Rough Journey

Midoriya stretched his arms out as he cut through the crystal clear air of the sky above the mountains, the strap on his helmet being barely just strong enough to keep it from flying off of his head. If someone had told him a year ago that he would be jumping out of an airplane into the mountains of a foreign country to perform an important mission, he probably would have been confused and afraid. Partially because he would have assumed that anyone telling him such a thing was insane, but also because he would have been deathly afraid of the prospect. He would have been afraid of falling. But everything that had happened to him, it had changed him. He was fifteen thousand feet from the surface now.

The first time was when he’d accidentally been taken up into the air with All Might, he’d held on for dear life while hoping that his idol wouldn’t let him fall to his death. Then there’d been the entrance exam, where he unintentionally launched himself high into the air to destroy the robot that nearly crushed Uraraka and then hurriedly tried to save himself. But then there was the fight against Overhaul. In that fight he’d completely thrown himself into the line of fire, managing to guide himself through that battle and save Eri. Now, there was this. He felt no hesitation, no second thoughts about jumping out of a plane and hurtling towards the ground at terminal velocity. He was ten thousand feet from the surface now, he deployed his drogue chute.

But Midoriya wasn’t entirely sure why that was, or what had made him change so dramatically that it would leave him unafraid when doing such a daunting task. Was it the physical strength that he’d inherited from All Might and One For All that allows him to be so confident? Or was it the grueling training that Mr. Aurdel had put them through, mental and physical? Both had given him so much, and because of that he wasn’t sure which of the two had the greatest effect on him. One inspired him to be a Hero and gave him the tools to become one, the other took those tools and turned them into something much more effective than Midoriya himself could have ever imagined. One filled him with hope and drive of becoming a Heroic paragon, the other tempered his dreams into something tangible and actually allowed him to save people. But he supposed it didn’t really matter who’d changed him more, only that he had changed. He was five thousand feet from the surface.

Knowing that he was moments away from opening his parachute, he counted down the seconds as he approached two thousand feet. Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven, ten… He put his hand on the ripcord, looping one finger inside. Nine, eight, seven, six, five… He grit his teeth, in preparation of the shock. Five, four, three, two, one…

Midoriya yanked on the ripcord, the parachute quickly dumping out of the backpack. He felt a jolt as the parachute opened up and began rapidly slowing his descent, and he watched the others do the same. They’d practically all done it in sync with one another, just showing how totally committed they were to succeeding in this mission. Midoriya steered the parachute towards a flatter area, not wanting to land on the completely rock covered faces of the mountain. Eventually he managed to find a patch of freshly fallen snow, the others following him. He put his arms and legs together, then bent his knees as he came in towards the ground. After the ball of his foot touched the ground he quickly landed on the rest of his leg, spreading out the force of the impact as he landed on his side.

He stood up, unhooking himself from the parachute. “We’re lucky that we managed to get in on a day with clear weather.”

Hagakure stood up, grabbing her parachute to wrap herself in the camo colored nylon canopy. “What would have happened if the weather wasn’t clear?”

“Heavy winds would have completely blown us off course, and heavy snow would have completely reduced our visibility. We would be completely scattered across the mountains with no way of knowing where anyone else was. That’s if we managed to land at all, because-“

“Because if there was no visibility, we would have probably splattered ourselves on top of all the sharp rocks here,” Bakugo interjected, completing the sentence he was trying to say in a rather grim way. But he wasn’t wrong. These mountains were completely covered with hard, sharp rocks. Coming in at just a few miles per hour either way was the difference between landing safely and slicing your legs open even with padding. Harsh weather would have made such a scenario all the more possible.

“There’s no point in discussing such a scenario at this point,” Edgeshot said, “The only thing we have to worry about now is the mission ahead of us.”

“Right.” Quickly, they began taking apart the parachutes. With winter camo patterns covering the inside and outside of the parachute canopy, they were able to use it as a way to keep themselves hidden as they crossed the mountains. The rest of the rigging and the assembly they stowed back into the backpacks, burying them underneath the snow to make sure they wouldn’t be seen. The less evidence there was of their arrival, the longer it would take for anyone to hunt them down.

