Chapter 21
The constant tension of these months, lack of sleep, unexpected treacherous attacks, betrayals... Moral fatigue accumulated. Irritation. And anger. And, much worse, rage. The Beast, having fallen asleep earlier, thrashed its tail displeasedly, bristled its fur, and growled. And it irritably tore at the steel door of my self-control with its claws, trying to break free. What angered it the most were the dirty tricks, when there is a threat, but no one to kill for it. Or the games of the counterintelligence officers with their "take him alive!", when the enemy is already in your hands, but you can't snap his neck. At such moments, the Beast literally raged inside, and a red veil clouded my eyes. But I coped. For now, I coped.
And the history known to me was flying to Zen and covering itself with it. The Americans had entered the war on the European part of the map a month and a half ago. Seriously entered, not just for show. And this despite the fact that in my world this happened in the summer of '44. I don't count the fuss in Africa and Italy, as well as in the Pacific Ocean. Almost a year later.
Although both there and here, the matter was already heading towards the victory of the Soviet Union, and the "allies" by entering were merely trying to manage to snatch their piece of the pie in this doomed war.
Thus, Germany was already being squeezed. And the hunt for Magnet-43 was not slowing down at all. On the contrary, it became fiercer. And the saboteurs began to speak German with clearly noticeable accents. This made me frown, calculating further prospects. And they did not look joyful at all.
Despite the fact that the broad masses still did not even have such a concept as "mutant," but only admiration halved with apprehension towards the "technical miracle of the Soviets," the interested parties in the intelligence services of the interested countries were sufficiently informed. And their decision-verdict was, judging by these "new Germans," unequivocal—to eliminate.
I saw only one opportunity to survive in this situation—to die. Max Eisenhardt and Victor Ivanovich Creed must die. And only such a result can satisfy all the players.
But how?
What does not kill makes you stronger. And all these assassination attempts turned Max into a rather difficult figure to kill. Now only someone he allowed himself could approach him within shooting distance. He now constantly scanned the space around him with his power. Moreover, it became as natural to him as breathing. And just as necessary—paranoia blossomed and smelled. He constantly "wore" on his body an "armor" of small metal elements held by the same power, dense like scales. He stopped trying to keep up with high-speed opponents using his body, which did not greatly exceed the body of a well-trained person. No. He no longer relied on his eyes and ears. Only on magnetic fields. And this yielded results: he could now cope with a dozen werewolves at maximum acceleration. Naturally, he wouldn't have enough speed even to turn his eyes in the right direction to keep track of them, let alone parry a blow or respond to it. But as soon as he closed his eyes (or simply stopped relying on them), the speed limit disappeared. The brain had time to process the data received through his power. And had time to guide projectiles at multiple super-mobile targets. Max now slept only in an armored "egg." At the same time, he plunged it into the earth about five meters below the surface. Which had already saved his life a couple of times.
And I could not come up with a sufficiently credible plan to fake his death. Especially considering how tightly the Union intelligence looked after us, and the intelligence of other countries were interested.
And what to do about it? Nothing. All that was left was to wait. Learn and wait. And that is exactly what I was doing.
* * *
And I waited. Waited so much that we really almost kicked the bucket.
It was a "hello" from the Schmidts. And, as I understood it, from both at once.
It all started standardly—vampires, werewolves, support from mages, flying machines with blasters, armored infantrymen modified by the serum with blasters, then bombardment with ceramic-plastic shells with poison gas. Standard, only the scale is larger. By about an order of magnitude. I didn't think at all that Germany or Hydra still had SUCH a number of superhumanly strong fighters. More than two hundred fighters under the cover of ten mages!
A fierce battle flared up. Our defenders, exterminating the attackers, suffered loss after loss. The number of our guards quickly decreased to completely unserious figures.
But even this is far from the end.
At some point, the defenders suddenly began to become attackers. Then things got tight for us. My back was even torn open. Although not dangerous, it is an indicator—my first wound in this entire war, not counting Issei's trap. In general, before this battle, our guards did not know that I had a healing factor. They considered me just a successful experiment in creating a super soldier, conducted on a Martial Arts master. Just a very strong, very fast, and very trained soldier.
But that's not the point. The point is that absolute Zen started happening to us! And why—is not very clear. Seemingly nothing unusual, all this had happened more than once, but something is wrong. Why on earth did our defenders start fighting among themselves, and with us at the same time?
