World On Fire: Operation Pathfinder

[Mnar Secundus]

Sophie’s addition to that plan, in the name of ‘communication’, was not nearly as reasonable. With hints of fear and anger barely reined-in, Jannie finally set her other hand on the table that held the map. She fixed her single-eyed gaze on the French maga, and stared. “M-Miss Dulac, you shall not place any of your runes on my body!” It was the first time Jannie had raised her voice, and it cracked like a whip and seemed to almost echo in the storage cellar they were taking refuge in. “I do not care if it is with paint, or with a carving knife, I will not let you inscribe any of your—of the—”

Sophie, surprised at the Countess's outburst, regarded her coolly with a tilt of the head. The vampire, until now a study in dignity and self-control, was stuttering and staring at her wide-eyed; if Sophie hadn't known better, she would have said ... No, wait, this isn't "if I didn't know better", she corrected herself. Jannie was truly terrified. In fact, she looked nearly hysterical.

This was strange. Sophie had never, ever seen a vampire lose his or her cool; indeed, she had been unconsciously assuming that it just didn't happen. Vampires were the closest thing to inherent aristocracy beneath the Masquerade. They were flawless, always in control, always arrogant and confident. But maybe magi look the same to Mundanes. Anyway, such a strong reaction is unusual. It might have had to do with the scars running all over Jannie's face: torture was unfortunately commonplace in magus society, as much as everywhere else beneath the Masquerade or above it, and it leaved marks on both bodies and minds.
Sophie adjusted her glasses again -- a very attentive onlooker might have noticed a brief, dull purple shine to the glass as the prana-detecting runes activated -- and traced the wounds quickly. No, these are mundane scars ... Probably made with silver. But then ... Ah. There.
The Countess's closed eye, which Sophie had assumed to be wounded beyond repair, held a large concentration of prana. It looked like an orb, eyeball-sized ... A strange construction, actually. There were runes in there, too, and Sophie had to restrain a very insensitive chuckle -- how like the Nazis to use Othala, the rune of heirloom and ancestral power, as the basis even for an artificial eye. The concept was new, but now that she had seen it, she was confident that she could do better.

This was ... interesting, in a macabre way. With a bit of luck -- Alright, make that a humongous amount of luck, along with better persuasion skills than I've ever had --, perhaps Jannie would let Sophie take a look at what her scars were hiding.

The maga looked at the vampire silently for several seconds, but when Jannie pleaded -- nay, practically begged -- for only a few people per team to take the runes, Sophie receded. The Countess looked at Captain Beecher like a child calling for help, which the huge man gave her through his support; it would have been plain disgraceful to insist in these circumstances.
She shrugged dismissively, a slight smile on her lips as she said: "As I said, it's your choice. I never intended to force anyone into this: if you don't want the runes, we can't exactly wrestle you into submission, nor should we try it. At any rate, I'll give them to anyone who doesn't object, and you, Countess, will simply need to stick to your teammates. I believe that was the plan in the first place, anyway."

"I am fine with the carvings if they will help us in our mission, Comrade Dulac. Just tell me when you'll have to start doing them, and I'll be ready for it" she psychically broadcasted to Sophie, her mental voice assuming a confident tone.

But not for long. If I don't do this, I can't remotely ask anyone else to put up with it. So Matt rolled up his shirtsleeve and nodded to Sophie. His forearm was the size of most men's thighs: white skin tanned copper, fine fair hair. The Minuteman managed a wry grin. "Scalpel, Doctor Dulac, not paintbrush." Matt thought of Polikarpova's shudder, and he shot the esper a wink before turning back to Sophie. His voice was steady, encouraging. "I go first."

Polikarpova smiled beautifully at Beecher. "Your chivalric gesture may be fine with an American woman, Comrade, but unfortunately I am perfectly conscious of my actual value as an human being, worker and esper, and I won't let it be constrained by the gender roles of a capitalistic society that is completely foreign to me. So, I will go first, Comrade Captain." Polina mentally replied, with a cheeky tone. She carefully furled up her sleeve, exposing her slender but firm arm to Sophie. "I am ready, Comrade Dulac."

Sophie smiled gratefully at Polikarpova, thinking "Thank you" intently -- presumably that was how it worked. "However, you will have to go last. Sorry, that's just how it works."
She then knelt down and started taking out her material, turning her smile towards Beecher as it changed to a grin matching his own. "Thank you for your offer, Captain," she said, taking out, indeed, an obsidian-bladed scalpel, a small burner which used prana as its source, a calligraphy brush and several short wooden styli, which she disposed on a pristine white cloth, "but actually I'll be going first."
She wasn't about to subject her teammates to a spell she hadn't tried on herself yet ... Well, she had tried a variant of this one before, but it didn't involve Miss Polikarpova. Speaking of which ...

She took the esper's wrist gently yet authoritatively, feeling her pulse for a few seconds; the maga then tapped the side of her glasses with her wand, and this time the runes' activation was far more conspicuous -- this was important work, after all. The lenses took on a distinctive purple glow as several runes and symbols appeared on them in a circle. Sophie looked over Polikarpova for a good minute, carefully observing and registering the flow of prana through the young woman. Alright, I've got it.

"Give me a few minutes to prepare the paint," she said to no-one in particular, "then we'll move on to the carvings while it cools down." She mixed several largely unrecognizable ingredients in a small, strangely-shaped glass container, like a spiraled beaker, murmuring obscure Latin stanzas as she went. She then filled the beaker with ink, cut her thumb to let a few drops of her blood fall into the preparation, and finally set the beaker down on the burner after lighting it with a flick of her wand and a muttered "Creo ignis."

While the mixture cooked, she sharpened her wooden styli and addressed a few other questions.

"As you wish," she stated coldly, "I'll provide contact with Polikarpova and Bellinkov and relay communications between our teams. Enhancements, however," she reprimanded Dulac, "are best left when the circumstances are most desperate. Some people here do not wish to be reminded of their ordeal in the war. I don't believe we don't have the skill to provide long distance contact on our own."

The maga raised an eyebrow curiously as she eyed Milena. "Oh, you can do telepathy too? Interesting. At any rate, if you don't want the runes, I won't force them on you. At least you will receive the communications anyway."

"Wait. I want to know..." she cleared her throat, bringing her gaze up to stare the other woman straight in the eyes, "is the enchantment from the carving permanent? And its nature: Do you 'ave any influence over us or the enchantment once you 'ave activated it? And are you certain that it will make communication easier?" She paused. "Can I trust that you will not use this opportunity to abuse us?"

Sophie returned the witch's gaze coolly and unflinchingly; this was an important issue. "The enchantment will be directly sustained by me -- I will assume the pranatic cost. In other words, it will not last any longer than I want it to, and it will be in my interest to keep that period as short as possible, even though it's not an expensive spell. The scars, without my prana, will be nothing more than regular scars. As for influencing you, no, the spell will not allow this: it will be strictly designed for communication, which it will certainly make easier -- how could it fail to? And i will not be able to alter it once cast, since it will be based on a material element -- either paint or flesh."

She marked a pause and took a deep breath of her cigar before stowing it away and pursuing: "Now as concerns trust, I would say that yes, you can trust me not to abuse you, but that would obviously be meaningless here. What I will say is that you have to trust me. We are a military force in enemy territory. Every single one of us is trusting the rest of the team with his or her life from the get-go: if we do not have trust in our ranks, this mission should be considered over before it even started. I trust you not to hex me, and Captain Beecher not to shoot me, and Mister Markus not to eat me. You'll have to trust me in return. That's the basic working principle of teamwork." Sophie grinned. "If it's any reassurance, I have very good reasons to be fighting the Nazis."

At that point, the paint was ready, so she went back to her improvised laboratory and weakened the burner's flame. She then sat down cross-legged on the ground, pulled her blouse's ample right sleeve up to knot it above the elbow and picked the scalpel up in her left hand -- Sophie was right-handed from birth, bit she had trained to reach ambidexterity.

With about as much reaction as if she were doodling on a chalkboard, she cut into her skin.

The cut was shallow and drew very little blood, and the scalpel's sharpness was such that the pain was delayed, but it must still have made for a strange sight: Beecher had been joking when he'd called Sophie "Doctor Dulac", yet at that moment, the maga was every inch the surgeon on his operating table. She betrayed not a single twitch of pain as she carved the runes into her lean, nigh-opalescent forearm, effortlessly keeping her breathing in check.

She started by writing four runes in a cross: Fehu, the sending rune, to channel power towards others; Ansuz, rune of communication and networking; Gebo, rune of contracts and bonds; and Wunjo, which strengthened links, bonds and harmony. Then she carved diagonally between each of them a smaller Berkano, for concealment and protection of the spell against foreign magecraft. That took care of the Norse runes.
Sophie carved a square around the cross of runes; she then put the scalpel down and took up different styli to incise on different sides of it the Ogham Fearn (alder wood, for further protection against foreign interference), Straif (blackthorn, for greater secrecy) and Eadhadh (aspen, to clarify the communication). She added, on the fourth side of the square, the rune Ehwaz, which governed bonds with animals: that would help communicating with the werewolves in their fully bestial form, should they resort to it.

The entire thing, for all its complexity, was barely a square inch in surface.

Once she had finished, Sophie quickly bandaged her arm, smiling at her teammates as she gave some last-minute advice: "Just in case anyone of you tried it, you shouldn't use any healing magecraft on this, it will reject it. As you can see, the pain isn't particularly bad. Oh, and as for covering it up, that's more for concealment that anything else, and I advise you to do the same -- this is, unfortunately, a rather conspicuous wound." Her smile turned into a wry grin as she turned to Captain Beecher. "Well then, Captain. Unless you've lost your stomach, let us proceed to your operation."

[Occupied Deutschland]

Jannie tightened the muscles around her closed eye to relieve the itching coming from it. Sophie's curious look reminded her entirely too much of Franz Grobba's for an instant, and she briefly entertained the thought that all mages perhaps learned how to make such a face. Perhaps, like vampire's teaching their children how to feed without waking a food-source, it was some kind of long-known technique by mages handed down the generations so that they all could use it to try an convince people to tell them more than they wanted. Perhaps, even now, there were classrooms full of future mages practicing tilting their heads at one another and raising one eyebrow a fraction of a centimeter.

Sophie's glasses seemed to flash in the light, and Jannie pushed aside the silly thought along with what inspired it. She couldn't spend her life afraid of every magic-user she came across. Especially not now when her likelihood of doing so was so much higher than it had been. It had been so nice, in the world before the Masquerade was exposed and she was forced into her present predicament. Month after month spent whiling away the hours with books and music, horse-riding and flight. She had been able to shut herself, and most of her brothers and sisters, off from the world around them. No worries of the economic troubles, of magic, or of humans hunting them. No longer. Now she had to not only meet and greet mages, she had to work with them. Something she found herself frustratingly resistant to for some reason. Jannie promised herself she would bully through that wall as quickly as she could. Once again, her own life and that of her potential children demanded it.

