We were like gods once... [Treachery, and Beer]
…
A few hours later at the noisy pub…
“Yeah dere, I didn’t care too much fer jumpin’ outta dat plane, dontcha know…” Moose rumbled through another pint.
“Dint care fer? Hee-hee Moosey dingdang ol’ nearly wet ‘is pants when that thar dingdang ol’ See-ferty-sev’n started breakin’ up. Dingdang shoulda seen yer face when I ZOOM ran by ya and danged ol’ ‘loogout below’ dove outta that sucker…” Hank laughed, Dr Z slapping the table and laughing at Hank’s pantomimes of the action.
John went to get them some more beers, while Frogbot smiled at the exchange of friendly barbs and stories. His head perked up like a cat’s.
Query: temporary spike in unfamiliar talent activity detected. Perform full scan?
Frogbot peered around the room as the others drank, ate, and laughed. It was crowded with these strange flesh-entities, the variance of their posture and facial expressions changing so fast it was difficult to gauge reaction in an unfamiliar group this large. There was an American airman getting up from a table in the opposite corner and starting to walk towards them; they had sat mostly quiet and alone all night, the three of them. This would probably have seemed odd to any one of the others, but to Frogbot they were all strange creatures devoid of rational programming, and in concentrated centers of human stimulus like this their strangeness was even more evident to him. Humans were quite often very weird entities.
John was returning, arms full of glasses on a tray, the American airman just ahead of him.
Engage talent detection scan array, full sweep, active matrix allocation.
“Hello? Dr Zander? Hey Zander old buddy, how are ya?” the friendly young airman stopped, recognizing Dr Z.
Z broke off laughing at Hank and turned towards the man, trying to catch his breath.
“Whew! Yes? I’m sorry, didn’t get that guvner?” he queried.
WARNING: Sharp rise in talent activitiezzzzzzzz *POP*
WARNING: Detection matrix off-line. Cognition actuators fluctuating… attemping to commmmm…. Commm….penpenpen….commmpennsaaate….
The airman paused for a few seconds, looking at Z and the group curiously.
Hank felt pressure rise in his head strangely, a spell of dizziness coming and then passing as quickly. “Dingdang, that thar limey-brew’ll danged-ol’ sneak up on ya, eh Moosey”, he elbowed Moose, who promptly fell forward onto the table head-first with an audible thump,
“Yes, Z, it’s Mike. Mike Reynolds, remember? From the hospital? You promised to help me out with some modifications to my Mustang buddy. Is now a good time?” the friendly airman spoke. His voice was a Midwestern drawl, his crooked smile, toothpick in the corner, speaking of nothing but good times and good intentions. A buddy you’d have a beer with one day and trust to watch your back the next. A good ol’ boy.
Dr Z looked at him for a long moment, eyes slightly glassy as if attempting to remember him.
“Yes… Mike. I remember. We were supposed to look at your Mustang. I’m sorry I didn’t call on you”, Z replied to Mike dully.
The airman cuffed Z on the shoulder affably and chuckled.
“Hey, that’s ok buddy. You wanna go catch up a bit? I know a great place a couple blocks over, I was just heading there now.”
Z stared at him, sounding more stable each second.
“Sure Mike. I’d be glad to go a couple blocks over to that place with you. Hey boys, I’ll catch up with you in a bit, I need to go out for a bit with my buddy Mike here”, Z said calmly to the SPAARTANS.
John, by now, was standing behind Mike. He quickly noted Hank looking a bit dizzy, and was about to put it down to the beer when he saw Frogbot sitting stock-still, and Moose head-down on the table drooling.
Normally, that wouldn’t in and of itself be strange in a young serviceman on leave in a bar, but John had seen Moose take a near-direct hit from a Tiger tank’s main gun, and then stand up to spit out a tooth only seconds later. The beer was good, but it wasn’t that damn good.
He walked closely next to the airman, shouldering himself between the newcomer and Z, who had stood up to leave with him.
“Say, how are ya? Name’s John, I’m a flyer too. What unit did you say you were with?” John queried loudly, trying to subdue his suspicion while pushing himself between Mike and Z as if to put the tray of beers down on the table.
The airman, Mike, jumped and turned quickly towards him, smiling broadly. “Whoa! Didn’t see you there, sorry. Yeah, um, I’m with the 303rd, just got moved into the area. Whatcha fly there, buddy? You look like a P-38 guy, I can always tell, you got that swagger and that professional eye about ya, I bet you’re an ace or just a kill or two shy of it…”
Quuuerrryyy: Cognnnnnitive… netnetnetnetwork re-estab….