“Get your butts into gear. No matter how much hiking you’ve done before, it’s nothing compared to the hell of a trek we have ahead of us,” Mirko commented, rather crassly. But she wasn’t wrong. To avoid being spotted and shot down on their way in, they were dropped around fifty miles from where the prison base was supposed to be. Hiking that distance in normal conditions was difficult enough, but they were hiking on snow covered mountain tops twenty thousand feet above sea level. The terrain was tough, the weather could change for the worse in an instant, the thin air could literally get them killed if they overworked themselves and they were trying to avoid being spotted by the enemy. There’s a reason that when someone goes to do these kinds of things, it takes weeks if not months to plan. But that didn’t matter, not not anyways. They had a mission to accomplish, and they would see it through.

“Let’s move out!” Midoriya led the way forward, swaddled in the camouflaged canopy as the others followed him. Edgeshot used his minimized form to sweep the snow and cover their footprints.

Aurdel’s eyes opened, and this time he knew for sure that he was awake. Because when he had finally woken up he found himself lying on the cold floor of the ship, heavy pangs of pain raging across his body. Aurdel pulled off his helmet and let it roll across the floor, letting out an amount of blood and saliva that had been pooling on the inside. He then slowly sat upright, leaning with his back against the wall to avoid putting pressure on any part of his body yet. Then he took his hand and ran it against the back of his head. His neural lace was seriously damaged, with a mix of blood, bio-foam and liquified dead flesh oozing out of the back of his head. Suddenly he curled up into a ball in a massive amount of pain, his finger having brushed against and very briefly catching on an exposed nerve ending. He landed face first back onto the ground, accidentally biting hard into his lip and drawing blood. His situation was bad, incredibly so. Were it just another limb on his body he would be able to fix it with Overhaul, but because it was his head it was literally impossible. If he tried to use Overhaul on his head to perform brain surgery, he would end up breaking it down and totally losing consciousness. And if he did that, then there was nothing to control the quirk to rebuild himself. Trying would be an instantaneous suicide.

He opened his trauma kit, pulling out a roll of gauze and a tube of medigel. He then slathered the gel across the wound, before wrapping his head in the gauze to keep the wound from deteriorating any further. Of all the medical facilities on the planet, none had the proper staff, experience or equipment to perform the specific medical and engineering procedures needed to ensure he didn’t suffer any brain damage and to repair his neural lace. Neither did this ship really have those either, even if it hasn’t been stuck underwater for months. Neural lace implantation and maintenance was typically done on dedicated medical stations in orbit of UNSC military worlds. Failing that, they were done on the planets themselves at UNSC run facilities. The most common of these for military personnel were the stations and medical centers located on and around Reach. Because of that the UNSC only gave their ships the means of treating combat wounds and performing the most common of surgeries. Unfortunately for him, that meant that if he was going to get the equipment to perform brain surgery on himself he’d have to program it all himself.

Aurdel stood up, grabbing his helmet and shaking it of any remaining liquids before putting it on. Upon doing so he noticed that he’d lost the sensation of touch at the tips of his left hand and foot, likely as a result of nerve damage from when he was fried. His movement was somewhat hindered too, as when he began moving towards the door he was unable to walk reliably and instead needed to hobble over. The door opened. Having been gone from Japan for so long now, it was possible that things had gone from bad to worse. But as much as he wanted to leave as soon as possible, and with leaving now actually being an option due to the majority of important systems being repaired, he couldn’t. If he left now then he would likely be left in less than a week, with infections ravaging his body and severe brain damage leaving him as nothing more than a vegetable. He would need surgery. The minimum amount of time he needed to program the surgery, put himself under anaesthetic and then go through the surgery was a little over a day. Though that didn’t account for what normally took a week of preparation, as well as a week for recovery after the procedures have been completed. But he didn’t have much of a choice.

Aurdel walked along the wall, eventually reaching the service shaft and prying the doors open. Upon entering he reached out to grab the ladder, but unfortunately didn’t realize that his depth perception was slightly off and ended completely missing the rungs of the ladder. He stumbled forward, falling into the shaft and barely managing to stop himself before he fell all the way down the ship. Then he finally managed to grab the ladder and started his descent. By rushing the procedure he could theoretically have it done faster, but doing so ran the risk of the procedure failing at ineffectively fixing the issue or completely failing. The worst case scenarios ranged from further injury and brain damage to being rendered permanently comatose or dead. Ultimately it was a risk he had to take to protect the people he cared for. Five minutes of climbing down later he arrived at the correct level of the ship, hobbling his way over to the medical bay. He was lucky that he’d fixed its systems early on.

