Hiraeth

Aurdel walked down the path ahead of him, there was an audible click each time the heel of his MJOLNIR’s boots met the paved cobblestone. Eventually, after walking around a hundred feet, he stopped. There were eyes on him. Or, more specifically, the eyes of another Spartan. “Put the SPNKR down Randall, I’m here to talk.”

There was a sound of rustling from the brush, as Randall stepped out of the bushes with the rocket launcher over his shoulder. He was also wearing his set of MJOLNIR Mark IV, battered, beaten and physically worn after over a decade of use and ad-hoc repairs. “Funny, that’s the same thing that the ONI agents who were sent my way said. They were standing about five feet behind where you are now before I shot them dead.”

“If you’re going to kill me, then I suggest you get it over with now. Because I’m not going to fight you,” Aurdel pulled off his helmet.

“Aurdel?” Randall lowered his weapon, “But how are you… You’re supposed to be dead. I saw your name in the-“

“Spartans never die, remember?” He said, letting out a sigh. Are you willing to hear me out?”

“Were you followed?”

“Obviously, but that’s actually because they trust me less than they trust you right now.”

“Funny how these things work out.”

“Yeah.”

Randall turned his back, waving him down the path. Before continuing on he motioned for the soldiers following him to halt, making sure that they didn’t unintentionally provoke Randall. The two of them then began to walk down the path together. “When were you reintegrated into the program?”

“Three years ago. After my ship went down they pulled me alone out of the wreck, told me that I was too valuable of an asset to lose in a simple naval engagement. I didn’t want any part of it, but it’s impossible to say no to ONI.”

“That’s what you think. I’ve been saying no to them ever since they tried to pull me back to the UNSC.”

“My circumstances were different, I couldn’t afford to make the same decision.” Eventually the two of them arrived at his house.

“Make yourself at home, you may as well be careful as talk,” as they walked inside Randall gestured towards a couch. “Don’t worry, I reinforced the frame.”

And so Aurdel sat down, resting his helmet on his lap. Eventually Randall sat down next to him after setting down the rocket launcher. They sat in silence for a moment. “We lost Daisy and Ralph last month, Sargasso was falling and they were supposed to get off the planet. They both died at the extraction point. John found them there.”

“There are less and less of us every year.”

“The war isn’t showing any signs of slowing down, and there were only so many of us to begin with. I’m only back because I was one of the salvageable ones. You should understand why they would want you back.”

Randall looked him in the eyes, “I’m not going back.” Then he turned his head, as if ashamed of himself. “You, all the other Spartans, you’re like family to me. But I can’t go back. I’ve been gone too long, and my ties are too deep now.”

The look he’d seen in Randall’s eyes, he knew what it was. Aurdel looked up towards the door to one of the connecting rooms, “How old is she?”

“A year old. Her mother died during childbirth, I’ve been raising her by myself ever since.”

He looked down, “I’m sorry.”

“Most people are, but that’s besides the point. If I leave Natalie to rejoin the UNSC it means that there’ll be no one to take care of her. Even if I did manage to find someone, I’d still have to worry about the risk of ONI kidnapping her like they did to us. That’s not even accounting for the fact that the Covenant could come back at any time and try to glass the planet.”

“I know, which is why ONI is giving up on trying to reintegrate you. Instead they’re willing to make a deal with you.”

“A deal?” Randall raised an eyebrow.

“ONI is willing to leave you and your family alone for time immemorial, they won’t ever try to recruit you or your daughter. But there’s a set of caveats.”

“It wouldn’t be ONI if there wasn’t.”

He continued, “First, you would have to leave Vodin. They’ve already prepared arrangements for you to move into a home on Sedra.”

“Sedra? That’s on the opposite edge of human space.”

“Second, you would need to swear an oath of complete secrecy about the Spartan II program. The kidnapping, the training, the augmentations… All of it.” Aurdel paused.

“Saving the worst for last?”

“The last caveat is… You would need to go through augmentation removal and hand over your suit of MJOLNIR.” Randall looked at him, “Yeah, that’s why I saved it for last.”

“I can’t do that.” He stood up, like he’d been offended. “This armor, it’s a part of me. It’s a part of being a Spartan. I can’t knowingly accept-“

“For the love of God man, think!” Aurdel stood up, grabbing him by the shoulders. “The reason why they sent me to talk with you instead of a strike team is because everything going on right now is lighting a fire under the asses of everyone associated with the program.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Spartans, you and the others who were augmented, were supposed to go public back in twenty five twenty seven. But then Soren happened.”

