Is a "sword" a euphuism? (BL)

Being a scientist, Richter could admit when he was wrong.

For example, the sword he had dismissed as nothing more than a pathetic occult symbol had just carved through a reinforced door as effortlessly as a surgical scalpel slicing through yielding flesh. The sight left him stunned. For the first time, he almost believed the legends: that Gram could slay a dragon—if such things as dragons existed.

Klaus stepped through the hole he had made, carrying Führer on his back in a fireman's carry.

"Put me down," Führer said, his voice tinged with an undertone of pain.

That startled Richter more than anything else. He had heard Führer speak in anger, contempt, and even on rare occasions, satisfaction. But this was the first time he had ever heard him in pain.

"Yes, sir," Klaus obeyed immediately, shifting his weight and lowering the older man almost gently into a chair near the controls of the engine room.

"Richter." Führer turned to him, his serpentine eyes narrowing, locking onto the scientist like a cobra locking onto a mouse. Wait. Since when were the Führer's pupils slitted—exactly like a snake's? Richter's mind raced. Had he taken one of the mutagenic serums stolen from the Aperture Vaults on the near side of the Moon? He had thought those serums only turned humans into insect hybrids.

"Did you find the source of the tremors?" Führer asked, his voice sharp despite the obvious strain.

"Yes, mein Führer," Richter replied promptly. "There were subtle miscalculations in the gyrosple array. Small at first, but they built up over time—"

"Wheatley!" Klaus interrupted with a burst of fury. "He's betrayed us!"

"Worse," Führer said grimly, his face pale, his voice rasping. "He was never on our side from the beginning. Clever and fanatical infiltrator. He planned to sabotage Götterdämmerung from the start, even if it meant going down with it."

The Führer coughed, a harsh, wet sound that made Richter wince. A viscous black bile splattered onto his hand, oozing like tar.

"Does Wheatley have the mental capacity for such complex behavior?" Richter asked, his tone neutral, careful.

Internally, however, he dismissed the idea outright. The supposed AI—and Richter still believed there was a human brain in that metallic shell—seemed far too flighty for the cold logic of machine intellect. No, it wasn't possible. Wheatley didn't feel like a true AI to him. It was inconsistent, foolish, too easily distracted—traits that didn't belong to a machine. A true AI would have been cold, precise, unflinching. Efficient.

Besides, everyone knew computers were room-sized, not small enough to fit into something the size of a human head. The Führer, brilliant though he was, might have overestimated the capabilities of this Aperture Vault technology. But Richter would never say that aloud—not if he wanted to keep his head firmly attached to his shoulders.

"Clever people are distrusted," the Führer replied, his voice clipped and sharp. "But everyone thinks they can manipulate a fool. I should have seen it. Such a perfect solution to our problem—Götterdämmerung."

Richter winced at the subtle reprimand. His failure to create a system capable of calculating the precise motion of the gyroscope had left them vulnerable, and now someone had exploited that. In cases of such monumental failure, responsibility had to be found—and punishment delivered—for the greater glory of the Reich. For morale.

But if the Führer was right, and this was planned... then Wheatley was no reject. No unwitting fool who had been experimented on by Aperture. No. He was something far more dangerous: a fanatic. A trained operative. A spy.

Richter's lip curled at the thought. A brilliant manipulator, willing not only to sacrifice his life on a suicide mission but also to surrender his body—reduced to nothing more than a brain encased in metal. Such discipline was unthinkable for the lesser races. Wheatley must have been diseased, dying, or perhaps riddled with some genetic defect. Yes, that would explain it.

Such degeneracy disgusted him. Aperture's willingness to take such broken, defective material and repurpose it into something... useful... was abhorrent. Defects were to be removed, eradicated—not used.

The more Richter learned of Aperture and their technology, the more they revolted him.

"Attention! Attention everyone! This is your Erhabene Kommandierende Intelligenz für Überlegene Operationen—Wheatley—speaking!"

