Chapter 3

"Yes, dad, I am defending Virginia." Torres groaned into his phone. "Yes, my boyfriend knows. Don't worry, I'm going to be okay. If I could survive Verdansk, I can survive this." Ramirez feigned ignorance but was actually paying close attention to Torres' call with his dad. It seemed to him that there was something going on between the two, especially given his tone when he mentioned a boyfriend. Torres hung up, with a simple goodbye, before sighing as he slipped his phone under his kit.

"You okay Torres?" Ramirez asked. "Trouble on the homefront?"

"Yeah I'm fine, just some BS with my dad is all." Torres explained. "Dad was never too pleased with me. Started when I came out as Bi, started when I joined the military."

"How so?" Ramirez asked, adjusting his rifle as the two walked along the side of the road.

"Well, I'm adopted, so he used that stupid 'you aren't my son' stuff on me." Torres began. "I came out in '08, told my whole family about how I was interested in everyone, not just girls or guys. It didn't go over too well. My brothers, John, Joseph, and Jacob didn't care, my dad was furious, my mom and little sister fully supported me. Mom and dad almost divorced over it."

"Damn." Ramirez stated, sympathetic to his comrade. "Wait, is it okay to be talking about that?"

"It's fine, they repealed DADT in 2011." Torres responded. "Continuing, when I told mom and dad that I joined the Marines, they weren't too happy. Mom, god bless her soul, was supportive but wished I told them sooner. Dad was pissed, he said I should have just stuck with my dead end, caffeine addiction fueling engineering job."

"You're an engineer?" Ramirez asked.

"Yep, graduated from University of Delaware class of '18." Torres explained. "Got a job as an engineer right out of college. It sucked, the only highlight was designing the NODS the 141 guys use, those bad bows are my crown jewels. They have a system that adjusts how much they amplify light, so a firefight or flashlight won't burn your retinas, still not usable in daylight though."

"Nice, you said you were a marine first?" Ramirez asked.

"Yep, by accident, actually." Torres responded. "I wanted to join the military so I'd have purpose and a sense of duty in life. I wanted to be an aircraft engineer in the air force, didn't realize until basic that the recruiter was a marine recruiter. Should have seen the look on my Master Gunnery Sergeant's face when I told him. I did so many pushups. Recently transferred to the army, I hoped to progress in my career so I wouldn't have to go into combat again. The brass had different plans."

"Gotcha." Ramirez affirmed. "You said that you're adopted, is it okay if I ask about it?"

"It's fine." Torres stated, a bit jaded in his tone. "I never met my birth parents, they left me at an orphanage when I was born. I grew up in Saint Sebastian's Home for Orphans for five years. It was a small little place, just a set of dorms and a chapel. It was run by some nuns who wanted to care for children who lost their parents or couldn't be cared for. I was adopted when I was five, I still go there occasionally to volunteer."

"Would you ever want to find out who your parents are?" Ramirez asked.

"I'm not sure." Torres answered solemnly. "I want to know who brought me into this world, but I don't know how I would feel about them. Enough about me, tell me about your family, Ramirez."

"Well, uh." Ramirez stuttered to begin. "I was born in Cuba as an only child, my parents fled the country in hopes to give me a better life. My mom and dad worked a lot, so I didn't see them much. I traded family time for studying, eventually getting to be an engineering student at VT on an army scholarship."

"Ah okay, gotcha." Torres responded. "You got a sweetheart yet? Young motivator stud such as you has to have someone."

"Nah, not yet." Ramirez responded. "Focusing on academics right now. Speaking of, would you be willing to help me with my homework if I ever get time to work on it?"

"I don't think you'll get any time." Torres chuckled. Just then, an RPG struck the ground near the Bradley ahead of them.

"AMBUSH!" a soldier yelled. Ramirez raised his rifle, opening fire on the Russian troopers ahead of him. It was chaos, even more so than Ramirez anticipated. Bullets were flying, the Bradley launched 25mm shells into American homes in an attempt to ward off invaders. It was a barely two sided fight. The Rangers pushed forward, were stopped by Russians, pushed forward, stopped, repeating endlessly. This changed part way through the battle.

"Hunter 2-1, this is overlord, you have a new assignment." the radio blared to Ramirez. "Go to the sports bar west of your position, there's a VIP there you need to protect, over."

