To Lyger 0: The United Heroez as an official national and international organization was formed by Knightowl, Majestia, and Victory, but I really like the idea that they were only bringing together preexisting groups that had gotten their inception after the heroes returned from World War II.
"Hey, is there any more information about this guy?" Nath asked Marc, glancing up from his drawing to where Marc sat with a half-dozen books spread out across the table opposite him.
"Hmm?" Marc stared at his books for a long minute before finally sitting up and blinking several times blearily.
"This Welsh guy," explained Nath. "Do we know anything else about him?"
Marc shrugged. "Not really – no pictures, if that's what you're looking for. Just a notice in the papers, and a couple mentions in Master Fu's journal. Barkk didn't know anything about him."
"Too bad." Nath chuckled humorlessly. "I wonder how many more heroes of the war have been lost to time…"
Sword Beach, Normandy, June 6, 1944
Crouching low to avoid the intermittent machine gun fire whizzing past the prow of the landing ship, the Hound turned to eye the men behind him, rifles held at the ready and berets pulled low. All wore similar expressions of intense concentration, mixed with varying levels of fear. The Hound gritted his teeth, trying to mask the twinge of fear that had been plaguing him since he had bade farewell to Master Fu and the Fox, back in Southampton before he had embarked. The Fox had looked at him with an expression of equal parts worry and pride before abruptly throwing her arms around him in a tight hug. Fu had simply shaken his hand and nodded, wishing him well.
Would he see either of them again?
The rough waves pushed the small craft back and forth – one of the soldiers near the stern threw his head over the side of the boat and retched, dumping most of his breakfast into the ocean. At the same moment, a burst of machine gun fire ricocheted off the front ramp, and the soldier pulled back into the boat, spilling the rest of his meal on the ship's floor. Near the rear of the landing craft, a somewhat-older man, the only one without a pack on his back, covered his mouth and gritted his teeth, the white of his white-and-green suit stained with vomit already. With his other hand, he clutched the gunwale as if his life depended on it, rocking back and forth as his face grew progressively more and more green.
The Hound set his jaw, his stomach tense with anxiety. "When the ramp is lowered, there is no going back!" he shouted over the roar of the waves. "There is no retreat! There is only forward! You've heard the bullets hitting the boat: the guns on shore can reach us just fine while we're in the water. If you stay here, you will be cut down! Staying still is not an option! All we can do is move as fast as we can, get as close to the guns as we can! That is how we survive! That is how we win!"
"Thirty seconds to landing spot!" called the pilot, as a spray of bullets tinged off of the gunwale.
Beside the Hound, Lieutenant Havoc rapped his rifle butt on the side of the boat. "Remember your training, men!" he called. "We fight for King and country! We fight for our families. We fight for everyone who has suffered in this war. We fight for all those we lost before this day! So fight, because your life depends on it!" Turning to the Hound, he nodded curtly. "We're ready."
"Ten seconds!"
The Hound drew his leash, giving it a testing spin, and peeked over the ramp, up toward the German positions at the top of the distant rise. Miles of open water, miles more of flat sand, seemed to separate them – though it had to be less. Sucking in a breath, he steeled himself for action. "Give us some air cover, y Ddraig Goch!" he ordered.
The middle-aged man at the very back of the boat closed his eyes, murmuring softly in Welsh, though the Hound couldn't understand the words. A thrum of electric energy seemed to ripple through the boat, sending chills down the Hound's spine. As he intoned the second word, the red dragon emblazoned on the front of y Ddraig Goch's jacket began to glow a brilliant ruby red before, with a bellowing roar, it leapt off of his chest and into the air, rapidly expanding until it utterly dwarfed the landing craft, sending a plume of fire and smoke from its nostrils up into the air above them. The machine gun rounds dinging off the craft paused and climbed higher, passing straight through the ethereal dragon circling overhead. Its tail flicked back and forth, and it turned its gaze toward the shore, pumping its massive wings.
The landing ramp creaked, and the Hound spun his leash the moment it began to move. "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War!"
Even before the ramp was fully lowered, the Hound felt the first of the machine gun rounds bouncing off of his leash and deflecting back into the water in front of him. His eyes narrowed, water splashing up onto his ankles, he leapt out of the boat, plunging down into the water so fast and deep he worried they had disembarked too early. Finally, his foot found the bottom, and he held himself up as high as he could, he was stumbling through water that came up almost to his neck. Gunshots sounded all around him, the naval barrage that had preceded the landings having given way to return fire from the German defenders. His leash could barely move underwater; he had to hold his hand all the way up as high as he could to keep the shield in place, covering himself and those behind him as best he could, the leash sending a wild spray of water to his right where it just skimmed the surface. Bullets whizzed past him on all sides, many of them hitting the water in front of him and tinging off of his legs. He winced, gritting his teeth against the near-constant pinpricks of pain along his shins and ankles – even though the bullets could not penetrate his suit. One of the soldiers behind him cried out in pain. The ethereal dragon above roared, belching out a cloud of smoke that settled over the group in the water before gliding forward, its shadowy wings seeming to blot out the sun. With a shriek, the dragon swooped down and unleashed a stream of fire against one of the machine gun emplacements on the beach, silencing it for the moment. With a groan, the Hound pushed himself forward, step after trudging step, pushing himself to the limit to make progress through the deep water. Still the water came up over his shoulders.
