Chapter 1: Hawks

Hawks groaned as he blinked his eyes open, wincing as the bright light overhead drove needles into his pupils. Every part of him was cold, even his feathers ached from the chill of cryo, though not enough that he couldn't pick up on the other person in the room with him. And the nausea... he tried breathing through it like he'd been taught, but found it harder than he'd thought before going into cryo.

Then again, there weren't that many Mutation Quirks for a reason: concerns regarding physiology being the top of the list.

"Hawks-san?" a light, feminine voice with a familiar accent asked. He grunted in reply, unwilling to try opening his eyes again. "Take your time, I know it isn't the most pleasant of sensations. I'm going to run a bioscan to make sure your wings are fine, is that okay? You can just raise a thumb if it is." He made a thumbs-up before feeling the familiar sensations of the biobed activating. "Okay... yes, your wings are just fine. If you want, I have something for the nausea that will work with your physiology." He made another thumbs-up, before wincing at the pinprick sensation against his neck.

He slowly opened his eyes again, glad to see the lights turned down somewhat this time, and carefully sat himself up, shaking his wings out before settling down on a backless seat nearby. As he did so, he took in the nurse: a short green woman with dark green hair tied back with half of it in a bun. Given how she handled him, he's guessing she had experience in a Hero Ward before. He also noticed that they were in a private room, even though the Medbay should have been fine enough to check him over. Unless she needed his information.

"Right, now I'll need your name, callsign, specialization, and team, if you don't mind. Standard procedure. And yes," she gave him a look over her datapad, "I have read your undoctored file and signed all the paperwork. Which is why I know you used your Quirk before I actually checked your wings over, young man."

He called it. Also, definitely Hero Ward experience. Possibly also a mother, given her tone just then.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, clearing his throat slightly to get the croak out of his voice. "Takami Keigo, callsign is Wing Hero: Hawks. Aerial Recon and Rescue Specialist for the Pathfinder Mission Team."

She gave him a kind smile and nodded. "Right, and here you are - some coffee to help you warm up. I'm Midoriya Inko, future Head Nurse of the Hyperion Hero Ward. I just need to go through a couple more neurological exams before you're clear to leave Medbay, Hawks-san."

"We in a rush or something?"

"Don't know, the Pathfinder just wants the team mission ready within the hour."

Hawks nodded as he took the mug and sipped at the coffee, fighting to not make a face at the reconstituted flavor. He followed along as Midoriya needed him to, and by the time she was done, he'd finished his cup and was feeling ready to go.

"Alright, everything-"

A metallic groan resounded throughout the room, and Hawks moved to stabilize Midoriya as the floor pitched beneath them, mug forgotten. "Hold on," he cautioned, keeping an eye on all of the free-standing objects and stations in the room in case they came towards the two. He raised his wings as the floor pitched again, sending some of the stations crashing against the wall, ready to pin them there with his feathers and damn the damages.

Except then he started floating. Everything did, actually.

Instinctively, his wings flared to keep him and Midoriya balanced, but that did little when there was nothing pulling him down. He cursed and pulled his wings back in, not wanting a cramp on top of the stiffness in his joints.

"What - zero-g?" Midoriya asked, clinging to Hawks' arms.

"-Engineering, report!-"

Hawks tilted his head, listening to the chatter over comms.

"-Gravity in Cryo Bay is offline!-"

Made sense that Cryo would have its own Medbay attached.

"-I'm almost inside, hold on!-"

Now what was Lieutenant Harper doing down here? Unless it was to check on the team.

"-This is Cora! I made it to Cryo Bay. Brace for a reset!-"

Hawks pulled Midoriya closer and grunted as they fell to the ground, taking the brunt of the fall on his back and wings. He didn't hear anything snap, and he's not in any real pain, so he was fine. "Midoriya-san, are you alright?" he asked.

Before she could reply, Alec Ryder spoke through the ships comms unit. "-This is the Pathfinder. Mission teams continue preparation. Cora, Hawks, Ryders, report to the bridge immediately.-"

Once certain that no other announcements were going to come through, Midoriya sighed. "Yes. Thank you, Hawks-san," she said, smiling at him as she began getting up. "Well, that was an adventure I'd like to not repeat."