Jannie nodded--just a hair too enthusiastically--to the maga's words excusing her from the procedure. "I apologize for the overreaction. My family had experience with runes being used nefariously." Jannie was only partially lying to make it sound less personal. After all, through herself her 'family' had gone through such experiences. Most of them had been dead by then, but she hadn't been much as she may have wished for it at the time. But phrasing it that way distanced her from the matter somewhat, while simultaneously deflecting questions of why it had inspired her to such reaction. "I assure you I do not believe you would do such a thing, Miss Dulac. It is a...personal prejudice against the runes themselves. I shall endeavor to overcome it." Jannie wondered how long that would take. In her old world, she may have spent decades, perhaps centuries doing so. She could have afforded to in that world. But this was rapidly becoming a new world. One she didn't recognize and which demanded she move faster and faster in the name of necessity.

Jannie stared for a long moment as Sophie cut into her own skin, mystified by someone who could so easily...'Defile' was not quite the word she wished to use, but it was the only one which came to her mind...their own bodies. But, then, she wasn't precisely a neutral observer and the mage had been working with runes and magic for years. Jannie's entire experience with the phenomenon over the years was limited to stories told by others, the teleportation trip to Poland, and what had been done to her own eye.

Jannie snorted as she turned away to rid herself of the--very slight--temptation Dulac's blood offered her. She was afraid of the unknown. How human. It aggravated her. She should not--would not--let it control her again as it had during her outburst.

"Well then, Captain. Unless you've lost your stomach, let us proceed to your operation."

Jannie took another couple of steps, as absently-seeming as she could, away from where Sophie was performing her magic. She somewhat wanted to watch, to alleviate her own discomfort by forcing herself to address it head-on, but Beecher was decidedly not the one she wanted to watch. Besides the somewhat stronger temptation his blood being exposed would offer, there was also a certain sadness in the man getting the magic carved into him. A certain innocence, perhaps, getting lost. A small example of what the end of the Masquerade had done, and would do, to all of humanity. Better they were ignorant of the grim-faced monsters hiding in the dark, than attempting to shine a light upon it in the name of advantage.

There I go being all romantic again. It is too late for such a thought now.

“That’s dang terrible, the Nazis stoop down even lower. Putting down countries they’ve conquered and treating the locals lower than dirt. The Krauts ain’t like that from the last war.” Terry remarked, “No matter...don't worry, my Polish friend, we’ll do it. You can mark our words for it.”

Jannie nodded. Tearing down a few posters and cutting some wires which fed PA systems didn't seem like all that much trouble. Though she did disagree with another part of the American vampire's statement. "Indeed. Though occupations tend to be very similar no matter the war, Mister Brooks." Jannie put a very slight emphasis on the man's unimpressive title. "The Germans in Belgium at the beginning of the last war, or the French in Alsace-Lorraine at the end. Federal forces at the end of your own American Civil War, or the French in Prussia after the War of the Fourth Coalition. Treating the citizens of occupied territories poorly, or actively moving or forcing them out, is not an especially modern event. Ancient Rome burnt Carthage to the ground at the end of the Third Punic War. This is little different. It is simply more extreme because of the progress of technology and the more central role our kindred and the others who once hid behind the Masquerade are forced to take."

[Latznavia]

Anatoly looked at the map again, seeing the major points of the city and looked over the map with his hand over his mouth. His eyes danced back and forth like a typewriter, thinking of movement patterns. His brain danced with possibilities could it be a communist? Could it be a Jewish, it wasn't German. Even if it was, they wouldn't consider themselves that at this point with the amount of damage. He wondered, his brain churning ideas of what it could be. Then he heard the words coming from Groeszek's mouth.

"Anyway, if you permit me, Captain, I would humbly ask you for a personal favour: the Nazis have set up multiple spotlights to monitor the streets and skies, along with an extensive public announcement system aided by speakers disseminated through the city. On top of this, they disseminate lurid posters to try and convince my countrymen of their supposed racial inferiority to the German people, to the backwardness and uselessness of our language and culture, and of the moral depravation of those Jews who were once our own neighbours. If you come across any of the items above, Sir, feel free to sabotage or destroy it in one way or another, if it doesn't compromise the task at hand." Anatoly turned to Groeszek, with a renewed kind of vigor. He paused to let his comrades think before he spoke.

“That’s dang terrible, the Nazis stoop down even lower. Putting down countries they’ve conquered and treating the locals lower than dirt. The Krauts ain’t like that from the last war.” Terry remarked, showing his disgust at the Nazi’s actions. “No matter...don't worry, my Polish friend, we’ll do it. You can mark our words for it.” Anatoly looked at them, listening to this new information as he glanced back down at the map.

"The Germans in Belgium at the beginning of the last war, or the French in Alsace-Lorraine at the end. Federal forces at the end of your own American Civil War, or the French in Prussia after the War of the Fourth Coalition. Treating the citizens of occupied territories poorly, or actively moving or forcing them out, is not an especially modern event. Ancient Rome burnt Carthage to the ground at the end of the Third Punic War. This is little different. It is simply more extreme because of the progress of technology and the more central role our kindred and the others who once hid behind the Masquerade are forced to take." Anatoly listened to the Vampire, his eyes stopped glancing and his mind stopped. He would voice his mind now before he was interrupted again.

"Mr. Groeszek, you speak of these spotlights and posters as if they have only recently begun springing up. Has the arrival of these new defenses coincided with the attacks of the Beast? If so, could we suspect that the Beast is of Jewish origins. I mean, the beast itself seems to hold deep hatred for the Germans." Anatoly pointed at the map, sweating a bit as he pointed at some of the locations. "You claim the beast strikes railroads, ammo dumps, and bridges. If the beast wanted the German's to leave, why would it attack locations that would help them leave, this only continues the theory that we are dealing with a Jewish creature. I don't think she is trying to chase the Nazi's away, but rather trap them in the city to ensure their complete destruction." Anatoly looked around to see that the conversation had left without him. A bit embarrassed, he felt saddened by his lack of attention.

"I apologize, I merely spoke my mind. I will assist in the destruction of the German Propaganda Machine. I swear it, Mr. Groeszek." Anatoly adjusted his rifle and walked towards the back, he noticed Polina's tattoo and smiled that she seemed to admire it with some form of interest. Anatoly waited by the guide whom he believed would be taking them.

[Reverend Norv]

Sophie looked between Matt and Jannie, and then shrugged her shoulders and told the vampire to stick close to her teammates. Matt smiled and let out a shallow breath that he didn't realize he'd been holding. Jannie mustered her dignity and cryptically explained that her family had suffered bad experiences with runes being used "nefariously." Sophie cocked her head and looked at Jannie for a long moment: Matt could have sworn that the glass of the maga's spectacles glowed faintly.

The Minuteman's careful observation was interrupted by a voice in his head: sweet, ringing, bell-like. Matt turned, and sure enough, Polina Polikarpova was smiling at him. Your chivalric gesture may be fine with an American woman, Comrade, the esper's voice declaimed, but unfortunately I am perfectly conscious of my actual value as an human being, worker and esper, and I won't let it be constrained by the gender roles of a capitalistic society that is completely foreign to me. So, I will go first, Comrade Captain.

The girl's tone was cheeky. Matt knew he ought to take the words in jest, and he did his best to oblige: he grinned broadly, stepped aside, raised his hands as if in surrender, and said: "I'm sorry, Comrade. I had no idea I was such a counterrevolutionary chauvinist. After you."

But Matt couldn't shake a vague sense of moral queasiness. This is communism, he realized. This is why it's evil. It takes an act of personal kindness from one human being to another and turns it into politics. It's so obsessed with justice that it leaves no room for compassion.

Polina fixed her gaze on Sophie and rolled up her sleeve; her arm was slim and white. Sophie smiled back, and stared intently at Polina; Matt could almost feel the thoughts flying back and forth. Then Sophie turned to Matt, and said aloud: "Thank you for your offer, Captain, but actually I'll be going first."

It made sense. It was responsible. And if anyone in the room could be comfortable with the procedure, it would be Sophie. Matt nodded, and stepped back to let the maga work.

There were other objections. Milena conceded to the plan, but refused to accept the runes; Sophie breezily dismissed her concerns. The maga pricked her finger, mixed her blood with ink, and heated the mixture on a little Bunsen burner. The hair on the back of Matt's neck stood up, and he stuffed his hands uncomfortably in his pockets.

Adrienne wanted to know whether the enchantments would be permanent, and whether Sophie could use the enchantments to manipulate the team. Sophie explained that the enchantment would last only as long as she could sustain it, and that the team would have to trust her word: they had only each other to rely upon, after all.

Matt nodded firmly at that, and shot Sophie a grateful glance. The group was obviously struggling with unit cohesion. It was good to know that Sophie Dulac, of all people, had decided to become a team player.

Markus also refused to accept the runes; Matt was not surprised. And the greymuzzle expressed once more his desire to feed, preferably on human flesh.

Matt took a deep, steadying breath, and took his hands out of his pockets. "Markus," the Minuteman said, "look: if your cover is blown, and the Nazis start shooting at you, then what you do under those circumstances - that's your own business." Matt had no poker face whatsoever; he grimaced at the implications of that statement, but he let it stand. Some compromises are necessary.

"But it's important that you not initiate contact for the sake of feeding: you can't blow your own cover." Matt's voice was firm. "Exposing yourself endangers everyone else on your team. More importantly, it alerts the Germans to our presence: they'll know that there's a man-eating white werewolf here in Warsaw, when there presumably wasn't one before. They'll lock the city down, hunt us house to house, and our mission will have failed before it even began." Matt raised his eyebrows. "So if you have to feed, find some livestock, lead them to a place where you won't be seen, and dispose of anything left over where it won't be found. Don't risk all our lives for the sake of your appetite."

For his part, Aurelius Groszek was a gold mine of useful information. SS patrols had started traveling in larger groups, and using armored dogs with mechanical legs that could sniff out hidden threats. Markus scoffed at the idea; Matt gave Jannie a significant look. The look said: Be careful about scent.

The Germans had also set up spotlights to monitor the streets and the sky, and they had set up a citywide speaker system, and they had plastered Warsaw with propaganda posters. Groszek wanted it all destroyed. Ariel and Terry were enthusiastic about that side project. Jannie was cynical about the inevitability of propaganda and ethnic cleansing: according to her, those practices was as old as war itself, and Matt figured that the vampire would know.

"The brutality of an occupier may not be a modern innovation," Matt said quietly, "but that doesn't make it right." The Minuteman nodded to Groszek. "We'll do what we can, sir."

Anatoly had an interesting theory. He thought that the Beast might be Jewish. His reasoning wasn't completely clear: the Jews were hardly the only people in Poland with a reason to kill Nazis, and the Beast's attacks on infrastructure were not obviously intended to trap the Germans in Warsaw. Besides, if they were trapped in the city, what would happen next? The Beast couldn't possibly kill them all, single-handed.