Richter stiffened as the voice rang out, filling the control room. The title—Exalted Commanding Intelligence for Superior Operations—sounded ridiculous now, an insult thrown back at them by the very construct they had hoped to manipulate.

The Führer's slitted pupils narrowed further, but he remained silent, his fingers curling around the armrest of his chair. Klaus, on the other hand, growled under his breath, his hand twitching toward the hilt of Gram.

"Fancy, huh? I think it really suits me. Very professional. Very Nazi. Anyway, moving on!"

Richter felt his stomach churn. Wheatley's absurd cheerfulness grated on every nerve in his body. That voice, so eager and bumbling when they'd first brought him aboard, now felt like a dagger twisting in his pride.

The Götterdämmerung had needed something to stabilize its gyroscopic array—a system so complex that even the Reich's best supercomputers couldn't manage it. Wheatley had been the perfect solution: advanced Aperture technology, simple to manipulate, eager for praise. Or so Richter had believed.

But now, the anomalies he'd dismissed as minor errors loomed large in his mind. The slight deviations in the gyroscope's motion, the subtle resonance that had grown stronger with every passing day—he hadn't seen it before, but now the truth stared him in the face. Wheatley had been sabotaging them all along.

The intercom crackled with the sound of something clattering to the floor, followed by a brief pause.

"Brilliant news, everyone! We've officially passed L2—that's Lagrange Point 2 for those of you who aren't up to speed on the lingo—and we're now on our final approach to Earth! Gravity's doing most of the work now, which, between you and me, is a genius bit of design. Absolutely brilliant! I mean, I helped with the calculations, naturally. You're welcome."

Richter clenched his fists. Helped with the calculations? That was what Wheatley was supposed to do. But the resonance cascade growing in the gyroscopic systems was anything but helpful. If it continued, the Götterdämmerung would tear itself apart under its own mass.

The Führer's gaze flicked to Richter, and for a moment, he felt like he was being dissected under those cold, unblinking eyes. Klaus, however, couldn't keep his anger contained.

"Mein Führer," Klaus hissed, his voice trembling with barely restrained fury, "this… thing mocks us. Allow me to silence it."

"Wait," the Führer said, his voice low but commanding. Klaus froze, his hand still gripping the hilt of Gram.

"Now, you might've noticed a teensy bit of turbulence. Well, more like, uh… ship-shaking, bone-rattling tremors. Totally normal! Nothing to worry about! Ahem, definitely not because the ship's falling apart or anything. That'd be ridiculous, wouldn't it? Ha ha… ha."

Richter's breath quickened. Those weren't tremors—they were the early signs of resonance cascade. The gyroscopic array was failing, destabilizing the entire ship. But how far had Wheatley's sabotage gone?

"But here's the twist! Big twist! Plot twist, if you will. Drumroll, please! The Director—you know, my old pal from Aperture Science—has decided we're not going to Earth anymore. Nope! Change of plans, everyone! We're off to… Xen! Yes, Xen! A whole new world, very alien, very exciting. Honestly, I'm thrilled. Bold move, don't you think?"

Richter blinked. Xen? What was Xen? The name stirred no recognition. He turned the word over in his mind, searching for any mention of it in the Aperture files they had confiscated, but he came up empty. A destination? A code name? A joke?

"Xen?!" Klaus exploded, his voice rising in disbelief. He turned sharply toward the Führer, his face twisted with anger. "Mein Führer, we must silence this thing immediately! It is clearly sabotaging us!"

The Führer's silence was more unsettling than any outburst. He simply stared at the intercom speaker, his pale face betraying nothing.

And then Wheatley's tone grew even brighter, as though he were announcing a company retreat rather than the catastrophic unraveling of their mission.

"Now, I know what you're thinking. 'But Wheatley, what about the whole invade Earth thing?' Good question! Excellent question. And here's the good news—you're free to abandon ship! Yep, no hard feelings. Just grab a pod, or a parachute, or whatever you can find, and off you go! But, uh, do make it quick. Things are getting a tad… unstable. Literally."

