| Hell is War |
| Summary: | In 1941, heroes gather with Daimon Hellstrom on a mission to retrieve power artifacts obtained by Hitler and the Ubermensch |
| Date: | (1941-MM-DD) |
| Related: | NA |
| NPCs: | Union Jack is played by Jack Flag, Bucky, Toro, Major Anthony Holland, various U.S. soldiers, Ubermensch, and others. |
| Scene Runner: | Hellstrom |
| Social/Plot: | Plot |
| Players: |
 .. .. |
-==[ Europe, 1943 - RP Suite #1 ]==-------——
It is the summer of 1942. The world is in the grip of war.
Three quarters of the European continent lies in ruins, crushed beneath the heel of a German jack boot. Neither the sands of Africa nor the steppes of Russia are safe from the Nazi scourge. On the other side of the world, the waters of the Pacific run red with blood. While the valiant allies struggle against seemingly overwhelming odds, the dictators of Berlin, Rome, and Tokyo gleefully divide the world amongst themselves for conquest.
As the sun sets over Europe, freedom is soon to become little more than a fond memory.
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Union Jack stands with Bucky, Toro, and Major Anthony Holland <and others who want to fill in the blanks>. Next to them is Daimon Hellstrom, professor and source of valuable information to the Allies and in particular, the Invaders. They all stand about a tall map table that depicts Europe and the massive Nazi front. There are a few markers that Hellstrom has placed indicating key areas of his interest. "Here, here, and here." he states, "Lions, Val Noir, and Champiagne. They all hold priceless antiquities. Yet, you all may ask, "Why does this concern us, the Invaders, the premiere hero team of the Allied Forces. Gentlemen, let me explain. What normal humans may consider an antique, is not too often far more important than its face value. In these three locations of which I have marked are three artifacts of rare and extreme power. The Hand of Grivin, The Throat of Markus, and the Shield of the Legion. If the Nazi forces are able to acquire these items, they will add them to their already significant storehouse and threaten the Allies strengths overall."
As the man talks, Lord Falsworth surveys the map and listens. With a nod, he returns in his uppity British accent, "Indubitably, I might argue antiquity alone is of value enough to warrant our involvement but, as you say, these items are more important than their face value." Certainly Damion would be the one to know that. "And I can see my value to this mission," being an expert in espionage and black ops that is."
He looks around the gathering, "I see you have enough that we can make tactical simultaneous strikes to acquire these items, but perhaps you know something more on the mission?" A question to see if they should all be operating as a group or if this is a wider spread counter-intelligence operation to get in and out.
Hellstrom indicates, "That, my dear Union Jack, is the question of the hour. Our network suggests that the items have been gathered by the Nazis on different levels. In Lions, the antiquities shop is behind enemy lines and they may or may not know yet what they have. Their supernatural division combs through acquisitions as they can. While in Campaigne, they have the item in a storehouse making ready for shipment back to Germany and in Val Noir, the Throat is already being worn by one of Hitler's chosen SS ubermench, one of the notorious Blautot Commandos named "Vikers". They are preparing a strike against a nearby allied firebase and we need to stop it."
Major Holland states, "Union Jack is correct and we need to divide our forces to strike all at once. Considering your skill set, Hellstrom as well as Union Jack's, the two of you will take on the Ubermench. Bucky and Cap (who needs to be briefed on this when he gets back) will drop in to Lions, and Toro along with myself will take Champiagne."
Offering half a grin, not quite a smirk, Union Jack certainly can't argue that plan. "Well old chap," says Jack to Hellstrom, not intended as a play on age, though both were certainly active in the last world war regardless. "Between us, we stand a good chance against the Ubermensch. I can certainly get us covertly enough," barring Hellstrom not having any magic for the trick, "And keep the foot soldiers at bay, sounds like you'll have the bulk of the work to contend with." A smile even, knowing the Ubermensch would pose more a problem for himself, depending how spruced up the nazi was even.
Turning to the Major, "We only need a go time. And will we rendezvous or will there be more field work depending on the outcomes of our missions?" Ie, meet back some place while sticking to radio silence or radio contact as they progress and improvise as necessary.
The Major checks his watch and says, "Wheels up in one hour. We will drop behind their lines in 4 hours after that. Let's synchronize watches… 22:40 in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, mark." Everyone will follow suit.
Hellstrom states in followup of Jack's comments, "It will be an honor to fight alongside you, good sir. I'm sure your talents are underappreciated and you're being modest."
Lifting his watch, turning the wheel to 22:40 and holding for the mark, Union Jack grins towards Helltrom, "You as well chap, quite the honor." Not suggesting underappreciated towards Daimon. He lets his watch go on the mark somewhere as the two are talking. "I'm sure they value my knowledge at this age, but assured this codger packs quite the punch, ya." A grin, he is still in fairly good shape. "Let us hope the nazi's are the one's who underppreciate my talents when we arrive, we'll have easy goings of it with that surprise, won't we?"
