Chapter Four

Another hour, another HVI to rescue. That was what Ramirez knew was going to happen, and he was right. There was a HVI in an estate just ahead, and it was Hunter 2-1's job to rescue them. Naturally, Ramirez was in a situation like the ones before, fire at Russians, push up, stop, repeat. Frankly, he was hoping they would be sent off on a sneaking mission in the jungles of Siberia or something. Wait, no, there were no jungles in Siberia. Regardless of what he hoped for, Ramirez pushed forward, somehow able to keep his head intact despite being Natty G instead of a real, true ranger. Of course, Torres was completely scratchless as he pushed onward. He fought with a ferocious intensity he hadn't seen before. At one point, he was completely surrounded, odds against him, and he was able to beat down two of the four people surrounding him, shoot two in the head with his handgun before tapping the others, and even killed someone who snuck behind him by jabbing him in the neck with what looked like a pencil or a pen or something. Ramirez felt something was off about him, however. For one, his eyes purple, a color completely impossible naturally, and he was certain that Torres did not wear contacts. But second, the way Torres fought was almost like he knew what would happen before it did, and it was almost like something was helping him. Sometimes, Ramirez would catch a glimpse of the specialist in battle, and he could have sworn his eyes would glow. Ramirez tried his best to shake off these feelings, they'd only get in the way in battle. Ramirez did what he could to fend off the Russians, but most of the kills would usually end up in the hands of Torres and the others. Soon enough, the team came upon a golf course where the Russians had SAM's set up. Destroying said SAM's, the team pushed to the compound where a crashed helicopter awaited them. Moving in, the team approached the panic room of the compound.

"Icepick." Foley yelled into the room. No response. They were told by General Shepherd himself that the HVI would respond with "Phoenix" but it didn't happen. Reluctantly, the team entered the safe room, weapons drawn. Inside was a horrid sight. The HVI had been in there perhaps longer than they thought. Food boxes were strewn about the room, a chess match was set up with a teddy bear (who would have won if he moved his knight to B5 and put a pawn right next to his rook, putting the HVI's king in checkmate), and a rancid smell infested the room. Ramirez was getting adjusted to the smell of death, but not like this. Two bodies sat in the room, one was the HVI, with multiple bullet wounds in his chest, clutching a handgun in his right hand. The other body was a Russian soldier, bullet wounds in his thigh and just above his chest rig, maybe right in the pleural cavity, not a fun way to die. But there was something off about the body, it seemed different from the other Russian troops. There were tattoos of Cyrillic words and a topless woman on his neck, and he seemed armed differently from the rest of the Russian soldiers. Whereas most of them were armed with AK-74M assault rifles and SR-3MP carbines or Vityaz-SN submachine guns, this one was carrying an OTs-02 Kiparis submachine gun and a KS-23.

"We're too late…" Foley sighed.

"What the hell do we tell the General?" Dunn murmured.

"His intel is on that laptop, let's take that and get out of here." Morgan stated, pointing to a laptop to the side of the HVI. Dunn took it, walking out with Foley and the others, excluding Torres, who noticed the same body as Ramirez.

"Something's off about this guy…" Torres mused. "Give me a hand?" Ramirez nodded, holding the body up as Torres lifted up the soldier's sleeve. Tattooed on his right shoulder was exactly what Torres seemed to fear, a snake eating itself, a crown on the inside of the snake, with a triangle made of three checks on the inside, the logo of Inner Circle.

"Jesus Christ…" Ramirez sputtered. "What does this mean?"

"This means I need to make some calls." Torres stated, pulling his phone out of his rig. "Don't trust anyone, you and I are all we can rely on right now, Ramirez. Do you understand how big this is?"

"Our communications are heavily encrypted, it would take a master to break them. They would only have found out where the HVI was if they were listening to our comms." Ramirez mused. "So it means either they have a master hacker… or someone's feeding them information."

"Exactly." Torres stated, dialing a number. "Hun, I'm on a secure line. There's some things you'll want to know, you may want to call that Oracle friend of Skull's, there's going to be trouble soon, and I don't think it's just Minako and Makarov."

"Who's that?" Ramirez asked.

"Just a friend." Torres smirked. Something told Ramirez that he was trying to hide something.

"Ramirez, Torres, get out here." Foley called out. "We're moving out, D.C. is being evacuated, our capitol's going to be under attack."

