Chapter 20
My predictions that with the appearance of Eisenhardt in the Union the war would end turned out to be overly optimistic.
The war flared up like never before. Its character changed. The Union, as soon as Max got enough sleep, fattened up, and accepted the offer of the authorized comrades, went on a rapid offensive.
Manstein's tank army ceased to exist on the same day that the secret weapon under the code name "Magnet 43" (as Max began to be referred to in all papers and official reports of the Information Bureau) was first used on the Kursk direction. The offensive began. They drove prisoners. Everything seems fine, delight, enthusiasm, fighting spirit...
And at night, vampires armed with wooden crossbows loaded with arrows with glass tips went to attack the headquarters where Max and I were sleeping. Supported by werewolves with glass knives as well, and mages.
It turned out that the guys in leather coats are also not ordinary guys at all. And girls with extraordinary abilities were hanging around somewhere near us in the forest. And on none of them, neither those nor the others, was there an ounce of metal.
A battle flared up. There was enough work for everyone. Two girls in camouflage suits, one with a tambourine, the other with a staff, took on four mages. I am not strong in this matter, I don't know what and how it was going on there in the "subtle spheres," but all six went outside the brackets and didn't get in the way underfoot (although, who knows who: both the German mages and the Russian girls hammered the areas and especially each other in a way that God forbid, and may Buddha not be offended at me). Two men deftly threw off their cloaks, turned into bears, and rushed into battle with the werewolves. I had to take on the vampires. Fortunately, I was not afraid to use metal. And the Cossack saber that I managed to beg for myself the day before (oddly enough, there was silver forging on the blade, which clearly indicated the Union forces' awareness of the enemy's forces) became a good addition to the machine gun.
But this turned out to be only the beginning: strange flying machines attacked from the air, in which there were also no metal parts. And they attacked with Hydra blasters. And a little later came the infantry, with the same weapons and in PLASTIC-ceramic armor... PLASTIC in '43! This is just, Zen knows what! And the guys who walked in this armor turned out to be tough guys. Too tough for humans.
We fought until morning. Ordinary soldiers with ordinary, albeit good, weapons could not help us, although they tried. They were mowed down like grass, without even really being distracted. The only help was aviation: five flights of fighters, albeit with losses, destroyed the threat from the air. On the ground there was a small branch of hell. For the first couple of minutes, Max still tried to participate in the battle, but for all his gigantic strength, he simply couldn't keep up, and most importantly, he didn't see the nimble and superhumanly fast enemy. So soon the silent comrades from SMERSH, who were also assigned to Max and me, politely, but clearly, persistently and quickly shoved him into one of the dugouts, where they remained as a human shield for Magnet-43. On my order, which I had to yell at the limit of my vocal capabilities so that he would hear it, Max "pupated," growing a more than meter-thick armor of iron in the shape of an egg around his body. Where he sat until the end of the battle.
And rightly so, by the way. Because over time, various other unusual comrades pulled up to the fight, and reinforcements approached the Krauts more than once or twice.
In that battle, I really risked my hide! No kidding. I could simply be burned by a blaster or vaporized by an area strike from mages. I don't think that even the new capabilities of the healing factor could bring me back to life from a pile of smoking ash.
Adrenaline splashed almost out of my ears. The Beast in my chest woke up. But this time it wasn't rage. No, it was an insane, cheerful excitement, tickling with champagne bubbles!
To Zen with Zen! I was happy, dancing on this razor's edge, experiencing REAL fear for my life. How bland my life had been without it!
You will say that there was real danger before. That time when Issei was "studying" me or when the Schmidts were having fun. Bullshit! I was an interesting toy. And you don't break an interesting toy. Issei... When he killed me, I was helpless. I just couldn't do anything. Therefore helpless, exhausted, and apathetic. There I only wanted one thing, for all this to finally end. One way or another. I growled, swore, thrashed in chains, but inside there was emptiness and doom.
But here... Like the moment when Urduliy drove me into a trap in the hangar. In those few seconds before the strike that killed Issei. The brain worked like a supercomputer. And the body was so amazingly light and obedient, strong, fast, flexible (a forty percent increase in tissue density is a more than two orders of magnitude increase in all body indicators. Herr Schmidt did not understand this immediately. He expected ugliness, such trifles did not really interest him at that moment. And I didn't give him time for additional experiments—I ran away. But that's not all—nerves. The passage of nerve impulses through the body increased just as much! And the brain, oddly enough, had time to process them. What does this mean? Werewolves and vampires at their maximum acceleration seemed SLOW to me, like paralyzed invalids)... I was one with my beast. We both enjoyed the battle.
