To Lyger 0: That would be the one! Any character from canon or from the "Mind Games"-verse established to have been active during World War II is fair game to appear during this anthology.
"You know, it's so different reading the individual accounts," Nath mused, shaking his head ruefully. "In History class, they always focus on the broadest lens, but that leaves out just how much the people went through."
Marc nodded. "I know. The books don't really give you an idea of what it would have been like to be in London for those… eight months!"
London, September 1940
"Everyone, off the streets! Get to your air raid shelters!" The Hound waved his hands over his head, trying to draw attention as civilians rushed down the streets around him, running in all directions in a panic. A woman with a child clutched tightly in her arms nearly ran into the Hound from behind as she sprinted through traffic, moving roughly away from the Thames. His senses enhanced by the miraculous, the Hound only just managed to jump out of the woman's way, landing on his tiptoes to avoid bumping into a man moving in the opposite direction.
The Hound fought back the fear that threatened to overpower him as the civilians panicked around him. The warning siren had sounded minutes earlier – an air raid had been spotted. A week ago, bombing London had seemed a remote – albeit real – possibility. But then the Germans had started coming, and they had yet to stop. Not a day went by without bombers appearing in the sky above the capital. Every day, a few more buildings were destroyed, with more casualties and more civilians forced to evacuate into the country. And yet, although they had been dealing with the threat of air raids for over a year now, the populace still had yet to fully adapt to the reality.
Unfortunately, the Hound could see no scenario in which the bombings stopped soon…
A car, its horn blaring, barreled down the street, racing away from the city center, bouncing along the pockmarked street. His jaw clenched, the Hound watched the vehicle pass his position on the corner of Moorgate and London Wall, nearly sideswiping a delivery truck as it sped through the intersection. The Hound let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and followed the delivery truck with his eyes. Just as he was turning to scan the skies above for the incoming raid, the car's horn blared, louder, and its brakes screeched. The Hound's eyes widened and he spun around, reacting on instinct to throw out his leash. The car had accelerated past the intersection, but smoke poured from its front wheels, long skid marks stretching out behind the back tires as the driver attempted to brake. The leash whipped past the vehicle and caught around a child and his mother, pulling both off the road and out of the way just as the car jerked to a stop, four inches too late. Gasping in relief, the Hound caught the woman out of the air and placed them both on the sidewalk next to him.
The woman looked up at the Hound in shock, her eyes wide, clutching her son to her chest, and let out a strangled sob. "Th–thank you," she gasped, sniffling. "I–I–"
"Watch out," he warned them, trying to set his expression in a mix of stern and concerned. "You have to stay out of the street these days!"
At that moment, the klaxon air raid sirens all went off simultaneously around the city, and the panic set in for real. People scattered, all running for cover in all directions, heedless of the danger to each other. Engines roared in the sky above, the shadows of RAF Hurricanes screaming overhead. In spite of himself, the Hound's eye was drawn up to watch as the leading elements flew past, machine guns already spitting fire at the German fighters barely visible through the clouds – the vanguard of the German formation. A car slammed into the side of a building less than a block south of the Hound, and he stirred, jumping off the bus stop where he had been standing, and sprinted in that direction, pushing through the press of the crowd separating him from the accident scene. Someone shoved him back; the Hound wound up to punch him but stopped himself at the last second. Finally, the crowd thinned in front of him. Smoke poured out of the car's engine block, the gentleman in the driver's seat coughing and trying to wave away the smoke in his face. Reaching the car, the Hound immediately drove his fist through the glass window on the passenger side, grabbed onto the door frame, and ripped the door entirely off its hinges, dragging the man out of the car and setting him on the sidewalk.
"Get to the shelter!" the Hound ordered him, pointing toward the closest Tube station. As the man jumped to comply, the Hound stood upright and craned his neck, searching the street around them. In the minutes since the sirens first started to sound, the streets had been left almost deserted. A massive fireball illuminated the sky above, and a cheer went up from the few people still outside as the first German bomber burst apart. The Hound started to join the cheer, only for the sound to die in his throat as the cloud of debris spread out and rained down over the city. Jumping up onto the roof of the crashed car, he extended the leash to its fullest extent and spun it above his head. With a tinkle, the debris deflected off the leash shield, forming a ring around him.
The Hound's ears twitched: the sound of bombs falling. A massive plane appeared through the misty clouds, illuminated by the midday sun, its bomb bays just barely visible as they closed. Watching, the Hound's jaw clenched. The first of the bombers had gotten through.
There wasn't much more he could do here; all the civilians were either in the bomb shelters or near enough. The target for the last few days had been the Port; they would need him there. Quickly, the Hound raced down the street toward the river, heedless of everything going on around him, the klaxon warnings sounding all around the city as he ran. Only a dozen or so civilians were still out on the streets, all running to the nearest shelters. Ahead of him, he spotted a family standing outside of an apartment building, pounding on the door; without slowing down, the Hound whipped his leash out and struck the doorknob, breaking it off and sending the door crashing inward. The family rushed inside and pushed the door shut without a glance in the Hound's direction.
