Horned Owl: Die Kraft Der Liebe (The Power of Love): 1943
Nov 16, 2022 1:15:08 GMT
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Post by redsycorax on Nov 16, 2022 1:15:08 GMT
Nazi Germany's UBA was their paramount group of metahumans. Until, one day in 1943, a fateful tragic incident meant that the differences between them could no longer be ignored or accomodated. And one of them died. Content Warning: There is a graphic character death in this episode. Due to its nature, it is not advised for children.
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FRANKFURT:
With his father away on a business trip to Berlin, young Wilhelm von Tregor (Fledermaus) was enjoying a night out on his own. And then, by chance, his foot echoed strangely on the roof of a building in the abandoned Jewish quarter. Fledermaus frowned to himself, wondering why that should be the case. Substandard building repairs? No, that couldn't be right- there were no obvious signs of bomb damage on the house's roof. He then heard conversations coming from the vicinity of the chimney. But it was inert, given that there was a shortage of fuel in wartime Frankfurt, even firewood. He secreted himself in the aperture and took out one of his father's customised stethoscopes. What he heard startled him:
"So there can be no real doubt? Mein Gott. I thought there was something suspicious about Goebbels claim that the Polish concentration camps were actually disease prevention facilities to 'protect' the Polish public from typhus. In other words, they exploited the absence of sanitary conditions and healthcare to create a self-fulfilling prophecy? And Theresienstadt? What did you find out about the so-called residential camp for the elderly and distinguished Jews who had served our country faithfully?"
"It's nothing of the sort. It's a facade. They're sent to concentration camps elsewhere in the Reich. And that's not all. I think you'd better prepare yourselves. The next photographs that I smuggled out from the supply truck we sent to infiltrate the Polish camps came back with these photographs."
There was a stifled scream from within the building:
"Easy, Trudl."
"Merciful Gott in Himmel. All the time, they've been lying to us, concealing the truth from us. So those Polish resistance fighters were right? This is monstrous. Those old people and children are skin and bones. And... and... the buildings with the tall chimneys, those cyanide canisters, and ...and... those corpses. You mean...?"
"Yes, I'm afraid so. Remember the Tiergarten IV facilities before the war, the ones that coldly and deliberately gassed the mentally ill, the intellectually disabled and others 'unworthy of life?' Ach, it is shameful. Why did the church protest that obscenity and not this? I know the Holy Father is trying to save some of them, but... how many have been murdered in this way? Thousands? ...Hundreds of thousands?"
"Worse than that, even. Perhaps...millions..."
Still concealed, Fledermaus' mind and conscience warred within him. They were not diehard, murderous communists. They were... Catholics, like himself and his father. What did this mean? He'd heard about the sanitary camps, everyone knew about them. But...what if they were saying was right? It made sense. At times, patrolling the city, they'd heard distant cries and screams, but they thought it was just overenthusiastic law enforcement at work. Ubermensch was openly dismissive of the 'rumours', calling them 'Jewish-Bolshevik black propaganda.' But Gudra kept her own counsel, her face carefully featureless. She looked as if she might be aware of something, should this be true. He decided to visit UBA headquarters, to see if this was a valid observation. Extricating himself from the narrow chimney tunnel, he swung away over the rooftops, heart hammering in his young breast.
UBA HEADQUARTERS:
And when he alighted from the Owlgyro, he knocked at Gudra's door:
"Ach, young Wilhelm. My, you have grown."
"Gudra, I need to know something. A-are those rumours about the camps in Poland true?"
Her eyes widened and she looked both ways down the corridor, hoping that Wilhelm's innocent question had not alerted the others, or been audible. She motioned for him to enter her room. As he did so, she looked up -and Fledermaus was startled to see tears in the warrior woman's eyes:
"How did you find out?"
"I eavesdropped on an anti-Nazi group. They were Catholics, Gudra. They had ...photographs, they said. Photographs of...of skeletal Jews being frogmarched into buildings, with vast, smoking chimneys. And cyanide canisters. And piles of corpses. And...and they compared it to the Tiergarten programme, the slaughter of those in the psychiatric institutions and intellectually disabled peoples homes. I trust you. So, if you were to tell me that these were only treacherous subversives, daggers at the heart of the Reich, I would believe you."
