Part 9 - All Things Must Die

Chapter 150 - Wunderwaffe

Miles scoped out the room, using his invisibility to remain undetected. The Quintari had found something nearly identical to what Teresa had found, but this dimension wasn't exactly one which appealed to anyone with any common sense. Miles had some very vague recollections of dealings with Nazis in his previous life, but he didn't remember any top secret research facilities like this. Armed guards stood at the door of the chamber, around the sides of which were a variety of panels filled with switches and buttons. People worked at them with swastikas on their arms, speaking in German which Miles didn't know a word of. In the centre of the room was some sort of bell-shaped structure. His spidey sense told him Gwen was near and he figured she must be in there, but the door to it was sealed shut; he couldn't get in singlehandedly. It was a good thing Charlotte, Teresa and Noir were waiting somewhere outside.

When he had managed to escape back to the reinforcements, he explained what he'd seen. Teresa had taken charge due to her experience with special ops, and now she started making a plan.

"If we go in the front door, we'll be shot dead in seconds. This may be an alternate version of 1948, but those rifles still do just as much damage as a decent modern handgun. In addition, I'm guessing this is some sort of top secret research facility, so the guards are likely SS or another branch for working with Wunderwaffe."

"What're…wonder waffles?" Charlotte asked, trying to figure it out and realising after she'd asked it was a German word.

"Wunderwaffe, or wonder weapons, were experimental Third Reich weapons. Atomic bombs, long range rockets, apparently UFOs if the conspiracy theorists are anything to go off of. Keep your eyes pealed, and don't press any buttons unless you want to be blown sky high."

"And the plan?" Miles pressed, feeling anxious about what a group of Nazis could be doing with Gwen inside a giant bell.

"Since the only way in seems to be the front door, we need to cause a distraction from inside. Miles, you'll go back in and make a mess. After that, we'll go in the front door guns blazing. Any questions?"

"What do I do if I'm caught?"

"Get a one-way ticket to a concentration camp. We'll try and rescue you, but don't count on it. Crucially, don't get caught. Anything else? No? Then good luck, Miles."

Back inside the weird chamber, Miles dropped down from the roof and charged a venom strike with which he punched someone in an officer's uniform. The room was swarming with guards in seconds. Before he could react, he was pinned to a wall, but not by a guard. Instead, a glitching version of Gwen, with a magenta cape, held him by the throat.

"Oh I've missed that face. But punching Himmler…I'm not sure I can justify that with the Führer. Let me just put you out of your misery."

Miles felt something sharp be stabbed into his chest. Empress Gwen let him go and walked away. He stared down at the magenta dagger sticking out him. He pulled it out, letting blood flow freely from the wound, before throwing it at the officer he had punched. The Empress caught it and chuckled, mockingly blowing a kiss his way.

"Nice try."

He stumbled forward, wanting to charge a venom strike but unable to find the strength to do it. Instead, the combination of the effort and blood loss caused him to pass out. The Empress turned to the officer and said in German:

"We're starting the procedure now. He won't be alone."

Charlotte's spider sense told her something wasn't right, and she could tell Noir was uneasy as the trio broke cover and killed the guards at the front entrance. Teresa used a muscular projection to break the door down. An alarm blared and guards rushed to fight them back. They were forced behind cover.

"I'm getting the feeling Miles didn't do his job!" Charlotte yelled over the gunfire.

"I think you're right." Noir responded.

Teresa created a blue and white projection which leapt over the top of the cover only to be shot apart. Real Teresa pulled out her pistol and fired a couple of shots randomly over the top. Noir used his revolver and did the same. It was enough to force the soldiers to duck behind cover and gave Teresa a chance to get another projection over the top and behind the enemy's line. Most of the soldiers were killed before they knew what was happening, and by the time they did only one was left who died by a bullet from Noir.

"Come on, soldiers." He mumbled as he led the way deeper into the bunker.

