Gotterdammerung: The Fall of Ubermensch (April 1945)
Sept 13, 2022 4:27:15 GMT
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Post by redsycorax on Sept 13, 2022 4:27:15 GMT
The final fates of the Axis UBA have been previously unknown until now. Given that she was a supernatural being, the Valkyrie Gudra simply returned to Valhalla when she became aware that the cause of Nazi Germany was lost, although the UBA itself had disintegrated altogether some time beforehand. At war's end, it is known that Usil and the Horned Owl had switched allegiances and now fought against their respective tyrannies in Italy and Germany. In the case of Horned Owl, there is a tragic backstory that as yet remains untold. But one thing that is clear is the ultimate fate of Ubermensch, the tale that we now relate.
++
PROLOGUE:
Originally, Hugo Danner had been an American icon. He had been injected with an experimental 'meta-human' serum in utero and as a result acquired prodigious strength, agility and near-invulnerability. However, as time went on, the side-effects of the 'superserum' became more discernable. Alienated from mainstream American society, Danner withdrew to Brazil and a 'lost enclave' to create a new community of 'meta-humans'- although, returning to America to get his affairs in order, he made Anna Blake, his former lover, pregnant and the consequence was Arn ("Iron" Munro). However, Danner never knew his son existed, until Munro tracked down his father and entered "Maple White Land", his secret sanctuary.
Unfortunately, by that time, the superserum secret had been breached, as a covert SS operations team had entered Maple White Land and stolen the formula, successfully replicating it and leading to the creation of a 'super soldier', "Ubermensch", whose abilities paralleled Danner and Munro's own.
As time went on, however, Danner became increasingly deranged and after the All-Star Squadron defeated his "Sons of the Dawn" metahumans after they attacked the South American city of Rioguay, the madman ended his own life rather than be taken prisoner by 'baseline humans.'
Across the Atlantic, much the same happened to Ubermensch, whose brutality and heedlessness to the consequences of his actions increasingly alienated him from his UBA colleagues, especially Gudra and the Horned Owl. When the team disintegrated, Ubermensch intended to still serve the cause of Nazi Germany.
However, by that time, he had become addicted to the superserum, and his abilities lasted for a shorter and shorter duration. Although he begged to be assigned to the Eastern Front so that he could 'make a difference' against the Red Army, Hitler insisted that he be held in reserve.
By January 1945, however, the Red Army had overrun much of adjacent Eastern Europe and was encroaching on Germany's own national territory. Hitler finally sanctioned the use of Ubermensch in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable. As a consequence, hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers and resistance personnel paid the ultimate price. However, even that barbarity didn't lead to any hesitation and uncertainty from the attackers. Regardless of the fate of their comrades, whose heads were torn off, intestines pulled from their bodies and hearts bloodily extracted from their bodies, the Red Army kept on with their relentless drive forward. Not even the disclosure of the obscenities of the Nazi Holocaust and the genocide of six million Jews, one million Sinti and Romani and other victims of the charnel house concentration camps led to any hesitation from Ubermensch in the pursuit of his duties, because by now, he was insulated from any realistic perception of the disintegrating, malignant world around him.
NETHERLANDS:
As the Second World War in Europe entered its final weeks, there were panicked exchanges between the ebbing Nazi military presence in the vestiges of the formerly occupied Netherlands and the Fuhrerbunker in the ruins of Berlin. Given the British presence and the thaumaturgic collapse of the Spear of Destiny enchantment that had previously shielded Germany from the wrath of Allied metahumans, the local Wehrmacht and SS divisions were being run ragged by the arrival of Britain's own Victory Legion- Sheffield Steel, a mutant with a cast iron body; Herne the Hunter, the embodiment of the Green on this Earth; Intangible, a ghost who felt that his mission was not complete until the Nazi behemoth lay in ruins; Midnight Angel, female fighter pilot Rose Ashley; and Britannia, the Amazon Penthesilea, cousin to Wonder Woman and niece of Hippolyta, assigned to the United Kingdom to help preserve it against the Third Reich. In stark contrast with the enraged and almost uncontrollable Ubermensch on the far side of rapidly fragmenting Nazi Germany, the Victory Legion was a disciplined and focused group of Allied metahumans, who did not commit atrocities against their opponents, no matter what the provocation. And given the increasing evidence of depravity and genocide in the ashes of Nazi Germany, their revulsion and disgust at the revelations that awaited them was burgeoning.
"Where the hell is this Ubermensch bastard they've been talking about?" Sheffield Steel commented to Intangible as the ghost shuddered at the ectoplasmic torment and screams that only he could hear.
