This is a strictly NON-CANON crossover story, inspired by the characters and settings of Spontoon Island and mixed with my own fictional settings of Schwarzland and Wyrmworld.

The Stagg Family, Willow Fawnsworthy and the Republic of New Haven are courtesy of  EOCostello,  Major Matt Mason,  Walt46 and Simon Barber.

If you wish to use either their characters/settings or mine, please do what I did and ask first.

If you view this, please don't be afraid to add critique.


~~~~~~~~~~~



April 1937AW

Margaret sighed, settling into the warm bathwater that soothed her skin and muscles. She laid her head back against her new husband's chest, feeling along his forearm wrapped around her abdomen.
Already a bulge had formed.
Margaret blushed to admit it, but it was SO soon they must have conceived at least a month before the wedding, in late November. Autumn was the mating season, after all.
Gerfried stroked the small bump.
For mixed couples to have a child was rare, especially between carnivores and herbivores. The news had been greeted with joy by both families - yet there was also some anxiety. Mixed children were not always healthy or even fertile. Sometimes they did not even live.
That didn't bother Gerfried nor Margaret. What would come would come.

Gefried nibbled on Margaret's ear as they relaxed in the warm water. It was such a relief to have a few days off to come home, make love and then relax in a hot bath.
"I've got to go back to the hospital, tomorrow."
Margaret whispered. Not even pregnancy was a bar to serving as a nurse, though she would be kept well away from the contagious patients.
Gerfried hugged her close. "I'm so proud of you, mein schatz."
She stroked his arm in return, squeezing it gently. "Please....Be careful out there, Gerfried."
His lips brushed her forehead. "I promise I will."

Gerfried put his hand to her bump. Margaret felt him touch it, stroke it.
She squeezed his hand - the thought of losing Gerfried was so painful, she dared not even think about it. But she knew it was possible.
But at least now he had something to live for - a reason to look after himself. He'd suffered so much, and it always made Margaret happy to see him smile or show some hope or care for himself. That was why she loved him - she knew what he'd seen and done, better than anyone else. Yet somehow she had sensed the kindness, the honour and humour in him, even buried under that hard shell of steel.

Gerfried sighed contentedly. ".....I did not know I could be so...satisfied. So at ease."
He stroked her head.
This....This was perfect. His nightmares were becoming rarer and less vivid with every day. He found things to smile at once more, even to laugh at once in a while.
A part of him would always lie in the shattered earth of the East, where so many good friends now rested. But the wound that they had left was healing at the tender touch of Margaret.

~

Liberty lay shivering under the rough woollen blanket, the coarse fabric scratching her fur and irritating the clammy flesh beneath.
The coyote curled as the cramps rippled through her yet again. Sweat trickled from her brow onto the hard pillow.

The detention camp was not nearly as harsh as she had imagined - it was in an old boarding school, surrounded by a fence topped with barbed wire and watched over by machineguns in the towers.
Passive prisoners were rewarded with greater privileges and responsibility, aggressive ones with punishment details.

She had heard things in the cafeteria that shocked and enraged her - lies about how the Revolution was started, spiteful rumours about Committee members.
The first time she had heard one, she had loudly scolded the offending Guardsman - only to be given a black eye for her trouble. It had been a brutal shock.
As the single commissar in captivity, Liberty had to endure fellow prisoners spitting at her feet almost daily. Now that she lacked a pistol it seemed that all the resentments and grievances they had hidden beneath the surface erupted in a storm of protest.

Shorn of all authority, she now felt horribly vulnerable, even though all logic had demanded she should feel safe here amongst her comrades and fellow revolutionaries.
She did her best to earn their respect - she refused better rations than the others, and insisted on taking her turn in any chores around the camp that needed doing.
In time, things improved - the spitting began to decline, and the stares became less malicious.

She winced as agony shot through her gut once again. It wasn't just bad food and bad company that hurt.

Two weeks previously, Liberty had found some of her fellow prisoners crowded round an edition of Forward, one of the newspapers now controlled by the Red Fists.
The prisoners were often able to smuggle in newspapers, including Red Fist ones - it was a simple matter to bribe the guards.
Typical bourgeoisie decadence, she thought.

A bullet hadn't been able to kill Liberty Morgenstern, but the headline of that newspaper nearly did.
"Traitors to be shot on recapture - Order of Comittee"
It had to be a capitalist trick; it simply had to be. Foolishly she had taken the newspaper in her shaking paws and read it - it was all there. Her name was on the list of those sentenced.
