Young Writers Society

The cheeks of his guise grew flushed when Auryon called him out on his vagueness - he was twenty thousand, so it wasn't exactly like he was new to lying - but before he could come up with some sort of response, the man who had brought him to this place commented about needing to get a bullet out.

Maahes didn't offer to do it. He could, technically, but he didn't know what the bullet was made of and didn't want to risk flinching while doing something so important. So he looked at Auryon and the other woman, waiting for one of them to step forward and take care of the injury.

Diamond rolled her eyes and gestured for the once-masked man to sit down. He did so, and proceeded to pull off his shirt. He had as many scars as his name and profession implied, but the two most striking things were these: firstly, he had a tattoo over the right side of his chest. It was inked in dark blue and depicted a swastika with the number "13" in the middle of it. Below, the words "Projekt Nächtlich-Jäger" was written. The second was that there was a long scar running down his abdomen in a y-shape, similar to the cut one would see on an autopsied body.

Diamond fetched a small first-aid kit and put it on the small hotel table next to him and digging up a hemostat.

He knew it wasn't polite to stare, but Maahes couldn't help but gape at the man when he saw him shirtless. He recognized both the symbol and the long cut on his abdomen - he had been around long enough on Earth to see both in use. The sight of the swastika in particular send a shiver running through his essence. He knew that he couldn't display how much the sight terrified him, but he desperately wanted to step out of the room.

The man could heal. That was something he knew. He didn't know how, but the man's wounds could heal to the point where he couldn't die. What if he was older than he looked? And, if he was, what if Maahes wasn't just looking at a modern day Nazi - what if he was looking at one from the time period when they had been at their worst?

Auryon followed his gaze, then nodded slightly as she recognized what he was looking at. "We all fought in that war," she said softly to Maahes as Diamond put her hand against Kratzer's chest to hold him down and started to fish out the bullet. His eyes flashed with a metallic hue and he grimaced but didn't move in a surprising display of stoicism.

"Kratzer had the chance to leave Germany but stayed to fight the Nazis," she continued. "Two years later, he was fighting for them. Apophis had us fight with the Axis for a while, but switched sides when a few things came into light and we started hunting Kratzer. Diamond fought with her own country - Russia."

His expression softened when he heard what Auryon said, but he didn't offer a verbal response. He knew that Apophis was capable of horrible things, but fighting for the Axis over the Allies? That was worse than he had expected.

He looked imploringly at her. "Why did you stop hunting Kratzer?" he asked.

Better yet, why had they even started?

She laughed. "That's a funny story. See, we were both rivals and enemies for a long time. Kratzer even threw me off a roof once. Of a chapel, nonetheless. S-"

"Church," Kratzer grunted, focusing on their conversation instead of the pain.

"Church. Whatever. Anyways, at the time, we didn't know the other one's identity - it was just the Viper and der Silberfuchs. So then one time we ran into each other at this party and didn't have our masks or anything and started dating. Several months into this I caught wind of the Silver Fox's location and I went down to deal with it. He was passed out, still with his mask. I didn't know he was a vamp at the time so I just walked over and stabbed him, assuming my venom could do the work, but then he woke up and threw me to the ground. Took of my mask and nearly had a heart attack. Long story short, once we figured out who the other one was, we called a truce."

It sounded like something straight out of one of the books he used to read while living on Earth, minus all of the murdering bits. He had never read romance all that much, but, when he had been desperate, he had - and what Auryon just told him sounded like something that could have the plot of one of them.

"So are you, uh, still together?" he hesitantly asked. Auryon had mentioned a truce, but he wasn't sure how the revelation had affected their love lives.

As he was saying this, he suddenly realized just how oddly dressed he was compared to the other people present. He looked down at his outfit. It didn't suit the weather in the slightest, and all of the accessories meant to accent his power in that meeting now made him stick out like a sore thumb.

Auryon shrugged. "Well, we ain't dating no one else. Oh, and Apophis just wants to mention that she's digging the look you've got going," she said with a small smirk.

"Ach, Diamond!" Kratzer exclaimed as the white-haired vampire ripped the bullet out of his chest without warning nor mercy. "Bozhe, Almaz, razve vy ne slyshali o preduprezhdeniyakh?!" he added in Russian. (By God, Diamond, haven't you heard of warnings?!)