"Sorry, Derek. I was preoccupied. Don't be so bloody eager. He's a rough customer, from what I hear."
"All the more reason to give 'im a taste of British steel. My aunt and her family were killed in a Luftwaffe bombing back home, don't forget. This is personal for me."
"I think most of us feel that way. Weird havin' some of their former best and brightest on our side now."
"Aye, well, there's nowt wrong with Georgie, if that's who you mean. Poor bloke lost his lad because of the carelessness and blood lust of that Ubermensch character."
Several miles away, another member of the Victory Legion had the same idea. But Rosalie Ashley's interest was more personal than that of her colleagues:
"Georg?"
"Ach, Rosalie. I'm sorry, entering that last death camp...affected me. Particularly the way that those children behaved. Mein gott. They were so... emaciated, almost skeletal. And they were frightened of me because of my UBA past. Some of them assumed that ...that the UBA had been ordered to massacre the camp survivors... because... because the Nazis wanted not to leave any traces of their barbarity and slaughter. T-they were frightened of me. Forgive me, I..."
"Oh, Georg. Of course it's affected you. You must have been thinking of Willi when you saw them and the fact that your own son died. And because those children were ignorant of how you've changed and who you've become... please. You have fought alongside the Legion and saved our lives countless times. You don't have to prove anything to us. And at least those children are safe from any further cruelty and barbarity now that those camps have been liberated."
"I... was part of that, though, Rosalie. I ...talked myself into believing that the Fuhrer was a 'good man' and that he was just engaged in 'national security' when it came to a few Jewish radicals. Until '43, I had no idea of the extent and scale of the Final Solution. And then my son and I did. And poor, brave little Wilhelm died because of it. What sort of father was I?"
"Georg. You're not the only one who's haunted by what he... or she... have had to do during this war. I've told you I was involved in the Dresden raid, haven't I?"
"You have. You mean...?"
"Look, we're both Catholics. I'm going to be haunted forever by what I did during that raid. It's different when you're facing other military combatants, but we weren't. Civilians died. Children. Pregnant women. The elderly."
"Yah, but the Luftwaffe are just as guilty of their own comparable war crimes, Rosalie. What about Coventry on your side of the Channel?"
"That's the point, though, Georg. I committed a terrible sin. So you're not alone. Never think you are alone."
"And because you are a good, decent and moral woman, you have acknowledged it and are mourning what you did."
"And because you, Georg, are a good, decent and deeply moral man, you are haunted by what you omitted to do."
"Rosalie. What did I ever do to deserve the friendship and trust of someone like you?"
"Actually, Georg, for me it's gone deeper than that."
"I hoped it had. The question is, do I deserve that love?"
"Yes, you precious, loving soul. After all that you've endured, yes, you do." And with that, Midnight Angel and the Horned Owl embraced and kissed for what would not be the last time.
"Gudra"
"Penthesilea. For the record, I am not here to fight you, or your Legion comrades."
"Which is unusual, in itself. Mind telling me why?"
"It would be pointless. I have communed with the Norns. I have been told that there is no way out for Nazi Germany, that this will end in its irrevocable downfall. Any intervention would be foolhardy and pointless and only delay the inevitable."
"I must acknowledge that I am impressed. So you finally saw through the regime's entanglement with your mythos?"
"I did. I have crossed the barrier that separates the universes from one another and saw a universe where the Nazis had won- and even then, it was only for a moment, a mere eight years. It did not rely on belief in the Norse folkways and religious pieties to do so. I concluded then that my sister Brunhilde was right and that my sisters and I had been used and manipulated by Adolf Hitler, just as I was imprisoned under vile Klingsor the sorceror's tyranny when this world was younger. It took me decades to break free from his ensorcelment, and then only with the assistance of Sir Perceval of the Round Table in fabled Camelot. This sorcery may have paid more respect to my warrior prowess, but I was still subborned. There is nothing honourable or virtuous about this cause."
"What about..."
"Ubermensch? Ah, Penthesilea. There was naught that was honourable or even remotely virtuous about him. I served alongside him and made it clear to him that I was not here as his bedmate. And look at him now. He is addicted to the 'superserum' that the Nazis stole from Hugo Danner all those years ago. It has deranged him and he has lost all control. The Nazis are the source of his addiction and it has enslaved him. He is preverbal, savage and probably insane. Regard that gory necklace of human fingers around his neck. He will try to kill you and your comrades, I am afraid."
"Does he have any weaknesses? Can you tell us anything that Georg has not?"
"You will need to engage him near the end of all this, Penthesilea. By then, the superserum will be exhausted, the supply lines will be completely disrupted, and..."
