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War, What It Isn't Good For


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Earth-I-War-4

March 1, 1983 (Local Time)

0y 0d 0h 0m 0s Post-Arrival

 

It should have been a quiet Thursday, or at least relatively so. Certainly on Earth-Prime, it was. 

 

This is not Earth-Prime.

 

So when a >rip in space-time manifests a few hundred feet above the ground over a corner of the field here in western France. No one even takes note of the over-sized young man who emerges and is, somehow, flying directly at the ground at barely sub-sonic speeds. He only just stops himself before striking the ground, ending up in a crouch as he looked around, nervously adjusting the backpack and shoulder bag he bore. Looking behind him, he just saw trees. 

 

"Man, where did I end up? I'll have to...call...the..."

 

His words trail off as he turns back in front of himself and he takes in the sight before him. A plain stretched out before him for miles. Large hills sat beyond the trees at his back. But while it was nominally beautiful, the unfamiliar vista wasn't what caught his attention.

 

It was the battle. Specifically, the one being waged in the air and on the ground. Tanks rolled across the ground, nearly as advanced as anything one saw in the news of the day. Fire flew from their barrels, and vehicles on both sides erupted in flames. Solders dashed to and fro, firing from cover.

 

None of that compared to the really weird stuff. 

 

On one side, clad in black uniforms that amounted to robust skin-suits, men and women suddenly and violently shifted into lupine man-beasts, howling in unison before charging in a line of fur, claws, and fury. Overhead, more remarkable people flew in crisp formation, moving through the air as easily as...as Quo-Dis, he realized. They even had that same faint glow to their bodies. 

 

Opposing them was a group a bit less uniform. Several were dressed as superheroes. Some he didn't recognize. The man dressed like an Ancient Egyptian and wielding a glowing hammer was probably Horus the Avenger, though. And boy, did they hold the line! Blasts of energy drew the...well, for lack of a better term, the super-men and -women down to the ground just as the lycanthropes struck the line of heroes. There was just enough confusion to leave them disoriented, which clearly helped the group with Horus.

 

Considering the Iron Crosses on the black or grey vehicles he could see...they were probably Nazis. Which made the others...the Allies, he supposed. It wasn't Erde, but-

 

"Nazis. Why did it have to be Nazis?"

 

He couldn't help but smile at his own private joke for a moment...before the smile faded. Those heroes seemed like they were barely holding on, and any normal Allied soldiers who got too close were...not long for the world. 

 

"​I...I have to help. Damn. Not what I planned, but I'm sure if Horus is kicking around, so is Daedalus. I bet I'll be home in a week or less."

 

With that cheery thought, Corbin took his bags, conjured a blue box of energy around them, and buried it next to a tree. Giving one last glance around, he blinked, and was suddenly Cobalt Templar.

 

When asked later what had happened, most Allied soldiers would say they still weren't entirely sure, except that a streak of blue light cut across the air for a moment, and a half-dozen Nazi tanks were missing gun barrels. 

 

Meanwhile, the biggest werewolf on the field had knocked Horus back, and was raising both clawed hands in a gesture that would likely leave the deific champion wounded, if not worse. But instead of a flare of pain, the dazed paragon was treated to a flash of blue light and the smell of burned dog hair as the Alpha was sent flying by a burst of the blue flame that was the signature of Cobalt Templar. The young hero stood in the place of the werewolf, facing the rest of the pack as he held a great burning sword of fire  in his hands.

 

"Who wants some?"

Edited by KnightDisciple
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Earth-I-War-4

March 10, 1983 (Local Time)

0y 9d 10h 6m 20s Post-Arrival

 

Cobalt Templar sat in an armored bunker in the heart of London, a fortress-city nestled on a fortress-island-nation. His mind was reeling from the sheer...difference of this place. This Earth. The calendars said it was 1983, but the western 1/3 of France was a rubble-strewn graveyard that was one huge sputtering battlefield. The Axis powers were still in power, but half of the facts didn't even line up with how things had gone in World War 2 back on Prime!