"Pretty sure that's every Villain takedown I've ever done, ma'am," Hawks said, grinning. He liked this nurse. "So, what were you saying before we got interrupted?"

"Ah, yes! Everything checks out, I just need to see if your SAM Implant is working as it should be." A ping from her omnitool distracts her briefly, and she frowns. "Quickly now, there's been complications pulling someone from their pod."

Hawks' grin died hearing that. "Right, how do we..."

Midoriya hurried over to her station. "SAM, are you monitoring?"

"Yes, Nurse Midoriya. Good morning, Hawks. Your pulse is stabilizing to normal levels far faster than my records indicate a human male's should; a testament to your training, no doubt."

Midoriya sighed. "The implant is working then, good. I'm sorry to leave so suddenly, but-"

"Go, I have to head to the bridge anyways," Hawks said, getting up and brushing himself off. His nose wrinkled briefly at the Initiative-branded ship clothes he was wearing, instead of something he was more comfortable in, like his uniform. At least the shirt was modified for his wings.

They both stepped out of the private room and into mild chaos. Midoriya bustled off straight to where Harper and the male Ryder were hovering over a beat-up cryo pod. The older female Ryder was nowhere in sight.

Shit.

Deciding to wait by the door, he waved at the few team members that were still being checked over, only getting really acknowledged by the enthusiastic man of African descent getting his head checked over by one of the doctors, who also acknowledged Hawks briefly. He expected that reaction; Alec Ryder might have asked for a Hero addition to the team, but the way the rest of them would have seen it, Hawks was pushed onto them by the Galactic Heroes Association. Not everyone was going to be happy with his presence, which was understandable, but he'd win them over.

Harper soon joined him, with Ryder slowly following along, no doubt wanting to continue hovering over his sister. But, duty called, as much as Hawks wanted to shove the young man back into Medbay and tell him that Hawks and Harper would handle the Pathfinder.

They barely got three steps out of the Medbay before something exploded. The engineering team needed to find the fault, and Ryder was volunteered to help, though he was already pulling up his scanner as Harper spoke. He handled the situation expertly, doing only the parts that he feasibly could - finding the fault with SAM's help and resetting the power for the engineers - and not treading on anyone's toes as he did so. Almost like he'd done it a thousand times before.

Hawks was impressed.

When he said as much, Ryder just flushed and rubbed the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable. With what, Hawks had trouble figuring out. That level of instant competency, even in times of stress, was hard to come by. He should know - it's what caught the Commission's attention with him in the first place. And yet...

Harper interrupted the two, gesturing for them to get moving. "That was close. Barely in Andromeda and we're already scrambling."

"The adventure begins," Ryder said, fairly noncommittal.

"Not sure your dad will see it that way." The attempt at neutral disagreement from Harper fell flat, at least it seemed that way to Hawks. And clearly Ryder also picked up on it, as he frowned at Harper's back.

Neither of the two attempted conversation after that, and honestly, Hawks was fairly certain it wasn't because they were uncomfortable being in the same tram as him. Though he wouldn't be surprised if there was some of that - large bird wings, small enclosed space, it's why Hawks hated elevators. No, there was tension between the two there that had nothing to do with Hawks, and it wasn't the fun kind of tension either.

Yet more things to learn about his new teammates.

When they arrive at the bridge, they find tightly controlled chaos. Crew members ran from station to station, reading out alerts and informing the Captain that flight controls were not responding. Captain Dunn, standing in the center of the storm with the Pathfinder to her left, gave the order that the first priority was stopping the power outages.

"Mainline power is out, Captain, we're functioning on reserves," another crew mate stated. "They won't last."

"What's our position?" the Pathfinder asked, ignoring everything but the navigator's reply.

"Unknown, we lost telemetry."

"SAM, we need eyes out there," the Pathfinder ordered the AI, completely ignoring the situation they were otherwise busy with.

"Attempting to adjust sensor array," SAM stated from a nearby speaker.

That finally snapped the Captain's last nerve, apparently. "Alec, please... you may be Pathfinder, but this is MY ship."

Hawks glanced at Ryder as the Pathfinder stated, "Captain, the protocol's clear: In the absence of communication with the Nexus or the other arks, we are to proceed to our appointed golden world. Solid ground."

