World War Scion

[Ack]

World War Scion

Part One: The Golden Man

[A/N 1: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

[A/N 2: There will be a few racist terms thrown around. These are not the personal views of the author.]

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

December 7, 1941

To. To. To.

Until Commander Mitsuo Fuchida's radio operator, Petty Officer Mizuki, repeated those three syllables over the air, the attack had been only a potential event. One hundred eighty-three military aircraft, cruising southward from the IJN task force, had been poised to descend upon this remote outpost of the United States with all the fire and fury that the Empire of Japan could muster against its tormentors. But an official declaration of war had not yet been delivered, so they could have turned back at any time, making it nothing more than a harmless exercise.

But it wasn't.

The order had been given from high command, five days earlier: 'Climb Mount Niitaka 1208.' This meant that if surprise was achieved, the attack would go through as planned. It would happen just before 3 AM on the eighth of December, Tokyo time; on the Hawaii side of the International Date Line, of course, it was still the previous day.

Surprise was indeed achieved; Fuchida's aircraft, leading the first wave, flew over Oahu unopposed. The conditions of the order had been met. He had personally fired two 'black dragon' flares as a visual signal to attack, and Mizuki had broadcast the code word at his order: an abbreviation of totsugekiseyo—'to charge'—repeated twice more to ensure it was received by all.

That had been just minutes ago.

Now the airspace over Oahu, and Pearl Harbor in particular, was filled with diving aircraft and rising smoke. Bombs were falling and torpedoes were already in the water, running down on to their targets with deadly purpose. Anti-aircraft fire was still sporadic, and easily avoided by most of the attacking planes.

As explosions ripped through one battleship, and another shuddered under multiple torpedo strikes and began to heel over at its moorings, it looked to Commander Fuchida as though the first wave had indeed been an unmitigated success. The dive bombers had strongly suppressed most attempts by enemy aircraft to take off from the nearby Hickam and Wheeler Fields, and his forces owned the air.

He had already instructed Mizuki to send the coded message 'Tora. Tora. Tora' back to the fleet, meaning that the attack had achieved total surprise. The second wave would already be preparing to take to the air.

"Sir!" shouted Lieutenant Matsuzaki from the pilot's seat. "What's that?"

"What?" He turned from his survey of the devastation below to look forward through the canopy, wondering what had surprised his normally unflappable pilot. When he saw what it was, he blinked several times, trying to make sense of the impossible sight.

Hovering over Pearl Harbor, apparently ignoring the aircraft swooping and diving around him, was a man. There was no aircraft holding him up, not even an observation balloon; at this distance Fuchida could not see fine details, but it seemed the man was not wearing so much as a stitch of clothing. Perhaps the least unusual aspect about him was that his skin was a burnished golden colour.

"Sir!" This time it was Mizuki. "Pilots are reporting an apparition of a golden man over the harbour!"

So, it's not just us. "Very well," Fuchida decided. "Petty officer; acknowledge, then man the gun. Lieutenant; fly us in closer. Let us see what this is."

"Sir!"

"Sir!"

As the Nakajima B5N2 torpedo bomber banked slightly to close with the hovering figure, Fuchida pulled his binoculars from their case and shoved his goggles up on his forehead. Command of the attack on Hawaii was a weighty responsibility, and his superiors would expect a full report of all significant events. A flying man definitely fit the description of 'significant event'.

The man, Fuchida decided as they neared him, was definitely flying. He'd wondered briefly if this were some kind of elaborate decoy, to distract the attacking force while a counter-attack was mustered. Maybe a balloon on an invisibly thin cord, or an elaborate kite of some kind?

But it wasn't. The more he studied the man through the binoculars, the more he was convinced that it was an actual man, however impossible, hovering there. The golden skin reflected back the light of the morning sun and they were approaching from behind the man's right shoulder, but he could see clear muscular definition, and he thought he could make out a beard.

And then, as they were about to pass him by with a good two hundred metres of separation, because Lieutenant Matsuzaki wasn't an idiot, the golden man turned in mid-air to look at them. Commander Fuchida felt a shock of surprise—this was the first time the man had actually moved—even as he noted the European features. He was just reaching for his camera when he heard Mizuki yank back the charging handle on the Type 92 light machine-gun.

He opened his mouth to order the petty officer not to shoot, but it was far too late.

tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak

The last thing he ever saw was the golden man raising an arm and pointing at his plane. His senses were far too slow to feel the explosion that eliminated the B5N2 from the sky, and he was dead by the time every other Japanese aircraft within a mile of the golden man also exploded.

Which meant he missed the other event altogether.

<><>​

Able Seaman Conrad 'Con Ed' White, USS Oklahoma

Growing up in North Texas during the Great Depression, Con feared few things when the time came to leave the family farm and seek his own destiny. His one big mistake was to not read the paperwork too closely when he got drunk and decided to enlist in the Marines; by the time he sobered up and found that he'd signed on the dotted line to join the Navy, it was too late to change his mind.

Still, it wasn't a bad life in the Navy. He got to travel the world and meet lots of interesting folks. And it wasn't like they actually had to fight anyone.

Below decks in the Oklahoma, he was busy scraping rust with a couple of his shipmates—strong drink had once more led him astray, this time causing him to crack wise to a chief petty officer—when the first bombs began to fall. He didn't hear the actual explosions, but the distant rumbles made him frown and look up from his task. The man alongside him, a burly man from the streets of New York called Laker, seemed just as puzzled as he was.

"Hey, Con Ed?" he said. "Whaddaya think that is?"

"Something's going boom underwater." Conrad had been introduced to the concept of dynamite as a fishing accessory in his youth, and he knew exactly what it sounded like. "Reckon they're doing a depth charge drill or some such?"

"While we're tied up in harbour? That don't seem—"

What Laker thought it didn't seem like was lost to posterity when a massive hammer slammed into the hull of the Oklahoma, driving the entire ship sideways and sending Conrad sprawling. Tumbling over and over, he bounced off the bulkheads and even the overhead as more tremendous impacts rocked the ship like a toy boat in a bathtub. He was pretty sure his left knee was busted from the last smashing blow, but there was no time to scrape himself up off the deck and go find a medic before a groaning hatchway burst open, deluging him and the others with a high-pressure jet of cold green filthy Pearl Harbor dockside water.

Swirled around and over and backward until he had no idea which way was up, Conrad's worst fears—being trapped under water with no way out—were realised, especially when the water got to the electrics and the lights went out. He tried to scream, but when he opened his mouth, salt water went straight down his throat. The worst terror he'd ever felt racked his body, flooding his system with adrenaline even as his lungs flooded with water. His mind whited out, and pure primal fear took over.

When his brain finally decided to assert its conscious will again, the wind was blowing on his face, bringing the stink of burning oil to his nostrils. He blinked his eyes open, coughing water out of his lungs. All around him was mayhem, and he blinked again to try to make sense of it.

