Hansel and Marion Chapter 19

I hope yall enjoy, this is a really long chapter compared to the others because I forced myself not to post or “elaborate” on any ideas I had for the story. It still ended up as pretty much two chapters worth of story, well this is chapter 19: Our house, in the middle of the street!?

Chapter 19

Hansel was jolted awake the next morning by a loud explosion that made him instinctively spread his arms and legs out and straighten his back but was still wrapped in Marion’s arms and balled up in the back of her turret, where he knocked himself in the head, legs, and wrists real bad. He was inattentive of the pain and slid out of the space and hurries to see outside, he unlocks the commander’s hatch, pushes and throws the swinging saucer out of his way and the first thing he sees are black bomber silhouettes. He stands upright in the cupola, quivering as the full sounds of anti-air Flak guns and the air-raid siren strike him at his heart. Marion tries to get through to him, to calm him down and quell his emotions, she tries to push his head away from the sight of bombs falling on his home city but he keeps snapping back to it, all he hears in his head are Hitler’s cries and promises: “Not one bomb will fall on German cities!”

“He lied. He lied! Marion he lied!” He continues ranting on as Marion finally forces him into her turret. He lied! He lied! He lied Marion you see? He lied! She tries comforting him as she attempts to dress him into a proper outfit but Hansel just sits there unmoving, going on and on and on in complete and total shock, he begins to cry without a care.

After the bombers disappear and Hansel clears his mind to function somewhat properly, Marion rolls back up to camp to regroup with the others. Hansel sits on the periscopes on top of the cupola as she drives to the tank houses, and backs into her open slot, he spots Anton and Faust passing by, and runs out to meet them, Anton too is hit hard by the raid and Faust is trying her dearest to reassure him everything’s going to turn out fine. Hansel hitches a ride with them; Faust fills him in that she’s trying to get clearance to go into the city to help Anton get past it, Hansel agrees and hails Edwards and the Colonel for their attention and to approve of it too.

“Morally I’d send you in right now, but regulation says we have to get an accountability report and inventory check so for right now, permission denied, but I’m hammering asses to get this done in under forty-five minutes, so in fifty your permission will be granted. Only one thing; Faust, is it, will be outfitted with a rubble plow to clear the godforsaken streets. Dismissed.” With that he left and Edwards turned to fill them in on what’s going on and the damage known so far; “Alright, Kramia’s getting fitted with her new skirts right now, Fritz and Rommel are with her helping, two Flak guns and one ammunition shed went to hell, and the old metal house we were going to use for Marion’s skirts as a gift was hit, and there’s no more so you’re out of luck on that, sorry.” Hansel acknowledged, “One more thing, Jäger’s road wheels got fucked up by shrapnel so Irish is out in the field replacing them, could you help me by giving this to him, I’d do it myself but I’ve got shit to do.” With that he hands Faust the electric bolt gun and points into the field where they were.

Faust runs them over to Jäger and Irish and drops off Hansel and the bolt gun, then turns around to get herself fitted with the plow, Anton fell asleep at his post in the loader’s seat. He never could stay awake after his emotional moments, Hansel thought as he walked to Irish’s side, he was working on the center road wheel on Jäger’s port side; it was obvious that a bomb raped the shit out of two outer ones, and some marks were on her armored skin too, it had the anti-magnetic paint like Marion did. He stared at the textured net-like skin, he loved it, it was like a powerful hide where the bold indents, shapes, and angles of the hull turned him on slightly, but was snapped out of his thoughts by Irish yanking the bolt gun from his hands.

“Fine don’t hand me the drill,” Irish said rhetorically, “God, I hate those fucking bombers!”

“Why’s that?” Hansel asked.

“Well, I like them, they’re pretty sexy, but at the same time I HATE THOSE MOTHER FUCKING COCK SUCKERS that I wouldn’t mind if one were to suck mine.” Irish replied cheerfully, then in a dark angered voice, then cheerfully again, this literally sent Hansel reeling back stunned, and looked to Jäger’s face plate, she was looking up and right, unresponding.

