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Manstrong Winning in The Battalion Underneath the Earth

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Manstrong Winning felt something was amiss. Years as a spy in World War II had honed his feline senses to nearly supernatural levels. He couldn't tell what was wrong yet, though, and that was what put him most at unease.

The Berlin street was busy for a summer afternoon due to the year's unseasonably cool weather. Some of those shoppers began to feel something, too. Heads lifted, worried glances were cast over shoulders... a feeling of implacable anxiety most hadn't felt since the end of the Third Reich.

Manstrong kept his ears perked and disposed of the note from the OSS. He spread his newspaper around the note, struck a match to it and waited for the note to smolder before crumpling the newspaper around it, smothering the small flame.

As Manstrong tossed the paper into the trash he suddenly realized what was wrong. His subconscious had felt the rumbling of the earth beneath his paws long before he'd become truly aware. His mind drifted back to the note he'd just destroyed.

Subterranean attackers had struck a dozen places around the world. The attacks, of course, were known but the nature of those attacks remained vague in the news, eye witness accounts hushed by the authorities. Manstrong had just read them, though. Molemen had attacked.

Manstrong checked his surroundings as he moved to his car, trying to figure out where the ground would be breached, but he had no real idea. Suddenly the street began to sag, nearby cars sliding into the pit.

A crack appeared in the sagging street, spreading more rapidly than the suddenly panicked citizens could react. Cars tumbled into the widening chasm and the roadway crumbled beneath a man's feet as he vanished into the pit.

More cracks spread like lightning shafts from the gorge's edge, splitting and pitching sidewalk tiles. The diners at a street side bistro screamed as some were thrown from shattering slabs of concrete while others collapsed, tables and all, into the earthen maw.

The drill that finally exited the hole, streaked in red from fresh victims, rose from the pit like a dread tower. It was wider than a man was tall, studded with hooked claws along the ridges.

The cylindrical machine that followed behind was surrounded by tank treads, giving it no true top or bottom, and as the whole device collapsed onto its side the street shook.

The stunned populace ran in fear when the two creatures emerged from the side of the machine, clouds of dust wreathing them as the door opened. One was as tall as Manstrong, the other short and hunched, both covered in matted fur where armor did not cover their bodies. On one arm each had a gauntlet of oversized claws and on the other a long, thin drill was mounted. They scanned the street like lost tourists.

Neither of them heard the car coming in time. Manstrong plowed his vehicle into the taller of the pair, the creature only managing to raise its claw before it was struck. It pitched over the hood and tumbled to the street while the car skidded to a stop.

As Manstrong rolled out of the car's open door the other moleman was approaching, its long drill beginning to spin up to speed and the blades of its claw glowing like embers. It dragged a heavy tail with an end like a hammer.

Manstrong drew his gun too fast for the moleman to react, sending three bullets flying to deflect off of the creature's helmet. None of the shots penetrated but the creature did back up, its claw rising to shield its beady eyes and long snout.

The taller moleman pushed itself up from the ground and called to its partner in a voice somehow both barbaric and mechanical, like stone scraping on steel. The advancing mole man halted and both retreated to their digging machine. It took off down the street, cutting a trench through the street rather than diving.

Manstrong jumped back into his car and took off in pursuit. The machine left an unmistakable trail of wreckage behind it and his car was easily gaining distance. It was hazardous going, though, with the street cut in two and chunks of whatever barriers the digging machine found tossed from its drill: cars, street lights, chunks of sidewalk... he hoped pedestrians would not be added to that list.

As Manstrong finally passed the drilling behemoth he reached into a hidden compartment under the dashboard and pulled out a block of plastic explosives, arming the detonator just as he skidded to a halt in front of the drill. He leapt from the car just moments before the drill struck.

The reinforced armor of the spy's car made for a difficult meal, the drill slowing drastically as it slowly unwound the steel of the modified conveyance, and after a few seconds the bomb exploded. The drill was wreathed in flame, teetering on its axles as the machinery behind it ground disastrously... though the steel cone remained intact.

The machine was devastated, though, and the drill no longer chewed the asphalt in a straight line. The whole machine was drawn in a wayward path, bits of the burning husk bouncing off until it struck the side of an abandoned factory, chewing through the wall and crashing inside.

Manstrong drew his gun again when he saw the two armored molemen exit the hole in the factory. As he leveled his pistol a new sound came from behind. Casting a careful glance over his shoulder he barely had enough warning to leap aside.

Two massive robots charged down the street, steel statues in the rough shape of a man with swastikas emblazoned on their square chests. Each stood one and a half times a man's height and one nearly crushed Manstrong underfoot as it charged past.

The robots attempted to simply smash the smaller molemen with their oversized arms. The shorter moleman swept out its tail, knocking the legs out from under one machine while the taller mole man struck with its claws and drill. The attack was useless, though, the mechanical weapons having apparently been broken in the crash and the machine crushed him to the ground with locomotive force. It turned to attack the shorter moleman while the other robot climbed back to its feet.

Manstrong charged. Whatever the crimes of these molemen a Nazi was still worse. And Manstrong was a Nazi hunter first and foremost. Soundlessly he slid into the back of the robot's leg and lifted with all his might.

The machine was even heavier than it looked but the surprise strike still threw it off balance. As the automaton plummeted to the ground the remaining moleman plunged his spinning drill into the robot's head, luckily unbroken in the crash, rending the machinery inside into a soup of mechanical parts.

A beam launched from the other robot's fist as it rose from the ground and struck the moleman in the head. There was no noticeable damage but the grating, metal scream the moleman gave was chilling. As it fell dead to the ground steam rose from the smoldering hair on its body. Manstrong dove away as another beam sought him out.

As the machine advanced on him, raising its arms for a battering-ram strike, Manstrong unsheathed his knife and leapt forward. The point slid into the solitary, glowing eye and he slipped away before it could respond.

