Chapter 6: Triage at Dusk

Hey Hey People, Sun here. Sorry for the *checks watch* month long wait for this chapter. Had a lot of problems IRL, including summer classes. Alongside the fact that I was going to have the following fight sequence span over just this chapter alone. But it became so bloated I figured It'd be best to just separate it into two chapters instead. So yea. Alongside that, I'm going to point out that there are going to be some elements within the story I have taken from the game SYNTHETIK: Legion Rising. Nothing major, just a few futuristic weapons and names here and there. Also, I know they don't specifically state when MHA takes place, but my head-canon for it is that It takes place somewhere around the turn of the 22nd Century, maybe even after. And alongside that, Gordon hails from somewhere around the early 2000s, so he isn't really used to what we would consider "Modern" technology in the 2020s so, thatll also be something he has to get used to. But uh yea, I appreciate the patience, sorry for the wait, and I hope you all enjoy. I don't own the properties obviously. Lets go. Also, content warning for this particular chapter, some horror and blood, so, just watch out.

Training Lodge, Nagano

Gordon stared at the ceiling, lost in thought about… well, a lot of things actually. "Okay… so. Why haven't the mutants killed me yet? They were trying to kill me a few days ago, back at that magician's convention, or whatever. And yet now that they've got me bound and tied, right where they want me… nothing. That crackhead seemed like he was interrogating me. Though honestly, I think he was trying to butter me up into asking for money. Y'know, 'Hey, how are you doing? What's your name? Where do you work at?' And that would have ended with 'So, can I borrow a fiver?' Fiver? I dunno what they call that in Japan… For all I know he's not even with the military. Given the incompetence I've seen on display from our best and brightest the last couple days, I wouldn't be surprised if he just wandered in off the fucking streets looking for his next hit, and either nobody noticed the difference, or they stopped asking questions about potential new recruits after they started having to deal with the aliens, and me."

Gordon glanced back towards the door of the cabin. Nothing, though that omnipresent feeling of being observed was still absolute in the room. "I wish I could drop my heartrate to zero and pretend I was dead. That'd certainly get them in here faster. I'm pretty sure I've read there are some species of hummingbirds that live in the Andes Mountains that can freeze themselves like they're going into cryogenic sleep. Then there are the tardigrades, of course, because nature thought it needed to evolve an animal that can survive an atomic blast or the vacuum of space, apparently." "

We experimented with cryogenics back at Black Mesa, but… I suppose with the facility destroyed like it was, I doubt there was anyone alive to wake up the test subjects from their century long naps. I certainly wasn't going to do it. It's hard to break it to someone that they've been asleep for 100 years, and you have to get them accustomed to modern technology and society too. Shit, maybe I missed an opportunity though, I probably have used them as foot soldiers. I'm sure that coming out of being a popsicle they would've been so out of it, I could've told them anything and they wouldn't have asked any questions. I could've made them think they were like Stallone in Demolition Man or something! 'Hey, c'mon, snap out of it! Aliens are invading Earth! We woke you up because you're the only ones who can stop them, here, take this gun and go around that corner!'"

Gordon's eyes drifted around the room, before spotting a calendar with a cartoonish image of what looked to be a superhero standing proudly with his big, muscular arms at his hips. A large, beaming smile was on his face, along with an oddly shaped set of blond hair that reminded Gordon a bit like a set of rabbit ears forming a 'V' shape. His eyes glanced down towards the year. '2198.' His eyes widened and he began to sweat profusely. "Oh my God… Why would you keep a calendar with a print error like that?"

Gordon squinted his eyes and shook his head. "Wow, how do you even fuck up that bad? They got none of the numbers right. I'd heard of cheap Chinese bootlegs with mistakes like these but, I mean, is the budget here really that bad they won't even buy accurate calendars? They must have just liked the picture of..." Gordon raised an eyebrow, trying to figure out what superhero was being featured on the calendar. "...Johnny Bravo mixed with Superman? Who is that? Is this like… Is this Japan's version of Superman? I thought that was Ultraman… or Kamen Rider. Huh, I guess I've been behind on comic books..."

