AN: Hello one and all! It's time at last for the conclusion to the Savage Time story, and we all know that you're excited, so lemme hear ya scream!

[audience applause]

Oh come on. You can do better than that. Lemme hear your excitement!

[audience roaring applause]

Well now, that's more like it. Okay, so at this point, I'd probably start conversing with the characters of the story, leading up to some hilarious gag that prevents spoilers, or just answer reviews, but I'm afraid that this time, we're not doing any of that. This chapter is really important for many reasons, beyond just the simple ones.

Flash: And I'm guessing it has a lot to do with the fact that so many of the Marvel guys (*cough* all of them *cough*) have all been really quiet lately, and seem to be really down?

AN: Try everything to do with it. Though it may be a couple weeks late, I am still going to say this...Let us all pause for a moment of silent respect to the life and memory of Stan Lee.

[everyone in the studio instantly goes quiet and bows their heads in respectful silence, while some offer some form of salute to the memory of said legend]

Before anyone asks, yes, this is part of the reason why I took so long to post this. I wanted it to be as perfect as I could make it so that I felt it would be worthy of the man who gave us the universes of Marvel Comics. Well, that and the holiday season's beginning, but mainly the former.

Now on the matter of answering reviews...well, I don't really want to spend too much time on that, because you all deserve to get right to the story of today's chapter, so I'll keep it as brief as possible. First off, in a general reply, glad to see so many people liked seeing the Freedom Fighters along with a little more of the alternate present day that Savage's time-line tampering caused, and don't worry, you don't have to wait any longer to find out about who's on the Legends in this series, and they won't even be the only other team of heroes to show up in this chapter at that. Oh, and glad so many of you enjoyed seeing that Peter and Gwen did get married in at least one timeline and had a happily ever after even if it wasn't in the most ideal of worlds.

Next to "Sailor Dragonball 87", the reason no one has any kryptonite...well, you could say that it's all under HYDRA and Savage's control, hence the reason why Overgirl seems to work with them without betraying them for her own goals, so naturally none of the Resistance could get any. No one's trying to save Tony because he wasn't brainwashed into joining the Reichsmen; he willingly joined them after seeing them kill his parents, and he's got no problem with helping them out, as I'm sure some of the dialogue could prove. Tony and Rhodey are not friends in the alternate time line, but instead, Rhodey was a former soldier that stole the armor specs in order to build the Peacemaker armor and help the Resistance.

Rolling on over to "Spiderfan626", again, I agree that it is nice that Peter and Gwen got their happily ever after in some timeline, even if it wasn't in the most ideal kind of world, because those two definitely deserve it. I know I mentioned that already, but it bears repeating. As for your latter comment to Gwen, she actually will be going by Spider-Woman in Hearts of Avengers after she gets her powers, but Gwen is in fact still alive in another one of my stories, and has a strong chance of gaining spider powers in that story as well. Sure, she's only had one real appearance in the series, but Gwen is in fact still around in the timeline of the Code Avengers stories.

Now to "Monkey D. Conan", you'll find out what will happen regarding the League's travels to the past by the time this chapter's done, or at least get an idea on that, but on the Spidey side of things...yeah, he and Batgirl won't find out each others' secret identities for another two interludes or so (or at least ones that focus on Spider-Man's side of this series' universe), and it won't be due to either one, as you put it, "playing detective". You'll find out what I mean when we get there, but if I say anymore now, I'd be giving away spoilers, and I already said that I'm not doing that today.

What I am doing today, is getting you all rolling into the action, so let's not waste anymore time!

I would like to dedicate this chapter to the life and memory of Stan Lee, a marvel of a man, and the true first Avenger. May he rest in peace.

I do not own anything from any of either of the MARVEL or DC Comics franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.

Chapter 16: Savage Past

Of all the horrors that the Allies have faced in this, the Second World War, none could compare to the massive, rolling monster that was slowly across the battlefield at this very moment. Nothing that they hit this war-wheel with had so much as even scratched it, and from the look of things, they were going to need something that packed even more of a punch than any weapons they had were capable of. To make matters worse, the war-wheel was easily able to decimate any part of their defensive and offensive lines with a single shot, as several soldiers soon learned when one blast from one of the deadly machine's cannons turned a tank into a smoldering crisp, while leaving several soldiers that were caught in the blast seriously injured. That did not stop these brave soldiers though, as some of them opted to continue opening fire on the massive death machine, if for no other reason than to try and provide covering fire for their retreating forces. When another shot was fired from the war-wheel, that covering fire disappeared, and one soldier found his tank caught on a destroyed wall, unable to move out of the way before the next enemy shot was released. The soldier did not flinch away though, but instead, he locked his gaze directly ahead, as if daring the machine to take the shot that may very well end his life. Sure, he was scared stiff of dying, but he would be damned if he let HYDRA or any of those Nazi bastards know that.

When the shot fired, the soldier finally flinched back a little, his eyes snapping shut out of reflex, and a loud explosion rang out around that soldier's ears. When the blast seemed to hit his tank though, he was surprised to find out that he was not experiencing any kind of pain. His first thought was that his death had been quick and painless, so he opened his eyes, expecting to see the gates to the next life before him. What he got instead was the same vision of death and destruction that he had been seeing since he came to this end of the world, only now it was tinted in green, due in no small part to the green sphere that was encasing him and his tank. When the sphere disappeared, the soldier looked up to see, much to his surprise, a man in a black suit with a green collar, cuffs, and boots, and a white emblem that had a green lantern inside of it. The most shocking thing about this man though, was not the green aura around him, but the fact that he was actually floating in the air before him, and how he created an energy shield between them and the next round of enemy fire just by holding his arm out. He had heard of a man in the states who could do things like that, but last he had checked, that guy wore a mask, was not black, and also wore a cape. Still, now was not the time to be questioning good fortune, and the soldier quickly waved for his forces to either hold their position or continue in their retreat, depending on where they were at the moment.

For his part, Green Lantern was glad to see that he had managed to save some soldiers in time, but for now, he needed to continue blocking the war-wheel's cannon fire so that his teammates could stop that thing. Thankfully, the rest of the League was not at all slow in their reaction times, as Flash was soon seen racing across the battlefield in an attempt to draw the war-wheel's fire away from the Allied Forces. He was a little more successful than he probably would have liked, because the shockwave from one of the war-wheel's blasts managed to send him flying off of his feet and into the path of the massive, spiked wheel. Unfortunately, due in part to the ringing in his ears, Flash did not seem like he would be able to recover fast enough in order to get out of the path of this mechanical monstrosity. Lucky for him, Diana quickly came to the rescue, swooping down from above to fly him out of the way and to safety. If the Nazis driving the machine had seen her though, at least one of them was quickly pulled away from the sight of her when Superman suddenly slammed his fist against the glass of his cockpit. Surprisingly, the Man of Steel was unable to even fracture the glass, but that did not deter him from taking an alternate course of action, as he proved when he fired a blast of heat vision at cannon, hoping to sever it from the rest of the machine. This also proved fruitless, as he barely even scorched the surface, and before Superman could attempt a more powerful blast, he was suddenly forced back by enemy fire that was coming from a nearby cannon emplacement.

The Nazis that were around said cannon did not seem to show any signs of joy at forcing back the strange, flying man in blue, but they did turn surprised when the shadow of a large bird suddenly over them, turning their attention skywards. Doing so allowed them to see none other than Hawkgirl barreling towards them with her mace at the ready, and they did have any time to scatter before the winged woman destroyed the cannon with a single swing of said mace. With Hawkgirl now providing him with cover from the enemy cannons, Superman took the chance to fly in front of the war-wheel and start trying to push it back, finding himself having to dig his feet into the ground as he did. The machine may have slowed a little, but it was not by too much. Thankfully, J'onn did not need it to slow to a stop in order to jump inside of the wheel after going intangible, hoping to destroy it from the inside. The Martian Manhunter's attack on the interior proved to be successful when the war-wheel came to a sudden stop, and that allowed Green Lantern and Superman to make quick work of the two canons on either side. The Man of Steel then flew up to the side of the large machine and rammed it as hard as he could in an attempt to knock it over, and his push was soon joined by both Diana and Hawkgirl. What neither of them noticed was how part of the ground seemed to suddenly start helping them push from beneath the wheel itself, but even if they had, it did not matter, as it only meant that the wheel came crashing down onto its side all the more quickly, earning victorious cheers from the Allied Forces who soon began advancing forward again, waving to the gathering League as they passed by.

"Thanks doll," one soldier in particular wolf-whistled to Diana, who could only wave back before said soldier was pushed onward by his comrade, earning an eye-roll from Hawkgirl in response. That allowed Shayera to see the ground shifting in an unnatural way, and when she realized that, she could not help but smile at the knowledge it had just granted her.

All smiles vanished from the League when J'onn returned from inside of the war-wheel with something that he felt his teammates needed to see. "I pulled this from the control panel," the Martian explained.

"Transistors," Green Lantern gasped. "They weren't invented until after the war."

"The scientists at the laboratory said the hole was unstable," J'onn reminded everyone. "Whoever left from our time could've gotten here months ago. Perhaps years."

"Which means we've barely even started setting things right," Flash groaned in conclusion. A sudden explosion turned the League's attention back to the soldiers that were moving across the battlefield, and they quickly saw that Flash's statement could be applied to something other than their primary mission, as three more war-wheels could be seen plowing through the trees as they fired on the retreating soldiers.

"Those troops are getting decimated," Superman shouted over the cannon fire, letting everyone know what he was thinking with that one sentence.

"You help them. I'll fly to Berlin," J'onn offered as Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkgirl quickly moved to provide whatever assistance they could. "I suspect the answer to this mystery lies there."

"Wait! I can't let you go into enemy territory alone," Diana told her friend, and the look in her eyes told both of her alien friends that she was not going to take no for an answer on this.

"Go then. We'll handle things here," Superman reassured the two, and with that, the three took off in the direction of their objectives.

What none of them noticed was how the ground suddenly seemed to spring up again, and then form into a muscular man with a buzz cut and brown eyes that wore tan pants, brown shoes, a green, striped shirt. After gazing after the League for a few minutes, the man tapped the comm. device in his ear and reported, "Hey it's Flint. Tiny was right. Flaps and the League are here, and from the looks of things, it's the League before they decided to go global with their members. I overheard them mention something about someone from their time coming here through an unstable time portal or something, and how he could've been here months ago."

"Well that would explain part of the cause to this little aberration," Rip replied. "But it doesn't tell us anything about the rest of it."

"Plus there's also the fact that it's going to be even harder to maintain our cover if Shayera recognizes any of us," a woman's voice added in.

"Yes, that is very true, Miss Lance," Rip agreed. "But it's not like there weren't already a few rumors about super-powered people during World War II, and I don't mean just Captain America, either."

"But you still want us to keep playing it safe, right," Flint finished.

"You would assume correctly, Marko. We'll step in if and when we have to."

"Well, then I guess it's a good thing I brought my best suit along," Ray's voice remarked from behind Flint, making him turn around to see the man in question all geared up in a blue and red EXO suit that ultimately allowed him to become the Atom, as Ray liked to call himself.

Still, Flint had to point out one other thing, and added, "A couple of them flew off to Berlin in search of answers on what's behind all of this."

"Which two," Rip asked.

"Wonder Woman and the Martian."

"Well in that case, don't worry about them. Focus on the group that remained behind to help the troops."

"You got it boss," Flint nodded, and after exchanging a silent nod with Ray, the two quickly began following after the League in each of their own discreet ways.

Compared to the battlefields that spanned most of the European continent, Berlin was far more peaceful, and especially so at the capitol building where all of the leaders in the war effort were currently gathered. Of course, this was something that only held true on the surface, and even less so when someone came in with bad news. At the moment, the latter was the one that would prove to be most applicable here, as a soldier rushed into the war room with a paper clutched firmly in his hand. "Mein Führer! This just came in from the front," the messenger reported as he came to a stop before the Führer with a quick salute.

The current Führer, one Vandal Savage, turned to take the message and look it over with a small scowl of distaste. "Another report about costumed fighters with magical powers," Savage noted before crumpling the report in his hand. "Ally propaganda."

His dismissal stirred up mutterings amongst the rest of the war council, until one soul found enough courage to dispute his conclusion aloud. "What if it's not propaganda? What if these supermen are real? Are we prepared to deal with them?"

Savage was silent for a moment, before he said, "You have a short memory Hoffman. You've obviously forgotten about the weapons I've already created. Weapons the Allies have never even dreamed of, and more are coming, like this." When he said that last part, Savage pulled a metal glove out from his jacket and fired a blast of electricity from it, right into Hoffman's chest. Hoffman could do nothing more than cry out in pain until Savage ended the blast and watched as the man dropped down onto the table, alive, but barely conscious for the moment, earning a satisfied smirk from Savage as he asked his council, "Any other questions?"

"Only a reminder, Herr Savage. A reminder that while you brought the plans forward, you could not have made them at all, without my resources," a new voice cut in, and they all turned to see none other than Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull stepping forward from the shadows, with his hands behind his back as a show of his supposed superiority.

Savage's smirk did not fade in the slightest when he turned to face Red Skull, nor when he replied to the reminder that the leader of HYDRA had just given. "I wouldn't dream of forgetting that, Schmidt. After all, we both benefit a great deal from having you and your organization working alongside us in the war effort again. I give you both the plans and manpower necessary for you goals, and you provide us with what we need to create the weapons that I have plans for. It's certainly beneficial for everyone, wouldn't you say?"

"Yes, I would, but I'm sure you remember that some reports of supermen that are more than Ally propaganda," Red Skull pointed out. "After all, a certain super soldier is quite real, as are the Americans' Justice Society."

"The latter of which has not left the American states for the entirety of the war," Savage interrupted. "But you do have a point in saying that Captain America could prove to be a problem, assuming he and his commandos are able to take out any more of your HYDRA bases."

Skull merely scoffed in response to this, as he revealed, "Most of those bases are nothing more than small branches. So long as the primary base remains untouched and fully functional, we will have nothing to worry about in launching our final operation to reshape the entire world into one of our design, my friend."

This time, Savage's smirk grew a little wider, until it was a devious grin that unsettled some of the others in the room, but not as much as the sudden explosion that seemed to shake the entire building. "What now," Savage groaned.

"I can only think of one thing," Red Skull mused before leaving the room. Whether it was to deal with this new problem or return to the main HYDRA Base, no one but Schmidt really knew for certain.

Outside the capitol building, search lights were sweeping over the sky while various soldiers were racing around the premises to try and find the person responsible for the recent explosion, which had set a portion of the building on fire. That fire quickly spread when another explosion in a different area went off, and the soldiers were soon turning their attention to putting out the blaze while evacuating the people inside. Doing so kept anyone from noticing as a man moved through the shadows and then jumped the fence in a single bound, earning him access to the airfield. He quickly spotted an aircraft, and moved to climb into the cockpit when someone finally spotted him. The guard was about to approach the intruder, but he barely managed to say more than halt before the man suddenly threw a large, circular object at him, knocking the guard out in one blow, while the object, revealed to be a shield when it passed into the faint light, returned to its wielders hand.

After replacing the shield on his back, the man climbed into the cockpit of the plane he was about to hijack, and immediately started it up, turning it towards the runaway and up into the air the minute he had it going, despite any efforts that the other soldiers guarding the airfield made to stop him. For a moment, the pilot of the stolen plane was sure that he was in clear, but he was soon rethinking that when three planes came up from behind and opened fire on him. The pilot did not let that stop him, as he immediately began pulling off some rather fancy flying, and gunned down the lead plane easily enough. He figured that he had time to watch the first of the three planes fall from the sky, but in his moment of pause, he lost sight of the other two, and that ended up letting one of them land some clean hits on his plane.

