3000/Black Sun: Watchtower

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Black Sun: Watchtower
Date of Scene: 20 August 2020
Location: Yaphank, NY
Synopsis: Mikhail and Kara Lynn win a victory for the Russians and slay some Nazis in fallen Konigsburg while SHIELD fights to give Sam time to recover the Holy Lance.
Cast of Characters: Jane Foster, Mikhail Uriokovitch, Kara Lynn Palamas
Tinyplot: Black Sun


Jane Foster has posed:
Wewelsburg Castle. North Tower. Night.

The cries and chants outside still thrum with coordinated violence. Guns crack their retort against the shouts of men and few women. The melee convulsing SHIELD suggests reinforcements around Yaphank -- now a bastion of the Third Reich -- rushed out from Camp Siegfried.

Thick Renaissance walls stand firm, however. Chips of stone fly into the courtyard, a pie-slice hidden behind a wall of windows. Here Himmler intended to create the Center of the World, and he may well have achieved it. As soon as Sam crumples unconscious, the mirrored interior of the tower vanishes and a wave of force shoves everyone gathered inside back. They skid into the hall, thrown from their feet, tossed into walls and over the floor like so many vegetables rolled out of the pantry. Shoulders bruised, knees scraped, hips scratched: all of these wounds are commonplace enough.

Another droning sound grows louder, the familiar cadence of a Stuka dive-bomber wailing through the night. Smoke swirls around the windows, cutting out the ultramarine sky, and the strafing runs of another fighter cut through a parked saloon car brought by Jemma and Daisy, as part of the strike team.

The ground shudders, the open gallery of pillars around the handsome hall revealing the greenish-black marble floor, the stairs to the vaults, elegant rooms favoured by officers considering the worst.

Or there's always outside.

And the view outside doesn't look quite like Yaphank that they know.

Mikhail Uriokovitch has posed:
The short angry bear rises to his feet and grumples as he tries to work the bolt the Mosin, the weapon has clearly become jammed and no better than a spear at this point, causing the bear to grumble a few choice words in Russian. This is not the biggest problem, as his enemies were walking ammunition drops for their own guns. He looks over at the director and says, "We had best hurry." Mik grumbles and wipes dirt and such from the scrapes, not a lot of blood is visible on his fur.

Mikhail looks to the suspended Sam, "That is not good, but we had best find answer soon, we are outgunned and outnumbered. Do you have plan, director?"

Kara Lynn Palamas has posed:
Kara Lynn is thrown back, her body skidding, bumping, rolling with the force of the sudden blast, ragdolled, brusied and battered, but not broken. She will, no doubt, be sore in the morning. Or, more sore. As she pushes herself up, slowly, to get her bearings she tells Mikhail, "Sam is still alive," breathlessly. She doesn't understand the mechanics of what happened, but she can guess enough with her experience that somehow there's something larger going on than she can comprehend. And, the battle isn't over.

She looks back to the short angry bear, and she grunts at his question at first. She watches from the window as the strafing plane destroys their closest and most expediant means of transportation.

She looks back to Sam, considers the shaking walls of the castle. "We stay here much longer, we'll either be cornered, or crushed. We need to leave. And stay alive. This isn't over yet."

She still has her pistol, and holds it at the ready, then she moves to a window. "We need to buy ourselves some time."

Jane Foster has posed:
The night thumps with the thunderous explosions of Allied and Axis weapons barking at one another. Ground-based defenses strike out against the highly mobile aircraft. Soldiers caught in fights on the field hide behind low walls or behind buildings, using the cover they can get from the outlying village to shoot at one another. Hopeful they might survive from the retorts, men with helmets and brown shirts facing down blue, black, grey. It's hard to tell in the dark who is who.

Mik's efforts to make his gun work will eventually some together, with labour and intensive care. Something might as well slide into place with banging it firmly on the floor or forcing the bolt. Someone pops up about twenty yards in front of the castle, diving behind a well-manicured bush as the passing plane mows into the soil and cobbles. No telling where Gothic Lolita ended up, but the Iron Cross gynoid isn't slaughted at least.

Buying time may be easier said than done. The courtyard was trapped, the doors beyond breached. The outer square where the Nazis held their rally is presumably overrun, though Camp Siegfried down the slope is a proper military installation and in the thick of fighting.