But even if there was no good evidence for the idea, it was creative and in its own way even plausible. The Beast, after all, was rumored by the street children to be an avenging angel. That was an Old Testament concept if ever Matt had heard one.

Sophie had finished her preparations. She knotted her sleeve above the elbow, and held a small obsidian-bladed scalpel in her left hand, and cut into her arm. Matt flinched slightly in sympathy, and the American stuffed his hands back into his pockets. Sophie's face was smooth, her breathing shallow and even, her gaze fixed in concentration. A few drops of blood welled, dark, on the maga's marble skin. Matt was almost surprised at the color of Sophie's blood. Minuteman blood was hyper-oxygenated, three times richer in hemoglobin than normal human blood. It was bright scarlet, almost magenta, far from the deep crimson of ordinary human blood.

The finished carving was tiny: four runes in a cross, surrounded by a square. There was another rune on each side of the square. It was barely larger than a postage stamp. It looked a little like the world's most intricate cattle brand. It was arcane and terrible, and it made Matt's hands shake in his pockets. It was astonishingly beautiful.

Sophie looked up, and offered Matt a wry grin. "Well then, Captain. Unless you've lost your stomach, let us proceed to your operation."

Matt let out a short breath, and shook his head ruefully, and grinned back at the maga. He took his hands out of his pockets. They were still. The Minuteman sat down on the floor of the cellar. He moved efficiently, gracefully, almost like a ballet dancer: knees bending double, back straight. Matt offered his left forearm: it was a decidedly larger canvas than Sophie's arm, but ridged with ropes of muscle and tendons and veins that stood in stark relief under the skin.

"Proceed, Doctor," Matt smiled. "My stomach's fine."

[Fascist Republic Of Bermuda]

Warsaw, Occupied Poland
April 27th, 1942

Hugon Kowalski wiped the last bit of vomit from his mouth as he straightened up. The young Pole slowly turned to face Groszek and the rest of his party, only to see a vile pile of bile, with bits of partly-digested meat still visible in it. Hugon just managed to stop from vomiting again. He forced his eyes up at the giant American- Captain Beecher, Kowalski recalled- who seemed to be taking charge. Kowalski listened intently when the American Captain listed off the teams that were to search for the Beast of Warsaw. Kowalski noted that his name was not said.

The Pole almost spoke up about it, but then Dulac, the French woman, spoke up about... carving runes into their bodies! Kowalski was shaking his head when the mostly-dead woman, von Waldstein, started panicking. Her words pretty much summed up Hugon's thoughts on the matter. No way would he allow a witch... maga... whatever, to carve her demonic symbols in his skin!

But eventually, everyone mostly calmed down, and it was decided that only some would have carvings. 3 partisans whom he could only assume were to be the three parties' guidesBut nonetheless, the problem of him not being mentioned. Drawing a quick breath, he marched right up to Captain Beecher and exclaimed "Hello? Captain America? You seem to have forgetten- sorry, forgotten, the only Pole permanently assigned to your unit! What am I to do?"

Seeing the giant American up close, Hugon Kowalski realized it might not have been in his best interests to call a supersoldier names. He could only hope Beecher didn't feel compelled to squash the comparatively smaller and weaker Pole.

[Agritum]

Groszek eyed the rune carving procedures with the tacit interest of an intellectual. He had initially raised an eyebrow over Dulac's unorthodox, syncretic methods, only to find curiosity in their actual workings. The other Home Army men watched the scene with awe, skeptical scowling and superstitious horns crossed behind their back, as if trying to ward off the occult energies that the Frenchwoman was obviously channeling. Groszek smiled at the naivety of his mundane subordinates.

A few minutes after Chopin, Sobieski and Wild Bill returned, geared up for duty."Chopin will lead your Interrogation team down to the sewers to find the children, Mr Beecher. He's got some experience working as our contact with them, and has got a good knowledge on how to navigate the sewers safely". Chopin nodded. At the mention of the children, his usual smile toned down a bit, his eyes looking down, a tinge of sorrow in them. Abraham was instantly reminded of the pitiful expressions he witnessed in the Catholic nuns of Calcutta's slums, during one of his father's various work travels. He silently sighed for the young Polish man.

"Next, Sobieski will provide his expertise in military ordnance, and knowledge of German supply dump locations to your Investigation team. If it may help you, he once witnessed the Beast in action, albeit during a very tense and confused moment." Groszek continued, as the ex-serviceman nodded. "Me and other partisans were preparing an ambush for an SS lieutenant transferring barracks. Mining the streets, putting up booby traps, that kind of job. It was late at night. At one point, we look up and see this figure with red eyes glowing in the dark, and a fluttering coat. It shakes its head at us, and menacingly glares upon my men. We just left the zone, and when the convoy apparently arrived, the streets behind us erupted in the explosions left by our mines, and various gunfire. We were too afraid of coming back: we had already heard of how the Beast was a butcher, and we didn't want to deal with it." Sobieski explained, concisely.

Abraham shuddered a bit: while the story wasn't as creepy as the other lore surrounding the killer, the mental image of being approached by such a shadowy being in the heart of the night instigated a primal fear in his mind. Abe shook his head: he didn't want to think about it, further.

"And finally," Groszek continued, "Wild Bill will show you how to reach the rooftops and navigate through them. He is one of our hit and run specialists." Wild Bill smiled, while swiftly making his shiny Luger spin in his finger, in a small feat of gun showmanship. "I haven't seen the Beast like Sobieski, but I really wonder how truly a good shot it is." he commented off-handedly, triggering an unsure look in Abraham. He was looking forward to coming face to face with an eerie, secretive serial murdering entity.

"Well, I guess it's time you go on in your mission, Beecher. I'll pray for you and your men's safety up until you will come back with what you are searching for. Good luck, Captain. Now, follow your guides." Groszek ended, as each of the three guides motioned the commandos to move to a different part of the resistance hideout.

---

Investigation Team, City Streets

Sobieski led Karlmann, Barnes and the others outside of the hideout, guiding them through a labyrinth of sidestreets and small city roads, illuminated only by pale moonlight. A soft but cold spring rain began raining down upon them. Deep above in the sky, the passing shadow of a Zeppellin moved above them, before looming above nearby streets. It flashed its spotlights down below, checking the streets nearby to the team.

"Move fast, duck." Sobieski commanded with a whisper, leading the team further on. They passed several closed shops, some of them having been completely abandoned since 1939. The old buildings occasionally gave them some scarce cover from the rain, but couldn't protect the commandos from the harsh spectacle of millitary occupation in front of them:

Propaganda posters littered the streets, filled with viscid stereotypical depictions of sneering Jews leading fair-haired children to them with handful of candies, photos of Eastern European poor hamlets with the caption 'This is Bolshevism.' written below, and a mass-produced message directed to all the "upstanding citizens of Warsaw", encouraging them to report dangerous partisan activity and dissident behaviour.

A nearby PA system cracked into life, the melodic voice of a young German woman resounding from them. "Unbreakable will is written into the natural fiber of the Aryan people. The gruesome, degenerate actions of the desperate, cowardly partisan who calls itself a beast won't go unpunished: As the drive to the east of our brothers shows, Aryanic valour triumphs even against the greatest mongrel hordes Europe has ever witnessed. We are not the hunted, subhuman beast, we are the hunters! The day of your capture is sooner and sooner, and unmistakeable consequence of the natural hierarchy of things. Hail Victory!"

"You will now understand why Groszek wants those things shut down." Sobieski remarked grimly, leading the team down the road. Eventually, they reached a large, fenced area in one of the city's blocks, where a well-sized warehouse was laid in, with several boxes and containers laid outside.

And an alarm was already blaring, as black smoke rose from the warehouse, before a few detonations thundered through the depot. Sobieski ducked down, freezing into position. "What? Let me guess, is this the work of the person we are searching for?" he wondered outloud, before looking at the commandos following him. "Well, I guess it's your turn now to check that out."

It was going to be a long night.

Tracking Team, City Rooftops

Jannie, Markus, Ariel and the others were led to the rooftop of the resistance hideout by Wild Bill, who quickly showed them he quirky, jumpy path he usually took when scouting the higher part of the city. The rain hit harder than on the street level, but it felt a bit less dao and murky and more fresh.

Warsaw's skies were dominated by about four or five sizeable zeppelin balloons, a giant Swastika emblazoned in the texture of each othem. They projected their various spotlights on the streets below, silent eyes which scanned the city streets for vagrants, rebels, curfew breakers and other undesiderables of the regime. In the city centre, rivaling in height with Eiffel's creation, was the burgeoning, blocky structure known as The Tower: a blocky, tall ensemble of armored concrete and steels platforms, draped in the scarlet and white swastika banners of the party and decorated by imposing marble eagles at each of its corners.

The PA system went alive, reciting the same message heard by the Investigation team down below. Wild Bill smiled. "I always wondered if the radio gal is one of those nice blondies, or if she's more of an hazelnut brunette." he wondered outloud, while glancing at some German watchtowers on some nearby rooftops, all with their own spotlight.

"Keep clear, eh." The Pole muttered, before noticing the noise of a lively motorcade coming from down in the street. Wild Bill glanced down, and his eyes eyed the scene with a nervous awe. Two Sd.Kdfz armored halftracks proceeded down the street, followed by an executive Kubelwagen and a four-wheeled armored car.

"Nice movement down there....well, your call now, Brits. Yanks. Westerners."

It was going to be a long night.

Interrogation Team, City Sewers

Abraham, Polikarpova and the others made their way through a small tunnel dug on side of the cellar, protected by a makeshift door and immersed in the dark of the undeground, relying only on Chopin's perfect memorization of the pathway. Eventually, they entered another dark ambient, lit only by a few scarce torches. Abraham looked at the small, putrid stream that flowed through the tight, foul smelling place. The sewers. He glanced at Chopin, their guide. His hands were delicate and well shaped, with his long and slender fingers gently gripping the wooden torch.

Polina followed the group, appearing quite serene and collected in spite of the situation. She had not even flinched during the carving of the rune, just calmly keeping her sight in Dulac's eyes for the whole lenght of the operation. Abraham felt partially unnerved and partially encouraged by her collected demeanour.

Chopin took one of the burning torches, leading the group further. At one point, Abraham noticed chalk writings on one of the sewer walls: MCLXVI, followed by poorly drawn inverted pentagrams, and similarly crude depictions of a a winged figure with flowing clothes, faceless except for two plain orbs on its' 'head'.

"What is that?" Abraham asked to Chopin, unnerved by the imagery.

"Ah, those?" Chopin asked, nonchalantly, "Don't worry, the children made those. They see the Beast as some sort of hero, because it protects them, in a way. They draw it with wings because they believe its some sort of fallen angel or some other celestial creature. You can tell it's them because the Beast either writes in blood, or doesn't write at all." he replied, just chilling Abraham even more.