"Think I've been spending a little too much time fighting HYDRA forces lately. I'm starting to underestimate the regular soldiers more than I should," the pilot commented to himself as the moonlight finally allowed one to better see his masked face, assuming they were close enough to see the face of Captain America, the champion of the Allied Forces.

Cap quickly tried to turn his plane away from enemy fire, but right when he did, the second remaining plane came up from his other flank and landed another hit on him, damaging his aircraft even further. If they thought that was going to be enough to stop him though, then clearly these Nazis had no idea who they were dealing with. They soon found out though, as Cap maneuvered his plane around so that it would crash right into one of the enemy aircraft while grabbing a parachute from behind him. Normally, he would not bother with one, but in this case, he definitely needed to be wearing a parachute if he did not want to die when he hit ground. Once he had the parachute securely fastened on and the plane set on its kamikaze course, Cap leapt from the cockpit and watched as the two planes collided with one another. Feeling satisfied, Cap began to angle his decent so that he would not be hit by the remaining plane when he deployed his chute, but he was not able to move fast enough to avoid a piece of debris that hit him in the head and left him too dazed to think clearly enough.

That likely would have been the end of Captain America, as the third plane was already lining up a shot to take him out, had a couple other heroes not been in the area, and Diana had immediately dived towards the past version of her friend while J'onn turned to deal with the last plane. Wonder Woman managed to catch Cap just seconds before he hit the ground, and once she had the super soldier safely in her arms, Diana made it a point to fly him out to a place that was far from where the dog-fight had just taken place before setting him down on the ground again. When Cap started to come around again and his vision cleared, he was left speechless by the vision of beauty before him that was the concerned face of Diana, and it likely would have lasted for much longer had he not remembered what had just happened.

"I figured the first angel I saw would be either my parents or Bucky, but I'm certainly not complaining either way," Captain America breathed in awe.

Diana could only smile at the compliment, before she revealed, "You're not dead, Captain America."

"I'm not sure I can buy that so easily, considering how quickly you recognized me," Cap admitted.

"I was under the impression that you were widely famous amongst the Allies," Diana pointed out, and she knew she had made a point when the super soldier nodded in conceit of that. "Why were they trying to shoot you down?"

"I'm not sure I should tell you that. My mission was highly classified."

"Well I did just save your life," Diana reminded him, and the look she shot at Cap told him she was not going to take anything but the honest truth for an answer.

"Fair enough," Cap nodded. "Recently, we received word that the Nazis and HYDRA were now working together again and planning to invade England, and I went in to find out when and where. I wasn't able to find out that exact information, but I did find final confirmation that the two groups had rekindled their old relationship, along with something that would help get that intel for us. Needless to say, they didn't want me to have it."

"Naturally, and I'm sure that the fact that you're such a powerful threat to HYDRA and the Axis Forces has nothing to do with it," Diana joked in response while watching Cap stand up.

"Well, maybe it did have a little something to do with it," Cap shrugged, good naturedly, surprising Diana a little. She had not expected Steve to be so casual and laid back while he was on assignment in this era of history, but then again, this was an early point in his career as Captain America. Even so, she was still shocked enough to accept Steve's hand in helping her stand up again without realizing it. "I've still got to get over to France if we're going to get that intel though," Cap commented. "But if you're ever state-side, I'll be sure to give you proper thanks for saving my life. Maybe buy you a few drinks and go dancing?"

Now that proved to be even more of a shock to Diana, but she was not about to say no to that offer, and it showed when she smiled in reply, "I'd like that, Captain."

"Please, call me Steve. Steve Rogers," the super soldier insisted with a smile, and he quickly jumped the fence so that he could set out, only to jump back a little when J'onn landed in front of him. "What the hell," Steve gasped in shock while drawing his sidearm.

"It's alright. He's with me," Diana reassured him.

"You're sure, because he looks like something that came out of either Zemo or Zola's lab," Cap asked.

'I believe this is what humans refer to as déjà vu,' J'onn thought to himself, remembering the captain saying something similar to that the first time they met on the Watchtower while watching Diana reassure the captain with a nod. He then decided to get right to business, knowing that he would give Steve his own voice of reassurance in seventy years, and asked, "These new weapons the Axis has, where did they come from?"

"They were mostly made by Red Skull and HYDRA, but as far as the actual plans go, they came from a new genius by the name of Vandal Savage," Steve revealed as he holstered his pistol. "The high command was so impressed by that, and how he managed to pull Schmidt back into the fold without much trouble, that they made him their new Führer."

"Vandal Savage created these weapons," Diana gasped, hardly believing that the man who ruled the world in the altered present was actually here, but then again, it did make sense considering that time travel was involved. Who else would benefit the most from Savage ruling the world besides Savage himself?

"He came up with the plans, but as far as making them goes, that was all HYDRA. A lot of them are pretty similar to what they were already pumping out after they split off from Hitler and his agenda," Steve corrected. "Although we have heard rumors about Savage having his own lab up a few miles over from here, but you'll never get in. Even I've never been able to get too far without them spotting me."

"I have a feeling it'll be easier for me," J'onn informed the captain, and with that, he turned intangible and faded into the ground, almost as if to prove his point.

The remaining two stared at where the Martian had previously been, until Steve looked to Diana and asked, "You sure he's not a HYDRA experiment gone rogue, or that I'm not dead?"

Diana's only response was a slightly humorous smile that left Steve star-struck once more, right to the point where he barely even registered Diana offering to help him get to France until after her hand was on his shoulder. Needless to say, he was not about to refuse the offer.

Back on the battlefield, things were not getting much better, even with the League's help. Sure, a lot more soldiers were able to get to safety before they were too seriously injured or killed by the war-wheels thanks to the superheroes, but that did not mean that there were not still some casualties. Even so, that did not stop Superman, Hawkgirl, Flash, and Green Lantern from doing everything they could to help out as much as they could. The help they could provide became a little smaller when Lantern suddenly disappeared from the action, due to his ring finally running out of power, and when he heard that his friend was still somewhere back there, Flash made it his mission to go back and find John while getting more soldiers to safety. That left Hawkgirl and Superman to deal with the enemy forces that were currently closing in on the beaches where the soldiers had set up both a temporary base and were boarding ships in their attempts to retreat for now.

Normally Superman and Hawkgirl would not have too much trouble dealing with such overwhelming odds, but given how worried they were for their friends, and the fact that they had to play it safe on the off-chance that they altered history in a way that proved more hazardous than helpful, they were a bit easier for the Axis powers to overwhelm. The fact that more and more Nazis kept coming in for every single one that they knocked down and out of the sky did little to help things too, and as if to prove this point, Hawkgirl ended up getting hit in one of her wings and dropped onto the sandy beach below as a result. Just as Shayera was getting up, she saw several Axis troops closing in on her position, both from above and on the ground, and she immediately braced herself for what promised to be a killing blow, several blue and red planes suddenly swooped in to shoot down a good majority of the enemy aircraft, while a man in a red and blue suit with a star on the front jumped in front of her, and suddenly turned to steel, causing several bullets and tank shells to bounce of him harmlessly.

"What the hell," Shayera gasped as she finally sat up, while the steel-man turned to face her, his skin returning to normal.

"Hey, who needs reinforcements when you can get some legends to help out, right," the man asked with a smile while helping Hawkgirl stand up. "Nate Heywood, codename Citizen Steel at your service. I'm one of the new guys on your old team. Ray and the others told me a lot about you."

Shayera could only smile in response as several explosions rang out overhead, and they both looked to see what looked like several, five-pointed stars flashing in the sky at the exact moment when a few other Nazi planes went down. Turning to another point of the battle field caused Shayera's smile to grow a little more as she spotted a blonde woman with a bo staff and clad in an all white outfit taking down several soldiers single-handed, while an English man in a brown trench coat fired at others with an energy pistol. When the sand beneath their feet suddenly sprang up and formed something of a solid shield next to them, Shayera sent a smile towards the ground, knowing that the person responsible would have seen it, and was left to another brilliant show of fireworks when several fire balls blew up some of the war-wheels that had managed to get past Superman, and a man in a familiar EXO suit that seemed to appear out of nowhere for a moment before shrinking down again.

While she was not about to stay on the sidelines and watch, as evidence by how she took to the skies again to fly alongside Superman, Hawkgirl did have to wonder if she or the Man of Steel really needed to do all that much at this point. "Who're these guys," Superman asked, indicating the recently arrived team of superheroes.

"A few old friends of mine," Hawkgirl assured him just as the blue and red planes flew up alongside them, allowing them to see one of the pilots throwing them a quick salute.

"And what about those guys? They friends of yours too," Superman inquired, having taken note of the emblem on the planes, which resembled a hawk's head.

Hawkgirl merely studied the logo for a minute before she smiled in reply, "They are now."

From that point on, the battle became rather one-sided, as with both the new squadron of fighter planes and Hawkgirl's old friends backing them up, Superman and Hawkgirl were able to make quick work of any remaining Axis Forces that were still determined to win the fight. Superman and Hawkgirl did put most of their focus into shooting down the enemy planes of course, but considering that it looked like the beach itself was keeping the ground forces at bay, they did not think they needed to worry too much about backing up the people who were fighting against the Nazis on the ground. Of course, it also helped that someone seemed to be forcing back the war-wheels with some well-placed blasts of fire, along with an energy blast or two from the shrinking man, but what really caught Superman's attention was the Hispanic woman in black jeans, a blue shirt with a white star on the front, red boots and gloves, and a light blue jacket with red and white stripes on the shoulders. Though that was mostly because of how she somehow managed to make almost everything she hit or destroyed take on the shape of a five-point star. His attention was soon redirected to a plane that was about to shoot at her, and he immediately flew straight through said aircraft, coming out the other side looking a lot like the Human Torch afterwards.

When the flames coating his body went out, he looked to the young woman and asked, "You okay?"

"Naturally," the woman smirked in response. "I didn't need a rescue, but I do appreciate it. Means I can knock out a few more without any worries." To prove her point, the young woman went in with fists swinging at every plane that dared to get close to her, knocking them all out of the air with one punch, all while the same star shape appeared in a flash of light or in the wreckage afterwards. When she was done, she looked to Superman, amused by his surprised expression and said, "And I thought it was funny the first time that Atom saw that. Name's Chavez, America Chavez."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Superman," the Man of Steel greeted in return.

"Yeah, kinda figured."

That was all that was said between the two before they returned their attention to the rest of the Axis forces that were still fighting, though most of said Nazis looked like they were preparing to retreat due to having most of their aerial forces being shot down by the mystery squadron of fighter planes, while the ground forces were in full retreat now that their aces had been destroyed or heavily damaged. When Superman and Hawkgirl regrouped with one another, they found themselves flying alongside the blue and red planes as they made a victory lap around the Ally ships, from which they could hear the soldiers' cheers. It was a good thing to hear such relief and happiness in a place that was so torn apart by war, but they knew that they were not done just yet. After all, they still had a mystery to solve in regards to how history badly history had been changed, along with where the rest of their teammates were, and just who their mystery saviors had been.

At least one of those mysteries was partly figured out after they landed by the tents where medical relief was being given, as Flash had returned from his run through the battlefield a few minutes later with a sad look on his face. "I couldn't find any more survivors or GL anywhere," Flash reported. "I don't know if that means they were all somewhere I couldn't see them, or if they were all…"

"Don't even think that about John," Hawkgirl snapped. "He was a soldier even before he was a Lantern. I'm sure he's all right. He has to be."

"Yeah…I know, but…It still sucks that we don't know anything for sure about him," Flash sighed. He then winced a little at that before saying, "Sorry Hawkgirl. I'm not saying that it was easy for you to make that decision, but…"

"I know, Flash. Trust me, I know," Hawkgirl reassured him, knowing that he had not meant any offense in his statement.

Superman was about to help them decide on their next move when some of the sand seemed to spring upwards nearby, while a man whose body appeared to be made of molten magma came down from somewhere above them, followed by America Chavez, the flying man, and all the rest of the strange, mystery heroes that only Hawkgirl had seemed to recognize from before. Of course, it did not take long for Superman or Flash to recognize the man made of sand or the one who appeared to be made of magma. "Sandman and Molten Man," Flash shouted in shock, already preparing to charge at the two members of Spider-Man's rogues gallery.

"Flash, wait! It's okay," Hawkgirl shouted before her friend could charge either of the two.

"You're kidding, right? They're two of Spider-Man's worst and most powerful enemies," Flash pointed out.

"Hey, easy there, Speedy. We've gone straight," Sandman placated with his hands raised to show he was being honest. "And we have been doing some actual good ever since we joined up with this bunch of misfits."

"By the way, how is Spidey these days," Molten Man asked. "He still all brooding and such after what happened during his last face-off with Goblin?"

"…Well, he seems to be doing all right," Superman shrugged, not entirely sure what they were referring to with that statement, though that was partly because he was still a little shell-shocked from seeing two bad guys like these two had switched sides. Then again, from what he knew of Spider-Man's villains, these two were not really the most harmful in terms of motives. Sandman had only ever wanted to rob banks and jewelry stores in an attempt to get a big score, while Molten Man was forced into most of his jobs in an attempt to be cured of the affliction that gave him his powers, so hearing that they were now doing some actual good with their lives was not as big of a surprise as it would have been if it was someone like Venom, Rhino, Vulture, or Green Goblin.

Hawkgirl on the other hand just shook it off after getting Flash fully calmed down, and immediately went over to the blonde woman in white so that they could wrap each other in a friendly hug. "It's been way too long, Sara," Hawkgirl told the blonde. "But it's great to see you all again."

"Back at ya, Shayera," Sara informed the winged heroine.

"And that goes for all of us, my dear," the English man in the brown trench coat added. He then turned to Flash and Superman so he could introduce himself. "Rip Hunter, captain of this little team of adventurers, at your service, gentlemen. It's an honor to meet two of history's greatest heroes."

"The pleasure's ours, Captain. Though I don't remember ever hearing about a team like yours being in World War II before," Superman nodded in return while shaking Rip's hand.

"That would be because, assuming we do our job right, no one's supposed to know about us, unless it's in either the future or your present day," Rip revealed. "We're a team of time-travelers that handle disasters or problems that pop up in the time stream and attempt to change history to something a little more dangerous."

"I think you might be a little slow this time, because we just came back from the present after history was changed," Flash pointed out.

"Well in our defense, it's not like we're able to solve all the problems right away," the shrinking man pointed out. "I'm Ray, by the way. Ray Palmer, but if you want to just stick to the hero names, then you can call me the Atom."

"Palmer? As in Doctor Ray Palmer," Flash asked.

"Yeah, that's me," Atom replied with a proud grin as he waved to the League.

"No one's seen or heard anything from you since that explosion at your lab," Superman revealed. "Something about an accident in your own attempts at creating shrinking technology similar to that of Hank Pym's Pym Particles."

"Yeah, that accident was actually a bit of a cover so that I could travel through time with the rest of these guys," Ray admitted. "Not that it fooled Nate here."

"That said, when did Citizen Steel over there join up, or this other woman for that matter, because I definitely don't remember her," Shayera pointed out.

"I'd say it was about a few months or so after you quit, in my case," Chavez shrugged.

"Resigned," Hawkgirl corrected. "I was only part of the team because I was having a hard time figuring out my place in the world. And apparently, I was also a key part of helping to stop the threat that caused Rip to form the team in the first place."

"How come you never told us you were part of a team of time-traveling heroes," Flash asked.

"Hey, hold it right there, Mister. We're not heroes," Sara cut in before Hawkgirl could answer. "We're a bunch of misfits and outcasts that are just trying to do some good without screwing things up even more than they already were."