Manstrong had never fought a robot before but he knew that for all the protection their steel bodies afforded the machinery inside was delicate and the joints were always vulnerable. He slipped up behind the wildly swinging robot and climbed up to its shoulders. With no nerves it would not even feel him clinging to it.

Manstrong wrapped his arms around the automaton's neck and pulled with all his might. Minutes of grunting, muscle-straining work and finally the seams ripped, the neck joints separating and the head ripping free with a trail of snapped wires. And the robot fell dead.

Manstrong sat in the abandoned warehouse with the wrecked digging machine and listened in to the police radio. In his line of work a small transmitter capable of picking up official channels was even better than a gun. Working for the OSS had some very nice perks.

The police had cordoned off the street and were approaching slowly, uncertain if the fighting had really ended or not. The abandoned factory had no phone and his radio could only receive signals. He needed to find a way to call his superiors... though he wasn't really ready to make a report.

Upon removing the molemen's helmets he'd discovered that they were not molemen at all. The fur was not their own but part of the armor, possibly for insulation though as far as Manstrong knew it should be warmer below the earth.

The two creatures seemed to be some sort of lizard person but their scales were patterned in striking colors unlike any reptile he'd ever seen. Both had died, of course, and what was left of the shorter one's face had been melted by the beam. The other, however, had some sort of bone spur like a comb on its head that was unlike anything he'd ever seen on a reptile. If they looked like anything... it was a dinosaur fossil.

Then he looked inside the digging machine and found another one, still alive. She, the figure clearly female despite a lack of breasts or hair, seemed to be in some sort of drugged state. She was adorned sparsely, little more than a hide bra and loincloth though they were both richly embroidered. He took advantage of her compromised state to tie her to an old chair in the factory.

She began coming to and, after a few groggy seconds, her eyes sharpened and locked onto him in simmering fury. "So you have captured me again."

"This is the first time I've seen you." Manstrong replied steadily, "I don't even know what you are."

The girl, who shared the comb-like spur of her dead companion and possessed brilliant yellow streaks in her black scales, snarled at him. "Since when do Nazis have a sense of humor?"

Manstrong smiled disarmingly. "So those robots really do serve Nazis. I would really like to know more about them."

She glared at him for a few more seconds and then broke her gaze, "you seem... sincere. But you are of the same kind as the Nazis. Covered in fur."

"The Nazis would not be at all happy to hear that comparison." Manstrong attempted to lighten her mood.

"I must admit," she seemed suddenly uncomfortable. "The Nazis never mentioned working with the surface world. We... just assumed."

"They most certainly do not." Manstrong leaned back in his chair. "Let me see if I've pieced this together... you are from below the surface of the earth and there are Nazis down there?"

She nodded her head slowly. "I am Ackma, the princess of my people. I was being rescued from the Nazis...." Her eyes fell on her companion's corpses and a bottomless sadness entered her.

"Do all of your people know German so well?" Manstrong stepped behind her and undid the knots binding her wrists. He felt a show of good faith would win her over fully.

"No, most do not. But as royalty it was my task to make peace with the Nazis. Instead they took me captive." She rubbed the chaffed scales of her wrists and stood, "and what connection do you have with these Nazis? All I know is that they came from the surface."

Manstrong laughed, "you gave them too much credit. A Nazi is rarely clever enough to be deceitful. They would rather be bullies. And I am something of a Nazi hunter."

Ackma grinned back at him, her mouth filled with unnervingly sharp teeth. It was not a smile of mirth, however... she looked like she'd just solved a puzzle. "Then I shall need your help. We must reach Hyperborea!"

Smit was a small rat, fur a smoky gray and his small eyes filled with suspicion. He was cantankerous, selfish and mostly lacking in any qualities that would make up for his failings. But he had one good quality. He hated Nazis so much that it made up for everything else.

Right now his paranoid eyes were on Ackma while his boney fingers examined the strange equipment on the table in front of him.

Manstrong hung up the telephone Smit had provided him with, having just told the OSS about the location of the day's fight. When they had asked him about survivors he stared straight at Ackma... and told them there were none.

"Why did you lie to them?" Smit was still staring at Ackma who was growing quite irate with the unpleasant rat.

"The OSS doesn't know what Ackma's told me... and probably wouldn't really believe it. Due to... certain events they would see her kind as their enemies." Ackma gave him a hard look and he wondered if she was aware of her people's recent attacks on the surface.

"And why should I believe her? If the OSS wouldn't then why should I doubt them?" Smit plucked at his threadbare suit, "and I certainly don't see any reason I should give you my Messerschmitt."

"It's to fight Nazis." Ackma had spoken up this time, her oddly trilling voice hanging in the air with the simple phrase.

Smit stared at her for a few seconds before shaking his head. "Bullshit."

"I saw the machines with my own eyes, Smit." Manstrong folded his arms, his own temper growing a little short. "The robots I fought with had swastikas on them!"

"It could have been a trick." Smit folded his arms back obstinately.

"Damn it Smit," Manstrong finally growled. "You only got that Messerschmitt because of me!"

"Why do you deal with this coward?" Ackma spoke again and Smit sputtered in anger.

"Back during our war with the Nazis," Manstrong explained, "this is where the Nazis were from. I was here spying on them and Smit here, he was a gun runner."

"A what?" Ackma glanced at him in confusion.

Manstrong pulled his gun out to show her, "a weapon I'm sure the Nazis have used against you. Smit here was a criminal who smuggled them. But he hated the Nazis and started smuggling them to the resistance. I tracked him down and we started working together."

Smit joined in with a nostalgic grin, "Mr. Winning here would find out when the Nazis kept their guns and I'd send in my henchmen to steal them. Then I'd move them to the resistance. As time went on we stepped up our game, started stealing experimental weapons. One time we got so brave we even stole an experimental jet!"