"If it's even out there! Nobody said anything about running into an energy cloud - and that's just a wild guess what we hit," Captain Dunn snapped.

Hawks took a moment to examine the energy cloud, and admitted silently that it did look rather odd, whatever it was. He also noted that the Pathfinder was looking pensively out the view screen.

Captain Dunn took on a more conciliatory tone as she continued, "Alec, I need to assess the damage. Stop the bleeding. We've got twenty thousand people asleep on this ship. Let's give them a chance to wake up."

"Can you blame her?" Harper muttered to Ryder and Hawks.

Hawks shook his head, because he really couldn't. It made sense to focus on the situation here and now before moving onto the next step, even if he was a hypocrite for thinking it.

Ryder merely said, "It's her call. She's the Captain, I'd think she gets the final word." Which, Hawks agreed with. He just wouldn't have said it so close to the two people in question.

"Well, he might-"

The Pathfinder turned abruptly, his face blank but eyes furious as they pin themselves onto the trio he'd called to the bridge. "This isn't about having the final word," he said gravely, eyes fixating onto Ryder now, ignoring Harper's curt, "Yes, sir."

Hawks got the feeling that there were issues going on. Old ones that were still causing problems. Were they connected to why Ryder was so uncomfortable being told he had impressed someone?

The staring contest between father and son was broken when the navigator announced that they could move through the energy cloud.

"My God..." Captain Dunn said as a planet partially hidden by the energy cloud came into view. Hawks could only guess that it was supposed to be Habitat-7. "Is that our golden world?"

"That's Habitat-7. New Earth, if we're lucky," the Pathfinder declared, turning away from Ryder and trotting down the stairs closer to the view screen. "All of our long-range scans told us it should be in the green zone. Perfect for human settlement."

"But it doesn't look the same as the intel," Harper spoke up, before visibly catching herself.

Ryder instantly followed her up. "We can't give up now. It looks bad, but we don't know how bad it is yet. Still seems like our best shot."

"I've gone in on less intel than this," Hawks couldn't help but add.

That earned him a glance from the Pathfinder, before he asked SAM for his opinion, neither agreeing or disagreeing with any of them.

"The energy from the phenomenon is dampening our sensors. Planetary conditions are unknown," SAM not-so-helpfully stated, since that was neither reassuring or something to solve the dilemma.

The Pathfinder stared out the screen for a few moments before turning to address the room at large. Hawks couldn't help how his spine straightened at the look on the man's face - it was similar to that of Madame President's when she ordered him to investigate the League. "We're marooned. Twenty thousand souls adrift at sea. And when the power runs out, and stays out," he paused and pointed at the hologram of Habitat-7. "We need to know if that's safe harbor."

The charisma of this man, no wonder people followed him.

Even the Captain started being swayed by the short speech, but asked a logical question: "And if it's not?"

"As Pathfinder, it'll be my job to find an alternative. It's what we're trained for," the Pathfinder said confidently. "But if this goes well... we're already home."

"Make it quick, then," Dunn ordered.

The Pathfinder ignored both Ryder and Hawks, focusing instead on his Second. "Harper, the rest of the team should be awake by now. Have them spin up two shuttles. Planetfall in thirty."

Harper snapped a salute as she said, "Yes, sir," and followed along behind the Pathfinder.

Hawks was just wondering why he was called to the bridge at all. Shaking his head, he moved to leave, but stopped when he noticed that Ryder was still staring at the energy cloud. He ignored what his feathers were telling him Dunn and Ryder were saying, and instead focused on the cloud itself.

It really didn't look like a cloud, but more like some sort of organic machine. Yellow lightning streaked across some sort of metal, and Hawks noted that there were other colors in the metal itself, drowned out by the yellow and darkness of space. Whatever it was, it looked dangerous, and had his smallest feathers puffing up in agitation just looking at it.

So Hawks refocused, waving a little as Ryder walked over to the door. He waited until they stepped out before saying, "Sorry for lurking, figured we should get to know each other a little since we're going to be working closely together. You're the Recon Specialist, right?"