Gudra did not speak for an instant. Then she turned away and stared out the window. In a choked and broken voice, she said the words that he dreaded to hear:
"No, my young soldier. I am afraid that they were not engaged in malicious, idle hyperbole. Every word that they said was true. All of it."
"But you... Gudra, you are an honourable warrior. How could you...?"
"Well, Willi, you may have noticed I've been away a great deal over the last few years. Your vater is a scientist. How much physics do you know?"
"Enough to know that Heisenberg shouldn't have been put in charge of the uranium experiments. Or is this about his other interests, his so-called 'many worlds' theory about the parallel universes?"
"Georg has trained you well, Willi. All right. The latter part is true. I know, because I've been there. To alternate, parallel Earths. You do know we're not doing well in this war, nein? Well, on other alternate Earths, that is not the case. And...and on them, I saw what ...evil ... had been committed in the Reich's name. They... they had gassed and butchered millions of Jews, Gypsies, men who love other men. And when I came back here, I verified that the same was happening here. At the next UBA meeting, I will tender my resignation. I don't think I'm going to be the only one, somehow. Kamikaze, Sumo and the others have made their excuses and returned to the Home Islands and I don't think they'll be back- they've put their national survival above the fragile bonds of Axis solidarity. Have you noticed how distant Usil's been lately?"
"Ya, does that have something to do with the coup in Rome that topped Mussolini?"
"Perceptive young man. Yes, it does. Usil and I have talked, Willi. His cousins were shot in reprisal for a partisan ambush. The ironic thing is, they were innocent. It was an arbitrary decimation strategy. ...Where are you going?"
"My responsibility is clear. I have to stop this."
"Willi, if you do, you'll be in open revolt against the Reich."
"I cannot let this stand, Gudra. You understand, don't you?"
"Alone?"
"As you said, my father taught me well. Don't try to follow me. I know Ubermensch only too well, he's a Nazi loyalist and he'll move hell and earth to try to protect the regime. I think he really believes that drek about a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy. Keep him distracted."
"I will. Be careful, Willi. Please." But when she turned, she heard only the whirring of the autogyro.
Unfortunately, and tragically, they were not alone that night. Sea Wolf had noticed what had gone on, had heard the opening question from Fledermaus and had listened closely to the conversation between the two of them. Unlike Ubermensch, Sea Wolf was not a Nazi loyalist. Indeed, he was a nihilist, who believed that 'might was right' and really did not believe in anything except his personal welfare. Even Fledermaus' story of the industrialised slaughter of untold numbers of innocents did not move him. He only cared about his personal rank and position within the Reich and if things went pear-shaped, he would swim out to sea and leave the Reich to its own fate. However, until then, he was motivated by concern only for himself. All right, then. He'd tell Ubermensch.
The Man of Iron listened and then grinned. Actually, there was no humour in his expression. It was akin to that of a shark, biding its time and awaiting its prey. At length, he nodded and picked up a telephone. He dialed the Frankfurt SS barracks and coldly and deliberately betrayed his one-time young UBA colleague. He was laughing as he ended the call.
GROSSMARKTHALLE, OSTEND:
Once, the Grossmarkthalle had been a vast fruit and vegetable farmers market site, hence its name. But during the dark years of the Shoah, it was something infinitely more sinister- a staging point for Frankfurt's remaining Jewish community members as they were manhandled and assaulted by the SS during their herding into insanitary cattle cars, rife with human excrement, vomit and probably typhus and cholera germs, given that many would die en route to the gas chambers in Thereisenstadt, Dachau, Lodz, Minsk and that most stygian of charnel houses, redolent of genocide, pain and ordeals untold- Auschwitz. Once heralded as the world's largest monocque building, with its loads supported by its external skin, the Grossmarkthalle had been desecrated by the Nazis as had so much else. While its manifold struts and turrets might have provided sanctuary for anyone intending rescue or disruption from its current hellish mission, Ubermensch's betrayal of his diminutive one-time colleague had left no sanctuary or hiding place for Wilhelm von Tregor as the young acrobat swooped in with a Owlrope, intent on preventing tonight's ordeal. However, forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes- and the SS had snipers secreted above him. One shot severed his rope and the others riddled his body as he crashed to the floor below in a shower of blood. The onlookers screamed, but were brutally restrained from offering any assistance to the dying child, as a throng of laughing SS Stormtroopers surrounded his body, kicking and punching at it, until nothing remained but a twisted, bloodstained mass of flesh and fabric.
