Movie-Brat? Remember how I keep failing to put Freddy Krueger in this?
Well, this is for you. It doesn't have Freddy, but it has something else I think you'll like...
Zim'sMostLoyalServant: *passes you the Brain Bleach.* Believe me, it's worse seeing it for real. Thanks for reading!
Cartooniac55: Yeah. I'm glad no-one walked into the room while I searched it, too. (I did find some Sandy/Shadow the Hedgehog, though...) Thanks for reviewing!
Movie-Brat: Yep, you're right...sort of. XD Yep, every one of those pictures exists. :( Thanks for the review!
25/10/10 – War Never Changes
Marston Moor, North Yorkshire, England.
2nd July 1644. The English Civil War.
The sky above him was dark, and the air smelt like sulphur.
Danny Fenton groaned, and rubbed his head. His memory was fuzzy, to say the least. He remembered standing in line with his unit, marching towards the Royalists…closing to melee range and…
He looked up.
A dirty great pike was embedded deep into his stomach.
"What…" he breathed, confused.
He thought some more. He remembered being surrounded by soldiers, both the enemy and his own. He remembered receiving a sharp pain in his torso, and being forced to the ground. He remembered seeing a Royalist officer smirk at him and aim a pistol at his face.
He remembered him pulling the trigger…so why wasn't he dead?
He heard a sigh.
"You'd think he'd at least have the courtesy to take back his weapon," someone growled.
Two hands grabbed the pike and pulled it out of his body. Danny winced and gave out a cry.
"Oh, for crying out loud, you're a soldier, not a servant boy!" snapped the voice.
Danny turned his head.
The Royalist who had shot him was standing over him, arms crossed. He had white hair and a ponytail, and looking mildly unamused.
"What…who?" groaned Danny.
"Vlad Masters," greeted Vlad, pulling Danny to his feet, "It seems that you have much to learn, my boy."
"How did I survive that?" demanded Danny.
Vlad gave a grin.
"You, my boy, have much to learn," he replied.
Blenheim, Germany.
A line of British soldiers aimed their muskets. None of them wore a set uniform, save for a uniform red. Among them, Danny and Vlad stood side-by-side.
"War is a strange contrast of conduct and order…"
"Company…FIRE!"
The British fired their muskets into the French enemy, Danny stepping back slightly at the recoil. Vlad rolled his eyes.
Culloden, Scotland, 1746.
British troops marched across a moor, over the bodies of dead and dying Scottish highlanders. Danny stopped over one, writhing on the ground.
He held his bayonet over his stomach…and found he could not kill the man.
"…and startling brutality."
Stab.
Danny turned, shocked, as Vlad buried his musket into the Scotsman's gut. Vlad flashed Danny a look, before moving on.
Hesitantly, Danny followed.
Waterloo, Belgium, 1815.
Once again, Danny and Vlad stood among a body of red coated infantrymen, formed into a square formation as French cavalry charged towards them.
"Sometimes, you will meet with great success…"
The cavalry hit the British head on. Danny began to fight, tooth-and-nail, with the Frenchmen, knocking one of his horse with his bayonet.
Behind him, Vlad pulled a cavalryman off his mount and stabbed him in the face.
The French cavalry broke and began to run, and the British cheered.
Balaclava, the Crimea, Russia, 1854.
This time, Danny and Vlad were not engaged, watching from a rise as a body of British cavalry – the Light Brigade – charged across the dry, barren landscape towards Russian cannons.
"…sometimes you will see dismal failures."
The Russian battery fired, the first row of cavalrymen falling in a blood mess of horse and rider. Unsatisfied, the Russians reloaded and fired again, more of the British meeting their fate.
Danny averted his eyes, not wanting to watch any longer.
The Somme River, France, 1916.
Danny clutched a rifle to his khaki-clad uniform, waiting anxiously for the signal. Vlad gave him a nod, before slowly raising his hand and blowing a whistle.
The squad climbed out of the trench and began to walk slowly and cautiously towards the German lines. It should have been easy – they should have been killed by artillery fire in the past five days.
"Sometimes you will walk into the fires of hell…"
The Germans opened fire.
Machine gun rounds ripped through the squad of troops, tearing them apart. Danny cringed and yelped as several rounds hit him in the torso, sending him sliding back into the dirt.
He lay there for many hours, among the bodies of his comrades, as the Battle of the Somme raged around him, hundreds of men dying for almost no gain.
St. Nazaire, France.
28th March, 1942.
"…and sometimes, hell will walk through you."
"Suppressive fire!"
Danny fired a burst from his Thompson, before ducking under the window again. He was among a group of seventeen commandoes, now surrounded in a house on the outskirts of St. Nazaire.
He shot a grin to Vlad as the older man took cover next to him.
"Don't think they'll forget this one in a hurry," he quipped.
"We've just rammed a destroyer into a harbour and proceeded to blow everything up," replied Vlad, dryly, "Forgive me if that's not notable."
He held his revolver out the window and shot a few times, before turning to Danny.
"298, Daniel," he mused.