He was waist-deep in water, despite being twenty feet in the air. A pillar of it stood clear of the huge slick of burning oil below him, supporting him like it was the most natural thing in the world. Alongside and above him, creaking and groaning and leaning toward him like a great gray steel cliff on the verge of collapse, was the hull of the Oklahoma.

Screaming bodies plummeted past him and splashed down into the burning oil as the immense ship tilted farther toward him. Oklahoma was not the only vessel damaged on Battleship Row; West Virginia was also sinking, and Arizona had a huge plume of smoke and flame rising from it. Overhead, planes were swooping and diving, delivering more bombs and torpedoes to the stricken ships below. Squinting, he thought he made out meatball markings—the red circle of the Japanese armed forces.

Why in hell are those assholes attacking us? We aren't at war!

Well, I guess we are now.

And then, just as another plane angled down toward him, the twinkling lights on the leading edges of its wings and the double line of bullet-strikes in the water indicating an incoming strafing run, a golden wave swept over it. The plane promptly exploded into a great many pieces, as did every other aircraft caught by the expanding golden wave.

Trying to make sense of everything, Conrad stared around in confusion until a fresh set of groaning and creaking from the still-tilting Oklahoma drew his immediate attention. By now it was looming over him, threatening to crush him down into the water again. The water that was wrapped around him from the waist down, holding him above the oil and the flames.

His shipmates were struggling to swim through the oil-thick water and get away from the capsizing battleship. This, at least, he figured he could do something about.

Up until now he'd only exerted passive control over the water holding him up, but now he pushed it to active. He could feel everything in the water for a long way in all directions; men struggling to swim, others ominously still, damaged ships gradually (and not so gradually) sinking … everything. Reaching out, he lifted everyone who was swimming—or trying to swim—until their heads were clear of the water, and moved them directly to the closest shoreline, while at the same time he moved clear of the Oklahoma.

It was easy.

Not so easy was his attempt to save the Oklahoma from sinking. He was able to force some of the water out through the multiple holes in the hull, but the sheer mass of the ship was too much for him to lift. The best he could do was straighten it up and set it down squarely on the floor of the harbour.

As the keel sank into the bottom mud, he heard a yell from behind him. "Hey! Water boy! More incoming!"

Water boy? Is that me?

Turning, he saw a sight as impossible as the water pillar still holding him up. Hovering in mid-air, maybe a hundred feet higher, was a man who was literally on fire. Conrad stared as the guy's hair and facial skin burned away, then was replaced and burned all over again.

"What?" he called out, and was surprised at the gurgling, bubbling sound of his voice. Also, at the water that shot out of his mouth when he spoke. I've got water in my lungs? But I can breathe! He took a couple of deep breaths just to make sure of it.

"More of those fuckers incoming!" The burning guy pointed at a wave of planes maybe half a mile away. "Let's get 'em!"

"Okay!" More water gushed out of his mouth. He thought he should be scared, but right now, with the Oklahoma sitting on the bottom and water washing over her deck, he was pissed.

He started across the harbour atop the pillar of water. As he went, he instinctively pulled more of the dank, polluted water to himself, raising himself higher and higher and covering himself with what he hoped would be a protective shield. Although he was travelling faster than any ship he'd ever seen, he was still slower than the burning guy, not to mention the other figures he saw coming in from all directions.

The first few planes exploded before he got within range, but that did nothing to slow him down or still the rage that boiled in his gut. Overhead, the flaming guy was flying in, hurling bursts of incandescent fury from his hands. Sometimes they hit and sometimes they missed, but when they made contact, the aircraft was doomed.

Conrad watched another man literally running in across the water, taking great bounding strides that spanned a hundred yards at a time, passing him by like he was standing still. Then the stranger leaped upward, soaring skyward like he could fly. The pilot of the plane he was aiming at either didn't see him or consider him a threat, because there was no attempt to evade before the guy was on the plane itself.

There was no time to see what happened next, because two planes were coming directly toward him. As he watched, a dark shape detached from the closer one and hurtled toward him; the second one in line started firing, deadly twinkling on the wings indicating his imminent doom. As he'd seen before, twin lines of bullet-strikes were drawn, ruler-straight, across the water toward him.

This time, he wasn't preoccupied with ensuring that an entire goddamn battleship didn't turn turtle, and had a much better chance at fighting back. Reaching up with both hands, he projected the water that surrounded him far up into the air. The water jet that blasted from his left 'hand' intercepted the plane that had dropped the bomb, and wrapped around it like the fist of God; his right 'hand' caught the bomb and lobbed it at the plane that was trying to strafe him.

Hauling the first plane down out of the air, he plunged it into the waters of Pearl Harbor and forced it to the muddy bottom, upside down. Drown in darkness, you little backstabbing fuck. With savage satisfaction, he watched as the other aircraft exploded into a thousand pieces, pilot included. The few pieces of shrapnel that reached him were stopped by his water shield long before they could harm him.

Along with his new fighting comrades, he dealt with two more of the attacking interlopers in the same way as he had the first plane before he realised the rest were turning and fleeing. Oh, no you fucking don't. Nobody hits us by surprise then runs away.

Pissed off beyond belief that they were even attempting to get away with their treacherous actions, he surged after them until they passed over dry land, and there he was stopped. Try as he might, he couldn't make his water pillar move onto shore. Still, the harbour had an exit, so he powered in that direction, spitting profanities and water in equal measure. If the other guys kill the rest of them before I get there …

He needn't have worried. By the time he reached Māmala Bay, he could see smoke rising from the ocean to the west; hammering across the surface of the water (he'd discovered that the lower he went, the faster he could go) he found a bunch of the guys hovering over the burning patches of oil from two more planes they'd put down. On the horizon in virtually every direction, he thought he could see the tiny black specks of retreating aircraft.

Oh, come on. They can't be attacking from every direction at once. What are they trying to do, split us up? He built up the water pillar again, then waved to get the fire guy's attention. "What's going on?" he yelled.

Still looking in all directions, the group came down to his level. "We don't know where the carriers are!" shouted the fire guy. "There's gotta be at least four of them, but those assholes went in all directions so we couldn't just follow them home!"

"But most of them'll die!" Conrad couldn't get his head around it. "What are they even thinking?"

"It's a Jap thing," another flier said. This one was wearing pilot gear and holding a broken plane joystick in his hand. Whenever he moved it, a ghostly plane formed around him. "They've got this bullshit honour code where it's totally A-OK to die, so long as you fuck over the other guy at the same time. If they got an order to fly east or west or north until they crash in the ocean just to hide where the carriers are, you can bet they'll follow it."

"And we can't just chase one down and interrogate him," Conrad thought aloud. "Because if there's another bunch coming, they'll tear Pearl up even more without us there."

"Goddamn cock-sucking slant-eyed fucks," someone else said. Nobody made a comment. They were all thinking it.

"Actually, I got an idea." Conrad started reducing the height of the water pillar. "Before, I could feel ships and people in the water, but only inside the harbour. How many ships you reckon are out there?"