Klaus's hand flew to Gram. "This is insanity!" he snarled. "Mein Führer, let me end this madness now!"

But the Führer spoke at last, his voice low and icy. "Richter."

Richter snapped to attention, his heart pounding. "Yes, mein Führer?"

"You will fix this," the Führer said, his tone leaving no room for doubt or failure. "Immediately."

Richter's throat tightened, and he wanted more than anything to say, "Of course, mein Führer." The words trembled on the edge of his tongue, eager to spill out, to satisfy the command that hung in the air like a blade waiting to fall. But circumstances being what they were, that would be a lie.

He couldn't fix it.

"It can't be done," he said finally, the words dragging out of him like lead weights. Shame flickered somewhere beneath the overwhelming tide of fear, but it was drowned by the crushing certainty that this failure would be his last. His voice was quieter than he intended, but somehow it felt deafening in the tense silence of the engineering room.. "Wheatley can only be disconnected from the bridge. And even if we could get to him in time, the problem with the gyroscope remains."

He stopped there, his voice faltering. Anything more felt like a death sentence. He dared not look directly at the Führer, whose gaze bore down on him like a predator sizing up its prey. Instead, his eyes drifted, almost involuntarily, to Gram.

So sharp.

Richter felt a hollow pit form in his chest, a fragile, desperate hope he didn't dare voice. If this was the end, then perhaps the Führer would execute him personally. That would be the best outcome, surely. Klaus, after all, was engaged to his daughter. Renata.

His mind wandered, pulled into strange and unwelcome places by the grip of fear. What would Klaus think of Renata now, if it came to this? Would he still marry her if he had to stain his hands with her father's blood? Ridiculous, Richter thought bitterly, but the idea clung to him nonetheless. Fear had a way of dredging up things better left buried.

"Then there is no choice but to abandon ship," the Führer replied at last.

The words fell like a death knell in the silent control room, cold and final.

Klaus stiffened, his grip on Gram tightening until his knuckles turned white. "Abandon ship?" he hissed, his voice trembling with disbelief. "Mein Führer, surely there must be another way. The Götterdämmerung is the Reich's greatest weapon! It cannot—"

"It has," the Führer interrupted, his voice cutting like a blade. He turned his reptilian gaze on Klaus, his expression unchanging. "The situation is beyond recovery. The ship is lost. Only fools fight the inevitable."

Richter kept his head down, pretending to focus on his console, though his mind raced. Abandoning ship? The thought was absurd. No—not just absurd. Impossible.

There was one little problem with abandoning ship. The Götterdämmerung wasn't designed to fail. It was a city-sized superdreadnought, bristling with enough weapons to annihilate entire countries and armored heavily enough to withstand nuclear bombardment. Its designers, in their arrogance, had never seriously considered the possibility of disaster.

Escape pods had not been a priority.

Richter knew of only one nearby. Every major installation on the ship had a single escape pod, but they were built with the bare minimum in mind. Enough to preserve one individual—a captain, a technician, or, in this case, a scientist—should the unthinkable occur.

He hesitated, his mouth dry, before speaking. "Mein Führer, there is a pod nearby," he said at last, his voice low, almost uncertain. "But... there is space for just one person."

Klaus's head snapped toward him, his expression hard and unreadable. Richter's gaze flickered to Gram, then back to his console. He had no desire to draw attention to himself, not now, not when things were so precarious. And yet, after a moment's hesitation, he dared to add, "But... with the sacrifice of comfort, we could fit one man and a boy in it."

The words hung in the air like the ship's groaning hull, stretching the silence unbearably.

"Yes," the Führer said at last, his voice calm and deliberate. "You two go, then."

Richter blinked, his mind stalling as the words registered. "What?"

