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Chapter Text

It was a sunny, mid-May morning in Aldbourne. A handsome German Shepherd stepped out of a tent, his pointed, triangular ears forward and alert. The only imperfections on his sleek body were a few scars down his back and haunches, a bullet-hole through his ear, and a rope burn scar around his neck, half-covered by a worn-out red bandana.

His brown eyes gleamed as he saw the group of two dogs sitting up straight in front of him: a large, bear-like Beauceron with large paws, and - an outlier - a tricolour Jack Russell Terrier with a scar across the bridge of his nose. 

“My name is Aldo, an’ I’m puttin’ together a special team, and I need me two more dogs. Two good, intelligent spy dogs.” He barked, in a Southern accent that pin-pointed him as being from around Tennessee.

“Now, ya’ll might’a heard rumours about the armada happenin’ soon.” He smirked, his sharp white canines glinting in the sunlight. “Well… We’re gonna be leavin’ a little earlier. We’re gonna be dropped into France, as unsuspectin’ civilian dogs, hardly more than a group’a house pets that lost their way, as far as the Germans are concerned. Once we’re in enemy territory, as a bushwackin’ guerilla army, we’re gonna be doin’ one thing, and one thing only…” Aldo licked his lips, almost hungrily. “Killin’ Nazis.”

The two dogs in front of him sat up even straighter than they were already, ears perked in intrigue. The two of them bit back a snarl at the mention of Nazis, all for their own respective personal reasons. 

“Now, I don’t know ‘bout ya’ll, but… I sure as hell didn’t go through spy dog school, come down from my comfortable spot by the fire in the goddamn Smoky Mountains, cross five-thousand miles o’ water, fight my way through half’a Sicily, and jump out a fuckin’ airplane to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity!” He barked, pacing back and forth in front of the two dogs. “Nazi ain’t got no humanity.” He snarled, his own disdain for them evident. He looked over the dogs again. He liked the look of the Beauceron in particular.

“They’re the footsoldiers of a Jew-hatin’, mass-murderin’ maniac, and they need to be destroyed.” Aldo said, his ears back in determination for the cause given to him by the US government. “That’s why any and every sumbitch we find wearin’ a Nazi uniform… they’re gonna die.” Aldo smirked.

“Now, I’m a direct descendant of the Custer Wolf, meanin’ I got a little wolf in me, and our battle plan will be that of a pack o’ wolves… Though instead of maulin’ cattle, we’re gonna be maulin’ Nazis.”

Now that the two dogs looked at Aldo… he did have a few wolf-like qualities hidden beneath all that Shepherd.

“We will be cruel to the Germans, and through our cruelty they will know who we are.” Aldo growled. “...and they will find evidence of our cruelty in the disembowelled, dismembered, and disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us… and the German won’t be able to help themselves but imagine the cruelty their brothers endured at our paws, and our teeth. And the German will be sickened by us, and the German will talk about us, and the German will fear us… and when the German closes their eyes at night, and they’re tortured by their subconcious for the evil they’ve done, it will be thoughts of us that they are tortured with.” Aldo finished at last, a satisfied smirk on his face. “Sound good?”

“Yes sir!” The dogs barked in unison. They liked the way this handsome German Shepherd talked.

The two dogs in front of Aldo were practically trembling with excitement by now. They were at last escaping the confines of the spy dog program and being sent out on active duty in occupied France.

“That’s what I like to hear.” Aldo smirked. Professor Cortex sure as hell picked a fine pair of dogs. He thought, satisfied. 

He came to learn the names and backgrounds of the two dogs: 

The Beauceron was called Donny. He had lived on the streets of Boston all his life: a gangly little puppy with freshly cropped ears and a freshly docked tail. The reason for his hatred of the Nazis?

His mother, a Beauceron herself, had stowed away on a boat, heading from France to Boston. She had previously belonged to a Jewish family, who loved her dearly, and took good care of her, especially when they knew she was pregnant. 