“Computer, begin surgical suite preparation procedure.”

“Initiating. Warning, system has not received maintenance in: seven months, eight days and five hours. Surgical suite software may be out of date, do wish to-“

“Do not update. Proceed with preparation procedure

“Proceeding.” Aurdel rummaged through the shelves, organizing the items he found in order to determine what he could use. A number of chemical bottles had been smashed during the crash, a number of them being the very general anesthetics he needed for the surgery. “Preparation complete. Warning, anesthetic and blood coagulant levels are at inoperable levels. This surgical unit will be unable to perform any procedures until-“

“Computer, disengage safety measures. Authorization: Green Two.”

“Authorization recognized, please confirm identity.”

“Service Number: Zero Zero Two Three Eight Dash Five Five Seven Six Three Dash Alpha Papa.”

“Identity confirmed as UNSCDF Navy officer Captain Aurdel Parck, disengaging safety measures.” Parck… The fake surname he’d used for so long, but hadn’t touched in almost a decade. It was good that they hadn’t removed him from the database even when he was officially labeled dead.

Without the anesthetics or coagulants he needed, he had to go for the next best thing. So he busted open the medical safe and sorted through the piles of chemicals that were set aside from dire situations, grabbing sets of vials with neon-light bright liquid. Carefully, he brought them over and inserted them into the ports of the surgery suite. “Computer, recognize and utilize chemical substitutes for surgical procedures.”

“Recognizing…” It scanned, taking a moment. “Materials recognized as Waverly-class augmentor and Mirage-class suppressor, unable to utilize substitutes due to restrictions against-”

“Disengage hippocratic measures.”

“Warning: If disengaged, medical suite will be unable to automatically triage fatal wounds or other conditions sustained during surgeries. Proceed?”

“Proceed.’”

“Confirmed.” Every surgical machine used by the UNSC had multiple layers of security to ensure the survival of patients. The first layer was designed to prevent the substitution of chemicals and tools, and doing so was something only a medical professional could reliably accomplish without causing serious pain or harm to a patient. The second layer was the most basic one, generally encompassing the many measures that forced the machine to follow the laws of robotics and the hippocratic oath. They ensured that if something went horribly wrong in a procedure, then it would be immediately suspended and the machine would triage the patient to ensure that no lasting damage is done. The reason he was disabling that second one was become he needed to program the specific surgery that had to be done, and in order to effectively utilize the tools he had at his disposal he would be effectively violating mountains of sensible medical safety measures.

He pulled off his helmet, setting it down on a nearby table. Then he walked over to the surgical mainframe. “Computer, open a new file and begin transcription.”

“Beginning transcription, please provide first input."

Roughly four hours passed by since Midoriya and the others had landed, and in those four hours they had managed to travel an absolutely grueling eight miles. Initially this might sound like an absolutely horrendous pace, but for the situation that they were out in it was surprisingly efficient. The threats of rough terrain, altitude sickness, hypoxia, extreme low temperatures and carrying large amounts of gear for combat were one thing, but doing so during wartime while trying to remain unspotted during the day were another. Because of that last fact they tried to keep their breaks brief so as not to be spotted, something that further hindered their ability to travel.

“I think… We should take another break…” Hagakure said, somewhat out of breath.

It had been a while… Midoriya looked around, “There, that formation of rocks,” he pointed to them, one of the few outcrops that reasonably stuck out of the surface. “We can rest there, that way we’ll be out of sight and be able to stop for longer. I’m sure we all need the rest anyways.”

Jiro looked around, clearly picking up on something they weren’t. “We should move quickly, I think I hear something getting close.”

Despite how tired they were, they quickly picked up the pace and hurried over towards the outcrop of rocks. Almost as soon as they got in between the rocks and covered up their tracks they could hear the sound of helicopters flying above their heads, flying off in nearly the same direction that they were heading. “Is it possible that they detected our insertion and have been tracking us?”

“There’s no way. We’ve been moving far too slow for an organized search to not find us, it’s likely that they’re just returning to base from the next direction.” He looked around, “Jiro, use your earphone jacks to listen and see if anything else might be coming our way.”

“Got it.” She stuck them into the ground, simultaneously scanning outside through a hole in the rocks.

