//------------------------------// // Family // Story: The six headed HYDRA // by Malcolm Merlyn //------------------------------// "Come in." Schmidt said as the bell to his stateroom rang. He was expecting Strucker on probably some useless update about how they were terrorizing a bunch of cartoon horses, or that they had just shipped some weapons back to HYDRA island, or maybe even that construction of a factory in a remote location on the coast of Equestria had been finished. It was not Strucker. Rather it was, a man in a skull mask. Crossbones, as the Red Skull had nicknamed him. Though he was known colloquially as Brock Rumlow. The man in question at the moment had actually never believed the rumors that the Red Skull literally had a Red Skull... but he was starting too now as he saw Schmidt without his mask. The Red Skull glanced back at him as though he was waiting for something, which he was. "Report." The man asked in his usual voice. "Um... eh... we got those elements of Harmony for you... sir..." Rumlow said uneasily. The fact that his boss ACTUALLY had a Red Skull still came off as a shocker, always dismissing those stories as rumors. On the desk was the mask that was Schmidt's "actual" face. "Gud... gud..." The former SS officer replied as he took out a bottle of rum and poured himself a glass for both himself and for Rumlow. "Anything else?" "Well... now that you mentioned it sir... Um... Captain America seems to be onto us... it would appear as though he is working with these... um ponies. In addition, The Winter Soldier has also seemed to have um... "caught on" about his true identity and is now working with Captain America." "I assume zat is not all?" The skull asked, almost as though he knew all the details about Rumlow's report. "No... it's not." Brock continued. "There was also another man. They called him... Deathstroke. It's unconfirmed, but from our intel, he's a master assassin. Best of the best.... from whatever intel we could also gather, the man has also been enhancements have similar effects to the ones used upon you, Captain America and the Winter Soldier. Intel also suggests that this guy is here for the money, that those rainbow horses must have paid him off to do their dirty work. Other than that, this guy is highly dangerous, and had actually defeated Reaper in a one on one." "I see..." The Skull began. Good thing HYDRA had a rather infinite reserve of wealth when dealing with these types of men...... of course, Rumlow would still have a few more things to mention if his intel was correct. It involved... magic. "Lastly sir... there were these two girls... if I got their names right, they were both called Gertrud Barkhorn, and Erica Hartmann..." The skull already knew this... but he still hadn't believed it until now. Especially considering he knew, personally two men... two rather familiar men... "Now... I dunno too much about the second world war... but there were these two men..." "Gerhard Barkhorn and Erich Hartmann." The skull cut in. "I knew both men. Gerhard refused to take Strucker's offer, and even began to expose information about HYDRA after the war. Good thing he took care of that. Hartmann never as much as got a chance to... well... accept HYDRA's generosity... you don't need to speak any more herr Rumlow. These two frau are witches. Their universe's replica of the greatest aces of ours... humph... I wonder..." "What is it sir?" "Christiane Barkhorn is having her blood harvested to fuel... our cause. You see... ze reason zat I decided not to get a vitch zat has her powers is zat they are... difficult... given mundane veapons, zey can bring ruin to even the greatest of all things in little time." Magic did do wonders for them... such as give them superhuman strength that'd easily rival soldiers of the Serum or any variations, whether or not it was the imperfect one, the one given to Rogers, or the one Zola used upon the Winter Soldier. The major advantage any supersoldier would hold over a witch however was, while a witch was more durable than the average human, they didn't enjoy the same benefits Johann, Bucky or Steve would in terms of accelerated healing factor, being able to take a dozen times the usual punishment a human could take before succumbing to injury or a slowed aging process... perhaps even immortality. On the flip side, Skull couldn't exactly create shields of ether, preform magic or make a mundane pistol a personal grenade launcher. Neither could Bucky or Steve. "Tell ze doctors vorking vith ze vitch... zat I vant a blood sample." Schmidt ordered as Rumlow nodded. "By ze way Herr Rumlow... how much do you know about a vitch?" "Um... I used to think they were old hags on broomsticks... that kid of urban legend type of thing... I never exactly figured they'd been girls playing the army... and army that's also lacking pants I would like to throw out..." "A cultural... thing..." The Skull replied, having trouble on exactly how to describe it. "In that regard, you aware of why the nations of ze world... vell... zeir world uses kinder to fight their wars?" "I dunno..." "You see... zere is an enemy zat only magic can counter. A vitch only has her powers through age twelve to twenty. To fight zis enemy... a race of aliens called ze Neuroi... ze nations of ze world relies on vitches... but let's forget about ze vitches... you see... ze Neuroi are a race of aliens with two things as far as I am concerned... weapons not unlike zat ze Tesseract can provide... and amazing regenerative properties upon zeir machine like forms..." Inwardly... Rumlow knew EXACTLY where this was going. Sample retrieval time now wasn't it? Worse... turns out... HYDRA already built one. And... guess who got to be on testing sight? "Thanks for coming too." Slade said as he sat besides the train, smiling inwardly at the fact that every horse except for Twilight was crowded on the opposite end of the car. They had all this space just for themselves... which was a good thing considering Slade's head actually scrapped the top, as did Bucky. Trude wouldn't have much of a problem with her height, which was frankly short. Standing at