As to who? Russians, Dutch, Germans, /Habsburgs/? Maybe even a Napoleonic Era person or two?

It's all there.

Mikhail Uriokovitch has posed:
Mikhail remedies the rifle, preferring his own claws if he has to get into melee, but he at least has an option. What he can do now, though is draw his lethal sidearm, which to his irritation has been replaced with a Tokarev. He grumbles some more and then looks over to Kara, "Da. Good to know Sam lives, but it seems our ways out are dwindling." He feeds a magazine in but doesn't pull the slide back. "Then we leave this room and look at options."

Mikhail returns the pistol to its holster and unslings his rifle and looks where the director is looking, "Well, that option seems to work." He waddles on over and helps open the window and looks out to see if any Nazi threats are out there, popping a shot or two if he sees any before he pulls himself out of the window onto the ground.

Kara Lynn Palamas has posed:
Kara Lynn follows the nazi-slaughtering bear, tiny, but still quite powerful and she certainly doesn't seem to be discounting him or his contribution to this effort. She, too, has a pistol but she also stoops to pick up a submachine gun from one of the fallen soldiers. After all, the dead have no need of any material items any longer, and it will help her far more than a pistol would.

"I've still got my net grenade, but I have no idea how it will function here," she relays to Mik, her mouth twisting downwards.

She looks up at the skyline, "We'll have to stay close to buildings, going on the road will be dangerous with the planes on the lookout for us. Damn."

She reconsiders their surroundings, even as she checks the new weapon she's acquired, and surveys their options, any, her experience would lead her to see in this twisted, horrific reality.

Jane Foster has posed:
Down. Up to the roof. Through a window, through the courtyard. Wewelsburg pulses with activity, the old stone shuddering as another divebomber screams by, pulling up at the last minute. Surely these aren't threats to the Germans in occupation, but something other.

A knot of Nazi and Russian soldiers are engaged in taking shots at one another, rather inaccurately considering the shelter of the outlying building. If it were another era, it might be a blacksmith; now, it's a cinema.

Just one jarring issue. The language? German, of course.

And Russian.

And German again.

Those elegant High Gothic buildings might ping Mikhail's memory of a strange place, an exclave of Russia, Kaliningrad. Smoldering ruins stretch along the waterfront on display, the walls and the shops along a graceful stretch of riverfront totally obliterated. The three and four story shops are gutted, but plenty of places to chase down Nazis.

Or the Red Army, considering where they're fighting. Neither side is particularly friendly; the lack of Americans is... well... alarming.

And they're in Nazi uniforms as before, so the Soviets take shots at them from the gutted remains of an apartment on the second storey. Choices, choices. Go after the Russians up there, or the ruined cinema. Or flee through the streets still.

Mikhail Uriokovitch has posed:
"Good gun," Piotr says, noting the submachine gun with a nod. Though the universal language of battle is being spoken, the Russian hits his ears as he turns to Kara, "You speak Russian too, da?" He blinks at the change of scenery, as it is definitely not New York anymore. Mikhail had been to Kaliningrad, and it definitely had that feel to it. "Just be careful," he grumps as he takes cover from Soviet fire, "We have problem." He notes before poking his head out and tries to lay down some suppressing fire, aiming to miss, knowing that these are likely conscripts and not diehard Soviets. He comments to Kara as he lays down this fire, working the bolt as quickly as he can, missing his AK or even the SKS. "Got a preference, because I can not keep them busy forever."

Kara Lynn Palamas has posed:
Risk assessment in the battlefield is something Kara Lynn is used to; none of the choices are optimal, and all have their risks. She knows Mikhail will be better off firing at Nazi's than Russians, so that cancels out the apartments in her mind immediately. The streets will provide no succor, so, "Cinema. It will at least offer cover from aerial attacks, and limit our engagement."

With that, she moves ahead quickly, concisely, and then lays down cover fire as soon as she finds some cover on the way to their new destination in turn for Mikhail to get him to move ahead safely as well.

"If we ever get out of this, I'm going to rip the heads off those goddamn ambassadors," she growls with a wrothful fury.

Jane Foster has posed:
A string of bullets come firing back. Shouts as a young officer, painfully young, lays their focus not on the nearer Germans controlling access to the west tower or nearabout but on two people running around at leisure. In no less than questionably Nazi outfits.