“Whoa, first off, you’re attracted to machines too!? Secondly why do you hate them like that? Thirdly why isn’t Jäger inputting on this?” He asked in a concerned tone overall, but hinted amazement at the first question.

“Jäger? Nah she can’t hear us, she’s daydreaming. HEY JÄGER YOU THERE?” No response from Jäger, “See she can’t hear us right now, and yes I’m very attracted to machines too, even more than any human could turn me on. And, at one time I didn’t hate them at all, in fact I was almost a pilot for one, but,” His voice began to fill with emotions of rage, terror, and sadness, “but then they bombed US… My family was killed before my eyes in a… bombing,” the anger left his voice, it was only sadness and terror now, his bottom jaw began shaking and rattling as he spoke, “Those swinehounds dropped one down my house roof, into the kitchen, at supper time too, I was at the front door looking in through the window… one moment they were there… and the next… they were gone… the whole house fell in, they were gone…” He continues quivering, still haunted by the memory. “I never wanted that to happen to anyone and wouldn’t bring myself to commit such atrocious acts on another, so I didn’t go into the Luftwaffe, instead I’ll fight them on their weak field, on the ground, where they stand no chance at fighting back.” With that he reestablished his wits, and went to work unbolting the road wheels. Hansel put his hand on Irish’s shoulder steadying himself, fearing what happened to his family and frequently checking his watch to check on the remaining time.

“So uh, do you ever… to Jäger?” Hansel asks Irish, gesturing about masturbating in the pause. Irish frowns and tightens his mid-face thinking how to respond, he waves his hand signaling ‘maybe’ and proceeds. Once Irish gets the bolts out he signals to Hansel that the replacements are leaning against Jäger’s rear plate, but before Hansel can retrieve them Irish removes the shredded one and with it fall the two inner road wheels that were behind it.

“God damnit! This is why we can’t have anything nice, because of shit like this.” Hansel proclaims, Irish looks to him sluggishly and replies “No this is why we can’t have anything. Period. We just can’t have anything, nice or shit.”

Irish bolts the inner wheels back into place while Hansel holds them in place, then they replace the first shredded wheel and, without a hitch, the second one. Jäger enters reality and greets Hansel, then notices the wheels were replaced and takes them back to the base, asking Irish to put the armored skirts and plating on her under the case of ‘she feels like a naked whore’ and that she wants a tattoo.

“A tattoo? I don’t think that’s going to work Jäger, the needle is only about a few centimeters long.” Irish replies.

“You know what I mean you dumbass; paint my name right on the side of my ass.”

“Where the fuck did you come up with this?” Irish bursts out, almost laughing.

“You don’t need to know, all I need you to do is paint it on the side of my right ass cheek, but on the armor skirt panel.”

“Whatever you want, I’m not going against you anymore, not after last time.” With that Hansel slides off the side and walks toward Anton and Faust, who was prominently showing off her plow mounted to her front, Hansel waves goodbye to Jäger and Irish as they continue on. He walks to Faust and Anton, and notices that the fifty minutes is up, they can go in.

“Faust are you enjoying that plow?” Hansel yells to her sarcastically.

“Yes I am, very much so!” She yells back, Anton runs to him and grabs his forearm pulling him faster to Faust. Once the two are aboard Faust drives to the checkpoint, checks out, and heads for the bombed city of Munich. She speeds at top gear to the city and gets there in about two minutes, she’s a lot faster than Jäger or Marion, after all she is smaller and lighter. They head into the city; Anton and Hansel are stricken in horror, their home, their childhood, their very hearts, have been hurt, destroyed, crushed, and shattered by this one twenty minute incident. Once they turn the corner their very hopes are all but eradicated. Where their once inviting and homely apartment home once stood; was collapsed into the street and a ghostly cluster of pillars and walls only stand. Anton wept and Hansel sat in silence, gawking at the place he once called home. Faust was hugging Anton much like Marion holds Hansel, Hansel started letting tears out of their wells. Faust wrapped an arm around his body in an anaconda’s hug. She maneuvered around the clusters of people standing in the road and stopped at the base of the rubble from the building left in the road. There were average citizens and home guard soldiers all clearing rubble, searching for bodies, both dead and alive, Hansel had lost his family, like Irish did before he-

