Jeffrey "OneShot" Wong "You guys will be provided with armed support for this mission" the admiral said. "All right!" Kenshin said "It's about f'ing time. It's getting hecktic out there, all them bullets whizzin' by. We already lost two of those special opps agents ya sent us out there, and we're supposed to be the best" "What kinda armed support are we gonna have?" Tsuya said, friend of Kenshin for over ten years. ".........." Ysiko said nothing. He rarely ever said anything. "His name is Ranma" "Huh?" Tani said, the volitle one of the platoon "What the fuck do you mean by that sarg?! His name? You mean as in one guy? You mean we gotta take someone else in our group now?! I survive World War III and the Apocolypic Judgement...and I have no intention of bein' a babysitter to some maggot!" "Pipe down, Tani," the captain of the team, Tenzo said in an authority voice. "Whatevery you say, Captain" Tani replied in a sarcastic sneer. He never liked the captain, even though Tenzo is a good man. "Who is this....Ranma?" the captain asked. "What rank is he?" Tani asked. He didn't really care what rank anyone was. He lived by his own rules. "No rank," the admiral replied, his brows creasing. He never liked this platoon, even though all five soldiers were working together was unstoppable. "That's un-fuckin' believeable. We're gonna be babysitting some fucker. Who the hell is he? Another one of them special opps assholes? They're always in the way! No wonder they always get their heads blown off" Tani thundered. "Pipe down, NOW!!!" Tenzo said, his patience running thin. Tani did as he was told. The admiral waited a few moments before continued "Ranma is unlike anyone you have met. He is a very experienced veteran" "So that must mean he's some old ass geezer!" Tani muttered "And if he's a veteran, how come we've never heard of him?! Eh?!" "Shut up, that's the last time. And I mean it" Tenzo shouted toward Tani, only to receive a middle finger from the muscle bond man. The admiral was clearly getting annoyed by Tani's constant comments and criticisms. Fortunately, he remained patient "Anyway, Ranma will be going along with you guys on your next mission" "Speakin' of which, what will it be anyway?" Kenshin asked. He was a young yet highly skilled marksman, capable of hitting a moving target from close to a kilometer, provided he had a powerful enough scope and rifle. Most of his collegues called him 'Marksman Ken'. "Once again, it's highly confidential," the admiral began. "No shit, it's always secret shit, that's what we're trained for" Tani commented, ignoring the captain's icy stare. "Anyway, this time, it's going to be your hardest and most dangerous mission to date" the admiral began. He waited a moment for everyone to settle in before he continued "You will be accompanied by Ranma Saotome in this mission. You will be dropped off in the middle of enemy territory where you will have to accomplish several objectives. Your first objective is to infiltrate the enemy's commuications tower and destroy it to sever their radars and keep them from locating your whereabouts when you go on to your next objective.. From there, you will have to infiltrate without notice into their naval bases where a commander Tatsu Miwako is stationed and capture him alive. He knows the location of the prototype Striker planes. After that, you must go to where those planes are hidden and destroy all but one of them, stealing that one and flying back home. We have reason to believe there are five striker planes, all of them functional. If they are not, you are to destroy them and fight your way all the way back home" "You've gotta be shittin' me!" Tani said, "You want us to do all of that AND fight our way back?! We may be skilled, but we're not morons!!! That's fuckin' suicide!!!" Ignoring Tani's comments, the admiral continued "This mission is extremely critical. If you fail, we will be in serious trouble. The enemy has already pushed our front lines back a good fifty miles, and they are just twenty miles shy of reaching Tokyo. We need this win, and we need it bad. You guys are the only ones that can do it" "We're flattered that the brass is confident in us, but still..." Kenshin said, adjusting his trusty 'windbreaker' rifle on his shoulder. "That is why Ranma will be accompanying you five on your mission. His accompanyment will help you out drastically" the admiral said. "Tell us more about this...Ranma" the captain asked. "Ranma has been working for us for over ten years" the