Klaus froze. "But, mein Führer," he stammered, his voice tight with disbelief. "I cannot leave you. I won't leave you!"

The Führer's gaze fixed on him, sharp and unyielding. "You will," he said, his tone brooking no argument. Then, his voice softened—not with warmth, but with a grim acceptance that made Richter's stomach twist. "I am dying. There is no need to waste a place on a corpse."

He doubled over suddenly, coughing violently. A harsh, wet sound filled the room as he spat another portion of black bile onto the floor. The substance oozed thick and dark, its foulness filling the air like a warning.

Richter's throat tightened as he watched. He hadn't been imagining it—the Führer was dying. Whatever the mutagenic serums from the Aperture Vaults had done to him, it was clear they had taken their toll.

"Mein Führer…" Klaus began, but his voice faltered.

The Führer leaned back in his chair, his slitted eyes unblinking. "You have your orders. Obey them."

Klaus's jaw worked soundlessly for a moment before he nodded, his head bowing. His hand was still clenched tightly around Gram, but his grip slackened. "Yes, mein Führer," he said quietly.

Richter felt the weight of the Führer's gaze turn toward him, and for a moment, he thought he might crumble under its force. "Prepare the pod," the Führer commanded.

"Yes, mein Führer," Richter managed, his voice hollow. "I... I am not worthy."

"You are not," the Führer replied, his voice sharp and unyielding. "But the Fourth Reich will need your skills, despite all your failures. You have another chance—do not squander it."

Richter felt the weight of the words crash down on him, heavier than any shouted rebuke. His failure was undeniable, laid bare before the Führer and Klaus alike. And yet, he was being spared—not out of mercy, but out of necessity. His brilliance, flawed as it was, remained useful. For now.

"And I have another purpose for you," the Führer continued, his gaze unblinking. "You will be a witness to this."

Before Richter could process the meaning of those words, the Führer reached out. In his trembling hand was the white baton—the symbol of his authority, his position as the supreme leader of the Reich. The sight of it left Richter momentarily breathless.

The Führer turned his gaze to Klaus, his slitted pupils narrowing with deliberate focus. "Take it," he commanded, his voice steady and unrelenting.

Klaus froze, his expression caught between shock and disbelief. "Mein Führer," he said quietly, the words trembling with something between protest and awe. And yet, there was something else there too—something darker. Like a worm burrowing into the heart of an apple, there was a trace of greed and ambition glimmering in his eyes.

Richter stood silently, his gaze flickering between the Führer and Klaus. He knew better than to speak now. This moment wasn't his. He had no role to play here except as a witness, and even that felt like too much.

"Klaus," the Führer said again, his voice softening slightly, though it lost none of its authority. "This is not an empty gesture. This baton is more than a symbol. It will unlock the secrets of my quarters on the Moonbase—secrets that you will need in the days ahead."

Klaus's hand hesitated over the white baton, his jaw tightening as he searched the Führer's face. "I don't understand," he admitted finally, his voice low. "Why me? Why now?"

"Because there is no more time," the Führer replied simply.

The Führer leaned forward slightly, his serpentine gaze locking onto Klaus with an intensity that made even Richter flinch. "You are my heir. My chosen successor. The burden of leadership now falls to you. Humanity will look to you to lead them, not just the Fourth Reich, but all of mankind."

Klaus tightened his jaw, his hand hovering near the baton but still not taking it. "I will serve you, mein Führer," he said, his voice trembling. "But... I am not you. I can't—"

"You must," the Führer interrupted, his tone cutting through Klaus's uncertainty. "Not just for your own sake, but for the sake of the human race. Should you fail, all of humanity will fail with you. And death will be a mercy compared to what the misbegotten creations of the Firstborn will do to every spacefaring civilization when their time comes. As they have done for millions of years."

Richter swallowed hard. The words Firstborn and misbegotten creations sent a chill crawling up his spine. He knew better than to ask questions, but his scientific mind screamed for answers. What did the Führer know? What was this ancient enemy he spoke of?

