Hogan knew the moment the Gestapo officer had uttered the words that things were about to go to hell in a handbasket.

A challenge.

How backwards were these creeps?! It was an old, bloody and deadly tradition from the Dark Ages. While Sentinel challenges were still a thing in the Western world, they never went to the death anymore.

Except here.

Because the Gestapo reveled in such things.

But Klink was no Sentinel! part of him clamored. He couldn't be!

"Sir," Newkirk whispered urgently.

He shook his head. From the expression in everyone's faces, no one could believe what they were seeing or hearing.

And when Rothenburg grabbed two broken broom handles, since there were no swords and the Gestapo just loved their backwater games, tossing one at Klink who caught it easily, he knew they were about to go down with that ship.

"I don't believe it," LeBeau murmured, looking incredulous. "He can't be… Sentinel? Un Protecteur? Can he? Colonel?"

Hogan shook his head again. He was sure that Klink wasn't a Sentinel. He would have known. He would have been told. He would have sensed something!

It had been him that Rothenburg had recognized, his slip-up, but for some reason he was concentrating on their Kommandant, not Hogan.

Why? How?

"I'll kill you!" Rothenburg promised darkly, then lashed out.

Klink blocked the blow with an ease that spoke of training. His posture had changed, he was no longer stooped over, his movements fluid and practiced.

"Blimey me," Newkirk muttered, face reflecting stunned horror at the display. "Look at him!"

Yes, he was looking at him. And seeing someone he had never known, never met, and was now watching in a fight he wouldn't have bet on Klink ever starting or, more importantly, winning.

Hogan felt something inside of him snarl furiously, wanting to be in that fight, end the bastard, free the girl, and protect what they had here.

But that was already over.

Whatever the outcome of this fight would be, things couldn't be the same afterwards.

Ever again.

The old life was over.

The clashing of wooden staffs against each other echoed loudly over the otherwise silent grounds, both German soldiers and Allied prisoners watching in horrified fascination as their otherwise so meek and cowardly Kommandant was facing off against a Gestapo Sentinel. A trained, lethal Sentinel; a killer.

Blows rained down on each of the fighters, both receiving hits and dealing out, skin breaking under the force involved. Neither man backed down. Klink was featuring a long cut along one cheek while Rothenburg had what looked like at least two broken fingers. There was also a bruise forming on the Sentinel's forehead.

A blow broke Klink's staff in two pieces. He didn't look impressed as he changed his grip on his two new weapons, shifting his stance a little, and even through the blood and other marks on his skin, he was still giving Rothenburg challenging looks.

Klink hadn't said a word throughout the last minutes.

The Sentinel bared his teeth, muscles flexing. "You will go down," he whispered harshly. "I will tear you to pieces! You are a disgrace, Klink!"

Blue eyes that had always appeared too soft, too watery, were like steel, burning with something no one at the camp had ever seen before.

"You are nothing!" Rothenburg snarled, spitting blood. "Nothing, you hear me?"

Still no answer.

The deadly dance continued, a tradition as brutal and still current as it had been since the Dark Ages of Sentinel kind.

But Klink was no Sentinel. Had never been.

Hogan's eyes never left the surprisingly lithely moving man, the German officer he had never seen this way.

Nothing about this was in any file. Yes, he had been a pilot, which meant also a rudimentary training to fight the enemy on the ground, too, but not the skills he was displaying now. This was a man who had trained for years, maybe since his youth, to hold his own against someone with enhanced senses.

There had also been no intel concerning Klink's possible disposition as a Guide.

And the man was a Guide.

Hogan felt it. With every fiber of his being.

Something inside of him reacted strongly, felt something familiar, something that had touched him before. The voice. The presence. Klink…

Shit, raced through him. Shit, shit, shit! Now it all made sense. Such, terrible, horrifying sense. He was starting to realize something that would have had him laugh hysterically otherwise, but now it only invoked absolute terror.

Quickly followed by an overwhelming protective instinct.

That he just as quickly beat down.

Rothenburg might not be able to add together all the little hints, come up with something absolutely surprising, but Hogan could. He had known the other colonel for close to two years now and he finally understood so much now. His agile mind was bringing the puzzle pieces together in a way he had never considered, watched them slide into place and just… fit.