Ryuji wished he could have some music going, that would have made the entrance much, much cooler. For now though, he had to settle on the sounds of helicopter blades slicing through the frigid arctic air and brass being shot out of and ejected from rifles. It wasn't unpleasant, just a bit boring considering they had a chance to make an entrance. Roach seemed to be a bit of a poor shot on the chopper. It made sense, ground and airborne sharpshooting are completely different, the latter being much much harder. Ryuji focused on taking out as many terrorists in the gulag as he could, anything to make his mission easier. They were finally going to go and rescue Inner Circle's prison, a man who Makarov supposedly hated more than Americans, Prisoner 627. The plan was simple, almost identical to Ryuji's escape from the Gulag in Verdansk, actually. Enter by helicopter, push to the cell blocks and the armory, gear up a bit heavier, then push to the maintenance tunnels. Once there, they would breach into the showers and push to Prisoner 627's location, then extract by skyhook. The helicopter landed and the team began their push. Ryuji ditched his MK14 and switched to an AK-74M and his personal sidearm for the mission. While Ryuji had been using an HK45 or a USP for the past few missions, he actually had his own personal sidearm he preferred to use, an MP443 Grach. He used the sidearm during his escape in Verdansk, and he found himself deciding to keep it as a personal sidearm, even buying a model version of one to keep at home in Japan. Ryuji and the team pushed into the massive, circular cell block, identical to the one Ryuji was held in before. It was quite the touch battle, there was almost no cover, and enemies completely surrounded the team. Fortunately, the armory left them a little treat in the form of some ballistic shields. Using said shields, TF141 slowly pushed up, taking it low and slow to avoid taking a bullet.

"Christ, if we didn't have these we'd be dead." Soap muttered as they slid into the tunnels. The tunnels were pitch black, nothing their NODs couldn't handle. They slowly moved through, the green hue of the night vision goggles illuminating their path. Funnily enough, it seemed Roach wasn't adjusted to them, regularly bumping into walls and his teammates.

"Need an eye check, Roach?" Ghost joked. Roach groaned.

"No, I just never used these before, is all." Roach responded.

"I find that hard to believe." Ryuji stated. "Even I was able to see depth for the first time using NODs." Ryuji stated. That was a lie, he had some depth perception issues, not as bad as Roach but they were there. He still grimaced at the memory of running headfirst into a wall because he didn't realize how close it was. Soon enough, they were at the shower wall.

"Let's light this up." Worm, another rookie they took along for the ride, stated, preparing for the breach. Ryuji set a charge, giving a simple nod as he detonated the charge, bursting the thin wall open. The showers were almost over filled with Inner Circle members, but it was nothing lots of bullets and grenades couldn't handle. Soon enough, TF141 was in the sewers, right in front of Prisoner 627's location. One more charge later, and they saw him, Prisoner 627 beating down two guards, stealing one's AK, and knocking Roach to the ground, AK ready to fire. Soap and Ryuji both aimed their sidearms at the main, lowering them at his first words.

"Soap? Skull?" Prisoner 627 asked. Soap lowered his 1911.

"Price. I believe this belongs to you, sir." Soap responded, handing his 1911 to Captain John Price, found at last.

"Price, it's good to see you again." Ryuji stated, a smile on his face as Price took his old sidearm back.

"Who the hell is Soap?" Worm asked, visibly confused.

"Just a friend." Ryuji stated, lowering his sidearm. An explosion rang out, putting a damper on the happy reunion. Fortunately, this explosion did give much faster access to the team's escape route, at the cost of only a few seconds to get there before another bomb set off an even bigger one. Naturally, Roach lagged behind just long enough for an explosion to nearly kill him, somehow surviving. As the chopper pulled everyone in for evac, Ryuji gave a big old bear hug to Price, his missing comrade, finally back in his hands.

Ryuji sat down for the briefing, slightly distracted by his call with Torres's boyfriend. He didn't catch most of what he said, spotty connection and all, but he did catch that something was wrong, that Inner Circle may have infiltrated 141. Ryuji just focused on the mission, the traitor, if there was one, would reveal themselves soon enough. Price gave the briefing alongside General Shepherd this time, showing off his resilience that only Price could possess.

"Gentlemen, we've got a Tuesday afternoon ahead of us." Price opened with a joke. "Seems Inner Circle came into possession of a nuclear submarine, a fully armed one. It's in a port in Petropavlovsk, and we're going after it."

"There will be two teams." Shepherd began. "Team One will infiltrate the compound and defend the submarine for team two, this will be the largest team, consisting of Gaz, Ghost, Roach, and anyone I don't say is on Team Two. Team Two is going to be Skull and Price, they're going inside the sub and preventing the launch of the nuke. Get this done right and you'll be back at the FOB in time for tea. Get geared up for arctic warfare, dismissed." Ryuji got up, immediately walking to the locker rooms to prepare. He was dressed simple this time, white boots, cargos, a parka, white tactical rig, beanie, neck gaiter and a pair of ski goggles were all he needed. He also needed weapons, obviously, opting for an M4A1 with a heartbeat sensor and an M200 Intervention with the same sensor and optional thermal optic. Before Ryuji could prepare anything else, however, Price pulled him aside.

"We're going to need the ICBM." Price stated in a whisper. "It's too valuable to disable."

"What are you thinking?" Ryuji asked. "Take the core out and replace it?"

"Bingo." Price stated. "Swap your breaching charges for a pulse generator, won't need the explosives anyway. When we get to the ICBM, I'll take the core out and you'll replace it with the pulse generator."

"Making it an EMP." Ryuji mused.

"Exactly." Price responded. "Then, we launch it, right over DC."

"Stop the tech, stop the fighting. Temporarily, at least." Ryuji stated, catching onto Price's plan.

