The Waters of Lethe
Disclaimer: I don't own FMA, except for OCs I've created. I just like to play around in its world and torture Ed for a while.
Summary: Last chapter dealt with the POVs of Edward as his mind finally broke free of the Puppetmaster drug; and Roy when he went toe-to-toe with Dietlinde Eckart. This chapter will follow Alfons Heidreich after he and Alphonse become seperated in the chaos of the Battle of Central.
Warnings: More violence and death that isn't good for children and other living things.
The world's best beta because she puts up with me: Took-baggins
Chapter 76: War Is Hell (Krieg ist der Holle)
Dietlinde Eckart watched in disbelief as the first plane went down, and she continued to stare at the dissipating trail of black smoke even after it disappeared behind some tall buildings. A massive fireball erupted soon after, red and orange flames rising into a dark cloud like a funeral pall that rose high into the overcast sky over Central. To everyone's surprise, her face rearranged itself into a mask of grief and pain when she finally whirled around and screamed for Grupenfuhrer Bauer, but her orders shocked even that veteran soldier.
Her voice was still ringing in the hot and humid air as Bauer and the other field commanders turned to look at Adolf Hitler himself, who stood ramrod straight in full dress uniform between Himmler and Goebbels. Those two sweated like pigs and mopped their faces with big white handkerchiefs, the lenses of Himmler's glasses kept fogging up, but Hitler didn't appear to be affected by the heat. He stayed perfectly still, his face unreadable for one, then two agonizing moments before he nodded in a barely perceptible movement. The silence snapped like a rubber band stretched to the breaking point, and Bauer, his stomach churning and skin crawling, repeated the orders to Sergeant Willi Braun. That loyal soldier and others stared at him in astonishment because this didn't seem to be happening.
Their eyes caught and held for perhaps thirty seconds before Braun shot his arm skyward, "Jah wohl, Grupenfuhrer! Heil Hitler!", then he turned smartly and bawled instructions to the troops who guarded the prisoners.
Even with the German army bearing down upon them, some of the more independent-minded citizens of Central hadn't heeded the official pleadings to evacuate, but instead stayed in their homes. On this morning, they'd gone about their daily routine of taking their children to school, going to work, or commencing normal household chores. They were easily rounded up after the initial skirmishing forces had gone by.
A group of perhaps sixty people - sullen men, frightened women, and crying children - either stood or sat on the sidewalk outside the tall brick walls of an elementary school. The adults were mostly quiet but for a few women weeping or shushing their offspring. Alarmed cries erupted after ten men were culled out and forced by rifle - toting soldiers to stand in a ragged line against the wall a few feet away. Several women began to scream "NO!" when those soldiers backed up a few feet and formed a firing squad. Other soldiers moved forward to contain a few women who tried to run over to their husbands, one woman dodged past and actually stood defiantly in front of the men, her arms spread out as if she could protect them from the bullets. But she dissolved into tears after one large soldier scooped her into his arms and carried her back to the main group of hostages. She kicked and screamed lustily in protest, and didn't stop until struck hard in the stomach with a rifle butt. Then, she folded like a paper doll and lay on her side, sobbing, on the sidewalk. Two other women tried to comfort her while their eyes raked the soldiers with hard glares.
"Ready, aim, FIRE!" Sergeant Braun yelled the words in quick succession; ten rifles spit death almost at the same time and ten men slumped, lifeless, to the ground. Blood pooled around them and ran across the sidewalk to the gutter, and a small rivulet of blood began to snake towards the nearest drain. Women screamed hysterically, some fainted and children wailed "Daddy!" in thin, high voices full of fear and grief. Eckart looked at the chaotic scene with grim satisfaction, Bauer and the majority of the field commanders just wanted to puke, while the troops of the German army combined with the Thule forces wisely kept their faces blank and opinions to themselves.
Both Himmler and Goebbels looked elated by the sight, "Who knows how many of them were Jews, my Fuhrer."
Himmler hastened to agree. "This world will give Germany miles of the elbow room it needs! If we must sweep away some of these Shambalans, so be it!"
Hitler said nothing, but the left corner of his mouth twitched ever so slightly before his face resumed its usual blank expression.
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Edward jerked suddenly, as if he was startled by the gunfire, and pulled back hard, nearly yanking a surprised Alphonse off his feet. He grabbed the leash with both hands and held on tightly to his restless brother who skipped sideways and back, like a nervous horse.
