First steps to Fame. (Tristan)

[Tristan Herman]

"What do you think, Hero?"At least, that’s what he thought he heard through the roaring flames. Herman cocked his head to Jace, and could feel there was a sense of urgency in his body language; he was heightened and tense, as though he was completely on his toes. Whether this was from fear (which he thoroughly discounted and disbelieved due to his preconceptions of the Schutzstaffel) or simply the tone of the situation was unclear. What was, however, was that he hadn’t a single idea as to how to conquer the stairwell. But the ever-turning cogs within the clockwork of Tristan’s mind did. Something he had read in the library during his not so distant childhood.

Sand was quickly falling within the hourglass as the Stabsgefreiter hurried across the room, snatching a blanket draped over a mediocre looking sofa. He removed, from his pistol belt, the standard combat knife from its scabbard, and began to tear it into sizeable shreds until there were four separate, incongruent, pieces.
Hurriedly he stowed his knife back in the scabbard, and began to remove his pistol belt, stripping it of any pouches in a haphazard fashion, emptying them before Jace.

”Strip your belt, give it to me, and then take this junk outside! Hurry,”Smiles looked to the scraps of blanket,”And give me your canteen!”As he shouted out his orders, Tristan began to wrap his boots in the fabric, securing it with his pistol belt. Finally, he emptied the water from his own canteen onto the completed machination, thoroughly dampening the blanket with water.

[Deleted]

A small pile of burning debris fell from a wall and scattered around Jaces feet. He shook some embers off his boot and glared at the wall trying to read its structure so he could see if it was going to collapse on them. Thankfully the debris were just from a painting that had once hung on a now blackened nail.

The sweat from his face was had dribbled down the inside of his gas mask and was irritating his skin, he wanted desperately to shift his mask and scratch but he fought that urge quite easily considering messing with his mask could let the smoke in. He was about to try talking Herman out of this suicidal attemp to rescue a useless French family when the Stabsgefreiter grabbed a blanket that had yet to catch fire and started shredding it. Bewildered Jace could only watch as Herman cut it into squares and took his belt off, stripping all the equipoment off it.

When Jace was told to strip off his own belt he slowly undid his buckle, almost hesitantly as he tried to figure out what Herman was up too. It clicked when Hermab wrapped his feet in the blanket and tightened the belt around it. This psyco was going to try and walk the fire stairs. He stripped the equipoment off his belt and gave it to Herman before picking up the discarded equipoment, he was about to leave when Herman asked or the canteen. Awkwardly he retrieved it and dropped it next to him.
"You sure about this Herman?" he shouted through his mask, he paused for a moment before turning and quickly making his way down the hall and out through the kitchen.

Outside the fire had turned the grass yard into ash, the flames had died off when they reached the garden and the neighbours were out with buckets trying to control the spread of the flames. Jace dropped the equipoment in the far corner of the yard and turned back to the house. He didn't know if he should go back in, there wasn't much he could do to help Herman up the stairs and once he was up there Jace would be left on the ground floor. Something moved in one of the top windows and caught Jace's eye. A hand was bashin against the glass, trying to break it. He raced back into the kitchen and down the hall. Have didn't care about the family, but now he ha information for Herman that would reduce the search time.

He came to a halt and shouted at the Stabsgefreiter.
"They're in the top right room!!" he pointed at the roof where the room would be.
"I'll be under the window!" he shouted again before leaving the house. He got outside and a few of the neighbours had come into the yard, they were chattering in French and he guessed they were asking what was going on. The only French Jace knew was 'Surrender or die' and he didn't think that would be the best thing to say. He waited under the window, looking up and trying to shoo the pests away from him.

[Tristan Herman]

Tristan received the message from Jace just as he finished tightening the second protective sheath of fabric, wetting it with his remaining water. He stood, in a vaguely challenging and strong manner, staring down the inferno that rose to the second floor; it was certain to Smiles that few men had ever ascended to Hell. He would be among them.

As he took the first step forward, the water seeped from the fabric under his weight, filling the small canyons in the faces of the aged wood that made up the flooring. His eyes stared down the beast, and it spoke to him, in the voice of his father: ”You want to play hero still?” In that instant one of the beams supporting an outer wall behind him burst from the raw heat of the flames, firing off shivers of wood at his body; harmless, but daunting all the same. As the corner of the building collapsed, he felt his adrenaline beginning to wane.

This is crazy, thought Tristan. Perhaps Jace was right; he wasn’t so sure anymore. Reason was taking over as epinephrine subsided. He was just one man, and it was just one family. It wouldn’t matter. Would it?