admiral began. "Ten years?! That's fuckin'it?! That means he must had been just a private when World War III broke out!" Tani said, "What the fuck, we're gonna be babysittin' some fucker that's only been in the service for ten years!! Those two special opps agents had twenty years and they still had their heads blown off, and now you're givin' us some guy with only ten years experience?! Unbelieveable! This is unbelieveable!!" The captain sighed. He really wished Tani would act a little more calm. Even though he had saved the team several times from death and was the most skilled soldier Tenzo had ever seen, Tenzo wished the guy would keep under control more often. "Ahem, anyway, Ranma has been in the service for ten years," The admiral continued as if uninterrupted "He has been doing special ops for the past five and was responsible for the extraction of our POWs" Upon hearing that, Tani becames silent for the first time in god knows how long. He had to respect a guy for helping out his country that much. He had heard about a sigle man extracting over thirteen POWs from enemy territory, but hadn't heard much more about it. It just so happens that one of the POWs was an old friend of Tani's. "Most of his accomplishments are confidential, even for you guys" the admiral continued "All I will say is that you should be happy to have him on your team. He would help you guys out a lot" "We'll see," Tani muttered. He didn't care who this Ranma was. He enjoyed picking fights with the fresh meat that always accompany them on their missions. And most of the time, the fresh meat were either SEALs or ESWAT members, which meant they would fight back, just what Tani wanted. "We'll see" Chapter 2 Ranma entered the tiny meeting room, ready to meet his new team for the first time. He had no intention of getting to know them because they would all soon be dead. That was how it was all the time. The team he accompanied would get wiped out except for him. These guys, even though they had a long list of accomplishments, were no different. Within moments of entering the room, Ranma noticed a burly man with arms the size of tree trunks walking up to him. "So you're Ranma, eh?" Tani sneered, assessing the young man. He noticed Ranma looked like he was somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties. He also noticed Ranma was clean-cut, like some mamma's boy. "Yeah," Ranma nodded. He regarded the man for a moment. He figured the man outweighed him by a good two hundred muscular pounds or so and towered him by at least a foot. The man was genetically enhanced, and Ranma knew. Even of a man could grow as tall as Tani here, they would never have arms that large. Tani's looked like he was capable of lifting a tank. He had, like the rest of the group, had crue cuts, and had a bit of stubble growing in. He looked like he was around Ranma's age, perhaps a bit older. Tani smirked "I don't like your tone, boy. When I speak to you, I want you to say, 'Sir'. Ya got that?!" Ranma hated doing this every time he was assigned to a new team "No" "What didja say, ya little fuck?!" Tani roared. He grabbed Ranma by the shirt collar "You've got a lotta nerve. I can beat the shit outta you so bad that you'll remain in a hospital for years" "Fine, give me your best shot" Ranma said calmly. Tani didn't hesitate. He wound his tree trunk arms back and stuck Ranma right in the jaw, sending him flying across the room and slamming into one of the locker draws. The locker collapsed inward from the impact. "Ya want more?! There's plenty where that came from" Tani sneered. Ranma got up to his feet and wiped the blood from his nose. Even though Tani had just hit him, Ranma knew he was going to like this guy. No guy had ever made him bleed "That's a good punch you've got there. Do you think you can do better than that?" "What the fuck didja say?!?" "Don't provoke him, kid" Tenzo, the captain said, "Tani'll kill you if you rub him the wrong way" Ranma ignored the captain and walked up to Tani and said, "C'mon, hit me again. This time, I won't go flying like I did back there. I wasn't expecting a punch that strong" Without saying a word, Tani cocked his arm back and punched Ranma again, intent on fracturing that punk's skull right open. To his surprise, Ranma remained standing. Aside from the tiny red spot on Ranma's cheek, Ranma looked unhurt. Ranma smirked as he reached and arm upward and grabbed Tani by his throat. He slowly began to squeeze "First off, my name isn't 'boy'. It's