(continuing from Mitten's previous response)

The morning was a very early one, at least for Wolfgang as he was awoken by MA, already in his uniform.

"Wolf, we gotta go, today's the day we're gonna get our two favorite Germans back," he whispered, "but I want to let you know that you don't have to come, you clearly have your hands full right now, but if you are, we're leaving in fifteen minutes."

N: "Alright then, I'll be ready," Wolfgang nodded, getting up and squeezing out from Angel's embrace , which caused both Niko and Angel to wake up.

The Saxon boy opened one eye, but when he saw MA nearby, he bolted upright and ran towards his father, hugging his leg to slow him down.

"Bitte, don't go," he begged, "don't go back to the war."

"It's not a-" the elder Saxon began, but he sighed as he got his son to let go and he knelt down, "I'll be ok, alright. It's your job while I'm gone to take care of Angel. Don't worry about me; I'll come back."

"Promise me. Promise me you'll come back," the boy asked, his eyes filled with worry.

"I...I cannot," the other lowered his eyes, "the last time I promised..."

M: "Then I will promise for him," MA interrupted, "you remember how uncle Anglo explained how swearing on one's wings worked, well I swear on my wings that your father will make it back. If I have to lay down my life to make sure that happens then I will, because no child should have their parents taken away from them, especially twice, and you and I both know how that feels."

He knelt down and raised the boy's chin, "keep your chin up, buddy, you gotta be brave for your dad, he's counting on you to take care of everyone while we're gone, and we shouldn't be gone for more than an few days. If all else fails, just pray, even if you aren't religious, it helps give you peace of mind."

N: Niko just stared at MA before narrowing his eyes, "I'll hold you to your word."

"And that's when you go back to bed," Wolfgang uneasily smiled as he ushered him to the next of pillows, and when he had reaffirmed to his son that he would be fine, he turned to Angel.

"I'll be going now, ok," he spoke softly before pulling her into a hug, "stay safe while I'm gone and I'll be back before you know it."

M: Angel whined that Wolfgang had to leave, but after MA gave her the same reassurance she settled down enough to go back to sleep. When the adults left the infirmary the militant put a hand over his friend's shoulder, "I wasn't kidding back there, I am always prepared to die for my men on these missions, for my friends even more so, but I want you to promise not to do anything ballsy, your here for hostage negotiation, your not supposed to be the one pulling the trigger, do you understand?"

N: "Understood," Wolfgang nodded, "it's just...back then it felt like I was saying goodbye to my kids again."

The Saxon silently made his way back to his room to get himself ready, which wasn't much since he hasn't been alive for that long, and when he was done he jogged back.

As he made his way to meet up with MA, he was pleasantly surprised to see Johann standing beside his brother, and he didn't bother to hide his surprised look.

"Had a change of heart," the Mandorian spoke when he saw Wolfe, "don't get me wrong, I still don't like warfare, but we're here to get two people we care about back." He then walked over to his friend and slung his arm over his shoulders, "and who better to bring Saxon home than two boys from Saxony?"

M: "Just be careful boys, all three of you have families who are counting on you to come home," Rowen told them, having woke up to see them off, "Jo, for the love of Mandoria, please don't try to play hero, I don't want you to die because you jumped into the line of fire."

"It's ok, Pops, I'll keep an eye on them, they won't leave my sight this whole mission," MA reassured him.

The Mandorian nodded weakly and hugged both of his sons, knowing they could take care of themselves, but still scared of the danger they were going into.

N: "Don't worry about us, Hezyka," Johann reassured his father, "Wolfe and I are in Derogan's very capable hands, and we've seen his army during training. We're fine."

Wolfgang awkwardly smiled as he nodded in agreement, waiting for the trio to be done hugging before saying their farewells and heading out of the estate.

M: They went to MA's base, Poldara was already there with a group of his agents, while Artemis was checking over the soldiers and equipment, making sure they had everyone and everything they needed.

"We'll be meeting Russia at a base that's near his border, and just a heads up, there's a reason why his nickname is Grizzly Bear, he practically rivals HRE's level of huge and bulky," MA told them, "but he's also pretty soft once you get to know him better, he and his youngest brother Kazakstan helped me rescue Mandara from their father."

"Everything is ready to go sir, we just need the civilians to get into gear," Artemis reported, "we're about thirty-five minutes ahead of schedule."

"Good, we'll need those extra minutes, we need to make sure to get the hostages out before they are moved, Wolf, Jo, follow Arty to the armory, he'll get you geared up and give you the rundown on it."

N: The two followed Artemis to the armoury, to which he gave them both a pile of outer clothing to wear, which they did.

While Johann was putting on his camo trousers, he glanced at Wolfgang, who had been quiet the entire time, to which he asked the other if he was alright.

"Ja, I'm fine," the Saxon nodded, only looking up temporarily before focusing on tying up his boots, "it's just...déjà vu."