Polina stopped for a moment. "Yeld....I feel someone thinking....oh....".

Her eyes widened. She looked like she had seen something upsetting, something which troubled her instincts. "I...I felt a little mind....in fear. It's being chased by the monsters with the metal lights..." she broadcasted, her mental voice trembling. "N-no....it's slipping away....I can't feel it anymore...."

Chopin's mouth opened in a gape of silent, horrific realization.

"God..." Abraham muttered.

Beecher and the other perceptive members of the team would have heard the distant shuffling of little feet, followed by the heavier, incessant sound of heavy, running footsteps, and muted canine barks.

Polina was frozen still.

"I feel different minds. They're...happy...n-no....they aren't c-children..."

The dark sewer opened before them, its black bosom unexplored and ripe with the sounds of an unseen threat.

It was going to be a long night.

[Reverend Norv]

The sewers were dark.

Chopin led the team down a cramped, airless tunnel that opened onto one wall of the cellar. Matt couldn't see his hand in front of his face. He heard Abraham breathing fast and shallow somewhere nearby. He heard Chopin's footfalls ahead of him, and Polina's footfalls behind him: each member of the team had a different gait, a different weight to his or her step, and Matt's enhanced hearing could tell the difference. For his part, Matt kept his head ducked, and he ran one hand along the roof of the tunnel; in pitch blackness, it wouldn't take much for Matt to crack his head on a protrusion from the tunnel roof.

After a minute or an hour - time was strange in darkness - the team emerged into a slightly larger tunnel. The smell of excrement washed over Matt, overwhelming his enhanced senses; for a moment, the Minuteman quietly gagged. Torches partially illuminated the sewer - real, old-fashioned torches, sticks with an oily rag wrapped around one end of them and set alight. Chopin took one of the torches from its bracket upon the wall. The young man's fingers were long and delicate.

Matt looked at his own hands, and thought again of his mother.

The sewers were cramped. Upon emerging from the access tunnel, Chopin and most of the others were able to stand a little taller; even in the sewer proper, though, Matt had to stoop to protect his head. Wordlessly, Chopin walked on. Matt followed him. Polina, dawdling a little, brought up the rear.

The sewers reeked. The runes carved into Matt's forearm itched beneath his overcoat sleeve. Matt thought of infection, and then determinedly didn't.

The light from Chopin's torch illuminated a crude chalk drawing: the Roman numeral MCLXVI, a few inverted pentagrams, an angel with vast and featureless eyes. Matt looked at the drawings for a little too long, and fear slithered up his throat.

Abraham asked about the drawings. Chopin explained that they represented the Beast. The children made them.

Matt looked into the blank eyes of a fallen angel, and shuddered.

Matt heard Polina's footfalls stop behind him. He heard the esper's voice in his mind. "Yeld....I feel someone thinking....oh....". Matt turned, and saw Polina's red eyes: wide and staring, horror-struck, in the darkness. Her voice still spoke in Matt's head, trembling. "I...I felt a little mind....in fear. It's being chased by the monsters with the metal lights..."

"N-no....it's slipping away....I can't feel it anymore...."

Horror closed Matt's windpipe like a garotte. Matt put his ear to the sewer wall and listened. In the far distance, echoing down the sewer tunnels, he heard the sound of footfalls: small feet, frail bodies. And then the pounding of heavy boots, big bodies moving at a run, the scrape of claws on stone, the dull clamor of barking dogs.

Chopin looked like he was about to throw up. Abraham invoked his Creator.

Matt had no heart to pray. Anger surged up in Matt like a living thing, like fire, like an electric current. Matt twitched with anger, his head epileptic-snapping back and forth. Matt bared his teeth in the darkness like a feral wolf. Matt looked, for a moment, very much like Markus Lenion.

Polina's voice spoke on, agonized, inside Matt's head. "I feel different minds. They're...happy...n-no....they aren't c-children..."

They're happy.

Matt was ready to vomit. Matt was ready to scream. Matt was ready to kill.

Somewhere down the tunnel, a child was dead.

Matt pulled his overcoat back, and raised his Persuader. Walnut and steel and brass gleamed in the light of Chopin's torch. Matt's voice was a bass growl, taut as a guitar string, vibrating with fury.

"Captain Harris, Miss Lapierre, Miss Rosenberg: on point with me. Miss Cross, Mister Van Helsing, Miss Polikarpova, Mister Kowalski: stay back for now. Miss Polikarpova, if you can sense how nearby a mind is, then brief us silently on our proximity to the children and their pursuers."

Matt's plan was simple, and he laid it out clearly. "This tunnel is narrow: only the people in front will have a clear field of fire. When we find the children, the point team is going to move them back to the rear group, out of the line of fire. The rear group will make sure that the children do not come to harm. Then the point team will engage the enemy."

Matt had never shot a man before. Matt had never commanded soldiers in combat. Matt's voice held nothing but an iron certainty. Righteous fury flowed through Matt like a rolling river, like the grace of God Almighty.

The Minuteman worked the bolt on his sub-machine gun, chambering a round. The crisp scrape-snap rang like a cymbal in the cramped tunnel. Matt's blue eyes shone in the torchlight as they swept over the team.

"Gunfire will be loud in confined spaces," he warned. "Use ear protection if you have it." Matt pointed down the tunnel. "We are going to make a rapid advance to contact, save the children, and send these murderers back to Hell." The Minuteman turned, and faced the darkness, and pulled his weapon into his shoulder. "Let's go."

And with that, Matthew Beecher strode swiftly into the blackness of the sewer.

[Monfrox]

"It's almos' like I never left France..." Willow said aloud to herself as she followed the Polish partisans.

The streets, the night, the whole city was familiar enough to her. If it weren't for the fact that she had been back in England yesterday, she would've counted it as a bad dream. It was important to stay hopeful in occupied territory, but not to dwell on it for too long. She kept low and followed the closest behind Sobieski.

"Lotta this is real easy, but yuh always gotta keep on yer toes." She said to no one in particular.

The rising smoke got her attention. Black smoke obviously meant fire in areas of volatile compositions. Hell, at this rate, she wouldn't need the TNT she was carrying. Still, she stepped up and glanced over her shoulder to the rest of the group before looking at the man beside her currently. Surely he must not be too excited about meeting the Beast face-to-face, but as the British always said: "He who dares, wins." Willow nudged him in the side with her elbow as she cocked and locked her Sten.

"You may not be too inta the idea of meetin' this guy, but I honestly wanna know how he does it. An' besides," She paused to wear her trademark grin. "I live for this shit."

Willow turned around to face the others. "We should pair off an' take separate ways in. The less people we have grouped up, the easier it'll be ta move fast an' avoid gettin' caught. Not only that, but it gives us a better chance at runnin' inta the Beast on his way outta dodge. Remember, if yuh have ta kill, do it quickly, quietly, an' take care not ta get found out. We can't afford ta make mistakes. Everyone ready?"

[Wolfenium]

Milena Ponomarenko, City Streets

Limping through the rain at the back of the group, Milena clearly did not find the guide's urges very funny. She was already having trouble trying not to slip, and despite being pulled from the dank sewers, the cobbled streets were hardly much less slick-proof. Fortunately, the group were merely brisk walking, given how conspicuous a sprint would have been. Any faster and she would have seriously lagged behind.

'No Kraut eyes on us at least,' she whispered telepathically to the others, 'I suppose that counts for something.'

However, amidst the numbing loudspeakers and poster orgy, her attention quickly turned to the smoking warehouse ahead. Focusing her mind, she tried to scour for who was there, but barring the guards pouring into the scene, she could not seem to get a lock on the culprit.

'It's probably him,' she contacted the others telepathically, 'but I can't get a lock. Too much running right now.'

Sadly, she was going to need to do more running, as they prepared to move.

Willow turned around to face the others. "We should pair off an' take separate ways in. The less people we have grouped up, the easier it'll be ta move fast an' avoid gettin' caught. Not only that, but it gives us a better chance at runnin' inta the Beast on his way outta dodge. Remember, if yuh have ta kill, do it quickly, quietly, an' take care not ta get found out. We can't afford ta make mistakes. Everyone ready?"

"Ready for anything," she went, trying to walk as fast as her good leg could push it, "just say the word."

---

Ariel Remington, City Rooftops

Spying through her binoculars amidst the pouring rain, Ariel quickly tried to pick out the garrison's strength as a whole. A grey gilded rectangular box wedged in the middle of the city, the Nazi stronghold was nothing short of ugly and grotesque. This had been the case all along the so-called Atlantic Wall, as Nazi forces attempted to dig in for any invasion of France by the Allied forces. She could not help but feel a growing twitch in her stomach to set the block alight. No doubt seeing the concrete slab blown to dust would rip the smiles off the German occupiers to the people who deserved them more.

"I'm not exactly good with subtlety," she mused, "maybe one of your predators can empty the convoy for us to ride in?"

---

Anna Cross, City Sewers

Sewers. Not a place someone from the surface was used to seeing. For all her rural upbringing, Anna was a bit ill-prepared to take on the decrepit nature of these artificial caverns. From the lack of lights to the moldy floor, everything reeked of filth, and far from the normal farmland kind.

"I feel icky," she winced, covering her mouth in revulsion, "this is unclean for the soul."

But as Polina picked up movement, Anna cold only hear her reports growing darker. Something was stalking the sewers for children, and they were hungry.

"Hounds," she muttered instinctively, her voice cracking in fear as her feet froze on the spot, "they're hellhounds."

The description, as they would realize, was not that far from the truth. Perhaps in some case, they were facing a nature far worse than the demonic kind.

[Occupied Deutschland]

Jannie felt oddly comfortable dodging searchlights and watchtowers amidst the upper portions of Warsaw. The loping, slightly awkward, movements required to remain hidden from view while moving across and around the tops of the buildings was quite familiar to her. She had, over her life, had to do much the same thing when searching for a meal inside a city on many occasions. The rooftops were much more conducive to the kind of discretion she had always practiced seeking out a meal. Now, they let the group pass over German guards and around checkpoints with ease.

The rain was the only annoying part. Jannie didn’t like to be wet. She didn’t like the rain at all, generally. Nights such as these were best spent inside near a warm fire. Reading a book and listening to a record. Alas, there was no such luxury for her tonight. There likely wouldn’t be for a good while, either. Even when they returned, England was prone to its own damp weather as well. She would just have to learn to cope with it, and avoid becoming a mist for too long. Rain made it more difficult to stay together.

Almost crawling on her knees to the overhang Wild Bill was hiding behind, Jannie let her overcoat drag out behind her and shield her as best it could against the rain. As an added benefit, it hid the pale skin of her arms. Thank God for small favors, because it would have been doubly worse if she’d had to coat her arms in the same grease and dirt she’d, unhappily, rubbed on her face just before they’d left to keep it from being too noticeable in the dark. She could barely keep from wiping her face clean in the rain as it was, it would have been that much worse if her arms also had the same slick and dirty feel to them.

