses lined the road, low and crooked, built from sun-bleached brick. Windows opened. Doors swung wide. People stepped out cautiously, shading their eyes from the glare.
They had never seen anything like it.
They had never been German.
Yet the army filled the horizon, unstoppable, flags fluttering crimson and black. And something inside the villagers shifted. Old fears loosened. New awe took hold.
Children waved shyly. Mothers held them closer but did not pull them back. Some men rummaged through attics and trunks, pulling out gifts — flowers, bread, small cloth banners with the Reich's insignia that traders had brought months ago.
A young journalist in a brown field uniform ran up the lane with a satchel slapping his hip. His pencil was tucked behind his ear, and a compact radio transmitter sat in his hand. He spotted an older man and woman standing at their gate.
The man's vest was worn but clean. His hands were scarred from labor. A dull bronze medal hung on a string around his neck. His wife clutched his arm, her eyes fixed on the army.
The journalist stopped before them, breathless.
"Sir, ma'am — Volkspresse reporting! Can you tell our listeners how it feels to see the Reich here today?"
The man looked at him, then at the soldiers. His fingers brushed the medal at his chest.
"I fought during the Rebellion," he said slowly. "I left my homeland to fight for your cause. Crossed rivers. Slept in ditches. Carried rifles I'd never seen before. Got registered. Got my papers. Got my number. Everything."
His voice trembled but didn't break.
"But my family stayed here. They weren't part of it. They weren't German. We were told it might be years before they could join me."
He raised the medal — scratched, dulled from years, but unmistakably Reich-issued — and held it for the journalist to see.
"It feels good," he said, eyes shining. "It feels good to finally call myself a German. To see my wife, my children, my street — all of this — part of the Empire now. No more borders. No more waiting."
His wife nodded, her voice softer but firm.
"We listened to the broadcasts. We heard about the new cities. We saw the banners. We didn't think it would happen so soon. But now…" she looked at the marching columns and smiled faintly. "Now it feels real."
The journalist scribbled furiously, then lifted the transmitter closer to the couple.
"Anything to say to the Führer himself?"
The man took a breath.
"Thank you," he said simply. "For making us part of something bigger."
Two Hours Later — Kesselbruck
By the time the Reich army reached the outskirts of Kesselbruck, the sun had shifted west, casting long golden beams across the stone road. The small farmhouses had given way to tall buildings of brick and iron. Narrow streets opened into broad boulevards lined with trees now stripped of leaves. The city's gates stood open, draped not with local colors but with hastily raised Reich banners.
The people had come out en masse.
Balconies overflowed. Rooftops were crowded. Children in brown shirts saluted. Workers in gray waved their hats. Some threw flowers. Others clapped rhythmically with the marching band as it played Preußens Gloria for the second hour running.
From every window, every ledge, newly sewn German flags appeared. Some were small squares pinned to shirts. Others were massive bolts of cloth unfurled down entire facades. The effect was surreal: a city that had never been part of the Reich already looked like one.
A young woman near the front held her baby high for a soldier to see. A baker leaned out of his shop and tossed loaves onto the passing supply wagons. An old teacher held up a sign reading in neat block letters: "Welcome to Kesselbruck. Welcome to the Empire."
The sound was not a roar but a chorus — hundreds of thousands of voices singing along with the band:
🎵 "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles…" 🎵
Riese rode at the head of the column, his massive figure framed by the golden sunlight and the storm of banners. Reinhard rode beside him, scanning the buildings, watching for any hint of resistance — but there was none.
At the city's main square, the crowd pressed against the barricades, arms outstretched as if to touch history. People weren't cowering. They weren't hiding. They were welcoming.
A radio announcer standing atop a cart shouted into his transmitter, his voice crackling over channels back to New Berlin:
"We are live in Kesselbruck! The Reich army has entered without a shot fired! The people are pouring into the streets, waving the banners of the Empire, greeting our soldiers as liberators! History is unfolding before our eyes!"
In a nearby alley, the same journalist from Maldenfeld scribbled furiously in his notebook, his other hand steadying a camera as he snapped the photo of a lifetime: Riese, leading a sea of men through a sea of flags, into a city that until today had never called itself German — but now, unmistakably, did.
The band reached its crescendo.The anthem thundered through the square.And the people of Kesselbruck, breathless and smiling, answered it with their own voices — a city of strangers singing like they had always belonged.