"You need protection," Shaw said, his voice echoing slightly off the concrete walls of the command bunker.
He gestured to the demon-like mutant standing in the shadows.
"Azazel is the best there is. He can teleport anywhere in the world in the blink of an eye. He's an assassin, a spy, and now... your bodyguard."
The red-skinned figure stepped forward.
The movement was fluid, liquid, almost entirely silent.
Azazel's yellow eyes locked onto Ernst.
They were ancient eyes, filled with a boredom that came from living centuries, interspersed with flashes of predatory amusement.
He bowed theatrically, a sweeping gesture of mocking chivalry.
A smirk played on his dark red lips, revealing the tips of serrated teeth.
"A pleasure, boss," Azazel said.
His voice was smooth, like oil over gravel, and heavily accented with a dialect that sounded Russian, but older.
Something pre-Cyrillic.
Ernst looked at the teleporter, then back to his father.
He adjusted his glasses, his mind already dissecting the tactical implications.
Having a teleporter was a game-changer.
It wasn't just an upgrade; it was a paradigm shift.
It meant he could be in Berlin one minute and New York the next.
It meant there were no locked doors.
No vaults he couldn't access.
No secrets he couldn't steal.
It meant the concept of 'distance' was now irrelevant to his operations.
"Thank you, Father," Ernst said, keeping his face neutral.
"He'll do nicely."
"He serves the Hellfire Club," Shaw reminded him, pouring another drink.
"And right now, you are the Club's most valuable investment. Do not squander him."
"I don't squander resources," Ernst replied.
He turned on his heel.
"Come, Azazel. We have a schedule."
Ernst walked out of the bunker's heavy steel blast doors.
Behind him, there was a sound like a vacuum imploding, BAMF, and a smell of brimstone.
Azazel vanished in a puff of smoke, only to reappear instantly at Ernst's side as they emerged into the biting cold of the Polish winter.
The pieces were on the board.
The game had truly begun.
Ernst walked through the snow, the flakes melting on his trench coat, watching Azazel out of the corner of his eye.
Red Devil was a popular mutant in the comics, a fan favorite for his visual flair and connection to Nightcrawler.
But seeing him in the flesh was different.
The biology was fascinating.
The tail wasn't just an appendage; it was a counterweight, constantly shifting to maintain a perfect center of gravity.
The skin was likely hardened, resistant to friction and temperature extremes.
The mutant was ancient, claiming a lineage that went back to biblical times.
The Neyaphem.
His value was incalculable.
Sebastian Shaw, the Black King, had the ultimate defense: Kinetic and Energy Absorption.
He was an immovable object.
You could hit him with a tank shell, and he would just smile and hit you back with the force of that same shell.
But Azazel?
Azazel was the ultimate logistics system.
Teleportation wasn't just about moving from point A to point B; it was about asymmetry.
With Azazel, there were no front lines.
No safe houses.
No bunkers deep enough to hide a head of state.
If Ernst was in danger, Azazel could shift him to the other side of the planet in a heartbeat.
Or, he could drop an enemy from thirty thousand feet without a parachute.
A perfect escape valve, Ernst thought. And an even better assassin.
It made him wonder about the timeline.
In the movies, First Class, Azazel appeared much later, part of Shaw's entourage during the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 60s.
If Shaw had him now, in the early 40s, it meant the Hellfire Club was assembling early.
That meant the timeline was accelerating.
It meant Emma Frost, the White Queen, and Riptide couldn't be far behind.
Ernst adjusted his glasses, a flicker of genuine anticipation crossing his mind.
Emma Frost.
She was a telepath of the highest order.
A diamond-skinned powerhouse with a mind as sharp as broken glass.
Dangerous, yes. But undeniably intriguing.
If he could get access to her DNA... or her cooperation... the possibilities for his research were endless.
They stepped out of the concentration camp's inner perimeter gates to a waiting convoy of black Mercedes sedans.
A squad of soldiers snapped to attention.
The sound was singular. Twelve boots hitting the frozen ground as one.
These weren't standard Wehrmacht conscripts.
They weren't the starving, freezing boys sent to die in Stalingrad.
They were his men.
The "Wolfsbrigade."
They stood perfectly still, radiating a predatory silence.