And then just as suddenly as they attacked, the night guests organizedly retreated.
And it began...
It seemed that the focus (and I mean not a circus trick, but the optical focus of a lens) of this war converged exactly on Max. And its motto-task began to sound: "Kill Eisenhardt! At any cost." Against: "Protect Magnet-43 at any cost."
We were attacked both day and night. On marches and at halts. The intelligence games of spies around us were beyond any understanding. It seemed all their forces were thrown only at discovering/hiding us. Every time something new was invented.
But they found us. And staged another assassination attempt/battle/raid/sabotage. Mines, fougasses, bombs, chemical and gas weapons, various poisons caused particular problems. Max literally had to be packed into all sorts of protective and anti-chemical suits.
Eat only checked food, drink only checked water. Breathe only checked air. Sleep with one eye open. Do not trust the simplest and seemingly harmless things. It was exhausting. It fostered paranoia. And neurosis.
And it exhausted not only him. While Max slept, albeit with one eye open. I could not afford such a luxury. At the same time, I wasn't even very interested in the situation at the fronts. The world narrowed down to the task of protecting one single kid. And I did what I could. And even what I couldn't: I learned to understand all the tricks of reconnaissance/counterintelligence, camouflage/detection, mining/demining, poisons, symptoms of poisoning, chemical weapons, toxic substances, special means, and methods of countering them.
I learned again.
All my free time from fighting. And in battle too. After all, the enemy was also getting smarter, developing new tactics, applying new techniques, new weapons. I had to be on the alert.
Maybe after all this I'll be able to work as an elite bodyguard... If we survive.
* * *
Nicole with Cap and the company departed right on the next day after the triumphant landing in the Union. And the official comrades contributed to this in every possible way. Politely, but firmly.
Fury called me to go with her. Called Max. But...
Maybe it was for nothing that we didn't go with her?
* * *
And Schmidt, the Johann one, seems to have done what I feared very much: put the application of his serum on stream.
Why did I decide so? Because under the ceramic-plastic helmets of Hydra soldiers armed with blasters, what kind of freaks there were not. I even dreamed about some of them in nightmares later.
As far as I understand, his formula, in the dosage he fundamentally does not want to give up, is assimilated without serious destructive consequences only by mutants. On ordinary people, it acts as the strongest mutagen, bringing physical condition to a peak, but disfiguring beyond recognition. It probably warps the psyche too, just like faces and bodies, but it's problematic to make sure of this: we kill them, not talk to them.
Our side also suffered losses. To replace the shapeshifter bears who died under blaster rays, they sent vampires. Supplemented with werewolves. Added three more volkhvs. Several tough guys with the gait of martial arts masters and the eyes of seasoned killers.
From them, by the way, I also learned in rare quiet moments.
A battalion of the NKVD and SMERSH operatives constantly hovered nearby. The war entered a peculiar rhythm. So much so that it was possible to "apply" Eisenhardt from time to time on the battlefields. And where "Magnet-43" appeared on the front, a massive offensive of Soviet troops immediately went—you can't fight much with ceramics against machine guns and tanks. Especially with bare hands.
Before I could blink, the Union troops reached the border with Poland. By September of '43!
* * *
Max stood in the middle of the field left from Auschwitz and cried.
Today we were alone here. By ultimatum, using his powers, he sent all the guards beyond the field. Only didn't chase me away.
Max was crying. Silently. Tears just flowed down his face. And he sniffled from time to time. I stood silently nearby.
After all, we couldn't even find his mother's grave when we raised the "uprising". There were no individual graves in Auschwitz. There were only places where ashes were dumped...
"Vic," he was finally able, and most importantly wanted, to say. "I understand that I am not to blame. I understand that I couldn't do anything. But it hurts so much... And a nasty little thought gnaws like a worm at an apple: why didn't you end up in the camp earlier, before Mom's death... I understand... I understand that before... this..." he swallowed a lump. "Before this, I did not master my powers and would not have been able to open that lock unnoticed... but..."
Here he broke down, turning around, buried his face in my shoulder and roared like a child, which he essentially was.
We returned to the camp only an hour later. Magnet-43 was again in the ranks and ready for "application".
* * *