O P E R A T I O N D R A G O O N
Southern France | September 14th, 1944
The intelligence on Baron Alrecht Krieger was more
guess work than anything else.
At the start of the war, his name had never come up. The first mention had popped up in British field reports coming out in Libya in 1942. The SAS used a codename in case the intelligence was intercepted. They called him
Hauptmann Nazi.
Who was he? No one had come up with a good answer for that question. Instead, the assumption that he was just another fanatical upstart among a sea of power brokers vying for Hitler’s favor seemed to carry the day.
Was he
Schutzstaffel or
Wehrmacht? Again, no one knew. Instead, the agents in the field seemed to be making assumptions. In one mention, he was described as being part of the
Waffen-SS. The next listed him as a member of the
Reichssicherheitshauptamt.
Whatever the case, the descriptions provided seemed to more aptly depict the heroics of
Wonder Woman or
Captain America. The summaries each contained narratives that described actions that few, if any, people could have pulled off. Let alone believed. Hence the nickname as
Captain Nazi. As for what he was up to now? The Allies had been searching for information, but with Rommel in retreat and the emphasis on the European Front, the SAS had lost track of Krieger after 1943.
Then, a month ago, the French Resistance had picked up Albrecht’s trail. They’d reported that he was up in the Vosges Mountains, preparing to move north toward Berlin. If that was true, then that would have allowed Diana or Steve to tackle whatever threat that this so-called Captain Nazi posed to the Allies.
The intelligence turned out to be
wrong.
Albrecht Krieger had gone south. A push from the German’s to try and make up for lost territory in the
Cote d’Azure region.
Billy had a reputation for being faster than a locomotive. Krieger was faster. To this point, the
Captain Marvel of the newspapers had gotten by through raw strength. When he faced a challenge, he overcame because he just
overpowered whatever it was. A few of the GIs had taught him boxing, but it had been made out as a joke. Why would Captain Marvel need to know boxing? He could just flick a bad guy with his pinky finger and send him flying across the room.
Billy might have been stronger than Krieger. Who could say? The fact was, Billy couldn’t lay a finger on Captain Nazi. Instead, Krieger was literally beating Billy in the streets, as the last vestiges of the German Army rallied for a comeback against the Allied force that had been rolling over them for the last month.
Pile-driving the child-sized hero into the American tank, the German supersoldier rolled from off of the warped and twisted metal. Yanking the boy free of the wreckage, the man skipped the boy’s skull across the cobblestones like a skipping stone for the better part of a city block.
Billy’s torn and battered form just lay in the middle of the street.
“Kid!” A young medic scrambled out from the alleyways, sprinting under a spattering of machine gun fire until he was crouching down before the boy’s small body. “Shit,” the man swore, looking over Billy’s bruised form as he rolled the child over. Slapping the side of the boy’s face, the medic peered into the blue eyes as they fluttered open. “You okay?”
Billy gave a nod. He tried to take a deep breath, but stopped short as pain lanced through his side. Clutching at his ribs, the young Marvel pulled himself back to his feet.
“Never better,” the boy managed, between clenched teeth. Then, with a sigh, started jogging back toward where Krieger was presently dismantling another tank unit with his bare hands.
Round two lasted about two-point-eight seconds. After which Billy, now stuffed inside the barrel of the tank’s main gun, came rolling down the street, stopping only when the bend in the road cause the barrel to jump the curb and smash into the front of what used to be a bakery.
“God...
fuck!” the medic swore, at first diving out of the way and then sprinting over to where a pair of legs were sticking out of the barrel.
The acrid odor of bile rose up from the grease and soot encrusted child that was pulled from out of the wreckage. Lines of clean skin stood out on the boy’s face, carved out by the tears that had run down through the dirt.
“I threw up,” Billy confessed, his hair disheveled and his eyes confused as he emerged discombobulated and off-balance.
Holding the boy by the shoulders, the medic sat him up. The medic’s grip tightened as Billy doubled over and heaved a second time. “I won’t tell anyone,” the soldier offered softly.
Rolling forward, Billy crawled on all fours away from the wreckage. Gulping in air, he winced as he pushed up to his feet. He staggered forward, before dropping back onto one knee. His shoulders bowed, he labored to catch his breath as the medic’s hand landed on his shoulder.
“Kid..." the soldier began, pausing a moment before asking, “Why do you keep getting up?”
Reaching across his body, the young Baton gently eased the medic’s hand from his shoulder before slowing rising back to his feet. Catching his breath, Billy winced and wondered that same question silently to himself.
“Because someone fucking has to,” he said finally.
Terrax the Pants-less was
strong.
Stronger than Billy, that had become clear. In quick order, the fight on Toleria was starting to feel a lot like France. No, there were no warm, summer breezes. No French wine or cheese. But the
curb-stomp ass-kickings were particularly beautiful this time of year.
Billy lashed out with a punch aimed at Terrax’s head, but his reach was too short. Terrax’s longer arm snapped in a block. Twisting in mid-air, Billy kicked the man’s arm aside.
Only to be grabbed by Terrax’s free hand and tossed aside like a discarded Kleenex.
For a moment, Billy felt as though he had been stuffed back inside that tank barrel, rolling down the street, as the world spun while he was thrown through the air. Twisting against the direction of the spin, Billy got his bearings as he halted his ascent in the air. Striking his gauntlets against each other, the boy triggered an explosion of energy as he thrust his arms out toward the ground below.
The impact of the blast sent shockwaves rippling through the planet, as liquefaction momentarily transformed the soil.
From out of the dust cloud, two hunks of rock sailed outward with supersonic speed and lethal precision, slamming into Billy’s small form to knock him from out of the sky. He only just begun to process what had even happened then, before he crashed down onto the scorched sands.
Rolling several times, the form of the young boy popped up to his feet. Kicking his head to one side, sand was slung from out of his head as he blinked through the grime clinging to his face and found himself peering up at the towering form of Terrax standing over him.
“I WILL BREAK THE FOUNDATIONS OF THIS PLANET AND CAST THESE PEOPLE INTO THE ETERNAL ABYSS BEFORE I YIELD TO YOU!”As the man stretched his hands out, Billy became aware of a tremor that was starting to grow into an earthquake.
A
big earthquake.
A
REALLY BIG earthquake.
Could Terrax really be intending to tear the planet apart? Billy didn’t know. But, he also wasn’t going to take any chances. Which meant, he needed to get Terrax off this planet. Like,
now.
“Noted,” the boy said, pulling a hand back.
Then he snapped forward. There was another explosion of energy, before Terrax went flying through the air with enough force as to hopefully break orbit.
Could Terrax even survive out in space? Part of him hoped that he could.
Part of him really wouldn’t mind if he couldn’t.
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