The pilot shared a glance with the fire guy. "Four carriers, maybe five or six," the pilot decided. "No way they've got less than that, with all those planes."

"Plus an escort," the fire guy added. "There'll be a battleship or two, a few cruisers, and a shit-ton of destroyers. They're absolutely going to want to protect the carriers."

"Well, that's just their bad luck, because they're going to lose the fuckin' things." Conrad lowered himself even farther until his feet—bare, he realised, after everything that had happened—were submerged in the ocean itself rather than enclosed in the water pillar. He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on everything he could feel—everything he could hear—through the water.

"What are you doing?" asked the fire guy. "If you get any lower, you'll be under water."

Conrad didn't answer. He let himself drop farther, until he was waist deep in the Pacific … and then he heard it. Distant, but distinct. On its own, one might have escaped his notice, but there were more than twenty screws out there, each churning water. Without opening his eyes, he raised his arm and pointed. "That way."

"You sure?" asked the fire guy. "That's north. None of 'em flew north."

"None of them that we saw," corrected the pilot.

"There's a fuck-ton of ships out that way, making holes in the ocean," Conrad told them. "Maybe two-fifty miles away. Dozens of them."

The others looked at each other, and the pilot nodded. "That has to be the attack fleet, alright. Can you lead us onto them?"

Conrad grinned savagely. "Watch me."

<><>​

On Board the Akagi, 250 Miles North of Pearl Harbor

Admiral Chūichi Nagumo, Imperial Japanese Navy

All was quiet in the operations area. There had been no intelligible signals from the first attack wave since Commander Fuchida's 'Tora Tora Tora' signal had been received, indicating that total surprise had been achieved. Chūichi wanted to go out on deck and stare southward with binoculars, but he knew that even appearing to doubt the success of the mission would have an effect on morale.

A runner came in from Signals and handed a slip of paper to Captain Hasegawa, who scanned it then brought it directly to Chūichi. They exchanged bows, then Hasegawa handed the signal over. "Sir, we have a partial signal from our floatplane sentry screen. An American counter-attack, aircraft types and numbers not identified. All contact lost."

Chūichi nodded briskly, his mind going over the ramifications. The second wave had just launched and would be running headfirst into the incoming counter-attack at any minute. "Sound General Quarters. Alert the fleet and the second wave. Send a signal advising all this to Admiral Yamamoto."

"Yes, Admiral." Hasegawa repeated the orders to the runner, then turned back to Chūichi. "Excuse my presumption, but would it not be perhaps more prudent to call the second wave back to within our anti-air screen?"

"No." Chūichi shook his head. "Our attack achieved total surprise. Any possible counter-attack force will be grossly outnumbered by our attack aircraft. A wise fighter fades back before a strong counter, but presses forward to break a weak one. The fewer enemy aircraft that are allowed to attack our ships, the better."

"Ah. Understood. Thank you, Admiral." Hasegawa bowed in respect and moved away.

Chūichi was left alone with his thoughts. How did the Americans manage to launch a counter-attack so swiftly?

He supposed he would find out the answer to that and other questions when the second wave inevitably brought them down by superior numbers.

<><>​

Conrad 'Waterboy' White

Powering across the surface of the Pacific Ocean, Conrad blasted past an upside-down half-burned float that was gradually beginning to sink below the surface. It was part of the meagre debris field left behind when the vengeful supermen (he had to call them something) from Pearl Harbor hit the four sentry aircraft. From the moment their meatball markings had been identified as such, they'd been flying dead men; unable to outrun or even outfly their attackers, their demise had been swift and certain.

He knew damn well the other guys were holding back their speed, if only to keep him in sight until they encountered the enemy fleet. Though he was the slowest of the lot, he was their guiding star, his long straight wake pointing the way. But his lack of speed didn't matter; ships didn't fly either. Even if the enemy planes stayed above his reach, he could get to the surface craft just fine.

Up above, the fliers suddenly accelerated away from him. He couldn't understand why at first—the fleet was still dozens of miles away—but then he saw the tiny black specks of oncoming aircraft. There was a shitload of them, maybe two hundred or so, and he felt a momentary pang of worry. We're outnumbered nearly ten to one here. Can we beat them all?

And then the first planes started to fall out of the sky, and he grinned. Pushing himself harder, he began to raise himself up on a pillar of water to backstop the attack effort. If the Japanese planes dived for speed, they'd end up in his attack range, and the Pacific Ocean was very deep and very cold right where he was.

<><>​

Admiral Chūichi Nagumo

"Sir, we have word from the second wave." Captain Hasegawa reported diffidently. "They have engaged the American counter-attack." He handed over the signal.

Chūichi did not immediately look at it. "What kind of aircraft, and how many of ours did we lose?"

"The information was … inconclusive, Admiral," admitted Hasegawa. "The Americans are using a type of aircraft our pilots could not identify, with armaments that apparently tore our airplanes apart in midair. Our people could not provide a coherent description, apart from 'flying men throwing fire from their hands' … and contact has been lost with them, too."

Staring at the signal, Chūichi frowned. It bore out Hasegawa's words, which only meant that it made as little sense as they did. "All contact has been lost?" he demanded. If all one hundred seventy-one aircraft in the second wave had been lost to the counter-attack, the Americans must have been waiting to take off with a truly staggering number of aircraft, once the signal had been sent that surprise had been achieved.

In short, they'd seen the whole thing ahead of time.

"Nobody is answering our hails, Admiral." Hasegawa sounded as unhappy as Chūichi was about this.

"Copy this signal to Admiral Yamamoto," Chūichi ordered. "Place the entire fleet on high alert. Ready us for attack from the air. Inform the Admiral that we need to begin preparations for retreat from the theatre of battle."

"Retreat, sir?" Hasegawa sounded like the word was foreign to him. "Forgive me, sir. I did not intend to question your orders."

"See that you do not." Chūichi stepped past him. "Join me on the bridge when you have carried them out." Leaving the flustered Hasegawa in his wake, he left the operations area and stepped into the elevator. It bore him upward from the bowels of the ship to the bridge, situated in the 'island' of the aircraft carrier, well above deck level.

Here, he stepped to one of the large windows and sequestered a pair of binoculars from a startled lieutenant. No words were exchanged; the officer simply bowed and stepped back out of his way. He returned a perfunctory bow of his own, then raised the binoculars and peered southward.

It was only to be expected for things to go wrong with such a large and complex attack plan. The first, and most important, point of failure would of course have been if the Americans had been on guard against the attack in the first place. But they hadn't been; the timing, all the way down to the day and hour, had given the First Air Fleet its best chance at landing a telling blow, and it had paid off.

Or at least, that was what he'd thought.

Subsequent events had proven the folly of such assumptions. In the leadup to this event, some had likened America to a sleeping giant, but instead it had proven to be more like an Ussuri brown bear: awake, aware, and ready to do battle. He had no idea what had happened to the first wave, but the oncoming ferocity of the counter-attack suggested that it had fared even worse than the second wave.