"What is a jet?" Ackma seemed to be only half following their explanation.

"A flying machine," Manstrong smiled at the shock on her face. Of course a subterranean creature wouldn't dream of flight. "And this is a very, very fast one at that. And now he just keeps it as a trophy!"

"It is my trophy!" Smit whined, "it's my greatest accomplishment!"

Ackma's eyes locked on his with a palpably predatory calm that froze Smit, "if you do not give us this... jet, your world will die."

At Smit's silence Manstrong sighed, "perhaps you should share your story, too."

Ackma nodded, "my people live within the earth. Some time ago these Nazis arrived in my home. They set to slaughtering my people and built some sort of strange machine... a machine that is leaching the very heat from the core of the earth! And the longer it runs the colder the earth becomes."

Smit whimpered at Manstrong, "the unusually cold summer?"

The feline nodded solemnly. "Only the start."

The rat regained some courage under the dinosaur's gaze, "but I've heard stories that these... 'molemen' were attacking our cities."

Ackma shrugged. "You looked the same as Nazis."

Smit spit suddenly, "spoken like a Nazi!"

Manstrong raised his hands to separate them even as Ackma began to rise, "Whoa! Calm down! Ackma no longer thinks we're all the same. So how about you stop judging her by the rest of her people, too?"

Smit sighed, "fine. You're right. You can have the Messerschmitt. I'll arrange refueling points. Where is it you're going?"

"Hyperborea." Ackma proclaimed.

"Where?" Smit queried.

Manstrong shook his head at Ackma, "Antarctica."

Smit only grew more confused. "Why in the world would you need to go there?"

"There were documents after the war. Insane experiments, impossible claims and unlikely tales abounded as we sifted through the ruins of the Nazis. We thought that machines like that Messerschmitt were the height of terrible ingenuity once." Manstrong shook his head, "We all thought the other things in those documents were impossible."

"I am still lost." Smit rubbed his temples.

"The Nazi's had some bizarre beliefs when they got spiritual. That's what the Thule society was all about. They were always searching for a lost homeland they believed all the purebreds had come from. Underground cities, lost continents... it was a strange obsession, separating themselves from all the other peoples of the world. Well, there were some weird hints at the end of the war that they'd established a submarine base in Antarctica and found their fabled underground home. But all we found were rumors that we eventually concluded were nothing more than that."

"The Nazis really came from an underground city?" Smit seemed incredulous.

"Of course not!" Ackma hissed, "the fools found your ancient legends whispering of my people, probably. They just assumed it was their land and came to steal it!"

"Ok, fine." Smit shook his head, "but now your homeland is nothing but ice. Why go there, specifically? Surely you could rebuild your digging machine or something."

"My people's armies are massing in old Hyperborea," Ackma's eyes took on a furious intensity. "We intend to sneak in the same way they did and have one last battle for the sake of our world."

"Sounds like that plan is already well underway," Smit smirked.

"I learned something terrible while the Nazis held me prisoner, though." Ackma's voice fell to a whisper.

"Say, it just struck me." Smit tapped his chin, "if you've been captive all this time how did you know your people were doing this?"

Ackma's voice cracked with fear, "because the Nazis already know all about it! They're laying a trap!"

Manstrong and Ackma sat at a small table on an overgrown runway in Australia. Local smugglers, acquaintances of Smit's, labored at the jet's upkeep. They had come earlier to clear debris from the landing strip. They were all professional enough not to ask what this was all about even with the impossible Ackma in front of them. Criminals could be frighteningly professional sometimes.

Manstrong, as usual, stared at the Messerschmitt. A prototype of the Me 262 with a second cockpit in the nose for a bombardier. Otherwise it looked like the version that was put to use in the war, but the engines were unique, pulsing with an eerie red light. Those engines were capable of speeds to fast to shoot down and distances as large as a continent. It had been intended to make unstoppable bombing raids on targets as far away as the US.

Seeing the rocket plane again took Manstrong back. It had been a long time since the war and all the terror it had filled the German people with. The citizens had lived in fear, always looking over their shoulders waiting for the secret police or the draft or even the regular police to come for them. Most thought those days were over but Manstrong lived a different life. Too many Nazis had escaped at the end of the war. He had found some but far too many were still out there... and some of them still schemed.

Ackma stared off into the distant Australian jungle while she worked on the scavenged remains of her peoples' weapons. On each of their stops she tinkered away at them diligently. Ackma had been confused when he questioned why a princess would be so capable. It appeared her people were somewhat more akin to barbarians in their social structure, their leaders retaining their position through power and ability alone.

Suddenly she broke the silence. "I wonder if that is what Hyperborea looked like."

Manstrong turned his gaze toward the jungles as well, "I would think you would know best."

"My people abandoned Hyperborea so long ago it is almost legend." She looked away as if embarrassed. "Once my kind covered this earth... but fire rained down from the sky and destroyed our civilization. First half the world drowned in fire. Then the ash blocked the sun and the world fell into endless winter. We in Hyperborea had known of a great chasm that led all the way to the interior of the earth but it was a barren place we'd had no use for. With the ice and cold slowly killing us, though... we fled to the core. We took what plants and animals we could and over centuries finally managed to make the interior livable."

"Why did you never return to the surface, though? The ice age ended ages past." Manstrong returned a wave to the crew leader; the jet was ready for take-off.

"At times we checked the chasm back to the surface, a hard journey on its own, but all we found was endless ice. We assumed that the world remained frozen. It seems history has played a prank on us, freezing our jungles while the rest of the earth thrived." Ackma gathered up the equipment. "These are ready for use. None too soon."

"Aren't your people more accustomed to the underground now anyway?" Manstrong inspected the items. The drill was the largest, removed from a suit's arm and fitted with a brace. Next came the claw, lightened of its armor to leave only the wicked blades and their heating mechanism.