Bullets zip past, striking the ground. Kara's footing is untrustworthy across the cobblestones and pitted cement turned into a wasteland of debris, fallen concrete, dust. Mik breathes in the dust as fires burn, charred spars collapsing as they break from the cover of the castle for something more. It's an awful sight: bodies under buildings, left to die in the streets. Glimpses of civilians cowering in the windows, fighting to make it to the river like the water gives any protection. A burnt-out tank lies down the road. The Russians in the cinema panic as the Germans approach, turning their guns on them, desperate to stop that two-pronged assault.

Fear is thick as the shadows dancing all around. A harrowed bark of German behind them from the smaller Nazi detachment that isn't dead, that can't tell them as foe or friend: "Are you mad? They'll cut you down, even with that- damn it, Dunkel, *fire straight!* We don't have the bullets to waste on that!"

A terrified cry turns dark as shadow, ripping through the night as Mikhail drops one of the Germans trying to make a break for it. One less enemy.

Mikhail Uriokovitch has posed:
Mikhail is not happy. He has seen carnage like this before, he had gotten a little used to it, but you never learn to like it. He snarls and reloads his rifle and nods, "Cinema it is." He then follows Kara as quickly as his little legs will carry him, he opens fire again, popping a couple of shots at the Russian to keep them busy, though he has no problem removing one Nazi from the map.

The fire from the cinema causes him to take cover briefly, before seeing a submachine gun of his own on the ground, and a wicked grin crosses his face as he jumps from behind cover and begins spraying lead, specifically at the Germans that warned them. "THIS IS FOR RUSSIA!!!" Mik roars in a higher pitched voice than he's used to, but the battle lust has taken over the angry teddy bear.

Kara Lynn Palamas has posed:
Kara echoes Mikhail's cry, "FOR RUSSIA!" And, like Mik, she open-fires on the Germans that have the Russian's pinned down, so that those at the Cinema can -see-, with their own eyes, 'German' turning on German, and that the two approaching the Cinema are slaughtering ... their own? Or, perhaps they are really Russians. Maybe defectors?

Either way, it's the Nazi's that are being mowed down, while the two do their best to evade the incoming fire from the Russians towards them.

It's a risky gambit to be sure, but one that at least in Kara's mind at the moment, has the highest potential for payoff.

Jane Foster has posed:
The Russians hiding in the cinema for cover duck behind the fallen sign blocking the doors, the open foyer strewn in rubble and no glass to speak of. It's a bit of a harrowing sight to see a youth in a Nazi uniform barreling at them, shooting, and shouting 'For Russia' after suppressing cry. A short, brief discussion may be about agitators to Stalin or Russian spies. National Socialism in Russia?

Those seconds count. A staggered blink and Mik and Kara are in the theatre lobby too. Blood bursts from the fallen Nazis behind them. The moment the choice is made, the attacks shot, they are behind the lines of young men, very much conscripts, in badly fitted uniforms and bleeding badly. One officer isn't much luckier than the others, trying to cool off his overheating gun by fanning it uselessly and shouting, "Aim for the street. Bastards are on the second floor. Someone see to Karkarov or Torskaya." He swivels, goggle-eyed at the woman and her steward. "Why are you here? Two, I can't be relieved by two!"

"Incoming!" shouts the medic trying to stabilize a fallen soldier. Radios would be nice, but it's hopeless. The Russians duck as a German fighter chases down a far older canvas plane, easily chasing the poor thing as its guns flash in the night. The smaller plane can't dodge away even waggling its wings, too slow, crashing short of the castle by a hundred feet.

Mikhail Uriokovitch has posed:
<<Damn Nazis,>> Mikhail remarks as he reloads the submachine gun and hurries in and looks at the Soviet officer, <<We are here on our own business, dealing with Nazis. But, put simply, we would,>> he ducks as the plane goes by, wincing as it goes down, <<Like to assist in dealing with the German threat. The costumes are an unfortunate circumstance on our end, but trust me, we hate the fascist scum as much as you do. Trust me.>>

Kara Lynn Palamas has posed:
Kara Lynn fires her own last rounds while MIk is reloading, nodding a quick agreement to the bears words. << The only good Nazi is a dead one, >> she agrees, << And the bear speaks true. We are not Germans. We are only dressed as them. >>

It's true enough! And, once Mik has reloaded she moves to take her turn to do the same. But, before she does that she moves her hand to her arm, and rips off the patch there that signifies her rank. The hat goes next, and she stomps both into the ground with the heel of her boot to emphasize the point.