And then, from the roof above, jagged glass fragments flew as a window suddenly shattered and Gudra swept into the main embarkation area, astride her winged steed Sturmwind, with her UBA companion Horned Owl accompanying her. As a Valkyrie psychopomp, Gudra had known instantly of what had befallen Wilhelm and had rode her pegasus mount to fetch the murdered child's father. What she saw below sickened her, as did the reason for the desecration and wanton slaughter of his young body. Georg was speechless. He dismounted from Sturmwind and knelt alongside the shattered body of his son and then the hall was filled with hoarse, wracking sobs and screams of anguish. Gudra realised that what she was about to do was an irrevocable step, but she was a Valkyrie and her esprit de corps prevailed as the warrior-woman unsheathed her lance, Todtsbringer, and cast it toward a bewildered group of SS soldiers, still with blood on their hands, uniforms and shoes. Her sword, Donnerklinge, Thunderblade, followed soon after as she slaughtered the craven cowards around her who had ended the life of a mere child, showing them as little mercy as they had shown young Wilhelm. Still numbed, Horned Owl realised that he could not let Gudra take the risks and burdens of vengeance for Wilhelm's murder atop her broad Valkyrie shoulders and icy, crystalline anger replaced his deep, piercing grief. He had read his son's notes and agreed with his decision. The synagogue fire in 1938 had been shameful enough and should have warned him of the Reich's true nature, but he had been a blind fool. He used his Owlshield and bullet-proof uniform relentlessly as he attacked and killed the SS guards and threw a grenade into the main engine of the death train that would have taken tonight's victims to the concentration camps. Then, there was a moment of pause.
"Traitors!" Ubermensch screamed, spittle flying as he took in what he construed to be treason against the Third Reich in his febrile, cankered mind. He leapt from a turret, intent on breaking Horned Owl's back and throwing him into the blazing wreck of the train engine, but a mighty force of nature intercepted him in his tracks. Her name was Gudra and she thrust her sword before her:
"Have you taken leave of your senses, godling? What treachery is this?!"
"Be silent, churl! You will not be allowed to interfere in this battle."
"Judas! Betrayer of your sacred vows to the Reich!"
"Such kindergarten histrionics will not sway me. I know nothing less than a bursting shell can penetrate your skin, but that provenance is restricted to earthly domains. Do you want to risk the lethal touch of Todtsbringer or see how you fare against my dread blade, Donnerklinge, Faust? You will not pass!"
Ubermensch glared, but even within his diseased mind, he knew that the Valkyrie was right and knew what a disciplined and experienced warrior she was. He cursed and ranted at her and at the Horned Owl, as a blue shadow crept toward the melee within the Grossmarkthalle. As he reached for a machine gun thrown wide of the battle, an arrow impacted near his questing hand:
"Wolf. Stay where you are."
"Well, now, that's a surprise. Always wondered why you wore yellow, archer."
Usil held his bow stretched and aimed at the mutant:
"Why are you even doing this, Wolf? What harm have the Owl, that poor little boy or Gudra, ever done you? And don't tell me it's all for the glory of the Thousand Year Reich. I know you too well. Or is this Nietzsche's disciple talking?"
"Philosopher, are we? But yes, that's the underlying motivation. Freddie needed help, given that fire and brimstone poison he takes is destroying his mind. You and I know it, so do Gudra and the Owl. Oh, I know the Reich is probably doomed, but that isn't the point. I'll take what I want now the facade of the UBA has been torn down by tonight's spectacle, unless you want to kill me now. Go ahead, Usil. I don't care."