But they were hunted down by Colonel Hans Landa, known by his terrifying nickname: ‘The Jew Hunter’. The family’s home was burnt down, along with most of the village, and Donny’s mother was the only survivor. Even when she was cornered by Landa, staring down the barrel of his Luger pistol, she lunged forward and sank her teeth into his arm, knocking him to the ground and managing to escape from the village.

She travelled for many days, all the way to the docks, weighed down by her belly, getting larger by the day, and got on a highly secretive boat headed across the Atlantic, away from the terrifying Nazi regime, and she ended up in the city of Boston. 

When Donny was born, he was her only puppy. She told him the stories, and Donny’s heart ached for his mother.

When his mother died, Donny, having to fend for himself, found himself being far more intelligent than the average dog, often collecting change and pickpocketing rich tourists, then going into a local diner and ordering some food for himself. He was a regular of that small neighbourhood. It was a small, primarily Jewish neighbourhood, and most of the people living there had relatives living in fear in occupied Europe, meaning Donny heard about the brutal nature of the Third Reich all too often... 

The bigger dogs respected Donny, and so did most of the humans. No one questioned the strange but intelligent ways of this little Beauceron puppy… except for Professor Cortex. It was a much younger Professor Cortex, who was in Boston on business, working with the US Government to organise a group of highly intelligent spy dogs. He was thinking about all this, finger tapping his chin… when he felt his wallet slip out of his back pocket. He turned on his heel, but didn’t see anyone. He looked down, and saw a small black-and-brown puppy, eyes big and brown, holding Professor Cortex’s wallet between his jaws. 

Then there was the Jack Russell. He went by the name of Utivich. He had previously lived a comfortable life, owned by a loving, working class Jewish family in Brooklyn - Miriam, Felix, and their six children. They didn’t have much money, but they loved Utivich like he was one of their own. Even as a puppy, he showed a level of intelligence that was unheard of by most people. He’d help the children with their homework to the best of his ability. He’d sit up on the table and bark, jabbing at the answer with his paw. Whenever it was dinnertime, and he was craving his leftover meat, he’d go into the living room where Felix would be reading the newspaper after work. Utivich would bark and jump up on the mantelpiece, pointing at the clock with his paw. He even went to the shops with Miriam, picking up small things in a basket he carried in his mouth, while Miriam got the rest of the groceries, then they’d meet up fifteen minutes later at the front of the General Store and begin the long, uphill walk home. 

But tragedy struck when Miriam fell ill, and paying for medication and doctor’s visits meant they could no longer keep Utivich. They all cried when they said goodbye to him, even Felix. Utivich was sent to the city pound, as there was simply no other person who they knew who would take Utivich.

Utivich was miserable in the pound. He missed his place at the end of Miriam and Felix’s bed, he missed the warm cuts of meat in his dog bowl…

He passed the long, lonely days in his dark kennel by whistling - well, it wasn’t really whistling, but he tried his best. He whistled popular songs from the radio for the other dogs, some of whom hadn’t seen the sunlight in months. Utivich was a dog who was rather well-versed in pop culture. Miriam brought him to the movies with her sometimes, to keep her company when Felix couldn’t go with her, so he’d seen most popular films like Gone With The Wind and Casablanca . He described the plots at length to the other dogs, and described most of the pin-ups he’d seen in his short lifetime, like Rita Hayworth and Marlene Dietrich. 

One cold Winter’s day in 1941, Professor Cortex walked into the pound where Utivich was imprisoned. Having already found Aldo and Donny, he was stumped, most dogs not even coming close to reaching the pair’s level of intelligence. He walked straight past the kennel of a scrappy  Jack Russell Terrier, but stopped in his tracks when he heard something… whistling. 

Utivich was practising his whistling, trying his hardest to whistle a Bing Crosby song. Professor Cortex stared, open mouthed, even when Utivich turned around and stopped whistling once he realised he was being observed. Professor Cortex asked at once for the little Terrier to be taken out of his cage.

Then there was the tall, intimidating Doberman with the torn ear, who went by Hugo. Unlike the others, he wasn’t picked up by Professor Cortex. He was picked up by Aldo and the rest of the Basterds - as the Germans took to calling the elusive group of dogs - in France.