Her father's words were nowhere to be found. She had thrown the newspaper into the mud and walked off, so that the other prisoners would not see the tears in her eyes.
She had risked life and limb for the Revolution. She had shot two of her own men when they had refused to advance. When she was captured, she had been certain she would be tortured and raped, yet she had said nothing that might betray the cause.
And the Comittee had taken those sacrifices and flung them in her face. Her grief was soon replaced by an empty feeling of hopelessness.


She wanted to believe it was just an expedient - she fervently hoped that when the Revolution was achieved, she would be pardoned. But another part of her knew that the Comittee of Nine had never pardoned a convict - Her own father had argued that it would show weakness if they ever did.
She stayed on her own for two days - when she emerged, she did not notice that her fellow prisoners no longer spat at her.
She had not cared for their pity - she had just wanted to die.

She found herself regretting that wish, now. The rice was probably responsible - she had lain in bed for a day now with crippling stomach cramps and a growing fever.

A hand mopped the sweat from her brow. She looked up at the handsome Alsatian.
"D-Dan..."
"Hush...You're gonna be transferred to the hospital. You're too feverish."
Dan Vallance was the dreamboat of the camp - easy going and warm. He was one of the few prisoners who had never once shown her hostility.
He had been captured a few months before her, during a trench raid, and since then he had been the camp's spiritual leader in some ways. She half suspected he had protected her from even harsher treatment.
He played the guitar very well - well enought to make his living off it, if he ever wanted to. His old one had been smashed up in the fighting, so he had been forced to improvise as best as he could with an old, battered instrument he had found rotting in the school basement. A few strings had to be replaced with whatever wire could be scrounged, but he was able to get a decent sound from it.

When she had fallen ill, just two weeks after discovering her sentence, it had been Dan who had taken it upon himself to nurse her in the camp infirmary, a wooden longhouse tended by the single doctor among the prisoners.
She looked up into those handsome eyes. "Why do you help me....Dan...."
"I like you. And it's the right thing to do."
She sighed, and turned her head away. Before she had been captured, she would have had Dan shot - now, she couldn't find it in her to condemn him. She was in the same position, after all - they were now all of them under sentence of death.

~

"That is our objective, gentleman and ladies - Mount Totoket."
Commissioner Stagg stabbed his finger down onto the map.
With him were Major-General Biermann, Captain Bruining, Oberst Kellerman and a dozen other staff officers.
"In order for this plan to work, absolute secrecy must be maintained - do you understand? This may be the turning point in the war. If we can take Mount Totoket, we'll be able to shell Tweed Airfield and put it out of action once and for all. When that's done, Captain Bruining's fighter-bombers will be able to sink any and all ships attempting to enter New Haven ports without interference. Not only that, but they will be able to attack Red Fist formations from the air at will, which will make any general offensive we launch much easier."

The assembled officers nodded - they were all of them men and women Stagg trusted implicitly not to gossip, otherwise he would not have chosen them.
The plan they were discussing today had the potential to end not only Tweed's operation, but the war itself, once and for all. There could be no leaks and no failures, not when so much was at stake.

"We will launch a diversionary attack on West Rock, here." He gestured to the feature.
"Once they have comitted their reserves, the Kellerman Regiment, the 1st Regiment of Foot and the Rain Island Volunteer Battalion will break through south of Pistapaug Mountain and will continue onwards to mount Totoket itself, supported by the tanks of the new Armoured Company and by Pilkvists's Cavalry Squadron. They will sieze the summit and then dig in to hold off the counter-attack."

Biermann nodded. "It is a simple plan, and therefore a good one - the one potential problem is whether we can get them to commit their reserves or not. Our attack on the West Rock will ahve to be convincing. I suggest detaching a platoon each from the Rain Island Volunteers and Kellerman's regiment to spearhead the diversion, otherwise they'll get suspicious that we aren't using our best troops."
Stagg stroked his chin.
"An excellent point. It shall be done as you suggest."

Captain Bruining looked to Stagg. "We are to provide air support?"
"Only after the main attack has begun - we cannot afford to give them a warning."
Stagg looked around. "The plans are ready - it remains only for us to put it into action."

~



~

Liberty blinked up at the doe. "May I have some water?"
The flask was to her lips before she had even finished speaking. The doe was striking to look at - raven black hair beneath her nurses cap, no older than 17 or 18. Most stunning of all was her eyes - bright, true violet. She had never seen eyes like them - compassionate yet wise, in a face that seemed far too young for them.