.
"That we will." states Hellstrom.
Major Holland goes into specifics for the next 20 minutes to incooperate others who may have shown up late to the meeting as well as getting specifics to the flyboys and other soldiers in question that will accompany as support.
Later, Union Jack and Hellstrom are high above France and behind enemy lines under the cover of darkness. They're aboard one of the airborne drop planes and within the clouds. Hellstrom is seated, buckled in. His hands offer a weird errie glow as he casts globs of what appears to be flame or magma between each in a slow motion transfer of energy. The 5 soldiers and sgt all look on with concern as they've only heard of such powers, but trust that he's one of the good guys.
For his part, Union Jack isn't put out by Hellstrom and his business. Good or bad is irrelevant, wars change a man's perspective. That the other man is currently on this team and helping to preserve something he sees as important, even if only from the sake of maintaining the past and antiquity itself. What he is doing is assuring his gear is in order, his parachute (if they're using them) is properly fit, and double checking the cleanliness of his dated Webley with a look down the barrel. Seeing some of the nerves unrated maybe, he turns to those other soldiers and the Sgt, "Chaps, we're in good company this evening. Hell is below us, and we fly bravely into that inferno." They've heard it all before, they're not green necessarily. "Master Hellstrom here has a vital role, as do we all. It is for us to get him to our mark and make sure we overcome our foe, to preserve ourselves, our birthrights, our heritage. He puts his life on the same line we do tonight, let us fight side by side like brothers.”
During UJ's speech, Hellstrom clasps his hands together quietly and extinguishes the infernal flame. He listens and watches the morale of the solidiers increase as UJ inspires. When UJ is done, he nods to the men and then quietly says to UJ. "You said Hell is below us." with a smirk implying that it's not just below, but also in the cabin. But he won't say the latter.
The drop light indicator illuminates and the sgt stands. "Come on boys, we've got a trinket to collect and a whole lot of Nazis to kill." He waddles to the door, flings it open and everyone starts to line up and await the go light to illuminate.
As they stand up to go towards the door, Union Jack grins a little to Hellstrom, "Proverbially, fighting fire with fire, you're the sort of fire we need on our side old Boy.” Though in part he just used the saying to put them off on the associations they may have made in their mind, focusing on the more real present enemy they would be facing. “You could light the way,” a chuckle even at that thought, as he gets in line and is approaching his turn in line, he gives Hellstrom a sort of mock’ish two finger salute, tipping his brow with respect but damn the rest of the shenanigans of being a solider and he jumps with a smirk on his face.
The descent is initially quiet as they drift downward over the French countryside. Then all of a sudden, search lights illuminate the skies and automatic fire rings out. Two of the 5 soliders are immediately killed. The others begin to fire back at the unseen assailants. Hellstrom himself begins firing with his own military issue Thompson and starts yelling, "HEY, OVER HERE YOU STINKIN NAZIS!" hoping to draw fire for he is far more impervious to bullets than his companions.
.
On the other end, Union Jack doens't call to draw fire, instead he takes more measured shots with his Webley, aiming for the search lights in the hopes of returning the cover of darkness to the free-falling men as they drift towards the earth. Good thing for him and the others, Hellstrom with his Thompson can make quite a bit of noise. Whether his loaded six shots take out any search lights or not, he improvises with his next round, taking out a flare and using it to illuminate the ground to help the boys in the sky have something to see down below.
The search lights aren't as fragile as one would hope, but one is taken out and the remaining other is exploded by a thrown grenade from one of the soldiers.
Pulling his straps at the last 100 feet, Hellstrom drops into the darkness and will move to engage the Nazis. He continue screaming profanities in hopes of drawing them out.
Meanwhile, his tactic helped save the sgt and the remaining soldiers such that they are able to touch down and acquire cover.
Hitting ground with the Sgt and his men, Union Jack turns to the Sgt. "Keep the boys together, follow Hellstorm's trail." Which wouldn't be too hard, considering his trail of profanities and his machine gun fire. "I'll double at your perimeter and randevous closer to our target." The older man is nimble for his age just the same and disappears towards the side. He moves closer to search lights, and towers/nests. Using the more quiet approach of his old revolver and cover of darkness to start hitting random soldiers that are focusing on the group or Hellstrom (more likely the later with the noise). Anything to reduce DPS from the enemy, targetting any enemy machine guns he sees and, better still, if he sees any whip antennea indicated grounds communication, those nazis are getting bullets too, to prevent reinforcements or worse.