"And in the interim weeks or months, he will have slaughtered more Allied soldiers. He should perish now."
"But if you do engage him now, he will still be able to access his hellbrew and one or more of you will die in the process. Even if Georg and I are no longer companions in arms, I am not inclined to see him throw away his life when he and the fair Rosalie have just found one another. He went through Hades itself when he lost young Wilhelm. It turns my stomach to see what I served, oblivious to the brutality and evil at its core. There is nothing holy or sacred about the furnaces or gas chambers in those camps, Penthesilea. It is depravity and ordure. I have sinned greatly against the weak and innocent, even children and babes in arms. I will return to Valhalla and seek penance from Father Odin."
"I hope he grants you leniency and forgiveness, sister."
"I wish I could forgive myself, sister." The Valkryrie and Amazon embraced, then, turning her back on the spectacle of Ubermensch's carnage, destruction and slaughter far below, Gudra mounted her winged steed and its mighty pinions swept it into the sky, then a single ray of light broke through the clouds and Gudra was caught in it momentarily. Then the Valkyrie was obscured from sight in the clouds and she passed from scrutiny or surveillance of any within the mortal realm. Britannia looked down, musing on Gudra's words. She frowned and then brought out her telepathic radio apparatus:
[Princess Diana?]
[Penthesilea. I am happy to hear from you, old friend.]
[Is there no chance that you and your Justice Society colleagues can travel here and join the Victory Legion in combat?]
[But what about the women and men that will fall over the next few weeks or months?]
[Have you tried to contact Superman?]
[There is a sorcerous barrier around Metropolis, caused by the two 'innocent' magicians, Hocus and Pocus, designed to distract and detain him from intervention abroad. As for Batman and Robin, they are engaged in battle against their enemy the Penguin and for them, fighting crime in their Gotham takes precedence over adventures abroad. In my own case, my priority is the apprehension of Countess Drashka Nishki, a Nazi spy who might be able to provide covert evidence of classified secrets if I do not break the back of International Spies Inc, her organisation. I wish it were otherwise, but we are fully extended.]
[No matter, old friend. Good fortune.]
[And to you, sister. Artemis guide your sword and trident.]
GOTTERDAMERUNG:
Most wartime images of Ubermensch are taken from Nazi propaganda and show him in an immaculate uniform, keen eyed and intent on his mission. However, as some commentators on metahuman combat during the Second World War have perceptively noted, the propaganda images of the 'super-soldier' in question cease after a certain point in 1945. While one of the reasons was the degradation and disruption of Nazi mass communications within their previously occupied territories and then, within Germany itself as the Red Army and other Allied armed forces drew closer from the northwest, south and east, the other was the visible deterioration of Ubermensch himself. This redacted report contains no direct insight into his thoughts or motivation at this time because of the consequences of his addiction to Das Uberserum. Given that Hugo Danner, its original creator, only took the serum in moderated dosages, and left few accounts of his own experiences that are either extant or immediately accessible, we have no way of knowing whether he ever experienced similar symptoms, or whether it was due to Ubermensch's addiction that he deteriorated into the spectacle that met the Victory Legion as they prepared for battle.
By this time, Ubermensch required an injection of superserum every five hours or so. He was uncommunicative, except in grunts, growls and screeches. His once-immaculate combat uniform had long since become tattered and torn, and all that remained was a skintight covering around his thighs. His body was scarred, its veins and muscles grotesquely distended, his eyes bulging, his teeth jagged and missing, and dried human blood and gore lay glistening on his pectorals and down his back. When he sighted the Victory Legion as it closed on him, he ran forward, as Britannia thrust forth her shield and prepared to engage him with her broadsword. However, Sheffield Steel beat her to it and landed a stiff uppercut that threw the rampaging Nazi behemoth back into the blood-stained mud. Although the impact had broken his nose, no-one can know whether he ever experienced pain. That much is a 'black box' of unrecorded history. As Herne gestured, thorns and jagged branches interposed themselves between the combatants and even nature itself was turning against the Nazi obscenity that howled its fury, defiance and inarticulate rage at them. From the skies, Midnight Angel's plane strafed him, and there, on the perimeter of the battle, Horned Owl stood, awaiting his moment of intervention. Based on observation and analysis of reports about Ubermensch's current capabilities (if so they could be designated), the misshapen Nazi monster was more than halfway through his latest dose of Das Uberserum. He had hoped that he would never have to use this, but his loyalty and duty to his comrades overrode all else. Especially one in particular, his heart pounding with apprehension but also pride and deep and abiding love as he watched the highly disciplined female air combat ace in the skies above them. He uttered an earnest request to Saint Michael, patron saint of those who fight valiantly in the heavens, for her welfare. Metres away, Penthesilea and Sheffield Steel hammered away at the creature, who threw chunks of fallen architecture skyward to assault Midnight Angel as she played her part in the battle.
