Chapter 25

Here is the long awaited update for the Wattpad version of this story. Thank you all for your patience. Without further ado, here is the start of Arc 3!

Warning: contains content about religious matters, politics, and some mentions of violence.

January 2023: A Foreword

For everyone on the earth, the events of the prior year had already been dire. But no one had expected the Russia-Ukraine conflicts to end so suddenly, especially by the now infamous occurrence of the Romanov-Hesse Resurrections. To every human being, the truth had become clearer than ever. An act of the biblical God had happened.

The skeptic community was in disarray, and the most adamant had resorted to debating the morality of theism. If they could not make an intellectual dispelling of the existence of a "higher power", they could shift the grounds of debate. Other faiths were also debating amongst themselves about what to do.

The Christian and Judaic communities were mostly ecstatic, on the other hand. After two millennia of waiting, they had their spirits lifted and their intake of newcomers and attendees had risen by drastic proportions. This lifting in positive sentiment within both faiths had led to a warming of relations.

Followers of both faiths had watched a series of televised interviews between the other risen princess and the clergy across denominations... The younger Elisabeth of Hesse had already shocked the world and history academia with her arrival, but what she said was more profound.

She had said that Moses was one of the infamous Two Witnesses. As one of the great leaders of the Jewish and original Israelites, he would arrive after the Rapture to witness to all of Israel and the Middle East. As for the other of the Two Witnesses, the infamous apostle Bartholomew would arrive after the Rapture with Moses. He would minister to various Christian denominations around the world.

She had also stated that the End Times were coming.

Countries around the world began to have the sparks of internal tensions over issues of religious validity and rights. Riots between opposing civilian factions began to occur across democracies to dictatorships. Even people had become fearful of the outdoors and had resorted to looting stores for "doomsday reserves". Some countries had thus entered martial law in an effort to stop civil wars. The United States, the European Union, parts of Africa, and even North Korea had imposed such measures in the hopes to stop further chaos.

Yet with little surprise, Russia had entered its Second Civil War. This time, there were no Whites or Reds, but there was a conservative, loyalist Moscow versus a de-facto rebel Siberia. This time, most of the world had been interested in the escalating conflict...

Including why the "German princess" had gone on an odyssey from Germany towards an unstable Russia.

January 28, 2023

Anchorage, Alaska

Elisabeth sat in the rear right seat of the limousine. She seemed to gaze distantly through the closed tinted windows, watching the gentle shower of snowflakes falling and drifting about. The streets had crowds of citizens standing outside and clamoring with each other. Some of them even tried to snap photos before they were warned or shoved away by Alaskan State Troopers.

The two suited Secret Service agents remained seated around Elisabeth, paying no attention to the commotion around. Only the leader of the commando unit that would send her to Russia glanced back at Elisabeth two times. The leader himself did feel a bit of confusion deep under his neutral and silent soldier composure. He glanced up at the skies where his unit and special plane crew would fly the princess into Vladivostok.

It would have been rejected as a rash and suicidal political move at first. The news of the debates between Biden and the advisors had already spread viral throughout the media... The question of reuniting Elisabeth with the four Russian princesses was important, but not without heated controversy.

One side of the debate had a passionate refusal to intervene in Russia. This group had mostly Democrats and some Independents. The four Romanov sisters had been the ones to spread pro-Putin propaganda which had resulted in Ukrainian lives lost. Neither did the religious overtones help their image in the eyes of secular progressives.

The opposing side, of course, advocated for aiding the Russian rebellion. This group had an overwhelming majority of Republicans and Independents. This time, American sentiment had shifted to values of national security and stability. To subdue Putinist Russia once and for all would secure American interests. However, they could not support intervention on religious grounds by the Establishment Clause. The government had compromised on the separation of church and state controversy earlier after a lengthy shutdown. They could not endorse or ban biblical faiths despite the surprising miracles. Instead, the government only supported the UN-ratified legal status of the five risen women as stateless citizens with the right to travel anywhere.

The head commando himself had an Orthodox family of Ukrainian heritage, and despite his distrust of the four sisters, he had to follow orders by the President to send the princess to the contested Russian Far East. Sometimes the revelations of the imminent Rapture and then End Times caught some of his attention since he had once wanted to become a priest in his younger years. But it had been a while since he had pursued a career in the Orthodox clergy and he was left confused on the subject.

The limousine approached the Ted Stevens International airport driveway. The lighter traffic gave a slight relief for the former princess. Less waiting before she could continue her mission. The vehicle stopped, and the bodyguards helped Elisabeth step out with her luggage. The smaller crowds of departing tourists scattered around the curb noticed the German former princess, giving her surprised looks. A few tourists offered to take a selfie with her, but she made a polite refusal and wished them well.

She needed- no, yearned to see her cousins again. She knew how it felt to be surrounded but still alone. When she was a princess that once lived with her distant mother then, Victoria Melita, she had enough of that feeling. If her cousin Olga fell in spirit or in body while she was not there, she would not feel at ease. Neither would the grim contrast of an imperfect world give any solace versus a perfect Heaven.

