"I have a friend who may have been captured by Hydra during the Battle," Steve Rogers said with a serious expression on his face.
Although Steve found the title "The Man with the Grand Plans and the Star-spangled Banner" rather amusing, he answered honestly out of respect for the instructor.
Arthur wasn't interested at all. He had seen the movies and knew why Steve was here.
He only asked to break the ice and avoid an awkward silence.
"So, do you have any plans, the man with the big plans and the star-spangled banner?" Arthur inquired.
"I don't have any plans…" Steve looked at Arthur silently. "Instructor, can you change the way you address me?"
"Big plans?"
"Can we try something else?"
"Star-Spangled Banner?"
"Instructor."
"Okay, Boy!"
Arthur said, "Let's not dwell on these questions. Now, tell me, do you really have no plans?"
"…No," Steve replied honestly. "Instructor, 'Boy' doesn't seem like an appropriate title."
"Boy?" Arthur looked at Steve with a confused expression on his face before he said. "With so many beautiful girls in your performance team, and you being tall and strong, looking completely different from your past image, you're still calling yourself a boy? Don't be ridiculous, it's definitely 'Man'!"
"Steve was speechless. The biggest crisis he faced after his arrival was the unexpected meeting with his former shooting instructor!
"Since you have no plans, listen to mine," Arthur said while patting Steve on the shoulder. He was not entirely satisfied; this guy used to be easy to reach, but now he was half a head taller, making it hard to reach him.
"Okay!"
Steve had no hesitation. Following the instructor's orders was only natural, right?
Surprised by Steve's straightforwardness, Arthur shook his head and said, "All right, let's simplify the plan… First, clarify the objective. My goal is to kill Schmidt. Of course, that's not important. As long as we can destroy this military factory and leave them with nothing, the bastards up ahead will be isolated, and my mission will be complete."
"And your goal is to save your good friend! What's his name?"
"Barnes!" Steve replied. "James Buchanan Barnes!"
Arthur felt dizzy at the name and waved his hand. "Let's just call him Bucky!"
The captain was shocked. "Instructor, why did you simplify it like that?"
"It doesn't matter," Arthur waved his hand again. "Anyway, the first thing is infiltration. I don't have any support for this mission, and the internal routes are almost a blank slate. So, based on experience, I suggest we break in from above. Hydra's people aren't in the habit of patrolling the rooftops, which is their blind spot in defense. The second step after a successful infiltration is to rescue people… Let's assume… If there are indeed many Allied soldiers trapped here, we can free them, seize their weapons, and change the operation from decapitation to internal breakthrough."
Steve nodded seriously. "Got it! The key to the plan is speed!"
"Exactly, catch them off guard! And we will be long gone before they even realize what happened to them!" Arthur declared.
With the plan completed in a few words, the two began to act.
The reason for setting up this operation plan this way was mainly because Arthur thought of how the Captain did it in the movies.
However, there might be differences between the two, resulting in fewer prisoners in this military factory than expected.
But if that happened, they could always change the plan later. After all, plans change all the time.
So, as the two of them walked past rows of armored vehicles, Arthur suddenly crouched down and placed a bomb under one of the vehicles.
"What's this for?" Steve asked in surprise.
"Nothing…" Arthur replied. "Based on my years of experience in Decapitation missions, the more chaotic the enemy's internal situation, the more advantageous it is for us! This is just preparation for later…"
"I am not asking about that though it's good to know, I want to know where you got those bombs, Instructor?" Steve interrupted.
Arthur then placed a bomb in Steve's hand and said, "You know, there isn't much entertainment in the barracks. So we soldiers have to find something to pass the time. My way to pass the time is to study. I made this myself. Unlike the timer bombs made by the tech geeks, this is a remote-controlled bomb with a range of about two hundred meters…"
Before Steve could finish listening, he and Arthur started planting bombs together.
But they couldn't plant many. After two or three, Arthur indicated that they were done.
After all, he couldn't tell the other guy that there were dozens more stored in the Disassembly Inventory…
Besides… Arthur wasn't sure if they would be useful at all.
After all, in the movies, when Schmidt, aka Red Skull, discovered Captain's infiltration and had already released the prisoners, he decided to blow up Captain along with the military factory.
It must be said that Schmidt's "if you push me too far, I'll blow myself up to show you" method was just too ruthless and barbaric.
After planting a few bombs, the two continued to sneak around according to the original plan… They would see if these bombs would be useful later.
Not far away, there was a row of low buildings. With the skills of the two of them, getting up there was a piece of cake.
On the roof, the view was even wider. Except for the occasional threatening searchlight, the roof became their domain.
Finally, they crawled through a ventilation shaft into the interior of the military factory.
It was a huge room, probably part of a military workshop.
The two found themselves on a beam in mid-air!
Looking down into the vast space, they could see some Hydra soldiers dressed like futuristic warriors, holding weapons that were clearly more advanced than those of the current era.
"What are those?" Steve asked in a hushed tone.
After pondering for a moment, Arthur replied, "Now, to the second step of the plan. You go find your friend and I'll see what these bastards are up to… The weapons they're equipped with now haven't appeared on our battlefield yet. But if everything goes as expected, we should be facing these guys with these fancy gadgets soon."
Steve looked at Arthur. "Instructor, be careful!"
Arthur nodded and watched Steve leave.
Once Steve was out of sight, Arthur grinned.
Remember how much fun he had over an ammo dump six months ago?
And now? What did he have?
An entire military factory!
Steve didn't know the details of these weapons, but Arthur did.
When Schmidt got his hands on the Tesseract, Dr. Zola invented a conduit that could draw energy from the Tesseract. It was used to develop infinite energy, and it was used to create these weapons with a faint blue glow!
"Although these new weapons don't have a battle soul, I wonder if the weapons Schmidt made with the energy extracted from the Tesseract will bring me some special surprises?