John’s lips skinned back from his teeth in what passed for his smile these days. The airman looked slightly uncomfortable as John replied, and Frogbot made a few jerky head motions, as if his head was stuck when he tried to turn it.
“Say, I thought the 303rd got pretty pasted in all that post-Normandy stuff. COBRA wasn’t kind to you boys. How’d ya’ll refit so soon?” he asked, concern in his tone.
“Oh we did fine, Ike took care of us. Bit o’ hard fightin’, that was. Say, can I buy you a beer? Waitress! Get this man another round. Sorry we can’t stay, Z, we should get going…” the fellow rattled off amiably. John felt himself nodding his head in agreement even as his suspicions grew.
Hank looked around curiously. Somethin’ wasn’t right. Frogbot was actin’ a bit screwy, well, screwier than usual. John was givin’ that new feller with Z that “I’m about to swallow yer ding-dang face” smile that he had. Moose let out a loud snore. Frogbot said something then, something slurred. Could robot’s get drunk? What was that he said, somethin’ ‘bout talons? Talents?
Hank concentrated and pushed outwards with his senses. Immediately, he felt a huge concentration of metal from the opposite corner of the bar. Two fellers sat there, one of them a big ol’ brute with a mean look on his face. His beer was untouched. Something definitely wasn’t right, there was enough metal in that corner to…
John felt Hank grab his sleeve and yank. “Not now Hank, something’s kinda…” John whispered at Hank as Mike tried to lead a somewhat drunk-looking Z away, talking very animated as Z nodded his head dumbly.
“DingDANGIT boy! Thar’s a heap o’ metal innat corner with them dudes, and I thank ol’ Froggie is broke or sumthin’”, Hank spit out.
John looked up at the corner, then at the Airman that was standing with them, then at Frogbot who was shaking his head side to side and mumbling something slurred. Moose let out another snore.
He concentrated, and it was almost as if a cloud lifted off of his mind, a haze of smoke that was inside of his head instead of the heavy cigarette smoke in the pub.
“Hank! Snatch and grab!” he hissed.
Hank concentrated, then pulled.
The big guy in the corner looked quite surprised as he flew forward over the table and hit the floor, his companion nimbly dodging the mess. People laughed at his ‘fall’. The guy got up growling, and mumbled an angry curse under his breath.
In German.
John immediately leapt into action.
He flung the beers at Mike and Z, the airman’s look of surprise belying his reflexes as he dodged the flung glasses. It was almost as good as the look he gave when he realized that John had flung the tray, spinning, right behind them.
"Oh Schiesse..."
The tray hit the airman squarely in the face and he yelled, grabbing his face as blood pumped from his nose.
Dr Z shook his head, mumbling “ ‘ello, ‘at’s this?” fuzzily, and Moose sat straight up from his seat groggily.
WARNING: Talent use at extreme levels. Identifying hostile ability signatures.
THREAT: Axis threat identified. Allied dressed-airman exhibiting psychic-borne cognitive manipulation ability.
ACTION? Protect the Doctor. Terminate threats.
Frogbot leapt to his feet and the speaker in his chest blared.
“AXIS UBERMENSCH. YOUR TIME EEZ NUMBERED. VE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED.”
The light in the room wavered, and where the two men in the corner were, there was one very familiar man in a schlaeger-fencer’s uniform. He saluted the group with a drawn saber, and then faded from sight. der Unsichtbar Schwertfecter had returned.
The large man Hank dragged out onto the floor stood, and as the illusion around him dissipated it left a very large, blonde, scarred man, his skin made up of what looked like bands of overlapping steel plate that flexed and moved with him. The man raised his arms and screamed in German:
“I am Eisenlord! You petty mortals who stand against the Reich shall die! Taste the wrath of the GODS!” he roared as his height erupted upwards of nine feet. He slammed both enormous fists into the floor and it rippled away from the impact, hurling people in every direction.
The pub exploded in a gaggle of moving people, screams, and activity.
John ran, leaping onto a table and vaulting with a spin over several people to land like an angry canine in the pub’s doorway, cutting off the fake ‘airman’ Mike.
Frogbot raced across the room on all fours, claws extended, and swept up Dr Z as ‘Mike’ reached for him with anger evident on his face, his nose bleeding from the tray.
Hank merely stood and raised his arms. A whirling maelstrom of metal particles snatched from everywhere within 100 feet swirled around him, rotating and spinning. His skin glowed blue for a moment, then the color fell away to a smooth metallic sheen.