“Soren…” Randall tightened his fist.

“Soren’s desertion put everything under the close scrutiny of ONI and Admiral Parangosky, though eventually the program as a whole was still judged as fit to serve. But now that you’ve reappeared and have shown that your actions were partly out of active desertion, they’re going over the program again.”

“Won’t it have the same result?”

“No, there’s… Look, there’s so much I can’t tell you. But they’re trying to replace us entirely.” He let go of Randall, taking a step away.

“So, ONI is making me choose. Either I choose my family, my own flesh and blood, or I choose my identity as a Spartan, all of the people that I trained with.”

“Yes.”

“Funny how these things work out…” He echoed his words from earlier, “The others will judge me for this, won’t they?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But if it helps you at all I’ll stand by your decision. Regardless of what you choose. I know just how hard of a position you’re in, and I don’t intend to let ONI pull a fast one on you too.”

Aurdel shot up from his bed in a cold sweat, hyperventilating before finally managing to calm himself down. He looked around, finding that he was still where he’d left himself the previous night. Once he was sure, he let out a sigh of relief. As if things weren’t bad before with him experiencing past memories while he was using the robot body, they were now happening when he wasn't using it either. He ran a hand across his face. Had using that thing unintentionally crosswired and fused some of the neural pathways in his head? Or was he just completely losing grip on reality? There was no way to tell without an in-depth brain scan, something he had neither the equipment to do or trust to ask someone else to do.

Aurdel stood up from the bed, putting a hand on the empty suit of MJOLNIR that stood vigilant above him as he slept. Using Overhaul he was able to disassemble it and reassemble it back on top of himself in almost an instant without any problems. Or, so he thought. “Crap,” he muttered on his breath, reflexively reaching for his back in pain. Somehow the section of the undersuit and armor that rested on top of his shoulder blades was too tight, something he couldn’t quite understand. He hadn’t changed any of the specifications of his suit, and he certainly wasn’t growing anymore. Whatever, he’d just have to increase the spacing. He ran his hand I’ve Ethel back of the suit, adjusting it to be just right. After that he left his room.

“Oh, you sure are up early.” Mirko was busy in the kitchen, making herself breakfast. She wore an apron on top of a casual set of clothes.

“I could say the same thing to you. I need to get to the school and handle some things, but you don’t really have work hours that are set in stone.”

She shrugged, “What can I say? Something decided that I would wake up this early, so I’m just going to stick with that decision.”

“Sounds nice to be able to follow the actual natural rhythms of your body. I’m stuck chasing a certain amount of hours.”

“It’s always really been about the quality of sleep, not how long you sleep,” she picked up the pan, sliding her eggs onto a plate. “Do you want me to make something? May as well have something since the pan is still hot.”

“Can you cook a dozen eggs?” Mirko raised an eyebrow, “What, you think I’m joking? You of all people should know that you need to have sufficient protein to maintain muscle mass.”

“I’ll cook three eggs.”

He shrugged, “Then I’ll take three.” She turned around, plucking the eggs from the carton before cracking them open and dropping them into the pan. “You know, it’s been a long time since I’ve had someone else make a cooked meal for me.”

“Too paranoid to eat someone else’s food?”

“Actually, no. I’ve had quite a bit. Surprisingly the UNSC has a lot of decent cooks serving in the marines and the navy,” he folded his arms, “The problem is that every soldier, usually depending on the service, has a specific diet. Ground pounders need meals that are light but calorie dense, flyboys essentially live on a liquid diet and the navy crews need carb dense meals with a lot of antioxidants.”

“And which would you fall into?” She lifted the pan off the stove, plating the eggs.

“None of the above, which is exactly the problem,” she walked over with both plates, and the two of them sat down at the dining room table. Thank God he’d reinforced the furniture. “I compared my diet with the other Spartans, and I found that the average Spartan, to maintain peak bodily form, needs around ten thousand calories. Active combat needs around twelve to thirteen thousand calories.”

“Holy crap,” Mirko looked astonished, “That’s more than several olympic athletes. A breakfast like this-“

“Won’t even put a dent in what I need? Yeah.” As if to demonstrate his point, he practically scarfed down the three eggs.

“So what exactly do you eat?”

“MREs. Lots and lots of MREs.”

She scoffed, “I don’t know much about the military, and even I know that those things supposedly taste awful.”

