To Anon2018: "Vampir" was indeed the codename that Night Bat used during World War II – he's been involved in many wars over the centuries, but he was particularly active with the Nazis.
"How did you find so much information about the Lazarist?" Nath raised an eyebrow at Marc curiously as he added the final lines to the lance before selecting his green pencil to fill in the cross on the figure's mantle.
Marc shrugged. "When you know where to look, it's amazing what you can find," he explained. "Although it wasn't exactly easy…" He rubbed his forehead. "This one took thumbing through the diaries of three different survivors of the battle before I finally found what I was looking for."
Nath hummed. "I wish we knew more about him."
Dunkirk, June 4, 1940
"Protect the ships! If they go down, there's no hope for any of us! Vive la France!" The Lazarist Lancer held his lance up in the air as a cheer rose from the beleaguered defenders crouching behind the makeshift barricade. Mortar shells whistled overhead and burst apart; soldiers ducked lower, clutching their helmets tightly as shrapnel tinged off of them. A soldier let out a pained yelp and braced against the dirt-and-wood berm shaking his stinging hand and sending droplets of blood scattering over his comrades. The tinkling of the shrapnel bouncing off of the Lazarist's helmet nearly drowned out the repeated ratatat of the German rifles facing them less than fifty meters away.
This war was hardly a month old, and already the Allied French and British troops were faced with utter defeat.
The 150th Infantry Regiment had begun the Battle of France at Saint-Quentin, not far from the Belgian border, only to be driven back by relentless attacks from the German ground and air forces. They had fought a delaying action for nearly a month, buying time for the rest of the army to mount a defense and plan a counterattack behind them… but it had never come. Supplies and troops had dwindled by the week, until they had finally been ordered to hold this sector while the evacuation proceeded behind them. That had been nine days ago.
The German artillery fell momentarily silent. His jaw set in a firm line beneath his helmet, the Lazarist sprang up to the top of the berm behind which the last of the 150th Motorized Infantry Division's soldiers had taken shelter and drove the butt of his lance into the hard-packed earth beneath his feet. A round ricocheted off the Lazarist's armor from a German sniper, echoing loud in his ears. Then another, and another. Dozens of rounds struck his armor as the German soldiers turned their attention to the single visible target. The mystical plate armor held firm. Thrusting his lance defiantly up into the sky, the Lazarist turned to the soldiers behind him. "They will not overcome us! We will not give up! We will fight! We will do our part, for our country and for our brothers!"
An all-too-familiar whine sounded in the sky high above them, and a bomb struck the ground in front of him, between the French and German lines. Dirt sprayed in all directions from the detonation, and the Lazarist spun his lance around to drive the tip into the dirt at his feet as he dropped to one knee to brace himself against the shockwave. The concussive force slammed into his armor, and he turned his head to one side to protect his eyes, the only part of his face visible through his visor. Shrapnel rained over the troops behind him, as well as the Germans covering behind their vehicles. Above, with a scream, another bomb dropped, crashing down well away from the troops to the left. Overhead, dozens – hundreds – of German bombers blacked out the sun, all racing toward the beaches.
The grizzled old veteran standing just behind the Lazarist rapped on his leg. "We can handle this here, sir," he assured him, spitting out the butt of a cigarette. "Krauts haven't advanced in two days. You get up there, and let us do our part."
The Lazarist nodded firmly, watching the bombers pass. "Very well, Sergeant Lacan. Atavis!" With a roar, the Lazarist pulled his lance out of the ground and launched into the air, flipping the lance around and holding it close using it to cut through the air, hurtling upward toward the bombers beginning to circle overhead. A flash of grey caught his eye from the side, as a pair of German fighters in close formation streaked toward him and opened up with their machine guns. Wheeling about, the Lazarist raced toward them, heedless of the bullets clanging off his armor and deflecting in all directions. Gripping his lance with both hands close to his chest, he flew straight at the lead fighter's engine, driving the lance through the propellor and into the inner workings. The propeller let out an almighty screech as first one, then another blade sheared off. The Lazarist jerked his lance to the side, and the plane dipped one wing sharply and careened across the other's path. The second fighter, seeing its wingman veering toward it, pulled up sharply, barely clipping the first one's wing, and the Lazarist slid his lance out of the first plane's engine and swung the blade through the wing of the second, slashing it through.
"On your left!" came a sudden shout.
The Lazarist spun in that direction, eyes widening in shock, and rolled out of the way on instinct as a Hurricane whipped right past him, fire spitting from its forward machine guns and tearing into a German bomber. As it passed, a red, white, and blue winged figure hanging on to the tail caught the Lazarist's eye. A bomber exploded, its bomb hatch still closed, sending a massive fireball erupting in all directions into the nearby planes. The Hurricane dove after one of the German bombers, tearing the tail to ribbons and sending it into a spinning dive, and the winged figure released his hold on the Hurricane, the blue band around his arm transforming into a machine gun strapped to his forearm. He pumped his red wings and twisted around, firing pointblank into the cockpit of a trailing German fighter, just before it could line up a shot on the Hurricane. One of the fighter's wings ripped off, and the flying man swept his wings back and rose higher into the air. His machine gun formed into a saber, with which he sliced off the wing of a bomber above him, sending it into an uncontrolled spin.
The air filled with bullets flying in all directions, a confused tangle of German and British fighters filling the sky all around the Lazarist as a dozen more RAF Hurricanes joined the fray.