Everyone in the German Army and the SS had heard of Hugo. Previously a pet dog in Munich, he had been enlisted by his owners to be a sentry dog in the SS, before going rogue upon witnessing first-hand the horrors committed under the Third Reich in Paris, unable to blindly follow orders like the other dogs.

The reason for Hugo’s celebrity among German soldiers was simple.

After deserting the SS, he killed thirteen Gestapo officers in equally brutal ways.

Upon being captured, instead of shooting him right then and there, the high command decided to send him back to Berlin to be made an example of.

Needless to say, once the Basterds heard about him… he never got there. 

Then there was Aldo himself. Like every great dog, he came from relatively humble beginnings. 

He had lived on a ranch just outside Maynardville, Tennessee, the loyal dog of an infamous bootlegger, who made unlicensed moonshine through Prohibition into the early 1940s. Aldo was intelligent, and his beloved owner knew this. Aldo knew the ins and outs of moonshine production like the back of his paw, and could make it better than his owner could. When he’d bring it to the local bar, they’d say: 

‘Roy, this is some damn good shine, did you make it?’ 

Then Roy would smile and nod at Aldo - who was always sitting faithfully beside him - and say: 

‘No, the dog did.’ 

They’d laugh, thinking it was a joke, but Roy and Aldo knew. Aldo would wag his tail proudly, and Roy would give him a loving pat on the head. 

But by night, Aldo did more than just produce moonshine with Roy.

He violently took out local members of the Klu Klux Klan, knowing their putrid, hate-filled smell from a mile away. It sickened Aldo down to his very bones. They were shopkeepers, patrons at the bar… ‘respectable’ members of the community. But at night, they spoke vile words, lynching anyone who was African-American, Jewish, or anyone else who didn't fit their ideals…

Then, after a long night of killing racists, Aldo would wash the blood from his paws and muzzle in the creek, and get back into Roy’s bed just before dawn, curling up at his master’s feet and beginning to sleep soundly.

But one stormy night in the Smoky Mountains, after a night of killing racists, Aldo woke up to the sound of a window breaking. He barked to wake up Roy, nudging him with his cold nose. It was dark, and Aldo could barely see, but he lunged at whoever smelled like an intruder. He could smell the familiar vile scent of hatred and anger on them, and he knew at once that they were those men in white hoods, who had followed him back stealthily enough that even the hyperalert German Shepherd didn't sense them. 

But Roy and Aldo were overpowered in the struggle, and dragged outside. Aldo had to watch as his beloved master was hanged on the old oak tree at the edge of the ranch.

Once Roy stopped struggling, when his lifeless corpse began twitching, the men turned their attention to Aldo. They tried to string him up too, earning him the rope burn scar around his neck. He managed to work the rope into his jaw before asphyxiation set in, and gnawed through it. He took down all of them one by one, gripping their throats with his teeth, and tearing out vocal chords and tracheas, overcome by pain and sorrow, dead set on revenge. 

As the sun came up, and Aldo saw himself and the land around him bathed in blood, he laid beneath his master’s hanging corpse and howled mournfully. Maybe it was the wolf side of him, maybe it was the devotion of the dog side, willing to lay beside his master’s body long after it’s gone cold.

It was late afternoon when he heard a car draw up beside him. The sun was beating down on him, he was panting for all he was worth, his ears pinned back as he laid in the blood-soaked grass. A man in a lab coat blocked out the sun as he stood over Aldo. 

Out of instinct, the Shepherd snarled, teeth bared and hackles raised. But then he stopped, tilting his head and letting his guard down as he realised who this man was.

He was a patron at the bar where Roy sold his moonshine, who had always been rather kindly to Aldo and Roy - oh, Aldo’s heart ached if he so much as thought of his beloved master. This patron had seen Aldo’s intelligence: serving drinks behind the bar, balancing bottles of moonshine, even typing up telegrams on the typewriter in the back (he wasn’t too hot at spelling, but it couldn’t be helped).

“Aldo, is it?” He spoke in an English accent, a world apart from Roy’s Southern drawl. “My name is Professor Cortex. You’ve been chosen by me to perform a certain mission to…” Professor Cortex searched for the right words briefly. “...knock the Nazis down a few rungs. So, what do you say, chap?” He put his hand out. Aldo considered. He’d fought racists before, what were a few more? 

