Marc shook his head ruefully. "It took so long to reclaim Paris, even after the invasion began. Did he really think they could do it so soon?"
Nooroo shrugged. "Le Maquillon never met this man in person," he squeaked. "He considered sending him an Akuma, but in the end he thought better of it – he could do so much by himself; he did not need superpowers to make a difference. The rumors around the city were that he was brave and fiercely patriotic. Unfortunately, his eagerness to defeat the Nazis seemed to get the better of him this time."
Paris, June 6, 1944
"Our time has come!" Tricolore stood up straight, turning to look back at the Resistance fighters behind him, massing across the road from City Hall, the hated swastika banner hanging from its front. A dozen faces looked back up at him from behind the meager shelter of a dozen parked cars lining the street, worry and confidence appearing in equal measures in their expressions. Standing beside him at the mouth of the alley they had used for their stealthy approach, Georges cradled the rifle he had hidden away when the traitor government had announced their capitulation to the Nazi invaders, a look of confidence in his eye. They had scraped together every rifle and pistol they could find in the city for this assault – a couple of rifles stolen from German patrols, a few old hunting rifles with the rust scoured off, a handful of pistols with only a couple rounds each. But in the front apartment of the building directly across from the courthouse they had placed a single machine gun stolen intact from a German checkpoint, albeit with hardly enough ammunition to last more than a minute of continuous fire. Tricolore's mouth set in a thin line, his jaw clenched. It didn't matter how much ammunition they had, or how many men they had: this was their city and their country. "Now is the time to reclaim Paris for ourselves!" Resting the bottom of his polearm – the double crossbars of the Cross of Lorraine forged extra hard and finely sharpened on every edge – on the sidewalk in front of him, Tricolore narrowed his eyes. "The Allies are coming. And when they arrive, they will find a Free Paris."
"What are your orders, sir?" asked Georges, raising an eyebrow.
Tricolore grinned. After four years of occupation, it was finally their time. They had fought back from the shadows for years, watching as friends were rounded up and disappeared, likely taken away to die. Their country had been partitioned, the traitor Vichy government to the south worse than the occupiers themselves. There had seemed to be no end in sight, with the Free French Army hiding in Britain alongside the cowards who had abandoned them at Dunkirk. But the will to fight had not died in France. They would drive the German invaders from their country. That was why Tricolore had forged his Cross, why he had sewn his uniform in the tattered, worn colors of his country. He would not give up – and he would not allow his country to give up. And now, it was their day. His eyes narrowed, staring across the open field at the group of uniformed soldiers standing on the steps of city hall. "Fire."
Up and down the line, the Resistance fighters they had gathered for their assault poked their heads above the slim cover of vehicles and park benches and fired on the German and collaborationist forces arrayed on the other side of the street. A half-dozen rifles shot in unison, accompanied by the higher-pitched popping of handguns. Three of the Germans fell at once, followed by a Carlingue member, before the guards even had a moment to react. The Resistance fighters dropped below their covered the moment they had fired, before the German survivors were able to return fire. Keeping a tight grip on the handle of his Cross, Tricolore dropped down behind the closest vehicle, leaning to the side enough to peer across the street while presenting the smallest possible target. A bullet embedded in the side of the car in front of him, spraying flecks of paint and metal up into the air. His knuckles white, Tricolore raised his Cross high, letting out a rallying cry. Several of the fighters closest to him joined the cry, almost drowning out the withering fire from the German position. At least a dozen Nazi and collaborator guards were still outside the city hall, several taking cover behind the stone and metal barricades lining the stairs on each side, while two others tried to drag the park bench in front of the stairs. They hadn't carried the bench more than a dozen feet before one of the men fell to the ground, dropping the bench as he did so and clutch at his arm, trying to hold the blood inside the wound. Tricolore tensed, his eyes narrowing as he watched the Germans. A bullet tinged off of the metal crossbar of the Cross and deflected away into a building down the street. Seeing that and pulling his pistol, Tricolore took careful aim at a man in a German officer's uniform, watching him move for a long time before finally pulling the trigger.
"Any word from Pierre?" Tricolore demanded, shifting his aim to the officer next to his target and missing by a hair. Tricolore grimaced, looking down at his pistol. He couldn't afford to waste bullets; they had barely ten bullets for each gun when the assault started, and this meager ammo would have to last them until the Allies arrived in the city. Gunfire continued to come intermittently from the Resistance fighters on either side of him along the line; with each shot, the Germans ducked under cover again, taking even longer to recover and return fire after each shot. A spray of wild bullets impacted the apartment building's wall behind Tricolore, showering him and Georges with masonry.
"None." Georges frowned, sighting carefully down his rifle's barrel and firing off three shots in quick succession. Two Carlingue members collapsed, one with half his head missing. Georges let out a breath, trying to smile. "But we shouldn't be too worried; no news is good news, right? And he'll be too focused on capturing the Carlingue leadership before they can get away. I'm sure we'll see him rolling up in a captured tank any minute now."
Tricolore nodded pensively, poking his head out and studying the Nazis in front of the city hall building. At least a dozen bodies lay on the ground, evenly splice between the Germans and their French collaborators, after five minutes now of exchanging gunfire across the street. But looking down the road, he could see only a third of their fighters still firing consistently; the remainder had run out of ammunition. Windows all along the front of the city hall building had been shot out. And yet, as Tricolore scanned the city hall building, he could see even more Germans standing and sheltering outside, covering behind the wall, than there had been when they first started!