"Thanks, Maggie."

Margaret Kunkel, known as "Maggie" to her co-workers, knew who Liberty was. When she had first heard the name, she had felt fury towards her - that name brought back everything. The shouts, the torches, the fists on the door.
The screams of her mother and siblings as they were pulled from their beds. And then the look in the dog's eyes as he had taken her by the arm and hauled her into the back room, followed by the cat dragging her sister Helen by her hair. And then the feel of rough paws ripping her nightdress.
And yet, she couldn't hold it against the trembling girl that lay before her. She was reminded of herself.

Everyone at the hospital called the white tailed doe Maggie - Liberty didn't know her surname.
In the few weeks she had been there, Liberty had found the young doe likeable - she was smart, unbelievably compassionate and good conversation.
Her blouse couldn't conceal her bulging stomach, either. Liberty didn't know much about the "birds and the bees", but she could tell that Maggie was pretty far along. It meant she wasn't allowed anywhere near contagious patients, but Liberty's was a bad case of food poisoning.

For her own part Liberty was still shaken up. Part of her still wanted to believe that father would save her from the firing squad, somehow. Somehow.
In this hospital, Liberty had found something that upset her greatly, something that had not been there before - her doubt.

She would never like the bourgeoise as a class - but these people had been so kind, much kinder than she had ever expected they would be. She could not help but hear their conversations - not just their fears and dreams, but the daily struggles they faced.
And she felt a twinge of envy in her heart - her father had been an attentive parent, but that same doubtful part of her spoke yet again. She had never been allowed to live what most would consider a "normal" life. She had no real friends, she had never had a job or a lover - father had always demanded she focus her mind on his teachings.
What if the Comittee of Nine were the enemy? What if, this whole time, it was they who had been the Revolutions' enemies, undermining it from within?
She shut it all out - she would not think of that now.
Maggie would bring in books for her to read sometimes - not the sermonising works Arthur was so fond of. Apolitical books, like Jayne Austin, Charles Dicker and the like.

When she had read them they would talk about them - at first Liberty had thought A Winter's Song to be sappy tripe, the work of a condescending bourgeouis poser. But what Maggie told her of Dicker was challenging, to say the least. He had worked in a shoe-factory as a boy while his family languished in debtors prison. Not what she had expected at all.
His descriptions of poverty were not rosy inventions - they were his own experiences given life through words.
They talked about other things, too - boys in particular. Maggie seemed to be more experienced than her, much to Liberty's chagrin, but even the doe admitted her husband was her first lover.
"When are you gonna tell me his name, then?" Liberty teased Maggie, glancing at the ring.
"He's a lucky guy, whoever he is."

Maggie blushed. "....His name's Gerfried."
"...He's a-"
"Schwarzlander, yes."
Liberty suppressed a snarl- she hated the Schwarzlanders. They were the reason she was here, the ones who had captured her.
She saw Maggie's face fall, and realised her hate had shown on her face. Somehow, she couldn't condemn Maggie as she would have done before. Maggie was the only friend she really had - or had ever had, come to think of it.
She restrained herself.
"I'm sorry.....Tell me about him."
".....We met in August last year. It was all so fast - I have told you about him. He's so...quiet, and sensitive. He's never raised his voice once, and we've only had one argument so far. On the surface he's like.....hard steel. He's cold, he hardly ever smiles or laughs when we're in company, and when his with his troops he swears and snarls. But...when we're alone, I see him smile or laugh and it's so beautiful to see. Like watching a lamed bird fly once more. It's like he feels he can only open up when he's alone with me."
"....You make him sound vulnerable."
"He's....damaged. This isn't his first war."
Liberty nodded unsurely.

"So...You have a guy you like?"
Liberty blushed and fought to stop her tail from wagging. Dan was all she could think about.
"...Yes."
"Aaaaaaand?"
"...Dan. He...He plays guitar."
Maggie smiled, raising an eyebrow. "You didn't strike me as a music lover."
"I like music!....I just...never had much time for it."

The stern Matron was standing in the doorway. The cow's hands were on her hips - Matron Hannah did not approve of nurses dawdling or chatting idly, but she gave Margaret some leeway because of her condition.
Matron Hannah was a harsh disciplinarian and something of a task-master, but that was not what frightened Margaret. What frightened her was her face - it was tender and sympathetic. In that moment, for the first time in a long while, Margaret felt true, naked fear.
"Nurse K-"
"W-What's happened?"
Hannah was used to this sort of thing, and instantly stepped forward to speak before Margaret had time to panic.