He put his bloodied paw into Professor Cortex’s hand, sealing the deal.

Chapter Text

Lara stood, awestruck, before the cryogenic freezers. She wagged her tail, her ears standing up, her eyes big and wide. These dogs had been frozen for sixty-one years . They’d been frozen in 1945, mere days after Japan surrendered and ended the Second World War. She shook her head in disbelief, scoffing at how incredible all this was. In all her years of being a spy dog, she hadn’t seen anything like this. Professor Cortex walked up to Lara and pressed a keypad, beginning the unfreezing process. He had a few folders in his hands, yellowed and faded, with ‘ CLASSIFIED BY THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT ’ stamped in red on the front.

“GM451, in a few minutes, you’ll be introduced to my earliest work, and my best work… er, apart from you, of course.”

Good save, Professor. Lara thought, amused.

“These are the original Licensed Assault and Rescue Animals… but they came to be called…” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation. “...The Inglourious Basterds, or just the Basterds for short. I always particularly detested that nickname.” 

Lara tilted her head, completely enamoured. She could see through the small window of the cryogenic chambers. There were four dogs, their eyes closed as if they were just sleeping in the icy chamber.

“They hunted down Nazis in occupied Europe, mostly SS officers. The main targets were Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Hitler, of course… but the other was Colonel Hans Landa.” Professor Cortex sighed at the memory. “The Jew Hunter, they called him.”

Lara’s eyes widened. The Jew Hunter? Must have been pretty fearsome to earn that nickname. Sounds like a right prick, if you ask me! She thought, shuddering a little.

“We never were able to find him, even after the war ended. The Basterds were hot on his heels a few times, but he always escaped, always with that cretin, Dieter Hellstrom, a high-ranking Gestapo officer. I would have killed to see them both shot.” Professor Cortex pinched the bridge of his nose again, shaking his head. 

Lara wondered why these dogs were frozen in the first place. Why not have families adopt them after the war? They certainly earned a bit of R&R. She wished she could speak. She had so many questions on her mind. 

“You’re probably wondering why they were frozen in the first place, GM451.” Professor Cortex said over the increasingly loud hum of the cryogenic chambers unfreezing the Basterds.

You read my mind, Prof! Lara thought, barking a ‘yes’, her tail thumping lightly against the concrete floor. 

“It was simply a precaution, in case the Fourth Reich ever happened.” The Professor said, almost too casually. Lara’s eyes widened, her jaw dropping slightly. The Professor cleared his throat, opening up one of the files in his hands.

“It wasn’t all that, of course. They were still in their prime when the war ended, and we didn’t want them to go to waste. The US government thought they could be used in future wars - Korea, Vietnam… but that never came to pass. The CIA were clearing out recently, and gave these lads back to me.” Professor Cortex said.

Christ, that’s some spring cleaning… Lara thought with a scoff. 

She still didn’t know why the Inglourious Basterds were being unfrozen now, of all times. It was 2006, hardly any Nazis of the past were even still alive, were they? If they were, they were in hiding, in Argentina or somewhere else that no one could make them face the horrors they’d partaken in.

Lara knew there were Neo-Nazis, or ‘those damn Skinheads’, as Ben, Sophie, and Ollie’s dad said with a sniff and a shake of his head whenever they were on the six o’clock news or in the paper, but she was pretty sure that a load of small-time racists - though harmful - were usually below MI6’s paygrade.

The unfreezing process continued, and Lara jumped as she saw a flick of the ear here, a twitch of the eyelid there. She’d seen a lot in her time as a spy dog, but she couldn’t quite get her head around the fact that these dogs were alive , still the same age as they were over sixty years ago, Professor Cortex’s first ever spy dogs… It was very, very hard to imagine Professor Cortex as ever being young. To Lara, it seemed like he’d been old and dull for his whole life. Shit, maybe he has. She thought with a little smirk. 

Finally, the cryo chambers opened, and once the icy fog cleared, it revealed four dogs…

The Inglourious Basterds, alive and well after sixty-one years - if a little stiff.