Stirring himself, the Lazarist spotted a Hurricane with a pair of Germans on its tail, and he veered in that direction. A quick burst from a German fighter tore through the Hurricane's tail, and the plane suddenly juked into a spin, taking it directly into the path of the second German. With a quick burst of speed, the Lazarist interposed himself between the German and the Hurricane, taking the brunt of a machine gun burst that would have torn the Brit to shreds. Swinging around, the Lazarist spun his lance in a tight circle to deflect a burst from the second German, allowing the first to close the distance. As the German reached him, the Lazarist drove his boots into the fighter's nose, crushing it and smashing it into the engine. His plane already beginning to smoke, the German pilot bailed out, the Lazarist tugged his feet out of the plane's nose and kicked, knocking the plane into the other fighter and sending both crashing to the ground, still several kilometers back from the beach.
The winged man flew in the Lazarist's direction and nodded curtly. "Well done!"
The Lazarist examined him closely. "You a Brit?"
"No." The man shook his head firmly, switching to French. "He calls me 'Le Busard'. I don't think I've seen you before."
"I've been serving alongside the 12th Division," the Lazarist replied, ascending another dozen meters and leaning forward into a passing German bomber, taking the wing off inside the engine. "I am the Lazarist Lancer."
"Huh." Le Busard cocked his head, spinning around and firing a burst into a German fighter that had been chasing one of the Brits. "'Lazarist', you say? My father served with a 'Lazarist', back in the Great War."
"My father, as like as not." The Lazarist's mouth set in a thin line. "A pity for us that it did not end all wars." He glanced down toward the beach, far in the distance, dozens, hundreds of ships bobbing in the waves. Around them, the sky began to clear as the Germans turned back toward their airfields. But they weren't the only ones disengaging. "Where did the Brits go?" the Lazarist wondered.
Le Busard shook his head, scanning the horizon toward the east. "No idea – but our people will be undefended if the Nazis come back!"
A flag rising on one of the ships caught the Lazarist's eye, drawing his attention away from the sky and down to the sea. Long trails of white surf streaked toward the horizon, smoke belching from engines as the ships accelerated to maximum speed. But staring at the last destroyer in the line, the Lazarist cocked his head, eyeing the flag in confusion. "What?" he gasped, blinking several times.
"What is it?" demanded le Busard, turning to him sharply.
"It's… Admiral Abrial's ship." The Lazarist's mouth came open. "The signal… he's ordering us to retreat to England."
"But… all the men down there!" Le Busard turned to the Lazarist in shock, pointing his machine gun down toward the beach. "They can't just abandon them!"
"They are abandoning them."
"They will be captured, or worse!"
The Lazarist's jaw clenched. "They know that." He sighed heavily. "Sometimes, sacrifice is necessary for a soldier."
Le Busard raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "So what are you going to do? Retreat?"
The Lazarist shook his head, gritting his teeth. His grip tightened on the lance. "No. My forebears have defended France from foreign enemies for hundreds of years. I sword an oath to defend, to fight to the last breath. 'Atavis et Armis': 'for Ancestors and for Arms.' The Army may escape to England to fight another day, but I will not join them there. I will not abandon my country, and I will not abandon my men!" The sound of airplane engines off in the distance reached his ears over the whistling wind, and he wheeled about, scanning the horizon for the wings of German bombers and fighters that had to be coming. Light glinted off a metal wing, caught on a glass canopy. Five, ten, twenty… The Lazarist's mouth set firmly, and he pushed himself higher, playing for height. "The boats may need us yet!"
"I'm with you!" called le Busard, his machine gun shifting into an enormous cannon that strapped across his chest. Pausing in midair, he turned the cannon at an upward angle, pumped his wings slightly, and fired. A massive projectile burst out of the barrel, arced across the kilometers separating them from the Luftwaffe, and detonated just in front of the lead bomber, disintegrating the plane in a cloud of shrapnel that spread into the formation behind it.
The Lazarist nodded and kicked off of the air, propelling himself toward the oncoming bombers, his lance held close. Below him, he could just see the men of the 150th Regiment nearing the abandoned beaches, the German army in hot pursuit. But he couldn't do anything for them now – if the bombers got past them, they could destroy the evacuation fleet and those left behind. All he could do was continue forward. Behind him, le Busard raced in his wake, sending another projectile toward the bomber formation that exploded too far in front of them. The distance between them dropped to nothing in a matter of minutes, and the Lazarist raised his lance in both hands swinging with a violent chop at the closest fighter escort, cleaving through one of the wings and sending it plummeting out of the formation.
"Armis!" bellowed the Lazarist. A thrum of energy rushed down the length of his lance into the tip, and he held it in close, shooting through the German bombers in a straight line, tearing through their frames as if they weren't there. A dozen explosions resounded around him and behind him as he reached the end of the formation and wheeled about, rushing back toward le Busard.
Facing down the German bombers alone, le Busard's cannon transformed into a battleaxe, and he smashed it into the next plane's cockpit. A burst of fire from the plane directly behind that one caught him in the face just below his helmet, and his head vanished, his body pitching over backward as it was covered in violet light and a splash of color separated from it. The corpse plummeted beyond the Lazarist's sight, just as he reached the spot where le Busard had been.
The Lazarist gritted his teeth, spun around, and glared at the seemingly-endless wave of German planes bearing down on him, open water beneath him and the evacuation fleet behind. Drawing the lance back in an archer's stance, he tensed. "As long as I draw breath, you will not pass this line!"