Just then, the door finally opened and Aizawa returned, carrying a bowl of food in hand. It smelled like some kind of curry. Gordon wanted to say something smarmy about Aizawa's prolonged absence, but the smell alone caused the starving scientist to begin drooling and breathing heavily. "Alright, now let me make something clear here..." AIzawa stood in front of the table, looking down at Gordon with a stern expression. "I'm going to loosen the binds just enough for you to eat, but let me tell you. You try anything out of pocket, and I'm going to have to give you a full body wrapping, and you won't get anything to eat until you've been fully booked. Understand?" Obviously, Gordon wasn't a massive fan of taking orders from anyone, especially random junkies in police stations. But damn, if that curry didn't smell like heaven...

"Yea, I understand. Just give me the food, man..." Gordon muttered with his head hung over. Aizawa, satisfied with Gordon's answer, loosened the binding cloth ever so slightly, allowing Gordon's arms to be freed. Aizawa set the bowl down onto the table and took a seat on the other couch, his elbows resting on his knees as he leaned forward, watching Gordon carefully.

"Fucking… Tutankhamen grip, Jesus..." Gordon rubbed his arms up and down, still sore after being bound for a full day and a half now. Aizawa remarked, "That's not even the strongest bind I can pull off." Gordon, before Aizawa could say anymore, tore into the bowl of curry as fast as he could, scarfing it down like… well, like the starving man he was, a single bag of expired Doritos wasn't the ideal diet for several days of constant military combat. Aizawa was a bit surprised, though he had seen his students eating like this as well, thanks to the training of the past few days. Considering Gordon's claims of only having eaten chips and… drugs, It was a wonder Gordon wasn't more emaciated, or dead, by now.

"So...where are you from...?" Aizawa cautiously asked, more interrogating, some of it was a mixture of trying to fill in for the police, other parts were genuine curiosity as to try to decode the enigma that had just seemingly dropped into Japan out of thin air mere days ago. For such a man to create so much trouble in such little time, with no apparent record of his existence before his arrival here, he just had to know more about him.

Gordon looked up from his meal, with the same wild eyes as Saturn devouring his son. Gordon was perplexed at Aizawa's questions, but after swallowing a gob of curry and sighing, he gave a dry response of, "Seattle." Before he continued destroying the food set before him.

"Hey… you got your calendar wrong by the way. I dunno if the police are lazy and haven't changed it or whatever, but, the year and month are way off. It's like, May 16th or something… wait, I guess it'd be May the…?" Gordon thought to himself, counting how many days had passed since the experiment on his fingers. "-the 19th? I dunno. I've been underground for so long, I could be classified as a fucking Morlock by now..." Gordon chuckled to himself. Aizawa glanced back at the calendar, and then to Gordon again in confusion. "The calendar's correct, what do you mean...?" Gordon froze, before looking at the calendar again and then looking to Aizawa. "It's… correct?" Aizawa nodded. "Yes. It's August..." Gordon looked down at his bowl, before back up at Aizawa. "And the year...?" He asked hesitantly. Aizawa once again paused, unsure if this was some kind of an odd joke or smarmy joke Gordon was setting up. "2198"

Gordon dropped his spoon onto the floor, possessing a 1,000 yard stare. He began to choke on his food, falling to the floor in pure shock. At first Aizawa thought this was some kind of act to gain sympathy, or trick him into letting his guard down, he'd dealt with enough villains to recognize ploys like this meant to prey on his better nature. Though upon seeing Gordon's face starting to turn blue, he quickly leapt up and grabbed onto Gordon, attempting to dislodge just whatever the hell was caught in the man's throat. Gordon eventually managed to hack up some piece of food onto the floor, he gasped and panted,

Realizing Aizawa was still holding onto him, he began to shake violently. "Get off! Get off! Put me down, you fucking tweaker!" He hoarsely commanded, which Aizawa obliged and allowed him to sit back down on the couch. "2198..." Gordon repeated to himself, looking around the room, and then to Aizawa several times, trying to rationalize… everything now. "You're lying… That's gotta be it, you're fucking lying to me!" Gordon shouted at Aizawa, poking him in the chest, which Aizawa did not at all appreciate, especially considering he'd just saved his damn life.