"Or to put it another way, we're Legends," Nate finished with a proud grin.

"Legends," Flash asked.

"Yeah, that's what we call ourselves. The Legends of Tomorrow."

"You can thank Trench Coat over here for the name," Molten Man added as he jabbed a thumb over in Rip's direction.

"Sounds like very few things have changed since I last saw you guys," Hawkgirl noted with a smile. "Although, I did notice that you changed your outfit a bit Sara. The new coat is actually a nice touch, but aren't you worried it might make it harder for people to tell the difference between you and your cousin?"

"Not even in the least," Sara reassured her. "People have always had an easy time telling the difference between me and Black Canary."

"Oh, so you're White Canary," Flash suddenly realized. "Green Arrow mentioned you a few times when we've met up."

"You don't say," Sara smirked. "Has he found a new girl yet, or is he shacking it up with Felicity?"

"You're kidding right? Green Arrow and Overwatch? Who would ever think that could work out," Flash asked. "But to answer your question…"

"Perhaps this can all wait for another time. If you lot have come back in time to fix history, then I'm guessing our problems are bigger than we originally realized," Rip interrupted.

"And you would be right. The future we came from is not one that you would want to call home," Superman revealed, and with that, the League started going into detail about the world that they had landed in after history was changed. Needless to say, by the time they were done, the Legends were all left completely stunned.

"Damn," was the only thing that Molten Man could say in response.

"No kidding," Chavez stated.

"I mean, we all knew that a world run by the Axis Powers would be a nightmare, but from what you've told us…that's just…" Nate stuttered out.

"Yeah, and that's without mentioning the fact that Webs has changed so much," Sandman pointed out. "Still, it is pretty cool that he's married, at least." That earned him a few looks from the others, and he could only shrug in defense as he said, "What? Have you guys read up on the historical files regarding Spidey, be it ours or the ones in other timelines? The guy deserves to get that kind of happiness somewhere. I'm just saying…"

"Either way, we'll help you however we can. This Vandal Savage definitely sounds like the guy we're tracking down," Sara pointed out. She then turned a grin to Hawkgirl and said, "It'll be a lot like old times."

"Only with a few extra friends to make it more fun," Shayera grinned in return, just as the blue and red planes from earlier came in to land close by.

A quick look with between the two groups quickly told the League that the Legends were just as unfamiliar with this team of pilots as they were, and that made them a little more cautious when they approached said pilots. Sure, they had helped to drive the enemy back, but that did not mean that they were necessarily friends. It was better to be cautious for many reasons beyond just the fact that they were from the future, so no one was surprised by the critical eyes that they were giving these mystery pilots when they were finally face to face with the men behind the yokes of these planes. That did not stop some of them from at least extending some form of friendly courtesy.

"Thanks for helping us out up there," Hawkgirl said to the lead pilot as they all noted how each one was wearing the same blue uniform and white gloves, save for the leader, who wore their unit's insignia on his jacket.

"Don't thank us. We would've shot those planes down anyway," the leader informed her in return.

"Well, at least you're honest about it," Sara commented.

"I've never seen an insignia like that before. What country are you from," Superman then asked, no longer able to take the mystery behind the hawk logo that they all had branded on the sides of their planes.

"We're not from any one country," the leader revealed. "André's from France, Hendrickson's from Holland, Olaf comes from Norway, and I'm Blackhawk from Poland."

"All countries occupied by the Axis authorities," Nate noted.

"We Blackhawks bow to no authority, until our homelands are free again," Blackhawk revealed with burning conviction brimming in his voice, while André voiced an agreement in French.

"Are these guys for real," Molten Man muttered to Chavez, earning him an elbow in the side from said teammate. Whether or not she had gotten burned from doing so, no one could really tell for certain.

"We would gladly lay down our lives for our cause, but we can't win this war alone," Blackhawk continued as though he were never interrupted.

"Well then it's your lucky day, sir, because I think we might be able to help you with just that," Rip stated. "If you're up for it."

Blackhawk did not hesitate to nod in acceptance, and then asked for the two teams to follow them to their base of operations. Superman had opted to fly after the fighter-bombers on his own, but Hawkgirl decided that she would ride with the Legends, saying it was for old times' sake. Of course, that did not stop her from offering an invite to one of her new teammates. "Hey Flash, you want to fly over on the Waverider with us," Shayera offered. "It would help you save your energy for when you need it."

Flash had to admit that his winged friend did have a point, especially given how much running around he had already done today, but he did not really want to get in the way of what would likely prove to be a fun reunion for Hawkgirl. Still, he would be lying if he said that getting a chance to ride in a time machine was something he did not want to do, but out of all the reasons he could accept, only one stood out the most for him. "Any chance you guys have any food onboard, 'cause I need to consume a lot of calories if I'm going be able to keep going at a normal speed, let alone super speed."

"Yeah, we've got something that can definitely help with that," Sandman nodded in confirmation, and that sealed the deal for Flash.

"Okay, I'm in," the Scarlet Speedster said, and he quickly followed after Shayera and her old team as they headed back to where their ship was.

After his ring had died out, John had done everything he could to get a few last soldiers to safety, but there was only so much a single man can do on his own, with or without special powers or equipment. In the end, he had to take whatever cover he could find as he made his way through enemy lines, trying to find some way to let the rest of the League know he was still okay. Doing so had lead him to crawling through the mud, wading through murky waters, barely getting past war-wheels unnoticed, and right to hiding beneath the undercarriage of an Axis military jeep, where he was now. When the jeep passed over a bridge after clearing a checkpoint, John took that as his cue to jump off and roll down the small hill that was close by, and he then watched as the truck drove off before moving to stand again. He was brought to a halt though when several rifles were suddenly shoved into his face, and upon looking up at the people holding said rifles, he came close to letting out a sigh of relief and awe at seeing that not only were they Ally soldiers, but they were some of the most legendary ones after Captain America, one of which he had actually seen just a few hours ago.

"What do we have here," asked one James, "Wildboy" Howlet as he glared at the powerless Green Lantern.

"Certainly doesn't look German from what I can tell," commented the British man that John quickly recognized as James Montgomery Falsworth.

"Definitely doesn't seem like a HYDRA agent either, even if he is wearing green and black," added the African American known as Gabe Jones.

"Don't let that fool you, boys. Could still be a spy," Howlet pointed out, making sure that his rifle remained fully level with John's head.

"Pretty lousy one if he's been caught this easily," the Japanese-American soldier that John knew to be Jim Morita pointed out.

Howlet just growled in response, looking like he was ready to just skip all formalities and blast John's head off, until someone shouted, "Back off, Jim! He's no spy." Everyone immediately turned to see a man with a mustache and a bowler hat standing behind them, and if you knew your history, you would be able to tell in an instant that this was none other than the famous Dum Dum Dugan, the third most famous Howling Commando after Captain America and Bucky Barnes. "I saw him action while I was out on recon," Dugan explained before he marched over and helped John up. "You a partisan?"

"Guess you could call me that," John shrugged after accepting the hand up. "The name's John Stewart."

Dugan nodded in response when his eyes caught a look of the Lantern ring on John's finger. "So what's the story on that fancy piece of jewelry, anyway? Is it some kind of secret weapon?"

"Not anymore. It's out of juice," John sighed in admittance as he gave his ring a sad look.

"Well that's a shame. Seeing as how we're stuck behind enemy lines, we could've used some extra help."

"I'll do what I can," John immediately offered, not wanting such legendary soldiers to think that he was useless without his ring. They did not seem like they were quite convinced he could help though, and one in particular made that quite clear.

"Forget it, Sarge. He may be a hot-shot with that ring of his, but he ain't a soldier, let alone a real one," Howlet protested, getting right in John's face as he did. When the Lantern did not back down, but instead just glared back at Howlet in return, the wild man of the commandos figured he could better prove it by shoving John down. It did not work out the way he had expected.

John was not normally one to retaliate against someone that was pushing him around, but he did not like it when someone questioned his capabilities, especially when it came to whether or not he was able to hold his own without his ring. Legendary unit or not, he was not about to let any of the Howling Commandos think that he was completely helpless, and he proved it by socking Howlet right in the jaw after said soldier had shoved him. The other commandos all looked on with expressions of shock and smirking approval as John continued to hammer blows into Howlet, until their comrade finally made a move to retaliate. Unfortunately for Howlet, John managed to easily side-step his retaliating strike, and knocked him down to the ground with a hard hit to the back of his neck.

If the Howling Commandos were not impressed before, they certainly were now, as Morita proved when he came up to pat John on the shoulder with Gabe not far behind him. "Where'd you learn that," Gabe asked.

"U.S. Marine Corp," John revealed, surprising each of the other soldiers a little, while riling up Howlet a bit.

"Lousy, smug, little…" Howlet growled under his breath.

"All right, that's enough, Lucky Jim. We've got a war to fight, remember," Dugan interrupted. He then turned to John and began briefing him on the situation. "Intel says that the last, central HYDRA base is somewhere close by, and until we hear something a little more specific from either Agent Carter or Cap, it's our job to figure out where it is, and make sure we stay alive long enough to knock it off the map. Think you can handle that, Marine Corp?"

"I'm sure I can manage," John smirked a little in return.

"Good enough for me. Welcome to the Howling Commandos, soldier. Hope you survive the experience," Dugan finished as he passed John a spare rifle. At that point, John could not help but smirk a little. The Howling Commandos were definitely an inspiration for many different modern day soldiers, one that he had aspired to be like for years, even after he became a Green Lantern. Getting the chance to actually fight alongside them in their prime, well, words could not describe how exciting it was.

After parting with J'onn, and then convincing Steve that he was not dead and that J'onn was not a HYDRA experiment, Diana was happy to help Captain America in any way that she could. Apparently, Steve's mission was to get a new communication device back to his friends in the SSR so that they could decode their transmissions and figure out when and where the invasion of England was going to happen, but since that was so far out, they had to go to somewhere in France so that they could meet with a code-breaker named Ernst. The super soldier had no trouble admitting that he would have preferred going to his friend Howard Stark, but given the circumstances, he would not deny that it would be more beneficial to meet with someone that was closer at hand, and this Ernst was just such a person. So, Diana easily flew them out to the abandoned farmhouse that Steve was meant to meet up with the code expert, and the two had remained there waiting for the man of the hour to arrive.

Steve had tried to reassure Diana that he could handle things on his own from there, but Diana had insisted that she stay to help him. When he pointed out that J'onn might need her help, Diana immediately waved that off by saying that he has many ways of blending in. The princess could tell that Steve did not really believe that, even without his skeptical look, but he did seem convinced enough to let her stick around. Of course, that did not mean she had missed how his eyes had briefly roamed over her figure for a few moments before he finally decided that he should just go with it, or how he mentioned that she and J'onn were both far from being able to easily blend into a crowd, but she was not upset by the fact. If anything, she was flattered, and she took it as final confirmation that Cap had done the same thing in the present day a few times as well when he thought she was not looking. Of course, he did still make it a point to quickly put all of his attention on her face again, though his gaze seemed to linger on her face for a lot longer than any other part of her before he turned away again, and that did surprise her a little bit. She was not so naïve to be unaware of where most other men's eyes would linger when they were looking at her from time to time in the present day.

They had actually been waiting for quite a few hours now, and in that time, Steve had found a few candles to give the room a little more light so that they were stumbling around in the dark. Under different circumstances, Diana probably would have considered this to be rather romantic, but given that there was a war raging outside, even if the battlefield was several miles away, she had a hard time really relaxing, let alone thinking about such things. She soon had a little bit of an easier time directing her thoughts to something other than the war when Steve suddenly came back from investigating the rest of farmhouse with a plate and corked bottle.

"Hard to believe that the former owners left behind some food that could still be good after so much time had passed, but I did manage to find something," Captain America informed the Amazon princess as he set his items down, allowing one to see that the plate was filled with several different food items. "Help yourself."

"How can you think of food at a time like this," Diana asked.

Steve gave her a small look before explaining, "Need to eat if you want to keep your strength up, even if you don't necessarily have to."

"I understand that, but I'm a little surprised that you seem so…relaxed. Despite everything that's going on right now from the war to your men, you seem as though you're not that concerned," Diana clarified. "Aren't you afraid that dropping your guard right now could mean that you might die?"

"Of course I'm afraid of that," Steve admitted. "But if you constantly keep your guard up, you'll miss out on the things that are worth dying for. A late friend of mine actually had to remind me of that more than a few times after we had both gotten here and began serving together. Honestly, if it weren't for Bucky, I don't think I'd be able to really relax as much as I should, or really have gotten by on my own, before or after the serum that made me…well, Captain America. Besides, if I had let fear stop me, I wouldn't have taken on this mission, and I probably would've never met you."

Diana had to smile a little at that while her face began to feel a little warmer, but she still had a few concerns, including one major, overlying one. "But still, you can't ignore the fact that the war is going on right now."

"Maybe, but we can't expect to end every single battle in the war. Sometimes, you need to let things wait so that you can enjoy the moment," Steve informed her as he moved to sit next to Diana and place a hand on hers in an effort to help calm her nerves.

The super soldier did manage to make Diana worry a little less about her friends and the war that was going on, along with the reason why she was here in the first place, but it did nothing to help her rapidly beating heart slow down. If anything, being in such close proximity to Steve while he continued being so kind to her made her feel like a nervous little girl that was sitting next to her first crush in class. It definitely showed as she nervously tucked a lock of hair behind her ear in an attempt to distract herself. All the same, Diana could just barely hold Steve's gaze for more than a few more seconds before she finally turned away in an attempt to hide her growing blush, and asked, "How can we?"

Steve actually smiled a little, finding this wondrous woman's shyness to be a little cute, before he grabbed the bottle he had brought out with him, and said, "Well, one way would be enjoying a few drinks, and while I'm not much of a wine expert, I do know that this one happens to be a very good year. It goes all the way back to the last war."

After uncorking the battle, Steve casually poured the wine into a couple of glasses that he had retrieved, and held one out for Diana to take. The princess was not about to refuse the gesture, and accepted the glass with a small smile. Just when they were about to tap the glasses together in a casual toast, both of the glasses were suddenly shattered apart by a few rounds of gunshots, prompting both American soldier and Amazon warrior to duck down under the rain of bullets that followed afterwards. Steve quickly retrieved his shield as he crawled over to the window with Diana, only to wish he had not when he saw several HYDRA troopers marching up to the farmhouse with rifles ready while an army jeep waved a search light over the premises. He barely paid too much mind to whatever drone was telling them about how they were surrounded at the moment, as his mind was already working up a strategy to get them out of this situation alive.

Diana had another question on her mind though. "How did they find us?"

"They must've caught Ernst," Steve answered, barely even thinking about it too much as he checked his pistol.

"And he betrayed you," Diana asked, sounding more than a little pissed off at the idea that someone could actually betray Captain America, of all people.

"Don't blame him; he's just a civilian. He doesn't have the same fortitude as most soldiers," Steve calmly defended before taking one last glance out the window to get a read on the enemy forces. He then pulled the communicator from his belt and handed it to Diana as he explained his plan. "I'll create a distraction. If you can fight then do what you can to take out as many of them as possible, but your priority is to get that out of here."

"But…" Diana tried to argue, only for Steve to cut her off.

"We don't have time to debate this. The SSR needs to get that communicator. Just get back to London and find a brown haired woman named Peggy Carter. She'll take you to the SSR's current base of operations, assuming she and Colonel Philips haven't already left to prepare for the upcoming assault on the last HYDRA base." With that said, Steve raced to the other side of the building, ready to jump into action, never knowing that Diana was throwing a defiant look after him that made it clear she was not going to leave him behind, Captain America or not.

