CHAPTER 1 - VIVE!
MAY 3rd, 1942
Somewhere near Dijon, France
He held her close as they endured a holocaust, the flames licked at his skin and chewed away at his shirt, he clutched her arms. He wanted more than anything to just protect her from the inferno, the hell that was shunted upon them. The sound of the crackling wood was quickly swept away by the sound of the roaring flames. Beads of sweat rolled down his face, the flames hurt, but inflicted no injury, no matter how intense the blaze, he would survive--he would go forth, but he could not say the same for her. He felt her skin burning, scabbing in his grip, she didn't scream, she refused, she was too strong to give these damned Nazis the pleasure. She gasped, her body becoming limp, she gasped once more, her slender fingers clawed into Mikel's back, she whispered something that he could barely decipher over the sound of the ceiling falling in on them. They were buried in a pile of burning wood instantaneously. The hissing of their flamethrowers ceased, and the commanding officer called out to the others in German--
"This was the beast that has been carving a path all the way from Berlin and took out a Panzerwaffe in Abbeville?" He spat at the pile of wood that was once a home, "Pathetic, but I expect nothing less from a treacherous piece of garbage such as Mikel Schmidt."
APRIL 10th, 1942
Orléans, France
He stumbled across the French wilderness for weeks on end without the proper meal, whatever he ate was either captured out in the wild or stolen rations off of German units he'd encountered. Despite what he was, this walking, talking Monstrum as they called him. Despite having bullets bead off of his skin like water and having the strength to punch holes through the average human body, he had his limits, he felt pain and no matter how invincible he seemed, he grew tired. Word had spread among the Germans of what was picking off their units, what was destroying them one soldier at a time, a former Nazi soldier--Mikel Schmidt. The French that had heard the stories of what happened to the Germans, how they were literally brutally and savagely beaten despite their resistance, though--they began believing rumblings that somewhere out there there was what the French called an Ogre roaming around, and they weren't completely wrong.
His face was painted with mud which was stained with blood, he wore nothing but a pair of fatigue pants and a pair of boots he managed to slip off of one of his victims before moving onward. He had no gun, no knife, no weaponry whatsoever, just his two fists and the art of surprise. He was getting sloppy, though. Before, Captain Mikel Schmidt could cover his tracks, pull off an ambush and leave no trail of the general direction in which he was headed. Granted, back in those days, he wasn't as invulnerable and he was no where as tired as he was now.
They were ready for him in Orleans, they knew what he was after. Orleans was one of the largest, if not the largest rail hubs in France. They could transport anything in and out of France on these rails from soldiers to weaponry. Mikel knew this, and on his mission to purge Germany of the evil that occupied it's heart--he sought to cripple their Orleans operation.
His breathing, while controlled, was heavy. He pulled the stolen binoculars he'd confiscated from a scout from his weary eyelids and tucked them back in his pocket. Gloved hands clenched the tree he leaned against, his body pleaded for rest, and for once, despite it being such a horrible idea, he complied. Just ten minutes, he tried to convince himself. Just ten minutes and he can go blow up the train station with whatever he found, in and out. Once he was settled into his seat, he was startled--alarmed awake by rustling--
He struggled to his feet--
Why didn't he suspect that they would patrol the area?
Was he that far gone?
They began chattering, he was spotted--
"Scheiße!" Mikel swore under his breath, he scrambled as they opened fire from the distance.
A shell tagged him in the arm, another caught him in the back of the head, throwing his balance and causing him to crash into a tree. He groaned, he caught his breath, the pain seeped into his seemingly unbreakable skin. He needed to get out of sight, while it wouldn't throw them off his trail, it gave him a chance to recuperate, get them to come closer.
They kept fire on him as long as they could before they noticed he was gone. They moved in to confirm the kill or finish him off, if they were properly informed--they would know that there was no killing Mikel, not with their arsenal, but they weren't. All they knew was that they were looking for a man out in these woods, one that fit Mikel's profile. They cautiously approached, and when they reached halfway from where they'd last seen him take cover, they noticed no body, so it was likely that their target was still alive.