“Well, I have to tell you that for all the variety that they supposedly provide to soldiers they sure don’t deliver when it comes to taste.” He raised his fork, “After two decades of service and over eighty different MRE types you’d think that I’d hate the taste less, but all I managed to do was learn to tolerate some of the worst food known to man. There were times that I chose to literally chew on tree bark than eat what we were supposed to.”

She laughed, digging into her own breakfast. “Seriously?”

“I’m not even kidding!” He put the fork down, “Back when I was still in training, our commanding officer was weaning us off the normal meals we were used to. Trying to get us adjusted to the ‘Spartan diet.’ So for one of our exercises, we practiced going on an ‘extended deployment.’ Effectively what that meant was dropping us in a mountain with minimal supplies, giving us tasks to complete and all the while he would be harassing us the entire time with his men. We were up there for over a week.” He picked up his plate, continuing his story as he walked over to the kitchen sink. “Each time we had an exercise he would always give us some sort of disadvantage, as a sort of problem to solve. For this exercise the problem was the fact that he’d replaced half of our food and water supplies were completely inedible, meaning that on paper we didn’t have enough to actually complete the mission.”

“So you gave your food to someone else so they could have it?”

“No, I was immature and threw a fit about having to eat stuff that tastes like garbage. Then when my team got angry and asked what I’d eat I ripped a chunk of bark off the nearest tree and demonstrated.”

“You’re joking!”

“No, that’s seriously what happened. At first I thought that I made my point, but in the middle of my night I ended up having a protein bar crammed down my throat and nearly choking. So for the rest of the exercise I just played nice and ate what everyone else did.”

She finished her own eggs, “Did the bark at least taste good?”

He dropped his plate into the sink, rinsing it down. “It wasn’t actually as bad as you might think. Reach has a unique species of tree native to the planet, one that has slightly softer wood inside, somewhat brittle bark and a nice sweet sap. It was like eating sweet chips, though you could tell you were eating wood after a while because you’d get the bark aftertaste and all the shreds in your teeth.” His fond recollection was cut short as he was reminded of the reality of what had happened. Reach… “Well, it had trees like that anyways.”

She picked up her plate, walking over to the sink. He meanwhile went back over to the table and picked up his helmet. “You know, it’s nice to get a chance like this. To just sit down and talk. Hell, ever since I became a Hero I never really had any chance to connect. Just the family I keep in touch with.” He narrowed his eyes at his helmet, looking at his face reflected in the visor. It was hard to describe just what he saw. “Hell, just being and to talk to and know you like this makes me wish I could talk with the people you keep mentioning in your stories. I think it’d be nice.”

With his back turned, she couldn’t see his face. He took one last look in the visor before putting on the helmet. “Yeah. That’d be nice.”

A Change in Spirit

As Aurdel walked into Class 1-A’s dorm building, he found it to be completely abuzz with activity. Even so early in the morning. “Kaminari, close the window if you’re done putting up the decorations outside! You’re letting in the cold air and it’s making Asui seize up!” Jiro shouted.

“Ah, my bad!” He shouted, quickly running over to shut the window. Once it was closed the heat quickly began trapping itself back in the room.

Aurdel stared out the window, watching the snowfall. As part of his training as a Spartan he’d learned to survive the harshest of climates. Chief among them were heavy blizzards. So for him weather like this wasn’t worrying in itself. What was worrying was the fact that weather was happening in Japan… No, not just Japan. The fact that these kinds of weather conditions were happening at all in a subarctic climate was absurd, and he couldn’t put a finger on why it was happening. “On my Earth, none of the winters were this bad. Not even in some of the more extreme regions of the globe. Is this really how bad winters in Japan are?”

Midoriya walked over to answer his question, “I never really paid it much attention or gave it any thought, but… No.” Midoriya seemed to be thinking back, to try and make sense of it too. “I guess I didn’t really notice it since each winter was only somewhat worse than the last one, but so far this winter has been much worse than anything when I was very young. Even compared to last year it’s a big jump.”