Ackma laughed, placing a magnetic device into their cargo. Removed from a boot meant for climbing, it was now hand held and activated with an electric current. "We do not live in the caves and the rock, Manstrong! We live in the interior!"

Manstrong closed their luggage box and a pair of crewmen took it to the jet. "I don't understand...."

"You will." Ackma picked up the final device, a sort of magnetic sextant that she said would guide them to the opening in old Hyperborea. The thing operated on too many axis at once for him to decipher it but she could read the thing. Antarctica was a big place... and they didn't have time to scour it even if the weather didn't have the potential to kill them.

In a few moments they were in the air, their last friendly airstrip fading behind them as the jet's impossible speed pressed him hard into his seat. Manstrong was plenty worried as the ocean slipped by beneath them, soon the only thing visible in any direction. Ackma's people still hadn't realized the surface people were not allies to the Nazis. They could kill him the moment they saw him.

Then there was her strange navigational device; did it really work above the surface the same as it worked below? Had it been damaged? They could be lost with nowhere to land. And the pole itself; storms could smack them out of the air, or ice over the engines and make them too heavy to fly. The cold itself could overcome the rocket plane's heaters and freeze them to death. There were so many ways they could die that success seemed impossible.

As the coast of the frozen continent slipped over the horizon Ackma called back to him, "change course two ticks left." Manstrong didn't really know how much a tick was so he just did his best. With a little more instruction from her they had their course plotted.

Manstrong had never seen Antarctica before and hadn't been sure what to expect. There was more exposed ground than he had expected though the sheets of ice were growing more frequent as they flew further inland.

In the tight cabin and the thin air hours grew long and it felt like days they flew into the endless white emptiness. The chill chewed ever inward, the heat of the cockpit failing further with each passing moment. Manstrong sought some conversation with the strange woman he flew with but, despite all the mysteries that still surrounded her, he could not fashion his curiosity into questions.

A sudden exclamation of excitement from Ackma drew him from his daydreams, "look, in the ice! The frozen jungles! We grow near!"

Manstrong strained his eyes into the fields of ice and, vague though they may be through the warped glass of frozen aeons, a dead jungle lay petrified below. Then, in the distance, the landscape changed suddenly. The white gave way to dark gray and smoke rose in billowing clouds. As the structure came more into view he dropped their speed to prepare for landing and spied a clear road leading into its gates that they could land on.

As the Messerschmitt descended Manstrong took in the view with stunned dread. The base was massive, the size of a small town, encased in a dome of concrete reminiscent of Nazi war bunkers. Even though he knew it must have been real... seeing it was another thing. Such a massive hiding place for his foes existing in secret all throughout the war... it was unthinkable.

The rocket plane bounced against the rough road with a shuddering gait and Manstrong hoped that it would not prove too uneven for a landing, but as they drew nearer the road grew more even, packed hard by a succession of marching feet. As they slowed to a stop within the open gate a panic erupted amongst the dinosaurs inside.

A number of the mole-like, armored suits began to advance on the plane and Manstrong prepared for an escape. Ackma pushed open the roof of her nosecone cockpit before he could react, though, and stood for all to see.

She spread her arms, proclaiming in a tongue Manstrong could not understand. The true language of the dinosaur people, the one her guardians had spoken though without the grating metal sound the suits had lent. The language still sounded savage, though, a snarl and cant that reminded him of a fearsome predator.

The dinosaurs halted at her words and she gestured back to Manstrong as she continued speaking. He rose slowly from the cockpit to a hoard of varied faces staring at him. Manstrong realized they were not all the same; some were like Ackma while others were shorter and hunched, their bodies armored and their tails bearing a weight of bone at the end; clearly what Ackma's shorter guardian had been. Others had long necks or assortments of horns or armor on their heads.

One of the dinosaur men stepped forward and spoke in their tongue, the words unknown but the tone obviously disdainful. As the armored suits again approached the other dinosaur people returned to their tasks. Sensing something had gone wrong Manstrong slipped his pistol into his hand.

Ackma turned to him with a snarl, "they believe you have deceived me! We are both to be restrained. And we are too late; the attack begins now!"

Peering into the distance Manstrong could see their army gathering around a massive, blast-shield door in the center of the fortress that must surely cover the passage to the interior. All at once sirens began going off and the doors slid open.

And out of those doors came pandemonium. Arcs of the strange, red beams the Nazi robots had fired burst out, some as thick as a dozen men. They damaged neither armor nor vehicles but those inside died in screaming agony. In seconds the robots were flooding out of the hole, beams arcing wide to kill the dinosaurs in prodigious numbers. Behind them came some sort of ray cannon mounted on spider legs that dug into the walls of the tunnel as they climbed.

As the armored suits surrounding them turned to face the chaos Manstrong and Ackma leapt back into their plane and he fired up the engine. There was still a considerable distance before the Nazi machines could reach them. Plenty of time to take off.

"We must flee!" Ackma called to him from inside the plane, "we cannot win this battle!"

Manstrong did not flee, though. As the jet lifted from the ground he aimed directly for the center of the battle. The Nazi robots seemed almost surprised to see a jet rocket over their heads and then down the hole, turning to track their thunderous passage. The enemy's shock passed quickly, though, and beams of energy fired wide around them though the jet was much too fast for them to aim at.

As Manstrong checked behind them he saw one of the robots, larger and more decorated than the others, lift off the ground with gouts of fire bursting from its feet and take off in pursuit of them.

The flying robot took a few shots at them that Manstrong barely evaded. Scrambling for a solution he cut the engines, letting the fall alone carry them downward and preserving their dwindling fuel. With no engine flames they became practically invisible in the tunnel and the pursuer's attacks ceased.

After some time Manstrong felt gravity shift; one moment they were plummeting like a rock and then suddenly they were lifting skyward. The bottom fell out of his stomach and he struggled to startup the engines again before they fell back. With a sputtering rumble the rocket engines burst back to life and Manstrong had to fight the controls to aim them straight again.