roughly 5' 4'' she was easily overshadowed by both Slade and Bucky, who were respectively at the 6' 5'' and 6' 4'' marks. Did it bother her one bit? Nah. Did having Bucky here bother her one bit? HOLY SHIT... YES. She almost would have considered sitting with the group of horses who all stared at them with views of wonder, horror or a mixture of both. Apparently, having someone who wasn't your own species on a train was considered strange to them... Then again... when even the shortest among you stood over a foot taller... it can be easy to see why most of them would be unnerved. There was the occassinal foal however, that wandered up to Trude who frankly looked the least likely to rip some pony in half, ironically enough, she could probably tear the train in half with bare hands if she was wearing any form of magical amplifiers. "So... how long's the ride?" Slade asked impatiently as he looked out the window, remembering that time Sanya took the late train to Canterlot, and he practically just hitched a ride. He didn't recall it to be too long, save for the fact how Sanya actually told him about how she had a family that cared for her... a lot... and maybe it was for the better Slade left out any details when referring to any of his own. Things like domestic issues with firearms, mirakuru, self-mutilation, unintended mutilation etc. wasn't exactly a way to build friendships. Not that he would have cared for most people... but finding someone who looked awfully similar to Rose in her childhood was more than enough for him to start caring. Pushing the though about how Sanya eerily resembled Rose, the mercenary looked over to Bucky who was wearing about as much facial expression as a brick aside from fidgeting with a sniper rifle, which grabbed many looks of fear from the other passengers. Rather prudently, Trude had come unarmed, which was probably the reason if any pony approached them, it was starting with Barkhorn. Someone in layers of armor and a hockey mask did exactly spell out the words "Mr. Nice Guy" and neither did another big guy with a SNIPER RIFLE in hands. Not that anyone around here really knew what a sniper rifle was, but... most horses were smart enough to put two and two together. Especially those who had heard about the organization called HYDRA. "So... you got a family?" Slade asked Bucky as he continued to play with the rifle. "Me? No.... My immediate family is dead... extended probably died with them after the war. When you are about 100 years old... there isn't many people left that you know too closely..." Trude's canine ears would have perked up if she heard this... Immediate family dead... extended family dead... how very like her own predicament... except... "But you know what?" Bucky continued. "Rogers may as well as be my brother. We've known each other since we were on the streets. We got into messes together, we ate together, hell... we did every possible thing together. The war separated us alright... but you know what? Not one of us missed any part. I was a bit too busy being out of my mind... he was a bit too busy being frozen... That aside, the guy's a brother to me." "I see... brother's in arms?" "Brother's in arms." Barnes nodded as he looked over at Trude, who was staring at the ground. Her mind raced about her little sister, Chris. She liked horses did she? How badly Trude wished her younger sister was here... she could truly enjoy herself for maybe once in her life... the thought brought her heart to ache. "What about you?" Bucky asked back to Slade. "My family is either dead, crazy, or perfectly happy without me. I can assure you... none of them ever want to see me again..." Slade breathed. "I am not really missing out anything when I know for a fact three out of the four members of my immediate family want me dead." "Man..." "My fault all the way. Adeline, my wife got sore with me after something went wrong. A group of thugs kidnapped my son Jericho... tried to save him. Did... except Jericho got a slit throat. This ended with Adeline divorcing me and sending a bullet through my eye.... but wait... it get's better. You know what I do for a living?" "Kill people? Not really different from what I do..." "Yeah... except this type of killing... I really don't care who wants someone dead. I just want the cash... you see... Jericho sort of decided... he wanted to be a vigilante of sorts..." "And you two are fighting?" "We are fighting... enemies." Slade breathed. "My son Grant died before Jericho and I were truly done. He wanted to be like dad... so a bunch of Japanese men replicated this thing that would be SIMILAR to what they used on me. They called it Mirakuru, miracle. Thing was... it made Grant insane... destroyed him from the inside out. I wasted two years of my life trying to avenge him for the people I believed to have killed him. In the end, I was just too blind to see that Grant had killed himself, and it was because of that Jericho was convinced to join the people whom I had made enemies with." "Well..." "I could start on Rose... but I'll stop speaking now." Slade said as he looked over at Trude. She knew Sanya right? And she probably heard him mention quite a few times how much Sanya looked like Rose in her childhood. This probably meant it was a good time for him not to say anything. "So kid... what's your story?" Slade asked. "Well..." Trude began nervously. It would be a long train ride. "I'd rather not..." "Alright kid... alright. But like it or not kid... I know you may not trust... some of us..." Slade said, trying not to look into Bucky's direction. "But you know... some of these people are going to be like a family to you..." Oh... joy. "But I wouldn't worry about it. I don't get attached to people anyways." Slade said, brushing off what he had just said. "You almost moved me there Slade." Bucky said rolling his eyes. "That was ALMOST inspiring." Words could not describe how much of a horrendous liar Slade was at this moment. Barkhorn however... realized this. "Hey Slade..." "What kid?" "Mind if I call you Eila from now on?" Barkhorn asked with a small chuckle. Her mood beginning to lift slightly.