“It’ll take a lot more than a bomb to kill this old hag!” Hansel and Anton spin around at the same time, elated at the sound of Mrs. Walter’s voice. “Yes, yes, we’re alright, come on down here!” They race to her and almost tackle her off her feet in an embrace, then Hansel’s father joins, followed by Gretel and a young home guard soldier. They sit there in the mass huddle, then Faust is beckoned to join by Anton and figures ‘why the hell not’ and encircles the six people with her arms.

“WHAT THE HELL JUST TOUCHED ME!” Gretel screams as Faust’s arm rubs by her.

“FAUST IS TOUCHING YOU! WHY ARE WE YELLING?!” Anton yells a response, Faust retreats her arms as Gretel breaks free and squirms around.

“WHO the HELL is FAUST!?” She yells, as the group calms her down they explain the living machines to her; she composes herself but is still quite uneasy about it. The group somewhat disbands but none stray too far from one another. Gretel was about eight inches shorter than Hansel, but four years his senior; she had gray eyes and dirty blonde hair with full lips and thick cheeks. She was physically stronger than many men of her age would be, she wasn’t afraid to get dirty as her face and hands where darkened by the soot and dirt in the rubble and is definitely a tom-boy. Gretel appears stable and makes a comment and a joke about living machines, trying to enlighten herself; “That must be a hotdog down a hallway, I wonder if he’d put it in the exhaust pipe.” Hansel is somewhat offended by this, as it insulted a relationship with one as ‘one is too big for the other’ and being emotionally compromised he strikes back a little harsh for the situation.

“Hey! I’m dating one and it’s nothing like that at all!” His retaliation horrifies Gretel, she snaps back at him and they begin to quarrel like immature children. Their father over hears them and moves over to intervene.

“He’s not the first, Gretel, shut it.” Gretel stands frozen by this, “Before I met your mother, there was a beast I loved in my service days. She was Germany’s first tank model, her name was Elfriede, and we loved each other dearly. I still hate myself for abandoning her even if she begged me to save myself, but I’d hate myself more if I didn’t meet Sarah and have my two beautiful children named Gretel and Hansel!” He brings them under his arms and kisses both on the forehead affectionately. “Love is powerful, dear, you must accept it wherever it lies to be truly happy.”

Gretel nods and then aspires to her curiosity; she asks a multitude of questions in rapid succession. Hansel and their father try to answer to the best of their knowledge, conflicting in some areas, once her questions are answered to the best possible, she calls Max over, her fiancé, to finally meet Hansel, she then leaves with their father to assist with clean-up duties. The two shake hands and introduce themselves. Max is a tall fellow, taller than Gretel but shorter than Hansel, and slimmer than both as well. His muscles are quite defined and make his dark tanned skin attractive to the opposite sex, his dirty-blonde hair and brown eyes round out the face and chin, making his face an oval shape. His hair is a loose cut that needs trimming to fit the standards but fit him perfectly.

“After all this time you finally get to meet your sister’s fiancé, if I’m correct you’re a captain, correct?”

“Yes you are correct and now I know who to beat if you break my sister’s heart.” The two jest and play, sharing stories of their service careers so far. Hansel brings up how fit he seems, and asks why he’s not in the whermacht.

“Well I was, but because of my asthma I was transferred to ‘home guard’ or the ‘cripple army’ as we call it. Now that I think of it, you also might not recognize me now but years ago I had an instep, and my legs weren’t as defined, but some new surgery pretty much fixed that, does that ring a bell, Hansel?” Hansel pondered and found that he did remember him; he was shorter and lankier than a string bean.

“Yes, I remember you now, wait, how come you kept your composure back there when Gretel did?”