Had London known? Had anyone? Here? At the camp? Outside? Because Klink's abilities…

Guides couldn't really hide what they were from trained Sentinels. The Sentinel reacted to a Guide's presence, involuntarily, feeling something ping off their radar, so to speak. Those with training, with high level shields, could control themselves, could fool trained senses, but never for long.

Not this way, though, Hogan decided. Not as completely as Klink had fooled him and everyone else. Not continuously, and it had to be for all his life because he had come this far in an army that was run by a madman, who wiped out what he found threatening or inhuman.

Klink had to be good. Insanely good.

Something deep inside him growled softly, hungrily, wanted to push forward and past shields that had kept this incredible power hidden. It wanted to touch, wanted to center on the man and never let go. It was a beacon, briefly flashing in the darkness, and it was enough to have him salivating for more.

Dimly he remembered those warnings throughout his training, about strong empaths, able to throw a troubleshooter out of the Loop, break him, annihilate years of training. And he heard his instructor telling him that even a strong individual like Hogan, someone with an iron will, born shields, and no interest in a Guide, could be lured.

The lure was right there.

Fighting.

Against another Sentinel.

For him!

It should be him facing Rothenburg, killing the bastard! It should be…

"He is going to kill him!" Carter murmured, swallowing hard, the words bringing Hogan out of his primal thoughts.

Klink had gone down on one knee, more blood showing from so many tiny wounds, breathing hard, muscles trembling. But he wasn't bowing to the superior Sentinel.

Because the man wasn't superior.

The American Sentinel bared his teeth and Kinchloe clamped a firm hand around his wrist. "Colonel!" he growled in a low, deep voice. "Don't. You can't! Focus!"

He did.

On the display of power before him.

On Wilhelm Klink.

Red tinged his vision and he flexed his fingers, priming for a fight, ready.

Okay, so things were going even more sideways. Fast.

Something stopped him, freezing him, giving him a hard slap that had him reel back on a psychic level. It told him to stand down.

And he did.

Following an order.

For a fraction of a second he met the blue eyes as Klink slid his gaze over to the prisoners, to Hogan, and he was lost in what he saw.

What he felt.

What he…

Hogan's eyes widened as he sensed the psychic build-up only those rare few who were either Sentinel or Guide could really be aware of, and a new snarl involuntarily escaped his lips, soft, but loud enough for the Gestapo man to hear it.

Surprised, Rothenburg turned, and it was the last he would ever do.

"I am your opponent, Sentinel," Klink said coldly, the first words he had spoken since the beginning of the fight.

Then he flipped the splintered, broken broom staff around, ramming it upward and into the soft belly of the other man, right into his center mass. Stomach, lungs, maybe even nicking the heart.

The strength needed to do that spoke of what else was hidden inside the supposedly incompetent man. Hogan's eyes were on the weapon lodged in the Sentinel, the blood covering the wood and Klink's hands. He zeroed in on the white-knuckled grip, the bruises and open cuts, and the red running freely down the pale skin.

Rothenburg cried out, eyes almost comically wide, hands grasping at the staff now sticking out of his middle.

"Wh…"

"You lose," Klink said emotionlessly.

And the psychic lance that hit the Sentinel had Hogan almost whine. It carved through Rotheburg's shields, sliced into his mind, and the wide eyes as the Gestapo killer realized were almost amusing.

Hogan felt the echo, felt the roiling waves of the impact along his own mind. It spared him and took out the other Sentinel with such surgical precision, the colonel was breathless.

Left wanting.

"Holy shit," someone from his team murmured.

Blood pooled on the ground.

"He whammied him," Newkirk added faintly.

Blood covered Klink's hands, his shirt, his skin.

"He… killed a Gestapo Sentinel," another man added.

Hogan felt his breath quickening, adrenaline surging higher, and the tremors racing through his body increased. The scent of the blood, of death, hung in the air. Rothenburg's heart had stopped beating a while ago, his lungs emptied of all air.

Kinch's strong grip had him fight for composure.

"Colonel," he murmured.

He couldn't… just couldn't…

His eyes were drawn to the dead Sentinel, then flicked over to the one who had killed him. His senses were homing in on the smallest detail, from the sweat on the high forehead to the blood drying on his skin, to the countless cuts and bruises.

"Colonel Hogan," Kinchloe repeated, voice harder now.

His whole body was vibrating with unreleased tension.

It had never been like this before. Maybe because he had never been confronted with something that was truly on equal footing with his own abilities. Maybe because he had never been this unstable after running undercover too long.