 

'None of this makes sense! How has...no, I can kind of buy that there's still fighting. The way they talk, this was a "big scrap", but compared to the stuff in the 40s on Prime this is nothing. It's clear the level of conflict was less in the official War, and it's even lower now. I mean, heck, from the way they talk, these...brush fights aren't nearly as bad as Korea or Vietnam. But...they've been going on every few years this entire time, instead of 5-10 years of more concentrated conflict. War is...'

 

He swept a hand over his face.

 

"War is background noise here, and I'm stuck here with no freaking idea of how I got here or how to get home. I guess I'm just lucky they haven't shot me in the face or something. Horus likes me, at any rate."

 

At least he'd managed to recover his bags. Clean clothes did wonders for personal morale, though he'd taken pains to conceal his face. But they didn't really trust him. It had pretty much only been supers who had come to see him.

 

Suddenly, there was a knock on his door. An Allied soldier poked his head in.

 

"Mr. Templar sir, your interviewer is here."

 

CT nodded and stood, pushing his thoughts about the topsy-turvy history here to the back of his mind. There were other matters to attend to. It took him only a couple of minutes to enter the bare room, with only a table, two chairs, and a single overhead light...which was turned off, leaving much of the room in shadow.

 

Not that it mattered to Templar; he could see in the dark without effort. And what he saw made him stop short just as the door closed. His mouth fell open as he stared at his interrogator.

 

"Mister..Raven. Sir. Um. Wow. This is actually an honor."

 

He didn't flinch as the light came on; the light blue glow in his eyes simply faded away in a blink, leaving the costumed hero standing there with a slightly raised eyebrow. He wordlessly gestured for Cobalt Templar to sit down. The young ring-slinger all but audibly gulped as he took a seat.

 

He'd thought the Headmaster was intimidating when he was older and had a bum leg. He'd been only partially right. He was really intimidating in his prime, clothed in his armored bodysuit.

Edited by KnightDisciple
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  • 3 weeks later...

Earth-I-War-4

March 1, 1985 (Local Time)

2y 0d 9h 45m 30s Post-Arrival

 

He'd been here two years now. Two years on a world 30 years behind his own on the timeline, locked in a war that should have been done and over 40 years ago. Two years tossed through a portal on an Earth that wasn't right. Two years slowly fitting in with people who were mostly retired where he was from, if they were still alive. Two years knowing that much of Europe was ruled by Emperor Kal-Zed. The Emperor of the Supreme Empire, whose Queen and Princess ruled by his side, and had for 10 years now. 

 

At least some of the heroes knew, by this point, where Kal-Zed had come from. Ultima Thule was slowly making itself known to high-level representatives, but was claiming neutrality; their stance was that the actions of 1-3 of its members was not the actions of all of them. Some weren't sure, but no one was going to argue about it. 

 

Which suited Corbin fine. Bad enough he was caught up in an out-and-out war....

 

He closed his eyes, clenching his fists as he sat in a meditative pose on the bed in his sparse room. 

 

'I can't let myself keep dwelling on this. I'm a historian. I know what happened-happens-in a war. As Patton put it, that's the whole point of a war, of what a soldier does. And besides, I'm not going out frying everyone...'

 

He'd dusted some vampires, but after seeing what the infiltration team of vampires had done to a couple families in that English town, he felt much less remorse about that. The werewolves seemed more interested in straight-up fights, which conversely left him feeling minutely more reluctant to take them down. 

 

The fact of the matter was, he wasn't just a superhero here. He was a soldier. On this world, those words were almost synonymous. He was still accepting that. 

 

'Because it looks like I'm here for a while. Daedalus is working on it, but it's a side project. And...I'm not sure him and the others are putting their heart in it anyways. I...can't fully blame them. Getting an extra hand in a situation this desperate is no small thing.'

 

Finally he sighed and uncurled himself before quickly changing into sleep clothes and slipping into the bed. It was late anyways, and he had patrol duty tomorrow.

Edited by KnightDisciple
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