These weren't any idiots, they called in their findings, something Mikel was hoping they wouldn't do. This meant that there was a window before reinforcements arrived to aid the patrolmen, so there was a good chance he would be dealing with a completely new group of soldiers after disposing of these--
"Where did he go...? He has to be somewhere around here." One soldier whispered to the other in German.
"He looked hurt, I'm sure we hit him." He held his rifle up, ready to open fire on anything that moved.
Seconds turned to minutes and they grew impatient, they couldn't have lost him, so the only logical approach and the one that Mikel was hoping for was to have the team of five split up and search. But this one wasn't dumb, he paired off two while leaving himself by his lonesome. While he could just pull his ambush on the group and take them out one by one, the pain was getting to him, he didn't want to take anymore shot, he's passed out from pain before and the last thing he needed was to have it happen with a bunch of Nazis surrounding him.
They split, and he made his move, he had no time to waste, he needed to handle these guys and be gone before back-up arrived--
Dropping down from above, he slipped his hands around the first soldier's mandible, the ringleader, and in one swift motion he snapped his neck. His corpse fell limp with a sick thud, and before he could strip the commander of his gun, he came under fire, the rounds burrowed into his skin, caused him to stagger back and fall against a tree. Before he knew it, it wasn't just one soldier, but three who had their rifles trained on him, hosing him down round after round--
"AAAAAAAAGGGHH---!!!" With a roar, he raced forward into the maelstrom of bullets, his fists cocked, the pain was unbearable--
With a thrust of his fist, one soldier's face was caved in on itself, a trail of blood was left on the air as he was leveled by the fist--
They didn't let up, the last three retreated as they reloaded and hosed him some more, but it was like trying to calm a stampeding bull.
The second met his end when Mikel got a hand around his neck, used him as a shield before discarding him. His body burned, welts began to form where bullet wounds should have been. The last two watched in horror, nothing they did was putting a dent in Mikel, nothing was visibly working. Mikel strode forward, pouncing on his second to last victim for the evening.
"No--!! No!! Hail Hitle---" Mikel thrust his hand into the young boy's mouth before he could finish the disgusting utterance. Using his second hand, he planted it upon the boy's forehead while the last soldier took the opportunity to flee for his life. One yank and he pulled the lad's mandible off in a sick display of blood and torn flesh, his tongue flopped out from where his mouth once was and onto his neck. He died almost instantly due to the trauma, as if his brain shut itself off due to how much pain Mikel had inflicted upon him. Looking down at the lower half of the boy's face he held in his hand, he tossed it aside.
It was a matter of time before the back-up was here. They already knew where they were, but the noise they'd made...it gave them a specific point.
He was too tired to run, too much pain. He wanted to kneel down and keel over, but he couldn't. He staggered forward a few steps, something bounced across his path that prompted him to look down at his feet. A grenade. A sigh escaped him, one would almost say it was a sigh of relief, as if the burden of continuing was finally lifted, he wasn't proud of his last stand...but it was a good show. Before the grenade went off, there was gunfire.
It hit him like ten trucks, sent him flying into a tree, left him deaf. He was almost surprised that he was still conscious, he watched the scene play out from where he laid, and he couldn't bring himself to form a coherent thought but what was playing out in front of him made no sense. Why were the German soldiers falling? Who was shooting them?
He could feel a hand on his shoulder, the first delicate thing to touch him in months, trying to shake him from his daze. His hearing came back slowly, they were talking French. Whoever had just saved him was speaking French. They flipped him over onto his back, his worn eyes looked around at the group of resistance fighters gathered around him, like he was some sort of spectacle. They'd seen him get shot, yet he had no wounds. He was fixated on the one talking directly to him, trying to prompt some sort of response from his seemingly lifeless form. She was beautiful, she looked like some sort of angel that eclipsed the sun in a beret and she was holding his hand.
"------you hear me?! Are you American?!" Her French accent was thick, unfortunate for her, Mikel's English was weak, not as strong as his French, at least.
"Oui..." He grumbled, it was all he could manage, he couldn't explain that he could hear her but that he wasn't American, he just didn't have it in him. He gave her hand a firm squeeze to let her know he was still alive and she blessed him with a smile and a chuckle. She motioned to her fellow revolutionaries then shouted something in French, he was lifted and carried to a pick-up truck, laid out in the back.
To Be Continued...
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