His yellow eyes gleamed with a wild light, and he tossed his head, sending his long ponytail fluttering, before he settled down and the light faded away to be replaced by his usual blank stare. Alphonse gripped the leash tightly in his left hand and moved closer to his brother, who suddenly pulled away. He followed Edward who kept backing up, like a balky dog who suddenly decided he didn't like to be leashed.
"It's all right, brother, shhh, calm down." Alphonse whispered sotto voce, and flicked his brown eyes back to see if anyone noticed Edward's sudden alertness. Heidriech had been standing next to him, but he abruptly went over to a parked staff car where he climbed into the front seat and then cautiously stepped over the front windshield and onto the hood. He was there for only a moment before he jumped down and walked back over to Alphonse, his face white as paper, and his mouth working as he apparently muttered curse words in German under his breath.
"Heidreich? What's going on? What's..." Alphonse's voice trailed away in an uncertain manner after Heidreich simply brushed past him and walked determinedly over to the far side of the street. Here he bent over, hands on knees, and neatly vomited his breakfast on to a concrete gutter, Heidreich coughed a few times, spat and then crouched down, his head held between his hands as if he was trying to keep it from flying off. His shoulders were shaking hard and regularly, and it took Alphonse a few beats to realize his friend was crying.
What was going on? Alphonse couldn't see over or around the massed ranks of soldiers, he only knew hostages were taken. When they arrived, he'd seen small groups of people, usually families, herded along the street by soldiers. Mothers led children by the hand or carried them awkwardly; the youngsters were confused and frightened. They were sleepy or hungry, perhaps both, and let their parents know they were displeased with crying and tantrums. Many of the mothers were in tears themselves and that bothered Alphonse because he hated to see women cry. He rubbed Edward's back with one hand and whispered softly into one ear to calm him, because he was terrified his brother would choose this very moment to wake up.
"Grupenfuhrer! Shoot ten more!" Eckart's order hung in the warm air like a dark cloud before the wind blew it apart.
Yet more screams erupted and a flock of pigeons took off from the schools bell tower and scattered into the air after the second round of gunshots sounded. They flew distractedly around in a large circle three times before seeking shelter in the tower again. Hawks hunted this area and they found rich pickings among the local population of pigeons. Alphonse looked up, shading his eyes from the morning sun and he saw one, circling impossibly high in the air as it searched for breakfast; he was growing dizzy looking at it when the third group of ten hostages was shot. The pigeons bolted from their safe haven and the hawk paused before it suddenly dove straight down like a stone dropped from a cliff. The flock blew apart when the raptor struck, and the hawk pulled up, something struggling in its talons.
As if nothing had happened, the flock re-formed and went back to the tower, but they apparently hadn't learned any lesson from their encounter with the hawk. A final group was executed in revenge for the fourth downed plane, and another pigeon was taken by another hawk.
Alphonse still couldn't see what was going on, although he had a solid grasp on an idea by now. Heidreich had stopped crying and he'd sat down in the staff car, the skin around his eyes was pulled tight with tension, with a pale grey tone to it. His lips were bloodless and drawn so thin they could hardly be seen. Alphonse wanted badly to say something to him, to make him feel better, and he made a slight movement in his direction. Heidreich glanced up between his eyelashes when Alphonse's shoe scraped the pavement and something; some kind of warning in his blue eyes stopped the boy in his tracks. His throat closed over the words he was going to say and they remained unuttered.
Something seemed to be happening with the groups of soldiers, sergeants bawled orders and marched them away in well trained formations. Eventually, Hess came stalking over, shouting for the Puppet; Alphonse gulped, ducked his head and held out the leash to him. Hess treated Edward as roughly as before, yanking hard on the leash so Edward had to step out smartly or fall to his knees. Hess didn't even acknowledge Alphonse who kept his face down, a good idea because his usually soft brown eyes were hot and hard with anger.
In a short while, the street was empty of people except a detachment of soldiers who guarded the surviving hostages. The former stood around and spoke light-heartedly, handing around lit cigarettes like they'd just finished a hard day of honest work, instead of murdering forty innocent people. Any fight had gone out of the hostages, they sat in a small circle, and some of the children were wailing "Daddy! Daddy!", in high-pitched, grief-stricken voices. Alphonse's throat tightened up and his own eyes filled with tears until they overflowed and spilled down his cheeks. The bodies of the first thirty executed had been hauled to the side and piled up in a heap, blood ran from it in several small rivulets.