The Mandorian hummed in acknowledgment, and the pair didn't speak until they were done, to which they made their way back to Arty.

M: Artemis explained their gear and the concept of Kevlar, that it would protect against low to medium calibre shots but anything higher would pierce them.

"That doesn't mean you can just take a bullet, it may not pierce but there is still the shockwave and the blunt force that can break ribs and cause internal bleeding," he disclaimed, "so if we're gonna be shot at you need to take cover, especially since you're only getting handguns to defend yourself. We are your defence, the soldiers are the only things between you and death, so stay in the middle of the squad and do NOT stray from it."

With that being said, they all did their final checks and loaded up into a Chinook with everyone else, and soon they were off the ground and on their way to Russia.

N: This was the first time both Johann and Wolfgang had been in an aircraft, and their stomach's fell the moment they were lifted into the air.

The total flight time was a couple hours, by then the sun was clearly up in the sky. Johann was able to nod off for a bit, resting his head on Wolfgang's shoulder. Meanwhile, the Saxon had become hyper aware of his surroundings, feeling uneasy from being in the air for so long, and when they finally landed, he let out a huge sigh of relief.

"Wake up, Kress," the Saxon muttered as he gently slapped the Mandorian awake, "we're here."

"Alright, alright," the other grumbled as they began piling out of the Chinook.

M: When they exited the helicopter they saw they were in another military base, but rather than the open plains of Mandara, they were in the middle of a large evergreen forest, with trees as far as the eye could see. Despite being late spring there was still a fine layer of snow that coated the area, not enough to be problematic though.

MA led his troops inside the main building, telling them that they were dismissed until it was time to leave, but asked that Johann and Wolfgang stay put while he went to find Russia. Artemis took the opportunity to ask Johann a couple questions about their family line, just for fun. Soon the Mandarian militant came back with a large countryhuman in tow, the former was 6'3" and this newcomer was a good foot taller than him, probably even taller than Mandoria was.

"Guys, this is Russia, the largest country in the world, both in height and landmass," MA introduced, "Rus, this is my brother, Johann, and our friend Wolfgang, and you already know Arty."

"Pleasure to meet you both, the Mandarians have talked about you a lot," Russia greeted, holding his hand out for a handshake.

N: "Grizzly bear now makes a lot of sense," the Saxon muttered as he raised his hand and shook the Russian's.

"It's alright if you are intimidated by his height, Wolfe," the Mandorian smirked, which got him a punch to the gut before he too shook Russia's hand.

M: MA chuckled at Johann getting punched but Russia was firm, if he really was softer once you got to know him, it was gonna take a lot of work to find that soft side. Once they made their introductions, the Russian led them to a room deep in the base, inside were a lot of screens and people typing away at them, and on a huge screen on the far wall were several footage of security cams. There were two footages that were the largest, one looked like a view of a padded cell, and the other was a large tank of water, both had countryhumans in them.

"I don't believe it, it really is them," Poldara gasped, "how come Saxon's in a cell and HRE's in a tank?"

"HRE is the newest one, he's not strong enough to survive outside yet," Russia stated, "Saxon has been here for a couple years now, these people are still trying to break him but he is very strong, he's always trying to attempt escape, it's why they want to move him tomorrow morning. I plan to move at nightfall, Saxon has these people trained to beef up security during the day to prevent him from escaping, at night he is too weak to escape from their experiments, so there is less security."

"How are we gonna get HRE out of there if he can't survive out of a test tube," MA asked.

"I don't know, he may be ready to leave it, I've seen him wake up and struggle sometimes, when he does they just increase the anaesthesia and he goes back to sleep."

N: "I mean, I don't know," Johann spoke as he pointed at the screen with HRE, "he's missing two of four wings, and the ones that he does have are both on his right wings. If these people do experiment on them, he clearly hasn't gotten his upgrades yet."

While the Mandorian talked, Wolfgang just quietly observed Saxon, "it's so weird seeing you all beaten up like this, Saxon."

Almost as if the country could hear him, Saxon rolled over in his cell, exposing his chest to the security camera.

The Saxon raised his brow, "huh, he just has a chunk of metal on his chest and left shoulder. Sort of looks like Corbin."

M: "Chrysalis killed him by either stabbing or ripping out his heart, but I don't really know much other than that," MA stated, "what I do know is that Anglo completely lost it and hunted the bastard down to tear him limb from limb, though I don't remember which limbs."

"No one knows what happened to the Scot after that either, it's said that Anglo left him for dead, but no one ever found his body," Russia commented, "I doubt he survived, carried off by a bear most likely."

"You must never underestimate Saxon's insurgents, they are strong, we know that more than anyone," MA warned him, "trust me, he's still out there somewhere, a shell of his former self but still fighting for survival."