“Ah I did the first time I met one too, he was a kubelwagon on the training base, I eventually got over it and we became really good friends, but my asthma relocated me and not him so I haven’t heard from him in months, I think.” The two then decide to become useful and join in on clearing the rubble, talking and joking the whole time. Sadly, however, they came across five victims, two children, an elderly couple, and a policeman; they said their prayers and laid the bodies under cloths to await identification at a later time. The children hit them the hardest; they must have only been of ten and nine, huddled together like they were sheltering from the American onslaught of hell-rain. Hansel stared at those children, in the back of his mind he knew he’d never pity another American, that he would kill, without mercy, any American soldier wielding a gun, or a bomb, or a tank, he would avenge these poor souls whose lives were taken by them without their ability to defend, without a chance, without fairness. Damn you all, you Americans can send all the fucking Shermans they want at me and Marion! As long as we’ve got shots we’ll kill all of you bastards! How’s that for a fair fight you fucking child murdering little swines! He thought to himself, he’ll tell the others, if he didn’t Anton would. They wrap up a few hours before dark and say farewells then Anton, Faust, and Hansel head for base. They arrive at base and Hansel finds and confronts a commander, the LTC, about their recession from the front.

“We’re currently awaiting one more tank, some experimental super-heavy tank to show up. Oh that reminds me, the board demands that, uh, what’s his name-Irish, be reassigned to ‘her’ because of the ‘hundred-twenty-eight millimeter long gun on it. Don’t worry; he’s the only crewmember so no one else will be moved.” Hansel follows him over to Jäger and Irish, who was painting Jäger’s name on the side of her right ass cheek portion of her added armor skirts, as she demanded earlier. He was painting in white probably because that’s all they had left.

“First-sergeant you have fifteen minutes to pack your duffel bag with your personal belongings and accessories and have it on the ground. You are being re-assigned to a new super-heavy tank. Oh, and congratulations on your official promotion to tank commander.” Irish and Jäger look heartbroken, standing wide-eyed and jaw-dropped as the LTC turns around and walks away. Jäger pulls him to her side and protests in a cry “No you can’t! He’s my little sniper! You can’t do this to us!” The LTC stops and spins back to snap: “He’s still your first-sergeant! Stop your yapping and do it! You will see him again.” He spins back and continues marching away. Jäger is devastated, never has anyone stood up to her like that, ever, and she doesn’t know how to react but to continue pressing Irish against her body, not letting him go. Hansel wonders if they have a deeper relationship than this. Heh heh, deeper. Irish finishes her ‘tattoo’ and mopes about as Hansel helps him move out of Jäger, Irish pulled out his duffel, and threw much of his clothes in it without caring if they wrinkled, Hansel sat in Jäger’s rear fighting compartment door well, watching Irish collect his things in the spacious cabin, watching it was hurting him too.

Out of nowhere Irish perks up, and pushes one of the shot-charges out of the way and pulls out a baseball cap with a flattened brim and a pair of American Aviator sunglasses. He rejoices and exclaims to Jäger he found it, perking her up a little. He puts his canteen down and throws the cap and glasses into the duffel. Hansel remembers he had a pair of glasses just like them, given to me by family from… America! But I couldn’t be fighting them, the parents would be too old and the children too young, well one may be of age but wasn’t the name… Jennifer? As Hansel ponders Irish grabs the last two items, an empty Russian vodka bottle and a filled Molotov cocktail, the latter intended for use but didn’t shatter, the rag was charred at the end and pristine at the spout of the bottle, it was close to ending Jäger. Irish turns to the corner and reaches for a Mauser Karabiner 98K, but hesitates and decides to leave it.

“Jäger I’m leaving my Karabiner, for a token I guess.” Jäger sniffles and replies okay, Hansel points to the Molotov and Irish begins to explain. “This almost killed me, my crew, and Jäger, it landed right there behind where your sitting. I barely saw it, I threw anyone in my way aside and threw those doors open, I didn’t have anything to snuff it out so I did this.” He unbuttons his jacket and undershirt and reveals burn marks under his right arm and on his visible rib cage. “You ever try to snuff an oil fire before? You don’t put it out instantly, you let it burn all its oxygen, and in my case the fire spread to my jacket, burning and scarring me. This is my prize.” With that he put it in the duffel and stuffed the empty bottle in an exterior pocket.