The rest of them sat down on various surfaces, resting their legs. He sighed, “We’ve made good progress so far, we only have about forty miles left to go.”

“Our pace has been reasonably quick so far,” Tokoyami said, “It’s hard to imagine that we’ll be able to keep it up for an entire day, let alone three.

Bakugo grumbled, “We don’t have much of a choice. It’s our job to get in and get out, and the only way of getting there is by walking. So don’t moan about it.”

“Quiet, I’m trying to listen.” Jiro raised a hand as she focused in, “I can hear some kind of machine making loud grinding noises, and judging by how loud it is it should be close by. But I don’t see anything like that nearby. The only thing I can see is a bunch of buildings down the mountains, but those are a few miles out.”

“Then what could it be?”

“Drilling equipment maybe? I’m not…” She paused, “Hold on, I’m hearing something else. It’s also close. I think-“

A new voice spoke up from behind them, “That would be us.”

Unexpected Encounter

They all quickly turned around the moment they heard someone they didn’t know speak, prepared to fight. But when they did they found themselves at a complete disadvantage. There were five men covered in winter camo with rifles raised, aimed straight at them. They’d be gunned down before they could even react. “You morons are lucky that you ended up on this side of the mountain, with one of the only people here that can speak Japanese.” He lowered his rifle, the other men did the same. Then he pulled off his ski mask.

“You… You’re not with the Chinese?”

“No shit we aren’t, what gave it away?” He stuffed the ski mask into a pocket, “Now, I want you all to explain what the hell you’re doing in the middle of a warzone. Especially since you don’t exactly look like our backup.” Midoriya opened his mouth, “Oh, and say it in English. The rest of my boys here don’t speak Japanese.”

“We… uh…” Midoriya struggled a little, adjusting to the conversation now needing to be in English. “The Chinese are holding a man named David Shield captive, we were sent to break him out.”

“What stupid fuckin’ todger thought that three sheilas and four fairy pixies was enough to bust into one of the most defended Chinese complexes in the country?”

“Fairy pixies?”

“Yeah,” he pulled out a carton from one of his pockets, producing a cigarette. “What else would you call a bunch of prettyboys in spandex?”

“Hey asshole. We might not look like much to you, but we can more than do our job,” Bakugo interjected.

“Oh piss off.” The man dismissed Bakugo outright, then lit his cigarette. “Look, I’m Sergeant Major Dylan Bennett. I’m a member of the ANZAC forces that were sent to India just before the war began. These guys with me right now are Gurkha volunteers from the Nepalese army.”

“India? But we’re in-“

“I’m fuckin’ gettin there!” Dylan shoved a finger in his face, “Once the war started our top brass decided that sending a bunch of forces deep into China was a good idea. I came in on the first wave to scout out the area, didn’t face too much opposition then. But just as the second wave was coming in for the actual operation we got creamed. Five hundred of our boys went in, we lost about seventy on the drop and now we’re down to about sixty.”

“If you were going to free the people imprisoned, does that mean you were going to free David Shield?”

“What? Kid, we were never told to break out somewhat with that name. The only person we were explicitly told to free was Zhan- No, wait, it was… Zhong Tian. Yeah, that guy.” He paced around, puffing his cigarette. “If you hadn’t been paying attention to the news, that was the guy who was trying to bring liberal reform to China. Then one day he disappeared under mysterious circumstances, was assumed dead and the party managed to whip up the public into a frenzy over their supposed martyr killed at the hands of the west.”

“Wait a minute,” Mirko said, folding her arms. “If their plan was to trick people into thinking he was dead, why not actually kill him instead of locking him up here? That doesn’t make any sense. Locking him up leaves them with the chance of his survival getting out and being used against them.”

He shrugged, “Fuck if I know, I’m not member of the Chinese Communist Party. We’ve no way to check on their internal politics anyways since they executed all western assets before the beginning of the war, so no one has any idea what the deal is. My best guess is that some of the party members have a sweet spot for him and his ideas.”

“Then why imprison him? Why support the war?”

“Just because the Chinese have a few liberal sympathizers doesn’t mean they’re going to like the west. They’ll support their country first and foremost, making sure that they come out on top of the rest of the world before they do any reforms that might destabilize the country.”

“It sounds like they’re just looking out for themselves.”