The heroes make short work of the firebase and regroup on a hillside that overlooks the small village of Val Noir. Laying prone, the unit observes the goings and comings as well as the assumed target in the heart of the buildings. The sgt produces a map and Hellstrom illuminates with his dark red infernal magicks. Hellstrom states, "Intel puts the seat of power here, in the town hall. That's where the Blautot Commandos will be. It's too late for pubs to be open, so they will be sleeping, or in shifts."
"I'll count on the shifts and not assuming they'll trust the regular Jacks to keep them safe," says Union Jack, looking over the map and the town hall. Scatching his chin a second, "Maybe Sgt and the Boys can get here, near what looks like the markets. There's an avenue out along that stream there. They could get in distract and get out relatively safe to draw most of the soldiers in that directon?" Just offering it to the open table, "You tell me what door we want to go in, I'll hit the town hall from the side, try to knock out whoever is on shift, but pull the Commandos away from where we plan to go in after the Ubermensch." He looks to Hellstrom, "I'm sure you could do the same to get me in there, but I think we want to preserve most of your firepower for the final target."
The sgt nods and agrees, "We'll make it happen." and they break to get setup. Hellstrom also agrees, indicates the entry point, and begins to rise, "It's a good day to die, is it not?"
"Any day doing what I like is a good day to die," grins Union Jack, "But for the sake of the artifacts, lets try to avoid that as long as we can, right?" Though, it would be a good day to die, he's in his element, the other one just the same, probably more so with the artifacts they're after.
"Give me a minute lead, I should be able to see the commando's watchman, take a shot by then and start pulling them away from your mark, another minute or so to let them get to that side of the Hall, and me to double around to meet up with you." He pauses, giving another half-hearted salute, but with respect for his companion on this mission. If not for Hellstorm knowing where the man was going, or having his own abilities, Union Jack would otherwise by practically invisible. Much as if on queue, a minute out a shot is fired, a man in the gallery porch get hit in the leg, Hellstorm is wise enough to realize Union Jack wounded him on purpose, so he would make noise to alert the other guards. A few more shots in the following minute and another flare goes up. This one away from where they mean to go, as if the Allies are coming in from a different direction.
Hellstrom positions himself and awaits the right moment to strike. When the gunshots are heard and the alarm is sounded to draw the nazis away from his personal attack point, he calls forth his trident and stands poised to challenge the ubermench.
The town hall doors are flung open and the super powered commando emerges confident and ready for any challenge. Around his neck is the artifact in question, a large and bulky series of golden links that present with a seashell looking piece at the base. It is definitely of magical origin, else it would be a horrible fashion statement and clashes with his SS commando gear.
Hellstrom wastes no time in his assault and leaps into action.
In other regions, the soldiers draw fire from another area and assist in creating a diversion. While German soldiers bear down on Union Jack's position, albeit don't directly identify him until he does something overt again.
Union Jack gets to a position where he has a good vantage, a corner of the town hall present. One side in front of him is the diversion area for the commandos, the other side he does get a glimpse of where Ubermensch is emerging and Hellstrom is coming forward to meet him. He wants to be in a place where if Hellstrom needs support fire or action, he's ready but where he can divert the soldiers.
He decides a best course of action would be to get through them a little and up to that balcony closer to the action and in a commanding position on the field to assist his aid. A small fire team of commandos has begun coming out of the building, he moves forward through shadows of night to get behind one. A quick slip of hand and knife sets one down and as another turns to fire, Union Jack is tumbling away, gun coming up to shoot another member behind the one firing as he circles. He focuses on other in the fireteam as much as he can, letting the first shoot fire random shots in his wake.
Hellstrom is standing 20 yards from his target. He levels his fiery trident and from it's three prongs leaps a blast of hellfire which strikes the ubermensch square in the chest. However, and I do mean however in the most literal of sense. There seems to be a shield that protects the Ubermensch from being struck by the infernal flame. The flame is diverted around the Ubermensch and against the building behind him, igniting it.
Hellstrom looks annoyed and surpised.
Union Jack squirrels around to get the lone gunman he choose to keep firing to shoot in the direction of tother Commandos on different fire teams that are looking around. Hopefully he doesn't see the flame erupting and lighting up in the front of the building. Though when the building ignites, that will be hard to keep the others from looking at. Having taken out a few regulars, Jack tosses a grenade for more diversion, at a nearby building where no one is, as if to make it seem there could be allies there or close to it. Then he scales to his Balcony, not yet ablaze to assess the situation.
Crouched there, whether he seen the trident and flames or not, he takes some shots at the Ubermensch, to unload his current rounds to reload another 6. Also to distract the same if that might help Hellstrom.
The Ubermensch's magic necklace causes the rounds fired at him to be deflected. Hellstrom presses forward continuing to launch his hellfire attack until they are within melee range. There he engages in a hand to hand, or hand to trident, engagement with the Nazi.