"I'm sure he heard you, Georg." Intangible said, as he prepared to join in the mortal combat around them.
"I'm surprised the Nazis didn't try to exorcise you, Colin."
Colin Clarence, the Intangible, smiled at his companion:
"Ah, but their prayers and motions have no effect. Exorcism only works if you truly believe in the substantive content of what you're enacting. And fanaticism and doctrinaire blindness don't cut it. Or so my Uncle Frank the vicar told me."
"So, what's your role in this?"
"Wait and see, old chap. Won't be long now..."
And then, across the battlefield, Ubermensch saw his old ally turned bitter adversary, Horned Owl. Rage and a distorted parody of necrotised patriotic fervour for a blighted cause that he was unable to recognise was in its death throes filled him with determination to take the fight to the traitor who impassively stood there, staring at the last remnant of the once-mighty UBA. He screeched and ranted mindlessly in his defiance and fury, shoving Britannia and Sheffield Steel aside as he ran or stumbled, spittle and flecks of blood in his path, ready to end the life of the Judas who had shattered the unity of the UBA asunder. And then, from his utility belt, Horned Owl took out a slim firearm. He levelled it at the behemoth's heart and squeezed its trigger. A dart closed the distance as the stopwatch in Horned Owl's hand ticked down to zero, at the same time as Intangible entered his body to accelerate what happened next. And then, Ubermensch fell. His gargantuan body spasmed in pain and frustrated rage, but also foreboding at what was happening to him now, as he experienced a fatal cardiac arrest as the trauma from Horned Owl's antidote to the superserum and its forcible suppression of that addictive drug coursed through him. And after a mercifully brief interlude of shrieking and screeching incoherently, he stopped moving, his face forever frozen in a moment of -fury? Fear? Horror? Or an amalgam of all these?
EPILOGUE:
As the news spread, there were cheers from the Red Army, USAF and British Army personnel who had witnessed the end of a nightmare made flesh. And when it came to the Wehrmacht, the news was impossible to suppress. Indeed, it seemed to act as vehement acid, sowing fatalism, despair and willingness to lay down their arms. It is unknown how Adolf Hitler reacted when he finally heard the news, in his embattled Fuhrerbunker. However, given that it was now May 1945, the final act of that grand guignol drama was about to fall in Berlin itself. It would be comforting to assume that the death of the Third Reich's monstrous, distorted behemoth 'super soldier' caused a final spasm of despair and fatal resignation within the Fuhrer's own syphilis-wracked mind and was a principal influence on his decision to kill his new wife Eva Braun and himself. However, no written or reported evidence supports any such correlation. It may have been the final straw. It may not have been. Under such circumstances, an insight into the mind of such a figure is impossible to ascertain.
And in London, several months later, the good and beautiful Rosalie Ashley and Georg van Tregor were wed and lived a long and happy life together. Although Georg was called upon by police and detectives in the Federal Republic of Germany for several years afterward, he never donned his Horned Owl uniform again. While the couple was sadly unable to have children, they were respected and admired by their contemporaries in the diplomatic and espionage communities. As for their colleagues, Penthesilea fought crime in the United Kingdom for decades afterward, while Sheffield Steel served in the armed services, until he went missing in the Malayan Emergency of the 1950s. After 1953, Intangible wasn't seen again and probably went to his eternal reward. Herne the Hunter returned to the verdant English countryside that he called home and is presumably still there. Georg van Tregor passed away in 1985, and was given a state funeral in his native Frankfurt. Lady Rosalie Van Tregor passed away two years later.
Sometimes, happy endings are possible.
THE END [2.44 PM, SEPTEMBER 23, 2022]
APPENDIX:
Horned Owl's prayer was, ironically for a devout Catholic like Georg von Tregor, taken from John Milton's Paradise Lost, despite Milton's Puritan lineage. A much-earmarked German translation of that epic poetic drama was found in his bookcase after his death by his biographer, Lois Lane-Kent:
Aber das Schwert
von Michael aus der
Waffenkammer
Gottes wurde ihm
Gegeben, gehartet,
so dass weder Scharf
noch Solide der
Schneide
widersten konnten.
Es traf das Schwert
Satans mit steiler
kraft, um es zu
Schlagen, und es
sank in halb
geschnittenem.
Scheren ab und blieb
nicht stehen, aber mit
steifen Rad umgekerht,
tiefes Eindringen scherte
seine ganze rechte Seite,
so dass Satan zuerst
Schmerz kannte.