A wise fighter fades back before a strong counter. He had erroneously presumed the counter-attack to be weaker than his fighter wave, and they had paid the price. Now it was time to fade back before the shattering blow struck the fleet, to pull away so that whatever was incoming would have distance as well as firepower to deal with.

"Sir, Admiral Yamamoto acknowledges your intent to retreat." Captain Hasegawa had appeared at his side. "He has indicated that the Nagato will screen us until we are clear."

"Understood. Is there word from our airborne units?" He didn't expect any, but the question had to be asked.

"None whatsoever, sir." Hasegawa's expression struggled to remain impassive, but Chūichi could see the uncertainty and fear in his eyes. "Am I signalling retreat?"

Chūichi drew a deep breath. This decision—and the one to press forward with the second wave—would haunt him for the rest of his life, however short that turned out to be. "Yes. Give the order."

"Yes, sir." Hasegawa hurried away, and Chūichi raised the binoculars to his eyes once more.

There were still no aircraft in sight, but a bright speck seemed to flit in and out of his field of view as he panned the binoculars past one of the screening destroyers. Frowning, he tried to reacquire it, wondering if he'd seen the morning sunlight glinting off the wings of an attacking aircraft. He didn't find it, but the destroyer suddenly started firing off all its anti-air armament, apparently at nothing.

And then the destroyer exploded.

It hadn't caught fire, and he was sure nothing had crashed into it, but a massive detonation erupted from its guts between one moment and the next, peeling back the deck and sending a funnel cartwheeling across the ocean. He stared uncomprehendingly, the binoculars loose in his grasp, as the massive pillar of smoke climbed into the sky. What just happened?

"You!" He grabbed the lieutenant whose binoculars he'd 'borrowed'. "Which ship was that?" He didn't even need to point; the sinking, burning wreck was indication enough for anyone.

"I—I don't know, sir!" The lieutenant's face was pale, though whether it was from being shouted at by an admiral or seeing an allied ship sinking in flames was up for debate. "It may have been the Ushio. What happened, sir?"

His understanding crystallised, along with the knowledge of what he had to do. "The American counter-attack is here. Get down to Operations and have them signal full retreat. Flank speed. Get us out of here."

"At—at once, Admiral!" The lieutenant vanished.

Chūichi turned back to the window, staring out at the sea again. Two more destroyers were apparently under aerial attack from the way they were throwing ordnance skyward; beyond them, he could see an arrow-straight wake coming in from the south, far bigger than a torpedo track and moving faster than any surface craft he'd ever seen. However, the ships weren't weaving to throw off dive-bombers, and he couldn't figure out what was making the wake, even with the aid of the binoculars.

Several fighters from the fleet's combat air patrol came streaking in to the attack, only to explode in midair and fall into the ocean. Again, he'd seen no attacking aircraft.

Do the Americans have invisible aircraft and ships? Is that what this is? He didn't want to entertain the notion for even a moment, but no other explanation was offering itself, no matter how he searched for one.

Just as a third destroyer went up in a towering pillar of flame, he felt the deep rumbling of the Akagi's turbines going to full power, and the subtle tilting as the massive ship began to come about. The other five carriers would be also seeking to clear the area, along with the tankers, while the remaining escort ships (led by Admiral Yamamoto on the Nagato) would provide a rearguard. As for the submarines, they would be tasked to go deep and run in all directions, and escape the aerial attack that way.

Even as he formed the thought, the oncoming wake passed by the massive burning oil slick marking the grave of the first destroyer and kept coming. Alongside it, there was a tremendous frothing of bubbles as a submarine emerged from the depths then kept on rising, supported on a massive standing wave of water. Chūichi peered through the binoculars once more, and frowned as he thought he made out the head and torso of a person, waist deep in the tumult of water at the head of the wake.

White water curling from its bow and froth boiling at its stern, the heavy cruiser Chikuma cut in between Akagi and the oncoming menace. Already, its guns were spitting defiance at both the submarine and the wake itself. A wall of water sprang up abruptly, so Chūichi could no longer see the target, only the ship.

"Admiral Nagumo, sir!" It was the lieutenant. "You need to take cover below! Captain's orders, sir!" The young man looked as though he wanted to take hold of Chūichi's arm and drag him, but they both knew this would be career suicide at least, and quite possibly real suicide.

On the other hand, Chūichi could see the sense in it. Just as he turned away from the window, movement caught his eye. The captive submarine, holed in several places and trailing smoke and fire, launched through the screen of water and caught the heavy cruiser amidships. Chikuma folded almost in half with the impact; Chūichi wasn't sure which vessel went up first, but the combined explosion actually rocked the Akagi sideways and cracked the window glass of the bridge. Caught off balance, Chūichi staggered wildly, only to be caught and steadied by the young lieutenant. "Admiral, sir! Please!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Chūichi was starting to realise that whatever was behind the forces arrayed against his fleet, standing and watching from the bridge windows did not remove him from the action. Aided by the lieutenant, he headed for the door off the bridge.

They almost made it, too.

Just as the door was closing behind them, the lieutenant let out a horrified scream. Chūichi knew he shouldn't look, but he did anyway. Just outside the bridge windows flew a man, burning from head to toe. On his face—melting, burning, reconstituted from second to second—was an expression of pure, lethal hatred. He extended his hands, and white-hot flame burst from them, smashing through the windows in an instant. It washed throughout the bridge area, charring everything—and everyone—to a cinder.

When death came for Chūichi Nagumo, it was almost a mercy.

<><>​

Conrad 'Waterboy' White

The burning guy flew down to where Conrad was waiting on top of his pillar of water. "That it?" he asked. "Or did any of them get away?'

"There's nothing with an operating engine within two hundred miles of us," Conrad assured him. "I can hear a few sailors still alive in some of the ones you guys sank without blowing them up, but they're a ways down and I doubt they're getting out."

"Good." The burning guy's face creased with savage satisfaction. "Hey, didn't get your name earlier. I'm Jim Marshall, engineer's mate third."

"Con White, able seaman first. Where were you? I was below decks in the Okie."

Jim grimaced. "Arizona, forward magazine. Bombs were falling all over and I was trying to get out, then one came in through the deck, close enough to kiss. I had just enough time to shit my pants before it blew up and took the magazine with it. When I came to, I found myself a hundred feet up. Flying."

"Yeah, tell me about it." Conrad was almost used to the gush of water out of his mouth as he spoke, but he still didn't like it. "Does that, uh, hurt?"

"The fire?" Jim held up his hands and watched the flame crawl over them. "Not really. Looks like it should, though. How about you? You look like you're drowning all the time."

"I can breathe just fine, but when I open my mouth water comes out." Conrad looked around as the others started converging on them. "So, back to Pearl now I guess, and face the music?"