"He's alive, dear, he's alive. But he's badly hurt."

That was little reassurance. Margaret knew the risks of infection and blood loss all too well, and it was all she could manage to stop herself from crying.
She spoke softly, trying to stop her voice from quivering.
"I-Is he in surgery?"
"Yes, dear. He was treated at the front line, and they're just tending to him now. Now, why don't you come and wait outside, hmm?"

Margaret barely noticed the arm around her shoulder. She fought to control the terrors that flowed through her mind - badly hurt could mean anything from a flesh wound to brain damage.
She had resolved that she would never leave Gerfried no matter what happened, but the thoughts tortured her - what if he wasn't able to see their child?
What if he had no limbs to touch it with? What if he couldn't even recognise anyone?

Unbidden, Liberty reached out and squeezed Maggie's hand.

~

Gerfried sucked in the air through his teeth. The frost was still heavy on the ground, and it crunched beneath his heavy boots.
It was getting towards dusk, with the sun beginning to set on the horizon.

They had broken through the frontline without much trouble - the diversion at West Ridge was working perfectly. They could hear the fighting in the far distance, the faint rumble of mortars and artillery like a thunderstorm.
It had been a simple matter of grenades, knives and bullets to clear the thinly defended trench lines, and they had done it without too much noise either.

The Rain Island volunteers were to the left, a battalion of them in their woodland camouflage jumpsuits and steel pot-helmets.
In the centre were the 1st Regiment of Foot, New Haven's most experienced troops - many were part of the original militia that had been raised by Stagg in the terrible first few weeks of the Civil War, clad in their brown-khaki greatcoats against the cold.
In front of them trundled the tanks of the 1st Armoured Company, built at a disused locomotive factory in Woodbury using tractors imported from Arcadia. They were ugly and brutal looking, sloped plates bolted in a protective cowl over the engine, while at the back was the box that contained the crew along with a stubby 37mm gun.

Gerfried and his assigned company were on the right flank, the Schwarzlanders standing out in their deep, coal-scuttle helmets and greenish grey tunics.

All were kitted out for close quarter action - submachineguns and carbines proliferated amongst all, while the New Havenites favoured the pump action shotgun.
For hand to hand, they carried spades, clubs, bayonet, knives and hatchets. The Schwarzlanders in particular liked the spade, the Rain Islanders the tomahawk, the New Havenites the knuckleduster.

The ground they were covering was lightly wooded in many parts, in others it was dotted with burned out houses. Gerfried was grateful for that. They were two thirds of the way there, having made it across at a decent pace.
But now came the open ground before the foot of Mount Totoket.

"At the quick step!"
Whitney St. James had insisted on leading the attack, and no one could deny it to him - he reveled in this sort of thing. Clad in his old Great War uniform (which still fit surprisingly well), the bulldog had a pistol grasped in his hand and the insignia of a Brigadier of the New Haven Militia on his shoulders.
Gerfried smiled slightly - everyone liked that man.

Two thousand men and women advanced in well-extended order over the flat fields. They had not been tended to for nearly six years, so at least there were weeds as up to the chest. Gerfried could feel the strands crunch as he jogged through them.
It was merciful that a light fog shrouded the ground, too - providential, some would say.

They covered the ground quickly - within half an hour, they were at the base of the mountain, the tanks trundlign beside them.
Now came the tricky part.
Not only was the slope intimidating, but they could be spotted at any moment. The enemy would know by now that an attack had occurred to their front, but they wouldn't necessarily know it had penetrated so far. TIme was of the essence.

Gerfried looked ot the left and the right at his company - all were veteran soldiers by now. Most had done this sort of thing before, like Gerfried himself.
Get as close as you can to the enemy, then stab him in the guts.
After a flurry of hand-signals, they troops started their ascent, up the wooded slope. There had been no artillery preparation, that would have given the game away.

They had been climbing for several minutes by the time the firing started. At first it was just a patter of rifle shots, but that soon turned into a roaring, crackling inferno of machinegun fire.
Raw troops would have ducked for cover, but not these - they knew that to stop was to invite the enemy's mortars.
The only way was to press on.

"ANGRIFF!"
Gerfried led his company into the gale of iron that now blew around them. Gouges were torn through both wood and flesh, troopers fell poleaxed by bullets. ALways the cry was on, the troops keeping their formations and advancing in leaps and bounds.
The machinegun squads set up their heavy, belt fed weapons to provide covering fire, accompanied by 60mm mortars from the support companies.
