The grand chamber beneath the crumbling cathedral outside Lübeck was cloaked in shadows. Lit only by flickering candlelight and the low hum of machinery embedded in the stone walls, the air crackled with tension and the scent of incense and grease. Three figures stood around a circular stone table, marked with ancient alchemical symbols and the sigil of HYDRA. The symbols bled into the sigil of the Hellfire Club — three crowns etched in deep obsidian.
Johann Schmidt, clad in his deep crimson military uniform, observed the others with icy precision. The man had always carried a magnetic presence, but now there was something more — a quiet dread that seemed to bend the air around him. Across from him stood Sebastian Shaw, hands behind his back, chin raised with aristocratic defiance. And between them sat Nathaniel Essex, the pale scientist whose eyes gleamed not with passion, but with the cold light of endless curiosity.
"Berlin is watching," Shaw began, his voice thick with disdain. "They want explanations, Johann. Movement of resources. Entire labs missing from Prague. What should we tell them?"
"We tell them," Johann said slowly, "that it is for the future of the Reich. And if they demand more, we feed them the truth dressed in patriotism. Let them believe it is for Hitler. When in truth…" His crimson eyes narrowed. "It is for dominion."
"Dominion," Essex echoed, fingers tapping the stone table. "What we three pursue is not simply the victory of a war. It is the molding of existence. Mutantkind must rise beyond the petty squabbles of inferior men."
Shaw smirked. "Mutants under your scalpel, Nathaniel, become instruments, not rulers. I would see them kings."
"Kings need architects," Essex replied coolly. "And kings fall without purpose. What I seek is perfection. A sovereign species. Mutants who will outlive gods."
Johann remained silent, listening. The heartbeat of each man pulsed in his mind, loud as cannon fire. Shaw's beat strong but untempered, full of ego. Essex's was slow, calculating, nearly silent. And his own…
His own heart had long stopped being just his.
"The Project is prepared," Johann finally said. "We will not conduct it in Berlin. Too visible. Too many eyes." He tapped the table. A hidden panel opened, revealing a map of Hamburg. "The experiments and the serum will be completed there. Underground. Untraceable."
"And what of failure?" Shaw asked. "You gamble much, Johann. Even with your gifts. You risk becoming the very monster they whisper of in their bedtime tales."
Johann looked up, and for a moment, his gaze was something ancient. Something red.
"And if I do? Then let them fear the truth. I will be the reaper of the old world. And the father of the next."
There was silence.
Then Essex smiled.
"To new gods," he said. He raised a glass of dark red wine.
"To kings," Shaw replied, lifting his own.
"To blood," Johann murmured.
In the cold, sterile lab beneath the Hamburg warehouse, Dr. Abraham Erskine adjusted the pressure valves of the experiment chamber with shaking hands. His breath fogged the air. The lights flickered. He could hear them — the boots above, the guards, the silence before something terrible.
He stared at the formula in his hands. The serum. Modified to amplify the latent potential in Johann Schmidt's body. But Erskine had seen too much already.
He had felt the wrongness in Johann. The power in him was not merely biological. There were whispers in his presence, and eyes behind his eyes. The man was not merely dangerous.
He was hungry.
When Johann entered the chamber, he was shirtless, the muscles on his back like coiled wire. His veins pulsed red beneath skin too pale, almost translucent.
"Are we ready?" Schmidt asked.
Erskine hesitated. "There are risks."
"There is always risk in creation," Schmidt said. "But if we do not transcend, we perish."
Erskine looked away.
"Do it."
The chamber locked.
He initiated the sequence. The serum flowed into Schmidt's body, through tubes, through ancient metals and whispering circuits. The lights dimmed. The room shook.
Then came the screams.
Not of a man in pain. But of something shedding its skin.
Even the laboratory floor was shaking and people for miles around felt as if a hand was holding their heart and could stop it from beating at any moment.
The sound echoed down the corridors like a dying world.
Erskine did not wait.
He grabbed the bag he had hidden behind the ventilation unit, ran through the side tunnel, emerged in the narrow alleys behind the lab. A black car awaited him. Two men in plain clothes, Americans.
"Dr. Erskine?"
He nodded.
They drove fast. Through streets choked in fog and wartime silence. To his apartment. He grabbed the forged papers, the small case. Then to the port. Hamburg's edge. A rusted cargo ship awaited. Destination: the Netherlands. Then England. Then, if he lived that long, America, with the knowledge he has maybe the world could still be saved but humanity had little time and was 1938 and to stop such threat they will need better than they could bring to the war for the future of all.
Behind him, far in the darkening sky, something red flared above the warehouse. A scream echoed across the waters, deep and inhuman.
He did not look back.
Below, in the chamber, Johann Schmidt stood amid the wreckage. The restraints had melted. His body was no longer with skin but the muscles he had trained to be perfect and used were now even bigger and more powerful that he felt he could turn metal into dust, and the hearts for some reason he just couldn't hear better than he ever could he could now turn off the sound. No longer even human. His skin was crimson. His eyes glowed like coals with red irises. His veins throbbed with power.
He was reborn.
A monster. A king. A god of blood.
And above all else, a harbinger.
The Red Skull, The Blood Skull.
To be continued...
next Chapter it will be Steve first enlistment attempt and sightings of German and Japanese ships attacking the coast will appear and the first human torch manages Jim Hammond to deal with the Japanese but the Germans get a small base in Florida and there is the excuse that the Captain will not only be used as a circus monkey but will also be trained to first get the Germans out of florida and the Floridians are going to do some crazy Shit with the Nazis and then to England which will be brutally attacked too and the guy i talked about will be Steve first teacher also Magneto will only show up later but expect other x-man characters soonner.