“Greed may be a sin, but ain’t no one innocent of it,” he took a long drag, “Now, who the hell are all of you? Because you sure as hell don’t look like civilian mountaineers, nor do you look like our backup.”

“We’re Heroes from Japan,” Midoriya said.

“Heroes, huh? No wonder you’ve got those costumes.” Dylan scoffed, “Well, sorry to burst your bubble but I don’t think you’re going to get anything done up here.”

“Well we have to at least try,” he stressed, “The man we’re trying to save, Dr David Shield, has been held by them for months. They’ve been forcing him to make weapons for them and have been using them on the frontline.”

“No shit huh…?” He let out a puff, “If that bloke has been building weapons, and for that long, then he was probably involved with that super-fighter they’ve been using.”

“Super-fighter?” You mean the one that fired off the EMP above Japan?”

“Yeah, the same one that fired off EMPs above Taipei, Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, Rangoon, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and a bunch of other places. They’ve been sending that bastard up and down the continent to soften up defenses for their forces, but it’s only been working so well.”

“Well, we tried to get in some research before we landed. But we don’t exactly have much. We know that the fighter is armed to the teeth and can effectively secure an airspace by itself, can utilize multiple flight modes and effectively acts as an mobile airborne command center. We also know that it has a limited flight range, and is incapable of being refueled by tanker aircraft. As such any time it needs to refuel it needs to land at a proper base. I’ll give you three guesses where its most common base to land is.”

“The fighter is here?!”

“Not right now it isn’t, but he’ll be back. The guy comes and goes. Our second wave had the misfortune of greeting him when they were dropping in. Fried our planes, then he sicced the dogs on us.”

“Do you even know if the pilot is a he?” Jiro asked.

“Listen sheila, we’ve been here for weeks. We’ve scattered over a thousand dead Chinamen over these snow caps ever since we’ve dropped, and not a single damned one of them has been a fuckin’ woman. Now MAYBE there’s a chance that in that cockpit, there’s a woman hounding us up and down. But until I see some physical proof I’m sticking with statistical probability on this one.”

“It doesn’t matter who’s piloting the plane,” Midoriya said, “The only thing that does matter is getting into that base and-“

“D’ya hear that boys?” Dylan said mockingly, turning back to the men with him, “The kid says that we, the beleaguered force that we are, should bust into the well defended and almost impenetrable fortress built into the side of a mountain! Clearly it’ll go well now that they’re here!”

Bakugo stepped up. “Now listen here asshole! We’re-!”

Dylan slapped Bakugo hard across the face, knocking him to the ground. “No, you listen to me! Even with only around four hundred men after our drop was intercepted, we thought we could bust into the prison and break our man out. But guess what happened? We couldn’t even get close to the fucking thing!” He tossed his cigarette away, “Now we’re down to around sixty men, a number of whom are wounded, we’re low on ammo, low on food and medicine and have no way of contacting anyone to get us out of this God forsaken ice box!” Midoriya could hear the frustration in his voice. They were tired, cold, hungry and had little prospects of getting home.

“I can understand your frustrations, but allow me to offer a counterpoint to what you just did.” Mirko suddenly walked up, swinging her leg and dropping Dylan to the ground with a roundhouse kick. The other soldiers raised their rifles as she put one foot on his chest. “I was sent here to protect these runts, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. So if you so much as lay a hand on them like that again, my foot will be on your head instead of your chests and your brains will be a mosaic in the snow. Understand?”

“Jesus you’ve got a powerful kick. Yeah, I get it.” Mirko took her foot off of him and Dylan stood up, dusting himself off. The soldiers lowered their rifles. “Look, sorry if I don’t sound enthusiastic but we’ve been through a lot. We’ve lost a lot of good people, failed at our mission and have our backs against the wall. We can’t even call in for support since our radios are toast.”

“Then your only chance to get out of here alive is inside that base.”

“I’m not sure if I follow your logic, I already told you we can’t take the base.”

“I know, but do you have any other choice?” She crossed her arms, “Think about it. The only place nearby that’s going to reasonably have stockpiles of food or medical supplies is going to be that base, the same goes for having a long range radio to call in support.”

“I know that, but it doesn’t change the fact that we still don’t have the manpower to seize their base.”

“Then why don’t we borrow it?”

“Borrow it?”