Then, in the distance, he saw a faint red light growing slowly larger as they flew on. He called down to Ackma, "so there's going to be some sort of huge cave down there, right? Somewhere we can land?"

Ackma laughed at him, "oh, there'll be plenty of space to land."

Then they drew close enough for Manstrong to understand. The ball of light did not fill the hole, in fact, but merely hovered in its center. The churning, sun-like core of the earth simply floated in open space. An open space that spread impossibly large. Clouds floated in the sky and sometimes he thought he could see distant oceans and continents on the far side of the glowing core.

"The earth... is hollow?" Manstrong could hardly believe his eyes at the sight.

"Ages and ages just below your feet we've lived and you never knew. And for us, you lived unknown beneath our feet. A strange world we live in." Ackma sounded wistful at the sight of her native sky.

A sudden beam of energy cut short her thoughts. As Manstrong veered their jet out of the way the larger, flying robot emerged from the gloom behind them somehow still keeping pace.

More beams arched from its hands, seeking to rake the Messerschmitt as Manstrong fought the controls to evade them. The fuel gauge dipped dangerously low. No matter what happened they needed to be out of this plane soon or they would die!

The tunnel, though massive, still offered nothing in the way of cover and Manstrong did not know how long he could keep dodging the robot's blasts. They were nearing the lip, though, and once out evading their pursuer would become much easier, assuming they retained any fuel.

Just as they pulled over the concrete rim of the tunnel Manstrong pulled down, using the edge as cover while he scanned for a safe place to land, but the robot anticipated his move and flew in close beneath them. The automaton wrapped its oversized arms around their tail and ripped it right off the plane.

Manstrong knew there was no hope of keeping the jet aloft so instead he struggled for a smooth crash and searched for a safe place to go down.

All he saw was ice. There were the hints of buildings, buried in ice and snow, but only hints. What had once clearly been a mighty city was now reduced to a frozen tomb. He did his best to at least angle down a street, hoping the cockpit would remain safe. When the Messerschmitt struck the ground he could feel his bones grinding with the impact.

The wings struck buildings on either side, sheering off while the rocket engines erupted into flame and billowing smoke. The trunk of the plane continued on and Manstrong spared a glance down for Ackma, in the greatest danger down in the nose cone. She appeared to be alive but if they struck anything... that could all change.

The plane was beginning to slow, the ruins of the dead city no longer rushing past in a torrent, and the slowed motion left the cockpit pitching to the side, rolling as it slid forward. He saw an approaching snow bank and helplessly feared what might be buried beneath. The plane struck.

Manstrong awoke suddenly, the panic of the crash still fresh in his mind. He wasn't completely numb yet so he guessed it had not been long.

The plane's wreckage was nearly upside down, the nosecone having cleared the snow bank easily while it shattered his window and bent the cockpit's bars. Much further and they may have crushed his skull. He checked himself quickly for injuries, unlatched his harness and crawled out of the ruined jet.

The first thing he noticed was that Ackma was nowhere to be seen. She had not pulled him out before departing, either. Had she thought he was dead? Or perhaps she had only been interested in him for a way back to the core. It was possible she had never really trusted him at all.

As he opened up the storage compartment he reflected on this new predicament. Down here he was lost and the core was far colder than he'd thought it would be. Without a guide he wasn't sure how long he could live down here. Even when he retrieved his heavy, woolen clothing from the storage compartment he could still feel the bite of freezing air.

He was a little bit surprised to find that Ackma had left the drill behind. She had taken the other weapons for herself, though.

Manstrong decided to take stock of his surroundings. Behind, past a deep trench of filthy snow leading from the plan, he could see the flames of burning engines still raging. And before those flames, approaching him from a far shorter distance than he'd like, was the robot that had shot them down flanked by two of the smaller model.

He checked in the other direction, seeing a pure black tower rising impossibly high, like a dagger aimed at the earth's core. The ebon spire seemed to crackle somehow against the horizon, a blackness that drew all else into itself. He was not prepared for such a nightmare sight.

Calming himself after that unnerving view, Manstrong looked around himself for some sort of cover. The buildings were mostly single floor, wide structures and the ice had not been kind to them. While they were not completely covered their roofs were under layers of heavy ice and many had collapsed under the weight, leaving the buildings fragile and crumbling.

Taking up his drill he turned to face the approaching machines, standing his ground defiantly. It may well be a hopeless battle but he could at least meet it with dignity and hope his distraction could speed Ackma on her way.

The three machines arrived at the intersection where he waited and halted to scan him uncertainly. He had a better look at the larger automaton now; the body was roughly rectangular, taller than it was wide, with the arms and legs springing from its corners, far too blocky for human limbs. But while the others had only a simple, cyclopean head their leader had a separate compartment embedded between its shoulders like a smaller torso with a sculpted, red-eyed Death's Head rising from it.

"Why do you not run?" Its voice crackled like an old radio, wholly different from the grinding tones of the dinosaurs' suits, and somehow it sounded distinctly feminine.

"I am a man." Manstrong took up the drill in both hands, pulling the switch and letting the bit spin up to speed. "And a man does not hide from a machine!"

Manstrong leapt into action just as the machines began plodding forward, charging straight at one and ducking its clumsy swing. The drill punched through its chest effortlessly. He felt the tool pull as the hooks caught onto gears and wires within its husk, rending its internal machinery into useless debris.

As Manstrong pulled the drill free he stepped back from the other robot's advance, their leader still watching the battle silently. It had learned from watching his attack and was guarding itself, preventing Manstrong from getting in close. When he tried to strike the arms with his drill they would beat the tip harmlessly away.

Manstrong's back struck the iced over wall of an old building and he cursed, looking to the side for a path of escape, but if he widened the gap too much the robot might use its strange beams on him instead.