"Ah, that's right, alongside my sister." Ryder blinked a few times before following Hawks towards the tram station. "Won't we all be working together?"

"Well, yes, but let's face it, they're going to put the Recon Specialists together." Hawks grinned and pointed his thumb at himself, ruffling his wings slightly. "Aerial Recon and Rescue, myself. We're going to be working closely. And before you start worrying, while I've never worked with a Biotic before, I have no issues with them."

Ryder relaxed a bit hearing that. "I've had people say similar things and end up with issues after working with me," he cautioned.

Hawks just grinned wider. "Correction then: I doubt there will be any issues, and if there are I won't let it affect me in the field. Better?"

"Yeah, actually. So, you're also Recon? Guess I should have expected that," Ryder said.

"The wings do kind of give me a different perspective than what you get," Hawks replied, still grinning.

"Lucky. I always loved airdrops - used to wish I could fly when I was younger." Ryder smiled, and it took some of the worry off his face.

"It has its advantages," Hawks said as the tram finally arrived. "And its disadvantages, such as tight quarters."

"Well, that's why you've got me now, right?"

*

Hawks had just signed off on the Chief's early awakening, in the hopes that doing so would save on power, when he heard Ryder say, "Sara's going to be upset she missed this."

"Are all Ryder's adrenaline junkies?" Harper asked from right next to Ryder.

"I guess you could say that," Ryder said. "She beat me into this world by one minute. Never let me forget it."

"Question from an only child," Hawks asked, grinning Ryder's way as he set down the datapad, "is this a normal family thing or a Ryder family thing?"

"Who knows. We didn't know any other twins growing up," Ryder answered, smiling at him.

Harper glanced over at Sara Ryder's untouched locker and moved closer to Ryder. "Well, if she's anything like your Dad, she'll pull through."

"When she does, she's gonna want stories," Ryder said.

"So, let's go find her some." Harper closed Ryder's locker for him, and nodded. "Right, you two go grab your helmets and finish suiting up. Oh, and maybe stop by the good luck rock before you leave."

Hawks nodded as Ryder asked after the "good luck rock", apparently unaware of his Dad's superstitious nature. For Hawks, he just rolled with it, having assumed that, as a soldier, there was some superstition in there somewhere. Even Hawks had some that training couldn't kick out of him.

He tugged his jacket over the lightly armored bodysuit that looked similar enough to his uniform that he felt comfortable in it, and flexed his wings to make sure they settled correctly. Yes, it made him stand out even more from the rest of the team, who were all in Initiative white and blue. He didn't particularly care about that. Even his helmet's visor was shaped like his sunglasses, for all that wearing a helmet instead of his sunglasses and earmuffs was going to be weird.

They all had a job to do, and his altered uniform was approved for the Pathfinder team. So what if he stood out? Focusing on that distracted them from their jobs.

He took a moment to check his newly issued omni-tool, complete with scanner, and synced it with both his helmet and his databank on the Hyperion. Hopefully, he'll be able to listen to some music on the sly while they're working. Tokoyami had sent him a recording of his class performing during their School Festival before they left, and Hawks had been too busy to give it a proper listen before now. If SAM doesn't rat him out, anyway.

Speaking of... "The Pathfinder is now requiring sidearms. I've opened the armaments locker."

"We expecting trouble, SAM?" Ryder asked from across the room, where his helmet had been stashed.

"A precaution. Please arm yourselves, Ryder, Hawks."

Hawks frowned, but nodded anyway. His feathers would work for anything, but sometimes people wanted to make sure there were back up plans in play. He'd take a sword, if there was one.

"Hope I won't need this," Ryder muttered as he grabbed a pistol from the weapons locker before moving to secure extra ammo into the necessary clips.

"You never know. Now let's get to the shuttles," Harper said, securing her ammo faster than Ryder, who seemed to fumble at suddenly having his space intruded on.

Hawks slipped in, grabbed the first sword he could see, and shrugged on his way out. "Have enough ammo on me already, and they're reusable so long as they don't get damaged," he said by way of explanation.

Harper sighed, took the sword from him, and swapped it with a different one. "That one is used to enhance Biotics," she said before walking away, strapping the first sword onto her own back.

