We were like gods once... [back to work]
….
“Watch out! Go around it, BallPark! Around!” John yelled from the back seat of the jeep.
Bulwark spoke through gritted teeth, brow knitted in concentration as he swerved tightly around a burning car.
“It’s Bulwark. Bul…”, he spat, whipping the jeep precariously between piles of burning rubble.
“…wark!”
The jeeps tires bounced back to the ground where the force of the turn had lifted them slightly off of the road.
Suddenly, Frogbot reached out his left foot, which elongated with a strange, rubbery sound, and snaked it between Bulwark’s feet to slam heavily onto the brake.
“What the…”, Bulwark started as his chest slammed into the wheel. The jeep skidded to a stop, right in front of a mussed but otherwise intact Smitty, who was casually leaning against a shop wall lighting a cigarette.
Frogbot gave Smitty his unnatural too-much-teeth smile and an exaggerated open-hand wave.
Smitty bobbed his head briskly at them, then stepped over to the jeep and hopped into the back.
Frogbot retracted his foot and then patted Bulwark’s arm, who, staring at the ends of Frogbot’s fingers where the claws normally appeared, jumped at the contact.
Bulwark looked up to see the French android was jabbing a finger at the windshield and the road ahead.
“Drive, mon capitan. Time is of ze essence, oui?”, he said, a pocket watch suddenly dangling on a small chain from a miniature hatch that hinged open in Frogbot’s palm. Bulwark blinked at him, twice, then shrugged and grabbed the stick. They sped away in a grind of gears and spinning tires, accompanied by the continuing thump and boom of bombs dropping, sirens in the distance blaring, and the occasional roar of aircraft engines.
“John.” Smitty nodded.
“Smitty.” replied John. “Fancy runnin’ into you here.”
“I was in the area.” Smitty takes a long drag off of his smoke, and brushes some masonry dust off of his torn uniform. “Appreciate ya stoppin’ to pick me up.”
John leaned back casually, his foot resting on the barely moaning Nazi folded into the floorboard. “Well, it was on our way.”
“Had a busy afternoon?” Smitty asked, watching John rub and pick at his torn knuckles.
“Nah. Nothin’ outta the usual, at least. Yourself?”, John replied, holding something small up in the light before tossing it away.
Smitty looked thoughtful for a second before replying. “Took a little time off. Saw the sights. Did some o’ that, um, liaising with the locals. Hearts and minds. You know.”
John glanced at him askance, a slight smile playing on his lips, still massaging his hand. “Yeah, I gotcha.”
“Say John, somethin’ wrong with your knuckles there?”
“Oh, I got pieces o’ this fella’s teeth stuck in ‘em. Smarts a bit.”
“Bummer. Say, where we headed?”
“Airfield. We think the Jerry’s are after that boy, Psimeld. They nearly got ol’ Dr Z out from under our noses. Moose took a bad hit. Hank too”, John answered.
“Big bunch of trouble that way?” Smitty asked, calmly unslinging his rifle.
“Check.”
“Lots of bad guys?” Smitty calmly asked, checking the action and cycling a round into the chamber.
“Probably.”
Smitty checked the scope before looking back up to John.
“Bring it on then.”
They both nodded to each other, then Smitty inclined his head with a questioning look at their driver.
“Him? Picked us up a new buddy”, John said. “Smitty, Bulwark. Bulwark, Smitty”.
Bulwark reached a hand over his shoulder, keeping one eye on the road as they sped ever closer to the airfield. They could see fires on the runways, and at least two of the hangers were immolated and pouring forth thick, billowing smoke.
“Hello there, fellow American. Sergeant Mike Williams, they call me… the Bulwark OF JUSTICE!” Bulwark boomed in his friendly voice, like a college quarterback in the Saturday game.
“Yeah. That’s nice. I’m Smitty. Er, ‘Ghost’, or whatever. Most folks just call me Smitty.” He gave the proffered hand a perfunctory shake.
Bulwark returned both hands to the wheel and pushed out his chest, hitting his full stride. “Yes, my good man, I am glad you have joined us, for we journey to the heart of this dark villainous night, in order to be the shield of the weak and a pillar of strength to guide those that would stand against the threat of the Third Reich…”
He was interrupted by a tapping on his right shoulder, a little tink tink tink on the metal of his jetpack. Bulwark looked back, pausing.
