Hydra Base
Ernst stood in the shadows of the loading dock, watching the chaos unfold outside.
"Dr. Ernst," Azazel asked, his tail flicking with anticipation.
"The Americans are breaching the perimeter. Do we leave?"
"Not yet," Ernst smiled, adjusting his glasses.
"We are here to shop."
He placed a hand on Azazel's shoulder. BAMF.
They reappeared inside the high-security storage vault.
This was where Schmidt kept his hoard, resources too valuable to trust to standard logistics.
Ernst walked past the racks of experimental rifles and gold bullion.
He went straight to the reinforced lockers at the back.
He cracked the seal on a heavy lead crate. Inside, bathing his face in a soft, alien glow, were rows of Tesseract energy cells.
"Beautiful," Ernst whispered.
These weren't just batteries; they were condensed fragments of infinite space.
Each one contained enough potential energy to power a city block, or level it.
"Azazel, take them," Ernst ordered.
"All of them."
Azazel waved his hand.
A swirling portal, a pocket dimension rift, opened in the air.
He began tossing the crates into the void.
"What about the rest?" Azazel asked, gesturing to the mountains of supplies: rations, medical kits, raw vibranium.
"Take it all," Ernst said.
"We are building an empire on an island. We need everything from bullets to bandages. Leave nothing for the Americans."
Within minutes, the warehouse was stripped bare.
The most secure vault in the Reich was empty, looted from the inside out.
The Terrace
Ernst stepped out onto the observation deck.
The cold wind of the Alps whipped his lab coat.
Below, the battle was raging.
But Ernst's eyes were fixed on the runway.
The Valkyrie, the massive flying wing he had helped design, was roaring down the tarmac.
Its engines, powered by the very energy he had just stolen, screamed with blue fire.
Chasing it was a sleek roadster.
Ernst enhanced his vision with a focus of mental energy.
He saw Captain America leaping from the car to the plane's landing gear.
Driving the car was a woman with dark hair and steely determination.
Peggy Carter.
"Goodbye, Steve," Ernst murmured.
"Go be a hero. I'll see you in seventy years."
He turned to Azazel.
"Time to go. Get a car."
They commandeered a heavy-duty Hydra staff car.
Ernst took the wheel, while Azazel sat in the back, checking the action on two MG-42 machine guns he had pulled from his inventory.
They sped toward the perimeter gate.
"Halt!"
A squad of US Army Rangers blocked the road. A Major stepped forward, raising his Thompson.
"That's him!" the Major shouted, recognizing Ernst from the intelligence briefings.
"It's Ernst! Operation Paperclip Priority One! Take him alive! I want that promotion!"
Ernst floored the accelerator.
"Hold on," he said calmly.
Bullets hammered the car wheels.
Ernst didn't flinch.
His brain processed the trajectory of every incoming round.
He jerked the wheel left, then right, dodging the heavy fire with mathematical precision.
A bullet grazed his cheek, but his kinetic absorption neutralized it instantly.
"Azazel," Ernst said.
"Clear the path."
Azazel kicked the rear door open.
He didn't just fire; he unleashed a storm.
With infinite ammo from his pocket dimension, he suppressed the entire squad, forcing them to dive for cover.
They burst through the blockade, speeding down the icy mountain road.
"They are still coming," Azazel reported, looking back.
Two US Army trucks were roaring up behind them, filled with soldiers.
A radio operator in the lead truck was frantically calling for air support.
"If they call in a P-51, we are finished," Ernst calculated.
"We need to end this."
He looked at the terrain. They were entering a narrow pass.
Above them, tons of snow hung precariously on the cliffs, destabilized by the fighting.
"Rocket launcher," Ernst ordered.
Azazel handed him a Panzerschreck.
Ernst kept one hand on the wheel, drifting the car around a hairpin turn.
He rolled down the window and aimed the launcher at the cliff face above the pursuing trucks.
He didn't aim for the trucks.
He aimed for the stress point of the snowpack.
Trajectory locked. Wind speed accounted for.
Fwoosh.
The rocket streaked upward, slamming into the mountainside.
BOOM.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then, a low rumble began, growing into a roar.
The entire face of the mountain sheared off.
A white tsunami of snow and rock cascaded down.
Ernst slammed on the gas, pushing the engine to its limit to outrun the slide.
Behind them, the American trucks slammed on their brakes, but it was too late.
The white wall swallowed them whole.
The roar faded. The road behind them was gone, buried under fifty feet of snow.
Ernst slowed the car. "Pursuit terminated."
Three hours later, they reached a hidden cave network Ernst had marked on his maps months ago.
They drove the car inside.
Ernst covered it with a thermal-dampening tarp.
He walked to the cave entrance and carved a subtle cross into the rock, a marker for future retrieval.
"We rest here," Ernst said, checking his watch.
"The war is effectively over. Now, we wait for the dust to settle."
He looked at the metal box containing the Tesseract batteries.
----
Author's Note:
The US Major didn't shout, 'Stop in the name of the law!' or 'For freedom!'
No, he shouted, 'I want that promotion!'
That man is the most realistic character I've written so far. He knows Operation Paperclip is coming, and he just wants to secure his government pension by capturing the top scientist.
Unfortunately, Ernst's counteroffer was a mountain of snow."