"Why would we have to face the music?" This was the pilot. "We stopped the attack, and we sank the whole damn fleet. We're heroes."

"But we're not the same as we were." Conrad tried to explain what he meant, hampered by the fact that his meagre upbringing didn't contain fancy words such as 'xenophobia' or 'bigotry'. "We're different now. Sometimes, folks get shot for being different. 'Specially if I can't stop puking water and Jim here can't stop being on fire."

Jim shrugged. "Well, we gotta give it the old college try, I guess."

"I never got to go to college."

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I figure I do."

Together, they turned and started heading south again.

<><>​

Admiral Husband Edward 'Kim' Kimmel, Pearl Harbor (Commanding)

Aircraft droned overhead, but this time they were friendly. Pilots had been mustered, planes armed, and a hasty coverage plan had been formed. There was a triple layer of everything from SBDs to B-17s overhead, armed for bear and ready to unleash hell on anything with Japanese markings that dared venture within a dozen miles of Oahu.

Kim stood on the dockside, still wearing the torn uniform jacket that was trailing threads from where he'd torn off the four-star shoulder-boards. A horizontal rip across his chest marked where a spent bullet had come far too close to ending his career even more dramatically than the attack was going to. Bare-headed, the chill morning breeze playing through his graying hair, he beheld the devastation before him.

"How many?" he asked, his voice rough from emotion and more than a little smoke.

"We're still figuring it out, sir, but the current estimate is between fifteen hundred and two thousand." His aide was trying to keep his voice even, but it wasn't easy. "The Arizona took a good few with her when she blew. But we got lucky with the Oklahoma."

"Lucky?" Kim shook his head, staring across the gray water at where the guns and superstructure of the battleship formed islands of their own. "She's sitting on the bottom, goddamn it!"

"She was turning turtle, sir, and then she righted herself. By all accounts, hundreds of men could've been trapped inside, but when she settled keel-down, enough air was trapped in each space that they were able to get to the surface."

"Can she be refloated?" He was anxious for any good news.

"Certainly, sir. The torpedoes did a lot of damage, but that can be fixed, the holes can be patched, and then we just pump the water out."

"Good, good." He put his hands on his hips, looking around. "So, can anyone tell me what actually happened to break the attack? Who got in the air and chased them off? Because they had us bent over a barrel, and it was only going to get uglier."

His aides looked at each other, then at the most junior lieutenant present. He stared at his colleagues unhappily, then sighed in resignation. "They say it was the golden man, sir."

"The golden man." He'd heard whispers, but nothing concrete, in the hours following the attack. "Tell me about him."

The lieutenant, emboldened, pointed at the sky. "They say he just appeared up there, hovering like a weather balloon or something. And then all the Japanese planes around just exploded and the rest of them flew away."

"That's not true," objected one of the more senior aides. "The planes exploded, but the Japs didn't just fly away. There were other flying men. One was all on fire. They attacked the Jap planes and blew up a few of them, and then they flew away, and the flying men chased them."

"Flying men." Kim shook his head again. "Did anyone else see this? Did anyone get photographs? Because I'm going to want to see them, once they're developed."

"There was one in the water," ventured the junior lieutenant. "I talked to some of the sailors who jumped off the Oklahoma, and they saw a man walking on the water. And the sailors were having trouble swimming, and suddenly it was like a wave swept them all the way to shore. And he was the one who made the Oklahoma right herself."

Kim frowned and massaged his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. "Golden men, flying men, and men walking on water. Could someone please give me something I can put in a report for Washington that won't see me getting a Section Eight instead of a nice simple court martial? Thank you."

The lieutenant pointed southward. "Uh, sir, you need to see this."

"What now?" Kim stared in that direction, not sure what was going to happen next, but certain he wasn't going to like it. Why should the rest of his day turn out any different?

His jaw slowly dropped as he beheld flying men.

Proceeding inward along the channel from the open ocean were fifteen men. Thirteen travelled through the air without any visible means of support, one seemed to skate along the top of the water like one of those long-legged insects, and one cast a long wake as he proceeded within a pillar of water. And yes, one was on fire, while another seemed to be piloting a ghostly fighter plane.

Overhead, two of the Dauntless SBDs orbited the incoming fifteen men, with the rear-gunners keeping their .30 calibre machine-guns trained on the newcomers. Kim was pretty sure they weren't acting as an honour guard, but was pleased they hadn't opened fire yet. Looking up the hill, he mentally nodded as he saw a runner pelting toward them with a message clutched in his hand, no doubt to tell him about what he was witnessing with his own eyes.

The flying men, moving slowly and carefully so as to not provoke all the armed men with itchy trigger fingers, landed on the dockside a little way down from where Kim stood with his entourage. While the man in the water pillar did not come on shore—he simply raised the pillar to match the height of the others—the one who'd been walking on the water did join the rest.

A long moment of silence ensued.

"You would be the flying men I've been hearing about." He decided to open with a statement rather than a question, so as not to sound like a damn fool in front of everyone. "You chased the Japanese planes away?"

The one who looked like he was on fire nodded. "Yes, sir," he said. "Engineer's mate third class James Marshall, sir. When we found we had these powers, we took the fight to them. Then, when Waterboy—that's Con White there, sir—figured out where the fleet was, we took the fight all the way to them, too."

Kim's head came up at that. "You did, by God? How many were there?"

When the man called Con White spoke, water gushed out his mouth in a seemingly never-ending stream, but he was intelligible all the same. "Six carriers, sir, three cruisers, two battleships, nine destroyers, twenty-three subs, and eight tankers. We sank them all."

"Three cruisers, two battleships and nine destroyers?" One of his senior aides, a Major Leeds, shook his head in disbelief. "How can fifteen men sink a whole fleet against that sort of firepower, using no ships, no planes, without losing anyone?"

"There were twenty of us when we went out, sir," said James Marshall. "Once Waterboy sank the cruisers and the battleships, the rest were easy."

Kim stared at Con White. "You sank the cruisers and the battleships … yourself? How?"

Con shrugged. "With seven of the submarines. But the fleet's been sunk. What are your orders now, sir?"

"Jesus." Kim wasn't sure even in his own mind if he was praying or swearing. "First off, how are you doing that? Any of it? Is it something you can show someone else how to do?"

"No, sir," Marshall told him. "I'm not even sure I can turn this off. It's what we are, now."

"So, it's a funny-papers thing, then," Leeds declared. "What are you supposed to be, White, the long-lost prince of Atlantis or something?"

"Hell no, sir." Con White shook his head. "My folks hail from a ways east of Amarillo, up in the Panhandle. Never even laid eyes on the ocean until after I joined the Navy. Barely passed the swim test. Where even is this Atlantis place, anyways?"

"Never mind that," Kim said hurriedly, before the rabbit-hole could be delved into any farther. "There has to be some way of determining how you do what you do, and making it so other people can do it too. Maybe it's something in your blood that can be injected into someone else?" Knowing full-well he was expounding on something he knew nothing about, he looked around at his aides in the hope that someone more knowledgeable than him could take up the ball and run with it.