He had not heard Ackma at all as she watched from the building's roof. As she waited for them to move in close. She leapt over the edge and hit the ground directly in front of Manstrong, the long claws having each melted their own path right through the machine.

As they both dove away from the tumbling wreckage they turned toward their last adversary, rolling back into upright positions to either side of their fallen attacker... but the leader was gone.

"How could it move so silently?" Ackma scanned down side streets.

"Where were you at?" Manstrong growled instead of responding, "I'd thought you'd abandoned me!"

Ackma's eyes were fierce, "I was scouting the area. I had to find what we needed with all haste. Else we'd have been running blind."

Manstrong tried to calm himself down. "So did you find what you were looking for?"

She merely nodded and walked down the street. He followed with a sigh, "so this is where you were from?"

Ackma nodded again, "this was the capital of our empire, Agartha. Sadly, it was also the first of our cities to fall. A city that stood hundreds of thousands of years and in a few weeks we had abandoned it, moving to Shambala." She pointed into the horizon. It took Manstrong a moment to realize that the sky was full of other lands.

"Once we'd been driven out the Nazis built that tower on the horizon. It somehow steals the warmth from the core. I believe it must be similar to their microwave beams. As our cities froze we had no choice but to flee toward the surface."

"Microwaves? Like a radar? They can kill someone?" Manstrong grunted, "it's not something they used in the war against us. Their leader must have invented it."

"He calls himself Siegmund." Ackma set her shoulder against the door of a building and began pushing.

Manstrong joined in, the iced over hinges squealing as the frozen joints cracked their sheaths and slid open. "It's not a name I know... except from legends."

With the door opened the frost sheathed interior remained shrouded in darkness but Manstrong could see more of the digging machines that had raided the surface. "Why did you have these even before fleeing the core?"

"Mining has always been necessary to our survival. We simply retrofitted what we already had." Ackma seemed almost embarrassed, "war is something new to us. It has long been a struggle to stay alive, not to kill."

"Yet they killed many pure breeds before they fled!" They both turned at the voice and saw the robot's leader fall from the sky onto the roof of another building. Immediately twin beams of microwave energy burst from its hands, raking the doorway to the factory. As Ackma dove inward the beam struck an old container of fuel which instantly exploded, tossing Manstrong out into the street.

He turned to search for Ackma but the building was a ruin of flames. It was impossible to survive that blast at such a close range.

A heavy, iron fist smashed down against Manstrong's back and he crumbled to the ground at the feet of a robot, more coming to surround him from every direction.

"Do not kill him!" The ring of soulless machines took a step back, making way for the leader as it came forward. He tried to run but could not regain his feet in time. Its hands closed around his entire arms and lifted him from the ground.

The embellished chest of the machine opened up, the head lifting up and back to expose its interior and Manstrong was shocked to find a woman, dressed in an SS officer's uniform, seated within the robot.

"I am Sieglinde." Manstrong identified her as a German shepherd by her markings, "and you have been a great deal of trouble. Simply killing you will no longer satisfy my brother and I."

She spoke into a microphone in the cockpit, "search for the girl's remains." Then the cockpit resealed and the robot suit launched into the air.

Manstrong shivered, the flight taking the freezing air and turning it into a wind he wasn't sure he'd survive. "What do you intend of me, then?"

"You will witness the end of your surface world. You will witness the birth of the new pure breed race. And then, only then, will you finally die. After you have seen how useless your defiance was." She responded dispassionately.

"Your brother is Siegmund? I never knew of such a man during the war. And where are all the other soldiers." Manstrong yelled against the rushing wind.

"Yes, he is my brother but our names are not the ones you would have heard. We have taken those names as we will give birth to the first leader of the new pure race when we have our first son, Siegfried. As for the others, well... we were the only survivors of the war with the dinosaurs. We replaced our fallen with the robots but our race must begin anew."

Manstrong felt sick, "you intend to bear your brother's children? And you believe that will somehow be pure?"

Sieglinde laughed at him, "your fear of incest is for the weak blood of lesser races. It was once common for pure breeds and with truly pure blood it can only strengthen us! Better that the soldiers died, leaving us to begin anew for our blood is the absolute purest!"

"So only your one breed will remain in your new world?" Manstrong dreaded more with each word she spoke.

"All the better," she replied. "The breeds will never again become mixed."

When they landed finally in front of the tower Manstrong could not even move his arms yet his attention was drawn to the tower alone. It loomed impossibly, rising nearly to the core itself and vanishing into the distant sky at such a range his mind could not understand it. The tower must literally be miles tall and stood, somehow defiant of the laws of nature.

While he could not make use of his arms the robot suit plucked the drill from his back. As Sieglinde exited the robot she retrieved the drill, slinging it across her back and pulling her firearm. "Now go."

She led him to the entrance, a massive archway of carved, black stone that opened only to the sound of her voice. Once inside the floor was mainly but for the presence of elevators scattered around the walls. He finally felt blood and warmth returning to his arms and was sure he would be able to use them again soon. If he lived long enough.

"Soon the winter we've cast the core into will spread through the rock and dirt, and the surface too will freeze. And before anyone can figure out why or how to stop it they will have all died. Then, finally, we will reclaim our rightful place as the rulers of this world. A world now purified of all lesser life!" Her smile held nothing of humanity and Manstrong wondered where her heart had gone. It was something Nazis had often made him wonder.

She led him to one of the oversized elevators, easily capable of carrying several vehicles skyward. "So the surface has already learned of us has it? No matter. While they try to invade and stop us they will have to do battle with an army the likes of which they've never imagined!" As the elevator rose rockets burst to life on each of the corners, carrying them through the vertical miles of floors swiftly. Each floor contained a massive factory, completely automated by robotic arms and massive machines. From smelting iron to assembling robots, each step required no human input.

