Berlin's Reichstag was quiet that evening, but the air inside the chamber was tense. Rows of ministers sat in stiff suits, papers spread before them. At the center stood Minister Anke Vollmer, her voice sharp as she addressed the assembled officials.
"The world sees the Avengers in America, the Fantastic Four in New York, even smaller nations producing heroes in their own defense. But here? In Germany? When danger comes, our people look across the ocean for protection."
She let that hang for a moment, then placed a dossier on the table. Its cover bore a single emblem: a serpent coiled around a steel rod.
"The Schwarze Schlangen—the Black Serpents—are not another petty extremist group. They are an organized, well-funded paramilitary network. Ex-Hydra scientists, rogue industrialists, foreign sponsors. The same people who unleashed their abominations in Lübeck last week."
The chamber murmured. News of the harbor attack had already spread, though the official report omitted the young woman with strange companions who had defended it.
"America has its gods and billionaires," Vollmer continued. "We will not wait for them to save us. Germany will have its own defender."
---
Later, in a bunker beneath Tempelhof Airport, the project came alive.
The candidate stood in the center of a reinforced chamber: Helena Brandt, a former Bundeswehr pilot who had walked away from the military after a disastrous mission in Syria. Red-haired, sharp-eyed, restless, she had been searching for a cause. The government had just given her one.
The chamber filled with heat as technicians activated the Helios Protocol. Ancient solar energy experiments, half-forgotten designs salvaged from Hydra's archives, now repurposed into something new.
Helena screamed as fire erupted around her—not consuming, but becoming. Flames wrapped her body without burning, wings of searing light unfurling from her shoulders.
When she opened her eyes again, they glowed like molten iron.
The observers behind the glass took a step back.
Helena clenched her fists, and the flames bent to her will. "I'm not your weapon," she growled, her voice carrying like thunder. "But I'll be your shield."
The minister smiled grimly. "Then Germany has its hero."
And thus was born Feuerkrone—the Firebrand.
---
That night, Helena received her first mission briefing. The Black Serpents had not retreated after Lübeck; they were gathering strength along the Baltic coast, their laboratories hidden deep beneath old wartime bunkers.
Her assignment: strike them before they could strike again.
But what the government did not know was that another hero—a girl with strange octopus guardians—had already crossed paths with the Serpents.
And sooner or later, Feuerkrone and Gute Gald would meet.