"But the sword of Michael,
from the Armory of God,
was given him, tempered so
that neither keen or solid might
resisted the edge;
it met the sword of Satan
with steep force to smite,
descending in half cut sheer,
nor stayed,
but with stiff wheel reversed,
deep entering sheared all
his right side,
so Satan first knew pain."
++
PROLOGUE:
Originally, Hugo Danner had been an American icon. He had been injected with an experimental 'meta-human' serum in utero and as a result acquired prodigious strength, agility and near-invulnerability. However, as time went on, the side-effects of the 'superserum' became more discernable. Alienated from mainstream American society, Danner withdrew to Brazil and a 'lost enclave' to create a new community of 'meta-humans'- although, returning to America to get his affairs in order, he made Anna Blake, his former lover, pregnant and the consequence was Arn ("Iron" Munro). However, Danner never knew his son existed, until Munro tracked down his father and entered "Maple White Land", his secret sanctuary.
Unfortunately, by that time, the superserum secret had been breached, as a covert SS operations team had entered Maple White Land and stolen the formula, successfully replicating it and leading to the creation of a 'super soldier', "Ubermensch", whose abilities paralleled Danner and Munro's own.
As time went on, however, Danner became increasingly deranged and after the All-Star Squadron defeated his "Sons of the Dawn" metahumans after they attacked the South American city of Rioguay, the madman ended his own life rather than be taken prisoner by 'baseline humans.'
Across the Atlantic, much the same happened to Ubermensch, whose brutality and heedlessness to the consequences of his actions increasingly alienated him from his UBA colleagues, especially Gudra and the Horned Owl. When the team disintegrated, Ubermensch intended to still serve the cause of Nazi Germany.
However, by that time, he had become addicted to the superserum, and his abilities lasted for a shorter and shorter duration. Although he begged to be assigned to the Eastern Front so that he could 'make a difference' against the Red Army, Hitler insisted that he be held in reserve.
By January 1945, however, the Red Army had overrun much of adjacent Eastern Europe and was encroaching on Germany's own national territory. Hitler finally sanctioned the use of Ubermensch in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable. As a consequence, hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers and resistance personnel paid the ultimate price. However, even that barbarity didn't lead to any hesitation and uncertainty from the attackers. Regardless of the fate of their comrades, whose heads were torn off, intestines pulled from their bodies and hearts bloodily extracted from their bodies, the Red Army kept on with their relentless drive forward. Not even the disclosure of the obscenities of the Nazi Holocaust and the genocide of six million Jews, one million Sinti and Romani and other victims of the charnel house concentration camps led to any hesitation from Ubermensch in the pursuit of his duties, because by now, he was insulated from any realistic perception of the disintegrating, malignant world around him.
NETHERLANDS:
As the Second World War in Europe entered its final weeks, there were panicked exchanges between the ebbing Nazi military presence in the vestiges of the formerly occupied Netherlands and the Fuhrerbunker in the ruins of Berlin. Given the British presence and the thaumaturgic collapse of the Spear of Destiny enchantment that had previously shielded Germany from the wrath of Allied metahumans, the local Wehrmacht and SS divisions were being run ragged by the arrival of Britain's own Victory Legion- Sheffield Steel, a mutant with a cast iron body; Herne the Hunter, the embodiment of the Green on this Earth; Intangible, a ghost who felt that his mission was not complete until the Nazi behemoth lay in ruins; Midnight Angel, female fighter pilot Rose Ashley; and Britannia, the Amazon Penthesilea, cousin to Wonder Woman and niece of Hippolyta, assigned to the United Kingdom to help preserve it against the Third Reich. In stark contrast with the enraged and almost uncontrollable Ubermensch on the far side of rapidly fragmenting Nazi Germany, the Victory Legion was a disciplined and focused group of Allied metahumans, who did not commit atrocities against their opponents, no matter what the provocation. And given the increasing evidence of depravity and genocide in the ashes of Nazi Germany, their revulsion and disgust at the revelations that awaited them was burgeoning.
"Where the hell is this Ubermensch bastard they've been talking about?" Sheffield Steel commented to Intangible as the ghost shuddered at the ectoplasmic torment and screams that only he could hear.
"Sorry, Derek. I was preoccupied. Don't be so bloody eager. He's a rough customer, from what I hear."
"All the more reason to give 'im a taste of British steel. My aunt and her family were killed in a Luftwaffe bombing back home, don't forget. This is personal for me."
"I think most of us feel that way. Weird havin' some of their former best and brightest on our side now."