The commando glanced at her, finally finding the will for small talk.

"The flight will be very smooth... Given our convoys engaging the Putinist navy around the Russian Far East, they cannot touch us upon our arrival."

"I anticipate that as well... But only the Lord Himself can give absolute guarantees."

"I wish I could understand."

"In time, all will be revealed by His revelations. You will be well and find good company."

The commando decided not to push further questions. Perhaps the inquiry would have to wait. Even then, he doubted if he would ever understand.

Within an hour, the princess had passed the office and travel checks, but not without people attempting to snap photos of her. The princess and the commando leader went down a lesser-traveled passage in the airport, then taking a lesser known emergency exit. They stepped outside into the gentle falling of snowflakes in the still air. Some lingering airport staff stepped aside without a word at the sight of the soldiers. Only the lone airport shuttle driver acknowledged them.

"The private jet hangar, sir?"

"Affirmative. Take us away."

They boarded the small vehicle, and off it went to a distant hangar... There, a private jet had been arranged by Biden himself to transit to a secret military complex in the west Alaskan tundras... The highly classified Borealis Base, rumored to have aircraft and combat drones with technology two decades ahead of the public.

Only then would the trip truly begin.

(Line Break)

4 km outside Yekaterinburg, Risen State of Rus

As she carried the point twenty-two caliber rifle, Olga felt reluctant. Before she had practiced with fellow rebel soldiers and even Anton himself, but the targets were not living things. It did not faze her at all to shoot bullets at something that was a cold, mindless plate of steel. Neither did moving plates make any difference. However, this time she would have to kill a crow mid-flight. It was far from the level of a human life, but one thing it had in common was that it would bleed and then die.

At least its demise would be quick... Unlike what she had suffered through before her first death. That of her family including herself had been far from quick... or pleasant. The guards had been cruel enough to not shoot at their heads, but instead their jewel-ridden torsos. Even they had stabbed them with sharp bayonets and drawn blood... still denying them a relief of death. Their bones and flesh had ached worse than the hit of a mere rocky snowball, and watching their friends and family suffer for so long would haunt her and her sisters even in their new lives. And the faint recollection of Peter Ermakov touching her sister Maria in the smoky haze of gun vapors...

She tensed, gripping the rifle harder until her fingers turned redder. She only loosened her grip on the cool metal of the rifle only when Anton spoke.

"Olenka, are you feeling well?"

"I- I- don't."

"I see... Did you tell me about that night?"

"N- no..."

With the shadows of that night still hanging over her conscience, her aversion to causing physical harm to living things remained. Even as a nurse during that War, she hated to see men contorting and screaming their last bits of life before their demise. The silence, the missing feeling afterward, was always the worst for the more involved operations. The sight of lifeless eyes staring up to lights they could no longer see was also a terrible sight. Especially for those of her dead friends that night.

Anton returned to her, grasping her slender, cold fingers firmly in his warm, thicker hands. He looked into her cornflower blue eyes, smiling as he took out a napkin for her to wipe her watering eyes. She did so, sniffling and shuddering as she followed him over to a nearby fallen log. They sat together, holding each other close.

The moments morphed to minutes as he held her close. They had plenty of time for now and later to know and love each other. In the end, they would be better together again.

"Anton... I didn't tell you about that July night."

The smile of her boyfriend faded. "Ah, I know what you mean. I know it's long since passed, but I cannot imagine how you really felt during that night."

"It... It was vile!"

"I'm almost too scared to ask... But- But what affected you the most?"

"Not only was it true that they beat us, shot us, and stabbed us... One of them... One of them..."

"Please, tell me. It's okay now."

Olga sniffled, closing her eyes as she clutched the rifle against her chest.

"The Ermakov man groped my sister Maria... Then the rest of us... There was smoke everywhere, so the others did not see. We cried out because he did so painfully..."

Anton gently held her, closing his eyes. "I never knew that."

"Yurovsky never placed that in his note, which I read not long after we rose."

"I'm so sorry to hear that. I can't travel back to the past to do something, but I promise you I'll never leave you alone."

The words broke the dam. She fell into Anton's embrace, bursting into tears. To see her cry into his shoulder made him want to as well. Yet he had to be her cornerstone, one that was strong and steady to hold on.

By the time the tears went away, Olga had begun to ask him a question...

"How... How do you live, knowing that you've hurt people? Sometimes even killed... for the soldiers who tried shooting our vans?"

"I... It's- It's a difficult question with no easy answer."

"How do you justify their deaths, the pain?"

"Well... I did so because I had to... War is war... But most importantly, I never forgot they are fellow people, so I granted them the right of a quick death."

"If you have to make people suffer, perhaps before killing them, never do so unnecessarily or excessively. That is all the best I could do," he added, his tone becoming dull...

"So... So all this suffering... It all happens because of the drastic situation history has led to?"

"I can't say, but that is certainly not the worst answer, at least," Anton whispered.

Olga chuckled. They kissed again, dropping their rifles as they paid no heed to a flock of crows flying past.