With her and her comrade's lives on the line, Johanna burst into action, replete with unrestrained ferocity. She charged forth, leveraging her tail to swing the glass axe overhead, directing it toward Max. Well aware of the weapon's destructive potential, the boy promptly swung to the side, narrowly avoiding certain dismemberment as the sparkling blade shattered the concrete ground.
"Sturm!" he cried, hopping back into a slide, "Don't try to block it, it's way too strong!"
Nodding in recognition, the swordsman replied, "Got it."
Johanna was unrelenting. Unbothered by her failed attempt at execution, she pivoted her body, whipping the axe around in a wide arc that threatened to cleave Sturm in two at the waist. The latter, however, was swift enough to vault over the blade's trajectory, leaving it to crash through the brick wall behind him.
"Watch out, buddy!" Max exclaimed, "She's a hell of a lot stronger than she looks!"
Having missed her target once more, Johanna took advantage of the heavy weapon's momentum to complete a second orbit, nearly catching the swordsman off guard. Thankfully, Sturm maintained a firm speed advantage and was thus able to duck beneath the blade during its consecutive pass. Now low to the ground, the young knight candidate capitalized on his position to sweep Johanna's legs out from under her with his boot, causing her to tumble backward. Despite this, the girl was able to break her fall thanks to the relative strength of her tail, which held her aloft in the absence of additional support.
Max, quick to realize that Johanna wouldn't be able to swing the weapon without her feet planted on the ground, lunged forward with claws at the ready. Assured that she had no viable option to avoid his wrath, Max let loose with a flurry of slashes. To the boy's total shock, Johanna's spine and shoulders warped inhumanly, allowing her to avoid the brunt of the attack and receive only the odd glancing cut.
"W-what?!" stuttered Max, taken aback by the sight.
Before Sturm could come to his friend's aid, Johanna dropped to all fours and scurried between Max's legs, dragging the ace behind her with her tail. The metal haft was pulled horizontally against the boy's ankles, knocking him off balance and allowing the Communist to hop up and kick him to the ground.
"You're mine!" Johanna shrieked, hoisting the axe, then heaving it downward at her foe.
Fortunately for Max, the lethal chop was redirected into the ground just a few centimeters away when Sturm tackled the girl, compromising her aim. Having seized Johanna in a tight chokehold, the swordsman flipped her onto the ground and drove his knee into her stomach.
"Get the damned axe away from her, Max!"
Quick to comply, Max pushed himself off the pavement and rushed to assist his partner. He gripped the weapon's cold metal grip and tugged hard, finding surprising resistance from Johanna's slender tail. Regardless, after a brief power struggle, he was able to disarm the frantic rebel. Sturm then drew his saber and held it across the girl's throat.
Dark eyes widening in terror, Johanna sensed her enemy's killing intent and began to plead for her life. "Wait, wait! Please, please no! Don't... Just... don't fucking kill me! I'll talk, I'll tell you everything! I give up! Help my friend, find it in your rotten heart!"
"Quiet..." growled Sturm, pressing the blade against her narrow jugular. "Was that the only bomb?"
Johanna gulped audibly but made no discernable vocalization. Save for the pounding drum of her heart under Sturm's weight, there was no response.
"I'm going to ask you one more time..."
Beginning to hyperventilate, she spat, "Y-yes! Yes, yes!"
"Where is the murderer?!" snapped Sturm, wasting no time.
"The... what?"
"Don't play stupid, bitch!" Max piped in angrily, "The piece of shit who killed Ida Weber and the other girls! What's his name and where the fuck is he?!"
"I... I-I don't..."
Slowly shaking his head with restrained menace, Sturm clearly conveyed to the girl that any such answer would not suffice. "You tried to kill my friend. Lie to me and the SS is going to be the least of your worries."
"Murderer... Murderer?!" Johanna pondered aloud, desperately scraping her brain for any information that might spare her life. "We've all killed somebody! So have you, r-right?! What do you-"
Max stepped forward, kneeling next to the pinned girl. "Tell us which one of you red fuckin losers killed Ida!"
"Who?!" cried Johanna, "I don't know your Ida! You're wasting time! Just get help for Kibo and you can ask all the stupid shit you want!"
The knight candidates exchanged a skeptical glance. While they'd normally accept such a proposal, it was unlikely that the SS would allow them an opportunity to question Johanna once she was in their custody. As such, the most important answers would have to be wrung out of her here and now.
"Your pal is gonna be fine, I didn't hit anything too important. The only person you gotta worry about is yourself..." said Max, looming over the restrained rebel.
"I already told you, I don't-"
"Zech," snapped Sturm, pressing the blade into her windpipe, "It's him, right?"
Johanna's ears perked up at the mention of this name, though she continued to deny further knowledge. "That name doesn't mean shit to me!"
"Keep lying and see what it gets you!" the swordsman shouted. "He's your leader, right?! A lowlife terrorist like the rest of your comrades."
"Your intel is garbage!" hissed Johanna as she pinched her eyelids shut and tilted her chin back in a bid to relieve the edged pressure on her throat. "That captain of yours... He was stalking us! He's a good-for-nothing, slimeball drug addict! For all I know, he's your fucking murderer!"
"Let's try that again... Who the hell is Zech?!" Sturm persisted without affording the girl's suggestions the slightest shred of merit.
"There is no fucking Zech!" shrieked Johanna, "The addict probably imagined it! He's brain-dead and you're all just as bad for believing him!"