"And we've been building this army for years without pause." As the elevator breached the factory floors and continued upward they passed through towering warehouses filled with more robots, inactive, packed so thickly there was barely space between them. Thousands, then hundreds of thousands, and when they passed from one warehouse floor they simply entered another.

"I'm not sure the Nazis dreamed of robots replacing humans or wiping out all life on earth." Manstrong was growing desperate; how could he possibly stop such a massive army? Desperately he tried to find some way to turn Sieglinde on her brother.

"The party was... too limited in its view." She cackled wickedly.

Finally they were done with the warehouses and now each floor was filled with giant batteries that lined the walls and standing in pillars that filled each chamber, repeating for miles upward. "The core's energy, I assume?"

She nodded, "perhaps you are not quite so inferior as I thought. But then, of all the Untermensch on the surface world of course the least worthless would find us first. We have drained the heat of the core and converted it into microwave energy. Then we stored that energy and use it to power all of our machines. Two birds, one stone."

Manstrong gave up on turning her against her brother; humanity was clearly something lost to her. Instead he attempted to disarm her, twisting and going for her gun, but all she had to do was give him a slap and he fell to the ground. While he lay on the ground she placed her boot on his neck, "I'm surprised it took you so long to find your courage, feline."

The elevator finally reached its destination, settling at the far end of a massive throne room. Sieglinde allowed him to stand again while she set his drill aside and he examined the great hall. Gold walls, red carpets and ornate statues spread throughout the deserted interior of the tower's zenith.

At the far end there stood a massive throne of purple cushions and gold decoration with a swastika carved into its top. Above them there was no roof, just the churning orange ball of the earth's core floating overhead, casting its pallid light on the man who must be Siegmund.

He was massively built and wore white, ceremonial armor chased in gold. A crimson cape hung from his oversized shoulder pads and a crown of golden laurels rested on his head. His breed appeared to be a white shepherd, a rarer sub-breed of his sister's type, with a monocle in one eye.

"So you are the one who believed he could defeat my entire empire? And stole my experimental jet so long ago?" Siegmund laughed as he rose from his throne, "it is incredible what inferior species believe themselves capable of. But you will learn of your futility. Make yourself at home, Herr Winning, for this shall be yours until we make of you a blood sacrifice to our new, pure race!"

"I'm not afraid of you!" Manstrong drew himself up proudly, "I kill Nazis for a living and I am damned good at my job!"

Siegmund laughed and clapped his hands, "such bravado! You shall be an amusing house guest!"

Manstrong smirked, "How long do you really think the two of you can keep me here? You can't watch me all the time."

Siegmund shrugged, "a good point. I suppose we shall have to... make adjustments."

Sieglinde grabbed his arms from behind and dragged him along backward. They led him into a large chamber off from the throne room where he was pulled back onto a table.

Manstrong struggled to keep his limbs free while Sieglinde tried to wrap cuffs around his wrists. He saw savage tools spread around the room and blood caked thick on the floor and he knew he'd been taken into a torture chamber. He wondered if Ackma had also been interrogated in this room.

Siegmund picked up an oversized saw from the counter, his smirk spreading into a predatory grin. The saw was oversized with a long handle and, as it spun with a deafening whir, Manstrong realized it would have no trouble cutting through whole limbs. Sadly, this thought struck him as Sieglinde managed to bind one of his wrists and began grappling with the other.

Manstrong's drill came hurtling through the doorway and plunged directly through Sieglinde's stomach, knocking the woman to the floor. Then Ackma come charging through the doorway, red-hot claws swinging at Siegmund, while Manstrong unbound his wrist.

Siegmund retreated from the room while dodging the wicked claw and Ackma followed him. Manstrong tried to give chase but Sieglinde grabbed his arm, pulling him back and throwing him into the wall. She wasn't even bleeding from the hole in her stomach and he barely dodger her blows as they pounded dents into the wall.

"Sieglinde, I know no woman could really want to do something as terrible as this!" He used both arms to parry a thrusting punch, shocked at her strength.

Sieglinde laughed at him. "You really think you can turn me by appealing to my feminine nature?"

"No." Manstrong suddenly launched forward, ramming his shoulder into her. Sieglinde stumbled backward and collapsed over the torturer's table. While she pulled herself back to her feet he calmly drew his pistol.

"It was just a distraction!" He leveled his gun and fired a bullet through her chest. As she collapsed to the floor he grabbed the discarded drill and charged out into the throne room.

Ackma was backed against a wall, bruised and bloodied. Before he could react Siegmund hurled the massive saw he'd been holding at her and the spinning blade lopped through her arm, bouncing off the wall and leaving the limb flopping dead to the ground. She stared down at it in shock.

Manstrong screamed and fired three furious shots into Siegmund's chest. The tyrant didn't even react, instead waving an arm toward Manstrong with a beam of microwave energy lancing outward. Manstrong leapt aside, hitting the ground hard with the drill clattering away from him.

Sieglinde laughed from behind him, again on her feet. She nodded toward Siegmund and pulled open her uniform. One of her breasts was completely removed. In its place a circular piece of machinery was embedded in her chest, its glass center revealing the crimson pulse of microwave energy.

Siegmund pulled the chest plate from his armor, revealing the same in his own chest. "We are powered by microwave hearts! There is no defeating us!"

Sieglinde kicked Manstrong savagely in the ribs, "most of our bodies are machines now. You cannot hope to defeat us!"

Siegmund approached, his sister on the opposite side, each one raising an arm to aim at him. He eyed his gun a few feet away and tried to reach for it but microwave blasts forced him to draw back his hand. Soon they would be close enough to grab him and there'd be no more chances.

Manstrong heard a grunt and all three looked to the side to see Ackma limping toward them, dragging her severed arm in her remaining hand. Siegmund laughed at her, "give it up little princess!"