"Why would I lie to you about the date?" Gordon had about enough of all this pussyfooting around everything. "Because you're on fucking smack and you're working with the US Government to fucking kill me, that's why. What was your plan? Huh? Lull me into a false sense of security? Act like you're my buddy, my pal and give me fucking curry? I bet this shit's poisoned!" Gordon grabbed the bowl of curry, what was left of it anyways, and threw it onto the ground. "One of my students made that actually..." Gordon rolled his eyes and turned away. "Ohhh! Sureee they did! Yea, your students! That's right! I forgot! You're just a humble teacher making his way in the world! You were just out in the woods during a fucking firefight, where there were sand demons-"

"Earth-Beasts..." Aizawa corrected dryly.

"Sand demons! And you just so happen to drag me into this lovely room and interrogate me? What kind of a fucking moron do you take me for, asshole?! I graduated from MIT, do you even know what that is!? The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, you burnt out junkie shit drip! My diploma is worth more than 5 of you! It's so blatantly obvious, it hurts! You Feds are getting fucking sloppy. Was I wrong this whole time and the people I've been shooting were actually the smart spooks? I know the fall of the Soviet Union made your goddamn jobs fucking obsolete, but fuck me!" Aizawa glanced towards the door, forcing Gordon to look over and see Mandalay standing at the door, with Kota in tow. Though she had her pawed gloves covering the boy's ears from Gordon's swear laden tirade. Gordon took the hint and calmed down.

"The… students are preparing for the test of courage..." Mandalay began, constantly shooting glances at Gordon, more so at the fact that his hands were unbound and he was clearly having some kind of psychotic episode. Aizawa nodded, looking at Gordon out of the corner of his eyes. "Yea, I need to retrieve the remedial class members… Unfortunately, since the police haven't arrived, I suppose I'll be babysitting him for the evening. If they're still not here by morning, I'll just have to transport Lambda into the city myself..."

Gordon, meanwhile, listened in on the conversation with a hint of confusion on his face. "Lambda? Why do they keep saying that? Are they referring to me?" he thought to himself. "God, tell me that is not the nickname the military came up with for me. Of course they did… 'duh, cause he gots duh Greek letter on 'is chest, dat means his name is Lamb-duhhh!'" Gordon imitated a dopey voice in his head, shooting glances at the HEV suit in the corner. "I was hoping for something more like… I dunno, something cooler? I would've given them some suggestions if they asked. Like… Orange Steel? Uh… the Physicist. Freeman the Destroyer, even! I don't know, something other than fucking LAMBDA for Christ's sake! I am not a math equation! It doesn't even have anything to do with me, it's just my fucking stupid suit! I'm more than just a cart pusher in a suit!" Gordon's gyrating and facial expressions he was making, lost in his thoughts, forced Aizawa and Mandalay to look towards him, both concerned and perplexed. "Is there something you'd like to say? Out loud?" Aizawa asked Gordon, finally snapped out of his internal rant. Gordon gave a completely dishonest smile and shook his head. "Nope. Everything's peachy keen over here." Gordon ground his teeth and sighed. "I swear to God, If there wasn't a kid in the room, dude. You'd be first up to fucking bat..."

6 HOURS LATER

Darkness had fallen over the Beast's Forest, but Gordon had been cooped up inside all day, so he didn't really know. Being dragged around allowed him to learn a tiny bit about just where he had been taken after he'd been knocked unconscious. This place felt less like a police station and more like a vacation lodge. He spotted signs directing towards classrooms, a cafeteria, a hot spring? Either the police stations in Japan really were more lavish than in the United States, or something else was obviously afoot. Something that did confuse him a bit was passing by a computer room, seeing how the computers in Japan looked very different from what he was used to. They were not bulky, nor were the screens. Everything seemed to be smaller, sleeker, and the CRT monitors were replaced with some kind of flatscreen. Gordon had seen laptops, but these computers seemed generations ahead of the technology that was available at Black Mesa. Odd, but he figured that Japan could afford to place computers such as these into any old school, last he'd heard their economic growth had slowed but they were still considered a burgeoning economic superpower.