Jannie spared an upward turn of her eye for the zeppelins floating above the city. Were it not for their purpose, it would have almost been a pretty sight. Their spotlights created banners of light that fell on the city below while also illuminating the massive swastika emblazoned on each one. She wondered if it was a deliberate move, or merely an accidental one. From what she’d seen of Nazi pageantry, it had a flair for the dramatic she found a bit overdone. Still, there was no denying the effect itself of the airships’ appearance. It had to be discouraging for the Poles to see, day and night, such an obvious reminder of their defeat in the skies above them.

The PA system’s announcement, by contrast, seemed to undo that effect somewhat. Wild Bill absently wondered what the woman behind the voice looked like. It was too blatant for him to do much else in response to it. The zeppelins, at least, possessed a certain amount of subtlety in the message they conveyed. The obvious propaganda, however, had no such redeeming quality. Had Jannie been in charge, she would not have approved of the PA system. Man-cattle responded more to veiled threats and allusion, in her experience. Plus, it was much classier that way.

The propaganda was drowned out quickly by the rumbling of engines and tracks. A small German convoy was making its way up the road below them. It looked like two halftracks, a command car, and an armored car. Combined with the zeppelins, it gave a somewhat different message than the propaganda did. They weren’t scared, but they were likely expending too much equipment and manpower in the city to try and secure it from this Beast.

"I'm not exactly good with subtlety," Ariel said from a little ways down the roof, "maybe one of your predators can empty the convoy for us to ride in?"

Jannie considered the idea for a moment. They were not there to raid Nazi convoys, and she had a disinclination to do so. They were supposed to be covert in trying to track down the ‘Beast’. Though it would provide them an easy avenue of travel through the city to try and do so, killing a convoy full of soldiers was not precisely her definition of ‘subtle’. Then again, her definition of ‘subtle’ was much less direct than any humans.

“Lady Remington, do you not think we should keep in mind our objective?” The question did not sound very much like a question. “This seems like the kind of procession this ‘Beast’ character would take an interest in. We should follow and observe it, and we may be able to catch him or her raiding it themselves. ” Jannie was deliberate in her usage of pronouns. Grozsek had referred to the ‘Beast’ as ‘it’ far too much.

“I, for one, would not like to be in that convoy should it be struck by our mysterious target.”

[Wolfenium]

“Lady Remington, do you not think we should keep in mind our objective?” The question did not sound very much like a question. “This seems like the kind of procession this ‘Beast’ character would take an interest in. We should follow and observe it, and we may be able to catch him or her raiding it themselves. ” Jannie was deliberate in her usage of pronouns. Grozsek had referred to the ‘Beast’ as ‘it’ far too much.

“I, for one, would not like to be in that convoy should it be struck by our mysterious target.”

Freezing a bit at Jannie's words, Ariel seemed quick to realize her mistake. Pulling an awkward chuckle, she wryly turned her head to face the Czech, feeling a bit silly for suggesting it. She clearly had not thought her plans through, and simply wanted a way in. Or perhaps she wanted more dead Germans regardless. The excitement might have gotten to her head for a bit.

"Sorry," she blurted in a childish, apologetic tone, "I guess I was being a bit too trigger happy there. Mr Bill did say 'our call'. I guess I'm a bit too eager to demolish the concrete slab. How do you think we should get in, then?"

[Occupied Deutschland]

"Sorry," Ariel blurted. The words sounded contrite, as if Jannie had caught her in a particularly embarrassing situation. "I guess I was being a bit too trigger happy there. Mr Bill did say 'our call'. I guess I'm a bit too eager to demolish the concrete slab. How do you think we should get in, then?"

"I do not think we should 'get in', as you say, at all." Jannie said flatly, not even looking at the girl.

Jannie rolled slightly to put the rest of her subjects in view. "We are not here to venture all about causing chaos, killing Nazis and demolishing buildings." She fixed her eye on Ariel, "We are here to try and find, and then bring back to England, whoever this 'Beast' is. That will be much harder if they know we are present in the city and it is, potentially, much more pressing an issue to the success of your countries' cause than some German tower in Warsaw." Jannie continued, wondering how 'Wild Bill' would take the statement. The Pole had to know they were not here to help him and his compatriots, not directly at least. Their duty was supposed to be to a broader idea than the Polish resistance itself.

Even if she personally considered the idea of a future-predicting satanic-symbol-utilizing partisan completely ludicrous, and the mission to be a complete waste of time because of that. But she was bound to carry through with that mission. She did not want to see that duty made so much more difficult by an overeager young maga leaping them headlong into a firefight. Particularly not since it would involve loosing the two werewolves with her on the men below, and that was definitely a less-than subtle eventuality that would quickly make clear to the Germans they were present in the city. Werewolf kills had a tendency to be decidedly obvious and less-than-stealthy.

Perhaps they could make the convoy a more inviting target, though. "Mister Bellinkov, I am told you can manipulate the earth to some degree? Do you believe it within your power to stop the frontmost halftrack in a manner that seems accidental?" Jannie asked, narrowing her eye. "If so, we could delay this convoy and make it into an inviting target for our supposed future-seer, Markus and Miss Hawkins could remove the men and lights on the nearby rooftops to give ourselves some breathing room, and we could all perhaps come to his or her aid if they were to stage an attack. Or abduct them more easily if they wind themselves focused on the convoy below before we arrive." Jannie was still assuming the 'Beast' was simply another band of partisans.

[Latznavia]

City Rooftops, Occupied-Poland, 1942

Anatoly was used to dodging spotlights, the time in Minsk during his early years on the war was spent much like this. Fleeing from alley to alley as the Germans would set them up on rooftops to shine on the streets, the guardtowers and bases they used were often more fortified then appeared and he was forced to remember the friends he had lost. He sighed as adjusted his flat cap, the slight squish sound and the feeling of water running down his wrist made him remember the pouring rain on the rooftops and he scowled.

Rain was a tool best used on the eastern front, one could easily walk through the muddy roads and empty streets in the rain as the water washed away most signs a person were there, but rooftops had no such luxury and thus the rain only amplified their steps with splashes and the possibility that someone would slip and crash through the old ceilings. He looked to admire his compatriots, and it already seemed that the Miss Ariel Remington had taken command. He was okay with that, in the Red Army he barely made Sergeant and didn't feel comfortable as a command officer.

Anatoly rubbed his hands together and breathed into them, then looked to the air and saw the zeppelins. The idea of them was majestic, a weapon in the air which could remain stationary for days on end and blast everything underneath. Though he hated being on the opposing side, the ones being blown to bits. And much like the air balloons, Anatoly had noticed that much of the streets and even some rooftops had been covered in over-brazened patriotic propaganda. He hated the sight of it, he saw one which looked like Hitler stomping Stalin's face with that gutter language German and scowled again. Damn, he was cold.

The PA began speaking, a female voice, and Wild Bill made a comment on the woman. Anatoly absentmindedly thought of her as an Aryan woman, tall and blonde with deep sea blue eyes. He sighed, a woman so gorgeous but on the enemy side. He felt Wild Bill nudge him as the PA came to an end of it's recording and began to play Germanic classical music over the streets. The music was quickly swallowed by the mechanized cranking of the German war machine. He groaned.

"Stupid Germans, why must they be so good at war and nothing else." he murmured, then realizing Jannie's origins and hoped she hadn't heard.

"I'm not exactly good with subtlety," Ariel spoke, musingly. "Maybe one of your predators can empty the convoy for us to ride in?" Anatoly looked down at the convoy from the pulpit he was leaning against, as Jannie spoke.

“Lady Remington, do you not think we should keep in mind our objective?” Anatoly admired the clear statement she made, more commanding. “This seems like the kind of procession this ‘Beast’ character would take an interest in. We should follow and observe it, and we may be able to catch him or her raiding it themselves. ” Anatoly though about what the beast would look like, and could only pick a bloody image of a madwomen with horrific strength.

“I, for one, would not like to be in that convoy should it be struck by our mysterious target.”

Sorry," Ariel spoke, as a child apologized to a mother, he found it slightly amusing. "I guess I was being a bit too trigger happy there. Mr Bill did say 'our call'. I guess I'm a bit too eager to demolish the concrete slab. How do you think we should get in, then?"

"I do not think we should 'get in', as you say, at all." Jannie said flatly "We are not here to venture all about causing chaos, killing Nazis and demolishing buildings.We are here to try and find, and then bring back to England, whoever this 'Beast' is. That will be much harder if they know we are present in the city and it is, potentially, much more pressing an issue to the success of your countries' cause than some German tower in Warsaw." Anatoly had completely forgotten that the Polish were amongst them and listened to Jannie. "Mister Bellinkov, I am told you can manipulate the earth to some degree? Do you believe it within your power to stop the frontmost halftrack in a manner that seems accidental? If so, we could delay this convoy and make it into an inviting target for our supposed future-seer, Markus and Miss Hawkins could remove the men and lights on the nearby rooftops to give ourselves some breathing room, and we could all perhaps come to his or her aid if they were to stage an attack. Or abduct them more easily if they wind themselves focused on the convoy below before we arrive."

Anatoly looked at the half track and noticed that down the street, the lights flickered and the power was out. It was where the zeppelins were hovering slowly over and he looked at his hands. And then to Jannie.

"I can do that" He mused, and looked over the pulpit and down at the street. He clenched his hand and watched the convoy as it continued forth, the headlights of the halftrack shined. The city seemed dead outside of the spotlights, he closed his eyes. His veins on his hand became more apparently and his nostrils flared. His face became a bit red, the cobblestone street would be his best ally. Within his mind were thoughts of sinking, the road in front of them caving away under their weight, the half track was probably heavy enough. His nose began to dribble blood as he clenched tighter. He reached out towards the street, and opened his hand and rotated it. Though nothing appeared different with the road, there was a distinct crackling sound in Anatoly's ear. He had to wait to make sure it worked. He wiped the blood from his nose on his sleeve and fell back.

[Cylarn]

Clark absolutely hated the sewers, with its cramped passages, the darkness that concealed hidden dangers, and smells of years of human refuse just festering down below. He could deal with the stench of death on a battlefield, or the festering corruption of Prohibition-era Atlantic City, but the sewers of Warsaw were way above his paygrade. He kept close to the female that was in front of him, which was Lapierre. There was no light in the sewers, at least until they filtered into a larger passage, complete with wall-mounted torches. He could see now, but he saw more than he wanted to.

Slime and water dripped from the walls, and rats raced across the stones. Clark wanted to throw up, but he erected a shield to keep his composure under control. The Minuteman gave an order, calling for Clark and Lapierre to move up on point, forming the beginnings of a "rolling T" formation, though the others were kept in the back, as opposed to a single person guarding the rear. The Ruskie with the mind powers had reported something, something sinister that left a sick feeling in his stomach. Something was hunting the children, and it was something that Clark couldn't abide by. He had witnessed the atrocities committed by the Francoists, who had allowed the Nazi Condors to bomb Guernica. At the Nationalist checkpoints that they liberated, he and his men would come across the shallow graves of refugees, who had been robbed, raped, and executed by the soldiers. The slaughter of innocent children evoked malice in the American's heart.