Usil fledged an arrow and fired it, but into the Sea Wolf's upper shoulder. The mutant staggered and then fell to the floor. Usil stepped over the unconscious figure, given that his arrow had merely been tipped with anesthetic. Wolf would wake up with an almighty headache, but he planned to be long gone by then. Which left one subsequent problem, the bull elephant in the middle of the room, as Ubermensch continued to bellow and rage at the impassive Gudra while Horned Owl presided over a breakout at the Grossmarkthalle, allowing the liberated erstwhile death-camp bound deportees to flee into the night, amidst a concealing cloud. As Usil and Horned Owl climbed atop Sturmwind, Ubermensch tried to make a break for the winged horse, intent on reaching the steed, pulling its wings from it and tearing the heads from the treacherous archer and birdman. He never got that far, as Gudra reached him first and thunder echoed around the burning, ruined main hall. When it died down, Ubermensch lay sprawled and blinking several yards away, not dead but certainly groggy and unconscious. Gudra spat on him and then she joined her companions astride Sturmwind and the horse's wings swept into the night, leaving funereal silence behind.
EPILOGUE 1:
Several days later, Usil had been dropped behind the Austrian-Italian border as he made his way toward a partisan group he had previously established contact with. That left Gudra and Horned Owl high atop the Swiss Alps, in neutral territory. Georg felt nothing but searing pain and grief as he stood where no parent ever desires to- his beloved son's grave. He planted a rose above the newly turned earth where his son now lay, as he said to her:
"Why, Gudra? I'm grateful for your friendship and your fighting alongside me in that battle, but... why did you?"
"Because, Georg Von Tregor, on Norn-threaded worlds unravelled from our own, I have seen the obscenity that Adolf Hitler's honeyed phrases and appeals to patriotism have concealed all these years. It broke the hold of the infernal Spear of Destiny over me and I was able to penetrate the same veil of misinformation and propaganda that your son so valiantly did. I consider myself an honest warrior. What I have been duped and marshalled into doing turns my stomach. I will return over the Bifrost rainbow bridge between Midgard and there and seek penance for my error with Father Odin and before the rest of the Holy Aesir."
"It has been an honour and privilege to serve alongside you, Gudra. Even if some of what we did was mired in error and denial of underlying realities, that at least was worth it."
"Like me, Georg, you are a person of faith and valour. I saw you gazing at the photograph of your Virgin Mary and the prone, outstretched body of the Christ, of that sculpture you call the Pieta. It moved me deeply. Take consolation in that. You do not suffer alone, even though nothing can bring your valiant and noble child back."
"I know that. It helps fill the void that Willi left behind. I witness the Blessed Virgin's tears and know Her for a sanctuary and steadfast presence that will help me through this."
"What will you do now?"
"I've made contact with a Britischer outfit called the Victory Legion. Under the circumstances, I suspect that the Amerikaner Justice Society wouldn't have me after all the blows we've traded. You know, you were right when you talked about penance, Gudra. I served an unholy behemoth but at the cost of my son's life, I have been freed from that illusion. Even if the cost was far, far too great. Farewell, Gudra. Godspeed."
"And may Mother Freya shield and protect you, Georg my comrade."
EPILOGUE 2:
And many years later, in Israel's Yad Vashem, long after the war was over and he had abandoned his prior costumed identity, Georg Van Tregor stood in Jerusalem, gazing at the monument to those slaughtered in the Holocaust, as well as the Righteous Gentiles who had risked- and in some cases, paid with- their lives to save Jews from their tormentors. And then, gazing into an aperture, he recognised one of the women that he had enabled to escape that night, now grown to womanhood and dandling a child on her knee. It brought a lump to his throat but he listened to her talk:
"I thought we were all going to die. If not in the death camps and the gas chambers, then in those hellbound trains that sent us there. And then... then, on this day, there was a miracle. That little boy, Fledermaus, swept down and we thought he was going to rescue us, with such adult determination and gravity in his features. But then those butchers shot him down in cold blood and they kicked and punched and tore at his body. We wept for him as much as what was going to happen to us. And then Gudra the Valkyrie and the boy's father, the Horned Owl, turned up and laid into our tormentors. They were on our side! Perhaps because of what happened to Fledermaus that night, the Horned Owl must have been broken hearted. After the War, I found out why. Fledermaus was his son. I hope Horned Owl, whatever he's doing now, is proud of his son and what his courage, bravery and compassion wrought on that night. Even if the cost was far, far too high. Mr Von Tregor, if you see this, I named this little one in honour of your own. His name is Willi."