With very little context, Aizawa left Gordon in a classroom, sitting in a desk guarded by perhaps one of the largest men he had ever seen in his life. Tall and buff, with a tuft of spiky white hair and… fangs, like that of an animal. He too was wearing a superhero outfit. "What's with the superhero getup? Getting some early practice in for Halloween or something?" Gordon asked, Vlad King eyeballed Gordon before grunting. "Don't talk to me." Gordon's eye twitched. "Oh, must be a sore subject..." Gordon thought to himself, before taking a look around the classroom.

The only other inhabitant besides himself and Vlad King was a young man with blonde hair sitting on the other end of the room, writing something down on a sheet of paper, but mostly shooting glances at Gordon. "Neito! focus on your work!" Vlad King shouted at the boy. Causing him to glance back down at his paper and start furiously writing something. Gordon gave a silent "Oooooo" and began quietly snickering, retreating back into his thoughts, "This has to be some kind of… summer camp, I think. Yea. Classrooms, teachers, I'd say the superhero theming is a bit odd, I don't remember getting that when I went to summer camp. To be fair, I did usually stray away from the main group and go off on my own, I think I was trying to walk home honestly. I jacked a compass and a utility knife from the campmaster, and then using the constellations, I started to make my way home. I could have pulled it off too, If I'd packed better food supplies than a single bag of M&Ms-"

The door to the classroom opened and Aizawa returned, this time, carrying five students with him, tied up with his binding cloths. They were all whining about something or another. Though Gordon immediately noticed a couple of extremely obvious and standout traits about some of them. Like the fact that one of them was pink and had some kind of horns growing out of her head. One of the others had some kind of deformity around his elbows, jutting out unnaturally. "Christ… They have kid mutants? Wait. Wait…No… this can't be...Is this-?" Before Gordon's train of thought could continue, he noticed the five students were now staring at him with nervous expressions on their faces.

Gordon raised an eyebrow, he had really never liked being stared at, and it felt particularly ironic to be gawked at like some kind of freak show considering some of the odd qualities of the kids doing the staring. "So that's… that's him?" One of the students asked, Aizawa nodded. "Yes, that's him. He'll be held here for the time being. Just ignore him and focus on your studies. We have a lot of material to review, and he isn't going anywhere with me or Vlad King around..." Most of the students, still tenuously holding a glance at Gordon, turned around and began to focus on whatever Aizawa was teaching. Of course that was easier said than done due to the language barrier, ever since the kids had walked in, everyone had been speaking in fluent Japanese, all he could do was just sit back in the cheap, yellow seat he had been planted in in the very back of the room… which frankly, in his opinion, needed some more interior redecorating, this place was about as colorful as a German bunker. Even Black Mesa was a little more cheerful than this.

"Okay, what was I thinking about again? Oh yeah, so I have a theory, and It's a theory I don't like, but when was the last time I had a theory I did like? I think I was captured by the US Army, and this is some kind of mutant training camp or something. It makes perfect sense. The classrooms, the accommodations, The students that look like they crawled out of Reactor 4? I bet that lady from earlier was probably trying to read my mind or something. I suppose It didn't work so well then. Maybe I'm not as fine tuned to the Warp as these people hope I am. Fuck, maybe I'm a Psyker. I don't know why I couldn't be. I've seen psychic powers now, from aliens and humans, I know they're possible!"

Gordon's attention was drawn back to the board, something he noticed made him sigh. "Your equation's off." Gordon said abruptly, stopping Aizawa in his tracks. "Who said you could talk?" Vlad King asked, standing up in his seat. Aizawa glanced at the board, he had drawn what he assumed to be Newton's equation for gravity. "That's not the correct equation. This is like high school level shit for me, man." Gordon said, before glancing back at the students and cringing a bit at his foul mouth. Why was everyone having such a hard time understanding gravity lately? At least this was only a classroom being taught by a crackhead and not a bunch of so-called physicists lousing it up this time, days later and he still couldn't get over it.

Vlad King was about ready to put Gordon down just to shut him up, but Aizawa held him off for a moment. "Then tell me, Dr. Freeman. What did I do wrong?" Some of the students began muttering to each other. "Dr. Freeman? This psycho's a doctor?" Gordon shrugged, leaning back in his desk. "Force is equal to the gravitational constant, which is G, divided by two forms of mass and distance, you forgot to add the mass of the second object… Do I get paid for this? Like seriously, I have a PhD in Theoretical Physics, this sh-" Gordon caught himself and swallowed for a moment. "This stuff is way below my pay grade."