“What do you mean?” Midoriya asked.

“Well, I don’t know about you but if they’re building weapons here then it means that they need someone to assemble them. And given how many of your soldiers you and your men have already killed, I doubt their primary source of labor was also their guards.”

“You’re suggesting that we free all the prisoners they have, and have them fight for us to secure the base?”

“Isn’t that what the original plan was?”

“We were going to free the prisoners, but that was more so just to have them freed. The original plan to seize the base didn’t hinge on them helping out.”

“They’d fight against the Chinese anyways, out of revenge.”

“I don’t doubt it…” Dylan rubbed his chin, “Hell, I don’t like the idea of using them. But it’s not like we have any other way of getting help.”

“So we’re going to attack the base?”

“The only other alternative is waiting to starve to death, or for Chinese patrols to find our hideouts and flush us out.” He sighed, “Alright, we’ll attack the base and free the prisoners.”

“What about coming up with a plan?” Edgeshot asked.

“We’ll come up with a plan, but not until I’ve had a chance to speak with the rest of my men.” He stomped on the cigarette he’d tossed away earlier, making sure that it was out and buried in the snow. “Come on, our basecamp is a few hours out. We’ll lead there.”

Aurdel sat quietly in the medbay, huddled in front of the surgical mainframe as he wore nothing but patient scrubs. He’d finished programming the medical procedure, a long task that had taken him hours to complete. Now all he had to do was lay down on the table, give the command and the machine would do its job. But for one of the first times in his life he felt… hesitant. Ever since his initial failure to undergo the Spartan augmentations, he’d experienced nightmares that forced him to relive the moments over undergoing the procedures and being out under the knife. Each time he would feel immense pains, only to eventually wake up in a cold sweat and find that the pain he felt was the phantom pain of where his real right leg was. And in this environment, under these conditions, he was getting an uneasy sense of deja vu and found it hard to put himself on the table. It didn’t help either that he couldn’t trust himself to actually be unconscious throughout the procedures, as when he’s gone through the augmentations for the second time they’d used near overdose levels of drugs just to keep him reliably sedated. He let out a sigh, staring at the port where he’d inserted the vials.

Something else that didn’t ease his mind was the fact that, on top of having neurosurgery, he was mixing in rumbledrugs as a substitute for normal surgical chemicals. Rumbledrugs, a group of medical cocktails infamous for the effects they had on their users. Initially they were only meant to be used for those who were mortally wounded and had no chance of survival through traditional chemicals due to the severity of their injuries. And for that purpose they would save a number of lives, often turning cases of almost absolute certain death to medical miracles. But these often came at a cost. Neurological damage, bouts of mania, early onset of dementia, constant hallucinations, psychopathic and sociopathic tendencies… These were just some of the possible side effects, trading a great deal just for the chance to save a life. But that was not the complete reasoning for why they were infamous.

The Insurrection had tried to use rumbledrugs to combat Spartans. He’d read the reports, and seen some of the results first hand. When they knew that a Spartan was coming, they would down the chemical cocktails in anticipation to enhance their abilities in battle. In some ways they succeeded. Their strength was multiplied because the parts of the brain that normally controlled the safeguards that stopped the self-damaging of muscles were shut off, adrenaline production and the ability for quick cognition was increased through a greater allocation of bodily resources and ability to feel pain was completely removed through the total dulling of all the body’s pain receptors. But by the time Spartans arrived on the battlefield, most of the rebels who used the rumbledrugs were dead due to organ failure or overexertion. For the ones that survived they experienced a figurative hell as the effects of the drugs wore off, leading to a brain being flooded with signals from all over the body. They were left writhing on the ground in pain, faced with the inability to go into shock and have some reprieve from it all. Any time he or the other Spartans encountered someone using them that was still alive, it was always a mercy kill. And now he was about to inject himself with the same stuff.

He trembled a little, thinking of the possibilities. Then he stopped. He needed to end this war, and he needed to protect those he cared for. And if he was going to do that then he needed to do this. No matter the pain it brought him, and no matter how much damage it would do in the long term. It had to be done for their sake.

Aurdel stood up from the mainframe and walked over to the table, taking one last glance at his armor before he laid down. Then he flipped onto his stomach and closed his eyes. No matter what it took. “Computer, begin procedure.”