“Dingdang ol’ I’m Hank, dingdang EMF ya big Nazi pinhead, an’ I think you just busted up inna wrong damn bar boy…”. With that, he flung both hands out in front of him towards Eisenlord and they vibrated with a strange resonance.
Moose shook his head and pushed the table away, standing. He fumbled on a large pair of brass knuckles Z had given him.
Eisenlord, a feral, steel-skinned beast, snarled and bunched his legs under him.
Hank stood calmly, hands in front of him, and spoke. “Here he comes…”
The metallic Nazi giant sprang, howling, at Hank, carelessly crushing and sweeping aside normal allied servicemen. His leap stopped in mid-air, hesitating five feet off of the ground as the howl turned into a confused “hurrggk?”
He turned slowly as Hank manipulated the magnetic fields holding him and then flung him into the ground with a resounding CRASH.
“…and DOWN he goes!” Hank finished triumphantly.
He near instantly leapt again, Hank trying to pull the weave of energy around him, only to see Moose step in from the corner of his eye and clothesline the Nazi with a meaty fist, crushing him to the floor again with another tremendous, floor-splintering CRASH.
“He said stay DOWN ya big palooka…” Moose spat at him.
der Unsichtbar Schwertfecter had maneuvered around the clashing giants towards the man he remembered from Arnhem, the skinny American who talked so strangely. At first he was annoyed to see the man alive, but as he and his companions watched them from across the room he relished the opportunity to strike at him once again; hard-to-kill opponents were getting hard to find, and made the kill that much more delicious when you did. He picked his opportunity and made his thrust, unseen by the stupid American.
The blade stitched through the man’s whirling shield of debris, once, twice (only a stinkingAmerikanischer affe would surround himself with garbage for protection, he thought with a smirk).
He looked, but the Allied ESS looked unharmed except for a couple dimples on his metallic flesh.
“Dingdang I knowed you’d be a-comin’ back and I’s *ready* this time, ya frog-giggin’ idgit!” Hank smirked at him and gestured sharply in a broad semicircle where the attack came from.
The invisible swordsman grunted as he was lifted by his sword and other metallic objects on his person and slung painfully into a set of tables, along with everything else metal around where he had stood, people stepping on and kicking him in their effort to flee the battle.
…
Meanwhile, John let servicemen scramble by out of the door as he kept his eye on ‘Mike’. The fake airman looked at Frogbot, who smiled at him and extended a clawed hand. ‘Mike’ turned to flee and nearly ran face first into John, skidding to a stop with a look of surprise and terror on his face. John nodded to Frogbot, who sprinted across the room and crashed through a window on the back wall, a bewildered Dr Z in his arms.
John brought forth the awful hoarfrost that was his to command, the doorframe slowly icing up and clouds of condensation forming when he spoke, eyes glittering like chips of blue ice.
“So, you just thought you could come in here and sweep the ol’ Doc right out from under our noses, eh?” John asked him in German.
John stepped towards him, frost-gleaming hands extended menacingly. “You just stand down there and I’ll make sure you don’t get treated too…”
The airman bit his lip, then *looked* at John intensely.
John, the Artic Wolf, felt a familiar sensation of a foreign mind seeking access to his own, prying, twisting, scrabbling at the edges of his will, but this time he was ready. He steeled himself and fought the invading intellect away. He felt a trickle of blood seep from his nose as the pressure subsided.
“Izzat all you got boy? I warned you, you sonuva…” he began as he wiped his nose and prepared to beat the scared-looking Ubermensch to death where he stood.
The man nodded, once, twice, three times.
Each felt like a hammer-blow to the temple. Lights exploded in John’s eyes as the Nazi psychic hammered him with mental blows of incredible intensity. He saw the world tilt crazily and start to go black in his vision. “Aw, dammit, not again…” he muttered as he fell, clutching his head.
The false airman took a glance backwards, saw the huge American locked in struggle with Eisenlord in the center of the room like two giant bears wrestling for dominance, toe-to-toe. Each swung at each other with incredible force, the sounds of metal-on-flesh contact resounding loud enough to hurt his ears. Grunting and swearing they pounded each other like titanic machines; no finesse, no attempts to dodge, just two monsters growling and grunting and viciously pummeling each other till the other one quits swinging.
He watched as the other allied ESS flung something away into some tables, probably der Unsichtbar Schwertfecter. Eisenlord and the American were locked onto one another at the shoulders, then Eisenlord broke a hand free and brought it down with a sharp hammer-blow to the American’s face several times. The big American stumbled as Eisenlord prepared to gather him up into a deadly bear’s hug. ‘Mike’ had seen Eisenlord crush a British tank once like that. It wasn’t pretty.