"Come on, men!" shouted Havoc, just behind the Hound, waving to the soldiers around them. "We're almost there!"
To the right, down the other end of the beach, the baleful sound of pipes carried over the water, over the roar of the fighter planes rushing overhead, the gunfire from the shore, the deep booms of the Navy ships offshore continuing their bombardment, though the majority of their shots sailed harmlessly over the heads of the German defenders. The opening strains of "Highland Laddie" rang out clearly through the air. A handful of figures were already visible on the edge of the beach – one standing out from the rest in a kilt.
"Move it, lads!" bellowed Havoc. "Will you let the bloody Scots have all the glory?"
Halfway there.
His eyes narrowed in concentration, the Hound forced himself to push forward as the water became shallower, increasing the radius of his shield as wide as it could go to cover as many of his men as possible, splashing up a near-constant spray of water as the edge of the shield touched the rising and falling waves. Gunshots ricocheted off the shield and fell into the water at his feet. Slowly, ponderously, he found surer footing and waded forward as the water dropped to his armpits and then to his chest. Forward he slogged, into the hail of gunfire raining down on them from above, seemingly coming from a dozen directions at once. As the water level dropped around him, he adjusted his shield, keeping as much of it in front of himself as he could and moving its edge down to the water. Behind him, the Dogs of War huddled in as close behind him as possible, guns held over their heads to protect the ammunition from the seawater. Around them, a few other isolated groups of soldiers had reached the shore, several of them pinned down behind the anti-tank barriers that had been placed along the surf. The piper continued to march up and down the beach, bullets flying all around him. The Hound gritted his teeth, placing one foot in front of the other. "They'd better not send reinforcements, or we're toast," he muttered under his breath, nearing the first of the line of half-submerged anti-tank barriers.
"You worry too much," the Fox replied over the miraculous communicator in his ear, letting out a tittering giggle. "As far as the Germans are concerned, First Army Group is in the middle of morning PT while their landing craft are being prepared for departure. At least a half-dozen scouts have flown over us; we even let a couple of them return to France."
"Great. You just have to hold their attention for another three hours or so, and we'll be home free."
"I'll put on the show of a lifetime for them," the Fox promised. "But you have to promise to hurry back…"
"Working on it." The Hound grabbed onto one of the anti-tank barriers just below the waterline with one hand and turned to glance back toward his Dogs of War. Only half were still on their feet, moving through the waist-deep water after him, far slower than he could go with his miraculous enhanced speed. Havoc sported a red streak running across his arm, favoring his right leg slightly, but nevertheless raised his rifle to take a quick shot at one of the German pillboxes, scoring a hit on one of the gunners. Y Ddraig Goch had fallen behind the rest of the squad, staying close to the two privates assigned to keep him safe, while his dragon swooped down from above. With a shrieking snarl, the dragon turned over and dove, unleashing fire into the tunnel system behind the pillboxes. The Hound drew in a breath, steeling himself for the last push.
They would either win, or die.
Springing up to balance on top of the anti-tank barrier, the Hound extended his leash, swinging wider and wider to cover more of the beach. "We're almost there!" he shouted, waving his hand to the soldiers. "We just need to reach shore, and it will be all over for them!" Leaning forward into the hail of gunfire, the Hound leapt off of the barrier and splashed through the water, his eyes focused on the German pillbox directly in front of him. If he could only get to the shore and take down that first gun, take some of the pressure off of their front, their men could do the rest. This invasion would work – it had to work. And he would make it happen. Breathing heavily, he pushed, straining his muscles forward, and pounded through the water and up onto the beach, spinning his leash the whole time as a hail of machine gun fire raked across his shield. Finally, he could feel sand beneath his boots, and he paused to regroup, widening the radius of his shield.
Slowly, the Dogs of War followed him up onto the shore, less than a third of the number who had started. Havoc quickly counted the survivors as they sheltered behind the meager protection of the Hound's leash before nodding. "We're ready, sir," he told the Hound, breathing heavily and favoring one arm.
The Hound gritted his teeth. "Not quite, I don't think," he replied. "I think we all need a little… Doggedness!"
With a shout, the Hound charged across the open beach, his men close behind him, threw out his leash, and caught it around the barrel of the German machine gun, tugging it down the bluff. Screeching, the dragon swooped down and unleashed its fire onto the German position. The two shocked Germans stared up at the dragon for a long moment before turning their attention back toward the beach. Before they could react however, both guards collapsed forward with bullet holes through their foreheads. Two of the Dogs of War set up their machine gun in the shelter of the bluff, taking careful aim at the next pillbox down the line.
"Forward!"
AN: Bill Millin ("Piper Bill") was the official piper of the 1st Special Service Brigade on D-Day at Sword Beach. After marching up and down the beach for the duration of the landing, he was unscathed because the German snipers assumed he was insane!