On reaching the Thames, the Hound skidded to a halt across the street from the riverfront, watching for a moment as antiaircraft batteries lit up the sky with tracer rounds. A bomber opened its bomb bays just as the first tracers passed through the underside of its cockpit; slowly the massive plane turned its nose down and started to roll. Its momentum slowed momentarily, and the nose turned back up, only for a Hurricane to pounce on the stricken bomber. On the ground on the opposite side of the river, firefighters doused the buildings closest to the hospital with water pumped directly from the Thames. Overhead, a German fighter flew straight into a line of antiaircraft fire and spun around, flames pouring out of its engine, to crash into the Thames, followed moments later by a Hurricane. The Hound caught a quick glimpse of the Hurricane pilot, pushing against the canopy of his plane, just before the fighter slammed into the water and began to sink. With a running leap, the Hound dove into the river, sped toward the sinking plane, and dove, reaching it just as it settled onto the bottom of the river. His lungs burning, he kicked out the Hurricane's window and pulled the pilot from the wreckage, pressing the handle of his leash to the man's mouth. Bubbles poured out of the breather, and the Hound took it back, sucking in a deep breath of his own before kicking off the wrecked plane and hauling the pilot after him. Breaking the surface, the Hound gasped, trying to hold the pilot's head out of the water as he swam for shore and passed him up to a pair of waiting medics.
Above him along the road, he could hear, even above the sounds of the air battle overhead, the hurried and hushed voices of the defenders.
"We–we can't stop them!"
"It's too much!"
"My God; they're targeting the hospital!"
The Hound sprang out of the river and looked around, taking in the chaos around him. A second wave of bombers moving in from the south, led by another thin screen of fighter escorts, appeared over the horizon, even as the final element of the wave opened their bomb bays, raining explosives on the south side of the Thames. The Hurricanes darting in and out overhead were beginning to pull back, harried by the remaining escorts and running low on ammunition and fuel. Along the riverfront, almost half the anti-aircraft batteries had fallen silent, several with the crews working to make repairs. A firetruck had caught fire; several of its crew were on the ground injured. How much longer could this raid last? How much more could the people of London take? The Hound's stomach clenched anxiously. Could he continue like this? He couldn't be everywhere at once! But he had been given this miraculous for a reason. He could not give up. Gritting his teeth, the Hound jumped up on an undamaged firetruck.
"Men! Friends! The enemy is here, and his weapon is fear!" bellowed the Hound, over the sound of the air raid sirens, over the panicked voices, over the sound of the bombs falling around them. "The enemy wants us to be afraid, to hide away and give in! He does not understand why we continue to fight! He does not believe that we have the strength to resist him! But Britain will stand. We will resist! We have something he does not: Doggedness!" A thrum of energy spread out around the Hound, and at once he could feel the edge of his exhaustion fading into the background. The men around him shook themselves out of their stupor, and suddenly a dozen anti-aircraft batteries roared back to life.
A bomb landed between the hospital and the river, sending a spray of dirt and gravel in all directions, and at once the Hound dove back in, racing across the Thames as fast as he could. Without slowing down, he jumped out of the water, clambered up to the hospital's roof, and extended his leash out as long as he possibly could, spinning rapidly. Not a minute later, a massive bomb landed on the leash shield and detonated, a cloud of shrapnel pluming up into the sky and detonating three more bombs before they could reach the ground. The bomber that had dropped them exploded in a ball of fire, crashing down into an apartment building as a Hurricane shot through the debris field and opened up on the next bomber. Still, the bombs continued to fall. Still, the Hound spun his leash.
Suddenly, just when the Hound's arm was beginning to tire, the radio in his ear crackled. "Eleven Group, this is Fourteen Group, coming in from your nine. Stand by."
One of the leading German fighters exploded; moments later, the sky to the east turned black as a hundred Spitfires in tight formation rushed in on the German bombers. Two bombers turned into evasive maneuvers to evade the Spitfires, crashing into each other and plummeting to the ground. Behind them, one of the fighter escorts maneuvered to attack the closest Spitfire, only to clip the wing of a third bomber. The pilot fought for control for several seconds, his plane spinning wildly with one wing missing, but finally bailed out a hundred feet from the ground. As the bomber formation scattered and their escorts reformed to confront the new threat, the Hurricanes that had been in retreat regrouped, wheeled about, and rushed in at the Germans from above. A dozen German planes erupted in a massive explosion.
The Hound paused, only dimly aware of the beeping from his collar, and watched as the Germans turned away, racing back toward the Channel with the Hurricanes in pursuit. One of the final German planes, its engine billowing smoke, flew straight into a Spitfire… which vanished with a pop. The German plane swung around once and started to follow the others, only to be shot from the sky by a final burst from an anti-aircraft battery along the Thames.
"Tricksy, tricksy Fox." The Hound chuckled to himself, shaking his head in amusement as he jumped down from the hospital roof.
The communicator crackled with a laugh. "I couldn't let you have all the fun, now, could I?"