Welcome to the second chapter!

I'm gonna head up to the surface today! I'm both excited and scared. I mean, I'd like to see what the surface is, but I'm not looking forward to having my face clawed off by mutants, or getting kidnapped by bandits. But Kirishima's going with me, I don't have to be scared! He's strong and spirited, I'll get through this!

Which brings me back to bullets.. how am I gonna pay him?

"Bullets!"

Midoriya shouted then he jolted up from his makeshift mattress. The boy had a nightmare about the lack of payment to Kirishima since he made such a big deal out of it. On seeing his familiar surroundings, which is his room full of salvaged All Might posters and Japanese postcards, he calmed down. "Breath, Izuku. Breath. It's just a nightmare.."

Two light knocks on his door interrupted his mantra, which startled him for the second time. "Hey, Midoriya? You awake?" It was Kirishima, which served to fuel Midoriya's anxiety even more. "U-uh-Yes! Y-yes I am! Haha!" the curly haired boy exclaimed nervously. "Oh, okay. Just dropping by to tell you that I can go with you 'up there', okay? I'll wait for you at Lenin Station's door. No rush, though! Take your time preparing, I can wait." the ranger stated and waited for a reply, which came after a few seconds later. "O-okay! Yes! Da!" Midoriya exclaimed nervously again.

Kirishima looked worried. "Uhh, okay. I hope you didn't eat another bad mushroom again." and with that, the sound of Kirishima's gear and heavy footsteps signaled to Midoriya that he's walking away, which calmed him down. He inhaled and exhaled repeatedly until his nerves calmed down.

One.. two.. three.. I can do this!

Midoriya fixed his shirt and pants then he put on his jacket and red sneakers. Once his clothes were set, he grabbed the fifty bullets in his safe then he headed out of his room and locked it. Once outside, he started walking to Lenin Library Station. On the way, he heard loud chatter from a corner along with some people speaking over a loudspeaker. Turning the corner, he discovers a crowd of people congregated along the general area of the Polis Council chamber room, who were discussing some sort of treaty between the Nazis and the Reds. "Excuse me. Coming through. Uh, izvinite.." he mumbled as he made his way through the crowd. Once he's out of there, he took a breather and continued on his way to the escalators leading to Lenin Library Station.

Along the way, he sees Uraraka going down the steps with a box, and she notices him. "I heard you're going up to the surface! Cool!" she exclaimed at him, making Midoriya flinch at the sudden rise in volume. "I won't take long. And if I can, I'll get some stuff for you, Iida, maybe Shouto too." Midoriya said with a smile. Uraraka gave him a one-armed hug from the other side of the escalator, startling him. "Aww! You're very thoughtful! But only when you can, okay? Focus on your mission first." the curly haired boy nodded, then Uraraka smiled back. "I'm gonna tell Iida, and I'm sure he'll be supportive! Well anyway, I gotta get going, good luck Midoriya!" she added hastily, going down the rapid flight of escalator steps. Midoriya sheepishly waved back and continued going up the steps.

Once he's at the top of the escalator, he sees a mosaic of a person's face, most likely the Lenin person the station and library were named after; Midoriya never went to Lenin Library Station since it was mostly for Kshatriyas. After ascending the escalator and a small flight of stairs, he sees a huge, red hermetic door, and in front of it was Kirishima, the blonde ranger, and Kuzmich, who were discussing something it seems. He slowly made his to the group, panting heavily and bending down on his legs. "I-I'm here.. hah.."

Kuzmich clasped his hands together in delight, while Kirishima waved at him and the blonde ranger just stared at Midoriya. "Izuku! I see you have made arrangements, yes?" the old man said cheerfully, referring to Kirishima, which brought the curly haired boy back to his thoughts about bullets and paying the redhead. "U-uhh.. yeah, about that.." he fidgeted with his fingers, nervous. Kuzmich patted Midoriya on his head. "Is about their payment? Do not worry, I have paid. I will deduct from your salary once you bring back documents."

Must be my lucky day.. I think.

Midoriya felt relief wash over him in an instant as he no longer has to worry about paying Kirishima. He wonders if he plans to bring the blonde ranger with him, though. Both rangers were heavily decked out in gear, armor, ammo, and weaponry, though Kirishima lacked any armor since he has his quirk. That reminded Midoriya something.

I don't have any gear.. how stupid of me.

