Requiem of the Broken

Chapter 50: Encroaching Shadows

"Understood," Momo said, powering down the transmitter. A dark expression on her face.

"Zeus has been busy, every route to his base was trapped. Ours and several other paths were rigged for a landslide, but two groups were almost wiped out. Zeus managed to smuggle in landmines. One had a platoon of soldiers, the other was carrying a lot of our equipment for when we set up a basecamp. As it stands, it's not enough to scuttle the op, but it's going to be a lot harder." She said bitterly.

"Damn. Well, nothing we can do but keep going. Spread out in a wedge formation. Red Riot will take point, with the rest following up." Said Ahmya. She put her helmet on, followed by the rest of her squad.

The squad formed up, with the more durable members at the front, with the more fragile members in the back. Then they proceeded to head up the mountain.

The going was slow, the slopes and now inability to find the path they had been driving along made traversal slow.

"So how do you think he managed to rig multiple landslides?" Asked Kirishima while they were struggling up a particularly steep slope.

"Probably explosives buried along the slopes. If you have enough that are strong enough, bury them deep enough, and then place them in strategic positions, you could create one. Of course, the fact that this region has been getting off and on rain showers for the past month only weakened the earth which made the landslide considerably larger." Said Bakugo between grunts as he clambered up onto an area where the slope leveled off some.

"He's been preparing for this day for a while. It's a serious undertaking and would take days if not weeks to set up. On the upside, I don't think we'll need to worry about any more explosive traps. The fact he resorted to landmines on some of the paths indicates that he might have been running short on explosives. Landmines would have been better served in the lead up directly to the base entrance" Shinso said.

"We should keep an eye out the closer we get. No telling what other traps he might have set up in the areas surrounding the base." Said Todoroki.

With that, the group fell silent as they continued pressing forward.

A half-hour later, they decided to rest. They'd made considerable progress, the enemy camp was very close. The time for a group check-in had come, and they were just waiting on the other groups, all but one failed to report in. As the minutes ticked by, and no response came, it seemed like they would never respond.

"It has been too long, assume D-Team to be MIA and proceed with the mission. All teams report in for a final check." Said Ahmya into the transmitter.

As the groups reported in, they noticed that another group that had previously reported being in position failed to respond.

"F-Team, report." Said Ahmya.

There was a pause as everyone heard nothing but static.

"G-Team, did you hear any sound of fighting? You're closest to F-Team." Ahmya asked.

"Nothing, should we check it out?" asked the team leader.

Ahmya thought it over.

"No, but keep your frequency going. Until you hit the enemy encampment as planned I want everyone to be able to hear everything on your end. Zeus probably has a hunter-killer team moving from group to group. All other teams, proceed with extreme caution and report everything." She said.

"Understood." came the G-Team leader's response.

"Commence final approach and good luck," Ahmya said, then she turned to the group and nodded.