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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ledded" data-source="post: 1507039" data-attributes="member: 12744">[PLAIN]We were like gods once... [Burning down the house][/PLAIN]Hank descended onto the street like a red-headed avenging angel, small bits of metal humming and swirling around him. He placed himself on the sidewalk opposite the church, between the two forward tanks on the road, right in the middle of the advancing infantry.  Immediately MP40’s and Kar98’s rang out from Germans behind him and several moving with the tanks, most of their bullets phwipping harmlessly into Hank’s shield to join the other metal in it’s orbital dance around Hank. A couple rounds managed to get through, however, one creasing his thigh and sending a spray of blood onto the ground. Hank immediately gestured outwards with both hands, and the two anti-tank mines sped away from him like thrown discuses. The first spun directly under the ailing Panzer he had tried to pull apart, and the driver’s hatch was just being opened as the mine disappeared out of sight and erupted upwards into the bottom of the vehicle. Fire and debris shot out from under the tank with a dull PHOOM, and the hatch banged open forcefully as a column of flame and smoke jetted out of the opening, accompanied by the short shrieks of the crew. Several German soldiers firing at Hank sprawled away from the exploding tank burning and screaming shrilly. The second mine sped away towards the Tiger that had fired its shot at Moose, wedging itself under the right track. More shots were fired at Hank, and one hit his shoulder painfully, forcing him onto one knee. He could see the soldier who fired it, reloading his Kar98 as he advanced in front of the Tiger. The tank’s coax machine gun swiveled in Hank’s direction. Hank threw his hand out, concentrating on the metal in the mine and its damaged detonator. The soldier raised his rifle and pointed it dead-on at Hank, then flew forward as a large piece of track from the Tiger hit him in the back. Hank had detonated the mine, scattering more of the Germans and crippling the Tiger’s movement. But not it’s guns. The machine gunner, stunned for a few seconds, opened fire at Hank. Bullets sprayed everywhere, even hitting two Germans who were rushing in to get close to him, and Hank scrambled against a nearby building corner as he felt his strength flagging under all of the relentless fire against his shield. “Aw shoot, dingdangit its about time ah gots the hell outta here dangit”, Hank said to himself. He glanced at the Tiger; the left tracks spooled off of their support as the tank tried unsuccessfully to maneuver to get a shot at him. It was then he noticed the bookstore just a half block back behind the tank. The one they were looking for. He heard the voices of approaching Germans behind him and decided on a course of action. Spreading his arms, he leapt into magnetic flight once again and zoomed across the street, just over the Tiger, and in through the open door of the relatively unharmed book store. “Well, ding-dang howdy-do thar fellers”, Hank called out at the three men inside standing around with books thrown all over the floor. Two of them were dressed in Waffen SS uniforms, one of them an officer. The second took one look at Hank, yelped, and screamed into his radio as he backpedaled away from Hank. "Mein Gott, die amerikanischen Übermenschen haben in das Gebäude einbrechen!” The officer leapt behind an overturned bookshelf, and Hank smiled in understanding, glad that he had learned German during basic training. The third man, dressed in a strange apron-like protective vest with mail around his throat, merely smiled at Hank while bouncing an old black book in his hand. He had scars on both cheeks which pulled his face into a menacing sneer when he smiled. The title of the book was “Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten”. The book they were here to get. Hank, bleeding and winded, globe of steel and iron still revolving around him with a strange keening hum, gave the man his best intimidating stare and waggled one hand at him. “That thar book, dingdang give ‘er here Kraut-sie”, Hank spoke at him in German. The German merely smiled, slipped the book into his bread bag, and drew a sword. It had a long, straight blade and a large basket-hilt. Hank remembered a Life magazine article he had read once about German fencing fraternities. He realized this here nut was one of those schlaeger fencers, those fellas that went around cuttin’ on each others faces for fun. Well, he was messin’ around with an American Ubermensch now, and unless he had one as backup he better be steppin’ off. The German saluted Hank with his sword and said in broken English, “I am called der Unsichtbar Schwertfecter, and you may have ze book ven you have killed me.” “But zat, you vill not do, puny American”, he finished. Hank was just trying to interpret the man’s strange name when the feller suddenly took a fighting stance and then faded from sight. “Aww, shoot, dingdang well jes’ don’t that beat all”, Hank moaned, realizing belatedly that he faced one of the German’s Ubermensch. Not only that, but der Unsichtbar Schwertfecter was fresh, and Hank was ready for a few stitches and a long nap. Hank heard the man’s footsteps pad across the floor toward him, and reached out with his magnetic senses for his sword. He felt it just in time as it flicked at him lightning-quick, Hank trying to tear it out of the fencer’s grasp but only managing to turn a slash meant to disembowel him into a deep cut under his forearm. Hank, grasping his bleeding arm, immediately took one step and vaulted through the side window in a spray of stained glass, running back towards the burning church. Der Unsichtbar Schwertfecter chuckled once to himself, flicked Hank’s blood from his sword, and stepped through the window after him. …  John saw Hank come down, saw the Kubelwagon tear out of the alley and speed, firing, towards Moose, then the Tiger sent a shell down the street and he heard the damn Kubelwagon’s crew cheer. He snapped a few more quick shots at the German’s surrounding Hank and the Tanks, then the detonation of the anti-tank mines scattered most of the rest. He hazarded a glance over his shoulder, saw