And as the tears coursed down his elderly face, the memory of that night still raw and painful all those years later, Georg Von Tregor whispered:
"Danke, fraulein."
THE END [2.35 PM, NOVEMBER 21, 2022]
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FRANKFURT:
With his father away on a business trip to Berlin, young Wilhelm von Tregor (Fledermaus) was enjoying a night out on his own. And then, by chance, his foot echoed strangely on the roof of a building in the abandoned Jewish quarter. Fledermaus frowned to himself, wondering why that should be the case. Substandard building repairs? No, that couldn't be right- there were no obvious signs of bomb damage on the house's roof. He then heard conversations coming from the vicinity of the chimney. But it was inert, given that there was a shortage of fuel in wartime Frankfurt, even firewood. He secreted himself in the aperture and took out one of his father's customised stethoscopes. What he heard startled him:
"So there can be no real doubt? Mein Gott. I thought there was something suspicious about Goebbels claim that the Polish concentration camps were actually disease prevention facilities to 'protect' the Polish public from typhus. In other words, they exploited the absence of sanitary conditions and healthcare to create a self-fulfilling prophecy? And Theresienstadt? What did you find out about the so-called residential camp for the elderly and distinguished Jews who had served our country faithfully?"
"It's nothing of the sort. It's a facade. They're sent to concentration camps elsewhere in the Reich. And that's not all. I think you'd better prepare yourselves. The next photographs that I smuggled out from the supply truck we sent to infiltrate the Polish camps came back with these photographs."
There was a stifled scream from within the building:
"Easy, Trudl."
"Merciful Gott in Himmel. All the time, they've been lying to us, concealing the truth from us. So those Polish resistance fighters were right? This is monstrous. Those old people and children are skin and bones. And... and... the buildings with the tall chimneys, those cyanide canisters, and ...and... those corpses. You mean...?"
"Yes, I'm afraid so. Remember the Tiergarten IV facilities before the war, the ones that coldly and deliberately gassed the mentally ill, the intellectually disabled and others 'unworthy of life?' Ach, it is shameful. Why did the church protest that obscenity and not this? I know the Holy Father is trying to save some of them, but... how many have been murdered in this way? Thousands? ...Hundreds of thousands?"
"Worse than that, even. Perhaps...millions..."
Still concealed, Fledermaus' mind and conscience warred within him. They were not diehard, murderous communists. They were... Catholics, like himself and his father. What did this mean? He'd heard about the sanitary camps, everyone knew about them. But...what if they were saying was right? It made sense. At times, patrolling the city, they'd heard distant cries and screams, but they thought it was just overenthusiastic law enforcement at work. Ubermensch was openly dismissive of the 'rumours', calling them 'Jewish-Bolshevik black propaganda.' But Gudra kept her own counsel, her face carefully featureless. She looked as if she might be aware of something, should this be true. He decided to visit UBA headquarters, to see if this was a valid observation. Extricating himself from the narrow chimney tunnel, he swung away over the rooftops, heart hammering in his young breast.
UBA HEADQUARTERS:
And when he alighted from the Owlgyro, he knocked at Gudra's door:
"Ach, young Wilhelm. My, you have grown."
"Gudra, I need to know something. A-are those rumours about the camps in Poland true?"
Her eyes widened and she looked both ways down the corridor, hoping that Wilhelm's innocent question had not alerted the others, or been audible. She motioned for him to enter her room. As he did so, she looked up -and Fledermaus was startled to see tears in the warrior woman's eyes:
"How did you find out?"
"I eavesdropped on an anti-Nazi group. They were Catholics, Gudra. They had ...photographs, they said. Photographs of...of skeletal Jews being frogmarched into buildings, with vast, smoking chimneys. And cyanide canisters. And piles of corpses. And...and they compared it to the Tiergarten programme, the slaughter of those in the psychiatric institutions and intellectually disabled peoples homes. I trust you. So, if you were to tell me that these were only treacherous subversives, daggers at the heart of the Reich, I would believe you."
Gudra did not speak for an instant. Then she turned away and stared out the window. In a choked and broken voice, she said the words that he dreaded to hear:
"No, my young soldier. I am afraid that they were not engaged in malicious, idle hyperbole. Every word that they said was true. All of it."