But the bodies of the final ten still lay where they'd fallen and added more sheets of blood to color the sidewalk a garish red. Alphonse made the mistake of looking and he saw two women had been shot, apparently the Thulists had run out of men to force before the firing squad. Such cruelty made him sick.
Gorge rushed up his throat like an express train, so fast he barely had time to fall to his knees and give his all on to the macadam. Some spattered on his hands, but Alphonse didn't care overmuch. He dug his fingers into the macadam, fingernails splintered, and knuckles scraped till they bled while he cried, his body shuddering with each convulsion. He continued to cry even after Heidreich knelt down beside him. "Come on, Alphonse." He stood up ever so slowly and held his doppelganger close, muffling the boy's sobs in his shirt which quickly became wet. Some of the soldiers were laughing at them, so Heidreich just scowled and slowly walked away, guiding Alphonse to the opposite sidewalk.
Before either realized it, they were a block away, and then two blocks. His heart hammered painfully between his ribs with enough force to make his entire body vibrate, any minute now, he expected soldiers to come looking for them, but no one did. Then he turned a corner and was out of their sight.
"Hei - Heidrech. Thank - thank you." Tears still leaked from Alphonse's eyes, he sniffed and dashed some off his cheeks with skinned knuckles.
"Thank you for what, Alphonse?" Heidrech was confused by Alphonse's half-smile. After being flogged and bullied, and now seeing his countrymen and women slaughtered, Heidreich was sure the boy had to hate him by now.
"Even though you are German, Heidrech, I don't hate you." His doppelganger was reading his mind, his words anticipating Heidreich's thoughts. "I can't hate you. Because you aren't an invader, but an inventor; a seeker not for riches, but for knowledge. If you were in charge, you would come in the spirit of friendship, and you've been a great friend to me. No matter what happens today, I will stand by you."
"Alphonse, you would do that?" Heidreich was touched to his core, his lips trembled, and he blinked rapidly to keep away the tears which threatened at the corners of his eyes. He was a man and it was time to stop crying and take action, because that is what men did. He looked up and down the unfamiliar suburban street, jerking when an explosion sounded about a mile away. They'd somehow managed to wander from the custody of the Thule army and he, at least, was utterly lost.
"Alphonse, do you know where we are?"
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Three hours later, Heidreich had become seperated from Alphonse and he wandered mostly alone through the city center. The occasional explosion still shook the ground and he heard the odd burst of alchemic energy, but the fighting had settled down to grim house-to-house skirmishes. Gunshots rang out almost constantly, but they always appeared to be a street over from where he was. This was fine with Heidreich because he was an inventor, not a fighter.
His doppelganger was very anxious about the Puppet and he'd finally just looked Heidreich in the eye and bluntly announced his intention to go find him. "The Thulists won't look after Brother, they'll just drive him to exhaustion; and when that happens, I want to be there to protect him."
Heidreich was himself worried about Alphonse, but he understood the boy's feelings, the sibling bond was too strong for him to fight. "It's just that - please be careful, Alphonse." His doppelganger nodded, his lips fixed in a compressed line and his brown eyes focused; then he spun on one heel and was gone. Just like that, Heidreich was alone on the battlefield.
He was hot, tired, and thirsty after wandering around the dreamscape of the shattered city, most of the buildings were still standing, but all the windows were blown out or the doors smashed down. Some had lost their roofs or their facades, or they were just mounds of smoking rubble after shells had set them on fire. He turned another random corner that looked so much like the one he'd turned before, Heidreich suspected he was just walking in circles; his feet ached so badly he was absolutely sure blisters were forming on toes and heels. He could hear something spattering and around yet another pile of rubble, he discovered a broken fire hydrant sending a large gout of water into the air.
Heidreich moved to stand underneath it and he was soaked through before long, but the water cooled him down. After a bit, he opened his mouth like a bird and let water fill it before he swallowed. Central water tasted mighty good and he drank his fill of it,enjoying the feel of it dissolving the cotton in his mouth. Then he cupped some in his hands before he rubbed it over his face to refresh his eyes. Heidreich repeated this action several times until all the grit was washed away. He left his impromptu shower with great reluctance, clothes sticking to his skin, feet squelching along in wet shoes.