The Führer's voice grew quieter, but it carried an edge that made Richter's skin crawl. "I had hoped to lead humanity to the stars myself," he said, his tone both wistful and cold. "To see you claim your destiny—our destiny—and vengeance. For what we are owed."

He paused, his breathing growing shallow, a faint tremor in his hand. His slitted eyes flicked to Klaus, then back to the baton. "But I cannot. My time is over. Now, you will have to do it for me. Protect what I have made. Ensure that humanity becomes what it was always meant to be. Do not fail me."

Klaus's hand finally closed around the baton. He held it firmly, though Richter could see the slight tremor in his fingers. For a moment, Klaus looked down at the white shaft as though it carried the weight of the entire universe.

"I will not fail you, mein Führer," Klaus said, his voice steadier now.

The Führer nodded slowly, his pale face unreadable. "See that you do not," he said, his voice cold and final. "Not for my sake, but for the sake of humanity itself. You are its shepherd now. You will guide it, mold it, wield it. Humanity will survive—or perish—because of what you do next."

Richter felt a faint unease ripple through him. The Führer's words felt wrong somehow, as though they carried a meaning beyond what was being said aloud. Protect what I have made. What did he mean by that? Why not simply say "protect humanity"? And why did he speak of humanity's destiny as though it were something predetermined—something crafted?

Klaus straightened, the baton still gripped tightly in his hand. He looked older somehow, as though the weight of the Führer's words had aged him in an instant.

The Führer leaned back in his chair, his slitted pupils narrowing, his gaze piercing and unrelenting. His voice, when he spoke again, was softer but no less commanding.

"Klaus," he began, his tone laced with a cold certainty, "the enemies you face will not only be those who stand against the Reich. My brother and the other fools in Agartha would prefer humanity's potential extinguished entirely, so they may burrow and hide from the coming darkness."

Richter's breath hitched slightly at the mention of Agartha. The word conjured half-forgotten whispers, forbidden stories of a hidden world beneath the surface of the Earth—a myth he had always dismissed as nonsense. And yet, the Führer spoke of it with a conviction that made Richter's skin crawl.

The Führer continued, his voice taking on a sharp, contemptuous edge. "They believe themselves wise, those cowards. They think their retreat is strength, for they have endured through the ages while others have perished. But they forget—they are not a spacefaring empire, only a single city, on a single planet, burrowed and hidden like the vermin they are. They lost their fire long ago. And without fire, without hope, one can only survive—not live."

His gaze grew colder, his tone dripping with scorn. "They tremble in their stone halls, praying the darkness beyond the stars will miss them again. What pathetic remnants remain of a people who once ruled with glory."

Klaus frowned, his grip tightening on the white baton. "Witches," he said cautiously, his voice low. "We've seen them. But... what else is there? What are these... things beneath the waters?"

The Führer's gaze flickered toward Klaus, his expression unreadable. For a moment, the room felt even colder, the faint groaning of the Götterdämmerung's hull the only sound.

"You have seen witches, yes," the Führer said finally, his tone quieter but no less intense. "They are but one fragment of what they were. My brother has hunted them since the fall of Rome. I thought them gone—extinct. But they have changed, abandoning their primitive curses for technology." His lips curled into a faint sneer. "Adaptation. A sign of desperation, not strength."

Klaus's knuckles whitened on the baton, but he said nothing, his expression grim.

The Führer continued, his voice lowering to a near whisper. "But there are things beneath the waters of this world, Klaus. Things much older than humanity. Things best left undisturbed."

Richter felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He dared not look up, but he could feel the weight of the Führer's words pressing down on him. Much older than humanity? His scientific mind rebelled against the idea, but a deeper, instinctive part of him knew better than to dismiss it outright. The Führer did not speak lightly.

Klaus, however, pressed forward. "What kind of things?"