“Really…?” Curious, Aurdel decided to do a small investigation. Aurdel brought up his tacpad, using his visor to display the information in front of him. Quickly he gained access to a number of databases, both public and private, and began pouring over all of the information that he had at his fingertips. As he did he repeatedly looked for any sort of pattern, anything that might be able to explain the reason why the weather was experiencing such a drastic change from what he knew. What he thought was the most likely possibility was that of climate change, with chemicals being pumped into the atmosphere with reckless abandon for the consequences and drastically affecting Earth’s ability to properly retain heat. But to his shock, this wasn’t the case. As it turned out, on this Earth effective measures to reduce the onset of climate change had been put in place a long time ago. As even with the continued use of fossil fuels for production and regular consumer use, there seemingly hadn’t been any significant increase in production or usage of those fuels. On top of that CO2 emissions hadn’t seen any drastic increase or decrease either, instead remaining rather stable. That’s not to say there likely wasn’t some domino effect from those measures, these things always had one, but this wasn’t the correct answer. The drastic change in global temperature and weather patterns was only relatively recent, with the first major signs beginning around thirteen years ago. Though there were some minor changes even before that.

With one avenue of investigation closed, he searched through the second most likely reason for the changing weather. Deliberate weather manipulation. Finding a way for humanity to conquer nature and manipulate weather is a tale as old as time, with some of the most prominent work occurring at the end of the nineteenth century with Nikola Tesla and then again at the tail end of twentieth and beginning of the twenty first century. And for something as drastic as the changes they were currently seeing, his suspicions fell on the usual suspects. Similar to the history of his own Earth, the United States had invested in weather manipulation for a long time. Here their previous attempts were failures, meaning that up until five years ago weather manipulation was officially abandoned by the US government. As for why the program was renewed, it was to counter the imminent famine that was approaching as swathes of farmland in the American Great Plains died and were left barren year after year. His second suspect was, quite obviously, China. Long competing with the United States in the fields of economics and science, the Chinese government had attempted to do what the Americans could not. And in a way, they had succeeded. Utilizing cloud seeding and other methods to induce heavier rainfall into parts of the country that normally did not see much rain, they were able to rapidly expand the amount of arable land available to centrally planned farming. As a result crop yields skyrocketed, the price of food went down and the country went through a small economic boom. But that was just for two years after the program started. The next year disaster struck, as following an accident with the cloud seeding software an overabundance of chemicals was deployed and resulted in the newly tilled farmland effectively being poisoned. The resulting famine led to the deaths of millions across the country, and the program was abandoned. For him this left only one primary suspect, India. Similarly to China, the country had begun attempts at weather manipulation to increase crop yield and reduce its reliance on the import of foreign goods. This was done through the induction of artificial monsoons and the fertilization of lands that did not typically see the level of rainfall appropriate for farming. India saw similar initial results to India, but the rebounding effects were… Much different. Following several years of artificially induced rainfall, the Indian subcontinent underwent several years straight of extreme droughts that resulted in nearly thirty millions deaths as a result of starvation and thirst. If that weren’t bad enough, when the several year long drought had finally ended it was followed up by one of the absolute worst monsoon seasons the subcontinent had ever seen. Record rainfalls were recorded, destroying swathes of what little farmland had managed to survive the drought and causing massive levels of destruction through major flooding in urban centers. Once the weather had finally managed to reach stable levels once again, attempts by India to control the weather were completely abandoned. But with that final detail, it meant that he was out of likely suspects for his theory on weather manipulation. And without a suspect, that possibility was likely a bust.

“Mr. Aurdel, do you think that someone could be behind the drastic weather?” Midoriya asked.

“Of course there is. Something like this doesn’t happen without deliberate action, or deliberate inaction at the very least.” Aurdel kept on his search, checking any other possibilities. Was there a shift in the Earth’s axis? No, according to his data it was still the same.Was there a dramatic thinning in the ozone layer? No, at least not overall. Certain areas of the globe had seen seemingly random periods of ozone depletion and restoration, but there was no indication that the overall-

“I think you misunderstood what I said,” Midoriya clarified, “What I meant was… Could one person be responsible for it?”

The question broke the almost trance-like state he’d been put in, snapping back to reality. Right, even while being here he often forgot about just how much was different from the world that he’d known. “You think that someone with a weather manipulation quirk could be responsible for all this?”

“I’m not sure, since I don’t really have any proof of it. But I don’t think that it’s a possibility that can be ruled out.” Midoriya clutched the box filled with decorations in his hands, “There’s a lot of people around the world, and with such a large number of people comes a large variety of quirks. I don’t doubt that someone could be born with a quirk like that.”