Lara could hardly contain herself. Neither could Professor Cortex.

“FC095?” Professor Cortex called, almost nervously. A German Shepherd hopped out of the middle chamber, stretching out his limbs, his ears perked - one with a bullet hole through it exactly the same as Lara’s. He had a rope burn scar around his neck partly covered by a worn red bandana. Despite this, he was very handsome. Lara was loyal to Potter - she’d had his pups, for God’s sake - but she wasn’t blind.  The Shepherd sat, wagging his tail, his brown eyes attentive. He winked at Lara and she couldn’t help but blush. Ooh, I wonder if Spud and Star would fancy a new dad! She thought. She wasn’t being serious. At least, she was pretty sure she wasn’t.

“Ah. Aldo. Good to see you awake, old boy.” Professor Cortex greeted. Aldo barked, his tail wagging faster, but he was looking around in confusion. Everything had changed… One minute, he was lying on a cold examination table, a nurse that looked a hell of a lot like Rita Hayworth - a definite plus, in Aldo’s book - injecting him with something that made his eyelids grow heavy.

The next, he was in 2006, in another cold, sterile room, but this time, he was surrounded by machinery, now having to get to grips with a world he didn’t understand.

The next three dogs unfroze. There was HS059, a Beauceron who went by the name of Donny. He was tall, intimidating, strong, with German army dog tags around his neck - trophies, perhaps?

Then there was TS233, also known as Hugo. A huge, stoic Doberman with sharp teeth and cold eyes. From the few words he did speak, Lara could hear that he had a German accent. He had whip marks down his back. He had one torn ear, the end of some kind of symbol visible on what was left of it. A Nazi swastika, Lara guessed. Her eyebrows raised when she realised that he probably tore his own ear off to get rid of it, to run from his past, whatever it involved.

Then, finally, there was RH051, who went by Utivich - a rather strange name for a dog, Lara had to admit. He was totally different from the other Basterds. He was a small, wiry, and overall unassuming  Jack Russell Terrier, white with tricolour spots. He wore a battered blue collar around his neck, signifying that he had once had a home, many years ago… 

Aldo, the German Shepherd, padded up to her, smirking, his ears forward. “Hey, little lady.” He smirked. Lara couldn’t help but find it charming - though she was irritated by the nickname. “Hey, you’re Aldo, right? Leader of the Inglourious Basterds?” She replied, trying to keep her cool though she was absolutely bowled over by the fact that she was one of the first to speak to this dog since 1945. “Damn right I am. Leader of these fine fellas.” Aldo replied proudly, looking over his men. “That there’s Donny, my right hand man. The Nazis called him the Bear. Then there’s Utivich and Hugo.”

Lara nodded to them, and they nodded back.

“Why were you called ‘the Bear’?’ Lara inquired. Donny smirked. “Because I mauled Germans like one.” He said in his Boston accent. Lara’s eyes widened but she smirked. She’d never killed a man before, it was odd meeting a dog who had - many, many times.

The Basterds sat down in a line in front of Professor Cortex, their nerves shot to hell because they now had to get to grips with being sixty-one years in the future.

“The Inglourious Basterds… as I live and breathe.” Professor Cortex said breathlessly, hands clasped together with excitement. “You haven’t aged a day, chaps.” 

You sure as hell have, Professor. Donny barked, earning a little laugh from the others, including Lara. They were glad humans couldn’t understand what they were saying for once. 

“Now… you’re probably wondering why you’ve been unfrozen now, in the grand year of 2006.” Professor Cortex walked over to a whiteboard with a multitude of photos taped to it, photos of SS and Gestapo officers, Nazi doctors and scientists, and more notable figures like Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, and Eva Braun. There were things written on it, too; long, rambling paragraphs, and simple, vague sentences such as: ‘ OPERATION PAPERCLIP?!? ’ , ‘ LANDA ALIVE?!?! ’

The Basterds tilted their heads, recognising a few of the officers, especially an SS officer and a Gestapo officer, both circled in red as vital targets. The SS officer was middle-aged, greying hair matching his crisp grey SS uniform, his eyes holding a darkness that made Lara squirm. The Gestapo officer was younger, more fresh-faced, with light brown hair, but was still terrifying. His eyes were as dark as the uniform he wore. They were both rather handsome - if one was turned on by genocidal maniacs, that is.