"Yep, buy us time until things get worse." Price explained. "It won't stop the fighting, but the Russian forces have become reliant on electronics, with the American troops stuck with older tech, or so I'm told."

"So the troops would have a fighting chance if the Russians didn't have their computers anymore." Ryuji mused. "I'm liking this plan already."

"Let's just hope Shepherd sees why I'm doing this." Price stated. Ryuji nodded, heading off to finish preparations. Looks like he was getting involved in some conspiracy BS.

Futaba spent hours mulling over what she'd been given. Torres was amazingly willing to give her what she needed to hack the US Army as well as General Shepherd's PMC thing, but this was honestly too much to sort through. There was an ungodly amount of documents that were completely unrelated to what Futaba was looking for, and even more that seemed like they were but actually weren't. It was times like this that she wished she could just summon Necronomicon and have him sort through all of it. But that wasn't an option, even if she wasn't a cyber warfare specialist for the UN. Ryuji was honestly the best right now. When Futaba was struggling to find work after graduating, Ryuji used his connections to the JSDF and UN to contact one Makoto Takeba, a UN analyst and former Lieutenant in the JSDF, helping Futaba secure work managing cyber security and performing hacking operations for TF141 if needed. Right now, she was doing research off the books, mostly as a favor for Ryuji. If it was possible in the real world, Futaba would have just summoned Necronomicon and let it do all the work finding intel for her, but that wasn't an option. So, she sat in her office, the only light in the room coming from the glow of her monitors, cans of Bang littering the floor.

"Maybe I gotta be more specific." Futaba mused, typing: 'Communications with Inner Circle' into both Shadow Company and the Army's records. Nothing showed up. 'Eyes only communications', once more, nothing. Futaba groaned at all of this, why was this so hard!? Futaba sighed and decided to test one last search before calling it quits for the day, 'Plans Shepherd'. One result in Shadow Company's records. A file simply named 'Plans', created by Lieutenant General Hershel Von Shepherd III. The contents were disturbing, to say the least. The file read:

"Objective: Kill Vladimir Makarov and Minako Arisato to avenge Marines at Verdansk, cement status as a war hero.

Operational procedure

Gather intelligence on Inner Circle

Instigate war between USA and Russia

Eliminate loose ends that could possibly take credit or discredit Shepherd (Task Force 141 is most significant)

Execute kill order on Vladimir Makarov and Minako Arisato

Go public with news of execution of Makarov and Arisato

When this is complete, the dead finally lay peacefully, and I will be there to show the world my glory."

This was absolutely Insane, Shepherd was going to kill Ryuji and his team just so he could get medals and revenge! Futaba knew she had to tell the world, to warn Ryuji, to stop this before it could begin. As Futaba launched out of her seat to call her friend, the door blasted open. A large figure in heavy body armor stood in the doorway, an oni's smile painted on his helmet. The figure aimed a massive machine gun at Futaba, seemingly ready to fire. Futaba snatched the handgun sitting on her desk, the large pistol shaking in her hands as she aimed it at the figure. The figure let out a muffled laugh, knocking the pistol out of her hand and shoving a bag on her head. Futaba heard someone speak as she was hauled out of the office and into the void of the night outside.

"We knew this would happen, Sakura, we intercepted your friend's call." Shepherd stated. "They won't know any of this until it's too late for them, you can help us, or you can rot in a cell, it's your choice." Futaba thought for a moment, every instinct told her to spit at this man and stand against him, but if how Ryuji described special operations was right, there was an advantage to be had. If Futaba made Shepherd think she was working with him, like the Phantom Thieves did with Akechi back when they were still around, she could use it to her advantage.

"I'd rather work with you. I want to see Makarov pay." Futaba stated, feigning interest in his conspiracy.

"How would we know you're loyal to us?" Shepherd asked. "You did just hack us for Torres and the 141, after all."

"As long as you keep me supplied with good tech and challenges in hacking, and promise that Makarov will die, I'm with you." Futaba stated, adding a bluff right after. "Besides, I only helped Torres and the 141 for the challenge of hacking Shadow Company's notoriously unhackable servers."

"Release her." Shepherd stated as the figure pulled Futaba's hood off. "Welcome to Shadow Company, Futaba Sakura. You'll need a callsign."

"Call me, uh, Navi." Futaba stated, not wanting her old codename stained by this scum. "Since I'll be navigating through your intel to direct you to your goal."

"I like it." Shepherd smiled. "You'll be a valuable asset to our group." If only this man knew the truth.

I hope you can understand why I'm doing this, Ryuji. Futaba thought to herself as Shepherd and the armored figure guided her to a car. She stepped in, briefly betraying her friends to keep them alive.

A/N: This is what happens when I'm not feeling well, I write, ALOT. But yeah, Futaba's working with Shadow Company. Don't worry, like she said, she's only doing it to trick Shepherd and help Ryuji. I'm surprised how quickly I'm entering the endgame on this one, next entry probably will be faster though. The next chapter is going to catch us up on DC and get the EMP launched so we can get the Shadow Company arc rolling, I'm super excited for you guys to see that one, by the way, I have big plans for it. Not much to say right now, I hope you enjoyed and have a great day!