He pulled back the bolt on his Monitor, chambering a round. A scowl appeared on his face, and he kept pace with Beecher, moving side by side with the soldier as they moved through the passage. He took the opportunity to stuff two cigarette filters into his ears, to provide at least some protection against the deafening sounds of weapons being discharged within a closed, dense space.

"Keep that firing line tight," he ordered. "Don't drift out into each other's lines of fire."

[Rupudska]

"Captain Harris, Miss Lapierre, Miss Rosenberg: on point with me. Miss Cross, Mister Van Helsing, Miss Polikarpova, Mister Kowalski: stay back for now. Miss Polikarpova, if you can sense how nearby a mind is, then brief us silently on our proximity to the children and their pursuers."

Matt's plan was simple, and he laid it out clearly. "This tunnel is narrow: only the people in front will have a clear field of fire. When we find the children, the point team is going to move them back to the rear group, out of the line of fire. The rear group will make sure that the children do not come to harm. Then the point team will engage the enemy."

Esther nodded, moving quietly to the front of the group while gripping her rifle. However, as it was a full-length rifle and the sewer was rather cramped, she had to hold it at an upward angle, close to her body.

Were Matt to look closely, he would see she was shaking, ever-so-slightly, and trying to make it look like she wasn't. It wasn't that she had never fired a rifle before (she had gone deer hunting with her uncle a few times), it was that she was expected to do so at another human being, something she had never even had to try before - even when people did cause trouble in her father's shop, he had handled it himself, and he only ever used an old shotgun that she knew damn well was never really loaded with anything more damaging than buckshot.

"Understood," she replied to Clark, the slightest bit of hesitation in her voice. She slid to his left, making sure not to point her rifle in either his, Lapierre's, or Beecher's direction.

[Nature-Spirits]

Sophie's answers were acceptable, Adrienne decided. The maga remained calm and collected throughout the witch's brief interrogation of her, but it did not seem to be a mask. Especially in speaking of trust, Sophie seemed outright sincere. Once again, Adrienne felt her respect for the woman growing; she could feel that this was a woman who -- while undoubtedly a sinner in some way or another -- would not betray her values. And, it seemed, her values included success and survival, which depended largely on, as she said, trust between the members of the team. "If it's any reassurance," Sophie concluded, "I have very good reasons to be fighting the Nazis."

Adrienne nodded in understanding. She understood that she could, indeed, trust this maga not to use the rest of the team for her own ends -- at least, not in a way that would jeopardise their safety. She understood that Sophie's home had been taken from her by the Nazis. And she understood that the maga was principled, in her own way if not in Adrienne's.

She watched closely as Sophie carved the runes into her own flesh. It was not an especially large array. Adrienne could bear it. When I signed myself over to the military, I signed my body over to the cause. This would help the cause. She was prepared.

---

Adrienne was not used to such darkness. She heard the footsteps and the breathing of her companions ahead and behind, but otherwise she had no point of reference in the cramped tunnel, aside from her feet on the ground and her right hand floating somewhere ahead of her in empty space. It was unnerving. Several times, she brushed her fingers over her right hipbone, where there was a burning itch from the carving of the runes.

Finally, they emerged into a barely larger, better-lit tunnel. The witch gagged; the putrid smell was one of the worst she had ever come across. She could taste human waste and rot in the air. Adrienne was used to fresh air and cool breezes: the smell of rain, of grass, of fresh fruit. She closed her mouth and decided to take only shallow breaths for now; she would get used to the smell in time.

Chopin took a torch from the wall, and Adrienne eyed the flames appraisingly. The Polish man led them down the sewer wordlessly. "I feel icky," said a voice from behind, and she realised that it was Anna, the pacifist witch. "This is unclean for the soul." The Canadian almost rolled her eyes; material filth could not dirty the soul.

As they continued, the torchlight illuminated chalk markings on the wall; as Adrienne squinted at them, she realised that they were drawings: Roman numerals (the number of the Beast, apparently), inverted pentagrams, and a strange figure. The Beast itself. It was winged, and its face was featureless aside from two solid circles for eyes. Even as Chopin explained that it was the children who had drawn this, the witch felt oddly uncomfortable. A representation of a person or object had power -- she knew that better than most. The crudeness of the sketch only served to emphasise the otherworldliness of the figure.

Suddenly, one set of footsteps halted; Adrienne realised that they were Polina's when she heard a silent voice ring in her head. "Yeld....I feel someone thinking....oh...." The witch stopped as well, her heart beating faster in her chest. "I...I felt a little mind....in fear. It's being chased by the monsters with the metal lights..." This time, the esper's mental voice seemed to be shaking, as though she were less sure than before. "N-no....it's slipping away....I can't feel it anymore...."

Adrienne's eyes widened abruptly as she realised the implications. Apparently, the rest of the team had come to the same conclusion. As if on cue, there could be heard the faint sound of little footsteps -- yes, there, in the distance up ahead. Dread slid into her chest as she picked up the additional sounds of heavier footfalls and dogs barking.

"I feel different minds." It was Polina again. She sounded horrified -- frightened. "They're...happy...n-no....they aren't c-children..."

Right then, something snapped in Adrienne. This, she could not abide by. She had no qualms when it came to sending children into battle; but killing children who were not soldiers? And feeling -- she swallowed past the lump in her throat -- happy about it?

"Hounds," Anna muttered, her voice betraying her terror, "they're hellhounds."

No, Adrienne thought. No, these are much worse. She reached for her rifle. These are unrepentant sinners.

Matt spoke, and his wrath was clear from his voice. He had a plan. Adrienne moved to the front of the group, alongside Clark, Esther, and Matt himself. She pulled her rifle from its sling and fed two five-round chargers into the magazine; she had left her carpet bag and bundle in the cellar, having determined that they were not necessary for the task, and had put her ammunition and Bowie knife in the deep pockets of her overcoat. She operated the bolt on the rifle, chambering the first round.

She would not activate an enchantment on the bullets. She would shoot to kill.

After all, it was what God would want.

"Let's go," Matt said, and at that, the quartet strode forth. The witch raised the gun to her shoulder, and peered down the sight into the darkness. It would not be the first time that she had killed a human; it would not be the last. She was prepared.

[Minroz]

Jannie nodded. Tearing down a few posters and cutting some wires which fed PA systems didn't seem like all that much trouble. Though she did disagree with another part of the American vampire's statement. "Indeed. Though occupations tend to be very similar no matter the war, Mister Brooks." Jannie put a very slight emphasis on the man's unimpressive title. "The Germans in Belgium at the beginning of the last war, or the French in Alsace-Lorraine at the end. Federal forces at the end of your own American Civil War, or the French in Prussia after the War of the Fourth Coalition. Treating the citizens of occupied territories poorly, or actively moving or forcing them out, is not an especially modern event. Ancient Rome burnt Carthage to the ground at the end of the Third Punic War. This is little different. It is simply more extreme because of the progress of technology and the more central role our kindred and the others who once hid behind the Masquerade are forced to take."

“Heh, can’t argue with that.” Terry admitted, adjusting his worker’s hat. “I may not be well-read in history classes. What you said about the country’s occupation is true on any sides in history is quite correct. However…” He made a fangy grin like cocky young man out on the dare. “This doesn’t mean it’ll stop me from trying to help the poor folks here and made a difference for the better~. Bloodsucker I am, but I’m a man first and foremost. Well, we can debate about everything after the mission. Let’s roll, ma’am~.”

He then moved on after giving Jannie his friendly wink.

---

City Rooftops

Like the rest of the Tracking team, he followed Wild Bill until at the present destination. Now Terry is witnessing what everybody else is viewing - the work of Nazi German tyranny over the city at work. Ever since they got out of the hideout, he’s being unusually silent on the way. Partly, it’s a Black Ops mission and the mission did require certain degree of craftiness after all.

“Wow, talking about egos. This building takes the cake like the ones back home. And depressingly dumb too.” The New Yorker thought to himself.

Terry took out his Springfield sniper rifle and spying through its scope. He then started observing the environment for any useful points of interests including the zeppelins, patrols and the approaching German convoy too, anything which may help with the mission’s progress. At the same time, he’s listening in to his teammates talking about the next course of action.

“Well, if y’all don’t mind my input. I can blend into the shadows and providing covering fire to create the distraction of sorts. That way, maybe we can divert the Nazis away from the tower if possible. Just to let you guys know, I can do many subtleties and I’m also pretty good with my shots. Trust me; I don’t miss when I put my eyes on my target.” Terry said, offering his help. And he sounded pretty confident on the last part, others may forget Terry was a professional soldier turned mercenary.

[Lunas Legion]

Robert found himself reminded more and more of New York during the Great Depression as he followed the rest of his 'team', as he reluctantly called them, through the streets. Something about the deserted streets and long-closed shops reminded him of home.

Hell, all you needed to do was add the occasional vagrant and the lines of unemployed waiting for FDR's handouts and you had the Big Apple exactly was in the 30s. He could see it all. Unfortunately, the mental image was ruined by the occasional piece of terrible Nazi propaganda. Goebbels had really screwed up here. He'd seen some of their propaganda during his (thankfully brief) visit to Germany back in '36. It seemed pretty convincing, from the lack of overt resistance to the jackboots.

But he couldn't read German then so it could have been utter shite. He could now, thanks to those Babel-doohickeys (he needed to keep this one and find a way to replicate it; a universal translator monopoly would simultaneously make him rich and put every language teacher out of a job), but it was utter trash. Just more KKK-esque racial supremacist drivel to be ignored for the lies it was.

"Are you fuckin' crazy lass?" He hissed angrily. "Doesn't matter if we split up. That place is under attack, they'll all be fightin' whatever the fuck's doin' the attack. I for one ain't too keen on chargin' or sneakin' into a goddamned crossfire between Nazis and the Beast. If you want to go on a suicide run, go. Easier and safer to wait for shit to quieten down then move in, see the aftermath. Get a good look at it, then bail once we've got the means of explosion identified."

"And I don't think anyone here wants to run into the Beast in the field. That'll turn nasty quickly."

[Agritum]

Investigation Team, Depot

Sobieski nodded to Karlmann. "Yeah, better if you stay here. The Beast has got this penchant for generating obscene amounts of crossifire. He's a lone wolf and fights like one, with no care for its surroundings, as long as he manages to land his kills without getting hurt himself. And it looks like the Germans have started attempting everything to take it down. Look down there."

The partisan drew a binocular from his pocket, putting it next to his eyes and then pointing to an impromptu street block manned by several German troopers, some of them setting up sandbags and squad machine guns. An entire platoon worth of manpower and weaponry, the German detachment was aimed at the main gate of the depot, weapons trained on it. "They're trying to seal off the surroundings of the depot and block any possible escape route for whoever is blowing that place up. Looks like they've read its moves, for once."

