Confrontation in Tartarus

Olga Yezhov, the Soviet Superwoman, sat down in the plastic chair the prison staff had made available for her. The warden wasn't happy she was here, but neither Ilsa Hauppman nor her lawyers had any objection to the visit. "Capes" in Tartarus tended to get the inmates stirred up and rowdier than usual. The woman known as Genocide was quite calm in comparison. She displayed barely a flicker of emotion as the muscular gray-clad heroine sat down opposite her, the two old enemies separated by a powerful, translucent force-field. The former SS Major poured herself a glass of heady red wine and leaned back in the chair that was now an integral part of her daily life. The sound of 'Horst Wessel-Lied" could be heard form softly from the back of her cell. It had been more than a month since she had become a prisoner here and Olga had been putting this off for far, far too long. Part of her had hoped that Claire would have come to her a second time, looking for answers, telling her side of what had happened. That had not been the case. She had not seen Claire since that night when she tried to kill her in that alley at Ilsa's command.

"Guten Tag Sowjetischen Superfrau. To what do I owe this pleasure?" The bitch actually flashed her old familiar, smug grin right before raising her glass to her lips, as if to mask it.

Olga remained cold, her face expressionless. "You know why I am here Ilsa."

"Do I? Have you come to gloat over my current predicament I wonder? Or perhaps to make sure that I hadn't escaped by now, ja?"

"Neither. I assumed after the way Walkiria brought you here, you would not be walking out any time soon."

Ilsa's eyes flashed for a moment as if someone had fanned the embers of hatred behind them. "Yes, your little cunt girlfriend put up much more fight than the first one." The glow subsided after what seemed like an eternity, replaced by that smug grin again. "I intend to bleed her dry in civil court, I'm told I have quite a case. I'd offer you some of this by the way, but..." Ilsa cut her eyes to the force-field generators in each corner. "They seem to think I may be a threat."

Soviet Superwoman leaned forward, barely concealing the sneer that fell across her features. "You should be lucky Ilsa. If I had caught you back in Berlin, you would have been killed a long time ago, in front of a Soviet firing squad."

"But you didn't, did you? You didn't even catch me this time. For a 'hero of the people', you really have a miserable track-record, though I did enjoy hearing about you attacking your own people recently. Liked that black leather costume as well." Ilsa put down her half-empty glass and tapped on the stack of books on the table next to her in tune with the anthem. "As you can see I am quite comfortable. I have music, some of my books...wine. I must say I truly enjoy the American penal system."

"Too bad your organization has been destroyed. Those books and wine may be all the possessions you have anymore." The dark-haired Russian snapped back.

"Has it?" Ilsa quirked an eyebrow in mock surprise. "I know you and Walkiria certainly put a dent in my operations recently. Detective Angie and her ridiculous anti-crime squads have helped as well, but you and I both know that it is far from destroyed. If fact, your detective friend had better watch her back. I could have her erased from my cell here if I wanted to, American schwein. The Fourth Reich has merely gone to ground on my instruction, ready to rise up like a phoenix any time I wish."

"Why did you bring Claire back to life?" Olga snarled, already tired of playing games with this Nazi bitch and cutting straight to the point.

Genocide leaned back, shifting her useless legs with her hands to make her more comfortable. She placed two fingers to her full lips and considered. "No more pleasantries I see. Very well, I'll start with 'How' and work my way to 'Why' if that's all the same with you, ja? I'm very proud of that part."

Olga watched her carefully. She wasn't used to seeing Ilsa looking this small and frail. She was dressed in bright orange and given a number, much like the ones millions of her own countrymen this woman and her regime had tattooed on their forearms and slaughtered. Not in a proud, black uniform strutting around like a puffed up peacock, the 'Master Race' at play. Nor was she a scantily clad re-imagined Nordic goddess, heavily muscled, tall and powerful. Her trademark gas-mask was gone as well. Yet somehow she still managed to have an air of menace and authority around her, even now. Maia hadn't completely broken her like Olga had hoped. It had only strengthened her resolve. She was still playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with her Soviet foe. The Russian woman nodded her reply cautiously.

Genocide began, pressing a button to shut off her music at the back of the cell. "I had her body retrieved by my agents sometime in early 1945, as the war began to come to a close. Originally I had intended to use her corpse to cause you further grief or emotional suffering, but the struggle came to an end earlier than I expected. I had had Claire frozen and stole the body away with me when I escaped your 'justice' to Buenos Aires. There I was reunited with Dr. Reinhart Frank, Hitler's personal physician. He was a brilliant, brilliant man. Far older than I was, he had managed to reach South America with the assistance of ODESSA. Apparently he had created, but not perfected, a serum that allowed for the regeneration of dead tissue, originally to use on the Führer. Working together, he and I spent the next several years perfecting the serum and reverse-engineering both the alien technology I had uncovered as well as the notes and diagrams I had stolen from the late SS-Gruppenführer Hermann von Trotha. I'm told our 'Iron Chancellor' met his end at your hands?"