Ranma. And second, we're going to be working with each other so I suggest we try and get along" Tani was starting to turn blue from the lack of oxygen. But that didn't make him panic. He had been in tougher situations before. Almost as if on instinct, Tani seized Ranma's extended hand and twisted his three hundred plus pound toward the side, throwing Ranma into the wall. The wall also collapsed under the impacted. "I've gotta give ya credit, kid, that was pretty good of ya. I can't believe ya managed to survive not one, but two of my punches" Tani said with a smirk. Ranma had had enough. His arua blazed brightly as he picked himself up from the rubble of concrete. The last time he had been this angry was when Makido Senzenine kissed him in that ice rink over ten years ago. He quickly got to his feet and punched the floor, a massive crack appearing between him and Tani just like what had happened between him and Mikado around ten years ago "Now I'm mad. Now I'm really mad" For the first time in his life, Tani got spooked "What the hell?!" He took a step back away from Ranma. Ranma smiked "Now's it's my turn!" With lightning speed, Ranma darted forward and landed and open palm strike in the middle of Tani's massive chest, causing the burly man to go flying backwards into a nearby wall where he slumped to the ground clutching his chest. The other four guys were speechless when they saw what Ranma had just done. No one had ever managed to knock Tani off his feet, much less send him reeling in pain. "Heh, you know how the sayin' goes, 'The bigger they are, the harder they fall'," Kenshin commented. It was likely he would say something. He was the most happy-go lucky of the bunch, usually finding humor in anything. He even enjoyed sniping, usually whistling to himself as he provided cover for his buddies. Ranma walked forward to where Tani was slowly getting to his feet. He noticed a bit of blood flowing from the giant's mouth. "That's quite a punch ya got there," Tysua said, the most laid back of the bunch. The group called him 'Sake' because he always acted like a man drunk on sake, not a care in the world. "Shut up, Sake!" Tani said, slowly getting to his feet. He then turned toward Ranma, a smirk on his lips "Ya know what, I like ya kid. You sure pack quite a punch there. You're the first fucker to ever land a blow on me, much less knock me off my feet" He grinned at Ranma, knowing that the guy was all right. Kenshin said, "You're all right, Ranma. You'll do just fine. Glad to have you with us" "Welcome to the team," Tenzo said. Even though he was the captain and could have stopped the fight between Tani and Ranma, he was also curious to see what Ranma was made of. Ranma nodded, "Thanks" Chapter 3 Ranma sat restlessly in his seat as the plane streaked across the sky. He hated parachuting. "Watsamatter, kid? Ya scared of heights?" Tani grinned, taking a swig of his canteen. Ranma remained silent. "Don't worry about it, it's fun," Kenshin said "It gives me a high. I love the thought of plumetting down toward the ground headfirst, bullets and missles whizzing by my head, missing me by inches. Heck, I once touched a rocket as it shot right by me." "Everything's fun to you, Ken" Tenzo said, strapping in. "Hey, what can I say, it's my happy-go-lucky attitude that makes it so fun" Kenshin replied. "I don't know about you, but I prefer to think of you as crazy rather than happy-go-lucky" Tysua commented "Some of the stunt ya pull is absolutely crazy. You should be locked up for stunts like that" Curiosity got the better of Ranma so he had to ask "What do you mean? What kind of stunts?" Tysua grinned before he said, "There's a huge list of 'em. Some of the crazy thing he did were jumping out of the plane with no parachute, shooting that rocket launcher while we were being pinned down in that gas station, shoved a grenade down the turret of a tank while the tank was shooting at him, and last but not least, used alligators as stepping stones to get across a river" "Hey, I had a good reason for doing what I did" Kenshin retorted "I accidentally threw the parachute out the plane and had to go out and fetch it, I wasn't aiming the rocket launcher AT the gas station we were pinned down in, the tank was firing at me and I didn't like the propect of getting blown up by a tank shell, and I didn't want to get wet crossing that river" "I don't care, you're still crazy" Tysua commented. "Will you two shut the fuck up?" Tani said, "All you two ever do is fight