Hopefully they believe them.

Jane Foster has posed:
"It's a German -city-," the officer splutters as the building shakes. Dust falls and something groans. He stares at the burning shape that shows no signs of exploding, but neither has the pilot climbed out. Waving a hand in frustration, he says, "This! They fight when they are doomed but we can do nothing to them."

"How did you get out of there?" asks a suspicious soldier, his voice thick with a rural accent.

"Rostov, shut it." The officer rubs his face, telling another to take point and look out for any signs of trouble. A Soviet tank tries to rumble through the street, unable to negotiate the turn without a grenade flung from balcony Nazis. "Doesn't matter what we've tried. They keep coming up with more."

Mikhail Uriokovitch has posed:
<<Because they believe in one of two things, either they believe in their cause or they believe that we will not take prisoners,>> Mikhail says with a shrug, knowing full well what happened to surrendering Germans. He sees the grenade fall from the balcony and rolls out and sends some fire up in that direction to hopefully get the attention away from the Russian tank, though he is soon back in shelter. <<If you have anything a little heavier to deal with the Nazis, speak now. I can use nearly anything you will have been given. Or point me to the nearest machine gun placement.>>

Kara Lynn Palamas has posed:
Kara Lynn, on the other hand, football kicks the grenade away, before laying further cover-fire for the tank to be able to advance. She seems to have taken a less active role as 'director', yielding to the situation at need to simply be able to survive. And, certainly, there is safety in numbers. Especially when one of those numbers is a tank.

But, neither is she relieved at their luck, however little it's been most recently. They aren't out of this yet. << What is your main target? >> She asks of the commander, lending her rifle-shots to another head or two from the rooftops that belong to the Germans.

Jane Foster has posed:
History tells the story of the fall. Of burning towers and bombs flung down, of screams in the night. Penned in blood, the losses mount. Tanks fire, one less shell. A ruined facade crashes down as the grenade discharges at the other side of the street.

That tank isn't really going anywhere fast, trying to slowly, painstakingly climb over the wreckage and negotiate around the debris. Treads slide and the engines sputter, a Red Star floodlit in the night as a tower tries to orient down the street on it. Treacherous little tower, but enough for the beacon to give the planes something to focus on. They are far from out of the woods.

Given the bombing run is probably targeting the street they're on, and the materiel isn't bound to be a mere grenade, the choices are very thin indeed.

"Nothing," says the Russian, helplessly gesturing. "Guns. Mostly bullets. Trench knives, like it does us any good. Stalin throws men after corpses thinking it will help. We found old bread, some rope, a can of petrol."

His complaining, surly cadet Rostov hisses. "Comrade, shut up yourself. We're supposed to take the castle. No inch given, like Stalingrad. Take the castle, city is ours. It all ends."

It's a strange way his words ring. It all ends...

Mikhail Uriokovitch has posed:
Mikhail nods, <<Sounds about right,>> some things never did change, it seems. He frowns and tosses his flask to the wounded. <<Castle has seen better days,>> the small bear notes as he notes the tank, <<Then you had best hurry. We can give you cover, or at least provide distraction.>> He picks up a fallen Russian submachine gun to pair with his German one and the angry little Russian roars and charges out.

Once Mikhail is in the street, he begins starting to clear balconies and windows of anyone without a Red Star that has a weapon. He is not in the mood to mess around, and knowing he will take the attention, though should that darned plane show up again, he'll throw a few rounds its way, knowing the tank is its real target. From the small bear comes a mighty eruption of lead, that he supplements with what ammunition he can scrounge up, though his short bursts let him conserve it as long as he can.

Kara Lynn Palamas has posed:
Kara follows in Mik's wake, letting the bear do what he does best, -rage-. To become the center of attention, and chaos. She, in turn, does not rage. Instead, while the small bear goes to town, she uses her submachine gun for more precise erasure of nazi presence, including tossing her oversized electric net grenade towards another grendadire trying to take out the tank itself.

She might not have been trained by the Russian's in WWII, or any formal military, but she's been trained by SHIELD, and seasoned by experience. And that experience, now, is paying off in spades.