They wore distinct charcoal-grey uniforms, devoid of the usual Nazi insignia, replaced by a simple geometric wolf's head on the collar.
Their muscle mass was denser, their jaws squarer, their skin holding a healthy, almost feverish flush despite the sub-zero temperature.
Their reaction times had been chemically enhanced by Ernst's regimen, a cocktail of amphetamines, synthetic testosterone, and a crude, early version of the serum he was developing.
They were the apex of human conditioning without the X-Gene.
When Azazel stepped into the light, his red skin glowing against the white snow, his spade-tipped tail flicking visibly behind him, the soldiers didn't panic.
They didn't gasp. They didn't cross themselves.
They simply raised their MP-40 submachine guns in a fluid, synchronized motion.
Fingers hovered over triggers.
Their pupils dilated, not with fear, but with target acquisition.
Azazel hissed, his tail stiffening, ready to teleport and kill.
"Hold," Ernst ordered.
He didn't shout. He didn't have to.
His voice was the command frequency they were conditioned to obey.
He stepped between the demon and the squad.
"This is Azazel," Ernst said, gesturing to the red figure.
"He is a... result of a genetic experiment from the Eastern front. highly classified. He is with me."
The explanation was a lie, but truth didn't matter to the Wolfsbrigade.
Only authority mattered.
"Stand down."
The soldiers lowered their weapons instantly.
The motion was robotic.
The tension evaporated from their bodies, replaced by the idle standby mode of a machine.
No questions asked. Absolute obedience.
Azazel stood straight, smoothing his suit jacket.
He smirked, his yellow eyes flashing with amusement.
He leaned in, whispering to Ernst, his breath hot and smelling of sulfur.
"Your pets are well-trained. Most humans scream. Or pray. I prefer the screaming; the praying is tedious."
"These aren't most humans," Ernst replied, opening the rear door of the lead sedan.
"They are the prototype for the future. Emotion is a variable I have removed from their equation."
"Boring," Azazel quipped.
"Efficient," Ernst corrected.
"Get in."
The journey to Berlin was punishing.
The Autobahn, once the pride of the Reich, had been chewed up by years of heavy logistics, tank treads, artillery caissons, and the endless march of infantry.
The luxury sedan, despite its plush leather seats and heavy suspension, bounced violently.
Ernst grimaced as the car hit another pothole, jarring his spine.
'Another inefficiency,' Ernst noted mentally, rubbing his lower back.
He stared out the window at the grey, passing landscape.
Bombed-out farmhouses. Lines of refugees trudging in the slush.
'I need to propose a hover-suspension system based on repulsor tech. The Stark designs in the comic archives are theoretically sound... or perhaps something magnetic, utilizing the same principles I'm observing in the boy.'
He glanced at Azazel. The demon was lounging, reading a propaganda newspaper with a look of utter disdain.
'Or just get Azazel to teleport me next time,' Ernst thought. 'But appearances matter. Arriving by car shows respect for the hierarchy. Arriving by smoke shows arrogance.'
They arrived at the Reich Chancellery three hours later.
They were dust-covered, stiff, and tired.
The building was a monolith of intimidation architecture.
Designed by Albert Speer, it was vast, cold, and imposing.
Long hallways of polished marble were designed to make any visitor feel small, insignificant, and crushed by the weight of the State.
Ernst walked through the halls, his boots clicking on the stone.
Azazel walked beside him, drawing stares from the SS guards.
But no one stopped them. Ernst's clearance level was 'Ultra'.
And the red man... well, rumors of the occult obsession of the High Command made everyone hesitant to question strange companions.
Ernst was ushered through the marble halls, bypassing layers of bureaucracy that would have stopped a Field Marshal.
But even he had to wait.
"The Führer is in a strategic briefing, Major General," an aide whispered apologetically, sweat beading on his upper lip.
"It is... intense. Please."
He gestured to a seating area.
Ernst sat in a velvet chair outside the heavy oak doors.
Azazel leaned against a marble pillar, cleaning his fingernails with the tip of his tail.
Ernst's hearing, sharpened by his own mild enhancements, a personal serum he took daily, picked up the voice booming from inside.
Adolf Hitler.
The voice was undeniable.
It wasn't just loud; it was textured.
It rose and fell with a pitch designed to bypass logic and strike directly at the reptilian brain. It was a weaponized instrument of mass hysteria.