When Captain America came out from the side of the farmhouse, the HYDRA troops did what many of their comrades would do in such an instance: they shot at him while praying that he would not beat them up too badly. Okay, it was more so on the former than the latter, but there were still a few that were hoping for that, because they knew that they would have to endure punishment from Red Skull afterwards, and that would not be pleasant at all. None of their shots managed to hit Cap though, and any of the ones that did were all rebounded or dispersed by his shield. Said shield was soon flying across the battlefield and knocked out at least three different troops before it returned to Cap's waiting hand, and by the time he had the shield on his arm again, Captain America was already halfway to his next target, which he took down with a powerful jump kick. He was forced on the defensive again though, when the army jeep's guns opened fire on him along with some larger, more heavily equipped HYDRA agents. Even though his shield was indestructible, it was not able to help him get an opening in this near constant rain of powerful energy that was clashing against the mighty vibranium disk, and right now, Steve needed such an opening if he was ever going to get out of this situation alive. At least that was what he thought, until something he was not expecting happened.

Just when the soldier on the jeep had paused in his firing to let the gun cool down, he found himself losing his balance as the vehicle was suddenly lifted into the air by none other than Diana. Wonder Woman then threw it at the nearest, heavy artillery soldier, knocking him out along with the soldiers still in the jeep, while the vehicle itself was left heavily damaged. When the soldiers turned to see what had happened, they were left stunned by the fact that such a small woman had just thrown aside their transport like it was nothing more than a small pebble and that allowed Diana the chance to take off her tiara and then throw it like one of Batman's batarangs. The gold tiara easily sailed through the air, striking at several HYDRA soldiers as it went, before it finally returned to the Amazon Princess's hand as she charged to engage some of the other soldiers directly. The HYDRA soldiers who were still standing tried shooting her, but Diana easily dodged or deflected their weapons fire with her bracelets, and proceeded to toss the HYDRA forces around like they were nothing more than rag dolls.

The sight of this one woman tearing into HYDRA like they were just green rookies on their first day of basic training would likely have left Captain America a little stunned had he not been in the middle of a battle. Since this fight was still going on though, Steve managed to push it aside in favor of attacking any soldiers that were not preoccupied with trying and failing to bring down the powerhouse of a one-woman-army. Secretly, the captain was a little miffed that his enemies were suddenly ignoring him in favor of someone else, but given who they were focusing on, Steve could not really blame them, and not just because of the fact that Diana was very beautiful either. There was just something about her ferocious fighting style that seemed to draw him into her, especially after the little moment of peace that they were just sharing, but all the same, Steve was able to knock out several HYDRA forces, making it even easier for Diana to bring down the ones that were targeting her. Eventually, there were only a two or three left to face both the Amazon and the super soldier that they had been originally firing on, and when the enemy soldiers realized this, some of them had tried to flee on one of the motorcycles that they had rode in on, or just run away on foot. It did them no good though, as Steve had immediately rushed one of the remaining soldiers and knocked him out with a hard uppercut, while Diana landed a leaping kick to a second before lassoing one of the motorcycle riders with a single throw of her lasso.

Looking around at the scene that had unfolded after Diana joined the fight, Captain America quickly noticed that she had reduced half of the HYDRA forces that had been after them into moaning, heaps of unconscious fools, and he had to admit that he was impressed. Steve only really knew of one other woman alive that could probably do something like this, so when he turned to face Diana again, he just had to ask the first thing that came to his mind. "You wouldn't happen to know anyone by the name of Peggy Carter, would you?"

"Only by reputation," Diana smirked in reply.

Steve grinned a bit before he commented, "You know, I don't think I ever did get your name, now that I think about it."

Diana faltered a little for a moment, not entirely sure if she should tell Captain America her name right now, since he would learn it seventy years later in the future, until she was suddenly struck with an idea. "I'm really just someone who looks out for others and tries to help where I can."

"Like a guardian angel, huh" Steve asked with an amused smile.

"You could say that," Diana nodded in reply.

"Whatever you say…Angel," Steve grinned in response, clearly deciding to just give her a little nickname for now, at least until he learned her real name.

That got Diana to smile a bit wider, this time with a small blush, but her expression fell into a much more intimidating one as she looked down at the HYDRA soldier she held captive in her lasso. "Now then, I suggest you tell us where you're keeping Ernst."

Normally, the HYDRA agent would have either spat in Diana's face in response, literally or figuratively speaking, or slipped himself a pill of cyanide, but after what he had just witnessed the woman do, along with knowing that he was the only one of his forces left before both her and Captain America, he was far too scared to really think straight. So scared in fact, that he was soon singing like a pigeon and telling Diana everything she wanted to know. While he was glad to know that they could still rescue Ernst, Captain America could not help but feel more than a little worried about this, because normally it would not be this easy to make a HYDRA agent talk. Even the new ones were immensely loyal to the Red Skull's cause, with or without having someone put the fear of God into them like Diana just had. He would have to worry about that later though, as Diana had already scooped him up into her arms and started flying towards the prison where his friend was being kept, leaving her captive unconscious in the field with his allies.

When he first captured the green man with strange powers, Savage had been amused. As he had told his peculiar intruder, no one would have thought that the übermensch would be green. He did not really count Schmidt among such a number, even with the strange power that he had acquired in his time running HYDRA, but then again, it was a little hard to consider a man who had been genetically modified be a superior man as such against one who was naturally superior. As such, Savage had no problem with revealing everything he felt was necessary to the green man who claimed to be from the future like him, including how he was not from the future. His laptop computer and the data disk it came with, on the other hand, most certainly did, and it allowed him to receive information from his future self. One would think that Savage would be thrown off a little after realizing he would not age a day after seventy years, but in truth, Savage just took it in stride, as he found the information he had been sent to be far more important.

That information consisted of a list of important dates and events in the war, along with suggestions on how he could go about bringing HYDRA back into the fold of the Axis Powers, ultimately guaranteeing that Savage would lead the Axis to victory in the Second World War. Not only that, but it also gave him schematics and technology that he could use to grant both himself and the Axis a massive advantage in the war, even against the likes of the Allies' mighty Captain America, or the legendary Justice Society of America, should they actually decide to join the war effort. Armed with such knowledge and technology, Savage had no doubt that he would be able to secure full and total control of the world by the end of the war, just as his future self claimed he would be able to, despite his captive's claims to the opposite. He was so close to his victory now that he could taste it, but Savage did not get this far without being at least a little cautious, and that was why he had the green man interrogated. He needed to know how many others had come back from the future and what their powers were. If there was a chance that any of them could derail his plans, he had to be ready for anything.

Needless to say, his interrogator failed to get anything from the prisoner before the green man escaped, but that was not what had left Savage so furious. What he was furious about was the fact that before he had escaped, the green man had destroyed both the laptop computer and the data disk, and with those destroyed, all the information they contained was lost to him. "Ruined," Savage roared in anger as he nearly crushed the laptop's remains in his hands. "How could this have happened?!"

"Apparently the prisoner overpowered the guards and escaped," Hoffman replied, not seeming the least bit as worried as he probably should have been.

Savage's anger only grew at Hoffman's recounting of what he already knew from the reports they had received, but he managed to keep enough of his cool to think a little straight. "He knows too much. We'll have to move up the invasion. Inform Schmidt and then send out the signal immediately. Begin Operation Endgame."

"W-we can't," Hoffman stuttered, making Savage turn a questioning glare to him. "We just learned that one of our coded communicators is missing. We think that Captain America may have taken it when he snuck in earlier."

That got Savage to toss the laptop's remains aside before he slapped Hoffman across the face, while shouting, "Imbecile! Get back or destroy it, along with the captain if you have to!"

"Y-yes sir. We and the Skull are already working on that," Hoffman reported. That seemed to relieve him of Savage's ire for the moment, and he took that as his cue to leave. All the while, he could not help but grumble about how this was no way to be treating subordinates in an army or otherwise.

"According to our friend, Ernst is being held here, up in the south tower," Diana explained to Captain America a few hours later, as they studied a massive castle fortress just beyond anyone's notice. It had not taken them too long to reach this place after leaving the farmhouse, thanks mostly to the fact that Diana could fly so fast, even with a passenger, but all the while, she could tell that Steve was worried about something. She figured that he was concerned for Ernst, so it was understandable, really.

"And you're sure he was telling the truth," Captain America asked as he lowered his binoculars, having taken note of all the patrol patterns for both guards and vehicles by now.

"I can be very persuasive," Diana smiled in confidence, thinking that would make Steve feel a little better. She seemed to succeed in raising the captain's spirits, but not as much as she had hoped.

"I'm sure you can be," Steve had smiled in reply before his expression turned serious again. "But I also know HYDRA soldiers. They don't give up any information that easily. Most of them would rather slip themselves a pill of cyanide before doing that, even if they had been scared stiff by something. The fact that our 'friend' talked so easily has me worried. Better to stay on our guard when we go in."

Diana just nodded in reply, having a hard time arguing with Cap's assessment. After all, the only hydra she had much knowledge on was the one from legend, and not the terrorist organization that Captain America was meant to destroy at some point before this war had ended, so she would have to heed his advice as they snuck inside. Getting up to the castle was easy enough, as Diana was able to fly them past the patrols unnoticed with no one the wiser, but getting inside proved to be another matter. As far as either of them could tell, there was no way in that did not have someone watching it, or was just too obvious of a way into a trap. Captain America felt that it would be better if they tried to find some back way inside to avoid suspicion, but Diana was not in any mood to wait, so she decided to make a new door. Steve was just glad that the wall she busted down, with one hand at that, was well out of anyone's notice, and lead into what appeared to be a supply room.

They barely spent that much time in said supply room, and quickly found their way further inside, taking the stairs upwards two at a time. When they came to the top of the stairs, Diana had to pause for a minute, having noticed that a guard was coming around the corner. That same guard was not much of a problem though, due to Diana easily knocking him out the minute that he had gotten within arm's reach of her, and thus, the two were allowed to start checking the cells. Lady Luck seemed to be smiling on them quite a bit today, because the first cell that the two checked turned out to be the one that Ernst was inside of, and Cap immediately broke the lock with the edge of his shield, allowing them entry into the cell so that they could help Ernst up and start untying him. What really struck them as odd though was how panicked the man seemed to be, but then again, anyone would be a little freaked out when someone suddenly bursts through the door of the room they were being held prisoner in.

"Easy there, Ernst. I'm Captain Rogers, a friend of Howard Stark and Colonel Philips. We're here to get you out," Steve informed the code breaker while he untied the man.

Diana managed to get the gag off much more quickly, but Ernst's first words were much different than what she was expecting. "You shouldn't have come here," Ernst informed them in an accent that the Amazon of the group could not quite identify right away.

"You can save the thanks for later, Ernst. Right now, we have to get you to safety," Captain America insisted.

"No, you don't understand! Look," Ernst insisted, pointing the window of his cell in a near panic. Steve and Diana quickly moved to see what he was so worked up about, only to gasp at the sight of several war-wheels and HYDRA tanks approaching the castle at their highest manageable speeds.

"Damn it! It's a trap," Captain America swore, mentally scolding himself for not expecting this before.

"I tried to warn you. They know you've got the communicator, and they want it back," Ernst explained, hanging his head as if ashamed of the fact that this was happening.

Steve was about to tell Ernst to not blame himself for this, when Diana suddenly held a hand out to him and said, "Give it to me."

He knew right away that Diana was referring to the communicator, and Steve had no problem handing it over to her, but he was not entirely sure why she wanted it right now of all times. His confusion only increased when Diana pulled the casing cover off of the communicator, and he could not help but ask, "What are you doing?"

"Just trust me," Diana requested, and when she handed both the cover and the communicator back to him, Steve found that he could only nod in reply. The sound of a canon turning pulled his attention outside again though, and he saw that all of the various war vehicles were now zeroing in on their general location. He quickly dropped the casing while pocketing the actual device in his belt so that he could guide Ernst out of the room, but they were too late. The war-wheels had already opened fire, and when the ceiling started to collapse, it fell right in front of the door, barring their exit. When Steve turned to see if Diana had any ideas, he was soon greeted to the sight of the mattress that Ernst was just resting on, while Diana shouted, "Brace yourselves!"

At that point, all Steve could hear were more explosions and the building collapsing while Diana let out a few grunts and groans in what he could only guess was an attempt to keep them all from being crushed. Despite lacking much room to move, Steve still managed to place himself over Ernst so that the code breaker was better protected, and he just managed to get his shield into a position so that it was above him when it suddenly felt like they were squashed under something very big and very, very heavy. Diana's sudden cry of pain did not really raise Steve's spirits that much, but afterwards, everything suddenly went quiet. When their surroundings did not change, Steve began to worry for his guardian angel a little bit, until he heard the faint sounds of someone digging outside, along with faint voices of people shouting.

At that point, Steve realized that the other soldiers must have been looking for either them or the communicator, and he could not help but hold his breath in the hopes that they would not find him or his friends. As he continued to listen, he eventually heard someone shout out in success, followed by the sound of several vehicles moving away from the area. When those sounds finally faded away into silence, he could then hear several large pieces of rubble being moved at once, until finally, the mattress was unfolded from around him and Ernst, allowing him to see Wonder Woman standing over them both, completely unscathed and looking no worse for wear as she helped them both to their feet.

"It's safe now," Diana informed them, though in a voice that was slightly louder than normal, no doubt due to some slight ringing in her ears after all the tank shells and explosions that had just been going off around them.

Steve could not help but smile to Diana as he admitted, "And I thought I was a symbol of hope for our side, but you, Angel…well, I can't say how glad I am that you're with us."

Diana could not have stopped the blush that grew on her face or the radiant smile if she tried, and if she were being honest, part of her did not want to. Both did go away though when Ernst gave his own voice of thanks. "Ya. Danke, fräulien."

"You're German," Diana gasped in surprise.

"Please believe me, we're not all like them," Ernst insisted with a scowl, no doubt thinking of the Axis Powers and those who followed said group.

Apparently, he did not need to explain himself in too much detail, as Diana placed a hand on his shoulder, and gave him a reassuring smile as she softly told him, "I understand."

Ernst smiled in return, while Steve retrieved the communicator from his belt, as he added, "So do I. The man who made me the super soldier I am today was also German, and he was definitely a good person. Let's see if you can be just as good with figuring this thing out now that they think it's nothing but broken parts and plastic."

Ernst nodded in return as he accepted the communicator from Captain America, determined to get to work right away, but the two insisted that they move to a safer location first. Luckily, Cap managed to secure a motorcycle that he could drive away on while Diana carried Ernst after him, and the super soldier was soon leading the way to another, nearby safe house.

After arriving at the Blackhawks' headquarters, the League and the Legends were given a brief rundown of the bomber pilots' next target: a factory that was guarded by three sets of anti-aircraft cannons. All the two teams of superheroes had to do was take out the canons and the Blackhawks would handle the rest. Naturally, the superheroes came up with a slight alteration that would allow the workers inside to escape with their lives, but the Blackhawks did not seem to have any problem with that. They just wanted the factory gone because it seemed like something was being built there that made it imperative for the factory to be destroyed. A quick consultation with both the AI on Legends' ship and Nate's own historical records proved that doing so would definitely help in restoring history to what it should be, at least a little bit, so the League and the Legends were soon taking point in the strike against the factory. Superman, Hawkgirl, Atom, and Chavez were all out in front, flying on their own power, while the rest of the Legends followed after them in the Waverider, which was cloaked at the moment so that no one would be able to see the highly-advanced ship flying through the air. The plan included time for Waverider to set down once they were close enough, allowing Flash, Sandman, and Molten Man to help out where they could, while White Canary and Rip would assist the Blackhawks in the aerial strike, so there did not seem to be any problems that anyone could really worry about.