Good news for the battle in front of Town Hall, both can probably stand in the flames as the building lights up more. Bad news, it does draw attention, not that anyone will go into the fire or can make the shapes out that fight around there. The flames leap up and along the Balcony, Union Jack can't stay there forever, it'll be hard to keep an eye on Hellstorm as that happens. He can still distract, recalling the maps, he ponders the nearist munitions dump for the Nazi's camped in town, he'll start working his way in that direction. Slipping back off the balcony and near the commandos, he knifes a back in order to slip into the town hall to get where he needs to be more quickly, braving the smoke that is tarting to fill it up.
Like some acrobat, Hellstrom is all over the place trying to find the commando's weak point. Striking from all angles and dodging blows, Hellstrom seems to annoy the commando more than fatigue him.
The fire does draw attention. However most of the German soldiers are busy trying to route out the assumed enemy. Some do return to see what is transpiring, but quickly realize that they cannot help with the fight between the two augmented beings.
Union Jack would have a more difficult time finding a weak point and trying to fight a meta, not that he wouldn't make the attempt and has done so succesfully before, but Ubermensch is a hard one, especially augmented by artifact. He gets through the building enough, facing little challenge as everyone left tries to get out. As much as he might want to save more arfitacts with the fire raging, he needs to clear things away form the meta-fight. Within the a minute, there is a larger explosion from that Muinitions sight Union Jack recalled. He'll start doubling back to Hellstorm, but will have to deal with soldiers coming to see what this fire is about now.
Hellstrom zigs when he should have zagged and is grabbed by the Ubermensch, then punched several times in the face quite hard. Dazed, Hellstrom doesn't realize that by being grabbed, he's enveloped in the same force field that the Ubermensch is (it's apparent to those outside the view as the flames lick the shield but do not touch those within). The Ubermensch doesn't realize it either and continues to punch the infernal.
German soldiers are suddenly amassed outside the burning circle. They're looking for a clear shot or a means to toss a grenade in to harm the attacker.
Union Jack doesn't need to see the fight to see where he is needed, the guys starting to amass outside the circle is enough to give him a focus. But he needs a little assistance. He'll hold off a few seconds as Hellstrom enters the personal force field of the Ubermensch, waiting to see if another arrival comes. One does, with a machine gun. Quick martial skills disarms and renders the man immobile as Jack gets the gun, then into a better position. Not that he worries much about bullets going at Hellstrom or the Ubermensch, but playing it safe, he moves to not fire with them in the background as a safety measure and unloads on the solidiers that are gathering - together as if to cheer on the german super soldier.
The fighting continues, but it has become more one sided as the Ubermensch proves much stronger than Hellstrom. Dazed, Hellstrom barely holds onto his trident with one hand and tries to block with the other.
The German soldiers fall, while some scatter trying to avoid the pending death. They are routed - for now.
Getting a vew and gaining some ground outside the fire, Union Jack can size up the situation. He could help Hellstrom except the forcefield, he could be a good distraction. "Get what we came for," he yells, trying not to alert that Soldier that they want the necklace specifically, but hopefully the other can get it off so he can pepper the super solider enough to return the fight to Hellstrom's favor.
That clicks somewhere in the back of Hellstrom's dazed mind and he reaches out with his left hand to seize the necklace of the Ubermensch. That brings more realization to Hellstrom as he notes that he's touching the necklace and in this, he can.."
Hellstrom yells in rage. The trident is gripped firmly and lunged through the chest of the ubermensch. The flames errupt from the back of the Ubermensch and as he falls dead, the necklace comes off into Hellstrom's hand.
Watching from the darkness outside, Union Jack gives the other his moment of victory to realize he lives and to be revitalized from that further still. "Brilliant old boy," he calls after the moment is given. "We have an opening to get to rendevous, clear for now, but they'll return with more fire power I expect." That and realizing enough the 'allies' are smaller in number than at frest thought in the chaos of their strike on the town.
Letting the Ubermensch fall from his flaming trident, he swings the trident and casts off any flaming flesh. He looks over to the voice of Union Jack and glances around, "Let's move." he calls and starts a slow walk which gradually increases to a jog toward the rendevous location so that they may evacuate.
Giving another moment to jog and move, Union Jack remains silent. Though as the move off to that stream that meanders through the city, he finally says over to Hellstrom, "You were right it seems, not just a simple artifact, eh?" He can't go much beyond a jog, he is aging and that was a lot of work for him in the few minutes of battle and running around the town. He'll definitely need a breather when they catch up to sarge and the boys.
"The world is filled with mystery and unrealized realities. This trinket but a minor taste of what is beyond the veil of man's consciousness." states Hellstrom with the hint of mystery.