“You all know Colonel Hans Landa of the SS, or ‘the Jew Hunter’ as they called him,’ Professor Cortex gestured to the photo of the SS officer. ‘…and Major Dieter Hellstrom of the Gestapo.” He gestured to the photo of the Gestapo officer. The Basterds pinned their ears at the mere mention of the pair, visibly tense. 

“Well… intelligence has told me that the Nazis had the same idea we did at the end of the war. Landa and Hellstrom were cryogenically frozen. Now they’re in North America, trying to start the Fourth Reich… with a whole load of redneck skinheads. They’ve had surprising success. They started in Harrison, a small town in Arkansas… and they’ve taken the whole state, and then some.” Professor Cortex raised his eyebrows. The dogs shook their heads. But they’d already helped to take down one Reich - they were willing to help take down another.

Aldo let out a sharp bark, wanting to get to it right away. If a couple of Nazis decided they were going to throw their weight around and undo over sixty years of progress, Aldo and his boys wanted to be the first to try and stop it.

“Steady on, FC095. You’ve obviously been frozen for over six decades, so I thought GM451 could teach you how to blend into the twenty-first century.” Professor Cortex stated, then he paused as footsteps could be heard coming down the concrete hallway. “...As well as that, I have to train our new agent. Here he is now.” 

The dogs looked to the side, where the footsteps were coming from, and out of the dimly lit hallway walked a boy who couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty. His skin was soft and pale, save for some slight acne, and a smattering of freckles across his face. 

He had short brown hair and big, watery blue eyes that made him look as pure as a lamb as he squinted under the bright fluorescent lights of the cryo room. He was rather skinny and gangling underneath his black hoodie, jeans, and black Converse. He smelled of cigarette smoke and cheap aftershave, and Lara wrinkled her nose in distaste. 

“Ah, there you are, Agent Cohen.” Professor Cortex greeted. He turned to the dogs. “This is Agent Jonah Cohen.”

“Uhh… hey.” He muttered awkwardly, in an American accent.

Lara tilted her head. Agent? He’s hardly out of school! 

She glanced at the others. Aldo glanced at Donny, eyebrows raised. Jonah shifted uncomfortably as he shook Professor Cortex’s hand. 

He noticed Lara’s tilted head and disapproving gaze and sighed. “Yes, GM451, I know he’s… practically a child, but-” 

Jonah sighed irritably and rolled his eyes. He’d heard this so many times before. “Look, Professor, I know you think I’m some undescended testicle, but in this country I’m old enough to drink, smoke, and enlist in the army so… I’m not a child, and every agent here is either a fucking dog or over the age of sixty. So I think you fucking need me.” He said, not quite a snap but certainly cuttingly. Lara and the others pinned their ears. Jonah paused, considering something, running a hand through his hair.

“But… that said, Professor…” He began. “Why me? I haven’t even finished college yet. I mean, I know you want me to kill Nazis and all, which I am happy to do-” He rambled, clenching his fists at the thought of killing Nazis. 

Professor Cortex put his hand up for silence. “Yes, that is true… I want you to kill Nazis… However, you said it yourself,” The professor walked over to Aldo and grabbed his muzzle, checking him over. “Every human agent here is mostly over sixty. Far too old now to be going to America and hunting down Hans Landa… or so MI6 and the CIA, in all their ‘infinite wisdom’ think.” He sniffed in contempt. “I’d rather they go do the job. But I have you to train up now…” Professor Cortex sighed, standing up again and moving to look over Donny, Hugo, and Utivich, who were sitting patiently beside Aldo. “...however, you’ll fit in with all the other young American lads following Landa and Hellstrom, all aspiring Dylann Roofs and Timothy McVeighs.” He said distastefully. 

He turned around to Jonah and looked him up and down. “Yes… we’ll make something of you yet, Agent Cohen.”