Once Midoriya was done collecting his thoughts, which went from gear to how the blonde ranger's uniform is blue while Kirishima's is red, Kuzmich was already walking away and that Kirishima was patting him on his shoulder. "Metro to Midoriya? You okay?" the curly haired boy nodded vigorously. "Hey, you gotta get some gear from the armoury, bro. You won't be able to defend yourself up there let alone breath." Kirishima finished with a chuckle and pointed towards a sign with a drawing of an AK. "Just follow that sign. The guy there is Japanese like us. He's my friend too, so don't worry." Midoriya looked sheepishly at Kirishima, then nodded with a smile. "Okay. Thank you."

Kirishima smiled back and he let the curly haired boy go off to the armory; he and his blonde comrade started talking about him though. Midoriya made his way past some older rangers who were discussing something over vodka. He followed the sign, which led to an open red door, where he slowly went inside. "I-is this the armoury?" he asked the person behind the counter, which was decked with all kinds of guns and ammo. The place looked dirty and smelled of metal and gunpoweder.

The guy snickered. "Nah, it's the restaurant." Midoriya froze and slowly inched away from the door. "S-sorry! Where is the-" the curly haired boy was cut off in his speech by the guy's laughter. "Just kidding! Jeez. Yeah, this is the armoury, hehe." he waved at him, still snickering. Midoriya inched back inside, then shut the door behind him. He walked to the counter, and looked at the armourer, who's wearing a white tank top and some ranger cargo pants, and he looked as buff and as old as Kirishima but has silver hair; he seemed to exhibit similar qualities to the redheaded ranger.

"You're the guy Mister Kuzmich told me about, right?" he asked, to which Midoriya nodded sheepishly. The armourer then went to get stuff from the bottom of the counter. As he found whatever it was, he placed it on the top of the counter.

The first thing he brought up was an orange case with a red cross on it, then he opened the lid, showing about five little syringes. "For when you get hurt. Just inject one of these to yourself and you'll be good. I dunno how it works, but it works. That's the Russians for you, haha!" he explained, then Midoriya took the case and pocketed it.

"Umm.. what's your name, if that's okay?" Midoriya asked as the armourer went to getting more stuff from under the counter. He peeked up at Midoriya for a second, then went back to locating the stuff. "You can call me Tetsutetsu. You're Midoriya, right?" he asked, then he brought up a green, full-face gas mask and some spherical objects; its filters. Midoriya nodded at his question, and stared at the objects.

"Here's your gasmask. Those are your filters. Just screw the filters in this hole on the gasmask, and you're good." Tetsutetsu demonstrated by picking up a filter and screwing it to the front of the gasmask, which then stuck to it. "Every filter is good for like, twenty minutes, so remember to time it and switch filters on time. Otherwise you'll be breathing radioactive air, and that's it for you." Midoriya gulped a heavy lumped in his throat since he's getting increasingly nervous with Tetsutetsu's jokes. He grabbed the gasmask and had it hang on his side then he pocketed the filters.

Tetsutetsu brought up an olive green military backpack, and patted it. "For whatever you have to bring down." then he grabbed a nearby gun on the rack; it looked put together, and had its magazine on the side, which entirely showed thirty dirty bullets. Tetsutetsu also placed some pouches full of more dirty bullets beside the gun. "They call it the 'Bastard' gun since it tends to jam and overheat, but anything's better than having to fight mutants or bandits with your bare hands, right? Oh, and here are your 'dirty' bullets as we call them; repeatedly reused shells with kinda crappy gunpowder, but at least they work. You can use your 'shiny' bullets too, but eh.. you'll be shooting money, hehe. You're better off buying an entire magazine of dirtys with one shiny." Tetsutetsu explained, to which Midoriya appeared to be deep in processing his information, continuosly mumbling to himself. "Hey, you okay?"

Midoriya mumbled an "M'fine." and Tetsutetsu seemed fine with that. "Wait a sec! Before I forget.." the silver haired armorer went to another side of the counter, which was facing a workshop. "Hey, Hatsume! How's the watch going?" he asked some person on the other side. Then a girl about their agae popped up in front of Tetsutetsu, holding out a watch to his face. "I've just finished it! It's got a lot of nifty stuff in here that your friend can make use of!" she handed it to Tetsutetsu, then looked at Midoriya. "You got that from Hatsume Mei! The best technician in all of the metro!" she momentarily said to Midoriya before going back to the workshop.

Tetsutetsu sighed as he scrutinized the watch, then he went to Midoriya "She's a bit eccentric but eh, she's okay. Anyway, I dunno what other things this thing could do for you apart from timing your filters but well, here you go. I guess go and discover what it can do?" Tetsutetsu transfered the watch to Midoriya's hand, to which the latter flipped and rotated the device around, examining it. "Oh, and inside your backpack is a crank charger and a flashlight. That should come in handy for you." the armorer added.

Midoriya put on the watch on his left wrist and continued examining it; nothing happened. Humming, he pocketed the dirty bullets and grabbed the not-too-heavy gun by its handguard. "Kuzmich payed for that by the way, so you're good." Tetsutetsu added, to which Midoriya responded with an "ah".

Midoriya slung the backpack over his shoulders and adjusted a few straps. Just before he headed out of the armoury, he stopped at the door. "Thank you Tetsutetsu." Midoriya said to Tetsutetsu as he paused in front of the door. "No prob. Good luck, man!" the armorer waved at him, then the curly haired boy exited the armoury and shut the red door behind him.

Midoriya went back to Kirishima and his comrade, who were laughing over something; they appeared to be best friends. He stopped in front of the pair with all of his gear. "I'm ready." Midoriya clutched at his backpack and gripped his Bastard gun. "Ah, great! Before we go though, I wanna introduce you to my buddy here who's coming with us; Kaminari Denki, my best bro." he patted his comrade, who responded with a wave. "Hey." Midoriya bowed a little at him. "Hello."

"Kaminari here is a good guy, and Midoriya is like the embodiment of kindness. You'll both get along!" Kirishima stated, then he went over to one of the Polis guards to have a word, then he went back to their group immediately. "Okay, you two. Get ready!" the redhead told his two companions as he put on his signature ranger steel helmet with a built-in gasmask. Kaminari put on his gasmask as well, which was like Kirishima's but it was black and had a little yellow lightning bolt on the side.

Meanwhile, Midoriya was having trouble putting on his gasmask, having trouble with the straps. "U-um.. how do I put this on? I forgot to ask Tetsutetsu.." he stated sheepishly. "Here." Kaminari took the gasmask from him and showed him an opening in the straps below, then he put it on Midoriya with a pat. "There ya go!"

Shortly, two red lights started flashing beside the hermetic door, then mechanical whirring noises followed. Polis guards started to gather around the door as well. "Vnimanie! Dveri otkrivayutsa!" a Polis guard yelled as two other Polis guards took positions behind the door, their Kalashnikovs with laser sights aimed straight at the door. "He said that the doors are opening." Kaminari told an uneasy looking Midoriya.

A moment later, the mechanical whirring noises became louder, then the red hermetic door started moving, its bottom and top halves moving in their respective direction to get out of the way. After thirty seconds, the whirring stopped, and the door was fully open, showing derelict escalator steps laden with frost; the cold of the outside can be felt rushing into the station, making Midoriya shiver a little. "Vkhod yasno! Davay!" a Polis guard yelled while waving at the trio to get going.

"He says it's clear. Let's go!" Kirishima went first to take point, jogging towards and up the steps of the escalator with his rifle at the ready. Kaminari and Midoriya went behind him, with the latter lagging a little due to the pressure he's experiencing; Kaminari had to assist him up towards the steps because of it. Once they're all outside and going up the derelict escalator steps, the door started closing again, its mechanical noise being less evident as they went further upwards.

Once they've nearly reached the surface inside the former station's building, Midoriya had to block his face from the sun that attacked his eyes through the windows; Polis Station's lights may have been bright, but the sun was brighter than any metro lighting. Kirishima took point again, with Kaminari following behind him since Midoriya went to sit down at a nearby desk. He started hyperventilating.

I'm outside! I can't believe I'm outside! It's so cold! So bright! So-

"Metro to Midoriya! C'mon, let's go!" Kirishima shook the other boy to snap him out of his thoughts, which did work. The redheaded ranger assisted the curly haired boy to stand up and they walked towards a broken window, which showed the decaying, concrete facade of Lenin Library which was laden with snow, frost, and a few trees. Kirishima pointed at the building, to which Midoriya gawked at. Kaminari was examining the immediate vicinity for threats with his binoculars, namely mutants.

"Welcome to Lenin Library, Midoriya. Welcome to the Dead City. This is gonna be a fun day!"

Thank you for reading! Katsuki appears in the next chapter!