"O, zatknis', bol'shoy rebenok. Eto byla pulya," she snickered. "Now sit still so I can sew that up." (Oh, shut up, you big baby. It was just a bullet)

"Ja, a bullet in my heart," he grumbled. Auryon chuckled.

"This is better than a sitcom. Right, Maahes, despite Apophis' opinion, you need some clothes because Jesus you look...I don't even know where to begin."

A blush immediately began to spread across his face when the words registered, and he looked down at his clothing with even more embarrassment than he might have normally had in a situation like this. The clothes had been perfect for pretending to be a Goa'uld, but they looked incredibly foolish now that he was trying to pretend to be a human.

He went to change his guise, but then remembered that Diamond and Kratzer were also present. His face grew even redder as he met Auryon's eyes. "Do you...Do you have any other clothes I could wear?" he asked, fully mortified by the situation. He hesitated. "And, uh, do you have anything I can use to get all of this kohl off?"

She beamed at him. "Of course I do, I'm me." She dragged a small suitcase out from under the bed and popped it open, digging up some makeup remover. "Use that for the kohl, and then..." she grabbed a second suitcase and started going through it, producing a blue t-shirt and jeans. "You can just borrow Kratzer's for now."

"Thank you," he said, taking everything out of her hands and making a beeline for the bathroom. He cast the briefest of glances over his shoulder at her before ducking into the room. It was difficult getting the kohl off - it was one of the only things he had actually put on, rather than changing his guise to have it because it always looked better when he did it by hand - but he somehow managed to get it off without irritating his essence too much.

The next step was changing into the clothes given to him, which was a struggle in itself. When was the last time that he had to actually change clothes? He usually just found a good place to hide before changing his guise's clothing.

He looked himself over in the mirror, hoping that his scarlet hair - still up in a ponytail - didn't stand out too much. It was interesting seeing the contrast with the blue, but it thankfully seemed to fit.

He stepped back out into the room, old clothes in a heap in his arms.

When he returned, Diamond was tying off the stitches and the two were bickering quietly in a peculiar mix of Russian and German. Auryon was gazing out the window, her eyes glowing palely as she scanned the rooftops. She glanced back as Maahes reentered.

"Just toss those in that bag there," she said. "So, tell me: what are you doing here? Meeting people, you said? In Berlin? Crazy times, huh? Oh, and don't worry about Di and Kratzer. They're friends."

"Not exactly," he quietly admitted, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. "I-I didn't mean to end up in Berlin. I'm not even sure how I ended up in Berlin. I think it had something to do with a device I was investigating, but..." He let out a sigh. "I don't even know where it went. Once I ended up in Berlin, it wasn't there with me."

She glanced at Kratzer. "You didn't...?"

"I was busy not getting shot, Fräulein," he grunted.

"You weren't doing a very good job of it," Diamond pointed out, dancing back out of range as he moved to cuff her playfully.

Auryon turned back to Maahes. "Well, welcome to our little war here. I have no idea how to get you back and as far as I know this reality doesn't have stargate or whatever so the only way would be going Between, I think, but Fabian's the only one who can do that and Cornyx already got ahold of him and dragged him back to Boomslang. We also already killed Crow. But Boomslang might've brought him back. But if she did then there's no way to get to him without alerting her so we're back to square one."

"If she revived Crow, it's my turn to kill him," Diamond piped up. "Just, to be clear. Dibs."

"That's besides the point, Di," Auryon waved a hand dismissively and looked back up at Maahes. "So if you lost whatever device got you here and we can't find it, we're going to have to survive Boomslang and finish out this mini war we've got going before we can get you back."

Most of the names and terminology were flying right over his head, but what stuck out to him was the mention of a war. His nonexistent gut immediately sank to his feet, and his essence began to twist and churn uncomfortably. He had lived in a war for thousands of years. War was never short. How was he supposed to get back and finish his charge when he had to take part in a war he didn't even know about prior to this moment?

"What exactly is this war?" he slowly asked, almost wishing he didn't have to.