After he'd limped along for another half hour, he stopped when he heard a number of voices speaking. Heidreich ducked behind a half broken wall and listened. A group of perhaps four or five people were speaking his language, German. From other sounds also heard, he deduced they were urinating on the other side of the wall. His heart began to hammer painfully against his ribs, and he crouched there, afraid someone would look over and see him. His suddenly dry throat began to tickle and Heidreich clapped one hand over his mouth and fought with a strong urge to cough.
Fortunately, his luck held and the men moved away, talking about unimportant things. Heidreich peeked cautiously over the crumblings bricks and what he saw made the blood rush through his body with enough force to make him feel faint. Seven rocket ships stood in a grassy area, it looked like it once had been a park, but the grass was churned up into muddy furrows. The largest of the group was a troop transport, painted gray, its side and the nose area bore large black swastikas, like thick angular slashes of shame, on red backgrounds circled with neat black lines. The other ships were the smaller one-seater jets, their outer skins also decorated - or - marred - with swastikas. Their graceful swept-back wings bore further modifications of machine gun mounts and bomb cradles.
Rage bubbled and fizzed like soda pop in Heidreich's veins, Eckart had lied to him about plans for the rockets he'd built. He originally wanted them to be reserved for strictly scientific purposes of exploration and gathering knowledge. Perhaps, in time to come, they agreed the rocket ships could be put to commercial uses, like swift transport of goods and passengers between nations. Worldwide trade would explode, she assured him, and with that expansion would come more money for the research of his ultimate goal: a rocket that could carry measuring and recording instrutments, and eventually people, into space.
At the back of his mind, Heidriech had suspected someone would want to turn his rockets into war machines, but he'd always thought he and the other racketan could keep enough control to forestall that. So much for noble ideals, he thought bitterly, they are no match for baser human instincts. A stray thought swam into his conscious thoughts which whirled around like water around an open drain. He'd designed and built the rocket that powered this particular ship. Once others had perverted his dream, he had the right, no, the duty to destroy it. Yes, Heidreich nodded to himself, he would end this here and now.
All he needed was a wrench and a few minutes alone with the engine.
Heidreich crept around the end of the wall and looked cautiously left and right. He saw two groups of armed men at either end, and assumed two more groups guarded the far side of the park. Despite being in the middle of a war zone, they were complacent and entirely too casual about guarding the air ships. Their loss and his gain, Heidreich eyed the amount of open space between him and his target, too far to sprint, plus the torn-up condition of the ground virtually guaranteed he would turn an ankle and fall.
The only strategy Heidreich could think of was to walk slowly up and if challenged, brazen it out and hope the soldiers knew who he was. He straightened up, put his hands in his pockets and strolled slowly over to the closet rocket ship. No one shouted "HALT", nor challenged him to show his papers, which was a good thing because Heidreich had no papers. He stood shock still next to the front wheel of the ship and tried to calm the pounding of his heart before he proceeded.
It was so easy, Heidreich was aboard the transport before he realized it. This rocket ships interior was different, once it was just a bare cargo bay, now twelve rows of seats upholstered in grey cloth embroidered with swastikas on red backgrounds were bolted to the floor. Behind them was a long wooden table and chairs, also securely bolted down. A map of the country they'd invaded was pinned to a wooden frame attached to the side of the craft, Hitler's War Room in the air.
A murmur of voices came from the cockpit area, from his vantage point just inside the entry hatch, he saw the silhouettes of two men and guessed they were the pilot and co-pilot. The rest of the transport was quiet and Heidreich went right to one of the built-in tool bins where he found just what he needed. A maintenance trapdoor that led down to the engine compartment was open, and he descended the ladder as quietly as he could, but he froze just as his feet touched the floor.
Someone else was already here, he could hear a low-pitched, tuneless humming accompanied by the occasional clanging sound. Heidreich crept around the great engine while he absentmindedly patted it with his free hand. This nondescript piece of machinery was his baby, his brain had conceived of it, his hands drew its specifications and machined the components. His friends in the Racketan Klub helped him assemble it, but he, Alfons Wilhelm Frederick Klaus Heidreich was its father. He'd brought it into the world and now he was going to take it out.
He came around the last corner and here his luck turned as the man looked up and saw him, his face blanching slightly with surprise. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" He stood up and held his own wrench in front of him, as if for protection. "Stay where you are!"
Heidreich gave the man his most dazzling smile and held both hands with their palms up to show they were empty and he meant no harm. "Sorry to startle you, I am Alfons Heidreich, and I invented these rockets, perhaps Fraulein Eckart told you about me?" The other man's suspicious expression told Heidreich she hadn't and he improvised quickly. "Well, she gave me permission to inspect all the engines and make sure they are in top condition."