Smitty leaned close, smoke curling up over his lip and sliding liquid smooth over his features, highlighting his glowing left eye, which twitched and rotated as it honed in on Bulwark. He blew out, disrupting the smoke and making Bulwark cough slightly, smiling.
“Hey, Bull Shark? In case you were wondering, the position of annoying sidekick has already been filled. Sorry”, Smitty said, giving Frogbot’s shoulder a friendly squeeze.
Frogbot turned stiffly to Bulwark, with his surreal smile of teeth and exposed gums, and waved that open-handed wave, nodding his head up and down.
Smitty sat back, laughing with John. “Ha. Ha. Ha” laughed Frogbot, his head panning back and forth slowly.
“I’ts ‘Bulwark’ ”, mumbled Bulwark petulantly as he turned his attention back to the road. Up ahead he could see a U.S. halftrack making a turn onto the road leading into the main airfield area. “Ho there! Isn’t that halftrack one that pulled away from the pub during our struggle with the dark forces of evil?”
Frogbot peered intently, his eyes click-click-clicking as different colored lenses were layered over his strange eyes.
“Oui. It may be the one that escaped us. My sensors are picking up only wafts of power at zis range, but it may be heem.”
Frogbot’s eyes blazed red, and his smile widened at his claws popped from the ends of his hands.
“We should accompany heem to hees destination, no?”
John leaned forward from the back. “Catch him!”
Bulwark jammed the accelerator and took off after the slower moving halftrack. They made the turn and careened down the short approach road to the airfield, gaining on the halftrack.
The airfield had several buildings to either side of the approach road, which ran into one of the runways. There were two towers that sprouted from the cluster of buildings, one for controlling air traffic, the other for managing the radar array. The radar tower was burning brightly, as were several of the other buildings. The mangled wooden poles and wires of the demolished radar stood in hellish, stark relief to the fires ranging across the airfield.
There were several Spitfires and Mustangs on the ground, most burning or in various states of wreckage. Men were running around, and an officer was trying to organize a fire control team when he suddenly jerked his head upwards, then fell heavily to the ground. The team scattered, diving for cover.
Smitty tuned his exceptional senses, his technologically enhanced ears picking up the fading after-echoes of the shot that had felled the man. He saw a slight movement at the top of the air tower, and his sight narrowed in close. It was hard to be sure in the bumping jeep, but he still felt a cold sliver of ice slide slowly into his gut.
It was the german sniper, the one who shot Hank in that fated battle before they woke up with their powers.
The same one that nearly killed him in Arnhem.
Just then, he noticed a large, dark figure flying sixty feet off of the ground glide around the side of the tower. Huge gouts of flame sprayed heavily from his hands, trailing screams and destruction in their wake. The Baron der Flammen, as Smitty knew his name to be now, was laying waste to the buildings and scattering the allied personnel on the ground. The man that had maimed him, had burned his arm and face to the bone.
“Well lucky day… looks like we got us a two-for-one special on payback”, Smitty mumbled as he snapped his rifle up to his eye, sighted, and fired. He saw the gigantic flying Nazi flinch, and he turned their way. Damn, he’s a tough one, Smitty thought, and ka-shik chambered another round. “We got company boys. Ubers.”
There was a flash in the tower, and something plowed a fist-sized furrow through the hood of the jeep, shattering the windshield. The sniper, ein Schuß, had taken notice of their approach also. Smitty thought he could even detect a smile on the man’s face. Crazy kraut bastard, he thought to himself as he leveled his rifle and fired, skipping a round off of the edge of the wall ein Schuß was firing from, forcing him to take cover or take one in the face.
They were nearly caught up with the halftrack, and one of the G.I.’s in the back was whispering fervently to another glassy-eyed comrade. The G.I. being whispered to calmly yanked back the slide on the mounted .50 cal, and slowly turned towards the trailing jeep.
“Men, I think it’s time to catch another ride!” Bulwark shouted and stood up, and they all leapt into action simultaneously as the machine gun stuttered lead in their direction.