Suddenly, Sturm was alerted to a subtle tug at the rear-right side of his belt. Initially confused, the boy was quickly struck by the realization that someone- or something- was reaching for the gun he kept holstered at his hip. He hastily turned his head back but, as his holster rested beneath the flap of his open jacket, was unable to discern exactly what was transpiring.
“Max, someone is on my gun, get them, quick…”
“Your what?” Max inquired, unaware that Sturm had been carrying a firearm. “What do you-”
“Right side!” urged the swordsman. “Something is in my holster!”
Max hurried around Sturm’s back and lifted the lower edge of his jacket just in time to see Johanna’s tail remove the gun and brandish it in his direction.
Shocked by this, he fell back onto the ground and rolled to the side, covering his head with his wrist blades. “Fuck, she’s got it! It’s her tail!”
Sturm, thinking quickly, attempted to execute his restrained subject, but was left stunned as Johanna seemed to melt within her flesh and slip away from his grasp as if her body was without a single solid structure. When the girl’s tail passed between his hands, Sturm pressed his blade downward against the ground, forcing her to release her wrapped grip on the firearm. With Sturm left to prioritize the recapture of his weapon, Johanna was now free to make her escape. She hopped forward, snatched the axe from the ground, and before Max could properly retaliate, kicked him in the face, finally taking off toward the street in full gallop.
“Motherfucker!” exclaimed the calciumancer, clutching his nose.
“Go, Max! We need to go!” shouted Sturm, returning his gun to its holster.
Still cupping his face, Max tossed a glance at Kibo’s unconscious body before hurrying after Johanna with his partner at his side.
“What the hell was that, Sturm?! How’d ya lose her?!” pressed Max, rushing after the girl who, due to her head start, was at least fifty meters further up the street.
“No idea…” Sturm replied, pumping his arms as he reached his full stride, “It’s like she just… fell apart.”
“Excuse me?!” exclaimed Max, unsure of how to interpret his friend’s explanation.
Up ahead, Johanna charged down the middle of the road on all fours with Kibo’s glass axe in tow. Aided by her hyper-sensitive ears, she was able to discern the exact location of her pursuers without sparing a look. Beyond this, she was capable of internally mapping the surrounding city for roughly a kilometer, making mental notes of each obstacle she might encounter. Close groupings of footsteps represented a patrol. Pyrotechnic rumblings, an engine. Johanna was confident in her auditory identification skills to the point that she would bet her survival on them.
That is until she caught the alien vibrations of a sound that she had never before encountered- an unsettling tremor that made her blood run cold.
Before her eyes, a tall figure emerged in the road ahead. There was no specific moment that marked the appearance of this individual, no defined instance where they became visible. It was as if the black-clad shape had always lurked ahead, though Johanna was sure that this was not the case. Closing in, the girl could make out the trademark white insignia of an SS officer emblazoned across the collar of a greatcoat, itself dark as the void of space.
“Get the hell out of the way!” Johanna shrieked with frantic fury, drawing the axe higher in her tail.
The officer stood stiff as a wall, ignoring the demand entirely. Naturally, this was no moral conundrum for the rebel Communist, who was more than happy to strike down an enemy commander amid her escape. Closing the gap in seconds, she leaped forward, spun through the air, and used the combined strength of her arms and tail to slam the axe down through the man’s shoulder. The massive weight of the axe-head crushed through muscle and bone, driving deep into the officer’s torso and stopping around the lower edge of his rib cage. Sturm and Max, having gained some ground during the chase, watched the scene unfold in horror, unable to intervene.
A trickle of blood ran down the axe haft and pooled against Johanna’s palm before giving way to a greater sanguine cascade. Filled with grim satisfaction, a grin flickered across the girl’s lips before she braced herself to tear the weapon free. No matter how much effort she exerted, however, it would not budge.
Her toothy smirk still present despite the nervous sweat starting to run down her cheek, Johanna felt her heart begin to race. “T-the fuck is this?!” she grunted, continuing to tug, “And how are you still standing?!”
Less than ten meters behind Johanna, Sturm stood in awe. “God damn it! She killed him!”
Max did not immediately respond. Brow furrowed, he looked on with an uneasy feeling. Though he couldn’t yet place it, something more than the apparent murder twisted a knot in the pit of his stomach.
“What the hell are you made of?!” gasped the girl, planting her feet and yanking her full body weight backward. “Give it back, you dead asshole!”
Astoundingly, the officer grasped the axe just below its head with his left hand, white gradually raising his right. Seeing this, Johanna’s mouth fell agape as she began to pant.
She traced the motion of the man’s riding hand while terror built within her. How is this bastard still alive? There are no SS exceptionals!
Then, having reached his forehead, the officer flicked his visor upward, exposing his previously shadow-draped eyes to the broad daylight of a cool blue sky. Max knew this face, as he knew the twisted grin that followed.
“Son of a bitch! That’s Käfer!” Max hollered, snatching Sturm’s wrist in a panic.
Sturm, casting eyes on the enigmatic menace for the first time, turned to his friend for explanation. “That’s him? The guy who attacked you and Gustavo?”
“Yeah…” nodded Max, “I know that shit-eating grin anywhere. Get ready, I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”
“There’s only one ‘dead asshole’ here…” chuckled Käfer, cracking his neck to both sides. “And I’m pretty sure I’m looking at her.”
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