"I'm the head engineer and she never said anything about you." He backed away one step and then another. Heidreich, his smile now a grimace, took two steps forward.
"As a matter of fact, I was told these engines were the idea of our glorious Fuhrer," the technician's face turned dead white when Heidreich bared his teeth. "He has lots of great ideas and he's going to lead the German people to glory, starting with getting rid of of those damn Jews who are sucking our blood like vampires, and, uh." He was talking too fast, the words stumbling like drunken men because he was really quite afraid of this Heidreich person who's eyes glowed like blue fire.
In one massive burst of panic, he threw his wrench at Heidreich and bolted for a small hatch at the back of the ship. But his toss was wild and Heidreich ducked it easily. Growling with anger, he shot after the man, pulled out the wrench he'd hidden in the waistband of his trousers and raised it over his head before he lashed once at the other man's head.
The very end of the wrench connected with the top of the skull with a dull thump and the man staggered. Yet he didn't go down, this was only a temporary loss of momentum and he took another stride to resume his flight, but it was too late. Heidreich swung the wrench again and the man went down with a heavy thump. He didn't rise again, but Heidreich hit him twice more, just to be sure. He was gonig to preoccupied for a few minutes and he didn't want or need any surprises while he sabotaged the engine. He rolled up his sleeves and got right to work, and the job was done in twenty minutes.
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Heidreich straightened up and winced as his back protested, so he fisted his hands and set them at the small of his back and bent further backwards. Small cracking noises sounded and the engineer groaned once. His hands were filthy and he wiped them absentmindly on his shirt before he found a rag the other man had dropped. He rubbed them on the well worn material and some more grease and oil came off, but it was ground into the flesh and stuck beneath his fingernails. The other man lay still where he'd fallen, his sides didn't seem to be moving and Heidreich had a feeling he'd killed him. Oh well, his brain said with a mental shrug.
Oh, well indeed, his shirt was also a lost cause, just like Germany's invasion of the alchemic world. Heidreich smiled grimly to himself when he realized he'd come to this conclusion so easily. He no longer wished to kill the Puppet, no wait, it wasn't proper to call him "Puppet" any more. His name was Edward Elric and he was the older brother of Alphonse, his doppelganger and friend. He would stay in this alien world, this country called "Amestris" and he would start his life all over again. He would design and build more rockets, better than before, that is what he would do. This knowledge both exhilarated and terrified Heidreich. Because of his illness he believed he didn't have a future and hadn't given it much thought.
He was walking slowly down the gangplank of the ship when all hell broke loose at the far end of the park. Two staff cars came barreling down the street, across the churned up ground and skidded to s simultaneous stop, sending chunks of mud flying. At the sight of them, the guards who were supposed to be watching the ships threw their cigarettes down and came running on the double to form a protective ring about the vehicles. Himmler and Goebbels practically fell out of the first car on one side, while a soldier ran up, saluted, and opened a door on the other for Hitler to alight.
His inner circle was scared to death, babbling nervously in fear while wide eyes stared out of pale faces. But Hitler must have had ice water in his veins, he stared imperiously around before he stepped down and walked with a determined, yet not panicked stride toward the jet, now made into his personal transport. His head was up and he looked forward, never behind him like the others did. Even in retreat, Adolf Hitler would continue to act like a true born leader, but he stopped when he saw Heidreich standing on the gangplank and glaring at him. The others stopped awkwardly and stood in an untidy group, gaping at the young man.
This strange face confused him, and Heidriech decided to introduce himself, he bowed low and and murmured, "A pleasure to meet you, mein Fuhrer. My name is Alfons Heidreich and I invented and designed these rocket ships." Hitler said nothing, he was playing it cool and he nodded back, as if sensing the dangerous edge to Heidreich's mood. "The battle is lost, isn't it, mein Fuhrer? And now you are running back to Germany to salvage your other war, aren't you?"
Hitler jerked ever so slightly and his mouth tightened a little more until it was just a slightly reddened horizontal slash in his mask-like face. Heidriech advanced a step, and glared at the man he once admired with all the force of his hatred. "Once upon a time, all I wanted was to build rockets, rockets to show the world what the great minds in Germany were capable of. I have an illness that makes me cough up blood and I don't know how much longer I have to live. So, I wanted to make my fellow Germans proud, so they would remember me, even long after I am laid to rest. A man doesn't like to be forgotten, mein Fuhrer, isn't that right?"