The building collapsed further, and he could hear the screams intensifying, pleading for aid. The only thing between him and them was a measly stairwell. What was that for a challenge? Saving a life was only made difficult by a roaring…fiery…monster.
He was starting to panic as flame crept across the floors around him. The kitchen was engulfed in flame, and the stairs would begin to crumble at any instant. It was now or never. Leave or die. So he picked the smart thing. He took one massive leap…


And the first step crumbled just as his foot touched the second. The flames hissed beneath his feet in clouds of steam and soot with every trample. Tristan had no intention of waiting long enough for them to collapse beneath him as he darted up the small volcano. Three, four, five six; each step was cleared faster than the last. Seven, eight, ni-

The board snapped and buckled, plunging Tristan forward and down, slamming him into the supporting wall at the base of the stair. His arms flew forward, flailing for something to grab hold of as he fell, and caught the bannister on the right just in time. Below him? A wine closet. Fully stocked. And he immediately recognized the danger. The house would no longer simply collapse. When the flames reached the closet, the building would explode quite literally.

Still fearing for his life and those of the family that was presumably a few meters away, he clawed his way up to the second floor, his feet running mid-air as he did so. His body rolled onto the landing, and the Stabsgefreiter wildly got back on his own two feet, moving toward the frantic cries just ahead. Behind him, the inferno began to consume the meager wood separating the chaos from the former safety of the small room. Time was now measured in seconds, not minutes, before death could be assured.

Bursting into what appeared to be a bedroom filled with smoke, Herman pushed forward, shouting in French (one of three languages he had thoroughly studied in his youth under his father’s orders),”Come to me! Everyone, come to me!” He hollered just loud enough that a thirty-something blond coughed and hacked her way to him, carrying her collapsed son who could be no older than five, and a her skirt, clinging tightly, was a three year-old girl, covered in soot, and bewildered by fear beyond coherence.

Tristan ushered them forward, to a broken window that had presumably been cleared for an escape route of some kind. He peeked his head out, observing a waiting Jace, and a platoon’s worth of Frenchmen attempting to put out the fire with buckets of water; the affect they had was negligible. He pointed to Jace briefly, and motioned him to the window in the hopes that he would spot them all as they made the considerable fall from the second floor.

First came the girl, whom he took by the hand, and gently picked her up under the arms, and lowered her out the window, aiming for the hedges. The poor tot was screaming and crying in fear at the action, as he lowered her just enough to make the distance five feet as opposed eight (his body was barely able to stay in the frame without falling.

Next was the woman who was presumably their mother. She handed Tristan her son, hesitantly despite his brief assurances, and he lowered her down with a single, heavily stressed arm. She was not heavy set, but the weight of a single grown person upon his arm was still considerable.

Lastly, he and the boy had to remove themselves from the structure. Tristan waited for the woman to clear the hedge, herself now welling with tears, pleading for him to escape with her son safely. He clutched the boy tightly to his chest with a solitary arm as the Stabsgefreiter placed a leg out the window, then, using his free arm as a hook, dropped down with the aid of legs to the side of the building, finally falling into the green, leafy safety-net.

The thought of the coming catastrophe was not far from his mind, however, as he fell out of the hedges, onto his feet, and waved around with an arm, gesticulating away from the structure, beginning to move in the same direction on whatever amount of energy he had left.

”Run,” the young, frightened German boy screamed,”Everyone run!”

[Deleted]

The crowd was beginning to annoy him with their constant chatter and pointing. Some were shouting at him violently which gave Jace the impression that that thought it was his fault the house was burning. He began shouting back at them.
"Stay back! The house can't be saved!"
They continued pressing him.
"we're trying to save the family inside! Keep out of our way!"
They continued pressing him. Through the crowd Jace saw a young man reaching down to the pile of equipoment he had piled up. Jace drew his pistol and the crowd went silent, backing away from him with their hands raised. A few who had been shouting were muttering to themselves.

"Step away from the gear!" he yelled at the young man as he stomped over towards him. Jace saw that the man had something in his hand, it looked like one of the aid kits, his other hand looked to be severely burnt.
"Put it down! Put it down now!" he pointed at the kit and then pointed down while keeping his pistol locked onto the mans chest. There was hesitation but he dropped the kit and took off. Turning around Jace saw that most of the crowd were leaving, returning to their buckets.
So they should, Jace thought to himself. That little thief is lucky I didn't shoot him.
He went back to the window just as Herman opened it. He was relived to see the soldier was alive.
"Jump Herman!" he shouted and moved as close to the wall as he could. The stupid French family has hedges around the wall though and surprisingly they weren't burning.
For a second Jace sneered at the hedges. They were pointless in his eyes but all the Frenchmen loved them. He even noticed many fields in Germany had hedges that broke the land into sections. What was wrong with using fences? Wire or wood fences would do the job just as well.