Still, the rage was there, wanting out. It wanted to maim, tear into the flesh of the man who had dared violate the young girl, but also hurt another Guide, too. A Guide who had killed him.

The want and need was like a salivating beast, flexing its claws and read to break out, take what Hogan had never thought he had wanted until just now.

There was another slap, stronger this time, and he blinked. The primal instinct was snuffed out like a flame in a hurricane, and he expelled a breath he hadn't been aware of holding.

Hogan blinked again, focusing.

Just one push and the looming fugue state was averted.

Holy shit, part of him whimpered. That was some serious ability! He wasn't a light-weight on any day, even now, and this man had just… with one poke…

It left him reeling.

"I'm good," he told Kinch in a low voice.

It was over. Silence fell over the grounds. No one moved, no one so much as raised a weapon.

Klink straightened, shoulders squared, looking even less like the man Hogan had been working with and working around for the past months. There was nothing left of the Kommandant so eager to please superiors, a born bookkeeper and records man.

For another moment their eyes met.

Hogan was mesmerized, wondering how he had never… in all that time… two years! He had been in the dark for two years!

"Sergeant Schultz." The voice was quiet, authoritarian. "I'll be in my quarters. I expect there to be… consequences… and visitors." Those hard, blue eyes held Schultz's. "You saw nothing and know nothing."

"But…"

"Nothing, Sergeant. Take care of the late Major's… companions… and the young woman. I believe she could use tea and some rest. Maybe something stronger."

Schultz's eyes fell on the pale, trembling girl who had shrunk into herself, hiding behind a guard.

"I will," he said quietly.

And then Klink walked over to his private quarters, head held high, a slight limp in his gait, one arm lightly wrapped around his ribs. His jacket was torn, his white shirt stained, but the air of command around him was stunning.

Hogan was already following before his brain caught up to his instinctive reaction.

"Colonel Hogan," Schultz warned, blocking the path.

"Out of my way," he said softly, voice so much harder than he usually addressed the older man.

"You heard the Kommandant. You saw what he did!" Schultz said quickly. "Please, Colonel Hogan…"

Hogan looked at the assembled men, both enemies and allies, and he raised an eyebrow, nodding slightly toward the Gestapo officers that had accompanied Rothenburg. Schultz turned his head and there was a moment of shock and panic reflecting on his round face, then he huffed a little.

"We will all die," he mourned softly, but he squared his shoulders.

Because his men were holding Rothenburg's goons at gunpoint, keeping them in place.

"Let my men and your men handle clean-up. You take care of Rothenburg's prisoner. The girl, Schultz. You know she's a Guide and she's traumatized. Let me help Klink."

Dark eyes bore into Schultz's.

"Hogan," the Sergeant sighed, sounding defeated. "Please… This was to protect. Don't…" He made a little motion with his hands. "Just don't?"

It was the moment Hogan realized that Schultz knew what Klink was, had more than an inkling of the goings-on when it came to his superior officer.

Today was a day of one shocking revelation after another, it seemed. Their sergeant seemed to be a deeper well of hidden information than ever thought.

"I won't, Schultz. This… is no longer the game we play, right?"

It got him a nod.

"I just feel stupid I didn't see it before."

"Stronger men have overlooked it, had been blind. I will take care of her, but you will have to hide her," Schultz said softly, voice firm and quiet like it rarely was. "She cannot be seen in the camp."

Hogan gestured at LeBeau, who sidled over. "You are with Schultz. Hide the girl. Downstairs, LeBeau. She needs calm and quiet."

"The safe room, Colonel?"

"One of them. Take Kinch with you. She might need him to settle down. The sergeant will help you with supplies."

"Understood. C'mon, Schultzie. Colonel has a plan."

Schultz sighed almost theatrically, some of his old humor back for a fleeting second. "Colonel Hogan… the Kommandant…"

"I'll handle it. I promise. It was my mistake. I failed at my job. There's a first time or everything, it seems."

The portly sergeant nodded, brow lowering a little. "Instinct is hard to suppress. For both of you. Good men, too, both of you. Don't be too hard on yourself, Colonel Hogan."

And with that he was gone.

Hogan swallowed. With one last look at the shocked and confused faces of his men, he went after the man who had just killed a Military Sentinel in a challenge fight.

tbc...