As she drops her spent submachine gun for another at her feet, she tells MIkhail, "I have a feelin g- if we take th ecastle, this all ends. I think," and she's not sure, but there's a certain instinct in her, "I think we're -correcting- history. THey unwrote it. We're fixing it."

Jane Foster has posed:
A handful of men against a galaxy. A handful of minor weapons against buzzing airplanes and god knows what on the other side. They look at one another, forced by orders and expectations to run out into the street and offering fire and raging screams when the Russian is out there. A pitiful string of men with half-competent weapons against the Lance of Longinus itself. It should not work.

It shouldn't, but better angels say fight on anyway. Run, run with fear in their throats and raw attempts to take cover and shoot at those men in the buildings around them. The Nazis fight for their home. The Russians fight with bloodlust, fervor, and memories of ancient grief and strife.

Knots of movement explode like fireworks, the tank swiveling to shoot at the tower on high but it's not easy to do. Barrel training and swiveling, it fights against poor range and cruddy hydraulics. The wailing planes are coming in low, herded on, the Luftwaffe fighting back. Four of them silhouetted, hard wings and flashing metal, the replacements for those avenging armies. Heaven or Hell, who can say?

The red star burns. Those boys fallen beneath the trumpet blare of a droning weapon, a salvo of a flak cannon stare blankly up at the sky. Kara and Mikhail cut their way through, that course of a broken street in the city below the castle determining life or death.

The Watchtower lights the way for the wrong side.

Mikhail Uriokovitch has posed:
Mikhail is not happy. The Nazis are why his family did poorly during the war, why many things went wrong. He hates the Soviets as well, but in this the Nazis are clearly the foe to fight and he trudges on, giving Kara a nod, "Da." The response is brief, but affirmative. Mikhail trudges forward, swapping out one submachine gun for another, working his way towards the castle to hopefully clear it of the Nazi threat.

Kara Lynn Palamas has posed:
Kara continues to provide the assist, confidence gained by their allies - and by the new thought of exactly what is going on. Certainly it only an instinctive guess, educated guess as well, and nothing - especically with magic, is ever certain (at least not to one who isn't a sorcerer), but it invigorates her and offers her hope.

With hope, comes renwed vigor, and bullets. Bullets, aimed at Nazi's, sharp eyes to pinpoint grenadiers and sabotuers to end them before their damage can be done, all the while still providing backup to the 'frontman' 'Mikhail', until the tank is in position to begin a barrage of motar shelling the gathering of nazi's in the square, to clear it so they can take over the castle.

Jane Foster has posed:
Shells rain from the sky, heaps of them, troubling waves that shower from clouds of ash and smoke swirling in black pyres. Lightning courses from the barrel of a gun, from the flak-cannons, from the anti-aircraft guns. Thunder booms from the footfalls of a woman and fire reels in waves from the lashing of the submachine guns worked until their expended deaths.

Alpha, leaving the castle.

Omega, the falling bodies. The carved lines through a street. In the melee, the tank goes silent, strafed flat, its driver dead through the thinner armour. A Luftwaffe plane careens away, wings bleeding smoke and black ichor that streaks the ground. Another pilot pulls away, shot at by hopeless forces on the ground wearing red stars. The war convulses and the gash carved into Kaliningrad leads a path open for the bulk of the Red Army streaming in from the east, the Prussian Offensive advancing with inexorable, slow purpose.

With them move shadows convulsed in darkness, tall and terrible, shifting between ice-fletched soldiers and gaunt shadows and flame-eyed patriarchs in snowy robes wrapped in incense.

By the time both Kara and Mikhail find their weapons too hot to bare, the few remaining soldiers of that company huddle nearby. A shout collectively rises: one of the masses of Red Army soldiers points to the Nazi castle.

Over it flies a burning humanoid on a stream of flame.

On another, a broad-shoulded man with wings on his ankles.

The gates are barred by ruined vehicles and debris. Civilians heave inside the middle courtyard of Wewelsburg Castle, under assault. A man with a shield and several others -- the Howling Commandos, Kara ought to know them -- are scattered in a wide perimeter to prevent anyone from leaving.

Koningsburg is not Wewelsburg, Wewelsburg is not Yaphank. And yet... there they are, the great heroes of World War Two, on the cusp of a massacre. The Russians are coming, but will they be too late to save the innocent?