Hitler couldn't argue with that and he spoke for the first time, "Jah, that is correct, Herr Heidreich, that is -"
Then Hitler resumed his silence, which Heidreich thought was odd, so odd it was almost funny. The Great Orator, the author of all those fiery speeches in the Reichstag, was finally struck dumb. That night Eckart had ordered him to take off and rest, his friends had prevailed on him to visit a movie theater. Short films of current events were shown before the feature began and one of them was of Hitler speaking in a sports stadium. Hitler drove himself into a frenzy in his speech, he pounded the podium while his lank hair whipped around and some theater patrons were so excited, they stood up on their seats, making the Nazi salute and shouting "Heil, Hitler!" at the tops of their lungs. Girls stood on their seats, crying while they yelled, and most of the boys and men were also in tears, carried away by the force of their patriotism and pride.
The older theater patrons were too dignified to stand up, but not too stiff to also make the salute and call out loyalty to the Fuhrer. Heidreich was bored stiff by the whole affair, but in case anyone was watching, he and the other Racketan made desultory salutes and moved their mouths in lip sync of the general uproar. The movie finally began and it was a total snore, a romance between two pure-blooded Aryans with a brief threat from so over-the-top stereotypical Jews some people openly laughed. There were no rockets in it which he thought would have enlivened the movie considerably. But except for the brief appearance of a steam engine in a train scene, no machinery was portrayed at all. Heidreich fell fast asleep in his seat and he couldn't be awakened after the theater lights came back up, obliging his friends to carry him home.
The memory made a chuckle bubble up Heidreich's throat and he let it out to crackle through the air, obscene in its disrespect to Hitler. The chuckle became a full on laugh which Hitler watched with weary patience until it was cut off by a sudden coughing fit. Heidreich put one hand over his mouth and tried to muffle it, his lungs convulsed and he bent double until he felt something warm fill his palm and drip between his fingers. When the fit was over, Heidreich looked at the blood with something approaching dismay, he'd hemorrhaged so much the palm of his hand was covered and more dripped between his fingers or down his arm to mingle with the oil and grease to stain his shirt cuffs crimson.
He eyed Hitler through his lashes, "I am sorry, mein Fuhrer, but my time is growing shorter and I have one more task left to perform." He reached back with his other hand to produce the wrench. "Stopping you and ending your reign of terror upon the free peoples of two worlds!" But he'd barely raised the wrench to eye level when a single gunshot rang out. Heidreich jerked back, as if he'd been punched very hard in the chest, his blue eyes fixed and wide with shock; and he looked up to see where the shot had come from.
Rudolph Hess stood on the hood of the second staff car, one arm outstretched, with a Luger pistol clutched in his fist, a faint wisp of smoke coming from the end of the black barrel. The very picture of a courageous Nazi officer putting his life on the line to protect his Fuhrer. Almost everyone looked back to beam widely at Hess, but Hitler looked only briefly, and nodded, before he returned his attention to Heidreich.
The wrench slowly eased out of Heidreich's slack grip and fell as if in slow motion to the metal gangplank which it struck with a loud clang, bouncing once and clanging again, like a cracked bell. Heidreich followed suit, dropping to his knees, his upper body jerking with the force. A red flower blossomed on the right side of his chest. It grew larger with each passing second as Heidreich's eyes rolled back into their sockets and his head lolled to his right. WIth a soft groan, Alfons Heidreich pitched sideways off the gangplank to hit the ground with barely a sound. He rolled over on his back and stared sightllessly at the sky, before he blinked once or twice and his eyes refocused. He noticed the sun was burning through the clouds and now he could see an imposter sun, hanging in the sky near the real one.
It was the portal, glowing brightly enough to be seen, and the portal back to a world he would never see again. His ebbing senses barely registered movement around him of many people moving past him and up the gangplank into the rocket ship. The whine as its great main engine and the smaller engines of the escort ships starting up. The gangplank was pulled up and the main entry hatch closed tight as the ship began to roll forwards, the wheels somehow missing Heidreich's prone body. Flames roared from the back of the ship, accelerating it to take-off speed and it soared proudly into the sky, just the way Heidreich had designed it to. The escort jets, which needed even less of a runway were rising into the air alongside it, but as he watched, a red streak of alchemic energy rushed from the top of a nearby building and tore one jet into two pieces.