"But you... Gudra, you are an honourable warrior. How could you...?"
"Well, Willi, you may have noticed I've been away a great deal over the last few years. Your vater is a scientist. How much physics do you know?"
"Enough to know that Heisenberg shouldn't have been put in charge of the uranium experiments. Or is this about his other interests, his so-called 'many worlds' theory about the parallel universes?"
"Georg has trained you well, Willi. All right. The latter part is true. I know, because I've been there. To alternate, parallel Earths. You do know we're not doing well in this war, nein? Well, on other alternate Earths, that is not the case. And...and on them, I saw what ...evil ... had been committed in the Reich's name. They... they had gassed and butchered millions of Jews, Gypsies, men who love other men. And when I came back here, I verified that the same was happening here. At the next UBA meeting, I will tender my resignation. I don't think I'm going to be the only one, somehow. Kamikaze, Sumo and the others have made their excuses and returned to the Home Islands and I don't think they'll be back- they've put their national survival above the fragile bonds of Axis solidarity. Have you noticed how distant Usil's been lately?"
"Ya, does that have something to do with the coup in Rome that topped Mussolini?"
"Perceptive young man. Yes, it does. Usil and I have talked, Willi. His cousins were shot in reprisal for a partisan ambush. The ironic thing is, they were innocent. It was an arbitrary decimation strategy. ...Where are you going?"
"My responsibility is clear. I have to stop this."
"Willi, if you do, you'll be in open revolt against the Reich."
"I cannot let this stand, Gudra. You understand, don't you?"
"Alone?"
"As you said, my father taught me well. Don't try to follow me. I know Ubermensch only too well, he's a Nazi loyalist and he'll move hell and earth to try to protect the regime. I think he really believes that drek about a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy. Keep him distracted."
"I will. Be careful, Willi. Please." But when she turned, she heard only the whirring of the autogyro.
Unfortunately, and tragically, they were not alone that night. Sea Wolf had noticed what had gone on, had heard the opening question from Fledermaus and had listened closely to the conversation between the two of them. Unlike Ubermensch, Sea Wolf was not a Nazi loyalist. Indeed, he was a nihilist, who believed that 'might was right' and really did not believe in anything except his personal welfare. Even Fledermaus' story of the industrialised slaughter of untold numbers of innocents did not move him. He only cared about his personal rank and position within the Reich and if things went pear-shaped, he would swim out to sea and leave the Reich to its own fate. However, until then, he was motivated by concern only for himself. All right, then. He'd tell Ubermensch.
The Man of Iron listened and then grinned. Actually, there was no humour in his expression. It was akin to that of a shark, biding its time and awaiting its prey. At length, he nodded and picked up a telephone. He dialed the Frankfurt SS barracks and coldly and deliberately betrayed his one-time young UBA colleague. He was laughing as he ended the call.
GROSSMARKTHALLE, OSTEND:
Once, the Grossmarkthalle had been a vast fruit and vegetable farmers market site, hence its name. But during the dark years of the Shoah, it was something infinitely more sinister- a staging point for Frankfurt's remaining Jewish community members as they were manhandled and assaulted by the SS during their herding into insanitary cattle cars, rife with human excrement, vomit and probably typhus and cholera germs, given that many would die en route to the gas chambers in Thereisenstadt, Dachau, Lodz, Minsk and that most stygian of charnel houses, redolent of genocide, pain and ordeals untold- Auschwitz. Once heralded as the world's largest monocque building, with its loads supported by its external skin, the Grossmarkthalle had been desecrated by the Nazis as had so much else. While its manifold struts and turrets might have provided sanctuary for anyone intending rescue or disruption from its current hellish mission, Ubermensch's betrayal of his diminutive one-time colleague had left no sanctuary or hiding place for Wilhelm von Tregor as the young acrobat swooped in with a Owlrope, intent on preventing tonight's ordeal. However, forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes- and the SS had snipers secreted above him. One shot severed his rope and the others riddled his body as he crashed to the floor below in a shower of blood. The onlookers screamed, but were brutally restrained from offering any assistance to the dying child, as a throng of laughing SS Stormtroopers surrounded his body, kicking and punching at it, until nothing remained but a twisted, bloodstained mass of flesh and fabric.