the Hanomag in the alley pointing its gun, a German in the back pointing at him and yelling. John quickly shouldered his rifle, and running faster than the wind leapt through the front window, heading for the Kubelwagon parked in front of the smoking hole where Moose used to be, it’s crew laughing and firing into the rubble with their MG34. He pulled a pineapple grenade as he approached them. The church erupted into flame behind him as the Hanomag let loose a long gout of heavy burning fuel from its mounted flammenwerfer. John could feel the heat from the exploding church through his leather flight jacket even as he tore off down the street, a blur to the Germans now advancing out of the buildings opposite Smitty’s tower. “Shoot, glad I didn’t stick around there”, he mumbled to himself, skillfully dodging sniper fire as he raced like a cheetah at the Kubelwagon. The crew of the small German jeep yelled, one swinging the MG34 around at him. John then jumped from ten feet away with a growling yell, eyes flashing like cold fire, grabbing the top of the windshield and coming down on the hood with enough force to dent it. “Got a present for ya Jerry”, he said in German through a wolfish smile at the three soldiers and then crouched to spring away. One of the Germans made to grab his rifle and then screamed as he realized that John had just dropped a grenade in between the seats as he leapt over them. The three of them stumbled over each other trying to get to the grenade, the one in the most rear diving into the pile and coming up with it, bobbling it in his hand. He reared back to throw, and… Boom! The grenade detonated in his hand before he could get it off, spraying the three Germans with explosive fragments as John threw himself clear, rolling into the fall and coming to his feet. Ten feet away from him, a German stepped from behind a ruined building and pointed the nozzle of a flammenwerfer at him. “Shi…” John began to yell as bullets from Germans closing in on him sprayed the ground and a long stream of hellfire poured from the Kraut trying to hose him down. He deftly rolled to his right, avoiding the stream of sure death, and charged the flamethrower-wielding Nazi, hearing other Germans closing in all around him. The soldier screamed and tried to bring the nozzle to bear on John, but John was much too fast for him. He slipped under the man’s clumsy attempt to protect himself and grabbed the German by both wrists, his face a rictus of anger as he slammed his powerful cold into him. The soldier screamed and his flamethrower went out as the hoses near his arms froze. Frost and ice formed on the weapon as the man’s arms turned a solid crystal blue. The other Nazis that had surrounded them to club John into submission fell back a step at the power of his bitter chill, frost forming on arms raised to protect their faces. The flamethrower-wielding German looked at John with a face of sincere surprise, and then looked down at arms he could no longer feel. John grinned at him, all teeth, and then yanked downwards with all of his might. SNAP! Both arms, frozen solid, broke off forcefully and John threw them at the nearest German soldiers who screamed in abject horror. The flammenwerfer man’s eyes rolled up into his head and he teetered on frozen legs. Just then, John spotted movement in the second floor of the building above him; someone was pointing a pistol at him about to take a shot. Spinning, he kicked the armless flamethrower-wielder up and back, right into the path of the pistol as he heard it CRACK a round at him, and dove backwards as best he could. The pistol round punched through the flamethrower tank, causing it to spew fuel and ignite with an incredible PHWOOOOSSHHH, spraying fire on the surrounding Germans and immolating the ruined building.  John rolled hard, patting at the flames on his own body, then dove into another ruined shop front as sniper fire rained down on him. He barely registered the screams of the burning men as he crouched into the deep cover of a ruined wall and looked out, searching for another target. … Deitz was laying there trembling when he heard a commotion just outside of his hiding place. He turned his body under the heavy corpse he had pulled over himself, and looked through a hole in the bricks to see an American struggling with a large group of German soldiers just below the floor he was on. Incredulous, Deitz watched as the pale American froze his flammenwerfer man’s arms and then broke them off. An Ubermensch! He knew it! The Americans had sent them in! Now he, Untersturmführer Berchtwald Deitz would kill one himself. Smiling, he could almost hear the band strike up his favorite Marlene Dietrich song in his honor as he rode standing next to Hitler himself in the parade. Redemption was at hand. He wrestled his pistol around under the weight of the body on top of him and took careful aim through the hole in the brick. The men were struggling closely, trying to overwhelm the American and making it hard to get a clear shot, but Deitz didn’t care. He had a full magazine and what were the lives of a few troopers if he could be the man who killed an Ubermensch. He squeezed the trigger, but just as he did the lightning-quick American looked up at him, kicking the flammenwerfer man right into his point of aim. Almost in slow motion, Deitz heard his pistol discharge, his mouth becoming a surprised oval and the band in his mind breaking down into a discordant cacophony of torn string instruments and bent trumpets. The bullet hit the tank of the flammenwerfer with a plink, right near where the tanks joined. For a split second, Deitz thought all was well, but then fuel spewed out of the tiny hole and ignited. A wall of flame rolled out from the tank, men screeching as they were engulfed, and rocketed through the hole in the building Deitz was looking through, burning his eyes and hair. The entire building went up in flame, and Deitz struggled weakly, unable to get the heavy corpse he had dragged on top of him off so he could get away. His entire body in searing agony and the screams of his men filling his ears, Deitz managed to yell one last phrase before the fire burned his miserable lungs to ash. “It’s… not… my… fault….”  …</blockquote>

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