"Aye, well, there's nowt wrong with Georgie, if that's who you mean. Poor bloke lost his lad because of the carelessness and blood lust of that Ubermensch character."
Several miles away, another member of the Victory Legion had the same idea. But Rosalie Ashley's interest was more personal than that of her colleagues:
"Georg?"
"Ach, Rosalie. I'm sorry, entering that last death camp...affected me. Particularly the way that those children behaved. Mein gott. They were so... emaciated, almost skeletal. And they were frightened of me because of my UBA past. Some of them assumed that ...that the UBA had been ordered to massacre the camp survivors... because... because the Nazis wanted not to leave any traces of their barbarity and slaughter. T-they were frightened of me. Forgive me, I..."
"Oh, Georg. Of course it's affected you. You must have been thinking of Willi when you saw them and the fact that your own son died. And because those children were ignorant of how you've changed and who you've become... please. You have fought alongside the Legion and saved our lives countless times. You don't have to prove anything to us. And at least those children are safe from any further cruelty and barbarity now that those camps have been liberated."
"I... was part of that, though, Rosalie. I ...talked myself into believing that the Fuhrer was a 'good man' and that he was just engaged in 'national security' when it came to a few Jewish radicals. Until '43, I had no idea of the extent and scale of the Final Solution. And then my son and I did. And poor, brave little Wilhelm died because of it. What sort of father was I?"
"Georg. You're not the only one who's haunted by what he... or she... have had to do during this war. I've told you I was involved in the Dresden raid, haven't I?"
"You have. You mean...?"
"Look, we're both Catholics. I'm going to be haunted forever by what I did during that raid. It's different when you're facing other military combatants, but we weren't. Civilians died. Children. Pregnant women. The elderly."
"Yah, but the Luftwaffe are just as guilty of their own comparable war crimes, Rosalie. What about Coventry on your side of the Channel?"
"That's the point, though, Georg. I committed a terrible sin. So you're not alone. Never think you are alone."
"And because you are a good, decent and moral woman, you have acknowledged it and are mourning what you did."
"And because you, Georg, are a good, decent and deeply moral man, you are haunted by what you omitted to do."
"Rosalie. What did I ever do to deserve the friendship and trust of someone like you?"
"Actually, Georg, for me it's gone deeper than that."
"I hoped it had. The question is, do I deserve that love?"
"Yes, you precious, loving soul. After all that you've endured, yes, you do." And with that, Midnight Angel and the Horned Owl embraced and kissed for what would not be the last time.
"Gudra"
"Penthesilea. For the record, I am not here to fight you, or your Legion comrades."
"Which is unusual, in itself. Mind telling me why?"
"It would be pointless. I have communed with the Norns. I have been told that there is no way out for Nazi Germany, that this will end in its irrevocable downfall. Any intervention would be foolhardy and pointless and only delay the inevitable."
"I must acknowledge that I am impressed. So you finally saw through the regime's entanglement with your mythos?"
"I did. I have crossed the barrier that separates the universes from one another and saw a universe where the Nazis had won- and even then, it was only for a moment, a mere eight years. It did not rely on belief in the Norse folkways and religious pieties to do so. I concluded then that my sister Brunhilde was right and that my sisters and I had been used and manipulated by Adolf Hitler, just as I was imprisoned under vile Klingsor the sorceror's tyranny when this world was younger. It took me decades to break free from his ensorcelment, and then only with the assistance of Sir Perceval of the Round Table in fabled Camelot. This sorcery may have paid more respect to my warrior prowess, but I was still subborned. There is nothing honourable or virtuous about this cause."
"What about..."
"Ubermensch? Ah, Penthesilea. There was naught that was honourable or even remotely virtuous about him. I served alongside him and made it clear to him that I was not here as his bedmate. And look at him now. He is addicted to the 'superserum' that the Nazis stole from Hugo Danner all those years ago. It has deranged him and he has lost all control. The Nazis are the source of his addiction and it has enslaved him. He is preverbal, savage and probably insane. Regard that gory necklace of human fingers around his neck. He will try to kill you and your comrades, I am afraid."
"Does he have any weaknesses? Can you tell us anything that Georg has not?"
"You will need to engage him near the end of all this, Penthesilea. By then, the superserum will be exhausted, the supply lines will be completely disrupted, and..."
"And in the interim weeks or months, he will have slaughtered more Allied soldiers. He should perish now."
"But if you do engage him now, he will still be able to access his hellbrew and one or more of you will die in the process. Even if Georg and I are no longer companions in arms, I am not inclined to see him throw away his life when he and the fair Rosalie have just found one another. He went through Hades itself when he lost young Wilhelm. It turns my stomach to see what I served, oblivious to the brutality and evil at its core. There is nothing holy or sacred about the furnaces or gas chambers in those camps, Penthesilea. It is depravity and ordure. I have sinned greatly against the weak and innocent, even children and babes in arms. I will return to Valhalla and seek penance from Father Odin."