Soviet Superwoman nodded, recalling their final battle at the Rjukan Hydro-Electric Plant. Von Trotha had attempted to defeat her in a suit of power-armor of his own design before plunging to his death. A genius and highly-dangerous man, she was glad to have stopped him before his hydrogen bomb tests could be completed. He had killed enough Russian soldiers and civilians alike.

The blonde German smiled. "Thank you for that. Anyway, Herr Doktor Frank and I accomplished a great many things before he succumbed to illness: the portal technology, breakthroughs in cybernetics, increasing the potency of my own strength-augmentation cocktails and the energy harnessing gauntlets. All this while you flew around the world, protecting and defending your mighty Soviet empire from the brash capitalist Americans."

Ilsa's eyes burned again, the tone in her voice lowering as she spoke. "I watched you the entire time. I watched you come back from the dimension I thought I had trapped you in. I watched you, a goddess among ants and I grew to hate you in ways you cannot possibly imagine. For what you had done to my beloved Deutschland, to my people and our dreams, to my Führer and the Reich. The greatest empire that had ever walked the earth, the destiny of the Aryan people and it had all been laid low by a mongrel Slavic farm-girl." The anger in her voice steadily grew with each word. "I watched you and I realized then that I had to break you. I couldn't do that physically. I had to crush the fire out of your eyes and heart and fill your soul with despair, to grind your will to dust. Claire was the instrument of my vengeance against you for what you had done to me."

Olga watched as the woman steadied herself and continued, picking up her wine glass and taking another sip. "Of course, those damned alien invaders ruined things on our world, so I had to follow you where they had sent you. Upon arriving here, the technology was so advanced and the science so much more than it was in our 1950's, I immediately had Claire upgraded and enhanced once I had a foothold in Angel Falls. I had to re-learn everything I had learned. She would have been activated sooner, but my own chemicals were enhanced to such a degree that I become an great giantess, an Aryan goddess capable of leveling mountains and crushing armies...or so I thought. Once again I underestimated you and you humiliated me in battle. That was when I activated Grendel."

"I enjoyed twisting the truth around in her head. She was like a blank slate when she came back from the dead. I spent so much time, so many months, filling her soul with all the hatred and bile I had towards not only you, but towards humanity as a whole. I taught her how to hate and how to kill, slowly and painfully. I taught her how to be a sadist and how to make love like a wild beast. She is a like a daughter to me. Grendel, as in the great poem:
'warped in the shape of a man, moves beyond the pale, bigger than any man, an unnatural birth called Grendel.'"

Olga shook her head, her lip trembling. "Then you failed, once again. As you can see, I am still alive. There is some part of her that you did not completely destroy. Some part of her is still the Claire that I once knew and loved."

Ilsa shrugged, finishing off her last mouthful of wine before placing the empty glass back down. "It doesn't really matter, does it? I have hurt you and I intend to continue doing so at every available opportunity."

"I am going to make certain you never leave this cell."

At that Genocide laughed out loud, her eyes widening. "How are you going to do that, eh? I'm told that I have a very solid chance of never even making it to court. Mein Gott, I actually love this country, and not just the legal system! America is such a fertile ground to begin a new movement. All the pieces are already in place: a hatred of immigrants, racial intolerance, anger and fear of the current government, herds of cattle-like people listening to demagogues on the news and internet and believing every word they say, violence and over-crowded prisons, disenfranchised young people looking for a purpose. Already millions of people look with hope to the swastika. I once thought that the only way for the Reich to live again was by crushing the United States, but upon arriving here in this dimension I fully believe in the American way of life."

Olga stood up, pushing her chair behind her, never taking her eyes off of Ilsa's. She had heard enough and realized with a growing sickness that she had already known all the answers before she had even come here. Part of her had just wanted to have them confirmed she supposed. The other part, the one she would never admit to herself let alone Ilsa was that she had come in the hopes that her old foe was crippled and suffering. She was neither.

"Goodbye Ilsa. You should not look at this cell as a prison, but a haven. The moment you roll out of it, I am going to follow your example and see just how much I enjoy hurting you." She spat as she turned, cape fluttering behind her. She left empty, like she had suddenly given blood and she didn't immediately trust her legs.

Genocide clicked her music back on and sighed audibly, watching her leave. Her pale, blue eyes shown with a light, like sparks of flame in all her darkness. "Auf Wiedersehen Olga. I very much look forward to our next encounter together."

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Once again, a great big thank you and hug to my dear friend, for creating this image and all the specifics I wanted with it. You are truly a great artist and a greater friend.

The story, Soviet Superwoman and Genocide are all my own creations and property.

Detective Angie is mentioned and is the property of

Also Walkiria, who is the property of

The tune Ilsa is listening too for anyone interested is here: [link]

This takes place deep in Tartarus prison, located in