"What?" asked Danny, confused.
"298 years since Marston Moor," elaborated Vlad, "It'll be three-hundred in 1944."
"What's so special about that?" demanded Danny.
Vlad gave a sad expression out the window.
Then the windowsill exploded.
Danny coughed as a team of German troops poured in the hole, before glancing to Vlad.
He was lying, bleeding, against another wall, but coughed out a final warning.
"Run…I'll see you soon…"
Danny nodded, and made a run for it.
He didn't know how he managed to avoid being sighted, but he made it out of St. Nazaire alive.
Near Caen, Normandy, France.
2nd July, 1944.
Danny sat at the entrance to the bombed out church, cleaning his rifle. He was now assigned to the Seventh Armoured Division, the 'Desert Rats', who were participating in Field Marshal Montgomery's ongoing offensive on Caen.
While they had still failed to take the town, they were, at the very least, spreading out the Germans enough for the Americans to take over much of Western Normandy, so they could at least say they were achieving something.
"Daniel."
Danny looked up and gasped.
Vlad stood before him, his arms crossed. His appearance was startling – Danny assumed he'd been captured by the Germans – but even more so was his clothing choice.
"German," he growled.
"1st SS Panzer Division, to be precise," replied Vlad.
Danny shook his head.
"You've seen what the Nazis do," he snapped, "Remember France? Heck, we've been on the same side for three-hundred years, why change now?"
"Daniel, I have been around since 55BC," replied Vlad, "I've had two protégés since then…each of them I have kept for three hundred years, before…"
He gave a dark, humourless chuckle, and pulled out a knife.
"It's hardly symbolic," he shrugged, "But war is war, and war comes with austerity."
He advanced on Danny, a scowl crossing his face.
"You can't kill me," Danny snarled.
"Of course I can," replied Vlad, "Off with the head, so to speak."
He lunged at Danny.
Danny grabbed Vlad's arm, desperately trying to force his knife away from his neck. He began to sweat, perspiration covering his face.
"Oi, you!"
Another soldier had just left the church. In a quick movement, the man aimed his Sten gun at Vlad, and fired a burst.
Vlad took it in the torso, but shrugged it off. Pushing Danny away, he pulled out a Luger pistol and shot the unfortunate stranger.
The man took the bullet straight to the heart, and fell down, gurgling blood from his mouth as he rolled down the church steps. He landed on the dirt road, coughed one more time, and died.
Vlad looked over him and shook his head.
BANG.
Vlad fell to the ground, his neck stinging. Danny stood behind him, holding his own pistol.
Danny gave a grim sigh, and leant down, taking out his knife.
"Lucky we're not inside, boy," chuckled Vlad, grimly, "Holy ground."
Danny ignored him, taking his knife to the back of Vlad's head.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
He began to cut.
Vlad winced, his eyes looking into those of the man he had just killed.
"We were lions, Danny," he chuckled, "Lions led by donkeys."
"Maybe," sighed Danny.
"A few exceptions, mind," mused Vlad, wincing again, "Wellington did a good job back at Waterloo, remember?"
Danny ignored him, still cutting. Vlad was breathing more and more heavily with each cut.
"I'm finishing this," declared Danny, silently.
"Yes…do it," agreed Vlad, "Someone will get you eventually. After all, there can be only one."
He let out a sigh, glancing at the dead soldier.
"We went from redcoat's to turtle hats," he lamented, "Things were better in my day…"
Danny gave a sharp stab into Vlad's neck, before cutting, separating it from his body.
He stood up, looking at the disembodied man he'd just killed.
"It never gets easier," he sighed.
He sat at the base of the stairs, and took of his helmet. Ruffling his hair, he noted a fine layer of sweat had gathered over him.
He shrugged, and put his helmet back on. It was one of the old kind, the brimmed kind that offered little protection from the back of the head – but he'd had it since the Somme, and now it was the only relic left of his time with Vlad.
Around him, the wind began to pick up…
Daniel Fenton was killed in action in 1956, during the Suez Crisis. His killer was a man known only as the Kurgan.
European Wars 101 or, all of the wars described in this story:
THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR: Civil War between two equally huge d**ks over religion and government. Parliamentarians won, but their rule was so boring that the king came back nine years later.
THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION: Europe throws a hissy fit over who should be king of Spain.
THE JACOBITE REBELLION: Some Highlanders try to overthrow the oppressive Hanoverian dynasty in favour of the oppressive Stuart dynasty - fail.
THE NAPOLEONIC WARS: Napoleon takes over France - decides to conquer Europe for s**ts and giggles.
THE CRIMEAN WAR: Britain and France get involved in unnecessary war - lots of people die while the Ottomans (Turkish) kick arse.
THE FIRST WORLD WAR: Everyone country in Europe declares war on each other - hilarity fails to ensue.
THE SECOND WORLD WAR: Some crap involving a guy called Hitler.
THE SUEZ CRISIS: Britain forgets it's not allowed to be an empire anymore and tries to kick Egypt around - Americans slap British around the ear and they go home.