"That might work with someone else, sir," Marshall said. "But I think my blood's on fire, too. Injecting whatever's in it into someone else would probably kill them. Anyway, I'm thinking we can do a lot more good by helping clean up and saving survivors than letting doctors poke and prod us. Don't you think so, sir?"

Kim knew his career still rested on a knife's edge. Washington was going to relieve him of duty no matter what, but he might still come out of the inevitable court-martial with a win under his belt if he could demonstrate that he'd done his duty to the best of his ability after the attack. The fifteen men before him had fought the attackers to a standstill, then tracked down the enemy fleet and destroyed it (if he was to believe them, which he was inclined to do). It was now his duty to make the best possible use of them, going forward.

"I do think so." He looked at Marshall, trying to ignore how the man's hair and facial features kept burning away and then reforming endlessly. "Is the golden man with you? Is he one of your number? Or is he one of the men who died attacking the fleet?"

He didn't miss the quick glance the men gave each other. "Golden man, sir?" asked White. "I didn't see any golden man."

"I did, sir," Marshall said. "I don't know where he came from, but I think the wave that blew up all the Jap planes came from him. He flew off about the time we went for the rest of the planes, going straight up. I lost sight of him pretty quick."

"I see." Kim looked at the other men. "Does anyone have any information that could help identify him? And did anyone else see this wave?"

One after the other, they shrugged or shook their heads. He considered himself reasonably good at detecting deception in his subordinates, and they didn't seem to be showing any.

"I think I saw it, sir," Con White said after a moment. "It blew up a plane that was gonna strafe me. Had me dead to rights, then boom, it was scrap."

"Very well." He looked at the fifteen men. Not all of them were wearing uniforms, but of those that were, the spread of ranks was considerable. "Take note. I'm assigning you all the new rank of Specialist. You answer to me, or to whichever officer I assign you to work with. Your duties will include helping clean up the mess the Japanese made of my base, and defending it if they send another fleet to attack us." He took a deep breath. "This will almost certainly be revisited once the current situation has resolved itself, but until then, we are at war and I intend to make full use of all the forces under my command to ensure this debacle doesn't happen a second time. Do I make myself clear?"

All the newly minted Specialists straightened to attention. "Yes, Admiral!"

<><>​

Address by President Franklin D Roosevelt, December 8, 1941

"Mr. Vice President, and Mr. Speaker, and Members of the Senate and House of Representatives:

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

"The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its Emperor, looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

"It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

"The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused damage to American naval and military forces, and would have caused much more, and cost many more lives, if it were not for the intercession of Specialist forces who drove off the attackers and sank the perfidious Japanese attack fleet.

"Yesterday, the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. And last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island.

"Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

"As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.

"But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

"No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

"I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

"Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

"With confidence in our armed forces and our Specialists, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

"I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire."

<><>​

Monday Afternoon, 8 December 1941

Pearl Harbor

Conrad 'Waterboy' White

"Able Seaman White! The Admiral wants to see you, immediately!"

Con ignored the hail for a moment. Standing within his customary pillar of water, he was guiding the immense mass of the Oklahoma into the newly vacated dry-dock so she could be repaired under easier conditions.

He hadn't refloated her all the way, but his power had allowed him to push enough water out of the three fucking torpedo holes in the side (no wonder she'd started to go over!) to unstick the keel from the bottom, then start her moving toward the dry-dock. However, this all took intense concentration, and he didn't have any left over for some asshole in a motor-launch. Once he was done, he'd be polite, but until then the Okie needed him, and so she had all his attention.

The previous day, they'd gone about the port, assisting with damage control. He'd been putting out the fires on the wreckage of the Arizona when he felt/heard the sounds of sailors pounding on metal, in the aft end of the stricken battleship.

Oh, hell no. Nobody else was going to suffocate and die in the dark, if he had anything to say about it. So he'd found a water channel into the bowels of the ship, smashing aside hatches as needed, and used his strongest currents to pull them out one by one, bringing them to the surface so fast they had no chance to drown.

There were still a lot of dead people in the wreck, and in other ships, but he couldn't tell where they were. He could only feel the vibrations from machinery and living people trying to be heard. Still, this let him do a lot of good until there was nothing else to help out with … and that was when he'd turned his sights on Oklahoma.

When he'd posited the idea to Admiral Kimmel, it had been well-received (unsurprisingly so, seeing how desperate the Admiral was to get his command up and running again) so the Pennsylvania had been towed out of the dry-dock to make way for her.

Finally, he had Oklahoma inside the dry-dock, according to the instructions of the dockmaster. As the great doors rumbled shut with him on the outside, he allowed water to flood back into the ship's guts, but he kept her on an even keel as she settled toward the floor of the dry-dock. She touched down just as the doors closed all the way, cutting off his control of the water within the enclosure, but that was fine. She was in good hands now.

Dusting off his hands theatrically—constantly in contact with water as he was, dust would never be an issue for him again—he turned toward the motor-launch, lowering himself toward its level. "Talking to me?" he asked.

The lieutenant who was nominally in charge of the launch (though there was a chief petty officer who was far more likely to know what he was doing) puffed out his chest. "Don't be insubordinate with me, Able Seaman! You're to report to the Admiral at once, so get in the boat or you'll find yourself on a charge!"

"Three things, sir." Conrad moved a little closer, so the spray from the water coming out of his mouth spattered the butter-bar's immaculate uniform. It was a little petty, but being shouted at put him in a petty mood. "One, I'm a Specialist now, not an Able Seaman. Two, I ain't under your orders unless the Admiral tells me I am, so you don't get to put me on a charge. Three, if you were paying attention, you'd know I can't go onshore. If the Admiral wants to talk to me, he's gotta come to me. Now, what were the actual orders you were sent to tell me about?"

That had been a sobering discovery. While he could rise up to several hundred feet in the air on a water pillar, and even drop to water level (he hadn't tried going under water yet, despite his suspicion that he didn't really have to breathe anymore) he could not set one foot on shore. In fact, he couldn't stand up, even in the shallows, without being supported by water up to his waist. And if he tried to walk onto shore (or climb into a boat), the water itself literally prevented him from taking that last step.

He watched the chief petty officer visibly hold himself back from face-palming, then clear his throat. "Lieutenant Harvey, sir, a word?"

The muttered conversation—consisting mainly of sharp observations from the CPO's side—went on for quite a while, until the chastened lieutenant turned back to him. "Specialist White, Admiral Kimmel has expressed a need to speak with you and the other Specialists as soon as possible. I understand that it's an urgent matter." The difference between his prior tone and his current one was like night and day; Con tried hard not to feel too much satisfaction about finally being on the other side of such interactions.

"Well, that's different then." He looked around, rising in the air as he did, until he saw the Admiral's jeep heading for the dockside. "Thanks for letting me know, sir. I can take it from here."