And then, from the roof above, jagged glass fragments flew as a window suddenly shattered and Gudra swept into the main embarkation area, astride her winged steed Sturmwind, with her UBA companion Horned Owl accompanying her. As a Valkyrie psychopomp, Gudra had known instantly of what had befallen Wilhelm and had rode her pegasus mount to fetch the murdered child's father. What she saw below sickened her, as did the reason for the desecration and wanton slaughter of his young body. Georg was speechless. He dismounted from Sturmwind and knelt alongside the shattered body of his son and then the hall was filled with hoarse, wracking sobs and screams of anguish. Gudra realised that what she was about to do was an irrevocable step, but she was a Valkyrie and her esprit de corps prevailed as the warrior-woman unsheathed her lance, Todtsbringer, and cast it toward a bewildered group of SS soldiers, still with blood on their hands, uniforms and shoes. Her sword, Donnerklinge, Thunderblade, followed soon after as she slaughtered the craven cowards around her who had ended the life of a mere child, showing them as little mercy as they had shown young Wilhelm. Still numbed, Horned Owl realised that he could not let Gudra take the risks and burdens of vengeance for Wilhelm's murder atop her broad Valkyrie shoulders and icy, crystalline anger replaced his deep, piercing grief. He had read his son's notes and agreed with his decision. The synagogue fire in 1938 had been shameful enough and should have warned him of the Reich's true nature, but he had been a blind fool. He used his Owlshield and bullet-proof uniform relentlessly as he attacked and killed the SS guards and threw a grenade into the main engine of the death train that would have taken tonight's victims to the concentration camps. Then, there was a moment of pause.
"Traitors!" Ubermensch screamed, spittle flying as he took in what he construed to be treason against the Third Reich in his febrile, cankered mind. He leapt from a turret, intent on breaking Horned Owl's back and throwing him into the blazing wreck of the train engine, but a mighty force of nature intercepted him in his tracks. Her name was Gudra and she thrust her sword before her:
"Have you taken leave of your senses, godling? What treachery is this?!"
"Be silent, churl! You will not be allowed to interfere in this battle."
"Judas! Betrayer of your sacred vows to the Reich!"
"Such kindergarten histrionics will not sway me. I know nothing less than a bursting shell can penetrate your skin, but that provenance is restricted to earthly domains. Do you want to risk the lethal touch of Todtsbringer or see how you fare against my dread blade, Donnerklinge, Faust? You will not pass!"
Ubermensch glared, but even within his diseased mind, he knew that the Valkyrie was right and knew what a disciplined and experienced warrior she was. He cursed and ranted at her and at the Horned Owl, as a blue shadow crept toward the melee within the Grossmarkthalle. As he reached for a machine gun thrown wide of the battle, an arrow impacted near his questing hand:
"Wolf. Stay where you are."
"Well, now, that's a surprise. Always wondered why you wore yellow, archer."
Usil held his bow stretched and aimed at the mutant:
"Why are you even doing this, Wolf? What harm have the Owl, that poor little boy or Gudra, ever done you? And don't tell me it's all for the glory of the Thousand Year Reich. I know you too well. Or is this Nietzsche's disciple talking?"
"Philosopher, are we? But yes, that's the underlying motivation. Freddie needed help, given that fire and brimstone poison he takes is destroying his mind. You and I know it, so do Gudra and the Owl. Oh, I know the Reich is probably doomed, but that isn't the point. I'll take what I want now the facade of the UBA has been torn down by tonight's spectacle, unless you want to kill me now. Go ahead, Usil. I don't care."
Usil fledged an arrow and fired it, but into the Sea Wolf's upper shoulder. The mutant staggered and then fell to the floor. Usil stepped over the unconscious figure, given that his arrow had merely been tipped with anesthetic. Wolf would wake up with an almighty headache, but he planned to be long gone by then. Which left one subsequent problem, the bull elephant in the middle of the room, as Ubermensch continued to bellow and rage at the impassive Gudra while Horned Owl presided over a breakout at the Grossmarkthalle, allowing the liberated erstwhile death-camp bound deportees to flee into the night, amidst a concealing cloud. As Usil and Horned Owl climbed atop Sturmwind, Ubermensch tried to make a break for the winged horse, intent on reaching the steed, pulling its wings from it and tearing the heads from the treacherous archer and birdman. He never got that far, as Gudra reached him first and thunder echoed around the burning, ruined main hall. When it died down, Ubermensch lay sprawled and blinking several yards away, not dead but certainly groggy and unconscious. Gudra spat on him and then she joined her companions astride Sturmwind and the horse's wings swept into the night, leaving funereal silence behind.
