Germany - 1942

The sky seemed like it would never wash away the dark red that stained the horizon. Everything was burning, even books weren't safe from the Nazi regime. It may have been nothing but ink and paper, but it felt as if the ideas contained in the books were disappearing as the pages turned to ash. Bastion Keller still remembered the first book burning he had witnessed, and the feeling of hopelessness that it brought. It was a reminder of how far the country had fallen and denied its people of any original thought.

That was years ago now, back when Bastion had rebelliously dared to think for himself and to question the goals of their leader. He was a kid, no older than ten, and that was one of the last memories of the outside world that he carried with him. He was taken under a program titled simply 'Über Soldaten', an experiment to create the ultimate weapon... Soldiers with the ability to penetrate minds and fire weapons with nothing more than a thought.

Their goal was to use Aryan children for this experiment, for such a gift could only be given to those they deemed worthy of it. There were risks involved though, especially in the testing stages, so they took in other kids as well; ones without the purity of blond hair and blue eyes to use as guinea pigs. None of them survived.

They took these children from their families, many of which gave them up willingly in fear of the consequences, and were moved to a facility within an area of Baden-Württemberg known only as The Black Forest. In this dimly lit laboratory there was no movement and no odour of any kind. There were lights, but like the stars in a night sky they did little to lift the blackness. There was a black metallic roof above, and a black metallic floor below. Every footfall echoed around, not loudly, but enough to puncture the usual silence. It was enough to drive people mad, and maybe that was part of the plan.

"Number 148." A voice called over the loud speaker.

Bastion stood immediately, and without the slightest hint of hesitation, he sauntered towards the experimentation room. He was much older now, twenty-six to be exact. He had lived the majority of his life in those walls, training and preparing to be sent to war. He was taught multiple languages, advanced combat techniques and weaponry training in addition to how to use his newly formed powers.

He walked passed the morgue, people he'd known his entire life and kids that had been brought in not long ago were stacked in a lifeless pile. Most didn't survive the tests. Bastion was so used to the sight of corpses that he didn't even give it a second glance.

The door to his destination was already wide open. A man in a lab coat two sizes too big was holding it for him. Bastion didn't know his name but he had always seemed a little more decent than the other scientists.

When Bastion entered he saw five more people in the room...well, five more live people. On the ground were four more, all lifeless corpses killed in various ways. One had a shard of glass lodged into his skull (from the broken mirror also present in the vicinity), another had no visible signs of damage but had died clutching his stomach, and the last two had their necks popped in sickening directions.

"Stand on the cross." One of the scientists commanded and Bastion immediately complied. "Today the brunt of your training will be tested. The stakes are high, do not fail."

"Jawohl!" Bastion quickly replied in German. The only proper response to anything they said was 'Jawohl' or 'yes, sir'.

The scientists often spoke to them outside of their native tongue to contribute to their language learning, often in English since it was quickly becoming the most used worldwide. The threat of being stolen by U.S. soldiers was growing as well, and if that happened they were to act as spies. This would obviously be a waste since they were primarily created as weapons to fight in the second World War, but it was important to have a backup plan.

Within seconds another person was shoved into the room. A criminal, from what Bastion could tell from their jumpsuit. The man looked slightly familiar... In fact, he held the same features as Bastion himself did. His head had been shaved, but the short strands of hair that remained were light. He had a sharp jaw and one of his bottom teeth slightly overlapped the other.

The only thing that differed from Bastion were his eyes. Bastion had previously held blue eyes, but the extensive experiments had altered one of them to a golden brown. The man in front of him had hazel eyes - a mixture of both brown and green that clashed together as if they were confused of which colour they wanted to be.

"This man's name is Heinrich Keller." The scientist said in a bland monotone. "He is your biological father."

Bastion spared the criminal a sideways glance but his face was void of emotion. He didn't remember his father, and so he had no connection to him. He had been trained to feel no attachment to anything but his country. It seemed harsh, but to him it was the only rational way to think.

The scientist examined the boy's reaction, or lack thereof, and continued. "Kill him."

"Jawohl." He replied lowly. Bastion didn't sound surprised at all by this order.

The scientist narrowed his eyes at the younger man. "In English, boy."

Bastion straightened his posture and said in a much clearer voice "Yes, sir."

Finally, he turned to his supposed father once more. His stare was sharp and his mind clear of any argument. No one disagreed, they had no minds of their own. The thought to refuse didn't even cross him, not even when the man's eyes began to water and he repetitively begged 'please'.

"Only cowards plead in the face of death." Bastion said coldly. "You are a disgrace to our great nation."

The only emotion he felt now was disappointment. He had been born to a weakling, and it was a shame he'd never wash out. To kill him now seemed like a mercy, at least he would no longer degrade their country.