Turning his back on the motor-launch, he moved off toward what had become the unofficial meeting point between Admiral Kimmel and the Specialists. There were eighteen of them now; a nurse had been discovered to be healing patients in just minutes with a touch, a mechanic was repairing aircraft in the same way, and there was an infantryman who could run faster than a speeding car, leap dozens of feet in the air, and somehow do the damage of an anti-aircraft gun with a standard-issue rifle.

"We aren't the only ones who were attacked," Admiral Kimmel began once Con arrived at the dockside. "It's come to my attention that both Wake Island and Guam are presently under attack by the Japanese, who evidently intend to invade both bases and take them away from the United States."

There was a rumble of discontent from the men; Jim Marshall, closest to the dockside, muttered, "Hell with that."

"Indeed." Admiral Kimmel evidently had good hearing. "The Japanese would've only just now discovered that the fleet they sent our way has gone missing, so whatever plans they have for Pearl Harbor will have to go on hold. With that in mind, Wake and Guam are both urgently signalling for relief, so we're going to provide it. I don't pretend to know how you do the things you do, so all I can say is, if you do the same to the Japanese forces that you did to the fleet that attacked us, that'll be perfectly satisfactory."

Con held up his hand. "Question, sir. How far away are Wake Island and Guam? 'Cause I'm faster'n any boat we've got, but I'm still slower'n the rest of the guys by a whole lot." He had an idea that they were a good distance away—the Oklahoma had once anchored off Wake Island—but not exactly how far.

Admiral Kimmel held out his hand, and one of his aides put a sheet of paper in it. "Two thousand miles to Wake Island, and thirty-three hundred to Guam," he said after scrutinising it for a moment. "The Wake Island garrison thinks the Japanese are staging bombers out of the Marshall Islands, about twenty-one hundred miles away. Our intelligence says they've got two or three airfields there, as well as a seaplane base."

Goddamn it, it'll take me all day just to get there. Con grimaced. "Sorry, guys. Looks like I'm gonna have to sit this one out."

"Maybe not." Jim Marshall looked at Admiral Kimmel. "Me and the boys were thinking, if we rigged a bosun's chair out of steel cable, we could trail Waterboy behind us and not have to slow down too much. Permission to give it a try, sir?"

The Admiral rubbed his chin. "Well, that depends on Specialist White." He turned to Con. "What about it, Specialist? Does that sound viable to you?"

Con spread his hands. "So long as I can keep my feet in the water, sir, I don't see why not."

<><>​

War Without End: The First Twenty Years, by Augustus Meriwether

The Pearl Harbor Specialist Force (aka 'First Flight') set out at dawn on December 9, striking out west-south-west at a steady rate of four hundred fifty knots. Specialist White, callsign 'Waterboy', was trailing in the water behind four of them, leaving a huge wake but in no way inconvenienced by the unconventional mode of travel.

Led by former Flight Lieutenant Peter Campbell, now sporting the callsign 'Ace', First Flight crossed two thousand miles of ocean in less than five hours, arriving in the Marshall Islands archipelago a few minutes before 10 AM on the 10th​, as they had crossed the International Date Line in the process.

Roving from atoll to atoll, they smashed all opposition, destroying thirty-four Mitsubishi G3M3 bombers, as well as a number of floatplanes, and levelling all buildings on the atolls that had been built up with war materiel. Leaving the Japanese survivors behind to be picked up by more conventional forces, they ranged north to break the siege around Wake Island.

Once that was achieved, they went even farther west to Guam, where the final gasps of the valiant defence were even then on their last legs. Falling on the attackers from the rear, they wrought great destruction and saved the island's garrison at the eleventh hour. When they arrived, they discovered that another Specialist had arisen from among the beleaguered defenders: a technical sergeant who had constructed from an aircraft engine and various electrical components a ray-gun that could blow up a destroyer from two miles away.

And so it went. Wherever the enemy introduced their particularly vicious form of warfare, Specialists emerged to fight back. Pearl Harbor produced First Flight, while Bangka Island had the Nurses' Brigade. Everywhere they appeared, they destroyed the enemy forces that had forced them to become what they were. Even in Europe, the excesses of the Nazis created Nephilim (trans. 'giants') amid the Jewish prisoners in the Warsaw ghetto and the concentration camps, and Libérateurs among the French Resistance. Russia had its Razrushiteli (trans. 'destroyers'), while the Chinese produced Shén zhī quán (trans. 'fists of God') to strike back at the Japanese invaders.

The war had reached a new level. Mere soldiers were almost insignificant on the battlefield now, and even tanks and battleships were barely adequate against a foe that could potentially cut either one in half with an angry glance. Uprisings from within what should have been secure territory, as well as inexorable pressure from the outside, weakened the Axis forces until they began to collapse inward. Targeted strikes against German commanders in Western Europe and North Africa, and against Japanese commanders in China (especially those involved in Unit 731) merely hastened this decline.

But every pendulum, having swung so far, will inevitably reverse its course.

A few at a time, but accelerating at a steadily increasing rate, Specialists began appearing among the enemy forces. Among the Japanese they were called Ten'notsurugi (trans. 'heavenly swords'), while the Germans termed them Wundersoldaten or Wunderwaffenhersteller (trans. 'wonder-soldiers' or 'wonder-weapon manufacturers'). The latter name was due to the fact that (for some reason) while the proportion of physical capabilities to mentally- and technically-gifted Specialists was about twenty to one in the Allied nations, this was reversed among the Axis forces. This meant that even though the Allied troops were better equipped, they faced foes who could produce technologically advanced weaponry at a moment's notice, and utilise it in multilayered strategies that more often than not led attacking Specialists into deadly traps.

With lack of numbers on the Axis side and well-earned caution on the Allied side, the war slowed down to a slog, which paradoxically led to a new understanding of the Specialist situation. Now that the original excitement over Specialist abilities being able to win the war almost overnight had passed, it became possible to rotate the war-weary Specialists back home for well-earned furloughs. This led to the discovery of homegrown Specialists showing up among the population, especially among those who had had the most contact with pre-existing Specialists.

However, despite a renewed interest in inducing Specialist capabilities in non-Specialist volunteers (dissection of retrieved Specialist dead having offered very few insights), it proved impossible to actually make it happen in a consistent manner. There was no way of predicting how many people the Specialist needed to get close to, or even how close they needed to get, in order to 'infect' one of them with whatever it was that caused it. Neither was it possible to determine who (if anyone) would become a Specialist as a result. All they could really do was expose as many Specialists to the population as possible, which meant war bonds drives.

Unfortunately, the enemy nations also figured this out in short order, so war-hero Specialists from all nations were soon being shown off to their adoring populations, leading inevitably to more Specialists arising and joining the armed forces. And thus, the war dragged on. Whenever there was fighting, it was Specialist versus Wundersoldat or Ten'notsurugi, with the mundane troops just there to hold the ground once taken. There were lots of fireworks, but not a great deal of progress.