Since they had some time, Flash made sure to take full advantage of his current access to the Legends' food replicator, just to make sure that he was well fed and completely energized when the fighting started. Of course, that also gave him a chance to talk with the Legends a little more, both about their history with Hawkgirl, and how much help this strike would be in their shared mission. "So you're telling me that you guys actually saved all of history from being wiped out by this Apocalypse guy," Flash asked.

"Yeah, pretty much and it felt awesome when we did, too," Marko admitted with a light shrug, almost looking as if it was no big deal.

"Cool," Flash nodded. "But how come you needed Hawkgirl's help with stopping him? I thought he was typically someone that those guys in the X-Men dealt with."

"Maybe the normal one that you would find in the present day, but Apocalypse has been around for a lot longer than you realize, and at some point in either the future or the past, he found a way to access time travel," Sara explained while she was sharpening her knives. "Apparently, there was this whole thing between him and Shayera's past lives where she was directly responsible for ending his rule, so that made her a prime candidate for stopping him, while also making her serious target for Apocalypse. You can guess which one we preferred."

"Yeah, you can say that again," Flash nodded. He then glanced off to the side and asked, "What about the Blackhawks? Do you really think they're here because they're supposed to be, because I definitely don't remember learning about them in history class?"

"Well no one really learns every detail about history, but if they did, we would be a lot easier to find," Nate revealed as he dropped a book in front of Flash. He then opened it up to show the Scarlet Speedster a number of old-looking photos in which one could easily spot characters bearing a similar likeness to certain members of the Legends and even one with their ship. "A lot of the more obscure details in history often get overlooked, or are just chalked up to ancient myths, but if one does know how to look deeper and what details stick out, they can find a great number of smaller events or seemingly unimportant moments had a pretty big influence on history. Some of these things do include stuff we were involved in like when Ray was knighted by Queen Guinevere, or when Mark gave General Washington a little pep talk to not give up the good fight, believe it or not."

Flash could only nod along, as he saw pictures of said events, or things that came about because of that, like a statue that bared a striking resemblance to Molten Man's human appearance suddenly showing up in DC, and while it was impressive, he did not let that distract him from his original question. "What about the Blackhawks themselves though? How did they tie into history as it originally stood?"

"I can answer that, Flash," Gideon reported, cutting Nate off before he could answer. "In addition to ensuring the Allied Forces successful invasion on D-Day, the Blackhawks would also go on to assist the Strategic Scientific Reserve in securing and containing various technologies that were recovered from the Axis Powers and HYDRA so that no one would be able to use them again, having deemed every recovered item too dangerous to fall into anyone's hands. Even years later, after the SSR was dissolved into other organizations, Blackhawk Island still houses several old HYDRA equipment from World War II, and even a few other items that were utilized by the regular Axis Forces and deemed too dangerous to be left alone or available for anyone's use."

"Wow," Flash breathed in awe. He would have asked what organizations that the SSR was dissolved into, feeling a bit curious about that while also drawing up a suspicion or two of his own, when Rip's voice suddenly called out over the intercom system to announce that they were approaching the drop point. When he heard that, Flash looked to Sandman and Molten Man and asked, "Think you two can keep up?"

"Hey, if we can give Webs a run for his money, I'd bet we won't have any trouble handling this while keeping pace with you," Marko smirked in return as he started towards the ship's exit.

"Don't make that bet, man. You know I'm a former gambling addict," Mark playfully warned his fellow former criminal, while Flash just laughed along with the two.

Once the three had disembarked from the Waverider, the time ship had taken off again, disappearing behind its cloaking system even as the jump ship launched from the back, and the three were soon racing towards the factory ahead, just as the anti-aircraft guns began firing on the approaching flyers. Superman let just about all of the gunfire bounce harmlessly off of him as he drew closer to the gun battery, while Atom, Chavez, and Hawkgirl easily avoided most of the blasts with some simple turns and weaves in their flight paths, with Ray even shrinking down in order to better avoid the gunfire at some points. As a result, Superman was the first to land on the ground and then destroy a battery by simply lifting it over his head and tossing it aside with relative ease. Hawkgirl did not bother landing when she destroyed her target, but instead, just flew right at it as fast as she could, and slammed her mace directly into the guns as hard as she could, making the thing explode on impact. Afterwards, she and Superman were both turning their attention to the soldiers that were acting as the security team for the factory, making sure to knock them out of the fight and toss them as far from the factory as they safely could, mainly to make sure that they avoided too many casualties when the Blackhawks and the two time ships made their run on the facility.

While Atom focused on destroying one of the last two turrets, Molten Man moved to help Hawkgirl and Superman with the ground troops, leaving Sandman and Flash to rush into the facility just as the gates were closing in an attempt to keep any more interlopers out. Once he was inside, Marko found a high perch where all the workers would be able to notice and hear him, and shouted, "All right, everybody, quitting time!" He may have succeeded in being heard over the massive machinery, but as far as getting the workers to leave went, he could have gotten a better reaction. Instead of leaving like Flint wanted them to, all the people in the factory just stood around staring at him, which served to get him a little annoyed. "You heard me! Get out! Come on! Vamoose! Chop, chop!"

Sandman's demands for the workers to leave were soon cut short when an evacuation alarm suddenly began ringing throughout the building, and everyone made to rush for the exits. Turning to the nearest trigger for said alarm, he saw Flash standing there with the glass covering the control clearly broken, and the speedster could only shrug and say, "What? Did you really think they were going to listen to a couple of random guys who just appeared out of nowhere and leave?"

Flint had to give the speedster that, and quickly dissolve into sand again so that he could help ensure the evacuation went off without much trouble, while Flash did the same with his super speed. Meanwhile, Atom had returned to normal size in order to destroy another canon with his arm blaster, and the minute it had gone up in smoke due to Chavez bashing into pieces with her bare fists, the Blackhawks turned to make their run, with the Waverider and its jump ship right behind them. Flash and Sandman had just managed to get the last of the workers to safety with a little last minute help from Superman and Atom when the first wave of bombs fell on the factory, and when they turned to watch the rest of the fireworks, they could see Molten Man was adding his own fireballs into the mix just to make sure that the place would be toasted. A few final bursts of heat vision from the last son of Krypton, a pair of energy blasts from Atom, and a round of energy blasts from the two time ships served to ensure that the factory was reduced to nothing but rubble, and after scanning the area over with his x-ray vision, Superman had to breathe a sigh of relief when he saw that the only casualties were the Axis troops.

"Good work, Flash, Sandman. You both saved all those workers," Superman congratulated.

"Yeah, we were pretty awesome," Sandman boasted with a playful smirk.

"So while you were getting them out, did you happen to figure out what they were building here," America Chavez asked.

"Don't look at me. Mark and Ray are the tech heads with a thing for figuring out auto mechanics," Flint shrugged in honest cluelessness.

"But we did see them working on that," Flash revealed just as the Waverider had touched down behind them, still cloaked, and allowing Nate, Sara, and Rip to join the others.

Superman quickly moved some large rubble out of the way so that everyone could get a better look at the machinery being constructed here, and while he was doing that, Chavez had to admit, "He really is that strong."

"Yeah, no kidding," Sara remarked. She then glanced between Ray and Superman before she commented, "Anyone else noticed that he and Ray actually look pretty similar to each other?"

"Really," Ray asked as he looked at Superman in awe. "Cool."

The others would have rolled their eyes at the size-changer's response had they not been taken by surprise at what Superman managed to dig out. "A jet engine," Nate gasped. "You definitely don't need to be a historical researcher like me to know this technology is way too advanced, even for what HYDRA had in this age."

"It's from the future," a new voice interrupted, making everyone turn to see Martian Manhunter had now joined them. "And I know how Savage and the Red Skull are planning to use it."

"Well by all means, mate, don't keep us in suspense," Rip insisted. Needless to say, they were all left pretty shell shocked by what J'onn had to tell them afterwards.

Far from where the Legends, most of the League, and the Blackhawks were, the Howling Commandos were still searching for the last HYDRA base. In the process of their searching, they had run afoul of more than one group of enemy soldiers, both HYDRA and regular, and John was left with the treat of seeing just how this unit had earned its legendary reputation. Their individual skill sets were certainly impressive, along with their unrelenting courage, but the way that they worked as such a cohesive unit when in action was just so awe inspiring. So much so that if John were not a professional soldier, he would have just frozen in his tracks to watch the display of skill and teamwork that the Howling Commandos were making as they moved across each new battlefield. In fact, he almost did once or twice, and that had almost gotten Falsworth killed. Thankfully it was only a flesh wound, and John had gotten the sniper responsible back just as quickly, but it still felt like a blow to his pride that he had let his guard down because he had gotten so enraptured by the sight of legends at work like that.

Thankfully, that was the last time that had happened, and John had made sure that the Commandos were well cover afterwards as they progressed across the frontier behind enemy lines, but the bad news was that their search was proving to be rather fruitless, as there was no sign of the final HYDRA base anywhere that they looked. After another hour or so of not finding anything, they were all starting to get really fed up, and as they all expected, Howlet was the first to show his frustrations. "This is getting us nowhere," the Wildman of the team growled. "I'm starting to wonder if this last base even exists."

"If it does, then HYDRA's really good at keeping up appearances," Dugan pointed out. "They're way too coordinated to not still have at least one base left out here somewhere."

"Still, Lucky Jim does have a point in saying that we're not finding much to show that it's around here," Morita pointed out. "Maybe we got some bad intel."

"Well it wouldn't be the first time, but there's always a chance that this map's no good," Gabe pointed out.

"You're right. This hill isn't even on it," John noted, as he started to brainstorm a little bit. "I wonder…"

The others watched the powerless Lantern for a minute as he started looking at his surroundings a bit more closely, but it was not long before Howlet started getting on John's case again, likely out of a need to vent a bit. "If you're so smart, how about you find us a runway with your magic ring?"

"Enough, Howlet," Dugan reprimanded.

"No, not this time," Howlet argued while marching up to try and start something with John again. "You're a bit man when your ring's working, but without you're just-AH!"

The sound of Howlet's cry of surprise and something caving in from beneath his feet made everyone turn to the Wildman, only to see that he had disappeared. A closer examination helped them to see that he had actually fallen through the roof of something, and that proved exactly what John had suspected. "I thought so. The hill's a phony. That's why it wasn't on the map," John explained as he dropped down into the hidden installation ahead of the others, while Howlet stood up looking barely that bad after his sudden fall. They all then followed John further inside, until they came to a stop just at the doorway to larger room, and when they saw what was inside, while they were stunned, John just had to make a comment on the sight. "There's your runway."

There before them were countless HYDRA and Nazi soldiers, with numerous large vehicles lined up to begin boarding what looked to John like massive jet planes, and standing before them as the war-wheels and tanks were loaded into the planes was none other than the big man behind HYDRA himself: Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull. What came as a little surprising to John though, was that the man was actually pouring himself a glass of wine as if he were about to make a toast at some fancy upper class party, but given the speech that Skull gave soon afterwards, he could see why Schmidt would be doing such a thing. In his eyes, this was the final closer to guarantee his victory, and that was something to be celebrated. "Today, we will stand master of the world. Born to victory on the wings of the Valkyrie, and made even more certain through the assistance that Herr Savage has provided. Our enemies' weapons will be powerless against us. If they shoot down one plane, hundreds more will rain fire upon them!" Skull then paused for a moment to raise his glass to his troops, and finished, "If they cut off one head two more shall take its place. Hail HYDRA!"

"Hail HYDRA," the troops responded in kind, raising their arms in salute as they did. "Hail HYDRA! Hail HYDRA! Hail HYDRA!"

The salute continued to be chanted by every HYDRA soldier in the room, and even a few regular Axis soldiers had joined in as Skull turned about the room, and to be quite honest, this was the first time John had heard the mantra and did not feel like laughing a little bit. Seeing so many soldiers recite it in person while such war machines were preparing to launch into action definitely showed just how intimidating and dangerous the organization was in the Forties. Thankfully, he was able to keep a cool head thanks to the Commandos remembering their mission, as Dugan turned to his comrades and motioned for them to move up.

Once everyone was within decent cover, Dugan looked to Morita and ordered, "Give me a radio. We need to contact Colonel Philips and Cap right now."

Diana could not help but feel nervous every time a war-wheel rumbled past just outside of the shelter they had hidden away in, and every time the death machines had rolled away, a silent breath of relief escaped her. All the same, she was hoping that they could get the code on that communicator cracked a little more quickly so that they could alert the Allies and get away from this place in order to take the fight to Savage and HYDRA. Say what you would about Diana, but her patience did tend to wane thin pretty quickly in many situations. "Any luck," the princess asked as another war-wheel rolled past their shelter.

"The code is complicated, but…" Ernst started to say as he tapped away at the communicator in an attempt to figure out its workings. He then perked up and declared, "Yes, I've got it."

"What are they saying," Captain America requested with a hint of urgency in his voice.

Ernst was quiet for a minute as he listened in, but a moment later, both heroes saw him pale quite a bit. "Oh no," Ernst gasped. "The invasion…It's starting!"

"What," Steve gasped. "Where are they going to land? Dover, Brighton…"

"Britain is not their target, Captain," Ernst revealed in a tone of dread. "They're invading America."

The minute they heard that Captain America and Wonder Woman both turned almost as pale as Ernst, and they were soon exchanging horrified looks with one another. Normally they probably would not be so concerned, but given what they had both seen from HYDRA and Savage's technology, there was a good chance that the American forces would be in a great deal of trouble. Thankfully, with this new warning, they now had a chance to warn those same forces, and that was exactly what Ernst had been thinking as well, because he was already trying to send out a signal to America just seconds later.

"I'm not sure if the signal is strong enough," Ernst admitted after a few seconds.

"Doesn't matter. We've got to alert the Allies any way that we can. Just keep trying, and see if you can reach the Howling Commandos. They should be close by right now," Captain America revealed.

Ernst nodded in response and started to do as the captain suggested when he paused and looked over to the captain. "I don't think I need to," he revealed. "They're already calling for you."

"Can we transmit over this device safely," Captain America asked.

"Possibly, but I can't guarantee that," Ernst shrugged in response.

"I'll take it. Put them through," Cap accepted, taking the headset that Ernst had on hand for his work. "This is Captain Rogers, go ahead."

"Cap, its Dugan. We've found the HYDRA base, along with their big invasion force. Skull's here too, and it looks like they're getting ready to get the big show on the road," Dugan's voice reported. "We've already signaled Colonel Philips's assault team, but I'm not sure if they'll get here in time."

"If they don't then you need to do everything you can. That invasion force isn't targeting Britain. They're going after America," Cap revealed to his friend and comrade.

Dugan was silent after that, but when he spoke, there was a very distinct tone of anger in his voice. "Like hell they are. Me and the boys will do what we can until you get here. I'm sending you our coordinates."

Steve nodded along as Dugan relayed the coordinates of his location, and then told Ernst to keep trying to reach the rest of the Allies while he prepared to head out, loading up with a set of supplies as he did. He had to pause though when Diana suddenly said, "It's not too late. I can still stop the invasion."

Steve turned to see the Amazon princess was about to race out the door, and he quickly rushed over to grab her arm in an attempt to stop her, as he called out, "You can't seriously think you can stop an entire invasion alone."

"If I know my friends, there's a good chance that they're already on their way to stop it as well. I won't be alone," Diana reassured him.

"Maybe, but…" Steve could not help but hesitate a little before he finally asked the big question in a much softer voice. "What if I never see you again?"

At that moment, Diana wanted to tell him that he would so badly, despite whatever dangers there may have been to the timeline if she did, but at the same time, her voice had gotten caught in her throat, keeping her from getting the words out. Add in the close proximity between her and the super soldier, and Diana felt as though everything around her and all rational thought had vanished, leaving her with only instinct to act on. Diana was never one to not trust her instincts, and this time was no different, and that was why she did not have any trouble practically jumping towards Captain America, and locking her lips onto his while her arms wrapped firmly around him.