They exit Jäger and sit in quiet, Jäger hugging Irish, Irish hugging her arms back, until Hansel asks if Fritz would be insulted by it, both of them said he wouldn’t, he knows how attached a crew is. Just then Edwards walks up, he heard the news. He climbs up to the roof with Hansel and Irish and plants himself next to Irish, looking into his bag he notices the empty bottle and pulls it out.

“Didn’t you collect this from a KV-2 you knocked out?” Irish nods, then smiles as he grunts a laugh. “Aren’t the KV-2 turrets hand-cranked?” Irish nods again, and then goes wide-eyed.

“Damn I feel bad for the man in there!” The two begin joking about having a long crankshaft with three-four men on it with vodka bottles on the ceiling as their motivation, the turret is tall enough, they said. While they joke Hansel spots something that looks like a Tiger II heading their way. It must have been the new heavy tank, Hansel was admiring the sloping armor glacis plates, it must have been sloped at 30° above the horizontal, 20° better than the Tiger IIs, and the lower glacis was sloped about 30° below the horizontal, the shape turned him on a bit, it looked sexy. The tank had no hull gunner port, and the forward mud catchers were in line with the glacis, looking like the whole upper glacis had no cuts for the tracks. The turret was an exact look alike of the Tiger II, only it sported two ‘eyes’ or armored rangefinder balls on the side of the turret, above the forward cheek but pretty far up on the slanting roof. The gun and mantle were monstrous, the 128 was HUGE, and the mantle was a symmetrical bell shape with large bolt-like inserts surrounding the gun brace, the muzzle break looked like a cheese grater to Hansel, but figured it worked better than Marion’s or Fritz’s. The beast of a tank turned to pull up next to them, when it did Hansel noticed two drive sprockets for the tracks, one in the front and one in the back. There were also less road wheels, though they were significantly bigger than the Tiger II wheels. The engine exhaust was also different, on the end of the pipes where radiator fans like on Mini’s exhaust pipe, Hansel still wasn’t sure what it did but it’s there for a reason he figured. Irish noticed and grabbed his bag and bottle and jumped down and sluggishly walked over to the new tank. The tank unveiled itself, somewhat catching Hansel off-guard, he completely forgot that they could do that. The tank spoke and greeted Irish in proper military format, the tank was clearly feminine.

“I am an experimental super-heavy tank designated E-75-” Irish cut her off, “Drop the regulation shit we really don’t play that game.” He stood upright and presented his hand out for a handshake.

“I’m called Irish, come up for a name for yourself yet?” He asked as she extended a manipulator and met his handshake.

“Just E I guess.”

“Nice to meet you E. So I’ve been told I’m your only crewmember, are you aware of this and approving?”

“Yes to both, go ahead and climb in.” She gestured him up to the commander’s hatch, where he reluctantly mounted, and entered. Edwards peered into Jäger’s hatch and saw Irish’s canteen still in there, he reached in and grabbed it, then slid down and walked to E’s side.

“I don’t think I can remember when Jäger last had a completely white coat in her. I feel like I dropped something,” Irish feels around his belt and finds his canteen is missing, he starts frantically searching for it, at the same time admiring the 128mm gun receiver, breach, and mount system along with all the fancy new equipment he’ll need to learn how to use.

“Ahem,” Edwards says holding the full canteen over the open hatch, Irish sits up and looks up and sees the canteen, he’s about to cry don’t when Edwards releases it. It drops down into Irish’s lap, specifically his sack, knocking him hard; he coils into a loose fetal position and falls over to the floor, groaning. E and Edwards laugh.

So this is the special elite tank unit of talking tanks, fascinating. Ah well, not long now, soon we’ll be killing any foe in our way. Marion’s probably worried sick about me; she’ll have my ass if I don’t get to her soon. E has a really nice ass, damn E’s really giving me a hard-on, maybe I could pay Marion off tonight and get a little ass for myself too. Hansel walks over to Marion’s tank house, where he finds her worried sick, and craving him.

Fin Chapter 19