"I hope he grants you leniency and forgiveness, sister."
"I wish I could forgive myself, sister." The Valkryrie and Amazon embraced, then, turning her back on the spectacle of Ubermensch's carnage, destruction and slaughter far below, Gudra mounted her winged steed and its mighty pinions swept it into the sky, then a single ray of light broke through the clouds and Gudra was caught in it momentarily. Then the Valkyrie was obscured from sight in the clouds and she passed from scrutiny or surveillance of any within the mortal realm. Britannia looked down, musing on Gudra's words. She frowned and then brought out her telepathic radio apparatus:
[Princess Diana?]
[Penthesilea. I am happy to hear from you, old friend.]
[Is there no chance that you and your Justice Society colleagues can travel here and join the Victory Legion in combat?]
[But what about the women and men that will fall over the next few weeks or months?]
[Have you tried to contact Superman?]
[There is a sorcerous barrier around Metropolis, caused by the two 'innocent' magicians, Hocus and Pocus, designed to distract and detain him from intervention abroad. As for Batman and Robin, they are engaged in battle against their enemy the Penguin and for them, fighting crime in their Gotham takes precedence over adventures abroad. In my own case, my priority is the apprehension of Countess Drashka Nishki, a Nazi spy who might be able to provide covert evidence of classified secrets if I do not break the back of International Spies Inc, her organisation. I wish it were otherwise, but we are fully extended.]
[No matter, old friend. Good fortune.]
[And to you, sister. Artemis guide your sword and trident.]
GOTTERDAMERUNG:
Most wartime images of Ubermensch are taken from Nazi propaganda and show him in an immaculate uniform, keen eyed and intent on his mission. However, as some commentators on metahuman combat during the Second World War have perceptively noted, the propaganda images of the 'super-soldier' in question cease after a certain point in 1945. While one of the reasons was the degradation and disruption of Nazi mass communications within their previously occupied territories and then, within Germany itself as the Red Army and other Allied armed forces drew closer from the northwest, south and east, the other was the visible deterioration of Ubermensch himself. This redacted report contains no direct insight into his thoughts or motivation at this time because of the consequences of his addiction to Das Uberserum. Given that Hugo Danner, its original creator, only took the serum in moderated dosages, and left few accounts of his own experiences that are either extant or immediately accessible, we have no way of knowing whether he ever experienced similar symptoms, or whether it was due to Ubermensch's addiction that he deteriorated into the spectacle that met the Victory Legion as they prepared for battle.
By this time, Ubermensch required an injection of superserum every five hours or so. He was uncommunicative, except in grunts, growls and screeches. His once-immaculate combat uniform had long since become tattered and torn, and all that remained was a skintight covering around his thighs. His body was scarred, its veins and muscles grotesquely distended, his eyes bulging, his teeth jagged and missing, and dried human blood and gore lay glistening on his pectorals and down his back. When he sighted the Victory Legion as it closed on him, he ran forward, as Britannia thrust forth her shield and prepared to engage him with her broadsword. However, Sheffield Steel beat her to it and landed a stiff uppercut that threw the rampaging Nazi behemoth back into the blood-stained mud. Although the impact had broken his nose, no-one can know whether he ever experienced pain. That much is a 'black box' of unrecorded history. As Herne gestured, thorns and jagged branches interposed themselves between the combatants and even nature itself was turning against the Nazi obscenity that howled its fury, defiance and inarticulate rage at them. From the skies, Midnight Angel's plane strafed him, and there, on the perimeter of the battle, Horned Owl stood, awaiting his moment of intervention. Based on observation and analysis of reports about Ubermensch's current capabilities (if so they could be designated), the misshapen Nazi monster was more than halfway through his latest dose of Das Uberserum. He had hoped that he would never have to use this, but his loyalty and duty to his comrades overrode all else. Especially one in particular, his heart pounding with apprehension but also pride and deep and abiding love as he watched the highly disciplined female air combat ace in the skies above them. He uttered an earnest request to Saint Michael, patron saint of those who fight valiantly in the heavens, for her welfare. Metres away, Penthesilea and Sheffield Steel hammered away at the creature, who threw chunks of fallen architecture skyward to assault Midnight Angel as she played her part in the battle.
"I'm sure he heard you, Georg." Intangible said, as he prepared to join in the mortal combat around them.
"I'm surprised the Nazis didn't try to exorcise you, Colin."