EPILOGUE 1:
Several days later, Usil had been dropped behind the Austrian-Italian border as he made his way toward a partisan group he had previously established contact with. That left Gudra and Horned Owl high atop the Swiss Alps, in neutral territory. Georg felt nothing but searing pain and grief as he stood where no parent ever desires to- his beloved son's grave. He planted a rose above the newly turned earth where his son now lay, as he said to her:
"Why, Gudra? I'm grateful for your friendship and your fighting alongside me in that battle, but... why did you?"
"Because, Georg Von Tregor, on Norn-threaded worlds unravelled from our own, I have seen the obscenity that Adolf Hitler's honeyed phrases and appeals to patriotism have concealed all these years. It broke the hold of the infernal Spear of Destiny over me and I was able to penetrate the same veil of misinformation and propaganda that your son so valiantly did. I consider myself an honest warrior. What I have been duped and marshalled into doing turns my stomach. I will return over the Bifrost rainbow bridge between Midgard and there and seek penance for my error with Father Odin and before the rest of the Holy Aesir."
"It has been an honour and privilege to serve alongside you, Gudra. Even if some of what we did was mired in error and denial of underlying realities, that at least was worth it."
"Like me, Georg, you are a person of faith and valour. I saw you gazing at the photograph of your Virgin Mary and the prone, outstretched body of the Christ, of that sculpture you call the Pieta. It moved me deeply. Take consolation in that. You do not suffer alone, even though nothing can bring your valiant and noble child back."
"I know that. It helps fill the void that Willi left behind. I witness the Blessed Virgin's tears and know Her for a sanctuary and steadfast presence that will help me through this."
"What will you do now?"
"I've made contact with a Britischer outfit called the Victory Legion. Under the circumstances, I suspect that the Amerikaner Justice Society wouldn't have me after all the blows we've traded. You know, you were right when you talked about penance, Gudra. I served an unholy behemoth but at the cost of my son's life, I have been freed from that illusion. Even if the cost was far, far too great. Farewell, Gudra. Godspeed."
"And may Mother Freya shield and protect you, Georg my comrade."
EPILOGUE 2:
And many years later, in Israel's Yad Vashem, long after the war was over and he had abandoned his prior costumed identity, Georg Van Tregor stood in Jerusalem, gazing at the monument to those slaughtered in the Holocaust, as well as the Righteous Gentiles who had risked- and in some cases, paid with- their lives to save Jews from their tormentors. And then, gazing into an aperture, he recognised one of the women that he had enabled to escape that night, now grown to womanhood and dandling a child on her knee. It brought a lump to his throat but he listened to her talk:
"I thought we were all going to die. If not in the death camps and the gas chambers, then in those hellbound trains that sent us there. And then... then, on this day, there was a miracle. That little boy, Fledermaus, swept down and we thought he was going to rescue us, with such adult determination and gravity in his features. But then those butchers shot him down in cold blood and they kicked and punched and tore at his body. We wept for him as much as what was going to happen to us. And then Gudra the Valkyrie and the boy's father, the Horned Owl, turned up and laid into our tormentors. They were on our side! Perhaps because of what happened to Fledermaus that night, the Horned Owl must have been broken hearted. After the War, I found out why. Fledermaus was his son. I hope Horned Owl, whatever he's doing now, is proud of his son and what his courage, bravery and compassion wrought on that night. Even if the cost was far, far too high. Mr Von Tregor, if you see this, I named this little one in honour of your own. His name is Willi."
And as the tears coursed down his elderly face, the memory of that night still raw and painful all those years later, Georg Von Tregor whispered:
"Danke, fraulein."
THE END [2.35 PM, NOVEMBER 21, 2022]