His vision was starting to grow dim and Heidriech had to fight to keep his eyes open to track the transport as it made a wide, lazy circle to get into position. The engine noise increased in pitch, it needed more speed to get through the portal without being grabbed by the strange black arms other pilots had reported seeing. Three of the remaining six escort rocket ships preceded it into the portal, and then the ship itself began to enter. It was halfway in and Heidreich's vision was getting blurry but even he saw the flash and then heard the explosion as the sabotaged engine tore the transport apart. The outer edges of the blast caught the other two escort rockets and all three rained down mangled pieces of machinery and men. At this height, anyone who managed to survive the initial incident would have a very short and fast trip downwards.
A trip that would end in a very abrupt and fatal impact with the ground. Heidreich smiled cruelly to himself at the thought. He didn't normally take joy in the misfortunes of others, but this time he felt justified. He'd given his life to destroy Hitler and his inner circle. A generous portion of generals and other officers had accompanied their Fuhrer to the alchemic world. Heidreich just hoped it was enough to stop the German war machine in the other world too.
The ground had begun to rumble underneath his feet; like an earthquake was coming somehow Heidreich summoned the energy to turn his head and watch. He stared in bemusement as three tanks, travelling much faster than tanks ought to, thundered into the park, and stopped just short of where he lay. Standing on top of the lead tank, one hand laid gracefully on its massive cannon was the tallest women Heidreich had ever seen. She was at least six feet tall, and had fiery blue eyes that stared forward with deterimination, and full red lips were set in a firm line. Her long blonde hair cascaded down her back and flowed over ample breasts barely contained in a blue uniform. She looked fierce, like an angry she-bear and Heidreich's lips quirked in a smile despite the pain. Even if this world wasn't the fabled Shambala, he'd just seen a living, breathing Valkyrie, big as life and twice as terrible in her beauty.
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Major-General Olivia Armstrong looked up at the sky and curled her lip, shaking her head in disgust. Just when she and her troops were having fun, someone had to go and kill the enemy leader before she could get him. Olivia wanted that honor for herself and fantasized about running that ugly man with the weird little mustache through with her sword and watch while the light faded from his eyes. Then she would behead him, the stray dogs of Central could have the body, but she planned to take the head, and mount it on a metal pole. Once things settled down a bit, she would take it to Central Cemetery and stick it in front of the Armstrong family mausoleum as a trophy and an example of her ferocity. Alex would probably throw a hissy fit about it, but that was one of the reasons she wanted to do this, just to piss him off. If he had come to Central to fight the invaders, maybe she would track him down and slap him around a little to burn off her frustration.
The enemy rocket ships had left Armstrong Park a colossal mess, grass churned up, bushes and trees uprooted, walking paths destroyed. She didn't give a damn about parks, they had no strategic value, but her great-great grandfather had donated the land as a living memorial to the Armstrong family. That made it personal and further dampened her mood. One body lay in the muck and she wandered over to look at it, she saw it was a man once she got close enough. He wasn't a bad looking one either, if a bit scrawny for her tastes. Almost the entire right side of his shirt was red with blood, the coppery tang was strong, yet it was mixed with the subtler smells of oil and grease. He must have been an engineer, pity he was dead because he could have been interrogated about those rocket ships. She was about to turn away when a faint groan reached her ears.
A thin line of blue showed at the lower edge of his eyelashes, and his lips moved, he was trying to say something. He was barely clinging to life, yet Olivia sure as hell wasn't going to kneel down in the mud to listen. She jerked her head impatiently at a nearby Briggs soldier, who came over and lifted the man into his arms. The injured man's mouth opened, but no sound came out at first, then he murmured "Tell, tell Alphonse, I am so -sorry." The man swallowed hard and said something in that strange invader language, "Krieg ist her holle" before he sighed once and went limp, arms drooping to the ground and head lolling back.
"Poor bastard," the Briggs soldier said softly, he laid Heidriech's body back down with a touching gentleness and crossed his arms over his chest. Major-General Armstrong had merely shrugged at the blond man's dying message, Who the hell is Alphonse? And walked away. In a final act of mercy, the Briggs soldier unwound the white scarf from around his face and draped it over the corpses. He didn't know why he'd worn it in the heat of Central anyways. He leaped back to his feet and went to re-join his comrades as they searched out and eliminated any remaining pockets of invader resistance.