Colin Clarence, the Intangible, smiled at his companion:
"Ah, but their prayers and motions have no effect. Exorcism only works if you truly believe in the substantive content of what you're enacting. And fanaticism and doctrinaire blindness don't cut it. Or so my Uncle Frank the vicar told me."
"So, what's your role in this?"
"Wait and see, old chap. Won't be long now..."
And then, across the battlefield, Ubermensch saw his old ally turned bitter adversary, Horned Owl. Rage and a distorted parody of necrotised patriotic fervour for a blighted cause that he was unable to recognise was in its death throes filled him with determination to take the fight to the traitor who impassively stood there, staring at the last remnant of the once-mighty UBA. He screeched and ranted mindlessly in his defiance and fury, shoving Britannia and Sheffield Steel aside as he ran or stumbled, spittle and flecks of blood in his path, ready to end the life of the Judas who had shattered the unity of the UBA asunder. And then, from his utility belt, Horned Owl took out a slim firearm. He levelled it at the behemoth's heart and squeezed its trigger. A dart closed the distance as the stopwatch in Horned Owl's hand ticked down to zero, at the same time as Intangible entered his body to accelerate what happened next. And then, Ubermensch fell. His gargantuan body spasmed in pain and frustrated rage, but also foreboding at what was happening to him now, as he experienced a fatal cardiac arrest as the trauma from Horned Owl's antidote to the superserum and its forcible suppression of that addictive drug coursed through him. And after a mercifully brief interlude of shrieking and screeching incoherently, he stopped moving, his face forever frozen in a moment of -fury? Fear? Horror? Or an amalgam of all these?
EPILOGUE:
As the news spread, there were cheers from the Red Army, USAF and British Army personnel who had witnessed the end of a nightmare made flesh. And when it came to the Wehrmacht, the news was impossible to suppress. Indeed, it seemed to act as vehement acid, sowing fatalism, despair and willingness to lay down their arms. It is unknown how Adolf Hitler reacted when he finally heard the news, in his embattled Fuhrerbunker. However, given that it was now May 1945, the final act of that grand guignol drama was about to fall in Berlin itself. It would be comforting to assume that the death of the Third Reich's monstrous, distorted behemoth 'super soldier' caused a final spasm of despair and fatal resignation within the Fuhrer's own syphilis-wracked mind and was a principal influence on his decision to kill his new wife Eva Braun and himself. However, no written or reported evidence supports any such correlation. It may have been the final straw. It may not have been. Under such circumstances, an insight into the mind of such a figure is impossible to ascertain.
And in London, several months later, the good and beautiful Rosalie Ashley and Georg van Tregor were wed and lived a long and happy life together. Although Georg was called upon by police and detectives in the Federal Republic of Germany for several years afterward, he never donned his Horned Owl uniform again. While the couple was sadly unable to have children, they were respected and admired by their contemporaries in the diplomatic and espionage communities. As for their colleagues, Penthesilea fought crime in the United Kingdom for decades afterward, while Sheffield Steel served in the armed services, until he went missing in the Malayan Emergency of the 1950s. After 1953, Intangible wasn't seen again and probably went to his eternal reward. Herne the Hunter returned to the verdant English countryside that he called home and is presumably still there. Georg van Tregor passed away in 1985, and was given a state funeral in his native Frankfurt. Lady Rosalie Van Tregor passed away two years later.
Sometimes, happy endings are possible.
THE END [2.44 PM, SEPTEMBER 23, 2022]
APPENDIX:
Horned Owl's prayer was, ironically for a devout Catholic like Georg von Tregor, taken from John Milton's Paradise Lost, despite Milton's Puritan lineage. A much-earmarked German translation of that epic poetic drama was found in his bookcase after his death by his biographer, Lois Lane-Kent:
Aber das Schwert
von Michael aus der
Waffenkammer
Gottes wurde ihm
Gegeben, gehartet,
so dass weder Scharf
noch Solide der
Schneide
widersten konnten.
Es traf das Schwert
Satans mit steiler
kraft, um es zu
Schlagen, und es
sank in halb
geschnittenem.
Scheren ab und blieb
nicht stehen, aber mit
steifen Rad umgekerht,
tiefes Eindringen scherte
seine ganze rechte Seite,
so dass Satan zuerst
Schmerz kannte.
"But the sword of Michael,
from the Armory of God,
was given him, tempered so
that neither keen or solid might
resisted the edge;
it met the sword of Satan
with steep force to smite,
descending in half cut sheer,
nor stayed,
but with stiff wheel reversed,
deep entering sheared all
his right side,
so Satan first knew pain."