"Copy that Overlord, over and out." Foley stated before barking orders. "Ramirez, Torres, lead us to the sports bar and escort the VIP."

"Yes sir!" the two yelled simultaneously. Torres and Ramirez lead Hunter 2-1 to the sports bar, where the VIP was waiting. He was a goddamn Lieutenant Colonel. Apparently, he was in a chopper to coordinate the defense operations when it was shot down. Now, Hunter 2-1 had to keep him safe.

"Anyone got any ideas?" Foley asked.

"Sir, Burger Town should be safe." Torres began. "The meat locker is bullet proof and blast resistant, perfect place to hold him, they have an easily accessible rooftop too, great for defense."

"And there's a weapon stash up there too." Foley added, snapping his fingers. "Ramirez, take us to Burger Town. Once there, get to the roof and retrieve the predator controller and use it's missiles to defend us."

"Y-ye-yes sir." Ramirez stammered. He rushed out of the sports bar, guiding the team to the fast food restaurant, preparing for a full scale attack. Sure enough, a large detachment of Russian troops raided their position. The battle was chaotic, a wild exchange of bullets as soldiers and sentry guns launched bullets at opposing forces doing the same. Ramirez had a different effect, a more impactful one. Viewing the warzone through a black and white FLIR screen he propelled missiles at the battlefield, destroying infantry in droves, eliminating BTRs in single hits, even shooting down a helicopter with an expertly aimed missile. Of course, his role shifted back to infantry as a BTR shot down his drone. Torres fully expected the end, no longer having the advantage of his drone, but it seemed Torres had other plans. Torres snatched a bag of satchel charges, a smoke grenade and a detonator, his eyes seemingly glowing as he did so. He threw himself off the roof, rolling into a sprint towards the BTR, his jagged running further covered by a cloud of smoke from his grenade. When the smoke settled, the bag sat just under the BTR, Torres standing behind it with a smirk. Torres pressed down the detonator twice, completely and utterly annihilating the BTR in a blazing fire and a cloud of billowing black smoke.

"You keep that up and you're gonna be stuck as a combat engineer till they force you to retire." Dunn laughed.

"Just shut up, I did my job, that's all I did."

"Yeah I don't think running at a BTR is just your job." Morgan added. "I'm thinking that you're at least getting an ARCOM for that."

"Lock it up Hunter 2-1." Foley ordered. We aren't done yet. I just got word that there's another VIP up north that needs some Rangers to save his day. A humvee is waiting for us to our left, let's move out!"

"Hooah!" all of Hunter 2-1 cried out in a victorious response. The day wasn't over yet, there was still plenty to do.

Haru watched the news with the others, that being Boss, Ren and Anne, as she took a sip of Boss's famous coffee. It seemed that the Ultranationalists did what they set out to do, war was now reality. It seemed that the Russians invaded Virginia in the US, somehow moving their army undetected, leaving American forces scrambling to set up defenses in the midst of battle. As the four people silently pondered what they were seeing, two men stepped into the cafe, both in formal uniforms. One was an older gentleman with three stars on his uniform, while the other was a much larger, younger man with a large beard.

"I hope I'm not intruding on anything, but I was told that this was the best cafe in town." The older man stated. Haru realized that she now recognized him as Ryuji's commandant, General Shepherd.

"General, what are you doing here?" Haru asked.

"Oh, hello ma'am, you must be Staff Sergeant Sakamoto's wife, just as lovely as he said you were." he began. "We were in the area for my private company's business and thought we'd stop to see the sights now that the op is over."

"Shouldn't you be out fighting the Ultranationalists?" Anne asked.

"We're searching for a new field base for Shadow Company, Shepherd's PMC, and we're considering the area outside Tokyo or a blacksite in Afghanistan, leaning towards the latter." the bearded man explained.

"I'm worried about Ryuji." Ren stated. "He hasn't been able to call, and with the war now in full swing, I want to make sure he'll be okay."

"Don't worry, sir." Shepherd began. "He's fine. Should anything happen, he'll be taken care of." something about how Shepherd said that felt off, almost as if he were hiding something. The four continued in silence as they overheard the two commanders discussing the pros and cons of each base location. The news just kept giving reports about the war, before switching to one about something that happened in Rio.