A few soldiers approached the front gate of the depot. "Here they go, trying to lure it out...I almost feel sorry for them."

A motor rumbled. The footmen freezed. The gate's wooden bars went down as a full speed Opel Blitz plowed through them, towering over the inantrymen. Just like the bars, they too went under. The Opel simply bumped above their bodies before crushing their matter on the cold ground.

"Ouch." Sobieski uttered.

The Opel madly charged towards the street block, encountering the fiery resistance of three MG-42 squads, who proceeded to saturate the air with .50 cal fire. The tires of the Opel exploded, the vehicle tipping over and sliding on the ground with a cacophonic, metallic screech.

It stopped, its engine smoking, dead tires still aimlessly turning in the air. The driver's window was riddled with bullet holes and cracks, making it almost impossible to distinguish any human figure in the cockpit of the Opel.

Sobieski was shocked. "Wait...what....no...." he muttered. About a dozen soldiers started approaching the downed truck, keeping their rifles aimed at hit and its cockpit. Fuel started to leak from the engine. The Polish partisan looked at the scene with disbelieving eyes. He gazed at the Shadow commandos, with an almost begging look.

"...you must act. Now." He uttered.

Tracking Team, Rooftops

Wild Bill had spent his time listening to the suggestions of the pretty blonde Brit and the pale-looking woman he was tagging along with. His interest however sharply rose when Anatoly began going through the strange motions he had spoken of. What was that guy even attempting to do? he wondered, glancing at him and the convoy below.

Wild Bill froze, as he heard the street below creaking, crunching, giving up its strenght to the weight of the armored vehicles above. The last creak was the loudest, and was followed by the loud sound of the street being crushed by the chief halftrack. The soldiers in it found themselves thrown around the vehicles, as it sunk by a meter or two in the ground.

It was all too sudden. The Kubelwagen behind came to a screeching halt, only to be bumped around by the armored vehicle behind, which promptly stopped. The doors of the Kubelwagen opened, as a man with a peaked cap and well cleaned uniform stepped out, looking visibly flustered.

"God in Heaven! What have you done?" the officer barked at the halftrack in front of himself, cringing at the destroyed streetfloor. The distressed soldiers began climbing out of the now damaged halftrucks, sporting an humiliated look at their faces. "First the Poles, then that murderous bastard, and now even the blasted streets want to kill us! Unteroffizer, I want this mess cleared as soon as possible. The men at the 7# Army Depot need us!" he growled. The driver of the halftrack started to go in reverse, vainly trying to get out of the sloped ditch.

Wild Bill looked at Anatoly, visibly impressed. "Damn...where have you learned to do that? Seems like a pretty nifty way of dealing with Krauts." he commented, looking at the scene unfolding below. "So it seems that they're up to something, acting as reinforcements, probably. Well, that really puts me into shooting mood."

Wild Bill promptly unholstered his Luger, checking the magazines and cocking it. "What about you?" He asked at the commandos near him.

Interrogation Team, Sewers

"I can feel the minds of about eight men or so. I feel their thoughts. They're Germans. They are a squad. They want to....kill the children." Polina's mental voice echoed through the minds of Beecher, Harris, Lapierre and the others as they made their way through the wide but dark and damp corridors of the sewer, a stream of grime water running at their feet.

"You're walking near to where I last felt the mind of a child." Polina said, her voice starting to tremble. "It...emanated fear...when it went out."

Something floated up to Beecher's feet. It was tiny, just as big as the palm of a normal human hand. The button-eyes of a stringy haired doll looked at him emptily, its face blocked in a simple, curved expression that resembled a closed mouth smile. It was losing its soft stuffing from its belly, cut open and burned by a gunshot.

Its former owner was only distant a few meters from Beecher and the team. The little human being was curled up, its face down in the filthy water. Its arms were sprawled wide, hugging the ground, locked in the instant where they had vainly begged mercy, trying to find protection. Holes riddled the scrawny frame of the child, still spilling over some fresh lifeblood which flowed in the ground below. One of its legs was bleeding more than the rest of his body, the bloody marks of sharp teeth embedded in it.

[i]W-what have you found?" Polina asked.

A gruff, harsh voice echoed in the distance.

"So why can't we use a flamethrower and just burn these little shits instead of chasing them around? Would simplify things for us and them, eheh."

A bark of a dog sounded in the distance. Another voice echoed, emerging from a chous of jackbooted footsteps.

"No no, Bubi is having a lot of fun right now. He likes biting the piglets in their legs. Makes the job a lot more easy when they limp."

"They're in the sewer passage just before you....six men....proceeding further into the sewer system..." Polina echoed.

[Reverend Norv]

The team followed Matt deeper into the sewers.

Anna muttered something about hellhounds. Her voice cracked with fear. Matt's ears strained. He heard noise: vague, indeterminate, like the fuzzy black-and-white images that you see when your eyes adjust to a darkened room. The noise sounded like metal claws scraping stone.

Hellhounds. Fury drove out fear. Matt's breath hissed, deep and steady, between his gritted teeth. The walnut stock of his Persuader pressed hard into his shoulder.

Clark Harris worked the bolt on his BAR. Adrienne Lapierre fed chargers into her Lee-Enfield. They stood abreast, in a line, alongside Matt. The Minuteman saw cold anger in Adrienne's face, and thought: It's like looking in a mirror. Clark warned the team to keep the firing line tight, and to keep the team's field of fire clear. Matt nodded impatiently but respectfully; Clark had a lot more combat experience than Matt.

They moved on into the dark. Polina briefed them telepathically. There were eight Germans: a rifle squad. The Nazis were trying to kill the sewer children. Polina had felt one child's mind go dark. The child had been afraid when she died.

Matt's knuckles were white on his Persuader. A normal gun might have snapped in his grip.

Esther was crammed in between Matt and Adrienne. The girl was shaking slightly, and trying to act like she wasn't. Matt wanted to feel sympathy for her. He wanted to touch her shoulder, and tell her that it was going to be okay.

If Matt let himself feel sympathy at this moment, his heart would break. He knew that. He fled from feeling. He turned the Book of Ezekiel on its head, and prayed: Take from me this heart of flesh, and give to me a heart of stone.

Matt's boot touched something. Matt looked down and saw a small face. Matt felt panic flutter in his gut. Matt thought: Oh, please, God, no, don't make me see it.

The face had buttons for eyes. It had a line of stitching for a mouth. It had strings for hair. The doll bled cotton-wool into the raw sewage.

Matt picked it up. Matt looked around. God made him see it.

She looked like a doll. Matt couldn't see her face. She was so still. The sewage around her was red.

Matt fled from feeling. He didn't flee fast enough.

He walked over to the girl's body. He knelt beside it. She was an it now. Matt touched it. It was clammy, half-warm. Blood felt sticky on Matt's hand. Tears felt wet on Matt's face.

Matt stroked the body's hair back, combed it with his fingers, made it lie straight and beautiful. Matt moved the body's limbs, taking away its fear, letting it lie as if asleep. Matt took the doll, and folded the body's arms around it.

Matt could hear voices in the distance. He could hear heavy boots tramping. He choked on his sobs. His shoulders heaved silently. He covered his mouth with one hand, and touched the dead thing with the other hand, and he prayed.

There was no time. The Germans were just around the next bend in the sewer. Their dog liked biting children. They wanted to burn the kids and be done with it. There were six of them. Polina could feel them.

The Germans were moving deeper into the sewer. That meant that the team was behind them. That meant that the commandos had the advantage of surprise.

Matt suddenly had no more anger left. His heart was broken. He felt only the inexorable magnetic pull of duty: the obligation owed by the living to the dead.

Matt stood. The Germans were now too close for him to speak aloud. Matt just nodded to the rest of the point fireteam. He raised his Persuader to his shoulder, lined up his sights, walked around the bend in the tunnel, and sent a tight burst of fifty-caliber slugs downrange toward the center of mass of the first grey uniform he saw.

[Wolfenium]

Investigation Team, Depot

Watching the Opel riddle with holes as the Germans tried to block its path, anyone could have assumed that the driver was a gone case. Buttoning up her lips, Milena hardly dared to imagine a sight of a bullet-laden corpse rolling out of the driver's seat, or something even less worldly storming out to face the blockade. But a brief pause as nothing emerged seemed to raise more questions than answers. Biting her nail, she could not help but think the car was empty, much as the pleading partisan appeared to have relented otherwise.

"Hold on," she said, "I'll try to sense if anyone's there."

It was a risky call, one that would probably haunt her with images of scalding pain if the worst fears were actually true. Pressing at her head as she tried to concentrate, she tried to scour for any sign of life in the car. But as she tried to probe, her mind was met with pure, absolute silence. Either whoever was in there was already dead, or-

"!? Mhhpfh!"

Without warning, a flash of memories hit Milena like a headshot, warped beyond recognition as if twisted by indomitable agony. It seemed blurred, with fences, dull grey and sullen, skeletal faces darting in her subconscious in a split second. But the feelings were all too clear; a sense of despondence, despair... death.

Dropping to her knees, she could feel her lunch expelling as she felt sick on the onset. The memories, even in a flash, were frighening to read, her very bones numbing as if experiencing the pain felt itself. But as she heaved deeply to catch her breath, she took a few moments to get a grip. There was no time to lament. She had a job to do.

"S-someone's still there," she uttered, feeling quite nervous, "I can't tell where. I tried scouring the car for signs when it just... hit me. We should move to help."

---

Tracking Team, Rooftops

Puffing her cheeks a bit, Ariel grunted, "well, make up your mind! Do you want to leave them to the Beast or do you want to take them down yourself!? What buggery..."

Suddenly, stepping up the ledge with wand on hand, Ariel wasted no time aiming down, striking a pose as if ready to cast. Breaking the pause, she declared, "if you're going to chatter like nannies, then I pick 'shoot'. Don't blame me if there's none left for you. Flamma!"

It was a reckless move, aiming down her wand at one of the trapped halftracks as a fireball exploded out of her wand. Massing into the size of a beach ball, the projectile hit the vehicle in a thundering punch, igniting the fuel tank as it lifted itself out of the pothole in a burning fireball. The flames spread so much, that shards of the spell cling on to the uniforms of some of the soldiers. Quickly, cries of pain rang among the engulfed victims as the remaining soldiers were stunned by the attack. As for the hapless driver, he likely would not have stood a chance, flying to the floor with his vehicle as his charred remains melded with the seat.

---

Interrogation Team, Sewers

Watching the solemn Minuteman cradle the mangled corpse, Anna could only cover her mouth in sheer horror. It was too much for her poor heart to take, and seeing the little cherub torn apart like that burned agony into her eyes, an unforgettable sight. For a moment, she felt almost like screaming herself out, unable to take the scene. But biting her sleeve, she tried her hardest to silence herself, fearing that one false move would put everyone at risk. Unable to take the strain, she started sobbing on the spot. Collapsing to her knees as she tried to hold in her sorrow, she could barely hear the sounds of Matt's persuader going off as he sought the heads of the hunters responsible.