Having reached an exhausted stalemate in early 1948, all sides allowed the war to stagger to a halt: an effective (if not official) armistice. Everyone with a stake in the fight was wary, but they were also weary. Nobody wanted to fight anymore.

The world took a breath.

Peace, unseen for nearly ten years, crept out of the hole it had been stuffed into and took its first cautious look at its surroundings. Opposing forces pulled back a little, allowing an uncontested zone between their lines. People began to rebuild the destroyed cities, assisted by those Specialists whose capabilities lent themselves to such efforts.

Three years passed.

At midnight on December 7, 1951, people found that radio and radar had ceased to work, worldwide. Military forces and Specialists of all nations were called to full alert.

It didn't help. At 0800 local time, a massive aircraft—invisible to radar—appeared in the airspace over Pearl Harbor, bearing Japanese markings. It shrugged off all attacks aimed at it, and proceeded to devastate the base, flattening every building and sinking every ship within the harbor. Then it vanished out to sea again, shooting down every plane that dared pursue.

At the same time, a monstrous mechanical beast, again with Japanese markings on its flanks, emerged from the ocean off Sydney Harbour and trod in through the Heads, firing to the left and right with massive mounted guns. When it reached the Harbour Bridge, it walked clear through the obstruction, demolishing it with contemptuous ease. By this time, a large part of the city was on fire; it turned about and walked away from the city, disappearing beneath the waves once more. All attempts to pursue or destroy it were met with extreme force.

Likewise, an immense craft cruised up the Thames, destroying bridges both new and historical without seeming to notice. Ignoring all attacks, it levelled the House of Commons and the tower holding Big Ben, then reversed course and left the way it had come. The Specialists who attempted to stop or destroy it were left dead or injured in its wake.

This scene was repeated all over the world, in every nation that had a stake in the original conflict, including Germany, Italy and Japan; in every case, the attacking war machine had borne the markings of an enemy nation, and had hit them where it hurt. By the time the communication blackout dropped, all forces were once more on a war footing. Even if any of the belligerents had offered to talk about what had happened, nobody would've been willing to listen to the other side.

This time around, the Specialists were far more well-informed about their abilities, and had been getting training in how to best use them. Both defensive and offensive capabilities had been building up during the cease-fire, with the full expectation of how to use them. Plans had been made and refined, and now those plans were put into action.

The fighting was more sporadic now, but also far more intense. There was no quarter to be asked or given, and nobody even considered being 'gentlemanly' about matters. On the battlefield (or above it, or under it) it was kill or be killed, and to hesitate was to become a statistic.

Somewhere along the line, it became less about taking and holding territory and more about hurting the enemy for the sake of hurting them. Thus, when a group of Nazis in flying battlesuits bombarded Washington DC in 1955, then tore a line of devastation across the nation to Kansas City before being blown out of the sky, that was considered par for the course. The United States teleported a prototype nuclear bomb over Berlin in retaliation, turning a chunk of the city into a radioactive crater, but it didn't really change anything. Even if Hitler had still been alive (a member of the Libérateurs got him in 1947) he wouldn't have been in the city, and neither were his successors.

The US government went out of its way to lionise its Specialist troops, giving them the best of everything, but despite the rising numbers of people gaining superhuman capabilities, especially in the younger generation, the numbers of Specialists enlisting in the armed forces were declining. So, they took the next step: making use of broad war powers, they nationalised Specialist abilities. It became a crime to have such abilities and not sign up to use them for the war effort in some way.

This did not quite work out in the way they'd intended.

Certainly, enlistment numbers went up. However, a certain number of known Specialist events resulted in the newly empowered person going dark and dropping out of sight altogether. And finally, there was an uproar about forcing teenagers into a war zone, often by politically influential people. While the armed forces absolutely had the ear of Congress, some of those people could shout very loudly indeed.

All of this was looking to bubble over when the world stumbled into its next cease-fire in mid-1960. There was a change of government in the wings, this being an election year, and one of the major planks in the platform of the incoming favourite was Specialist rights. The election was close—a lot of people weren't quite sure about Specialists, even now—but the favourite won out and changes were on the cards.

Nobody assumed that the fragile peace would hold, any more than the last one had. The Japanese or the Germans would attack again; that was an article of faith. Too many people were holding too many grudges for the war to stay in abeyance forever.

The new laws that came were a step in the right direction. Teenagers with Specialist capabilities would not be forced straight into the firing line; they would instead be termed Recruits and mentored in their home cities by veteran Specialists who had rotated Stateside to spend time guarding their homeland from any attacks from outside. Once they turned eighteen, if their capabilities lent themselves toward combat, they would be posted overseas for a tour of duty. Not necessarily to an active war zone (there weren't any at the moment, though that was only a matter of time) but to give them more experience in being a Specialist, and do cross-training with those from allied nations.

However, while the criminalisation aspect for non-compliance was sugar-coated and de-emphasised by giving offenders every chance to change their minds, there were still some who chose to deny their country the benefit of their abilities. Public opinion was solidly against such people; those who could fight but opted not to were seen as cowards (the politest term used for them was 'white feather') while the ones who chose to turn their talents to actual crime were called 'renegades'.

On Christmas Day, 1962, a gigantic war machine bearing German markings levelled half of New York before being driven off. At the same time, around the world, other cities suffered attacks from overpowered juggernauts of the air or land or sea, all showing the markings of their given enemies. By New Year's Day, the war was in full swing again.

It is the opinion of this author that such events are the doings of an outside force: one that wishes us to keep fighting.

However, no matter how many people agree with me, it just keeps happening.

How long will this war go on for?

God may know.

I certainly don't.

Click to shrink...

<><>​

Winslow High School
Brockton Bay

Taylor Hebert

Friday, April 10, 1970

Closing the booklet carefully from where I'd been reading it behind the desk while Mr Gladly was waffling on, I slid it into my backpack. I was fairly sure he was talking about what an honour it was for Specialists to step up for the war effort, which I'd heard a thousand times before, and I still didn't buy it. Whenever I'd seen a Specialist on home-guard duty, I'd looked at their eyes instead of their smile, and what I saw there made me shiver.

Life in Brockton Bay in wartime was no picnic; when Mom was alive, she'd worried constantly about the enemy attacking Lord's Port to screw with our shipping traffic. It was a very real possibility, though I was less concerned about an oversized Wunderwaffen or Japanese war-mech descending on the port than most. The booklet I'd just read, and others like it, had convinced me that the really big attacks, the ones that restarted the war, were an outside provocation.

I doubted we'd ever get one of those coming to Brockton Bay. We just weren't important enough in the grand scheme of things.

But I had other reasons not to be in favour of people with Specialist abilities automatically being required to turn themselves over to the government. I was fifteen years old, and I had powers.

And no way was I going to let them turn me into a soldier for someone else's agenda.



End of Part One