It was a hazy morning in the outskirts of Leipzig, Cartoonz, a young cloud person, looked out to the gloomy overcast sky and sighed. It had been a rough day, rounding up and capturing people. It had been a few months since the fuhrer had risen up to power and established his reign on the empire. Cartoonz was extremely unsure of his current situation, while the empire's morals had been drilled into him as they had been to everyone else, the daily carnage certainly had left a mark, and he did not want to continue aiding in this reign of terror.

As of right now though, he was sitting in his home, dealing with his mental conundrum while being alert for anything that may come up. Cartoonz had acquired quite the reputation for being a fiercesome soldier of the empire. He had stopped oppositions all by himself, he was a force on the battlefield, swinging his trusty hammer and clearing out enemy after enemy with practiced movements. Nobody would've guessed that this infamous soldier was reluctant to fight.

He looked distatefully at the hammer he kept hung on the wall, thinking of the blood it had shed. Exhausted, he got up and made himself a drink, and sat back down, picking up a book he had picked up in some attic to read.

He froze, the contents of the book horrified him, it was a diary, an innocent diary of one of the victims of the empire, cursing in his mind, he threw the book aside and went outside to clear his head. 

Outside, he sucked in a breath of fresh air and checked his mailbox, there, he found a small envelope with a formal stamp, he opened it with a lump in his throat, and read its contents

"Grüẞ Dich, Cartoonz, you have been urgently summoned to Weimar as there has been Intel that hints that the soviets may have infiltrated the country and plan on an inside ambush heading outwards from the Empire. Your duty here is to provide defense and to deal with anyone not following orders. You know what to do, We hope you reach us safely. Seig heil"

Cartoonz slowly lowered the letter from his face and then... He started laughing noiselessly, he laughed at his own helplessness and cowardice, at his insurmountable predicament. Still laughing, but now also choking up on his emotions, he threw the letter across his yard and ran inside his house. He reluctantly picked up his hammer and left for Weimar, wondering if he'll even get to see his house again.

An hour later, Cartoonz reached Weimar and made his way through the camps, trying his best not to throw up acid rain at the carnage, he watched rainfully as he watched a a child get seperated from her bloodied mother, who was being led to the "showers". He turned around only to find even more tragic scenes, families, lovers, friends, all being seperated because of the cursed war. He tried his best to appear expressionless, which was surprisingly difficult even as a cloud bubble, and walked into a tent, there he found herr major, the fuhrer had not been here as be was busy with important business and did not have time, said the major, but Cartoonz wondered what could take importance over being attacked this deeply. "What is the situation here?" Signed Cartoonz, "we were right, those damned soviets have infiltrated our land, they are currently hiding like cowards somewhere outside the borders of the city, we have to be ready for an attack from anywhere" replied the major, "how did they even get here? It just doesn't seem possible by any means, they'd surely be detected earlier?" Cartoonz asked, "ahh about that, it turns out that some... External, factors may have been in play" the major was suddenly interrupted by a soldier, who ran in, and after a salute and a greeting quickly declared "sir, it is time, sir Cartoonz, you are also invited" and left. Before he could question what that meant, he had to walk out as he followed the major. 

Soon, they reached a stage, where a lone man sat tied to a chair, Cartoonz stopped in his tracks, he recognized him, it was avondale, his mate from before the war, the man who had saved his life multiple times and who had been saved by Cartoonz multiple times. They had talked long and hard about their life and various miscallenous topics, he could tell that they had similar feelings about the war, well, now, seeing him in that spot, he had a feeling that he knew what exactly had happened. Although they both had risen up the ranks very quickly due to their skill

"I won't work for you anymore you damned monsters! I've had enough! Every day I wake up to sounds of innocents suffering! Is this what we call a superior empire?!" His friend screamed. The major walked up to the stand and talked to Avondale "Silence, to think we trusted you, you are clearly unfit to lead under our empire, we shall teach what people like you who dull our empire's name deserve." And then, like a point blank tank shell right into Cartoonz body, the unthinkable happened. "Cartoonz, if you may, please do the deed". The mayor beckoned. Cartoonz almost took a step back, however his feet did not move, slowly, he made his way up the stadium, a soldier nearby handed him his hammer, and he slowly walked up to Avondale. "You can't do this Cartoonz, I'm your friend, i know you don't want to work here either! Tell them! We can overthrow this wicked empire together!" He screamed. Cartoonz froze for less than second, then however, he swung his hammer anyways, not to Avondale however, but to the major. But right before anyone could realise what was happening, a gigantic explosion engulfed the air. 

The impact shook Cartoonz off balance and made him fall, and everyone instantly turned at the sight, a fight had already broken out, as soldiers defending the area had flocked to protect the breach. Blood and body parts covered the surroundings of the explosion. Everyone ran to their positions as Cartoonz stood up and shook himself. While nobody was paying attention, Cartoonz signed "I'm freeing you now, run away and don't try to fight anyone for now. let's hope we meet again, friend." And freed Avondale. Tearfully, the two friends hugged and Avondale ran off. Now, Cartoonz steeled himself for the battle and ran.