…
Frogbot had flown through the window, racing at incredible speeds, using his claws to catch purchase on any surface he hit. He tossed Dr Z into the bushes behind the pub and calmly said “run” before turning back towards the pub. As he rounded the corner, he saw the false allied airman standing over John’s twitching form look up at him in surprise. He spared a glance at the interior of the building and then took off running, blending into a group of other servicemen nearby that were alternately trying to escape the melee or gather up weapons to try and join it.
With a leap, Frogbot was on him, slashing and whirling his claws. The man screamed, and Frogbot felt a strange invasive program attempting to take control of his core programming.
WARNING: Outside force attempting control of cognizance algorithms. Initiate self-defense procedures. Heuristic control matrices under threat.
Frogbot shook his head, and his core programming shut off the opened control pathways as quickly as the false airman had opened them. He looked up, but the man had already begun to flee, holding his sides from the terrible wounds Frogbot had inflicted.
The French Android sped after him, blaring the French national anthem, but as he watched the running form simply blended into the knot of Allies and then there simply was a group of Allied soldiers. His sensors failed to register, skittering off of the Nazi’s illusion.
QUERY: Target out of range? Multiple scan attempts failed. Rejoin battle in interior.
He turned back towards the building just as there was an incredibly loud CRASH from within, the entire structure blowing out its windows and shedding bricks under the impact.
“Sacre bleu… oh, that can’t be good”, he muttered as he sprang back towards the building.
…
Meanwhile, Hank turned towards Moose’s struggle with the big metallic Nazi and saw him take a few strong hits right in the face, staggering the big Canadian. The gigantic Nazi snatched Moose up and began to crush him in close, laughing and growling as Moose howled in pain.
“Dingdang ol’ you put that thar boy down now, ya big freak!” Hank yelled at Eisenlord, raising his hands threateningly.
Eisenlord squeezed harder and Moose gurgled, the sounds of things snapping and popping coming from him as he tried to pummel Eisenlord’s head and shoulders.
Hank gathered up every ounce of his will, his command of magnetic waves, and sent a thin, dense, spike-like wave of magnetic energy snaking out at the huge Nazi.
“Oh no you ding… dang… don’t…” he grunted through clenched teeth as the wave penetrated Eisenlord’s hard exterior, and Hank felt his power spread inside of the Nazi’s organic-steel body.
Eisenlord hesitated, a strange sensation coming over him like someone sliding a needle under his skin. A large needle. A lot of large, nasty needles.
Hank brought his hands together in front of him as if he was holding a ball of dough, then grimaced as he *pulled* them apart…
Eisenlord bellowed in rage and agony, his voice shaking the rafters as the overlapping bands that were his skin separated in places, flexing outwards, bending and twisting with groans of tortured steel to show the red, raw flesh underneath as Hank heaved and wrung him out like a wet towel. Hank released him, along with a huge, held breath, and Eisenlord stumbled, weeping blood and fluids from several twisted metal segments of his metal skin.
Hank wiped his sweating brow, grinning. "Dingdang ol' I bet that stung a bit bumser".
Then Moose, kneeling on the ground, struck up at him with everything he had, the uppercut SMASHING into Eisenlord and sending him soaring with crushing force into a ceiling beam which broke upwards with the force. He fell to the floor heavily, struggling to his hands and knees.
Moose was stepping in to kick him like a football when he suddenly stopped and arched his back, arms scrabbling over his shoulders frantically as he grunted several times in a row.
Small neat blooms of blood appeared all along the center of his back, and Hank could hear der Unsichtbar Schwertfecter’s evil chuckle as he stabbed Moose over and over. Eisenlord struggled to his feet in front of the scene, rubbing his jaw. Hank saw a sluice of blood fly forward from Moose’s chest, and realized that the Nazi had just ran him completely through. Blood pumped furiously from the wound as Moose stumbled.
Hank gathered his will and blasted outwards with everything he had, sending Eisenlord flying with incredible speed towards the opposite wall. He heard a satisfying ‘ooph!’ from der Unsichtbar Schwertfecter as he clipped him, and saw his sword skitter across the floor, visible, as the big metallic Nazi SMASHED into the opposite wall and tore through it, tumbling out into the night street somewhere in a spray of bricks and masonry.
Hank ran forward and grabbed at Moose as the big man fell heavily, panting, each breath bringing up lungfuls of blood to spatter across the floor. He coughed, and blood jetted in a small spurt from holes in his back and chest, and merely ran from others. He fell forward heavily onto a table, which gave under his weight.
“Aw damn that stings a bit Hank…” he gurgled softly, and his eyes fluttered up in his head.