Smitty leapt and then rolled, hitting grass on the side of the road. He immediately faded from sight as another shot from ein Schuß tore a dinner-plate sized hole in the ground next to his foot. He ran quickly, concentrating on making himself light as vapor as he transformed from material existence. He became like an avenging Ghost as he ran towards the buildings ahead to find a good cover position.
John stood, noting the huge flame-projecting Nazi drawing aim at them, and grabbed the closest thing to hand.
And hurled it full force at Baron der Flammen as he raised his fists to spew death on the speeding jeep.
The Nazi swordsman barely moaned as his body was flung like a sack of boneless meat, hitting Baron der Flammen with a dull smack. The Baron spun with the impact as the swordsman pinwheeled past him to strike the stone wall of the control tower, spraying blood and brains in a starburst pattern on the side before falling limply into the bushes at the base.
John took three quick steps up the jeep as shrapnel sprayed around him from the .50 cal’s impact and leapt for the moving halftrack from the jeep’s hood, landing deftly in the back.
Upon Bulwark’s pronouncement, Frogbot stuck his clawed left hand into the side of the jeep and then stepped out, hanging above the ground, his feet running in air until they were nearly a blur. When he judged he had the necessary velocity, he merely levered himself down and retracted his claws from the jeep, tearing a track through the grass as he sped towards the door at the base of the tower.
Bulwark snapped his shield forward, machine gun fire spanging into it. He bunched his powerful legs under him and toggled the hidden glove switch for his jetpack.
The rockets sprang to life in a huge flare of blue flame and roaring sound, propelling him upwards with his jump to speed straight at the Baron der Flammen, who was trying to recover from the blow John, the Artic Wolf, had just delivered him.
“EAT AMERICAN JUSTICE!” Bulwark screamed as he brought his shield up and cannoned into the enormous Nazi. The black-clad Baron was able to roll with the blow, however, pushing Bulwark off to spin clumsily past him out of control.
“Eat wall, mortal”, came his booming voice, and Bulwark barely had time to say “oh sh-” before he collided just feet from where John’s projectile Nazi had struck. He spun away flatly trailing bricks and mortar, and crashed heavily into a small wooden shack at the base of the tower, taking most of the roof with him.
“Justice often… stings, a bit”, Bulwark announced as he sat up and tried to dust off the lumber and roof shingles, looking for the Nazi.
Frogbot reached the bottom door of the tower and didn’t stop, merely lowered his head and flung both claws forward. As much as the partially metal android weighed, and the fact that he was preceded by a foot of tibranium claws, the poor door never knew what hit it as it exploded into a fine spray of matchwood. Frogbot sank his left claws to the fingers in the door frame, using his momentum to swing towards the stairs before tearing free in further spray of carpentry, his feet finding purchase and taking the stairs four at the time.
John ran forward in the halftrack, dodging fire from the machine gun and calling forth the killing cold that was his to command. Laying a hand on the firing .50 cal as it masticated their jeep, the gun suddenly stopped firing. The machine gun’s action froze solid just as the drooling, blank-eyed soldier continued to dumbly depress the triggers to no avail. The man he sought, the one that had pummeled his mind, had climbed, standing, into the passenger’s seat by a slack-jawed driver, looking at John fearfully.
John made to climb over but stopped just as he saw the man’s eyes widen and a telling smile play over his lips. He went with his instinct and ducked just as a roaring sheet of flame tore over the spot he was just about to climb into, engulfing the machine gunner, who still sat quietly attempting to fire the frozen .50 cal even as the flesh burned off of his bones.
There was a whoosh of air and a dark form sailed closely overhead. The Baron de Flammen flew down and snatched up the waiting man, who had now dropped his mental disguise and was dressed as an SS officer. John tried to make a grab for them as they soared past him and gained into the night sky, but couldn’t keep hold on the black leather of the Nazi’s greatcoat.
The man gave John a smile and a mocking ‘heil Hitler’ salute as he sped away under Baron der Flammen’s arm.
John, the Artic Wolf, smiled back with the dangerous and humorless intensity of his namesake.
“Betcha won’t think it’s so funny when I’m dancing on your spleen”, he spat at their retreating forms as the halftrack slowed, the driver shaking his head as if to clear it.
...