Soon enough, he arrived at the scene, it was a bloody mess of gunshots, soldiers and screams. Cartoonz readied his hammer and ran in, Many bullets merely grazed his cloudy figure, while he dodged more dangerous shots via constantly moving with precise accuracy. Any and all thoughts had left him now, the Cartoonz on the battlefield was not Cartoonz, with the efficiency of a machine, he disemboweled enemy after enemy. He dodged a rifle shot which he faintly heard, and launched another soldier into the one who had fired at him. Reinforcements soon arrived for both sides. But none of that mattered to Cartoonz, with practiced movements, he broke the gun of an enemy who was about to shoot a random person, and then crushed the shooter. Only faintly realising that he did so because a dead soldier could still shoot. It was going great, or so he thought, but something seemed odd, he snapped out of his fighting trance for a second and noticed that the amount of enemy soldiers seem to have only slightly decreased. Confused, he fended off a group of 5 soldiers shooting at him while he tried to figure out what was going on, once again, he heard a faint sound of a sniper rifle, he side stepped, and looked backwards, only to stop."Didn't i kill that exact same guy a few seconds ago?", This time he ran through the soldiers and got to the sniper's high ground to kill him, once there, he scanned the area for information, he noted that while they were certainly doing well, the amount of Soviets was still odd for an ambush of this extent. Then, he noticed something, the corpse of the guy that he had crused not seconds earlier was being magically pulled away, he followed the corpse as sneakily as possible, and after a brief walk, he came across an inconspicuous neighbourhood, but outside each house were hosts of Soviet corpses, trying not to grimace, he noticed that all the corpses didn't have any massive head injuries, the corpses burnt with a blue flame, and flew into the house, but not a house, he realised as the door opened, but some sort of machine, and then a few seconds later the same soldier came back out alive.

"Scheiß, what is that inhuman wizardry? How did they even get that in here?" Sparing the rest of the questions for later, he knew what he had to do, and started using his hammer to dismantle the houses one by one, fighting of the hundreds of soldiers who came out of the houses as he did so. Thousands of bullets rained towards him and explosions filled the air, but Cartoonz swiftly dodged most of them and finished off both the machines and soldiers, he heard the sound of a grenade dropping by him and jumped, it was slightly too late however as the explosion the left side of his body, hurting him badly. "God, I'm stupid" he thought as he tried his best to stand up, he fumbled, nearly fell, and then swung his hammer on to the last remaining machine, breaking it instantly with a boom. He fell down on his knees, exhausted, and collapsed.

When he came to, he realised how stupid it was of him to faint near enemies. He had awoken in a dark and damp chamber, certainly not somewhere in Weimar. He tried to stand up, and found himself barely even able to move even ignoring the fact that he had been chained to the floor, with a splitting nauseating headache to add on to the pain. He collapsed back onto floor and was about to faint again when he heard footsteps. A woman and two men in Soviet uniforms entered his cell, the man who was clearly a higher up ordered them to start the interrogation, and Cartoonz gulped for what was in store for him. He ferociously insisted that he hadn't been told anything, for he really hadn't, whether it be because of his lack of political knowledge or because they knew he wasn't trustworthy was as good of a guess as any. But they still tortured him for hours on end with fire, only stopping when they themselves were tired. After they left, he was once again alone in the cell, suffering from the pain and exhausted from the day's events. 

This loop of loneliness and pain continued for a few days, Maybe even a week. He couldn't tell at this point, But one day, it was different, it was really late and night, he could tell, and Cartoonz was woken up by seemingly nothing, he blinked a few times and looked up, if he had a mouth, he would've surely screamed, as staring directly at him was the most horrifying thing he had ever seen, a mysterious... Thing? That looked like an owl, stated at him with an endless glare, with eyes that looked like the void itself. No words formed, even in Cartoonz mind, because of how shocked and terrified he was. An alien voice entered his mind then, "Hello, mr Cartoonz, you may be wondering who or what I am, well, that is unnecessary, however you may refer to me as, shadow, I was just passing by and happened to notice you trapped here, I just couldn't stand seeing you like this so I thought, why not free you? So, I've here to do just that, just hold my hand, and you're free." And the thing, which was named shadow, held out his hand to Cartoonz. Cartoonz clearly saw that following this thing's orders was stupid, but the pain he had felt told him otherwise. "no, i can't get caught up with something, surely, I'll be saved by something or the other in the future, or I'll die, even that would be preferable over something as risky as this". But then, he remembered what he had said to his friend before the battle. "Let's hope we meet again, friend" Cartoonz shook his head and reluctantly signed "fine, I'll do it". He extended his hand, but then realised he was chained up, shadow chuckled, and then with a snap of his fingers, the chains disappeared into a strange black form. He heard a guard approaching, and he quickly gave shadow his hand in fear of being spotted. Then the two disappeared into a shadowy cacoon, and the guard entered distraught into an empty cell.

Art:Kaizar

Written by Joe