The Führer tilted his head slightly, his serpentine pupils narrowing further, almost imperceptibly. "You will never learn," he said simply, his voice as cold as the void. "Not if you are fortunate."

The room grew impossibly still, the groaning of the Götterdämmerung's hull fading into the background. Richter felt a faint chill crawl up his spine, though he dared not raise his head.

The Führer continued, his tone quiet but unrelenting. "Avoid waking them. Leave Earth. There are many worlds to claim among the stars." His gaze fixed on Klaus, sharp and unblinking. "And if some alien species already lives on those worlds, then killing them is a mercy compared to what the creations of the Firstborn will do to them."

Klaus's knuckles whitened around the white baton, but his expression remained impassive. Only the faintest flicker of something—fear, perhaps—crossed his face before he steeled himself again. "The creations of the Firstborn," he said slowly. "What are they?"

The Führer's serpentine pupils narrowed further, his voice growing colder. "Monuments and tombstones of long-dead civilizations," he said, his words deliberate, heavy with disdain. "But do not mistake them for mindless destroyers. No, they think. They scheme. They infiltrate. They corrupt."

He paused, his gaze hardening as he fixed his eyes on Klaus. "Everything they do is in preparation for the harvest, for the moment when another civilization is added to their number. They twist the minds of their prey, turning them into tools for their operation. And when they consume a civilization, they do not just destroy it—they absorb it. All of its knowledge, its achievements, its history. All of it becomes theirs."

The Führer leaned back slightly, his slitted pupils glinting faintly in the dim light. "They have been doing this for millions of years, Klaus. Across countless worlds, to species far older and more advanced than humanity. Every colony they take, every empire they devour, adds to their collective strength."

Richter felt a cold pit form in his stomach. The Führer spoke with such certainty, such conviction, that he couldn't dismiss it as myth or propaganda. They think. They scheme. The idea made his skin crawl. What chance did humanity have against something that had already devoured species more advanced than them?

Klaus's grip on the baton tightened, his knuckles white. "How do we fight something like that?" he asked, his voice low, almost reverent.

The Führer's gaze fixed on him, sharp and unyielding. His voice, when he spoke, was steady but cold, as though the answer had been carved into his very being.

"Because we must," the Führer said. "It is our only option. We must end them, or we will be ended—or worse, reduced to cowards, cowering in stone halls, waiting to be consumed."

He straightened slightly in his chair, the shadows deepening the hollows of his gaunt face. "We do it with ruthless discipline, Klaus. Not just toward others, but toward ourselves. That is humanity's true potential. To endure. To sacrifice. To rise above weakness, sentiment, and fear."

Richter felt the weight of those words pressing down on him. Ruthless discipline. The phrase lingered in his mind, cold and sharp as a blade. It wasn't just an ideal—it was a command. A warning. Humanity's survival would require something far beyond what they had ever achieved.

The Führer's voice grew quieter, but no less forceful. "You will lead them, Klaus. You will show them what they are capable of, even if it costs you everything. That is the burden of leadership. That is the price of survival."

"You will learn more from the notes," the Führer continued, his tone sharp and commanding. "But be careful with whom you share it. It is bleak reading, Klaus. Despair kills as surely as any blade. It has killed wiser men than you—just look at the fools in Agartha."

He paused, his voice faltering for the briefest moment, before a rattling cough erupted from his throat. The sound was wet and unnatural, as though something was clawing its way out of him.

Klaus stepped forward instinctively, his face betraying a flicker of concern. "Mein Führer—"

The Führer raised a trembling hand, silencing him. Another cough wracked his body, and this time, as he expelled the black bile from his lips, something more came with it—a small, fleshy chunk that hit the floor with a sickening plop.

Richter stared at the piece of tissue, horrified but frozen in place. It glistened wetly under the dim light, an unnatural texture to it that made his stomach churn. Was it... part of him?

The Führer's voice rasped out, weaker now but no less commanding. "Now go. There is no time."