Aurdel cleared most of the data off of his visor, switching to weather projections for countries all across the globe. “I suppose you can’t discount it, but I don’t think it’s the cause. The level of change is simply too prolonged and extreme. Not to mention the fact that these extreme conditions aren’t isolated to Japan. Most of Asia, Europe and North America is seeing very low temperatures with high levels of snowfall. Even parts of the Middle East and North Africa that don’t normally ever get any snow are getting it.”

“But if it’s not that then what could it be?”

He wiped the data off his visor, clearing his view. “I don’t have an answer to give you, since I’m not sure myself. But I don’t think it’s anything you should be worried about.”

“Hey, Mr. Aurdel!” Ashido ran over, “Can you lift me up so I can put decorations up on the wall?”

“Can’t you use a ladder?”

“I went to ask the support course for one, but they’d already loaned all their ladders out to the other classes. Come on, it’ll be quick!”

He sighed. “Alright, fine. But make sure it’s quick. I want to grab some of the guys and find a tree to bring back so you can all decorate it.”

Ashido jumped up onto his back, using the ridges on his armor like climbing holds and clambering on top of him. Once she’d finally made it up she stood on his shoulders, also using thrusters built into the back of his armor to get a little bit of additional height. “Why are you only taking the boys to get the christmas tree? Also, move a little bit over to the right.”

He sidestepped a little bit to the right, holding onto Ashido’s legs to make sure she didn’t lose her balance and fall. “Because I know that if we end up bringing back the biggest tree we can, they won’t complain.”

Ashido lifted the ribbons, pinning them to the wall. Aurdel shuffled to the side to let her keep working. “Isn’t that kind of-?”

“Before you finish that sentence, I want you to ask yourself whether or not what I said was actually wrong.”

She pouted, “You’re really back and forth, you know that? Sometimes you’re saying and doing a lot of stuff that makes sense, then other times you make comments that only a grumpy old man with outdated opinions would say.”

“That being your response just proves my point,” he continued shifting to the right.

“But don’t you work with Mirko?”

He sighed, “There’s a difference.”

“Which is?”

“Rumi is a grown adult,” he turned, “Look, the point I’m trying to make is that it’s easier to get work done with men because they naturally tend to complain less. It’s just something naturally impressed into most boys from a young age, like bottling up everything you feel to avoid the off-chance of inconveniencing someone.”

There was a momentary pause. “That’s…Uh…”

“Keep in mind that I said most, because every once in a while you’re going to have-”

“Get out of my way, there’s a sight that I need to behold!” Mineta shouted, running towards them.

“...Exceptions. Case in point.” He turned his head to the left slightly, “Sero!”

“I’m on it.” Sero fired out a length of tape, quickly grabbing Mineta.

“You traitor! Seeing up a skirt is like a rite of passage in high school, you can’t deny me this. Especially not when it’s practically being handed out for free!”

“The only thing you’d be getting for free is an expulsion once you finally do something that crosses the line.”

Overhaul sat at his desk with his hands folded. After getting his quirk restored, he’d gone back to those Villains to discuss what would be done moving forward. Initially he’d thought that he would be able to wrestle control of the League from the walking corpse that led them, but apparently in the time that he was gone the man had actually managed to grow a spine. They’d managed to find a sponsor for their work, and they’d been working hard to earn their keep. It gave them a greater deal of resources to work with, but sharing wasn’t the Shie Hassaikai’s strong suit. So for them… It would mean going back to their old ways. Overhaul motioned to Daitaian, “Send them in.” Daitaian nodded, walking out the door to his office. Within a minute he’d returned with eight other men. Three were loyal to the Shie Hassaikai, five had chosen to turn tail and run the moment that they thought the authorities were onto them.

“Boss! You’re really out of prison?!” One of the men exclaimed, startled. “We knew you would make it out eventually, but not so soon!”

“Is that right?”

“Of course! We would never even think of betraying you, you’ve done too much for us!”

“Maybe it’s not something you would consider now, since I’m free. But you already abandoned the Shie Hassaikai when things got tough, and that is absolutely unacceptable.” Overhaul stood up from his chair, the three loyalists kicked the five traitors to the ground. The man vigorously trying to defend himself was one of the Shie Hassaikai’s more important local managers, running a number of shell companies and distribution routes in Northern Japan that ran into the Russian Far East. Overhaul had thought that he was one of his most loyal followers, but he was wrong. When the Heroes had come down on the clan he had burned all ties with the Shie Hassaikai, emptying the accounts he managed and fleeing with a number of his lieutenants into Siberia. A few loyal members of the Shie Hassaikai had managed to keep track of his whereabouts, allowing him to be brought in. No level of laying low or even facial reconstruction surgery could have saved him. The other four men were a mix of other less important local managers and enforcers, those who would monitor the day to day operations on the streets. Each of them had been valuable in their own way… But loyalty was not something he could afford to lack.

“You need to understand what our situations were like, boss! We didn’t know what we were supposed to do! You were gone, your close advisors and men were gone and the police and Heroes were scouting out all our locations! If we tried to-“

“Do you really think that you would have been caught? Don’t try to fool me with an emotional plea. I know how remote and hidden our operations in the far north were, along with all the men we had there to run counter-information against law enforcement. The fact of the matter is that they wouldn’t have shut down our operations in the north had you not done anything.”

“Please, boss. I’m begging for your forgiveness, boss!” The man pressed his head against the floor, bowing in apology. Overhaul walked out from behind his desk, moving next to the man. Here was one of his once trusted lieutenants, prostrating himself on the floor and begging for his life. A Yakuza man begging… In another world he may have received mercy, but here trust can only ever exist once until it is broken.

“Your actions will be forgotten.” He perked his head up slightly, thinking he was about to receive forgiveness. “But so will the fact that you ever lived.” Overhaul raised his foot and quickly brought it down on the man’s neck, snapping it and killing him in an instant. The other four men looked up at him in horror. “Execute the others and hide their bodies in the sea, but make sure this one is found. I need a message to be sent to the rest of the traitors that may still be out there.”

“No, wait, boss!” The men called out in fear as they were dragged back out of the room by his loyalists, pleading with him. Those who had betrayed the Shie Hassaikai, who had betrayed him, would receive no mercy.

“You don’t want to bring in the others for personal punishment?”

“No, that would be a waste of time. One formerly powerful lieutenant is more than enough to send a message to the rest. No one, no matter how much influence they think they may have within the clan, is untouchable.” He walked back over to the desk, sitting down again. “There is more important business that needs to be dealt with right now.”

“Which is?”

“Do you remember that western cult I talked to you about? The one that’s based out of Otheon.”

“I do. They were trying to smuggle something into Japan from overseas, then they wanted it distributed to a number of locations across the country. You were hesitant to consider taking the job at the time, while the Old Man straight up refused to take any job offers from them.”

“That’s right. At the time I didn’t want to take their offer because the price they were paying seemed like an incredible lowball, and they were unwilling to negotiate any raising of the price. The Old Man denied them because he said there was no amount of money that could clear his conscience of what they were likely planning. But now…”

“Did they send another to bring in their cargo?”

“They did, and they’re offering nearly five times as much as they did back then. It’s an outrageous deal that I don’t believe we can afford to turn down.” For one of the very few times in his life, Overhaul wasn’t sure what to do. “We worked with them in the past to import large quantities of trigger and refining chemicals into Europe, but I don’t trust them.”

“It’s reasonable not to trust them,” Daitaian said, waving his hands as he elaborated, “They’re a western doomsday cult predicated on theories that have no way to be proven in a book written by a scientist who has long since been lost track of. And though I know that their goal of eliminating quirks does line up with your own, I won’t hesitate in pointing out the fact that they have no concrete image for the future. Destroying quirks is the only thing they have their eyes set on.” He turned, “Though I suppose that in the end, that would work out for a group like ours.”

“Someone needs to be alive to pick up the pieces afterwards, and it wouldn’t hurt if that someone was us. Though it’s a matter of whether or not their plans have the correct scope, or if they can even succeed.”

“But if they’re planning something this far from Otheon, they likely have operations planned out all across the rest of the globe. And if they manage to succeed in wiping out quirks, the Yakuza would be able to come out on top again. Just like it had in the past.”

Overhaul tapped his finger together, giving the idea more thought. Helping these guys out could very well lead to Heroes putting even more pressure on them, but it could also help them in the long run. And sometimes one had to take risks to succeed. “Alright. Gather up some of the men, I want you to handle the delivery.”

There was a momentary pause from Daitaian, who seemed to be suddenly deep in thought. Then he snapped out of it, “Alright boss.” After that he left the room. Overhaul opened the laptop, switching to the chatroom he’d been talking with the client in. He sent his message, getting a response seconds later.

Flect-Turn’s orders.

There was a soft crunching sound each time Aurdel took a step forward, compressing the snow underneath his boots as he walked. The boys of Class 1-A followed in his large footsteps. “Mr. Aurdel, are we really going to find a christmas tree in the forests around the campus?” Midoriya asked.

“I asked some of the other staff about it, and they said the school had a grove of fir trees on campus for biodiversity purposes. After that I got permission from Principal Nezu to take one of the trees.”

“Why the hell don’t we just order one?” Bakugo asked, “It's what I always did with my parents.”

“Because it’s three days before Christmas, so good luck finding a Christmas tree farm with any trees left. Much less one that can have the trees delivered in this kind of weather.”

“Couldn’t we at least wait until the snow lets up first? It’s still coming down pretty hard,” Kirishima said, using his arm to block the snow from directly blowing into his face.

“No, we can’t,” he emphasized, “It’s supposed to keep snowing until the evening of Christmas Eve, and by that time it’ll be too late to bring in the tree and have it decorated. Now quit your bellyaching and come on, the grove is only a little bit further ahead.” Of all of the people he had with him, only Todoroki remained silent as they trudged through the snow. It was a sort of pensive quietness.

“Ah, there it is!” Midoriya pointed ahead.

“How the hell can you see that far ahead in all this god damned snow?!” Bakugo shouted.

“Alright, let’s split up. Look for a tree that’ll actually fit through the door. We can always make the tree shorter, but we can’t exactly make it any thinner without ruining the general shape of the tree.” The group soon began to split up, but before everyone left… “Todoroki, could you stay with me for a moment? There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

There were suspicious stares from the others for a moment, “Sure.” After that, the others left.

For a moment they stood in silence. “I’ve been stalling with this for a while, but…”

“You wanted to apologize for the remark you made to Endeavor during the Billboard Charts.”

It seemed like his intentions were incredibly apparent. “Yes.”

Todoroki sighed, “You don’t need to apologize for anything. Even if it was sort of like airing dirty laundry in public, he needed someone to put him in his place. I think you were the only one that could have done it.”

“I see.”

“He’s even trying to talk me and the others more often now, to ‘re-embrace the family.’” He pulled his phone out of a pocket, displaying all the missed phone calls and unread text messages. Then he slipped it back in. “mThat’s not to say I’m accepting him with open arms though, he still hasn’t proven to me that he is actually capable of being a father. And I don’t think him trying to be one out of spite will change that much.”

“I suppose not,” he looked up, “Though it’s certainly better than what he did before.”

“Yeah.” Another moment of silence, “You know, I think you’ve acted more like an actual father than he has.”

“Really?”

“Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but yeah. Sure you can be similar, all those brutal as all hell training sessions are one thing. But I don’t think he ever bothered to check if I was alright afterwards, or if he did something wrong he never bothered to apologize afterwards. Not that he thinks he ever made a mistake anyways.”

“That sounds less like the building blocks specifically for a father, and more for a decent human being,” he let out a sigh, “Though, I suppose one leads into the other.”

“I also never got to do anything like this,” Todoroki said, “My dad always sort of secluded me from my siblings to focus on my training, I never really participated in events or holidays. Even when I did it was usually minimal at most.”

He clasped him on the shoulder, “Well it’s just like with everyone else. So long as you’re under my care I’ll make sure to train you hard, but I’ll also make sure to give you a fair chance to enjoy yourself.”

“Thanks.”

He pulled his hand off, “Now come on, I have a feeling that if we take any longer the others are going to give me an earful for being lazy.”

David stared at the tools on his workbench, the exhaustion that he felt right now was greater than any other he’d ever known. He felt completely and utterly physically and mentally drained, working day in and day at the behest of his captors. There was absolutely nothing more he could give themes. Yet still, they sought to wring him for more. At first it seemed like simply fixing and reproducing the quirk amplification device was enough to sate them, but as time went on they began to make more and more demands. Overall size and weight reduction, increased amplification efficiency, reducing power use, allowing the device to be concealable, ensuring compatibility with other military hardware… These were just some of the many dizzying tasks they’d assigned him to complete, each one harder than the last due to the sheer number of changes he’d made increasing the fragility and instability of the device. At first he tried to come up with ways to escape, building improvised weapons to try and allow himself a chance to get out. But he’d been caught in the process, and given up once he realized that even if he managed to break out of his cell he would likely be recaptured minutes later. Next he’d tried to sabotage his own prototype, creating faults in them with the hopes that it would cause some catastrophic failure. But it had done nothing to dissuade their constant push to work him further. And so he’d simply resigned himself to waiting and working. The only thing he had left was the hope that if he stalled long enough, if he just waited, then somehow he would be saved. But the time had begun to blur together. Hours turned into days, days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. And not having seen the sun ever since his capture, he had absolutely no idea just how long he’d been captive.

He rubbed his eyes and put back on his glasses, ready to get back to work, when the door to the workshop suddenly opened. The sound of his personal warden’s boots clicked as they hit the cold concrete floor. “Mr. Shield, it is good to see that you’re awake. You have a long day ahead of you.”

He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, looking up. “Colonel, I’m not sure how many more changes I can make to my quirk amplification device. It has become so different from the original design that if-“

“Silence, Mr. Shield. So that I may explain what is expected of you.” He quickly hushed himself, not wanting to incur any wrath. “As of today, I am moving you into a similar but different project. Before today your work had been to make the quirk amplification device smaller and fit for mass production. But now… I ask you to make it bigger.”

“Bigger?”

“I shall show you what I mean,” the Colonel motioned to a nearby pair of armed guards, escorting them out of the room and down a number of hallways. David couldn’t begin to imagine how large this facility was, or if other people were being held here like him. “The reason that I ask you to make it bigger is because this device is meant to serve as a tool for a single very important individual, one that needs the additional power to accomplish his mission.”

“Who is this person?”

“All you are privy to know is that they are very important politically and militarily, as they serve as an enforcer for the will of the party.” They stopped in front of a door and the Colonel pulled out a keycard, “Without this tool, he cannot do his job.” Then, he opened the door.

“Is that… A fighter jet?”

“Indeed it is, the only one of its kind in the entire world. The reason the device must be larger is because it needs to be mounted to the inside of the plane.” He ran his hand across the side of the jet, “It is a unique craft with a unique pilot, something like this will be difficult even for a man such as yourself.”

He walked closer to the jet out of confusion, the armed guards allowing him to do so. “I’m not exactly sure if I’m correctly understanding what you’re asking me to do… But, do you want me to build a quirk amplification device for a pilot? What use could a fighter pilot possibly have for their quirk while in a jet?”

“It is not for you to question the purpose of the tasks that I give to you.”

“I- Of course,” he quickly backed down from the line of questioning, the chance of angering the Colonel came with too many risks. If something happened to Melissa… “Will you be able to provide the design documents for the aircraft?”

“Yes, you will have the design documents to work with,” the Colonel stepped away from the aircraft. “But know this Mr. Shield, there are many things with the design that we cannot allow to be changed. If anything were to be changed without my pre-approval… Well, then we would have a problem. And we don't want to have any problems, correct?”

“Of course, I won’t make any changes without notifying you first.”

“Good, then I expect some results from you very soon Mr. Shield. I will leave you to your work.” After that the Colonel left the room with the guards, locking the door behind him and leaving him once again completely and utterly alone. He really didn’t want to keep working for his captors, but he had absolutely no choice. No harm would come to his daughter, not if he could stop it. But still, if he could only somehow get out a message…

“Of course.” An idea hit him, and he walked over to the aircraft. It was so obvious now, the solution to his problem was staring him right here in the face. Even if he couldn’t somehow take this aircraft and use it to fly out of his prison, it could still be of use. After all, all military aircraft came equipped with radios and other communications equipment. If he could somehow get his hands on an additional transmitter, encode it with a specific message and then hide it inside the body of the aircraft, then he could get a message out the next time the aircraft flies.

He ran over to the table he’d been provided, the design documents for the aircraft scattered across the top. With an energy he hadn’t had before he quickly began to scan through them, searching for any sort of nook or crevice where he could hide a transmitter inside of. And then, he could-

David stopped with his train of thought for a moment, staring in amazement as he continued looking over every detail of the aircraft. This was no simple fighter jet… This was something else. The first thing one might spot is its relatively large size, one that’s completely out of the norm for something such as this. But there was more. Practically futuristic automatic targeting systems, a large laser ‘cannon,’ enough mounts with powerful enough engines to carry as much explosive tonnage as a bomber, hardpoints for various types of missiles, machine guns and autocannons, heavy EMP shielding, a stealth coating, some kind of directed energy weapon and… And just so much more. But there was one detail that made him step back for a moment, one he couldn’t wrap his head around. It was the cockpit. The cockpit was too small for an average sized adult to pilot.

It was made to fit someone the size of a child.