And then it dawned on me—a telepath!
The attackers had a telepath! While we were tearing their throats out, the telepath got into our heads. And now we are tearing each other's throats out!
At that moment, I was peppered with iron elements of Max's armor. Then I was flattened from above by an escort tank. Me and three others who happened to be nearby. The enemy telepath got to Max...
And while I was digging myself out from under the behemoth that had hammered me into the soil, I heard the screams dying down outside. The resistance was broken.
I could have lain quietly, waited for them to take Max away, finish off the wounded, and leave. After which I could calmly dig myself out and disappear, but... But I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't abandon the person who trusted me. I couldn't betray him. But that's on the one hand. On the other hand, the Beast demanded blood...
I dug frantically, punching my way to the top. And I punched through. I made it. To my own detriment.
I jumped out and landed five meters in front of the telepath. Why did I think he was the telepath? Probably because of his short stature (a meter sixty, no more) and a head three times larger than an ordinary person's should be. Also, the freak's face was in disgusting red scars, as if the skull rapidly increased in size and tore the skin, which couldn't keep up with its growth. And then these tears healed, but no longer with skin, but as if with bare meat. Red and bumpy. And black eyes, without sclera and iris.
And this marvel immediately crashed into my brain. It felt as if those very eyes suddenly began to increase in size, occupying the whole world. That is, the whole world ceased to exist, and only these eyes remained. All thoughts were blown out of my head instantly.
Only the eyes and my will remained. My self-control. And it was bursting at the seams. That very steel door. After all, it was designed to hold what is inside, not to protect against foreign invasion. Figuratively speaking: the "deadbolt" was on the outside, not the inside.
And this telepath slid the "deadbolt" open.
The "door" that he was about to open with an effort swung open so wide it almost flew off its hinges. Behind it was the Beast. Which rushed with all its might to freedom. Into the telepath's mind.
I fell back into reality and saw a nightmare: the telepath, gone mad, surrounded by a hundred super fighters. And eight mages.
The only thing I managed to do was grab the body of the unconscious Max (as it turned out later, he was knocked out by a tranquilizer injection and prepared for transport) and shove it into the hole from which I had just crawled out. I myself was able to crawl all the way in only during the process of the hell that had begun.
What hell? Rabies, the very one I had fought for these centuries, took possession of the telepath. To myself, I call it: "The Beast devoured his mind." And through the telepath's abilities, everyone else who was conscious within the range of these abilities. And all these others rushed to kill each other. Everyone against everyone.
The telepath's power acted on me too, but I know my Beast and I can keep it in check. I just locked the "gates" that had previously held it inside and kept them closed. I must say that it wasn't particularly eager to get out. It had more than enough prey this time. And there was little of the telepath's own will in the mental impulse. Unpleasant, but not dangerous.
For some reason, I remembered a movie I watched back in "that" life. It was called "Kingsman." There was a similar scene there. Adjusted for the capabilities of vampires, werewolves, "super soldiers" with blasters, and mages.
Anyway, when my legs grew back, the tank was no longer above us. Only a small piece of the bottom with melted edges.
I crawled out and pulled out the body of the unconscious Max. The telepath, surprisingly, was still alive. He rolled on the ground and growled, foaming at the mouth. His power continued to pound into my brain. But I didn't touch him, just shook my head, looking at the ugly creation of the Schmidts' genius.
A dozen meters to the right, a plane was burning out. Next to me lay the body of a blaster-man. Without a head. On his belt hung items glowing with a bluish light, resembling grenades in appearance.
I took the whole belt. Took the armor and all the clothes off the body, fortunately, he resembled me in dimensions. Put my tunic, pants (what was left of them) with a belt on him; my boots didn't survive, otherwise I would have pulled them on too. Also the dog tag with a number issued to me by the Soviets. Put the saber in his hand. I myself put on what I took from the corpse (his clothes, by the way, were in much better condition than mine). Threw Max over my shoulder, threw an activated grenade into the burrow from which I crawled out. Another one at the corpse's feet. And I myself, with a maximally large jump (and the body now allowed me to make very large jumps), left this place. Landed, threw another grenade on the tracks, and jumped again.
There were a total of five grenades hanging on the belt. It took me four jumps to get out of the zone of the past battle and stop feeling the pressure on my thoughts. After that, I just ran, sweeping my tracks behind me, trying to get as far away as possible, faster and more imperceptibly.
This war was over for me.
* * *