Steve was stunned by this sudden display of affection, but at the same time, he could feel just how true and genuine it was, while still being so full of raw, unbridled passion. The feeling was so intense that the only thing he could do in that moment was return the kiss in full as he cupped Diana's cheek in one hand while the other gently snaked its way around her back. As a result, Diana felt as though her whole world had suddenly been set ablaze with spectacular fireworks, and she wanted so badly for this moment to last forever. This was a feeling she communicated as she continued to hold the kiss for as long as humanly possible, until at last, the need to breathe forced her and Steve to break apart and settle for gazing at one another with gentle, caring eyes even as she steadily backed away from him.

"Wish me luck," Diana whispered to the man she had come to care for so much, and she then turned to raced out of the shelter so that she could fly westward in the hopes of intercepting the invasion fleet.

Captain America could only watch her fly off with a longing gaze, silently doing as she had just asked while noting to himself, "That is certainly one wonderful woman."

Steve then told Ernst to remain here until he could send the SSR to extract him, leaving a transmitter for Ernst to use in case of an emergency, and then mounted the motorcycle he had borrowed earlier so that he could head towards the Howling Commandos' current location, determined to get there before Skull and Savage could get away. He was not going to let his home country fall to anyone, and certainly not Skull or Savage, even if it meant he would have to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to keep so many lives safe.

After hearing J'onn's rundown on his little trip to Savage's lab, the League was left in complete shock. The idea that Savage could not only live for so long, but also managed to send himself information from the future in order to ensure the Axis Powers' victory in the war, along with granting himself total rule of the Earth was certainly enough to rattle even the mightiest of beings, but when you added in what Savage's plans likely seemed to be, you would have to be crazy to not be left a little frightened. There was no doubt that the League now had to do everything they could to track down the HYDRA base where Savage and Red Skull were building these war machines, and they were more than determined to do so any way that they can. It was a good thing that they had a team of time travelers to help them out with this, because the Legends were certainly going to be of huge assistance to them.

Speaking of the Legends, said team was left just as shocked as the League was by all of this new information, but there was also a few other details that they could not help but take notice of. If what J'onn had said was true, then that more than likely meant that Vandal Savage was some sort of immortal being, and they all knew from first-hand experience just how dangerous people with such capabilities or powers could be. What really bothered them though was how they had apparently missed finding Savage in all their scans of the timeline. Sure, they did not necessarily have the perfect system for tracking all manner of dangerous elements to history, but it did still normally work to the point where they could at least take a small notice of something or someone like this. Despite that, they had only learned anything about Savage after the League had appeared here in this point of history, so why was that? It was a mystery that none of them could really figure out just yet, but they were going to look into it as soon as they could. For now, that was going to have to be put on the backburner. They still had to make sure that World War II reached its intended outcome, but before Nate could head for the Waverider's library in order to determine where they would find the HYDRA base, Blackhawk's plane came over towards them, with the pilot in question climbing out of the cockpit in order to deliver a very dire message.

"We just intercepted a message from the resistance," Blackhawk revealed. "Savage and Red Skull have mounted an airborne invasion. They're headed for America."

"That's why he needed the jet engines and all this other advanced tech," Hawkgirl gasped in horror.

"So it would seem," Rip noted with a grim look.

"We've gotta warn the good guys," Flash then stated as he looked to Blackhawk. "Which way is west?"

"That way, but…" Blackhawk started to say as he turned to said direction. He never finished his question, as the answer came seconds later when Flash suddenly took off in that very direction as fast as he could.

The speedster only heard a faint bit of Rip ordering the Legends to board the Waverider, and he had no doubt that the rest of the League would be following behind him from the air, but at the moment, he was putting it all out of his head. Right now, Flash had to get to the American Forces as soon as possible, so he put every single ounce of his focus into pouring on every bit of speed that he had. To most of the world, all they could see was a faint red blur coated in lightning rushing past, but to Flash, it seemed like so much had slowed down to a steady crawl, and even then, it was still not fast enough. Closing his eyes for a moment, even as he continued to run, Barry concentrated, praying to the power of the Speed Force in his body which gave him his incredible speed, and instantly seemed to burst into overdrive. The moment he did, that steady crawl around him started to become even slower, and even the loudest of sounds had a longer effect or delay as they went off. If anyone else were experiencing or even looking at all of this, they likely would have found it to be one of the most incredible things ever, but for Barry Allen, this was just another thing you see almost every day when you are the fastest man alive, and right now, he could not be distracted by the wonders of moving at super speed. He had a mission to finish.

Flash rocketed through the town he and the League had first landed in, past the camp where injured soldiers were still being treated, across the beach, and out over the water, and even after all of that, he did not slow down for even a second as he continued westward, with his friends now far behind him. He made sure to keep a little bit of an eye on his surroundings, on the off-chance that he did catch sight of Savage and Red Skull's invasion force, but as he drew closer to American continent, Barry had to breathe a sigh of relief when he did even see the smallest hint of the villains' forces. His relief only grew along with his smile when he saw the American Naval fleet just ahead of him, and it was at that point that he finally started to slow down a little, just to make sure that he did not cause any kind of sonic boom that could damage any of the ships when he finally stopped. The moment he did stop was when he had raced up onto the deck of the lead ship, and his sudden appearance startled quite a few soldiers on the deck into drawing their weapons on him.

"Easy fellas, I'm on your side," Flash tried to reassure them. "And I've got something you need to know about."

"Where the hell did you even come from, and who are you," the apparent captain of the ship demanded as he held his own sidearm on Flash.

"Short version, I just came from the frontlines after my friends heard about a message from the resistance forces over there. A warning that you guys really need to know about," Flash explained. "As for who I am, well…I'm the fastest man alive."

"Yeah, I think my friend would have to disagree with you on that," a new voice piped in, and everyone turned to see who had spoken. When Flash laid eyes on that person and his group though, he could not help but gasp in surprise at who he saw.

There before him, was one of the most legendary teams of heroes in history, which Captain America was said to have helped found at one point before he fully joined the army in the war: the Justice Society of America. Looking at the group, Flash could easily figure out who a few of these heroes were, as he saw them in quite a few history documentaries. The first of which was a man in an black outfit with white gloves and boots, and a red cape known as the Black Marvel, along with a man in a grey and red suit that he knew to be Destroyer, both of which were men who volunteered in attempts to recreate the Super Soldier Serum. Moving down the line, Flash also spotted one Amaya Jiwe, grandmother of his friend Mari McCabe, and the previous Vixen before said friend. The next member that Barry spotted was none other than Rex Tyler, alias Hourman, the Society's second-in-command, and one of the only members of the Society who was still taking part in active hero duty, and the other one, Doctor Midnight, was standing right alongside of him. Naturally it was hard to not take notice of Miss America, another person who had volunteered for an attempt at recreating the Super Soldier Serum, but it was the last person in the group that really got Barry's attention, as he personally knew and teamed up with that person in the present day. That person was also the same man whose mantel he had unknowingly inherited the day he decided to become a superhero.

"Jay," Barry whispered as softly as he could, not entirely sure if these soldiers knew the secret identities of any members of the Society, or if said members knew each others' identities.

Indeed, there, standing before Barry, was none other than Jay Garrick, the Flash of the Justice Society, clad in his red coat, blue pants, red boots, and silver, winged helmet. "You're pretty fast kid, even if you're outfit is a little odd, but I'm afraid that I'm the fastest man alive. So, care to give us another name, and this time, make it an actual name."

"Uh…I'm the Flash," Barry revealed.

"…Wow, either he hit his head, or no one told him that name was already taken," Miss America whispered to Vixen.

"No, I mean…I'm the Flash…from the future," Barry clarified. "It's a really long story, and we don't really have time for it now. Not if we want to save everyone living in America."

Jay glanced at his teammates for a minute, all of them now very concerned with what they were hearing, before he finally looked to his fellow speedster and said, "All right. You've definitely got our attention now, son. Start talking."

The minute that Dugan had relayed Cap's orders to the rest of the Howling Commandos, the team had started brainstorming on what they could do to slow down the launch of the invasion force. So far, none of the ideas they came up with were all that doable, or even had a chance of seeing at least one of them getting out alive. The Howling Commandos were good, but not to the point where they could realistically take on an entire invasion force like this one and survive. Just when Pinkerton was about suggest another course of action, John noticed a car coming into the base, and immediately directed the others' attention to it. When the vehicle stopped, they were all surprised to see none other than Vandal Savage stepping out of the car, and briefly speaking with Red Skull before he started to board the lead plane.

"So the big man himself is going to lead the charge," John noted with a glare.

"I doubt Skull's really all that on board with that plan," Howlet growled in distaste.

"Either way, we're definitely out of time to stop them now. Lets 'em and hit 'em hard, Commandos," Dugan ordered, and every single one of his comrades all smirked in response as they readied their guns.

A minute later, the Howling Commandos had made sure that the enemy knew of their presence by raining down as much gunfire as they could on the invasion troops. Even Savage and Skull had to pause for a minute just when they were halfway up the boarding ramps of their respective planes, and while Schmidt did stop to return fire with his own pistol, Savage merely ducked and dodged whatever he could before running inside. When Schmidt noticed that had already disappeared into his plane, the Red Skull sneered in disgust, fired a few more shots at the Commandos, and then signaled the closest HYDRA troops to follow him onto his plane. The head of HYDRA had just closed the door behind him when the engines on Savage's plane fired to life and began pushing it forward, and John was not about to let it fly off that easily.

"I've got a plane to catch," John shouted over the roar of the engine after tossing his rifle and borrowed army helmet aside.

"Who do you think you are, Captain America? You can't stop them single-handed," Dugan protested.

"Watch me," John retorted as he chased after the plane.

The Howling Commandos did just that for a few minute before Gabe finally said, "That son of a bitch is crazy!"

"Yeah. I think I'm starting to like him a bit," Howlet smirked before he tossed his own gun aside and rushed after John. "This works out I'm buyin' him a drink."

"And now there's two of them," Morita groaned.

"Shut up and cover them, boys," Dugan hollered as he shot a few rounds at anyone who dared to so much as aim at either of the two Commandos that were rushing out.

Somehow, Howlet managed to get ahead of John, and swiped a motorcycle that one of Savage's escorts had ridden in on before gunning its engine. He then spun the bike around and rode over to John as he shouted, "Get on, fly boy! I'll get you to your flight!"

John only smirked in thanks as he leapt onto the back of the bike, and held on tight as Howlet raced forward as fast as the bike could take him, all while ducking and dodging whatever gunfire actually headed in their direction. There were more than a few times when they had to weave around a few soldiers that tried to bar their path, but eventually, the number was too great to drive around, and Howlet let out a low snarl as he let go of one of the handlebar and flexed one of his arms. The next thing that John saw was a set of three bone-claws coming out of said hand, and Howlet let out a loud, animalistic roar as he slashed through the soldiers that had dared to get in their way. It probably should not have surprised him that Howlet was just as vicious back in the Forties as John knew him to be in the present, but it was still shocking to see all the same.

What was even more shocking though, was when one of the walls above them was suddenly blasted open, and from the smoke of the explosion came none other than Captain America, racing in on his own motorcycle as he dropped down onto the ground close to where John and Howlet were. The captain did not slow down for even a second, but instead, grabbed his shield from his back, and tossed it at anyone that was in his path or Howlet and John's. After knocking out several enemy troops, the shield finally rebounded back into Cap's hand, and the super soldier had quickly slung it back onto his back once again just as he had pulled up alongside the two who were already chasing after the departing jets.

"Status, Howlet," Rogers shouted over the roar of the motorcycle engines and those of the planes.

"The big man of the Axis Powers is up on the lead plane, and Red Skull is in the one right behind his," Howlet shouted. When he saw Cap looking a bit conflicted, he immediately figured out what his friend was thinking. "Hey, you just worry about Skull, Rogers. He's your priority. This guy here's got Savage."

Steve gave John a quick glance, obviously not recognizing the marine from the future, but if Howlet actually trusted him to get the job done, the Steve was not going to question it. "Then let's go and put an end to this," Captain America ordered.

"Thought you'd never ask, Bub," Howlet grinned in response, and he immediately gave the bike a little more throttle so that he could race further ahead of Cap.

The rest of the Commandos watched from the corner of their eyes as their comrades chased after the jets, but they did not let their focus wander from their fight, as evidenced when Gabe jumped down into the tank they were taking cover behind, and turned it on the soldiers it belonged to. Seeing as they were running low on bullets, Dugan had no problem when he and the others scooped up some enemy rifles and started using those against HYDRA and the Nazis as well, and seeing the Howling Commandos using their weapons against them was enough to make a few enemy soldiers start pulling back, be it to somewhere else in the base, or onto one of the planes. Not that many jets were able to take off after the first few though, as Gabe made sure to aim the cannon of his tank at the jet that was about to pass him by, and blasted it into scrap metal, blocking the runway and causing a pile up that turned the rest of the jets into nothing more than flaming hunks of metal.

"The heroes make it," Falsworth asked as he paused in his shooting.

"If they haven't by now, then they're definitely about to. They've got guts; you gotta give them that," Dugan replied. "Now let's show these bastards that they're not the only ones.

Just like that, the Commandos were rushing in, and the loud explosion near the back of the runway signaled the arrival of their assault team, which was headed up by an older looking soldier and a young, brown haired woman who did not hesitate to fire their weapons at anything wearing either an Axis Forces or HYDRA uniform. None of that was important to the three chasing Savage and Red Skull, because they were just closing in, and they needed all their attention on getting aboard the planes. The minute he was close enough, Cap leapt from his bike and onto the landing gear, climbing up into Red Skull's plane the minute he had a secure hold. John would have done the same the minute they were close enough to Savage's plane, but he had to give a few last words of thanks to his driver before he took off.

"Hey, thanks for the lift you crazy wolverine man," John saluted, and he then jumped onto the landing gear of the plane just as it started to lift off.

Howlet quickly brought his bike into a skidding halt and watched the jets take off, barely even noticing how Cap's borrowed bike had blown up as it crashed nearby seconds later while he did. As he watched the jets disappear into the horizon, he had to muse over John's words for a minute, before he finally smirked to himself and said, "Wolverine huh? Heh, I kinda like the sound of that."

Even with the warning from Blackhawk, the League and the Legends were not going to kid themselves into thinking that they were going to be able to cut off the invasion fleet before they could get too far out, but they were pretty surprised by how quickly they caught up to said fleet. Considering the resources that HYDRA alone had at its disposal, they figured that it would have been much longer, until they noticed that one of the lead planes had slowed down quite a bit, prompting the others to do the same. Whether it was due to a system malfunction on the leader's jet or sabotage, none of them really cared at the moment, because it definitely helped them to catch up so they could put a stop to this invasion before could actually start. So, with no reason to wait around, the two teams set to work in destroying the jets in any way that they could. Naturally, Superman and America Chavez had barreled through several sections of the planes with their bare hands, causing severe damage to the planes from the impact of their strikes alone, while Hawkgirl bashed away at the jets with her mace at any visible point that she could. At the same time, J'onn was making quick work of tearing apart the jets in a manner similar to Superman and Chavez, while Atom just elected to blast at any jet that fell into his crosshairs, with the Waverider and Jump ship doing the same.

