Humpday 5

Artwork by: Written by:

The overall setting:

Soviet Superwoman is owned by
and is used with the permission of:

Concussion and story concept by:

<The story takes place just prior to the Trial of Genocide>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BOOK ONE: CONCUSSION STRIKES

Angel Falls time 9:30 am, Wednesday

Moscow time ?, 1954, Soviet Superwoman's reality.


It was the smell that hit Olga first. She recognized it instantly. It smelled like what she had experienced upon reaching the horrors of Auschwitz so many years ago and would never forget: the smell of burning human flesh. The last thing she remembered was flying over Angel Falls and she remembered something...someone behind her, dragging her into a thick darkness. It felt like she had been pulled through a wall of cotton and dropped to the hard ground on her back. She opened her eyes and shook her head, trying in vain to clear her nostrils. What she saw was the sky above her, only it was so thick with smoke she couldn't tell if it was day or night. Above her in this blanket of gray hovered strange looking alien vessels. Massive starships.. monstrous warships each one exactly the same looking as the next. Their construction was of an unknown material that was jet black and as hard as titanium. The drive-engines that granted them interstellar travel bathed the ships in a harsh red light and gave off a low frequency hum that caused her teeth to ache in her jaw. Olga's temples began to throb as well, the pulse from the starships giving her the beginning of a massive headache. It was all a sensation she had felt once before. Her eyes grew wide as she pushed herself to her feet and stared up at them.

There were thousands of them. So many that they blotted out parts of the sky themselves, suspended in the thick gray rolls of smoke.

The worst part was that she recognized them.

And she recognized where she was.

She was home.

Olga let out a choked cry of anguish and despair and bit down hard on her black gloved hand to silence it. She was standing in Red Square. Красная площадь. The Kremlin, Saint Basil's Cathedral, Lenin's Mausoleum, The State Historical Museum...all of them were here, exactly as she remembered them. But there was no one living. No one walking around. Only piles of still burning ash and smoldering bodies stacked as high as the ornate towers that surrounded her. The smoke that hung in the air was heavy and thick with ash that swirled and billowed into the sky. Her great nation and all it's people had been reduced to nothing but pillars of cinders. Tears began to stream down her red-hot cheeks as her lips curled back into a defiant snarl. There would be no mercy for these beings...these creatures. Just like the Nazis when they stormed her country and her people were starving and being shot in the woods by the thousands. She would rip their ships down with her bare hands and tear through their weak, feeble bodies with her laser vision. She would build a pile of corpses to rival those they had made of her friends and countrymen. Nothing would stop her this time. Once, they had sent her away to another dimension for attempting to stop them from accomplishing this horrific act of genocide. Now she would enact one of her own. No man or God would stop her this time. There was no choice. She clenched her fists into two tight balls. Her breathing was fast and frenzied. Olga glared up at the nearest enemy vessel and crouched down to launch herself through it like a missile.

"That's it, strike out at them in vengeance Olga. Do what you should have done all along, but were too weak to do at the time." a low, gravely voice said to her calmly.

Olga spun around to see a rather ordinary man amid all this death and destruction. He was dressed in a simple t-shirt and pair of blue jeans with sneakers, not unlike thousands of people she had passed on the streets of Angel Falls thousands of times. Ordinary in every way, except for the fact he was here with her now in this place. The look on his face was grave and he nodded when she finally acknowledged his presence. She was completely taken aback.

"Who are you?" she demanded, her face a mask of rage and unfathomable anguish, "Are you the one who brought me back here? To see this!"

"I would have thought you would have liked to go back home...to see the great, glorious Soviet Union you are always prattling on and on about." the man sneered, his words forced out between clenched teeth, "Pathetic."

"I don't even know who you are!" she exclaimed taking a few angry steps in his direction, "Why would you hurt me like this? What have I ever done to you?"

"You failed this world just like you've failed everyone else!" the young man snapped at her furiously, "I should have expected it from Vyr-Na, but not from you. You meddled in affairs that were none of your concern! You always tried to help the common man...always tried to do what was right. You're a delusional farm-girl. A tool of a corrupt government and a puppet to it's paranoid dictator. I don't know why they even trusted in you to begin with."

Olga looked around confused and horrified. She didn't understand what he was talking about. All she could see was her world, ravaged by alien conquerors. Her people burning in piles. She felt dizzy and her head was spinning. This couldn't be happening. The man snapped several times to draw her attention back to him.

"Are you still with me Olga, or has this experience unhinged your simple little mind?"

Soviet Superwoman stood up straight and forced back her tears, swallowing up her despair. She glared at the man with her cold, blue eyes with a gaze as icy as the Siberian winter. Her hands worked and her nostrils flared. When she spoke it was very slowly and deliberately, her voice quaking with rage. "I did everything I could to help my peoples...the aliens used a technology on me that sent me to another world...a world I could not escape from. I have come to terms with this within myself...but for you to show it to me...what kind of cruel monster are you? Мерзавец! I have have never laid eyes upon you in my entire life."

The man folded his arms across his chest and nodded. "I brought you here so you could see yourself for the failure that you truly are. The way you failed to rescue everyone in this world from a horrible fate means nothing at all to me...dust in the wind as it were...but what you did to my father is unforgivable. What gave you the right? Well I will make sure you remember my name and his by the end of this, but mark my words that this is far from over. If you think you are suffering now you have no idea what I am capable of Olga, no idea."

"I know that you are capable of being a monster...and in my mind you are no different than Ilsa Hauppman or any of the other monsters I have seen wearing a human face." she growled.

The man laughed, "ME? A monster? I believe YOU were the one about to massacre an entire species to make up for your mistakes. A little too much a little too late I would say. Still if you want to massacre them now I'll let you. We have some time. You can have some revenge for what they did to you...it might be amusing to watch you rip their heads from their bodies, to feel their hot blood rush down your arms. To watch them burn to death trapped in their exploding war-machines. Just like you did with so many of the German invaders...something you don't like to share with your super-hero buddies and the good people of Angel Falls. Only one of us is a monster Olga Yezhov."

"Nyet, you won't get that satisfaction from me. This is what you wish me to see and be blamed for. I will not. This could be an illusion created by you." Olga said slowly, forcing herself to calm down. She was taking deep breaths and continued to stare at the smaller man with a gaze of such malice normal men would have shrank back from her. "Who are you?"

With that the man threw his hand up in front of her, palm out. His face carried the obvious signs of disappointment. "You can call me Concussion." he said quietly.

Then there was a brilliant flash of white light followed by darkness.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Continued: