At the Breaking Point

Overcome by a relative tsunami of clashing different feelings about recent events, Midoriya found it very difficult to focus on anything. Hero work especially. Just a fews days ago, while he’d been out on his own patrol with Endeavor and the others, Uraraka and Asui had been taking part in a counter-smuggling raid led by Ryukyu and Selkie. During that raid, they were ambushed by members of the Shie Hassaikai, injured and had to be hospitalized. That much he’d heard from Hawks, who’d helped respond in the aftermath of the failed raid. What he later heard was more concerning. According to Kirishima, who’d heard it from Fat Gum, the reason that they were hospitalized was because they were exposed to a special variant of trigger. But instead of increasing the power of their quirks like trigger usually did, it seemed to be making changes to their bodies and quirks. To what end, no one was actually sure. But they were going to live, Mr. Aurdel and the doctors at the hospital had made sure of that. That bit of information had given him some relief, but it wasn’t enough.

He was worried that an incident like this, where UA students were targeted, would be the catalyst for something greater. Would they be targeted again? Would more of them be injured? …Would some of them be killed? He didn’t have the answer to any of those questions, but he so desperately wished that he did.

Certainly it seemed like there were some people that at least claimed to know the answers. For example, after the attack the school called in all of its teachers and held one large meeting on whether or not the work study program should be continued for the semester. Parents were also invited to the campus to give their opinions on the matter. After around two hours of deliberation a vote was eventually held, and the unanimous decision was made to cancel the work studies. But despite that they were still here, attending their work studies. Because as it turned out, the vote the staff had made in favor of halting the work studies was completely overturned. By the Hero Public Safety Commission. Despite the fact that UA was a private institution that could make decisions for itself, the commission had effectively ordered the school to continue the program. And if the staff refused to cooperate with the commission, they were threatened with the stripping of both their teaching licenses and Hero licenses. Midoriya was able to figure out as much because Mr. Aurdel had leaked the communications between the staff and the commission to the entirety of the student body. And so with the commission refusing to back down, the school was made to continue the work study program kicking and screaming.

He just couldn’t help but feel that- “Oi, broccoli head. Endeavor wants you in his office pronto,” ‘Burnin popped her head through the doorway, catching him by surprise having been deep in thought.

“Ah, r-right!” He hopped off of the bed and walked out of the room. Meeting with Endeavor alone… He wasn’t sure what to expect. Over the past few days, while they’d been waiting for decisions to be made, Midoriya and the others had been training in the agency. Todoroki focused on increasing his firepower on his left side, Bakugo focused on improving his warm-up time for the winter and Midoriya was focused on controlling his ability to float. Was this meeting about that? Had Endeavor noticed something? He knocked on the door to Endeavor’s office, then walked in after getting no response. “Excuse me…”

Endeavor was looking down at a book, one that Hawks had given them after their meeting on the beach. Then he looked up, “Midoriya, there’s something I wanted to discuss with you.”

O-of course,” he closed the doors behind him, then sat down on the chair in front of the desk.

He closed the book with one hand, putting it down on the desk. “How much progress have you been able to make on your ability to float?”

“Oh,” he was somewhat surprised to hear him ask such a mundane question. “Well, my grip on it has been improving. At first, I was really only barely able to control it. But now I’m somewhat able to use it consistently in short bursts, though if I try to use it any longer I end up losing my stability and falling. Though as it stands right now, I can’t use it as anything more than a stepping stone when compared to my main abilities.”

“I see… In that case, have you been trying to use it constantly and in tandem with your attacks? Or have you just been using it sporadically?

“Mostly sporadically.”

“Then what you need to start doing is use it as often as possible for as long as possible. You have to remember that quirks are like muscles, and that just like muscles the more often you use them and the more stress you put on them the stronger they are able to become. Once your body becomes adjusted to using it constantly, then you’ll be able to drastically increase the period that you’re able to use it for.”

“That makes sense.” Doing nothing but basic training, it made sense why his powers really weren’t able to grow to their full extent. But that wasn’t something he could hold against Endeavor given the situation. “But wait, is that really all that you wanted to talk to me about? As much as I’m willing to talk about my quirk and strategize on how to improve, I didn’t think that was what you called me here to talk about.

Endeavor sighed, “No, you’d be correct. It’s not. There’s something that I need your help with.”

That caught his attention. “Did something happen with Uraraka and Asui? Did other Heroes manage to find out where the Yakuza members responsible are? Are they planning a raid that they-”

“Slow down!” Endeavor raised a hand, Midoriya fell quiet. “I don’t want to disappoint, but it’s nothing Hero work related. It’s a personal issue that I want your advice on.”

“A personal issue?” He was confused, “Why would you ask someone like me for advice on a personal issue? There’s not very much that I know that you don’t.”

Endeavor was quiet, “When we spoke at the sports festival months ago, you said that Shoto wasn’t like me. At the time those words rolled right off of me, and I never understood what they meant. But…” He looked around, somewhat weary, “Time has given me some amount of perspective.”

The gears turned in his head. “Then… You’re asking me how you could possibly repair your relationship with Todoroki?”

“I don’t know if I can ever have a truly normal relationship with him or any of his siblings, not after what I subjected the family to for years. At the very least, I can try. As for why I’m asking you,” he gestured towards Midoriya, “As far as I know, you’re one of the only people who has ever gotten Shoto to open up. Not even his siblings were able to get him to open up.”

He had to think for a moment, “I’m not entirely sure what to say. I feel that if I told you what to do after asking them, then any effort that you make to rapproche with him will feel less than genuine. It would be better to try on your own.”

He turned, “That is exactly the problem, I don’t know where to begin. Ever since his birth I treated him like a tool to be used, one that I would use to make my mark on the world. Because of that I don’t know anything about the real Shoto. I don’t even know what his favorite food is.”

Being put in a situation like this, it made him feel both very uncomfortable and conflicted. Part of him felt very much so that he wanted to help, and was practically itching to shout out answers to questions at the slight possibility that it might accomplish something. But part of him also recognized the fact that this was a conflict between father and son, and it was one that he really had no right to insert himself into no matter what he thought. “There’s really only one thing that I can tell you without betraying the trust that Todoroki put in me. The only way that you’ll ever be able to approach him again is if you’re able to become a Hero that everyone can look up to, a Hero that he can look up to. Anything else might come off as too forced.” For a moment, Midoriya thought he might get an angry response. That Endeavor would start shouting at him for presuming to even know what would be right in his situation. But that never came. Instead, all he got was a simple answer.

“I see.”

Aurdel found it incredibly hard to focus. On anything. His mind was just splitting in far too many directions, trying to deal with far too many problems. At one moment he was thinking about the class, and how much he needed to stay on standby in case anything happened. With two students in the hospital he wasn’t prepared to let anything else happen to the rest of them. In the next moment, his mind was lingering on the deal he’d made with the Meta Liberation Army and the interview that he was supposed to give. If he didn’t get them a set of honest answers, then they weren’t going to give him what he needed. And right now he desperately needed what they had. Especially to get his ship back. But yet another part of his head was focused on the international situation. The United States had managed to deploy its additional forces to the Middle East in near record time, with Iranian forces barely even having the time to set up sandbags in Iraq before they were being hit with cluster munitions to hell and back. They’d even begun the counter-invasion sooner than expected, pushing back across the Iraqi border and making beachheads on the coastline. Other countries had suggested that the United States simply draw the line at liberating Iraq, but it seemed that there was nothing to actually keep them from pushing in any further. Simultaneously he was paying attention to the local politics of Japan, having found something of note. For a number of years the Japanese government had been passively trying to reduce the number of American forces stationed in the country, having mostly been unsuccessful in their efforts. But with this war… Well, enough could be said about where the American forces in Japan were going. All in all he could feel that ulterior motives were at play. Until he figured out what it was, he was going to have to bug every single Japanese government building that-

Aurdel stumbled back a few feet, having received a rather strong kick from Mirko. “Hah, that’s a first. Are you trying to go easy on me now?” Having that happen was enough to make up his mind.

“You wish I was,” Aurdel brought up an elbow as she went in for another kick, throwing her back. She stuck the landing and went on the defensive as he charged in. Two attempts to strike towards the face, both blocked. “You ever take any vacations?”

“Not that often, you should know that I prefer to constantly keep myself in the loop and in a fight. But I do try to take at least one a year to relax a bit. Why do you ask?” Having come close, she took the opportunity to try and knee him in the gut. He quickly took a step back to avoid it.

“I haven’t exactly taken any actual breaks, just days off for other matters of work. I think that’s starting to get to me.” He threw up his arms as she went in for a flurry of kicks, each one bounced off his defense.

“It’s another first for you to admit something like that.”

“I’m spiteful and stubborn, not infinitely energetic and invincible.” He threw an elbow and managed to actually hit her this time, pushing her back. “Frankly it may have done more harm than good for me to not consider taking any breaks for so long.”

Mirko wiped her mouth, “You take them often?”

“Not really, the last one that I had was me being locked inside of a small freezer for four days straight.”

“Doesn’t sound like my kind of thing.”

“It wasn't mine either, but I didn’t get much of a choice in the matter.” She ran forward and leapt up, coming down with an axe kick that he blocked.

“Alright, then what are you planning,” she smirked, “Because I can pretty easily tell that you’re skirting around the bush with this. May as well get straight to the point.”

“Figures,” he went forwards, throwing a few punches to get Mirko ducking and weaving, “We’d take the day off and maybe tomorrow too. Grab a few drinks and talk, lord knows there’s some stuff that I need to get off my chest.”

“A few drinks? I bet I could drink you under the table.”

“You’d be shocked at just what I can handle.” Mirko went in with a few of her own punches, Aurdel allowed himself to get in the chest a few times to lure her in.

“Then why don’t we make it a competition? A chance to see you drunk is something I don’t want to miss out on.”

“I don’t get drunk easily.”

“We’ll see about that.” Mirko went one step too far, and that gave him his opportunity. Rapidly he managed to maneuver around and behind her, sweeping her legs with a kick and dropping her to the ground.

Reflexively, he put his in a loose lock around her night. The fight was over. “That’s check, you’ve got to watch your footwork.”

“Sure, but you also left yourself open.” She kicked backward with one foot, striking his inner thigh. It was very clear where else she could have kicked. “But you went easy on me, so I’ll let a mistake like that go this time.”

“Lucky me,” he released the lock, “So, are you game?”

“Am I game?” She scoffed. He offered a hand to her, then pulled her up. “Of course I am. I’m not one to turn down a good time, especially if you’re the one that’s covering the tab.”

“When you put it like that, it sounds like I’m making a mistake.”

“Hah, we’ll just see how much you can handle.” She walked over to one of the nearby benches, grabbing her things and throwing a towel over her shoulder. “So, this gonna be tonight?”

“Actually, I was thinking right about now.”

“That eager?” She took a swig out of her water bottle.

“They say there’s no time like the present. Besides, drink goes down a lot better when you're tired.”

She snorted, “In that case, don’t make me wait too long. Otherwise you’re going to end up picking up the tab for a lot more than you expect.” With that, she walked off to go take a shower. Aurdel let out a sigh of relief. Even just asking to join him in taking a break felt like it had somewhat lifted weight off his shoulders. Maybe it was true that all he needed to do was take a short break, that all of the tension he felt was self-imposed and that he was worrying about things he didn’t need to. At the very least, he just needed time for himself to actually relax. So he walked out of the main gym, not wanting to keep anything waiting.

“Nine, can you hear me?”

“Of course I can hear you, doctor. Your connection is coming in just fine.” Nine stared at the phone on the table directly in front of him, “You haven’t openly contacted me for quite some time. Have you encountered a problem with your experiments?”

“No, no. My efforts have been going fine. In fact, the Nomu have seen significant progress since their initial development. Do you remember the one that was defeated by Spartan in a battle in the city?”

“…I do.”

“At that point in time, that Nomu was the strongest one I’d ever created. It possessed peak speed, strength, durability and regenerative ability, it even was capable of basic intelligent thoughts. But by now is has since been surpassed by the new generation of Nomu, one that I have come to call the ‘High-End.’”

“Surpassed how?”

“In all of the previous qualifiers I mentioned, the High-Ends has seen a near quintuple improvement. At first these Nomu were only meant to be a force to counter the strength of All Might, one that could fight on equal terms with him and hold him back as others landed the final blow on the Symbol of Peace. But now… They surpass him. Even without concrete data to compare to, I believe wholeheartedly that these Nomu could have faced down and defeated All Might in his prime.”

“That is good to hear, but…” Nine paused for a moment, “I must ask, is this all truly necessary?”

“Is it necessary?” Garaki echoed the phrase, confused. “Of course it is necessary. The Nomu were originally developed to stand against an All Might level threat, and they continue to develop in the face of a similar nature of threatening power.”

“I can understand that purpose. But pushing them to such a high level, doesn’t it seem extreme? All Might is no longer a Hero, and of the Heroes that currently remain in the system none possess the potential to come close to even reaching that level of strength or power.”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. Because currently the potential to create another All Might exists.”

“I can’t say that I follow.”

“Then allow me to explain,” the doctor cleared his throat, “When quirks first appeared in the world, they were thought to be a newly occurring phenomenon within the human body. One that was completely foreign to the human body and began to spread through the contraction of a virus would alter human DNA to produce the resulting quirk genes. This theory was seemingly supported by the fact that isolated communities across the world, ones that had little to no contact with civilization, were statistically unlikely to see the procurement or development of quirks. However I disagreed.” He then began to explain his position at length, “What I initially hypothesized was that within the human genetic code there had always been the potential for quirks, one that became greater and greater as time went on due to the intermingling of certain genes. In the beginning this potential was relatively minute, but it would grow exponentially as time went on and new generations were born. This was ultimately what led me to the idea that eventually the power of quirks would outpace the capacity for human beings to use or control their powers, providing the basis for what I called the Quirk Singularity Theory. But my theory was completely rejected by the scientific community, citing a lack of evidence or research to prove my beliefs. As a result I was completely ostracized by my field and the rest of the world.”

“The history lesson is appreciated, but-“

“I’m not yet finished,” Garaki interrupted, “Ultimately, my theory has since been proven correct due to the advent of more powerful quirks, something that coincides with the shrinking population of ‘quirkless’ humans. But there was something that I recently added to my theory, something to try and explain the advent of quirks and the more rapid increases in power of quirks. Willpower.”

“Willpower?” Nine raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, willpower. I knew that despite the fact and common knowledge that genetics laid the basis for quirks as we know them, there needed to be something that pushed the ball over the edge and actually caused quirks to come into existence.” His tone became more excited as he spoke, clearly he hadn’t had anyone else to explain his theory to and was jumping at the chance to do so. “The first person to ever appear with a quirk was that of an infant born in China. During the night the hospital had lost power, and as a result the lights had gone out. Awakened from its sleep and with minimal lighting, the child was unable to see its surroundings. And so as a manifestation of its will and desire to see, the first quirk became active. Through the right amount of willpower the infant was able to unlock its inherent genetic potential. Then the news began to spread, and it caused a sort of unveiling of the curtain on the human body. Consciously and unconsciously, upon hearing the news, they began to realize the potential that they had within their own bodies, and soon an en masse manifestation of quirks began. With those that had the greatest potential being among the first to come into their quirks.”

“When you put it that way, it makes it sound like a social disease was responsible for the age of quirks. Not a biological one.”

“That, essentially, is what I believe. The first quirk was manifested by a child’s desire to see, the others were manifested by the notion that quirks and superhuman potential did exist.”

“That’s nice and all, but I still don’t see what this has to do about your point with the Nomus.”

“It is because willpower did not only serve at the catalyst for the creation of quirks, but also for their continual evolution. It is a phenomenon that I have only witnessed a handful of times within my very many years, but it is one that I have come to call ‘Awakening.’”

“Awakening…” Nine murmured, “I’ve heard you use that term before.”

“Yes, you have. It was when I performed the medical procedures in order to transfer into you the power that you now have. You had such an immense desire to increase your strength, and you had the immense potential to do so. And because of that you did. In response to incredibly strong emotional stimuli it is possible for someone to evolve their quirk, even in a matter of seconds. The odds of this occurring increase with every generation, as the necessary strength of the stimuli conversely decreases.”

“Then… You’re under the belief that there are Heroes in this generation and the next one that, more so than any others before them, are capable of literally willing their quirks to become stronger. That this is how they’ll manage to close the power gap between themselves and your Nomu, and possibly even defeat them.”

“Yes, and that’s why I must continually cultivate and evolve my Nomu. To make them greater than any current Hero could possibly overcome even with an Awakening.”

“I suppose that does make sense.” He stopped, noticing that this entire conversation so far was one long, sidetracked tangent. “So, what is it that you originally called for?”

“The High-End Nomus need to be tested, and there’s only one real way to properly test them.”

“You want them to fight Spartan, since he was the one that killed the previous strongest Nomu.”

“Yes. The location of the fight has already been decided, and it’s now only a matter of calling him there. Each of the students in his class is in possession of a transmitter, one that will give him their current location upon activation.”

“How could you possibly know…?”

“My master had the forethought to place a mole within UA, one that continues to feed information back to me. He will be the one that you take the transmitter from.”

“How am I supposed to know which person I am supposed to target?”

“You are the inheritor of my master’s will. You will know.” The call abruptly cut, as the doctor hung up. Nine sat in silence for a moment.

“It seems we’ve been placed in a particularly treacherous situation,” Re-Destro said.

“Yes, we are.” Nine rubbed his temple as he paced around, thinking.

“Simply put, I don’t think he’s just trying to test his Nomu creatures. He’s going to try and kill Spartan. If the doctor succeeds, then we lose an important member of Hero society that could infinitely increase the odds of success for our cause. If he fails… I imagine that we can expect significant retribution for such a betrayal.”

“That much is obvious, but we can’t also lose the Doctor’s support. But we can put distance between ourselves and this plot… If we’re not the ones to lead him into the trap.”

“You want to use the League of Villains?”

“They previously worked for All For One and the Doctor, so with any luck they’ll know who the mole is and where to find them.”

Re-Destro sighed, “The consequences of these actions, I imagine they will be further reaching than we could ever hope to anticipate.”

“Only time will tell.”

The Next Stage

Mirko punched him across the shoulder as he finally arrived, “You must leave one long line of broken hearts in your wake with how long that took you.”

“Not sure if this will come as any surprise to you, but I’ve lost my forte when it comes to civilian things.”

“‘Civilian things.’ Sounds like better head back, you forgot to pull out the stick.”

“That’s not the fault of a bad attitude, it’s just that the last time I actually had a vacation day was…” He paused as they kept walking, actually needing to give extra thought as to how long it had been. “...Tens years ago? Actually, it’s closer to eleven.”

“Sounds like you were busy.”

“‘Busy’ doesn’t even begin to describe it.” He straightened out his shirt, “Also, it doesn't help that I’m not entirely used to wearing clothes like this anymore. Years of wearing pressed uniforms and bodytight undersuits will do that to anyone. Granted, it also doesn’t help that I can’t find anything my size.”

“Well, yeah. Even with quirks most people still fall into standard sizes, they just need to get them adjusted to their specific quirks if there’s any problems.”

“Then what about people who have quirks that allow them to grow and shrink?”

“Most people don’t use their quirks on a daily basis, so it’s not really a problem. And for the ones that do, they normally don’t use their quirks in anything other than their costumes which are all custom made to work with their quirks. Anyways, if you’re doing all of this complaining about clothes then where did you find the set that you’re wearing now?”

“I tailored them myself.”

“Seriously?” She looked at him with some amount of disbelief.

“What? Is it really that hard to believe? I already make and maintain almost anything that I use myself. Making clothing shouldn’t be that large of a leap in logic.”

“I guess, but I just can’t picture you sitting down and sewing together a pair of pants.”

“All the other Spartans had to learn how to do it too. You should have seen it, a bunch of trainees with buzzcuts lined up with sewing needles and stitching together their own uniforms.” He had a slight grin, “I imagine it’d look weird to anyone that saw it.”

“Supersoldiers making clothes, just what kind of program was this?”

“The comprehensive kind,” he shook his head. “Anyways, aren’t you a little worried that someone might recognize you while we’re out together? Especially since no one really knows who I am.”

“It’s like I told you, I don’t really care about the press. Besides, it’s not like it’d be the first time a female Hero got caught off duty with a random person.”

“It’s not? I never really looked into any kind of incidents like that.”

“Wish you could have seen it. It was only a few weeks after Mt. Lady debuted, she got caught trying to swap spit with some young guy and the press was all over her.”

“Sounds like the kind of drama the media loves to lap up.”

“The media had their circus and those two had their rodeo, then they eventually split up. She hasn’t learned her lesson though, still makes passes at any man she wants.”

“Yeah, I know. And it’s something that I’ll never understand.” They stopped once they eventually found themselves in front of the bar. Peering through the windows, he could see that no one was really there. After all, it was still early in the day. Not many people went drinking before sundown, let alone just a few hours after sunrise. Eventually the two of them walked in together. “Bartender, bring out the two liter spirytus. Don’t bother to pour it out into shots. I’ll just take the whole bottle.”

“That’s funny,” the man said, “That’s…” But as Aurdel made no effort to correct himself, the bartender ended up giving him a look of awe and horror. “Uh, alright. It’s your funeral I guess.” He then stepped in the back to grab the bottle.

“Holy crap, that’s what you’re going to be drinking? I thought you might take a hard whiskey or scotch, but if you’re going that high you may as well be drinking straight out of a gas pump.”

“I told you before, I can handle more than you think. If I drank what you said I may as well be drinking a lemonade. Besides, you said that you were going to drink me under the table. At least this way it’ll be interesting.”

“Sheesh, sounds like for once I’ve actually underestimated someone.” She walked over to the bartop as the bartender walked back out with the bottle. She grabbed their drinks, Mirko taking two cases of twenty four beers each for herself. “Well, I said I was gonna drink you under. So that’s what I still plan to do.”

“We’ll see, though I don’t think you’ll even get through one case before I’m done.” They sat down in the corner of the bar, picking a nice, little cozy nook so they could have some privacy. Mirko dropped the drinks onto the table.

“Bottoms up.” Mirko cracked open a beer bottle, Aurdel opened the spirytus. They both took a heavy swig from each bottle. A sour face showed up on Aurdel’s face as he swallowed down the high proof drink, “No good?”

He shook his head, “Tastes like crap, would be better if I had something to go with it.”

“Gonna stop drinking?”

“No,” he took another swig, she laughed.

“So, you said earlier that you needed to get something off your chest. What exactly were you talking about?”

“Well,” he said, gripping the bottle, “I have an interview coming up, where I’m supposed to talk about who I am on TV.”

“You haven’t told anyone anything about yourself, have you?”

“Bits and pieces here and there, really. But I haven’t sat down and told anyone a straight shot story yet.”

“What are you gonna tell them?”

“Most of the truth. At the very least, what I feel like sharing. Which is why I wanted to run it by you first to see what you thought.”

She leaned on the table, finishing the first bottle and opening a second. “I’m all ears.”

“Where to even begin…” Part of him was hesitant to even say anything about himself, but he knew he could trust her. There was only one real place to start from. The beginning. “Alright. I was born on an outer colony world known as Arcadia, a relatively sparsely populated planet that was mostly covered in uninhabited jungles. For more than half of the year it was hot as all hell and you were constantly at risk of getting heat stroke and serious sun burns.”

“Sounds like the place someone would want to avoid.”

“Most normal people would, yeah. But as it turns out Australians are far from normal, and for a number of people who lived in the ever shrinking bush it seemed just like home. At the very least the beaches were very nice, practically pristine. Made the planet a tourist destination. Since I’m from there it’s had some lingering effects on me, such as an accent.”

“Really?”

He pounded his chest and cleared his throat, then spoke in English to make sure the accent was pronounced. “You’ll look bloody fuckin’ gobsmacked hearin me yabber like this, won’t ‘cha?” She was taking a swig as he’d spoken, causing her to choke and nearly spit out her drink.

She cleared her throat, “You have no idea how strange that sounds, especially with the swearing.”

“I’ve lost most of it over time, but provided I actively try to speak in it or get angry enough I can pretty easily slip back into it.” He took another swig, giving another sour face. Then he refocused. “Like I said, I was born on Arcadia. But I never actually got to know my parents.”

“You were an orphan?”

“Yeah, but it’s a little more complicated than just that.” Mirko finished another bottle, proceeding onto the next one. “According to what my adoptive parents told me, I was found in what effectively amounted to the middle of nowhere. A group of tourists was traveling through the jungle with some local guides when they found a dilapidated shack. Worried about the possibility of it being a hideout for Insurrectionist rebels, everyone initially wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. But then they heard the sound of a tired baby wailing, from inside the shack. Lo and behold when they went inside they found me, lying in a crib and crying while partially starved and dehydrated. The only thing they found in the house with writing or any kind of identification was a guitar next to the crib, I’ll give you three guesses as to what that ended up being.”

“Your name.”

He nodded, “Seeing the conditions, they brought me into the city and stuck me in an orphanage with the hopes of my actual parents showing up to take me back. No one ever did. So eventually I was put up for adoption, and only after another month I ended up being adopted by a nice young couple in the city. They were the parents that I did know, and I ended up staying with them for around five years.”

She took a swig, “Saying something like this, I can get a rough idea of what’s next.”

“One day while at school, I was approached by a kind lady. One that said she wanted to talk to me. The reason why was because she wanted to know why I was covered with bruises, cuts and scrapes, if I was being abused at home. I told her no. The reason was because I constantly got into fights with other kids, anyone that was bullying someone. She told me I was brave, I said that I was just doing the right thing. After that she walked away. I didn’t know it at the time, but that woman was Doctor Catherine Halsey, the director of the Spartan II program. I had essentially sealed my fate.”

“You were chosen… as a kid?”

“A few days later, during the night, a pair of agents from the Office of Naval Intelligence, a group you could call the logical conclusion of the CIA, broke into my home. They went into my room, picked me up out of my bed and replaced me with a body double. Unfortunately for them I woke up while I was being carried away, and I made enough of a ruckus to wake up my parents.”

“Did they try to stop them?”

“Sure they did, but gas mains and bullets don’t mix.” Mirko’s eyes widened a little, “They got into a gunfight, and a stray bullet struck the gas main. Caused a leak and then an explosion. The whole house burned down. Took my parents, my younger brother, one of the agents and my clone down with it.”

“A clone?”

“An exact copy, down to the smallest detail. I saw them while I was being replaced… Was lucky that I found out the truth of what happened early on.” He took another hard swig of his drink, the awful taste was gone by now. “Essentially all the other Spartans were replaced with clones, or at least the ones that had families were. Either way, in the eyes of the I was legally dead.”

As the weight of the story began to be felt by Mirko, he could see her eyes narrow. “How many other Spartans were there?”

“There were seventy five trainees for the Spartan II program, every last one of us had been taken under similar circumstances. After that we were taken to a primarily military planet known as Reach, where we started our eight long years of grueling training, learning and conditioning.”

“That’s how you know all that crap? They forced you to learn it?”

“Most of it, yeah. The mind of a child is a lot more malleable than an adults, so they made sure to cram every bit of knowledge into our heads as possible. It helped that almost all of us were academically inclined to begin with, but if there was something that we couldn’t get at first it’d practically be beaten into us through repetition. It was a special kind of hell, but even so I can look back on it fondly.”

“I’m not sure how you can say that.”

“It’s the little things. While we were there, each candidate was placed into a team of three people. I ended up on ‘Green Team,’ paired up with two guys named Kurt and Musa.” A smile slowly crept onto his face, thinking back. “Really, us working as a team was an absolute sight to behold. Something you could only see to believe. Kurt had an uncanny ability to predict things before they happened, Musa was able to make plans around those predictions and I was the one to put those plans into action. We were all our own pillars of the battlefield, supporting one another. And when we were put into exercises against the other teams, we absolutely dominated them. Hell, there were a lot of times where John and his team could barely even keep up. A lot of the time it helped that Kurt effectively outclassed everyone else physically, being the tallest and strongest among us. But man, you should have seen him after he came out of-” Upon realizing what he was saying, his smile quickly soured. His voice began to trail off, “-The procedures…”

“Procedures?” He took an even heavier swig this time, then took a deep breath. HIs eyes felt slightly watery.

He rubbed his forehead as he spoke, murmuring slightly. “We did everything that they asked, we prepared every way we could. We did EVERYTHING, and only half of us made it out.”

“Slow down,” she raised a hand, “What are you talking about?”

“Teaching us, training us and pushing us completely past our limits wasn’t enough to be a Spartan. We had to be superior in every way to the average soldier. There was only one other way to tip the scales in our favor. Augmentations.” He traced the length of his arm, even with clothes on he still knew exactly the path of the scarring. “Surgeries to increase our strength, harden our bones, increase our blood flow, quicken our ability to think, improve our eyesight enough to practically see in the dark… They did all that and so much more. But it came at a cost.” His smile was completely gone now, and his hand was slightly trembling over the table. “The procedures were incredibly dangerous. Of the seventy five Spartans, only thirty three came out without any problems. Kurt was one of those lucky few. He came out around as tall as I am now, still had room to grow. The rest of us were either killed or disfigured. Musa and I fell into that latter category.” He gripped the bottle he was drinking from tight, almost on the verge of shattering it in his hands. Then he loosened his grip. “Musa was the less lucky of the two of us, he ended up being completely paralyzed from the waist down and needs a wheelchair to do anything. All I had was my right leg completely mangled from the knee down, it looked like someone had shoved it into a blender using blunt blades.”

“And they did this all to kids?” He wasn’t sure which drink MIrko was on anymore.

“It was predicted that within the next decade,a massive civil war would begin. To prevent it, or at the very least fight it, they needed the best supersoldiers humanity could ever create. In the end they got their supersoldiers, at our expense. Though I don’t entirely know even now if I can really blame them.” He shook his head, “In the end, the Spartans that were disfigured or maimed by the procedures were shafted into desk jobs. Musa was willing to accept his new position, but I wasn’t. I felt that I needed to fight, but every time I tried to plead with them they rebuffed me on the basis of my messed up leg. So one day I managed to steal a knife, and without any anesthetics I ended up hacking off my own leg.” Mirko winced a little, “Suffice to say, it forced their hand.”

“But if the procedures failed for you, then how could you fight?”

“I’m getting there,” he assured her. “After about a year of medical procedures to undo any minor damage to my body, and after I had a prosthetic made for me, I was finally allowed to get into the fight. But without my augmentations, they decided that I was too valuable to use as a simple foot soldier. So instead, they decided to make me the captain of a warship.” He sighed, “At first I absolutely resented the position, since I wanted to fight on the ground. My incredibly reckless service early on was my way of ‘retaliation’ for it. But eventually I got in line and settled in, and ultimately serving in the navy gave me a lot of perspective.”

“How long did you do it?”

“Roughly seventeen years. Six years in I found out that Kurt was declared MIA after a mission gone wrong. To us Spartans that meant that he was most likely dead. Because I was so busy with my own battles trying to keep my crew alive, I never really had the time to mourn. Though now I have reason to suspect that he never actually died. Not that it matters. I wasn’t able to do anything about it at the time, and I wasn’t able to do anything about it later.”

“Sounds like you were heavily isolated.”

“Relatively, but I had my crew to keep me company throughout the war.” He winced, “For most of it, at least.” He took another heavy drink, “At the tail end of my naval career, I was still assigned to a fleet under the command of Admiral Preston J. Cole. One of humanity’s ‘greatest strategists’ in the war. Cole wanted a victory over the Covenant that humanity could rally behind, to show that the war could be won. So he lured them into a trap. He brought with him a massive fleet to lure in the Covenant, the one that I was a part of then. Then once the Covenant had fallen into the trap he blew up a gas giant and vaporized them.”

“Did he survive?”

“I don’t know if he survived or not, but practically I could give less of a shit,” he banged on the table slightly, his emotions flaring up. “I can’t forgive him for that battle. Victory or not, he still made me lose everything I had. Again.” He shook his head, “Official reports will state that some of the fleet, including my ship, dropped out of slipspace early because of the unpredictable nature of slipspace jumps. But I know that he gave us faulty numbers. We were the bait for the bait, and we got thrown to the dogs and absolutely chewed up. But I couldn’t even be given the dignity to go down with my ship, like a proper captain would.”

“Then you…”

“Survived. I managed to climb into an emergency cryo pod while the ship was going down, as did a few of my crew. But I was the only one that ONI pulled out. I was the only asset they deemed valuable enough to retrieve out of that burning wreck. Because by then the augmentation procedures were miles better than they had been before, meaning that I was made to become a real Spartan again. So after more procedures, and getting a combat prosthetic, they tossed me onto the ground and told me to pull miracles out of my ass.” He rubbed, “After that it was seven years of getting pinballed across the galaxy. Non-stop battles on burning worlds, watching civilians and soldiers die around me as I tried to desperately fight to save them. The only breaks I got were when they stuffed me in a cryo pod to shut me up, and keep me from talking back about my crap situation.”

“Couldn’t you leave?”

“Sure I could leave, but there’d be no point. All of human space was under the same government, and anything that wasn’t was getting turned to glass by the Covenant. The only thing I had left was the duty to protect people who couldn’t protect themselves. But even that, I wasn’t allowed to have.” He picked up the bottle, chugging from it.

“Christ, you’re going to poison yourself drinking like that.”

Once he was finished he set the empty bottle down, “Almost half a year now, before I came here, the Covenant attacked Reach. All of the surviving Spartans were called back, friends that I hadn’t seen in decades. When we met again they were all shocked to see that I was still alive, they didn’t even know that I was reintegrated into the program since I’d always been kept from working in parallel with them. They’d all thought I was dead.” He bit his lip, “Only a few hours after our reunion, almost all of them were dead. Some were killed when our transport was attacked in low orbit and we were forced to fall to the planet's surface, dying on impact with the ground. A few died in front of my eyes as we desperately tried to defend locations planetside, with nothing that we could do except drag them out of the way once they’d been killed. The rest I could only hear about over the comms, but eventually those went out. I don’t know if any of us actually survived.”

“But you survived… And came here.”

“More than halfway into the battle, I knew that we’d lost. Reach would fall. So I did the only thing that I could think to do. I ran.” No longer with his hand on the bottle, he clenched his fist tight. “I’d been deployed with five other Spartans. By that time three were dead, and the two others were grievously wounded. I ended up carrying them all out of there on my back. After that I threw them all into a warthog and drove away. Eventually I managed to get us to an abandoned titanium mine and went underground, finding a bunker that would keep us safe from the orbital bombardment that would follow.”

“How did you get here?”

“Some point after I stuck all five of them in cryo pods I flopped onto the ground, presumably passing out from my injuries. At the time I had every right to think that I would die in that bunker in a pool of my own blood. But I didn’t. When I woke up I was practically right as new, my armor fixed and my injuries healed. Even now I still don’t know how it happened. Maybe I’d done it all unconsciously, maybe it was divine intervention. EIther way I didn’t care. All I knew was that I needed to get help for the others. So I clawed my way back out of the mine, found a still functioning ship that had survived the battle and set course for Earth. My Earth. Instead, I ended up coming to this one.” He rubbed his face, “I’m out of place here. But even if I somehow made it home, it wouldn’t be any different. Arcadia and Reach are gone, my family is gone, my crew is gone and the other Spartans are gone. I don’t have anything. Even so, I'm still alive. I don’t know why that is. At first I thought it was because there were still things I needed to do. But any time I do something, I find myself blocked by someone or something. And it’s just…” He shook his head, letting out a heavy labored breath as he tried to keep himself composed. “I’m just tired. And I’m nearing my limit.”

Mirko took a moment to process everything, she looked frankly astonished. “I can understand why. Everything you’ve said is just so…”

“Heavy handed?”

“No, it’s… I honestly don’t know. I don’t think most people would even still be functioning going through half of the stuff you’ve mentioned, let alone still sane.”

“Oh don’t worry, I’ve got about as many cracks in my psyche as a piece of glass made by a blower with carpal tunnel,” he put on a weak smile.

“Oh you dick,” she punched in the shoulder from across the table, “You can’t make jokes after laying on something as heavy as all that.”

“Hey, they say that laughter is the best medicine. I think Will would come and haunt me if I didn’t practice it.”

“Sounds like you were all a real class act.”

He leaned back a little, “That’s one way to put it.” His spirits brought back a little, a thought popped into his head. “You know, if you don’t want to finish your drinks here then there’s something I want to show you.”