"Generals! You speak to me of supply lines! Of winter! I speak to you of Destiny!"
The voice cracked, hysterical yet commanding.
"Tell our boys that the dawn is coming! We fight not for land, but for a new world order! A world purified by fire and steel! Providence is on our side!"
Inside, heavy hands slammed on tables.
"Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!"
Applause erupted like thunder. Desperate, frantic applause.
Ernst leaned back in the velvet chair, his expression unreadable.
To the world, Hitler was a monster.
A demon in human skin.
To the German people, he was a savior.
A messiah who had broken the shackles of Versailles.
To Ernst?
He was a useful idiot.
Hitler was charismatic, yes. He had brainwashed a nation.
He had mobilized an industrial machine that rivaled the world.
But he was also unstable. He was strategic poison.
He made decisions based on astrology, gut instinct, and hatred, rather than cold, hard data.
Ernst clapped politely when the doors finally opened, feigning the enthusiasm of a loyal subject.
He watched the generals file out.
Their faces were flushed with fanaticism, their eyes bright with the reflected glory of their leader.
They looked like men who had just been to a revival meeting.
They were marching toward a cliff, and they were singing as they went.
Ernst stood up. He knew his role.
He was the "apolitical scientist." The technocrat.
The man who cared only for progress, not politics. The man who delivered the miracle weapons.
That was why Hitler trusted him.
Hitler saw Ernst as a tool. A golden goose.
A man without ambition is a man who won't stab you in the back.
Or so Hitler thought.
In reality, Ernst was playing the most dangerous game of all: Balance.
He provided weapons, yes.
He gave the Reich advanced rocketry that terrified London.
He gave them improved alloys for the Tiger tanks.
He gave them the Wolfsbrigade to hold the lines.
But he held back the true game-changers.
If he gave Germany a nuke today, they would win tomorrow.
And a world ruled by a victorious Nazi Germany was a world where he would eventually be purged.
The Nazis didn't like things they couldn't control, and they certainly wouldn't tolerate a Hellfire Club vying for power.
But if the Allies won too quickly?
If the Reich collapsed tomorrow?
Then the funding stops. The labs are raided.
The Americans seize his research, and he ends up in a cell or working for SHIELD under a microscope.
So, he played both sides.
He managed the decline.
He released the Panzerfaust anti-tank launchers early.
They were devastating.
They decimated Allied armor in North Africa.
But he made the design simple.
Intentionally simple.
So simple that when the Americans captured a crate of them in Tunisia, they reverse-engineered it within months.
Now, American bazookas were blowing up German Panzers using Ernst's own shaped-charge designs.
The war ground on.
The meat grinder turned. The stalemate continued.
And amidst the chaos, Ernst, and his father's Hellfire Club, grew rich on the contracts.
Every day the war continued was another day he could siphon gold into Swiss accounts.
Every day the war continued was another day he could harvest "volunteers" from the camps for his genetic stockpile without moral oversight.
Let them fight, Ernst thought, watching the last general leave the room.
Let them burn the world down. I will buy the ashes.
The longer the war lasts, the more resources I can siphon away for the future.
For the real war that is coming. The war against the Mutants.
The war against the Aliens. The war against the Heroes.
The aide beckoned him, snapping him out of his reverie.
"Dr. Ernst. The Führer will see you now."
Ernst stood up, smoothing his uniform. He checked his reflection in a pane of glass.
Perfect. Cold. Loyal.
He adjusted his glasses, hiding the glint of calculation in his eyes.
"Excellent," Ernst said, grabbing his briefcase.
He felt the weight of the files inside.
Not the real files, those were encrypted in his mind, but the files Hitler wanted to see. Drawings of mega-tanks and impossible rays.
Fantasy for the mad king.
"I have some new toys to show him," Ernst whispered.
"Wait here, Azazel. Try not to scare the secretaries."
Azazel grinned, his tail flicking mischievously.
"No promises."
Ernst pushed open the heavy oak doors and stepped into the lion's den.
—-
Authors note:
Me here. I have analyzed the physics of 'Writer Motivation.'
It turns out, my typing speed is directly correlated to the number of shiny blue rocks (Power Stones) in my inventory.
200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
10 reviews = 1 bonus Chapter