Bastion focused on the criminal, and scraped all of his strength together. A vein started to become visible in his forehead, and he began to taste something metallic on his tongue. His father's breath hitched, and then his entire body erupted into seizures. His head felt like it was being caved in, as if it were being crushed between two boulders. His eyes rolled upward and suddenly the criminal was gripped by darkness. There was a disgusting noise, squelchy and splattered, as the man's brain was blown apart inside his skull. The pain that once burned like fire had faded away to an icy numbness that followed him into death.

The man's body joined the others scattered on the ground. Bastion, without a hint of remorse, wiped the drop of blood that had streamed out of his mouth and turned back towards the scientist.

"Very good." The nameless man said. "Proceed into the room on your left and wait for your next orders."

Bastion didn't even give the corpse of his father another look when he left. The moment he was taken his family had become nothing but a blurred memory, strangers that he had no desire to find or see again.

When he entered the next room the door behind him was shut tight. He saw that there were a few others in there with him but nowhere near as many as he had been expecting. Time passed and two more joined them, however the population of the facility test subjects had been reduced by about eighty percent. To put it in simpler terms, there were only twelve people in that room of the sixty experiments still alive.

Most of the others appeared to be the same age as Bastion, around twenty-seven years old, but there was one new child that had recently been taken away. All of them were Aryan - blonde hair, blue eyes and stark white.

The speakers hanging in the room made a loud whistling sound as they were turned on, then the voice of a woman spoke. "Of the five hundred children we brought here over the years, only sixty remain. Of that number only twelve of you were able to prove your loyalty to this great country. This is a disappointing number but you will be rewarded for your actions. As the failures march to the front lines to defend against our enemies, you will be preserved for further testing and saved for the brunt of our attack. Each of you will step into one of the pods in this room. You have fifteen seconds."

This was the first time Bastion realised that there were machines lined on either side of the vicinity. He didn't waste time pondering what they were for despite how suspicious they appeared. Instead, just like everyone else, he found an empty one and stepped inside. There was little room, and as soon as he'd turned back around a glass door had locked him in place. It was such a tight fit that every breath fogged the glass and warmed his face.

"All subjects secure." A robotic voice echoed throughout every individual chamber. "Beginning task of preservation."

Suddenly it was cold... then it was freezing. Bastion's body temperature dropped so quickly that it felt like his insides were nothing but icicles. This didn't last long though. Soon his sight had vanished in a flash of white, and his mind shut down as if preparing for death. He had no meaningful final thought, or a flashback of his life... All he could think about was the cold. It was numbing every nerve in his body, every sign of his existence.

Modern Day

A loud beeping buzzed through the air, and in the dead silence it was deafening. In what felt like mere seconds to him, Bastion regained consciousness and found himself still sealed inside of the machine.

Warmth slowly begun to spread back through his body, leaving aches in every single muscle. There was thick fog swirling inside of the chamber and so Bastion was blind to the outside world, but soon the glass door reopened itself and that same mist rushed outward.

For at least a minute or so, whilst waiting to regain his own senses, Bastion waited for his next orders. When none came he found himself confused and goalless (which he didn't like at all). He attempted to step out of his icy tomb but his legs collapsed beneath him. They were still thawing, it seemed, and it sent him tumbling face first into solid ground.

Bastion hissed at the impact, finding one of the other machines and using it as support to force himself back up. It was a struggle but he somehow managed to stand on his weakened legs. It felt like he hadn't used them in years...

He leaned against the chamber, eyes finally wandering up from the ground. What he saw should have startled him much more than it did. In the machine he was using as support was a person, one of the other test subjects, only they were half rotted meat and bones.

His eyes widened at the sight but little else showed any signs of a reaction. He'd seen so much death that he'd grown indifferent towards it. Still, it was confusing to see.

He let his eyes flick around the remainder of the room... and each of the others were in a similar state. Some were still in the early stages of decaying, others were practically glorified skeletons. One of them, the person in the tube next to Bastion's, looked like he'd died more recently than the rest.

Before Bastion could even attempt to deduct a proper explanation the door on the far side of the room opened, and a woman walked in. She was wearing the same attire as the scientists in the facility always did - a white coat over brown military gear. She approached him with a stern gaze and for a moment he wasn't sure what his next action should be, so instead of coming up with it himself, he waited for her to give him an order.

"Willkommen zurück." She spoke in a clear and smooth voice... which was the first indication that something was wrong.

It essentially meant 'Welcome back', but the scientists were never a friendly bunch and certainly wouldn't have treated him so warmly. It also raised the question of where exactly he had been to warrant a welcome, but that was of little importance with the situation he was in. She wasn't German, he could tell instantly. Her accent wasn't harsh or fluent, it was the voice of an american trying to poorly imitate his language.