Suddenly he was cursing as the arm was hurled at his head. As he stumbled back Ackma charged forward with a surprising burst of speed, lifting the drill from the ground and plunging it through Sieglinde's heart.

The tip of the drill drove into the ground and as the drill spun it ripped apart the German shepherd's false heart, ghastly flames bursting from the hole in her chest while she screamed!

Manstrong grabbed his gun and dove into Ackma, knocking her behind a wide pillar while the microwave heart melted down in a flash of light, incinerating the flesh from Sieglinde's metal interior.

"You might as well give up, Siegmund!" Manstrong called out while he tore off his shirt and wrapped it around Ackma's bleeding stump. "Your new pure breed race is over!"

"Never!" He bellowed from new depths of madness, "you may have destroyed the future of my race but yours is still impure!" He spoke into a radio in the back of his palm "Begin operation Ragnarok! Now every one of my machines will awaken and strike against the surface world! I may lose but you will not win!"

Manstrong pulled the magnetic glove off of Ackma's free hand, "in the factory, when I thought you died, you used this to pull yourself away from the explosion, right?" He shook her shoulders to draw her fading attention.

Ackma's suddenly focused, "yes... but he will be waiting to kill you!"

He grabbed Ackma's scaly cheeks and kissed her. Her arguments ceased and while she was still in shock Manstrong dove around the corner of the pillar.

Manstrong raised the gloved hand while he dove, pointing it at the large, metal doorway to the torture room and he was flying through the air toward it. Siegmund's microwave blast cut through the air behind his feet so close he could feel the heat.

As Manstrong slammed into metal slab he fired off his entire clip straight into Siegmund's heart.

The glass over the warlord's heart cracked ominously, thin streams of pulsing light slipping through the fractures. He aimed his hand at Manstrong but the microwave beam fizzled out harmlessly. Siegmund fell to his knees... but still he laughed.

"My body is a conduit for this entire tower, Herr Winning!" He coughed weakly, grinning anyway. "When I die it will be like a bomb of untold power!"

Manstrong charged across the room to the kneeling Siegmund and wrapped his fingers around the Nazi's throat. He lifted the man from the ground and took his wrist, pushing the magnetic glove onto it.

"The earth's core is mostly iron, isn't it?" Manstrong smiled at the realization in Siegmund's face.

Manstrong activated the glove and hurled Siegmund straight up as hard as he could. For a moment he hung in the air as magnetism and gravity fought for control... then he began to rise. As he ascended the core's pull grew stronger and with terrifying speed he flew upward.

Ackma tugged on his arm, frighteningly pale. "We must go! He may be gone but the batteries in the tower will still explode!"

Bolts of energy were already arcing between the floating warlord and the tower as they ran for the stairs. Manstrong lifted Ackma over his shoulder as she stumbled and he spotted a digging machine sitting on one of the elevators.

"I drove it from the factory." Ackma gasped. "I can still drive. I... must."

They entered the machine and Manstrong regretted to admit she did have to drive. He had no idea how the machine worked. As he set her in the driver's seat he said, "I'll activate the elevator!"

"No time!" And with a push of a button the entrance to the digging machine closed. She strapped herself into the cockpit and Manstrong came beside her, doing the same. She spun the drill up to speed and Manstrong saw that a series of mirrors allowed them to see around the drill like periscopes.

The drill tilted downward into the floor and chewed through, leaving them plummeting down into one of the columns of batteries, bolts of red lightning firing between them as they broke loose. They felt the force of Siegmund exploding and the batteries began bursting just behind them in violent sprays of red.

As they descended to the storage areas the towers of robots, activating and climbing to their feet, provided new material to break their fall as the drill chewed through them. In the factory floors the gaps were larger and Manstrong felt his bones creak with each floor they impacted, but they survived. Finally they reached the bottom chamber, the fastest of the robots just arriving on the elevators, and they drilled through the floor amidst the confused machines.

Looking through another periscope that pointed behind them he could see the impossibly huge explosion still following them, devouring the tower as it grew. Just as he was sure it would reach them the rocky tunnel behind them collapsed from the shockwave. The force of the blast still hit them, though, with the force of an automobile crash... but her was still alive.

Finally safe, Manstrong turned to Ackma as she punched some dials. "I've set the autopilot. You, at least, will survive."

Her stump was bleeding badly and the remains of his shirt were a soaked mess. He climbed up to the combat suits in the back of the digger, pulling Ackma behind him. With the drill aiming straight down it was a hard climb, and even harder to activate the heated claw without dropping the dinosaur princess. Finally the claws blazed hot, though, and he lifted her stump into one.

She screamed at the fiery touch, her scales smoldering, and then passed out.

Ackma slowly awoke to a dim light in the small room, naked but for a wet cloth on her forehead. As she tried to lift her arms she found one felt nothing. She looked over to find it missing. It took her some time to remember how that had happened.

She used the other arm to push herself up to a sitting position and looked around the room, seeing Manstrong asleep in a chair, still wearing only his pants. He hadn't even left her to get a new shirt.

She took a few stumbling steps over and pet his cheek, gently rousing him from sleep. As he realized who had woken him he suddenly came to much faster.

"You're alright!" He exclaimed, jumping to his feet.

She nodded, "where is this? Did you take me to your bosses?"

He shook his head, "this is my home's basement. I had a hell of a time getting you here when the drill came up right in Smit's warehouse. He was not at all pleased, especially when I told him about the jet!"

She smiled, "I still remembered the coordinates."

"So no, I did not tell my people about you. I don't trust them to do the right thing." He sighed sadly, "so will you bring your people back to the surface world?"

She shook her head, "I do not think we're ready to coexist with another species. At least not yet. We've been hurt too much and done too much damage in return."

Manstrong smiled sheepishly, "I could co-exist with you."

"Well, I needn't hurry back to my people yet...." She laughed.