Looking to the Jump ship, one could easily spot Molten Man standing in the open hatch as he threw out several fireballs at the jets whenever he was able to, and at one point, Citizen Steel even leapt from the ship while hardening into his steel form so that he could crash through a section of a jet and then tear it apart both from the inside and out. Before any of the troops on the plane could attack him, Nate had quickly leapt off the plane, and was soon caught by Chavez as she flew past. Chavez made sure that her teammate made it back to one of their transports before returning to the fight just as the enemy began to return fire on them with the cannons imbedded in various points of the jets. She could not help but wince a little when she saw Superman get hit by one set of cannons, mainly because it seemed to have caught him off guard enough to make him abandon his demolition of the plane he was currently tearing into and fall from the sky a bit. At once, Chavez dove down and scooped the last son of Krypton up in her arms, ending his surprise fall before Superman needed to worry about saving himself, and immediately spun around so that she could help him get higher when he started flying again.

While Chavez was saving Superman, J'onn had started to destroy the armaments on the various planes, with a little help from Hawkgirl, but between the laser turrets and missile launchers that were firing at them, there was little time for them to really do too much to either the weapons or the jets they were mounted on before they had to either take evasive action or abandon their attack. Luckily, Atom managed to do a little more damage by shrinking down and getting inside of one or two turrets, but even with that bit of help, there were just too many weapons, let alone plane for him to do that to every single one, and not just to help them get through the fight, either. Every second that they wasted was another one that brought this deadly fleet closer to America, so you could understand why both Leaguers and Legends were feeling their worries grow as fast as their determination to win this fight.

Eventually, Hawkgirl had to land alongside the rear wing of one jet in order to catch her breath, and stay in the blind spot of the turret that was currently firing at her, and as she looked around at how many planes were still left, she had to let out a small sigh and say, "This isn't going to be easy."

"When is it ever," a familiar voice asked in reply, and Hawkgirl looked up just in time to see Diana crash through the wing she was currently leaned back against, earning a smile of relief and thanks from the winged hero.

Diana would have returned her friends silent thanks, but at the moment, her mind was completely focused on the battle, and it showed when she yanked one of the turrets off the plane with her lasso before swinging it around to further damage the jet it had previously been attached to. After deflecting a few laser bolts with her bracelets, Diana swiftly flew higher up into the air, with the rest of the present Leaguers, Chavez, and Atom right behind her, and the Waverider and Jump ship were soon falling into formation with them as well. After a brief cloud cover passed between the two teams and their targets, they could see that while they had not managed to take down too many jets, they had left quite a few heavily damaged. Not only that, but one of the jets appeared to have veered off course for some reason. That one would have been of great concern to the team, had J'onn not suddenly picked up on a familiar psychic presence from that very plane.

"Captain America," J'onn gasped in surprise, earning him confused looks from the others. Pointing to the jet that had broken formation, J'onn quickly explained, "He's on that plane battling Red Skull, right now."

"Well let's get over there and help him out," Atom suggested, already preparing to shrink down and lend whatever assistance he could to one of history's greatest heroes.

"No. That's Cap's fight, and if we try to interfere now, there's no telling what could happen as a result," Diana insisted, surprising her teammates a little.

"I'm afraid that she's right," Nate revealed over everyone's comm. links. "According to Gideon and the records we have in the library, that's the same plane where Cap had his final battle with Red Skull before falling into his icy slumber for seventy years. Anything we do right now could completely throw off history in ways that I doubt any of us want."

As much as the League hated to admit it, they knew that Nate was right. If they wanted to make sure Savage did not succeed in his plans, then they were going to have to let Cap face this battle alone. What came as more of a shock was that Diana seemed to be holding up so well with this decision, considering how close she and Cap had become since meeting, but all the same, they were not going to let it distract them from the job they had to do. Clearly the princess was not, and she proved when she said, "Then let's go take down the rest of these bastards."

When Wonder Woman took off ahead of them, the others had to pause and watch for a few minutes before following, which allowed White Canary to make a quick comment to her old teammate. "I like your new Amazon friend, Shayera. She's fierce, kicks ass, and she's hot."

"Don't get any ideas, Sara. She's already got her eyes on someone, and I'm pretty sure his eyes are locked onto her as well," Hawkgirl warned, though there was a touch of playfulness in her voice when she did.

"Hey, doesn't mean a girl can't dream, ya know," Sara replied without an ounce of shame in her voice, but the discussion ended there, because their aerial fight had started up again just seconds later.

When he first saw Savage's plane slowing down, Red Skull knew that something had to be wrong, and had been seconds away from telling his own pilots to maintain their current speed when he noticed that some of the soldiers on his plane had not checked in to report their readiness when they should have. A moment later, his own ship suddenly began slowing on its own then slowly started to drift off course, and that was when he realized that Savage was not the only one with a saboteur on board. Unlike Savage though, Schmidt had a strong suspicion of who it could be, but all the same, he still needed some form of confirmation, which was why he sent a few of his men to see what was wrong before he left the bridge himself. Several minutes later, his men had not returned, but instead, his old, patriotic foe came barreling into the room, his side arm at the ready and shield forward. Were he a lesser man, he would have been openly displaying some form of shock at the sight of the captain, or even sneered in disgust, but Schmidt had come to consider himself as something beyond human a long time ago. As such, he did not show any outward displays of distaste or anger towards Captain America, but instead, merely chuckled menacingly as he rose from his seat and turned to face the only man he could truly consider as his greatest foe.

"You never give up, do you," Red Skull remarked once he was facing the captain.

"Nope," Captain America confirmed, and he would have punctuated that by firing his pistol had Red Skull not suddenly drawn his own sidearm and fired at him. Even though his shield had blocked the attack, the force of the blast caused Cap to lose his grip on his gun and drop to an unseen location, leaving him with his shield as his only weapon. Not that this was going to be a problem for Captain America mind you.

Cap proved this by charging at Red Skull, blocking more energy bolts that were fired from Red Skull's gun, and prepared to slam his trusted shield into Schmidt's face. Skull saw this coming though, and easily intercepted the shield with his free hand, and held on tight so that he could deliver a hard punch into Cap's gut several times over. When Skull tried for another punch, Cap caught the fist in his free hand, and twisted Skull's wrist as hard as he could. The pain of his arm suddenly being twisted so harshly forced Schmidt to release his hold on his weapon and loosen his grip on the captain's shield, giving Steve just the opening he needed to slam the edge of said shield up into Skull's chin before kicking him away. Even after Skull had crashed into one of the control consoles behind him, Cap did not let up, but instead leapt towards him with his shield raised high. He only hit the control console though, damaging it quite a bit with his shield, as Skull rolled away just at the last moment, and used that opportunity to land a hard left cross into Cap's side. Several more blows followed onto the captain from Red Skull, but he managed to intercept a few with his shield, but that proved to be just what Skull wanted.

The next time that Captain America raised his shield to block an attack, Skull opened his hand, grabbed hold of the vibranium disk, and yanked it right off of the captain's arm. The sudden loss of his shield, coupled with Skull's momentum from pulling it away allowed Skull a chance to land another hit across Captain America's front, and sent Steve sprawling back over the deck of the bridge. Skull was not about to let up though, as he proved when he made his own leap towards the captain, ready to deliver another devastating blow, but Steve managed to catch Skull's arms before the attack could land. Quickly tucking in one leg, Steve then managed to kick Red Skull off of him, and then pounced forward to engage Schmidt in an exchange of fisticuffs that very few could ever hope to match. The two were punching, ducking, and parrying various punches and kicks from one another that proved just how evenly matched they were, and would have led an outside observer more than enough reason to think that the fight could go either way. Such an observer would be right in that guess, but really, all it would take was one, small thing to tip the scales in one of their favors.

Unfortunately for Cap, the scales ended up being tipped in Red Skull's favor when Schmidt's eyes found where his pistol had landed just moments ago. Despite Steve's best efforts, he was not able to get over to the energy weapon before Red Skull, and he was soon taking cover wherever he could to avoid being hit by the blue energy blasts that would have vaporized him into nothing but blue smoke and air. Thankfully, Cap spotted a way to turn the tide back in his favor again when he spotted his shield lying close to his position, and he steadily started to make his way towards it while doing his best to not tip Red Skull off to his plan. At the same time though, he had to resist groaning in annoyance as he listened to Schmidt go on yet another tirade of why he would be the one to emerge victorious, be proven superior, or some other damn thing that the captain likely could not be bothered to remember that much later on.

"You could have the power of the gods," Skull shouted out as he fired a shot at where he believed Captain America to be. "Yet you wear a flag on your chest and think you fight a battle of nations! I have seen the future, Captain! There are no flags!"

"Not my future," Captain America finally shouted in retort, and a moment later, Red Skull saw the captain dive for his shield and quickly fired a little more rapidly in an attempt to stop him. It was all in vain, because the minute he had the shield in his hand, Cap brought up and deflected a few more blasts before tossing the shield as hard as he could.

Though Captain America's aim could probably be considered as haphazard, the shield hit its mark all the same, and slammed right into Red Skull, sending him crashing into a large device in the middle of the room. After standing up again, Cap could only watch in disbelief as the device released a burst of energy similar to the kind that the HYDRA forces fired from their weapons, while an object he just barely caught a glimpse of was ejected from the top before falling to the floor. "What…What have you done," Red Skull snarled when he realized what was happening. When he saw the object apparently melting through the floor, he quickly lunged forward as he shouted, "No! The Tesseract!"

In his haste to retrieve the object, Red Skull apparently had forgotten just how dangerous it was to touch this Tesseract thing, and it was not until he had it in his hands that he had realized his folly. By then, it was already too late, and Schmidt could do nothing more than yell in anguish as the cube-like object glowed brighter, burning his hand as it did, until the glow grew bright enough that the Red Skull was completely engulfed in its brilliance. Captain America was forced to look away in order to avoid being blinded by the massive light show that had erupted, but when the light from the Tesseract finally died down along with Schmidt's anguished cries, Steve looked back to see that Red Skull had completely vanished, while the cube dropped down to the floor where Skull had just been standing. It did not stop there though, as it seemed to burn through the deck, and then the floors below until it finally disappeared from sight, doubtlessly dropping into parts unknown where Captain America could only hope it would never be found again. After seeing what it had done to his archenemy, Cap knew that the power of that thing was far too dangerous for anyone to have.

With Red Skull now gone, and the bridge completely cleared of enemies, Captain America quickly walked over to the flight controls, retrieving his shield as he went, and began looking for a solution to his next problem: stopping this plane before it could reach America. He was not too worried about the other planes, considering he could hear several explosions coming from outside both during his fight with Skull and even now, so he just focused on dealing with the one he was aboard. The minute he finished checking all of the readouts though, Steve Rogers knew that there was only one thing he could do to stop the plane at this point. He just had to hope that a certain wondrous woman would not be too upset about having to take a rain check on that dance he promised her.

Outside of the plane Cap was on, the League and the Legends were now tearing into the invasion fleet even harder than ever, and really, it was not surprising. The advantage had definitely turned in their favor once they had a firm handle on each plane's defenses and general structure, so they knew how to deal with each weapons system and where to hit the jets in order to do the most damage. Of course, most of the heavy demolition fell to the likes of Superman, J'onn, and Diana, while America Chavez, Atom, and Hawkgirl tended to focus on the weapons so those three could tear up the planes so much. That did not mean that some of them did not switch over to just basic demolition with the three near invulnerable powerhouses every now and then, but when you had a pair of time ships with several skilled and/or super powered crewmembers backing you up, it was hard not to multitask like that.

Just when they thought that they no longer had to worry too much about getting these planes knocked out of the sky before they reached America, the jets suddenly blasted forward at incredible speed, sending Superman and Chavez flying back when they ended up flying too close to the jet engines, while Hawkgirl and Atom were thrown off balance due to the plane beneath them suddenly rocketing forward. J'onn and Molten Man managed to hold on to their targets for a little longer than the others, and even ripped one of the engines off of their respective planes, even if the Martian of the two did have a little more difficult time with it due to his weakness to fire. Of course, Molten Man did need to be saved from falling to his doom, which the Legends on the Jump ship easily helped out with, but all the same, there was no way that they were going to be able to catch up to easily now that the jets had ignited these afterburners.

"They're getting away," Chavez shouted once she had righted herself, fully prepared to lead the chase in order to catch up.

Everyone had to pause a moment later though, when Superman suddenly smirked and said, "Maybe not."

Everyone was confused by what the Man of Steel meant when he said that when suddenly the planes were bombarded with several rounds of surface-to-air fire. When the clouds finally parted enough to allow them to see who was firing on Savage's planes, Leaguers and Legends alike could only grin in relief and satisfaction at the sight of the American Naval fleet firing on the jets from below, knowing just who was likely responsible for getting that little assist set up. When they saw the speedster responsible down below on the lead ship, alongside the Justice Society and the ship's captain, their grins grew even more along with their excitement, considering it was not every day that you got to team-up with such legendary heroes like the Justice Society, even if it is only due to coincidence or convenience.

"What did I tell you? Right on schedule," Barry remarked as he watched the action through borrowed set of binoculars.

"I don't know. I think they were actually a little late," Jay joked in response, earning a smile from his fellow speedster.

"Job's not quite done yet, boys," Hourman pointed out, which prompted Miss America to scoop up both Destroyer and Black Marvel while Vixen tapped her totem to channel the power of an eagle and took flight with both Hourman and Doctor Midnight in her grasp. "Flash!"

"Coming," both speedsters shouted. A minute later, they had to pause and give each other a glance that turned humorous before they raced off at super speed to join the fight.

While it would have been fun to watch the Justice Society at work, the League and the Legends were not about to just sit out on the fight, and they were soon jumping back in to provide whatever assistance that they could. Just like that, the planes began dropping like bricks off a bridge, while the sky was lit up with more explosions than the Fourth of July, be it because of the League, the Legends, the American fleet, or the Society. During the chaos, none of them had taken much notice of the one plane that had broken formation from the others, until Diana saw it heading towards the icy water below. She was about move towards it in order to see if she could save Cap, but she had to stop herself short, knowing that if she did anything now, it would mean that Steve would never join the League in the future, and that they would never meet. It was probably the hardest thing that Diana ever found herself having to do, but she knew that she had to let this happen, so she quickly turned her gaze away from the plane just so she did not have to watch it fall from the sky, with one of the bravest men she had ever met still on board.

Diana was not the only one who had taken notice of one particular plane though, as J'onn had suddenly paused in the air when he suddenly sensed a familiar presence that he had not yet seen since meeting up with the others. This distraction caused him to get hit by a random missile, though he did not know if it was friendly or enemy fire that was responsible, but thankfully, Hawkgirl was close by and managed to catch him before he fell into the water. Once Hawkgirl had managed to help her teammate get airborne again, J'onn looked to her and muttered, "Green Lantern…"

"I'm sorry, we didn't have time to tell you," Hawkgirl started to say, thinking that J'onn was only just now asking about why Lantern was not with them right now. She quickly changed her tune when J'onn interrupted her though.

"No, he's here! On board that plane," Martian Manhunter explained, turning towards the jet that had been leading the invasion fleet before it suddenly started dropping from the sky.

"WHAT," Hawkgirl shouted, and she immediately broke off from the battle so that she could chase after the falling plane. Letting Captain America's plane crash without interfering was one thing, but she would be damned if she left John behind again.

Hawkgirl barely even paid notice to how John was battling Vandal Savage alone, or the fact that he had just been blasted by said tyrant-hopeful. All she cared about was getting Lantern out of there, and the fact that she had smashed the window open with her mace so hard just punctuated the point that she was not going to leave him behind this time. "Come on! Let's go," Hawkgirl shouted as she held out her hand to him, and John did not hesitate to take it so she could fly them out of there.

Even from so high up in the air, John could hear the cheers of the American soldiers as they celebrated knocking Savage's plane out of the air, forcing the others to turn back in a hasty retreat, and even though he knew that Savage was somehow likely to survive, given how he talked like he was immortal or something, John had to smile in relief as well. That smile was quickly directed to the woman that had just rescued him as he asked, "What took you?"