Aizawa looked back at the board for a moment, then back to Gordon before changing his mistake. "Hmm, Good job...you just fixed an equation for high schoolers." Gordon could hear the students holding in snickers, save for maybe Kirishima and Mina whom were absolutely laughing at their teacher's jab at Gordon. "Well if it was so fu-! Mmm!" Gordon pursed his lips. "-If it was so easy, then how come you didn't get it right the first time then?" Well, at least If he couldn't kick Aizawa's ass in a fight, he could always attempt to school him. A collective silence fell upon the room. Gordon looked around for validation, before slinking back into his seat. "Ah, gang up on the nerd, I see how it is."

Members of the Ethereal Vanguard were approaching the lodge, though they remained in the woods, concealed from the clear Hero activity on the premises. A bit odd considering that they knew Lambda was present, but no matter, he had to come out some time obviously. Two members of the Vanguard were sent to establish a recon position nearby. On route, the two had become briefly separated, thanks mostly to the thick woods they were traversing, the heavy vegetation forced them to split up from each other.

One of them was alarmed to hear grunting from just up ahead of him, he could recognize the voice as belonging to his comrade. "Raymond? Raymond!" The man broke through the thicket, only to see Raymond was struggling against some kind of animal that was attempting to attack his face. It looked… It was hard to describe how it looked exactly, it was flesh colored, and it looked a bit like a spider crossed with an uncooked turkey.

"Kai! Get this fucking thing off me!" Raymond shouted, the creature was letting out these odd noises as it attempted to cling onto Raymond's head, chirping and squealing. "Pfft, I think it likes you!" Kai scoffed, folding his arms and smirking, treating the whole thing like a joke. "Seriously, man! This thing's trying to bite me! I can't breathe!" Raymond grunted as the creature managed to cling tightly onto the top of Raymond's head.

Kai began to snicker, "Lord, I think it really likes you, man." Raymond's grunts of exertion turned to pained screams. "Aghhhh! Kai! Its- Its biting me! My face! My goddamn- Kai! Kai!" Kai rolled his eyes, Raymond was always a drama queen about shit like this. "Jeez, alright ya big baby. Here, lemme get the big scary spider off." Just before Kai could remove the spider off of Raymond, a sickening crunching sound was heard and blood began to rush down Raymond's now frozen face, an expression of eternal fear etched onto it. "Raymond...? Are you alright buddy?" Kai cautiously approached his friend, a sickening feeling of guilt ran down his spine, he'd let this go too far. Raymond was now breathing heavily, hoarse, ungodly gurgles were coming from his throat.

"K-K..Kai..." Raymond said, his voice was… muffled and pained, like he was fighting back tears.

"What… Bro? Are you- are you alright...?" Raymond sprung to life without warning and attempted to strike Kai with his left hand. Kai barely managed to dodge backwards. "Bro! What are you doing?! This shit isn't funny anymore!" Raymond began to violently spasm, attempting to rip the spider off of his head, but it looked like something was weighing his arms down. Raymond began to emit… horrible sobbing noises, panting. He lurched towards Kai "OH GOD! HELP! HELP ME!" Raymond managed to shout, though his voice was muffled, and gargled underneath whatever kind of spider was clinging onto his head.

"Jesus! What do you want me to do?! Ray!? Ray!" Kai stumbled backwards, fumbling for his gun, Raymond began to lurch forward, now advancing on Kai, blood now completely caking his body. "STOP! STOP IT!" Raymond's body jerked violently about as he moved, just what kind of "spider" was this? It was… It was controlling him somehow! The spider had hijacked his friend, but Raymond was trying to fight back against it.

Kai began to back away, raising his rifle towards Raymond. "I got you, man! I'll get it, Just- just hold still! Fuck… Fuck!" Kai's hands were shaking, he wasn't sure how he was going to shoot the damn spider off without possibly killing Raymond in the process, it was latched so tightly onto his head. He began to walk backwards away from his friend, who was just swinging blindly at the air, trying his hardest to stay away from Kai and yelling more and more about how he should just run away and leave him.