"Yesterday, the favelas of Rio De Janeiro became a battlefield as unidentified armed men were spotted engaging in gunfights with local militia." A reported broadcasted over the news. "Reports indicate that BOPE was paid off not to respond to the firefights as it was supposedly related to a counter terror operation. Supposedly, this operation was carried out by an unknown multinational counter terror force. Here is a video of part of the incident." A video was shown of a group of armed men surrounding a car below a man on a balcony. The man presses a handgun to his head before being tackled onto the car by a man with a burn scar on his face. It didn't take much time for them to figure out it was Ryuji in the video.

"Loud as ever." Boss chuckled. "Wonder what Sakamoto is up to now?"

"I have a feeling he's going for a nice swim." Shepherd told everyone with a wink. No one knew what it meant, but they did have a suspicion.

Ryuji Confirmed that his air pack was connected and slowly rose up from the depths. The water was freezing cold, sub-zero, infact, but his drysuit fortunately made it feel tolerable. Not warm, just barely tolerable. Ryuji broke the surface so quietly one could hear a pin drop, just as planned. Ryuji pulled his knife off his kit, prepared to strike the guard just above him. Ryuji slashed at the man's achilles tendons, then he tossed him into the depths below as he climbed onto the oil platform. Ryuji took off the diving gear, putting on the equipment stored in the buoyant pack he was given. So now, instead of being clad in a drysuit and diving gear, he clad in a drysuit and a plate carrier, how gorgeous. Ryuji ignored his objections to how he looked, opting to focus on his mission. Ryuji stacked up with his team at the platform's locker rooms, Roach standing behind him, with Soap and Ghost at the opposite end of the door. To the door behind him was a team of DEVGRU operatives, ready to help with this operation as per the agreement that Soap somehow negotiated. Ryuji was given a nod and he set a breaching charge on the door.

"Ready, mark." Ryuji stated, pressing down on the detonator. The door blasted open, with Soap tossing a flashbang in. Ryuji peeled into the doorway, taking out two terrorists, the rest being taken out by Ghost, Roach, Soap, or DEVGRU.

"Hostages in the locker room are safe, area clear, moving up." Soap stated, leading the team up the oil rig. Two more hostiles were taken out as they climbed, these ones getting C4 planted on their corpses, just in time too. More Ultranationalists were sent to investigate the breach from earlier, and they saw the bodies. Two C4 detonations later and a gunfight broke out. Ryuji opened fire with his M4, killing as many of the terrorists as he could. It was a continuous game of opening fire, moving forward, and opening fire again. After rescuing another set of hostages, the stakes somehow were raised even more. A helicopter flew in towards the oil platform, obviously hostile since there was a SAM turret that would shoot anything friendly down.

"Roach, you seem to be our goddamn juggernaut, you grab an enemy RPG and shoot the chopper down." Soap ordered. Roach obliged, snagging an RPG and somehow not being hit before shooting down the attack chopper. Well, Roach truly did get his callsign from being invincible. The 141 moved on, continuing to attack hostiles, even in a damn smoke screen, just to get to one last set of hostages and a single SAM turret. Ryuji set up at the door to the last set of them, a warning blaring in his ear before he could set a charge.

"We just got word that they set C4 on the hostages in there." MacMillan stated over the radio. "We can't risk blowing them up, no explosives or flashbangs."

"Well then, looks like we're going mechanical." Ryuji stated, pulling his halligan off his back. Ryuji slammed it into the door, ripping the door open, giving a brief opportunity to his comrades to shoot the terrorists, one of whom had a detonator. Ryuji shot the detonator, then the head of the man holding it. For a moment, tensions spiked as the man fell to the floor, the realization that the detonator could have been a deadman's switch kicked in. Then came silence as the tensions dropped. It wasn't a deadman's switch, thank god. Ryuji rushed ahead to a computer to disable the SAM, letting a chopper fly in for extraction. Marines flooded to the platform to clean up any stragglers and liberate the hostages.

"Skull, you're with Roach and I, we're getting that prisoner." Soap stated. Ryuji nodded, grabbing an Mk 14 from the rack on the chopper. One person being held against their will left to be rescued, and something told Ryuji that this was one to remember.

A/N: Yeah I know there's some chronology stuff, but writing multiple missions that take place at roughly the same time in the course of a few chapters is hard. I'm excited to see where this goes, especially once I get to play with Shadow Company, I have big plans for them. In case you couldn't figure it out, the other man with Shepherd is Lerch from MW2019. I'll be using him, Roze, and especially Velikan later, I'm real excited for you guys all to see that.