"Reinforcements!" Georges shouted, as a man down near the end of the line collapsed, clutching his bleeding shoulder. A smoking rifle barrel stuck out of a second-floor window and was promptly withdrawn. Another five or six Nazis poked their guns out of the broken second-floor windows, firing in unison.
Tricolore dropped lower behind his meager protection; several of the others weren't as lucky. "Damnit!" he growled, glaring up at the Nazis at the windows while keeping behind cover as much as possible. "Take them out!" he called, glancing down toward the end of the line of Resistance fighters. One man nodded curtly and lined up a careful shot; a German screamed before falling out the open window. Two others fired at the Resistance sniper, however, who had to duck for cover before he could take another shot. Beside Tricolore, Georges joined in the dance, shooting one of the German snipers in the eye; the remaining sniper ducked for cover, sheltering behind the wall to avoid fire from the two Resistance snipers.
From the end of the street came the sound of engines – at least two troop carriers turning onto the street. Tricolore let out a breath. "That will be Pierre," he muttered to Georges.
"And none too soon!" the other man agreed, still sighting down his rifle and waiting for the remaining German sniper to make a move.
"We might just do this yet!" Tricolore called, pumping his Cross up and down.
The troop carriers stopped in the middle of the street, directly between the Resistance and the Nazis. At a signal from Tricolore, the Resistance fighters held their fire to avoid hitting the vehicles, while those at the ends continued to fire around the vehicles into the massed group of Nazi sympathizers. Suddenly, the back doors of the troop carriers burst open and a dozen men in German uniforms jumped out, laying down withering fire against the Resistance fighters. Three of the fighters fell in the first volley, having stood upright to study the faces of those in the troop carriers. Tricolore tensed, his eyes widening in surprise as he stared at the troop carriers. Beside him, Georges adjusted his aim and shot one of the drivers dead; the lead troop carrier began to roll slowly forward.
"Damnit!" cursed Tricolore, glaring helplessly at the Nazi reinforcements. Something rustled from the alleyway behind him, and he tensed, spinning around and bringing his Cross up defensively.
"What on earth do you think you're doing!?" A woman in a thigh-length skirt, her reddish-brown hair pulled back in a double bun, crouched at the entrance of the alleyway directly behind them, staring up and down the line of Resistance fighters with a look of shock on her face. "What is this?"
Tricolore cocked his head in confusion, furrowing his brows. "I'm sorry, who are you?"
"I'm with the SOE," the woman hissed, slipping further back into the shadow of the apartment building. "Now what do you think you're going to accomplish here?"
"We're liberating our country!" Tricolore retorted. "We are taking Paris back! You Brits wouldn't understand!"
The woman gave him a look. "For the last time, I'm. Not. British! I've done my part for France already today – cutting off the German troops in Paris so they can't reinforce elsewhere! But now you're going to be dead if you don't listen and do exactly what I say."
Tricolore scoffed. "And what makes you think that I should listen to you? We have been planning this assault for months now, waiting for the perfect opportunity to retake our city! Why should we give this up!?"
"Because if you stay here, you will get yourself killed for absolutely no gain." The woman's eyes narrowed. "Look around you: you're outgunned and outnumbered, and the Germans have reinforcements coming in."
"When Pierre arrives with our reinforcements–"
"If your Pierre was attacking the Carolingue headquarters on the north side of the city, then he will not be coming any time soon – or if he does, he won't be bringing reinforcements." The woman's mouth set in a thin line. "Now I repeat: save yourself and your people, and listen to me!"
Georges stared at her, turning his head to one side. "But… I don't understand. Isn't that what's been going on around the city today? All the attacks and explosions? The cut phone lines? We're fighting back against the Nazis to retake our city and our country!" He frowned hesitantly. "Right?"
"No!" The woman stared at him in disbelief. "You planned all of this without consulting with FFI!? That was never the plan for today. The Allies won't arrive in Paris for weeks – maybe months! Our mission is to delay the German reinforcements, not take the city!" Tricolore blinked. The woman sighed. "The most you can accomplish with this demonstration is to convince the Germans to direct their forces here," she informed Tricolore curtly. Tricolore frowned. "Look," the woman continued, her mouth set in a thin line. "You and your people can still fight back. But not here, not now. We'll need to be strategic in when we take the city."
Tricolore's stomach clenched, and he gave another look down the line of Resistance fighters who had joined him for today's assault. Had he really led them to their deaths? He swallowed hard. He had been so excited, so confident that this was their day. If it wasn't… Looking at Georges, he could see a look of dawning realization on his face, and his shoulders slumped. Finally, Tricolore nodded, gritting his teeth, and rapped the bottom of his Cross on the sidewalk. "Retreat!" A murmur of surprised whispered ran down the line, but the fighters reluctantly began hustling down the line, toward Tricolore and the SOE agent. As they retreated, Tricolore glanced toward the apartment building behind them. "Give us some cover," he ordered. Glass shattered, and machine gun fire sprayed across the line of advancing Nazi soldiers.
As he joined his men in retreating down the alley, Tricolore glared hard at the agent. "I will hold you to your promise," he informed her, his jaw set. "We will retake our city."
"You have my word."