That crunch the two had heard had been the creature's fangs punching through Raymond's skull and penetrating deep into his brain; they had hijacked his nervous system and given the parasite full control of his limbs. Then it had taken control of his endocrine system and forced his body to flood his veins with massive doses of adrenaline and epinephrine. Raymond could barely understand what was even happening to him anymore, all he knew was that he was afraid and in horrible pain. The creature's fangs then began to inject a cocktail of mutagenic compounds undiscovered by human science directly into his bloodstream.

"Highground! This is Echo 1-2, We have a situation with Echo Actual, do you copy? Over!" Kai spoke into his radio, but found no response. These fucking woods... "Highground, this is Echo 1-2, are you receiving my transmission? Over!" Kai repeated, looking down at his radio, constantly slamming the 'broadcast' switch and hoping to dear God that someone was listening, there was no response. Where was everyone?! Kai glanced up and realized though that Raymond was gone. He began to hyperventilate, pointing his weapon all around him in every direction. "Ray...? Where you at buddy? Ray?" His voice quivered, Kai's flashlight, though barely needed due to the full moon out tonight, grazed over something human shaped, and before he could look again, Raymond lurched out of the brush and delivered a slash with his… now ungodly long fingers that had rapidly sharpened into claws fashioned from what was once Raymond's finger bones.

Raymond was completely powerless to stop himself as he attacked his friend, as cruel as it all seemed, this creature was just obeying its instinct… Now that it had acquired a host, it needed to use him to hunt for more sources of protein that would sustain the larva it was going to gestate inside of his body. Horrifyingly, the parasite's actions wouldn't result in brain death of its host until nearly the end of its life cycle, meaning that Raymond would have to suffer in this agony until his brain was either destroyed or atrophied; but the parasite wasn't aware of that, or of anything for that matter. In its native environment, there were no sentient lifeforms, it couldn't have known the hell that it would put a human host through.

The claw tore through Kai's uniform and body armor flawlessly and put a massive gash into the man's torso, he flopped back onto the grass, before frantically raising his weapon and taking three shots at Raymond's torso, the rounds ripped through his body, and left behind a set of bleeding bullet holes, but it didn't seem to stop his advance at all.

That, however, was something that both the Vanguard, the students and faculty, and the League all heard at once; three gunshots out in the woods.

Owl frantically looked around from her vantage point, trying to identify where the shots were coming from. "Highground to all teams, who's shooting, over?" She asked into the radio, before discerning the shots were coming from where she sent Echo to establish recon earlier. "Echo Actual, this is Highground, there was no order to engage, disengage and find a new recon point, over."

No responses at all from Echo, "Echo Actual, this is Highground, confirm you copy that last order, over." Owl waited, but no response. "Fuck..." Owl shook her head and gestured to two Vanguard members standing near her. "Both of you fan out and go see what the hell's going on over there. All units, weapons free. We've broken silence, OPFOR's aware we're here. Engage at will. Over." Owl glanced towards the far distance and noticed smoke raging over the trees. A fire? "Highground to all units, can anyone discern the source of that smoke bearing 60? Over."

"Contact! We've been engaged!" The panicked voice of a Vanguard member shouted over the comms. Shots began to ring out both on the radio, and of course, off in the distance. "Gas! Gas, gas!" Another soldier shouted, they were being attacked with… Gas? Chemical weapons? By who?

"Count how many, Sierra Delta Actual?" Silence, just a heavy amount of gunfire and what sounded like yelling. Owl grit her teeth and damn near slammed her fist against the ground. "Now or never..." She mumbled to herself. "All units, target the building in the clearing. Target or not, this is a enemy rich environment. Fire at will. Over." Owl turned and ordered one of her nearby subordinates, "Get me the weapon." Quickly, they produced a weapon box with a blacked out manufacturer on the front. Contained within the box was a weapon that resembled a standard bullpup DMR, though in exchange for a magazine, there instead laid a depression that resembled a battery slot. A label along the top frame of the gun simply contained the text, 'Eraser DMR.' Owl quickly armed herself, slapping a small battery into the top, the gun hummed to life with a high pitched whine lowering to a hum, before beeping a confirmation that it was ready to fire. She gestured, and took up position with her squadron on a nearby hill.

"Everyone!" A voice rang out in the classroom in Japanese, though it was all in everyone's heads… literally. Gordon looked up and checked to see just who was talking. "Who…?" he questioned, before the voice interrupted him. "Two villains attacked us, it's possible there are more coming. Everyone return to camp immediately, we're regrouping! Do not engage any enemies!" Gordon once again looked around in fear.

"Damnit, I'm hearing voices again. My brain isn't a fucking Holiday Inn, find your own headspace to live in!" Gordon's internal rant was paused as Aizawa said something to Vlad King, before bolting out of the room. Everyone else's confusion seemed to confirm that they were hearing the voice too. "So I'm not going insane, great! Oh, that's probably one of the mutant's talking now that I think about it. Mind broadcasting. I wonder what else they can do in that case…? And what was she saying anyways…?"

Gordon glanced out one of the windows to see smoke and blue embers rising in the distance. "Chemists, Why does it have to be chemists?" Gordon shook his head and would have folded his arms, if he wasn't still bound. "Never really took chemists as the arsonist types. Most of the ones I've met just performed shitty party tricks, the one with the rubbing alcohol, or made really shitty synthetic drugs."

Aizawa made his way towards the front entrance of the lodge, only to burst out of the doors to see smoke from the inferno that was raging up into the mountains; an attack, as Mandalay had warned. "Is this a full scale assault…? We're in big trouble..." Aizawa mused to himself, staring up at the burning woods before him. Barely noticing a presence to his right. Dabi, standing with his palm outstretched, nearly touching Aizawa's face, staring at him with a cold, sadistic grin.

"Looks like your concern has you distracted, Eraser..." Aizawa glanced back, and could only get out a "Vlad-" Before the front of the lodge was nearly engulfed in blue flames. At around the same time, however, the treeline ignited in gunfire, a hail of bullets striking the lodge, and just about every angle around the massive clearing the lodge sat in. Dabi bolted for cover behind the concrete exterior of the building, his heart racing.

Peering out from cover, a laser bolt, fired from Owl, nearly ripped his head clean off and struck the ground next to him. Looking down at where the bolt had impacted, he noticed that particular patch of ground was on fire. Back inside, meanwhile, It was pure pandemonium with bullets pinging off the sides of the lodge, thankfully unable to penetrate the building's walls. All of the students lept beneath their desks, with Gordon doing the same. "What the fuck?!" Gordon shouted out, now having forgotten about his filter. "Who's shooting?! Is this a test?! Do you guys test with live bullets?! What's happening?! Why has the US Military devolved into Starship Troopers?! How does this keep happening!?"

On the hill, where the Ethereal Vanguard was firing on the lodge, one soldier took a knee with an RPG-7 on his shoulder. Carefully adjusting his sights, before resting his finger against the trigger. "Backblast! Backblast!" The Vanguard member called out to anyone who might be standing behind him and fired a rocket. The charge slammed against the eastern half of the building and punched a decent sized hole into it.

The explosion rattled the building and the power flickered, everyone was panicking even more now, Gordon just cringed and attempted to hide himself even further under the desk. "They're bombing us now?! What kind of test is this?! You don't bomb your recruits! What the fuck is going on?!" Gordon struggled at his binds and groaned. "Oh my Gooood! I'm tied up! Goddammit! Why?! I am not fucking dying here dressed up like a mummy! I know I wanted a tomb for myself, but a training camp in the middle of fucking Japan is NOT what I had in mind!"

More explosions, and finally, the power failed to the lodge and It was plunged into darkness...for a brief period, and that was all Gordon needed, quickly standing up and fleeing towards what he assumed was the door, right before the backup generators to the complex kicked on and the lights turned back on. Kirishima was the first to notice. Looking around underneath the desks, before swallowing and turning back towards Vlad King. "Uh… what happened to Lambda?" Vlad King and the rest of the class looked towards the back of the room and realized the same thing. "Oh no… no no…"

To be continued...