like bitches! So what if Ken is crazy. Who f'ing cares, as long as he gets the job done" Kenshin feigned flatter "Oh Tani, how sweet of you to say that about me. You're making me blush" "Fuck you!!!" Tani said, bringing a huge foot up and kicking Kenshin in the chest, knocking the man backwards "You fucking faggot. All you faggots should die!" Kenshin smiled "You only don't like me because you're denying your true calling. Don't worry, after some time I can get you into bed with me. Come on, you know you want me. Why else would you be scared of women, cause you know it's the male population you want" "Quite teasing, Tani. You know how he gets around women" Tenzo said, looking out a tiny port window. They were all nearing the dropoff point. A few more minutes. "I ain't scared of no girls!!!" Tani shouted, malice in his voice. Ranma noticed that Kenshin must had hit a nerve. Perhaps revealing his curse now is a bad idea. Tysua turned toward Ranma and said, "That's why Tani acts like a tough ass, he's scared of girls so he acts all tough so he can hide his low-self esteem" He chuckled, knowing that Tani was going to explode. "I'm gonna rip your head off if you don't shut up!!!" Tani shouted, getting off his seat and taking a step toward Tysua, a hunting knife in his hands. "Ooh, big man's got a knife! I'm so scared!" Tysua said, pulling out his trusty magnum, pointing it right at Tani's chest "Well, I've got a gun, and I'm pretty sure this can blow a hole right through that chest of yours!" Kenshi sighed "Man, and you think I'm fucked up. Well, I ain't the only one. Tani's scared of girls. Tysua's suicidal. Ysiko rarely talks, and when he does it's to tell you you're dead. And Tenzo gets high on killing people" "Hey, I resent that!" Tenzo retorted "For your information, I enjoy killing people. I don't get high on it" "Yeah, right. You probably have an orgasm everytime you blow someone's brains out" Kenshin said, turning his attention from Tani. He put his magnum away, knowing that Tani, his comrad for life, would never hurt him, even though his threats seem very real. Tani put his hunting knife away, "Yeah, Ken's right. Tenzo, you're way too into killing" "Look who's talking?!" Tanzo went into the offensive "Tani, you enjoy almost killing people" Ysiko finally said, for the first time since Ranma's arrival into the team "Ranma, basically, we're all fucked up" Chapter 4 "Man, I love this!" Kenshin couldn't help but say. He and the group were busy making their way through a dense jungle toward where the communications tower was said to be located. "Love what?" Ranma asked, finally becoming more used to the team, even indulging in conversation. "I love the thought war. It gives me this warm and fuzzy feeling" he replied "I love the thought of some secret organization popping up out of nowhere and seizing all of Northern Japan. It's so cool" "Man, everything's cool to you," Tenzo said, adjusting his mini-gun. He hated carrying that thing. "C'mon, dontcha think it's cool that some secret organization based in Japan that has been around for god knows how long, builds a secret army and then invades its own country, hoping to take it over and restore despotism?!" Kenshin said in one breath, taking another before continuing "It's awesome I tell ya. Awesome!!!" Tenzo, who was in front, stopped suddenly and whispered "Guys, get down, we've got visitors" "All right!" Kenshin said, "It's about time. My trigger finger's getting itchy" "Will you shut the fuck upa lready?!" Tani muttered "Who gives a shit about your itchy trigger finger?!" "I know of a way to get rid of that itch" Kensin retorted "Just stand in front of my rifle" Tani flipped Kenshin the middle finger while Kenshin chuckled. Ranma, ducking down low like the rest of the group, finally had time to think. It had been over five hours since he had been assigned on this mission. Not once had he had the time to think. He had already assessed his teammates. They were good people, a bit pyschotic, but otherwise okay. What was odd was that Ranma felt like he was with his old departed friends from Nerima. The group reminded him quite a bit of Nerima. "What's going on?!" Tani muttered, exasperated. He hated waiting. "There's a whole platoon station a hundred meters ahead of us" Tenzo replied without looking back. "Good, that means they'll be sitting duck if we open fire" Kenshin smiled, making his way toward the captain, his 'Windbreaker' in his hands "Of course, I'm gonna take a few pop shots first"