Threateningly, he stepped towards the woman. She must have realised that she hadn't fooled him because she scrambled back in fright at this small movement. Her hand grasped the doorknob, trying to turn it... but something was preventing the door from opening. Her stare fell back to the man only to find that he was right in front of her, eyes blazing with rage.

"You are not German." He hissed.

The girl shook her head and attempted once more to open the door... Still nothing.

"I'm sorry, they told me that you'd find it easier to adapt if we tried to pretend that you were still there..." The woman gulped but it did nothing for her dry throat. "Please... let me go."

"Excessive begging has never convinced me to spare a persons life before." Bastion leaned in, focusing on her airway and cutting off any oxygen from making it through - all only with his mind. "That isn't likely to change."

The woman felt as if her lungs were slowly filling with water, as if there was less space in them for the air. Inflating them felt like pushing up a lead weight on her chest, and eventually the exhaustion of each breath prevented the next. She doubled over, face colouring blue and eyes sheening with tears that wouldn't release.

Luckily for her, the door was forced open in Bastion's distraction and a military man walked through.

"Stop!" He yelled, pointing a gun at Bastion's head. "Number 148, do not make me kill you."

At the mention of the name given to him in the facility, Bastion ceased his minds grip on the woman's throat. She coughed and wheezed, then finally hurried away as if she were scared he'd change his mind. Maybe he would have... He and the others had been warned that American soldiers were trying to find them. That they would take them from the facility and torture them until they begged for death, that's why they were taught to recognise any accent that wasn't German, even if the person was attempting to hide that accent.

"Now, I need you to calm down." The American man said despite his weapon still being pointed at Bastion. "You've been in that tube for a very long time. We've been trying to revive your people for years now but every attempt only killed them... until now. We are curious of your supposed abilities but we have no intention of hurting you."

"A shame," Bastion replied lowly. "because my intentions are not nearly as friendly."

With that the gun in the man's hand was snatched away by nothing but the wind, and it turned to face him with the trigger shivering. He dove out of the way just in time but the bullet went straight through the leg of a security guard behind him. Another gun zoomed through the air and landed in Bastion's grasp, now there were two shooting at everyone in sight, one being held and the other in mid-air.

"W-Wait!" The military man yelled once more.

"I grow tired of your cowardice." Bastion growled at the man that was still hiding behind the wall.

"You're not in Germany any longer! You're not even in your own era anymore! We're the only ones that can help you."

Bastion scoffed. He had never heard such idiocy before. They were trying to trick him, he knew it, and he wasn't going to fall for it. He turned the corner, and with one white flash, he shot the man clean through the chest.

Once it seemed like no one else was willing to attack, Bastion left the building. He froze solid at what he saw. He was in a large and unfamiliar city. It lay clustered, ruddy on the ground, glittering in the clear air with its flat roofs and domes and square towers. Everything was alien to him, there were remnants of the time he once knew but most of it was so advanced that he couldn't begin to comprehend it. The city was a vast, intricate, labyrinth of noisy, streets and alleys. He could hear the incessant honking of the vehicles even before he had taken his first breath of fresh air.

He wasn't quite sure when he started walking or why. He didn't even know how long it had been. Bastion was lost in a modern world that insisted that the American man had told him the truth, but it was such a nonsensical concept that he still found it difficult to believe.

The only thing able to jolt his mind back into reality was the sound of a loud 'boom' and a woman falling from the sky... only she wasn't falling. When she landed she didn't appear to be injured in fact there was more damage to the ground than to her.

The woman was noticeably tall with long black hair, sharp eyes, and broad shoulders. She was well-toned yet muscular in build. She wore a strapless red bustier held up by a brace of gold resembling two W's, a large golden belt, blue briefs with five white stars on them, and red boots with a white stripe on the front side. 

The people around him began to to whisper amongst themselves, many gasping in awe and referring to her as 'Wonder Woman'. He had never heard of her but it seemed like she left quite an impression on these people.

"I have been asked to take you in." She said in a strong voice, one with an accent he couldn't quite determine. "Do not resist. I am not as lenient as the people that you shot."

Bastion's face scrunched but he raised the gun to her nonetheless. He remembered shooting it, but the bullet didn't make contact... or it did and she had somehow not been injured by it. The flash that sped into an empty building beside her when she raised her hand and bracelets (smashing the window in the process) made him believe that it was the latter.

"You have made your decision." She spoke again, but that was the last thing he could recall before she flew towards him and knocked him out cold. He felt an intense yet fleeting pain, and that was all. Complete and utter darkness.