Saxon's head then perked up and looked out of the screen, two humans came in, talked with him for a bit, and then they restrained him and led him out of view.

"It's testing time now, we've been able to learn most of their schedule, for the past few days they've been testing his endurance," Russia explained, "they recently replaced his prosthetic heart with a more advanced model, and they want to make sure his body is adapting to it at a decent pace."

"That doesn't seem so bad, compared to Adira he's getting off pretty easy," Poldara grumbled.

"Yeah well, that's just because he just went through open heart surgery and needs the time to heal, trust me, you do not want to see the things we've been seeing."

N: "Wait, could you possibly go back to when they took him," Wolfgang suddenly, and when one of the techs rewinded the footage, the Saxon's eyes widened, "his eyes...they're-"

"Normal," Johann spoke, his eyes also widened with shock, "he doesn't have entity eyes anymore."

"Makes sense," the Saxon continued, "there could only be one Head of Insurgents at any given moment in time, and when he died he must have passed on that responsibility to someone else."

"But...Suebi still had his entity eyes when he came back."

"Suebi wasn't actually alive," Wolfgang corrected, "he had to be tethered to someone to live, but Saxon here...he actually is alive." He turned back to them with a smile on his face, "he's gotten a second chance in life. We're actually going to save him and not damn him to another long life of insurgency."

M: "I'm sure it's gonna feel weird for him, that's for sure, even when Mandara is in peacetime I still can't shake some of my military habits," MA joked, "but yeah, we're gonna bring him home, and he's gonna finally live the peaceful life that he deserves."

"You know, he never actually made anyone the next head of insurgents, there just wasn't one for a long time," Artemis added, "that doesn't mean there weren't any insurgents, they just kind of did their own things I guess, but now Poldara's best friend is the new head."

"Yup, poor Iremacht, he never talks about how he became the new head, but I don't believe it was willingly," Poldara sighed, "but back on topic, how far away is the lab from here?"

"A good hundred miles, they built in an abandoned mining town and used the mines as the structure plan for their lab, unassuming and a labyrinth, perfect to keep people out, and to keep people in," Russia stated, "we leave at 1000 hours at the rise of the moon, it'll take us at most an hour to get there. I have a briefing scheduled for your men to teach them the layout of the lab, 2 hours from now in the debriefing room, after that we wait for our time to strike, I don't think these humans will give us much trouble."

N: Once they were dismissed, Wolfgang and Johann both wandered off to the mess hall, of course not straying too far away from everyone else and under the watchful eye of Arty and MA.

"At least this isn't the Revolutionary War all over again," Wolfgang sighed with relief.

"Well obviously, they aren't French," Johann pointed out, causing the Saxon to chuckle a bit as they waited out the two hours til the debriefing.

M: "Yeah well, you haven't really dealt with the Slavic breed of people, they can get pretty wild," MA chuckled, "when we were at war with Ukraine, I swear to god I'm pretty sure most of them were on drugs."

"Ooh, tell them the story about the ass-naked suicide bomber, I love that story," Poldara asked.

MA really had to hold in his laughter, clearly it was a very good story, he had to steel himself before he could explain it, "ok ok, so it was about a year, year and a half into the war, I had my main set up in a little town near the Ukrainian border, I was called by a scouting group I sent out that told me they had a suicide bomber in their area. I was suspicious about the report because they were dying laughing into the radio, so went to investigate, and to this day I regret leaving my phone at the base. There was a fully naked crackhead in the middle of the street, in nothing but socks and a pair of underwear on top of his head, the best part was that his 'bomb vest' was literally just beer cans strapped to his chest with twine. We were laughing for hours, even more so when we found out the guy was one of Ukraine's more important soldiers, so after we were done losing our shit over this guy, we took him into custody, gave him a safe place to come down from his high, and and offered Ukraine a temporary truce so he could come pick him up."

N: Johann burst out laughing when he heard the story, and Wolfgang chuckled as he shook his head in disappointment.

"I have heard stories about the Slavs in the past, but this really takes the cake," the Saxon laughed, to which the Mandorian vigorously nodded in agreement.

M: "I blame it on how rurally they live, Russia for example, he's basically considered a European because the majority of his people live within that continent," Poldara stated, "that leaves the rest of his country sparsely populated at best, if not completely uninhabitable in some areas, so just image how it is to live in the middle of nowhere with no one to talk to, that'll drive anyone crazy."

They continued to chat throughout their down time, the debriefing was quick and relatively easy to understand, though somewhere in the middle MA had to duct tape Johann's mouth shut so he wouldn't ask questions every two seconds. After that, they hung out with some of the Russian soldiers, and boy were they fun to be around, even the Russian militant entity could hold a pretty interesting conversation.

Soon enough, it was time to head out to the lab, hopping into the jeeps so they would be a bit more quiet, and they were all hoping that this mission really would go off without a hitch like Russia predicted.