Huh. "Well how was I supposed to know that?" he muttered, strapping the new sword to his hip and marching over to the supposed "good luck rock". According to his new scanner, it was just regular old granite. Probably some story attached to it, but Hawks wasn't nosy enough to learn what it was... right now, anyway.

He gave the rock a pat, just in case, and walked out towards the docking bay.

*

Well, that's it: the situations gone to shit.

Hawks mentally swore as he flew through the air towards Kosta and Ryder, praying he wasn't hit by lightning while trying to save the two. He sent smaller feathers towards Kosta, since his jump jets were still operational, and a couple longer ones towards Ryder, since his clearly weren't. Hopefully, it bought them both some time, and fought against the pull of gravity so they weren't hitting terminal velocity by the time they got to the ground.

Now to make sure he didn't end up fried bird wings.

He accelerated his own speed, bringing his wings close to his back so he plummeted towards the ground, before flaring them out and landing harder than he anticipated, knees buckling under the force. Hawks grunted, but looked upwards towards Ryder as he brought his smaller feathers back - Kosta had safely landed. He managed to catch sight of his jump jets activating just before he hit one of the peaks and rolled down the side towards Hawks. He kept the longer feathers curled around Ryder as he fell, slowing his speed down even further.

Hawks moved closer as Ryder finally landed on the same platform as him, trying not to panic when he saw the crack in Ryder's faceplate. He had caught SAM mentioning that the atmosphere didn't contain enough oxygen for humans. Luckily, Ryder's competency under fire kicked in again as he activated his omnitool and set it to repair mode, fixing the crack in seconds.

Hawks let Ryder recover his breath and took a look around, frowning at what he saw. Desolate peaks with floating rocks and lightning scorching across the sky as far as the eye could see. There was some kind of plant life growing, but he couldn't make heads or tails of what it even was besides clearly stubborn enough to survive the lightning storms. Hawks pulled up his omnitool and opened up the comms channel. "This is Hawks. Hyperion, SAM... anyone there?"

Static was his only answer.

He glanced up and shook his head at Ryder, who deflated. "Damn," he said softly.

"Might as well save your breath, guys," Kosta said as he ran up on the two, before stopping to catch his own breath. "Comm link's trashed... I'm surprised we aren't, too."

"You're welcome," Hawks said, getting a nod of respect from Kosta and Ryder.

"Yeah, thanks man."

"Do you think the others made it?" Ryder asked.

Hawks shrugged as Kosta answered, "Don't know, it's all a blur."

"I was a bit busy with the two actively falling through the sky," Hawks added.

Ryder nodded. "Makes sense, given your experience."

"We should get to a higher vantage point. Come on," Kosta said, bumping his fist against Hawks' and Ryder's shoulders. "So, how's your two's survival training?"

"I've seen my share of trouble. Nothing crazy, but..." Ryder said with a shrug.

"For this? Standard Pathfinder team survival training here," Hawks said, debating whether he should take to the skies before deciding against it - not in this weather.

"Well, I'd say crazy just found us. Those rocks out there are floating," Kosta said.

"Terra incognita," Ryder said in agreement, tapping on his omnitool as he pulled up his scanner.

"Some of these plants look like tentacles... is the water here even water?" Kosta mused as Ryder pointed his scanner at one of the tentacle-shaped plants.

"Well, without SAM, it's hard to say what this is," Ryder said. "It's sort of a plant, and maybe dead, but maybe not."

Hawks just shuddered and moved away from the things. "Let's just call them too stubborn for the lightning to kill and move on, then." He glanced towards the other direction and made a noise in the back of his throat. "Hey, think I see our comm device."

The three of them all huddled around where the QEC device laid smoking on the ground, staring at it for a minute before speaking up. "Well, there's no fixing this. Must have broken on impact," Ryder said.

"Explains why we lost our SAM connection," Kosta agreed.

"May it rest in peace," Hawks added semi-seriously, eyeing the sparks coming off the device like it personally offended him.

A brief pause, and then the three broke down into peals of laughter at the absurdity of their situation. For a moment, Hawks felt like he was joking around with Miruko, instead of in a life-or-death situation with two strangers. But reality reasserted itself swiftly, and the three of them continued on towards higher ground, and hopefully, the rest of their team.