Midoriya and the others followed Sergeant Major Dylan Bennett for a number of hours, hiking along paths that they would have never originally seen had they not been pointed out to them. Once they did finally make it to the basecamp they found themselves standing at the opening to a large cave, one where the walls were covered with ice. “Hold on a second.” Dylan stepped into the cave, putting a hand up to the side of his mouth. “Southern!” He shouted into a cave, then waited a moment as he expected a response. He didn’t get one. “What the hell are those guys doing?” They then walked together into the cave, eventually coming across a man who was sitting in a chair. Dylan walked up to him, put a hand to his neck and then cursed before saying something in another language. One of the soldiers walked up and carried the man away, before another sat down in his place.

“What was that about?”

He sighed, “The reason you’re not supposed to sleep while experiencing hypothermia is because your body temperature will drop, and if it goes low enough you’ll never wake up again.”

“Then he was…”

“Dead? Yeah. He’s not the only one we’ve lost like that.” They all went further into the cave, eventually walking into a large chamber that seemed to be deliberately carved out of the walls of the cave. Midoriya could see rows of hastily constructed tents, as well as other groups of soldiers huddled around what looked like portable heaters. Eyes turned their way as they walked in.

One soldier stood up, walking over. “Sarge, it’s good to see you made it back.” He looked over at them, “But who are these guys?”

“I’ll explain it later Issac, just gather everyone else. I’ve decided what our next plan of action is.” Issac then walked away, going over to the numerous groups of soldiers spread out around the cave chamber. Soon enough, and one by one, they all gathered around Dylan. Midoriya could see that many of them were nursing injuries, whether they be cuts and fractures or bullet wounds and broken limbs. “Lads, I know that you’re all tired. We’re hundreds of miles away from home, we’ve lost scores of friends and family in these mountains and I have no right to ask any more than what you’ve already given me. But I’m asking for your help one last time. Inside that Chinese base are the only long ranged radios powerful enough to contact command, as well as the supplies that we need to stay alive in these conditions. The first time around we failed to get in. Now, I’m asking you all to try again. But I won’t force any of you to go. So if anyone would like to opt out of the mission, now is the time.” He looked around, no one said a peep or raised a hand. “In that case, here’s the plan. These fellas with me are Heroes from Japan, and they’re going to act as force multipliers for us to break into the tunnel system below the base. Once inside we’ll free any prisoners the Chinese are holding and push our way up to the surface, securing each level. But we won’t be able to force our way in even if we stack everyone on that entrance. So, we’re going to need a distraction.”

Issac raised a hand, “Sir, permission to lead distraction.”

“You think you’re up to it?”

“We’ve already scouted out the dig-site, so we should be able to take it fairly quickly. After that it’ll only be a matter of holding out for as long as possible to keep them off your backs.” Dig site? That must have been the source of the loud grinding sound that Jiro heard.

“Who’ll go with Issac?” Midoriya looked around as a number of men raised their hands, thirty three in total. All of them were injured in some way, each one worse than the last. Even so… Or rather, because of that they volunteered. They wanted the soldiers who were in better shape to be the ones to attack the base, that way they would have a better chance of success.

“I’ll go with him too,” Bakugo said.

Midoriya looked at him, “Kacchan, what are you-?”

“My quirk is best suited for fighting in spaces that are more wide open, I’d only be clogging up the halls of that base with my explosions.”

“That sort of battlefield would best suit my quirk as well,” Tokoyami said.

“Making it hard for me, splitting yourselves up like this…” Mirko looked over, “Edgeshot, you go with them. Make sure they don’t die.” Edgeshot nodded.

“So, does that mean the rest of you are coming with us?” Dylan said, turning to Midoriya and the others.

“I guess so.”

“In that case, we have our two teams decided. I want everyone to clean and check their gear, make sure that it’s battle ready for tomorrow. Then get some rest. As soon as dawn breaks we’re going to leave this cave and hike our way towards those sites. Say a prayer if you need to.”

“Yes sir!” The soldiers all split up, going back over to the tents to retrieve their gear.

“What’s going to happen if we’re not able to break into the base?” Jiro asked.

“If that happens, we’re all likely to be dead. In which case escaping from these mountains wouldn’t be our problem to solve anymore. Either way, we’ll get our solution. Now I suggest you all get some rest too before the morning, and make sure to tell us what you can do before we leave.”