…
John opened his eyes to see Moose being stabbed time and time again, grunting as the sword punctured his incredibly dense flesh. He got to his feet in time to see hand and footprints appearing on the ground near the sword, the invisible swordsman scrambling to retrieve it. Without even thinking, he bounded over there.
“Oh no you don’t” he yelled, kicking the sword to bounce into the wall and slide across the floor, and then chancing a grab for the invisible Nazi, catching the collar of his coat in one hand.
John saw Hank stand, his eyes a blazing furnace of anger as he stalked towards him and the Nazi he had just grabbed, pushing up his sleeves as he came. “Dingdang ol’ jes hold ‘im thar a damn minute Wolfie, I gots somethin’ he needs *inserted* somewhar OH SHI...”
Hank cut off and glanced towards the hole in the wall, but before John could see what surprised him an Army jeep came rocketing through the opening. Hank through up his hands but the jeep caught him square, carrying him across the room to CRASH into the back wall, huge stones and bricks shattering and falling under the impact, the entire pub shuddering explosively with the force of the blow sending bits of glass, stone, and wood flying everywhere at once. Eisenlord, wounded but with a villainous smile, stepped through the rubble of the open wall and strode back into the room, flexing his huge muscles from the throw. He spared a sneer at the jeep embedded in the back wall, then turned towards John.
John felt the fencer twist away from him as the jeep’s impact shook the room, and the slippery invisible Nazi scampered away. He felt around him rapidly for the man, but couldn’t pinpoint his position. He spun, to see the huge Eisenlord stomping across broken bodies and rubble his way, messily swatting aside unfortunate servicemen, laughing and flexing his hands in anticipation. He heard der Unsichtbar Schwertfecter chuckle as he recovered his sword and padded around to find an opening. John, the Artic Wolf, steeled himself, brought forth the killing frost, and howled like his namesake. They may take him, but he would go down snarling, snapping, tearing the whole way. They would know pain, and fear, before the pack mother came to take him home.
Just then Frogbot sprang quickly into the room, all hands and feet as he leapt onto Eisenlord’s back, exquisitely sharp claws cruelly jabbing and slashing with machine-like precision into the big Nazi’s weak spots that Hank had made, the Tibranium blades ripping, tearing, slicing into him. Eisenlord spun in a circle roaring, spraying gore, arms reaching back to try to dislodge the android rider.
John heard something and spun just in time to feel a sword crease his ribcage, drawing a little blood. He returned swinging, grabbing, but the invisible Nazi was quick and lithe. He was hit again. Again. Then luck, he grabbed the man’s wrist and pulled him in close, too close to make good use of the sword.
Just then Frogbot sailed over his head and smashed into the rafter, falling to the floor with a thud next to them.
He held the invisible swordsman’s sword-arm out to the side, struggling, and yelled to Frogbot.
“His sword! Get that damn sword!”
Frogbot leapt forward and slashed downward once, feeling the claws bite hard into the sword. He sheared off a large piece, and then swung again, this time slashing all the way through the mangled hilt and the fencer’s hand in it. John heard the Nazi squeal as a large piece of his hand, several fingers still attached, became visible as it hit the floor. Frogbot saluted in the French style, said “my pleasure, mon capitan!”, and then took off back at Eisenlord.
“NOW we’re gonna fight it out like men, you dirty back-stabbin’ Kraut” John snarled, yanking the Nazi down to his knees and rapidly beating him with his free hand, the frost from his hands making marks on the Nazi’s invisible body that free-floated in the air for a split-second before fading away. The Invisible Swordsman squirmed, punched, and kicked at John, but John was not having any of it this time; the wolf-grip he held on the man’s arm only got tighter as he fought.
He proceeded to beat the man like a New Orleans pimp, right hand repeatedly plunging down time and time again, the wet smack of impact filling the air as he yanked him towards the incoming blow with his other hand, spitting curses and insults at him. Flecks of blood spattered his uniform, the walls, and floor with each impact, becoming visible as they were brutally beaten free of the Nazi’s invisible body.
Frogbot dove back in valiantly against the gigantic Nazi. He slashed, was punched hard and sent skittering away limping, then dove back in like a hound. Another blow sent him spinning, and the Nazi rose up to deliver a two-fisted slam that would certainly have injured him badly, when Frogbot heard a booming voice enter from the doorway.
“FOR… JUSTICE!” came the clarion call, followed by a streak of metal that slammed into the Eisenlord’s chest and sent him flying backwards into the bar, crushing it, as the large metal object careened around the room to smack back into its owner's grip.
…