Clouds of smoke burst from grenades, obscuring the enemy's view of their attackers even further, acrid scents mingling with the damp mist and the growing tang of blood and lead.

The wolverine sucked in air through his teeth - he could feel it. Clawing at his mind, tugging at his limbs.
The scream of a wounded soldier cut through to his heart - one of his. The wolverine looked around and what he saw made his heart sink - a third of the company had simply disappeared. Swept away by the iron wind that blew against the mountainside.

His legs raged in protest as Gerfried propelled himself up the slope, hands grasped around his SMG, face contorted in fury. A terrible, baritone roar was on his lips. His pupils had shrunk to tiny dots in his yellow eyes.

Everything felt cold - detached. He saw the machinegun position, and without thinking tossed a grenade ahead of him before running straight into the aftermath of the explosion. He felt a tug at his back, and wrenched himself from the grip of whatever damn fool was trying to hold him back.
The MG crew held up their hands, faces blackened and dazed. Each one went down with several bullets through his chest or head, ichor splattering the muddy inside of the dugout.

Down into the trench Gerfried jumped. He felt nothing - other than the need to kill and the instinct for it.
The riflemen were still turning around, trying to bring their long bayonets to bear on the interloper among them. They were URS troops - long wool greatcoats with fur lined hoods, typical of the URS army, and carrying the latest semi-automatic rifles. Expensive gear, reserved only for high quality troops.
He did not need to look behind - he knew his comrades were there. He could sense it, somehow.

The SMG shuddered in his hands, shoving the soldiers backwards as though they had been punched.
Again, some idiot tried to pull Gerfried back. He could feel them, jerking him backwards with a pull on the back of his tunic.
The wolverine tore onward, feeling the mud squelching under his heavy soles. He jammed a fresh magazine into his SMG as he ran.
As he rounded the bend he found himself face to face with a grey fox. They slammed into each other, and for a moment Gerfried felt fingers flap across his face and grasp his arm.
His head dipped forward; teeth bit through tough ligaments and muscle then ripped it clear, the copper tang of blood flooding his pallette.
The fox fell to the floor, throat a ragged ruin.

Everything was instinctual, mechanical - he moved without deliberation, every decision automatic.
A grenade hurled overhead, followed by a burst of SMG fire, then move on.

His heart pounded with exhilaration, the adrenaline coursing through his veins as he rampaged down the trenches, leaving in his wake death and destruction.

He needed to reload, but his left arm wouldn't move. Instead he dropped the SMG to the mud and drew his pistol, shooting anything in front of him. When his pistol was empty, that too was discarded and replaced by the sword.

~

Stagg listened to Pentaleoni, as the Captain made his report. His right leg was bound in bandages, a large blood spot where the bullet had passed through.

When he heard the news of the success, Stagg had made a point of diverting most of the available air assets to support the troops on Mount Totoket against any counter attacks - for the first time in some years he had been able to feel some relief. If they could just hold the mountain, the Republic would have won a decisive victory.

Pentaleoni was exhausted, but he would live to walk again. The 1st Regiment of Foot had been forced to fight their way into the trenches using smoke bombs to screen their attack, which had inevitably caused great confusion as men became lost in the white clouds.
It had lasted a full hour before the last of the enemy were driven out of their dugouts and back down the mountainside, and they had fought very hard indeed - the attacking force had suffered more than 30% casualties.

"....I couldn't see much of what was going on, on the right." Pentaleoni grimaced as the morphine began to fade.
"But I know that without Gerfried, the attack there would probably have failed. The Kellerman regiment took a lot of machinegun fire, lost a third of their number dead or wounded before they even reached the trenches. From what I hear, it was Gerfried who led the first group that got into their trenches and well....He just slaughtered them. When we got to him, he'd been shot three times - two bullets had gone through his chest, one in his left arm."
"Is he...?"

"He was very much alive when I saw him, sir - and that's what frightens me. He SHOULD have died. It was like his wounds were already clotting, or something, but he should have bled to death there and then."
Stagg nodded pensively, hands arched beneath his chin.

"Sir...What is he?"
Stagg's head snapped up, looking the Captain straight in the eyes.
"You attend Mass every Sunday, do you not?"
"Yes, but I fail to see-"
"There are things in this world, Captain, that cannot be readily explained by science or logic alone. The world is still very much full of mysteries."
"Are you saying its a...."
Pentaleoni whispered. "....Miracle?"

Stagg sighed. "....Perhaps. But I'm not certain Gerfried would call it that."