Jace couldn't get directly under the window to catch the boy but he pushed as far into the hedge as he could. The small sharp branches stabbed into his belly and he took his coat off and flung it over the top of the hedge to prevent the branches from stabbing into Herman when he jumped down.
Unfortunately the small girl went first, Herman lowered her down as far as he could to reduce the impact of the fall.
Bloody Hero Jace thought to himself as the girl fell into the hedge.
He grabbed the girl and lifted her off the hedge, a few Frenchmen cameras come over to help now that they had seen the Germans saving the famil and Jace palmed the girl off to them.

He returned to the hedge just as the mother dropped down and he helped her up and pulled her away. She fought him the whole way, crying and pleading for Herman to save her son, trying to get back to the hedge to catch her child and Jace had to restrain her while Herman jumped. Once he cleared the hedge Jace let her go and started forward to help Herman just a ball of flames shot out of the window above him. The oxygen that had gone in through the window had given the flames that little extra kick when it breached the room. One of the front corners of the house collapsed out into the front yard and the whole house seemed to twist. Herman, still carrying the boy, ran past shouting for everyone to run away and for the first time since the fire starte Jace didn't think twice about obeying him.

[Tristan Herman]

The explosion resulting from the wine cache was, while not excessive, not unnoticeable in the slightest. The remaining uncompromised structure detonated, pitching shards of wood and glass every which way, with an odd item of kitchenware and wardrobe here and there. Luckily for the men and women involved, Jace and Tristan’s hectic retreat and warnings had incited them to move a safe distance from the explosion.

With the small French boy still in his arms, Smiles approached Jace haggardly, prying his gas mask off with a single hand, revealing once more the stern face he inherited from his father only nineteen years before. Sweat was still beading down his face, now laced with ash and soot, as the Stabsgefreiter took a knee in the unscathed, olive colored grass. His heart was smashing against his chest as though it were a bat against a baseball.

Within moments, the still hysterical mother of the boy ran to him, prying the youth out of Tristan’s arms, begging him to awaken. She began to shake the small figure desperately, pleading for a miracle until his eyes gently, but with evident strain, fluttered back into existence. The woman clutched the boy by the back of the head, ignoring the two, towering soldiers. Around them, the country-men did not seem to have an iota of how to react: praise, hatred, or simple disbelief? Their invaders had just protected them. How is one to respond to such an action?

Through the crowd pushed a small contingent of Wehrmacht troops, including a rather grizzled looking Hauptmann; presumably making the other men part of his staff. Low and behold, it was Tristan’s Kompanie commander, Hauptmann Greshomme. He did not appear to be in the best of moods.

[Deleted]

The ball of fire dissipated into a sky that was dominated by a tower of black smoke. All around them people from the town continued to fight the fire, setting themselves up into bucket lines as they tried to contain the flames. The house next to the blackened hollowed shell had suffered damage and was smouldering but the owner was quick to drown the potential fire before it could take light. If it hadn't of been for the quick reaction of the townspeople the fire could have easily spread and Jace found himself wondering were the fire department was.

Jace looked back at the ruins, all around him there were bits of smouldering debris and all that had been blown out of the windows. Inside he heard the second story floor collapse in and could see beams falling through the windows. That fire would gut the house of everything valuable with more ferocious efficiency then a crack squad of SS storm troopers. But if it had been Jace and his men who had left the building in ruins, they would have made sure that the family didn't escape. In that aspect, the fire failed.

Still, he found himself a little mesmerised by the flames. The roar, untamed power it had, the heat that now made it all but impossible for anyone to get close and for a moment Jace felt humbled. The moment passed and he turned to look for Herman who had come over to him and was giving over the child to the mother. Her tears hadn't stopped and even when the boy opened his eyes and coughed she still didn't stop crying. Tears of relief perhaps? Jace could understand that, but he didn't like the open show of emotion.

Jace stood with Herman and looked down at the mother cradling her child. He had seen this many times before, a parent holding a child close and crying, normally it was tears of pain and grief due to the child's death that had come about from either Jace's actions or the actions of his men. Looking at Herman Jace realised that the two of them had been trained and thought very differently. He muttered to himself under the mask.
"Well done Hero." He knew his words were muffled and Jace took his mask off.
"Well done Herman. You might make a decent leader after all."