[Minroz]

"God in Heaven! What have you done?" the officer barked at the halftrack in front of himself, cringing at the destroyed streetfloor. The distressed soldiers began climbing out of the now damaged halftrucks, sporting an humiliated look at their faces. "First the Poles, then that murderous bastard, and now even the blasted streets want to kill us! Unteroffizer, I want this mess cleared as soon as possible. The men at the 7# Army Depot need us!" he growled. The driver of the halftrack started to go in reverse, vainly trying to get out of the sloped ditch.

Wild Bill looked at Anatoly, visibly impressed. "Damn...where have you learned to do that? Seems like a pretty nifty way of dealing with Krauts." he commented, looking at the scene unfolding below. "So it seems that they're up to something, acting as reinforcements, probably. Well, that really puts me into shooting mood."

Wild Bill promptly unholstered his Luger, checking the magazines and cocking it. "What about you?" He asked at the commandos near him.

Tracking Team, Rooftops

Puffing her cheeks a bit, Ariel grunted, "well, make up your mind! Do you want to leave them to the Beast or do you want to take them down yourself!? What buggery..."

Suddenly, stepping up the ledge with wand on hand, Ariel wasted no time aiming down, striking a pose as if ready to cast. Breaking the pause, she declared, "if you're going to chatter like nannies, then I pick 'shoot'. Don't blame me if there's none left for you. Flamma!"

*Bang*

Cocking his Springfield rifle, Terry is the first person of the group to fire the gun before anyone gets the chance to shoot a bullet. He sees three Krauts dropped dead on the ground. Thanks to his years of marksmanship, he’s able to get his three targets into his line of sights like a hunter. He’d happened to seize the chance when Anatolay and Ariel started attacking, exploiting the German confusion in the process.

“Heh, need to ask?” The American vamp quipped in response. “Y’all guys go ahead, I’ll provide covering fire from here. I’ll catch up with ya, alright.”

[Monfrox]

"Time ta get movin'!" Willow said in a hushed yell to the others. "Split off inta three teams an' circle aroun' through the other alleyways. Get angles on these guys while I get their attention. That should give yuh an opening ta take the rest of 'em out an' get ta the truck. Ya got thirty seconds ta git before I start my distraction."

She pointed to Sobieski. "Go with 'em. They'll need someone who knows their way aroun' the city. Don't want any objections, now move!"

Willow headed up the alley's entrance and for a split-second, debated whether or not to throw the satchel charge before figuring to wait on it for a different time. She picked targets closest to her and would make her shots after she counted down the thirty seconds. Hopefully, the others would be on their way and able to take the Germans by surprise from the other angles. She was sticking her neck out for them right now.

[Latznavia]

"Damn...where have you learned to do that? Seems like a pretty nifty way of dealing with Krauts." Wild Bill sounded amazed, Anatoly only smirked at his abilities. He had been trained to use them for the good of the war and now he could finally show them off like a superhero amongst these men and women.

"Well, Mr. Wild Bill, it is quite simple the use of mental and phys-"

"So it seems that they're up to something, acting as reinforcements, probably. Well, that really puts me into shooting mood." Interrupted Wild Bill with an overly eager grin and a now loaded gun. Anatoly looked at this with some form of fear. He looked down at the trapped convoy, they had set the trap. The Beast would surely come now, it was perfect and it was set without a hitch. No one would suspect outside efforts.

"Well, make up your mind! Do you want to leave them to the Beast or do you want to take them down yourself!? What buggery..." Spoke the Ariel Remington angered by the confusion brought by the Wild Bill's comment. She soon reached into her jacket and got the same grin.

"Miss Ariel, wait we-"

"If you're going to chatter like nannies, then I pick 'shoot'. Don't blame me if there's none left for you. Flamma!" Suddenly a beach ball sized fireball flew across the road and the halftrack burst into flames. Anatoly's eyes widened, his plan had been ruined by some boiling blood capitalist. 'It was set perfectly...ruins, the whole plan now in ruins.'

"Miss Ariel!-" He had started but suddenly his ears rang as he turned to the American who unloaded the smoking Shell from his Springfield. 'Not him too!? What is wrong with these filthy capitalists!?'

“Heh, need to ask?” The American vamp spoke as he took aim again “Y’all guys go ahead, I’ll provide covering fire from here. I’ll catch up with ya, alright.”

"Damn you capitalists, just because you can afford the bullets in bulk doesn't mean you HAVE to use them!? We are here to lure the Beast! Not do its job!" Anatoly realized that wasn't in his mind, but at this point didn't care. He leaned against the pulpit and scanned the rooftops, then turned around and aimed his PPSh-41. He scanned the roadway, he wanted to ensure he saw the Beast, but his anger built and even if he saw the Beast, he couldn't control himself and opened fire on the Germans with the drum machine.

"You filthy German asses! Prepare to feel the fury of Stalin's great masses!" His finger struck the trigger and the gun lit up.

'I am betting that Polina is doing much more well with her team then I am.'

[Occupied Deutschland]

Anatoly had fallen backwards, but not before accomplishing exactly what Jannie had asked of him. The street seemed to have collapsed underneath the lead halftrack. Just like an artillery battery if one took out the lead unit, those behind were forced to stop as well to either assist or badmouth their comrades ahead. Jannie crawled her way back from the edge of the roof so she could see the Soviet.

He was alive, that much she could tell just from looking. His nose was slowly bleeding, and there was a red smear where he’d wiped off the first of the substance running across the side of his cheek. Jannie was not particularly tempted by the sight. The man was sick. She doubted he had been before the ruffians in charge of his country had gotten their hands on him. He was a credit to his people. But the leaders of his country had done an exceptional disservice to him.

“…Well, that really puts me into shooting mood. What about you?” Their Polish guide said, drawing his captured German pistol. Jannie was reminded of Orsini from Wagner’s first opera and almost sneered. Jumping headlong into action like some logger to the mill. She supposed she shouldn’t expect anything like forethought or intelligence from a man whose nom de guerre was an American minstrel-cowboy, but it didn’t stop her from being frustrated by it.

Jannie opened her mouth to rebuke the man as she had Ariel moments prior.

Ariel whined like a petulant child, and rose to her feet. She stood in the line-of-fire for a good four or five seconds jabbering like an unhappy wife, Jannie was too stunned by the idiocy to pay much heed to the words. Demonstrating as effectively as possible why the vast majority of women were unsuited to military service, the little girl’s emotional outburst ended in her flinging a fireball into the street.

Jannie forced her mouth closed and bit her cheek in the process. Apparently, Ariel believed the ‘Shadow’ in ‘Shadow Command’ to not mean the safety of the shadows provided by the stealthy completion of a mission. No. She clearly had to believe it somehow meant the shadow created by making a gigantic fireball, at night, in the middle of occupied territory that loudly broadcast the location of both her and her less imbecilic comrades-in-arms.

At least, that was the only explanation Jannie could think of to explain the moronic action. Perhaps for her next trick Ariel would announce where they were going and why through the German propaganda system. Maybe print up a few posters with a map and rough timeline on it! The girl, like her mundane kin, was too emotional to provide any part of the disciplined force that was needed in any military if she couldn’t restrain herself to fighting at the proper time. Not that the Polish cowboy’s overenthusiastic attitude had helped contain matters. At least he possessed the excuse of his more disciplined countrymen already having likely died in their defense of the country years before, though.

Brooks adding his rifle to the impromptu, and harebrained, ambush at that point merely cemented its progression. There was no stopping it now. Anatoly tried, but there was nothing that could correct it now. Now it was a matter of trying to finish it as quickly as possible so that the slim chance they had of escaping the zeppelin’s searchlights, the rooftop guard-posts, and any other German surprises laid out for them didn’t disappear completely.

At least the Soviet of all people could follow a simple command without jumping up and getting all of those with him into a confrontation they were neither supposed to be engaging in or prepared for in the first place. Perhaps even more demonstrative, even the werewolves had been able to contain their instincts better than the English brat. She was from a noble house, she should have known better. Then again, sometimes even good parents could produce bad children.

Jannie forced herself to remember Ariel was young. Young and stupid. Hopefully, in this instance, the girl’s stupidity would not cost anyone their lives and it could be chased out of her yet by a thorough and hopefully emotionally painful, since that seemed to drive the girl’s judgements more heavily than actual sense, reminder of the consequences her actions could have for others besides herself. Not to mention reminded, again, what their actual mission had been and how announcing their presence was not conducive to the successful completion of such.

But that had to come later. Now they had to finish things here, and then escape.

God save and protect me from fools, animals and Americans Jannie thought. Everyone around her, except Anatoly to her considerable surprise, fell into one of those categories. In some cases more than one of them. In other cases, such as ‘Wild Bill’ and Ariel, they should belong to two of those categories but had somehow not been born in a country where their cowboy silliness would be more appropriate. God had an odd sense of humor.

“Markus, Catherine, strike the armored vehicle at the rear of the column!” Jannie snapped as she rose, in a voice meant to be heard over the sound of muskets and cannon. It did its job just as well over the roar of more modern weaponry. “Miss Remington,” It was no longer ‘Lady Remington’, “and ’Bill’, assist Mister Bellinkov and Brooks in presenting them with a base of fire!”

Jannie marched to the edge of the roof even as gunfire from below began to stutter towards it. “You are both daft.” She said more conversationally to Ariel and Wild Bill before taking the last step into open air.

Jannie practically disappeared from the view of those on the rooftop, and of those below, in the blink of an eye. The already rising smoke from the flames of the burning halftrack obscured the lighter, paler mist-that-was-not-a-mist as it descended to the street in a looping, circular arc. As it reached the aging and ill-repaired street opposite of the rooftops the others were on, it seemed to curl in on itself for a second. Jannie appeared there next, drawing the sword at her side with her right hand and her pistol with the other. The Germans on the street seemed not to notice her presence soon enough.

Jannie cut a slice into the shoulder and exposed neck of a soldier taking cover behind the kubelwagen. Him dead, she began firing the revolver steadily in the directions of the Germans on the street, who were even now beginning to return fire at the roof she’d been on a moment before. She had to keep them unbalanced or they could still turn the tide on the ambushers, particularly since all of her subordinates had been forced to begin the engagement from a single position. No enfilading fire in an ambush was a recipe for disaster. It gave the enemy safe zones they could use to coordinate a counterattack. Another item the Remington girl had not properly considered before rushing headlong into unnecessary confrontation. Daft, daft little girl!

It wasn’t going to help them complete their mission, it was likely to attract the wrath of God from the Nazi occupiers of Warsaw, either on them or its civilian population, and it was such a waste from an absolute perspective. So much blood spilling on the streets that need not be. All because one silly little girl was incapable of following the orders of her betters or bothering to consider the larger picture.