"I had to fix my hair after an unexpected reunion with some old friends," Hawkgirl joked in reply, and she could not help but squeeze John's hand a little tighter, relieved to feel him doing the same just seconds later.

"Yeah, yeah, warm fuzzies all around, but don't you guys think we should go after them," Chavez asked as she indicated the remaining planes.

"Not to worry, Miss Chavez. We won't need to," Rip replied over the comm., and the others soon found out why he sounded so confident of that.

Almost like they had come from out of nowhere, the Blackhawks descended on the remaining planes to rain bullets and bombs on them without any mercy, and the Legends and Leaguers could only grin in relief at seeing that everything was likely back in order. After quickly checking in with Nate and Gideon, the League breathed greater sighs of relief when they heard that history was not back on track, and they took that as their cue to leave the Forties. Rip had offered to give them a lift back home on the Waverider, but Hawkgirl just said that they already had a ride waiting for them, and after a quick exchange of farewells, she joined the League in parting ways with the Legends. Only Flash stuck around for a bit longer, but not to speak with the Legends. No his last farewell was actually to Jay Garrick, and it came with a bit of advice.

"Keep an eye out for a kid named Barry Allen in a few years or so. You'll find that he's a bit of a magnet for things that could be considered impossible," Flash told his predecessor, and he could not help but smile a little at the perplexed look on Jay's face after he said that, even as he raced back to the portal that had sent him and the League back to this time period.

Reaching the site where they had landed in the Forties was a simple enough task for the League, but despite what they told the Legends, they were actually worried about how they would open the portal back to the present. Thankfully, a little bit of Speed Force magic was all it took to get it open again, and Flash happily led the way back to the present day that they had come from, all of them praying to whoever or whatever would listen that they would return to the future that they knew, or at least something close to it. After all, messing with time like they had been could have a number of side effects, good and bad, so there was no telling whether or not things would be exactly the same as they were before Savage had started tampering with history. They just had to hope that most of what they knew before was back to normal now.

Moments later, the League had landed back inside the lab that they had found the time machine in, and they all watched in awe as the portal sparked and flashed with incredible light and energy before it completely collapsed, leaving the room completely silent afterwards. That silence did not hold for too long, as Flash breathed a sigh of relief while commenting, "Home sweet home…I hope."

"I should've known you'd be here," a familiar voice commented to the group at large, and when they all turned towards the person who spoke, they were all soon grinning at the sight of Batman stepping out of the shadows. Their Batman. "The instruments in the Watchtower picked up this anomaly a few hours ago," the Dark Knight started to explain, not really understanding what brought on the relieved smiles that his teammates were all giving him.

Before he got too much further though, Superman had suddenly rushed over and wrapped the Dark Knight in a hug as he cheered, "Batman! It's really you!"

"…Am I missing something," Batman questioned after a minute or two of the super hug.

That seemed to remind Superman of where they were at the moment, and who he was hugging, and he quickly released his friend from the hug. "Ahem…Uh, sorry, it's just that…Well, it's a long story," Superman stuttered in response, earning amused looks from the other Leaguers.

"It must be if it's got you hugging ol' Bats like you haven't seen him in forever," someone suddenly joked in reply, and the League all turned to see another familiar, masked face that was now definitely back to normal, both in terms of his red and blue suit, and his attitude if that joke was any indication.

"Urgh, I swear, if you even think about mentioning something about online fans and certain ideas they get about those two, I will run a batarang through your eye," commented Batgirl as she stepped forward from the shadows, glaring at the web-themed hero all the while.

Before the wall-crawler in question could retort, he found himself being subjected to a surprise hug, only this one came from Flash, who was cheering rapidly with joy all the while. "Spider-Man! It's you! It's you! You're back, you're back, you're back! You're really back!"

"Yeah…Yeah, it's me," Spidey gasped out in confused response. "Wait a minute. Haven't we got this backwards? You're one of the guys who had just disappeared for several hours, so why are you saying that I'm back?"

"You're back, Spidey," Flash just shouted with joy, apparently not hearing the web-head, or just too happy to really care at the moment.

"Ah never mind," Spider-Man tiredly groaned while introducing his forehead to his hand. "I'm probably not going to get a straight answer any time soon, anyway."

"What I'd like to know is what you're even doing here? It's not like Batman to call for help on an investigation. I can understand Batgirl, but…" Hawkgirl pointed out. She was just as glad as Flash that the Spider-Man they knew and liked was back, but she was not about to admit that out loud. Especially not after she had threatened to beat him to pulp with her mace if she ever heard another joke from him the last time they met. She had a reputation to maintain.

"Yeah, he actually wasn't going to call me. Someone else decided to call in as much backup as he could to help look for you guys," Spider-Man revealed. "And boy did he make a lot of calls."

The minute that Spider-Man gestured around the room, the League was shocked to see several heroes coming forward in various different fashions. Dropping down from somewhere above them on a zip-line, came Green Arrow, who was followed seconds later by another archer who was clad in an all-black suit, with some red going up the middle and lining the arms, while a pair of red-tinted sunglasses covered his eyes. This second archer was none other than Hawkeye, the one archer in the world that was just as good if not a better shot than Green Arrow. The next arrivals came from above them, as Supergirl, Iron Man, War Machine, and Rescue landed on the other side of the room. Stepping out of the breach that just suddenly appeared out of nowhere, came Cisco Ramon, fully clad in his Vibe suit and bringing a smile to Flash's face the minute he saw him, and followed only seconds later by a man in a yellow and blue suit, with the hood on said suit pulled up so that only his jaw was visible to the world, easily allowing everyone to identify him as the infamous Wolverine. Seeing so many people who had been changed by Savage's tampering with history now back to the way they knew them to be made the League sigh in relief, and hearing these people speak up when they did just proved that they had pulled off their goal in traveling back in time.

"If you ask me though, I think they might have gone a little overboard, or just shouldn't have bothered with one or two people here. I'm looking at you, Robin Hood," Hawkeye commented as he threw a look in Green Arrow's direction.

"Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you, Legolas," Green Arrow retorted a bit harshly.

"For god's sake, are you two idiots still going on with that? Just accept that you're both good shots and leave it at that, will ya," Wolverine grumbled with his arms crossed.

"Sure, just as soon as Greenie admits that I'm better," Hawkeye replied with a smirk.

"Or when you admit that I'm better," Green Arrow countered.

"Hey, just a quick reminder," Supergirl suddenly interrupted before they could go much further. "Super hearing…It keeps one from being unable to hear an annoying argument even if they leave the room. So shut it!"

That got the two archers to go silent, because they had no desire to see what happened when a Kryptonian woman was pissed off, and Kara was clearly already at the point of annoyed. Seeing both men getting told off and frightened by her best friend, who was much smaller in comparison to either of them, quickly drew a few snickers out of Batgirl, and Spider-Man too, by the look of how he was apparently shaking with barely contained laughter, while the others all let their amusement be known in some way or another. Eventually, Diana went silent as she noticed that one particular person was not among all of these heroes, and she did not hesitate in asking about him. "What about Steve…I mean, Captain America? Isn't he here?"

The other heroes that had come looking for the League all exchanged brief glances with each other, making Diana and the others worry a little for a minute, until Wolverine finally said, "Who the hell do you think convinced Batman to call us, darlin'? 'Cause it sure as hell wasn't the annoying twerp over here."

"Aw, you know you love me," Spider-Man cooed in response.

"Watch it, web-head, or I will gut you," Wolverine snarled, unsheathing his claws on one hand to emphasize the point.

"But I'm so cuddly! Why would you want to do that," was Spidey's quick response, as he adopted what he probably thought was a cute posture.

"You mean aside from the obvious," Batgirl grumbled under her breath.

While the League could likely have continued listening to the little banter battle all day, they were much more interested on why Captain America was not in the room at the moment, when the super soldier himself stepped forward, fully decked out in his modern day suit, and smiling at them all in a way that they had not seen before. "Welcome back, soldiers. Enjoy the Forties," Cap asked with a touch of humor.

Upon seeing him, Diana immediately lit up with joy, and as a result, she did not even think before rushing over and locking lips with Captain America right in front of everyone. What did come off as surprising was how Steve did not even hesitate to return her passionate show of love, because she was sure that he would likely have been at least a little bit stunned by this. When they finally broke for air though, Diana looked into Steve's eyes, and saw the loving gaze he was now giving her as he gently brushed a hand through her hair. That, coupled with his previous words immediately clued Diana in on just why he was not so surprised about her suddenly kissing him or what was going on right now.

"You knew," Diana asked in disbelief, leading to confusion among the others before the rest of the Leaguers that had just returned from World War II became even more shocked after she elaborated. "You knew we were going to go through all of that?"

"I had some suspicions," Steve corrected. "For one thing, after I had a moment to calm down when I was first on the Watchtower, I thought John looked really familiar to someone I had met during my later days in the war, even if it was only in passing, but what really clued me in was you, Diana. The more time I spent with you, the more convinced I was that you were the same woman I had met during that same time, and without whom I would've ended up either dead or worse. This whole thing right here was just the final piece of the puzzle, and I'm really glad that I can finally talk about it with you all. You wouldn't believe how hard it was for me to keep my mouth shut about the whole thing."

Diana could not help but chuckle a little after hearing that, even if her face did turn a little red once she realized she had just given everyone a very public display of her affection for the super soldier that currently held her in his arms. Not that Steve really seemed to mind, considering how his smile grew a little wider as he stared at her lovely face. Soon enough, Flash and Hawkgirl were exchanging knowing looks, having remembered a past conversation or two that they had with Cap that likely would have clued them in about this sooner, and the touching moment would have continued had Iron Man not reminded them all that there were still other people in the room.

"Okay, seriously, what are you guys talking about? Please clue in those of us who are not in the know on your weird Justice League stuff," the armored hero practically pleaded with the League.

"Like Superman said, it's a long story," Hawkgirl replied. "None you are going to believe what we've just been through."

"Try me," Batman and Spider-Man both said in reply, making the both of them glance at one and other in slight surprise afterwards. They quickly shook it off though, thinking it was just a weird coincidence.

"Try any one of us, really," Wolverine dared as he started walking over to Green Lantern. The minute he was in front of John, he pulled back his cowl, and allowed the Lantern to see the face of James Howlet in full, as he added, "But you can do so at the nearest bar. I may not remember much about my past, but I do remember a good deal of my time in the war during the Forties. One particular thing was that I owed a certain hot-shot flyboy a drink."

John smirked in response to this and simply nodded as he said, "I think after the day I've had, I'd be more than happy to take you up on that, Howlet."

"Ah, just call me Logan, Bub," Wolverine insisted with a pat on John's back, and he was soon leading the marine out of the building so that they could find the nearest bar and get said drinks.

Seeing Wolverine and Lantern heading out prompted the others to start taking their leave from the building as well, with Spider-Man and Batman both putting out a tip to the police about this place as they left. Of course, Steve did pause for a minute as he grasped Diana's hand, getting the Amazon's attention as he said, "You know, last I checked, Logan's not the only one who has some unfinished business from the Forties. I believe that I actually owe you a dance."

While a blush did color her angelic face, Diana's smile was far more noticeable for Steve's eyes, and she would not deny that her heart was soaring a little when she heard that, and even skipped a few beats when she replied, "I'd love that, Steve."

Hearing her say that was all the reason that Steve needed to kiss Diana and the princess did not hesitate in the slightest to wrap her arms tightly around the captain as she returned that kiss. In that moment, both of them just forgot about all the pain, suffering, and tortures that they had endured to get to this point, along with everything else in the world. All that mattered right now was the two of them, this moment they were sharing, and all the moments that they would share from here on out, starting with that dance that the first, true super soldier had promised to the exiled princess of Themyscira.

AN: And that is a wrap. Cameos galore in this chapter, huh? We got us the Legends, we got us the Howling Commandos, we got the Blackhawks, and hey, look at that! We even got the Justice Society of America in there for a brief time. Hope you all liked the line-up for that team. I did my best to make it a mix and match of Marvel and DC heroes that have been depicted as being around at that time in various different media, so I hope I did okay with that.

As for the Legends, well obviously I couldn't include Captain Cold and Heatwave in the group, since I already mentioned how those two were still part of the Rogues in Central City, so I had to delve into a choice of some other villains that could likely reform. And who in all of Marvel has more villains that Spider-Man? Really, most of the bad guys in Marvel are the web-swinger's, or they're guys that tangle with him more than anyone else. So, Sandman and Molten Man, for a few obvious reasons. The former because he's been shown on multiple occasions to have a good side to him, while the latter...well, he's just there because he's got fire powers so he was the perfect candidate to take Mick Rory's place.

Moving along, we saw a lot of Legends that we've had in the past, those being Rip Hunter, Ray Palmer the Atom, Sara Lance the White Canary, and Nate Haywood, aka Citizen Steel. In other terms of other Marvels, we also saw America Chavez joining the team. I'm not sure how many people know about her, but she seemed like a good candidate to add into the Legends and keep Sandman and Molten Man from being the only Marvel characters on the team, while simultaneously making sure that Sara was not the only girl. It just didn't feel right to leave Sara to fend for herself on what would've basically been a boy's club like that. If you need a reference to the character, you can find her in that Marvel Rising series that's recently started up.

Now on the matter of the Justice Society, yes, Cap was a member at one point, but it was during his stint as a gimmick to help sell war bonds, so he did get some experience in saving lives before he joined the fight over seas, along with experience in leading a team. Speaking of Cap's teams, I hope everyone liked the Howling Commandos in this story, because I made sure to include each of the ones that everyone should be able to recognize best, including Wolverine.

Speaking of recognition, who else was expecting Cap to take the place of Steve Trevor in this chapter? Show of hands? Yeah, thought so. Was it basically a bit of a cop out in an attempt to further the relationship of Diana and Captain America...well, maybe a little bit, but could really see it going another way? And come on, you had to have seen this coming after all the times that Cap had mentioned there being another girl in the Forties besides Peggy Carter.

Oh, and before I forget, for those of you who have been hoping to see the Hawkeye, Wolverine, and so many other heroes of this series show up as themselves and not just some alternate version of them...wish granted! Logan's rocking his iconic blue and yellow suit, while Hawkeye's got his threads from Avengers: Age of Ultron, just so you guys know. And to round all of this greatness out, we've finally made WonderCap official at last!

Diana: Is that really what you're going with in terms of our pairing name?

AN: Only if I can't think of something better. Be glad you have a pairing name like that at all, unlike most of the other pairings I've done in...just about all my other stories. Oh, and by the way, yeah, I had to include that big final showdown between Captain America and Red Skull. Like I was actually going to do a chapter that took place in World War II and not show that happening. By the way, anyone else notice that Savage's planes in this arc look a lot like the ones that Red Skull was flying in his big, final game plan in Captain America: The First Avenger? No, seriously, they really do look a lot alike. Just see for yourselves the next time you get a chance.

Well, I think I've talked about everything I wanted to mention, so let's wrap this up and get Onto the Preview!...

Barely days after the incident with Vandal Savage and time travel, and before you know it, Captain America and Wonder Woman find themselves facing the trials and tribulations of their first date. Naturally both are a little nervous, but do they really have a reason to be? Maybe a little bit, but just who will they seek out advice from? And what will the other members of the Justice League and their allies do to ensure that this special night goes smoothly for the two of them? Find out next time in…Chapter 17: Date Night.

Please read and review, and I'll see you all next time, hero believers!

Once again, I would like to dedicate this chapter to the life and memory of Stan Lee, a marvel of a man, and the true first Avenger. May he rest in peace.