Jace knew that Herman had things that he didn't and vice versa. But Jace also knew that he would have let the family burn, he wouldn't have run into the flames and found a way up the stairs, he wouldn't have saved them without being ordered too. That was Jace's life now, following orders. But Herman, he was able to give orders, without hesitation in the heat of the moment. Obedient soldiers and a cold gaze when looking into the fire is what all good leaders need.

The crowd that had gathered began to part quickly, marching through them was a small group of soldiers who were heading straight for Jace and Herman with a disgruntled Hauptmann at their lead.
"What's happened here? Report! Now!" He was speaking to Herman, but before the Stabsgefreiter could utter a word Jace stepped forward, making sure his SS-Strumann insignia was in full view. He didn't hold a high rank, in fact it was one of the lowest, but Jace knew that many Wehrmacht soldiers were weary of the SS. Especially since they had the Gestapo as a branch of their power and even the lowest pawn of the SS could file a report.
"Sir, This house caught fire and trapped its owners inside. Stabsgefreiter Herman and myself were able to rescue them before the house collapsed."

The Hauptmann glared at Jace. "Your SS? What are you doing here?"
Jace's face was as hard as granite. "I was ordered to join the patrol under command of Stabsgefreiter Herman as part of an attempt to strengthen the bond between the Wehrmacht and the Schutzstaffel."
"Strengthen the bond? Are you serious?" The Hauptmann seemed disbelieving until one of his aids leaned and whispered something to him.
"He's telling the truth sir, you signed the documents two days ago approving it."

Jace continued talking. "I am serious sir. As we are all fighting for the glory of the Reich it is important for us to be able to work together." He fell silent as the aide continued whispering.
"This could work in our favour with the civilians sir. We could use it to show them that we are here to help and protect them. It may reduce the amount of resistance."
The Hauptmann nodded and glared at Jace again before adressing Herman.
"Do you have anything to say?"

[Tristan Herman]

"Do you have anything to say?" Smiles had already been taken aback, to some degree, by Jace’s impromptu defense of the Stabsgefreiter in the face of his commanding officer. Not to imply that the aid was unwelcome, it was simply that Tristan had not fathomed that the Strumman would want to, well, help him. Neglecting the fact that both of them were on the same side, and fought for (at least) similar reasons, against the same people, with the same rifle, and so on.

He had come to the realization that, regardless of what the SS did or did not do, or whether he attached the label of “murderer” to every single last one of them, was not of importance. What was important was that they would have to work in congruence to survive. Nay, they would have to work hand in hand. Assigning a general “fuck you” standard to the branch would only allow him to one day end up in a ditch, covered in petrol, on fire.

Further was the point that, in the span of about fifteen minutes perhaps, he had taken a liking to Jace. There was a certain, reserved sincerity about him. He thought what he though, and didn’t give a damn about what anyone else believed unless it was a superior. Or at least that was what Smiles had come to believe.

”No, nothing to add, Sir.” There was a spinning of cogs within the Hauptmann’s head; palpably tiny and weak cogs at that. Then, without a single further recognition of the Strumman or the Stabsgefreiter, he turned to his presumed orderly, and instructed that a team of Pioneers be sent to contain the fire, and aid in the clean-up. For public relation purposes, of course. Then, the Hauptmann about-faced, and marched off, back through the parting crowd.

Tristan turned back to Rosewic. The Pole was evidently pleased with himself to some degree; rightly so for thwarting the unwarranted efforts of the Hauptmann to feel significant within the military machine for a few fleeting seconds. A faint smirk almost started to spread across Tristan’s lips; just enough for one to observe that he was visibly content. His usual, stark, drawn expression was absent for the first time in public that he, or anyone else, would have remembered. It was a definite rarity of this Earth. Not that Jace would have understood it at the time, considering he didn’t know Herman’s nickname. But fate held that Jace would come to understand it in due time.

”So…that was more excitement than I had expected for a midday patrol,” Smiles commented, beginning to ruffle his barely regulation hair that was now laced with soot and rubble. He began to remove the makeshift fire-retardant covering on his boots.

[PuNk! ™]

Moderation Post:

[/b][/center]

The following thread has been closed and command points (CP) & skill points (SP) issued to all parties participating within the thread:

Tristan Herman:[/b] 15CP & 1SP

Jace Rosewic[/b] 15CP & 1SP

~ You both displayed a good detail to writing with length to your posts and I'm happy to award you both the sums appointed above for your effort.

~Danny[/color]