In the bunker depths, Empress Gwen had entered the strange bell-shaped structure. Normal Gwen was chained up to one of the walls with a number of strange spikes surrounding her. She didn't react to her glitching counterpart arriving knowing anything even slightly hostile would likely end in her being stabbed. The Empress stepped into an archway against the opposite wall. The strange spikes hung from it as well, but she didn't seem to care. There was some talking in German, then normal Gwen felt like she was being torn apart. She didn't scream; she wouldn't give them the satisfaction. She just grit her teeth and glared as her very soul was torn from her and fed into the Empress who glitched less and less as the procedure went on. Suddenly, the lights went dark and everything stopped. Gwen never thought she'd be relieved to see a power cut. However, it soon became apparent someone had switched the machinery off. The Empress screamed angrily and stormed out of the chamber, only to take a bullet straight through the stomach. She nearly collapsed, but was caught by a dark pink hand that crushed her throat. Charlotte pushed the person she hated most back into the bell structure, choking her. The Empress struggled, flailing around like a fish out of water. With a sickening crack, she went still and Charlotte discarded the body before turning her attention to the Nazi officer Noir was about to shoot. Teresa chuckled to herself.

"Hitler is going to be pissed about this. Heinrich Himmler: commander of the SS. I've an idea that may be considered horrific, Noir."

"What?"

"Make him die slowly and painfully so he can get a taste of the suffering his organisation caused."

"It works for me."

He shot Himmler in the foot, then used his last round to shoot him in the shoulder. Teresa turned to Charlotte.

"Any sign of Miles or Gwen?"

"She's in here. He's nowhere to be seen."

"Shit. He needs found ASAP. Take a look around for clues; you too Noir. I'll help Gwen."

Gwen was somewhat relieved to see a friendly face. Teresa thought she looked in agony, but the spider refused to give in to it.

"You need medical attention."

"I'm fine."

"Your shoulder's becoming infected and you've taken a major beating whilst pregnant. If you won't go for yourself, go for your child."

The commander broke the chains, letting Gwen free. The spider stumbled a little, but caught herself and rubbed the blood back into her wrists.

"Where's Miles?"

"MIA, which isn't good in Nazi Germany."

"Oh great."

"He's not going to a concentration camp. He broke into a top secret facility; they'll just have killed him if they got round to it, or locked him in a cage for experimentation if he showed his powers."

"Nazi super soldiers aren't something I want to see."

"Nor does Captain America. Let's go."

Charlotte had managed to find a corridor of prison cells. Now she was standing in front of one inside which was her father who looked a little too close to death for comfort. He was pale and blood steadily oozed from a stab wound in his chest. She smashed the door down, deciding not to bother wasting time finding a key. She felt different now; like she really cared about what happened to her father despite how much he'd neglected her and her brother before. She picked him up and speed-walked back to the others. Gwen looked horrified and pushed away the medic who had arrived with a small team of scientists and soldiers from 9578.

"Miles!"

She knew calling his name wouldn't help anything, but some superstitious part of her told her he could hear it and was holding on to the sound. The medic called in a more advanced medical team who took him away.

An hour or so later, Gwen stood up as a nurse came into the waiting room of the hospital Miles had been taken to.

"He will be OK. The dagger didn't hit anything except flesh. He'll need to stay here while we monitor the infection, but other than that we won't need to do anything."

Gwen felt relief wash over her like a tidal wave, and it was clear her husband's parents had the same feeling.

"Can we see him?" Asked Jeff.

"Certainly, but he's quite weak."

Charlotte was sitting alone with her feet dangling off the balcony of her parents' penthouse. She was suddenly aware she wasn't alone. Turning around, Teresa raised a hand in greeting.

"That's a bit precarious. If you're thinking about jumping, you might want your web shooters."

"So what if I jumped?"

"Would you?"

"No. I'm just wondering what you'd think."

"I'd think it was a shame you threw away your second chance at life. Max would be very upset."

"Yeah. Enough about me. What do we do now?"

"Well…the science guys think that device your mother was in was some sort of temporal stabilising thing, or perhaps a massive battery for temporal energy."

"Why would Nazis need temporal energy?"

"The Nazis came up with a lot of strange things. It's likely they wanted to travel between dimensions to stretch the Third Reich a little more."

"Why? The Soviets will trash them."

"Not in that world. That world was in stream eight, or the stream of alternate realities. Your brother explained it by saying there's some events destined to happen, but in eight they don't. The Soviet Union capitulated where we just came from, and Operation Sealion went ahead. North America is split into two halves by imperial Japan and the Reich with a neutral zone in between. It's not a nice world."

"No. But what does this have to do with what we do now?"

"We might be able to adapt the technology to stabilise the people who are glitching. From there, we hunt down and destroy the TVA just as your brother asked us to do."

"A clean fight. Good."

"No fight is clean, but I get your meaning. It'll be good to know who we're fighting."

Crossovers in this Chapter

There weren't really any, but Teresa's little description of the world map for that dimension is based off 'The Man in the High Castle'.