A group of ANBU spotted her running through the forest towards the leaf village. She was armed with strange weapons that emitted energy they never felt before, but she still ran as though her life depended on it. The others headed after her while one stayed back to see what was chasing her. As she approached the village gate they appeared in front of her, one of them holding their hand out in front of her for her to stop.
"Get out of my way, they're coming!" she said in panic. she had shoulder-length brown hair and green eyes, wearing silver metallic armor with a black assault rifle that had a strange blue light glowing within it.
"Who is?" the ANBU asked.
Suddenly a scream echoed thoughout the forest. She turned quickly and got out her rifle.
"My name is Soki Kubara and I know that you are all ninja from Konohagakure. We need to get to your village so I can speak to your Hokage and warn-"
She turned to a suddenl growl and aimed her rifle at a glowing pair of blue eyes in the air.
"Shit!" she yelled and ducked as a body formed behind the eyes and leapt, missing her and landing on the ANBU behind her.
It was as small as a child with long sharp claws and teeth. Its skin was a pasty, pale gray and it had two large horns protruding out the back of its head. It pinned him to the ground and began to slash at his face and chest until Soki blew its head off. She quickly pulled out a syringe with yellow liquid out and injected it into the injured ninja.
"C'mon, that only slowed the transformation; we need to get to your village so I can ready and antidote or else he'll become like that!" she said pointing at the slowly twitching corpse.
"It'll be faster if we take you." One of them said grabbing her arm while two took their injured ninja.
They quickly made their way to the medical bay where Tsunade was waiting.
"I got your message, what's this about?" She demanded.
"My apologies Lady Tsunade but it has to wait until we can give your friend here the antidote for his injury." Soki said pulling out two more syringes.
"What is that?" Tsunade asked examining them.
"Antidotes; I've already given him one dose to slow it down, two more ought to do it, but we have to wait to see if that was enough. If we give him too much the chemical will kill him." Soki said.
"What did this to him?" Tsuande asked.
"We call them gremlins. They're very contagious mutants that come from..." she suddenly went silent.
"Come from where?" Tsunade asked.
Soki sighed,"I'm sorry, I can't tell you until one of my superiors arrive and give me the O.K. Those are my orders."
"So you can't tell me what happened?"
"All I can tell you is that-" she stopped as the injured ninja began to shake violently.
"Hold him down!" she said urgently.
The surrounding ninja held him down as Soki injected another dose into him. He stiffened, then relaxed and lay motionless.
"What's happening to him?" one of the ANBU asked.
"Nothing now; the infection should be dealt with. The most dangerous thing about gremlins are their claws and teeth. They secrete a venom that on contact, should you survive the encounter, will turn you into one of them. The speed is dependent on where the wound is; feet taking the longest while the head is the quickest. It's just bad news to get close to one." Soki said.
"Will he be alright?" Tsunade asked.
"Yes, for now. In the meantime, I don't think that was the only one. If you have any means to tracking things by head or energy, I suggest you use it now."
"What for?"
"Gremlins...can kinda...phase in and out of this dimension. We call it 'rift jumping'; they can mentally be in this dimension, but physically jump into another one for a time. It's a defense mechanism; you can't physically hurt one if it doesn't exist for that moment."
"So how did you kill it?"
"I'm not real knowledgable about how their abilities work, but I'm guessing they have a time limit of how long they can split themselves like that before...I guess before they're theoretically ripped apart."
"So what would our best line of defense against them be?"
"Loud noises, and...I think you call it genjutsu?" Soki asked scratching her head.
"But you said when they rift jump they don't exist in this dimension." Tsunade said folding her arms.
"Right, they don't physically exist. Their mind is still here and probably susceptible to your illusions."
Shizune burst into the room,"Soki, your commander is here."
They walked outside to see three more people standing in front of the building, all wearing the same silver armor as Soki. On the left was a girl with long red hair and bang that stopped just abover her blue eyes. She didn't have a gun like the rest, only stange markings on both her gloves. In the middle was a boy with dirty-blonde hair and green eyes holding the same rifle as Soki, with a large claymore on his back. On the right was a boy with black hair that hung over his dark orange eyes, also sporting a katana with markings on his gloves.
"Which one is your commander?" Tsunade whispered.
"The blonde in the middle, Sam." Soki said.
"Lady Tsunade, Hokage of Konoha I presume?" Commander Sam asked.
"Correct."
"I'm Commander Sam, this is Sonya, and Sozin. I see you've already met Soki."
"It's a pleasure Commander; perhaps you can tell me what's going on around here."
"Over the last couple of months we've been weeding out abandoned labs of rogue scientist across the various nations. We've tried to keep it secret, if only to avoid any political backlash from your Daimyo. Unfortunately, one of our own went missing around here some time ago. I sent Soki out here to see if she found any sign of him."
"Who were you searching for? Perhaps we've seen him."
"I highly doubt that, Nori is beyond secretive and evasive. If he's around here, you won't know."
"Then how did you plan on finding him?"
"All of us have a chip in some part of our clothing and weaponry that let's HQ track us 24/7; his just went silent."
"Could those...gremling things have gotten him?"
"Nori? No way those things took him down. If anything, I think that all the energy from the various seals around these ninja villages just interferred with the signal."
"So what do you plan to do?"
"Well we-"
There came a scream somewhere in the village, followed by a series of growls.
"Shit! They've breached the village! You know the drill!" Commander Sam said raising his weapon and heading towards the sound with Soki, Sozin and Sonya at his heels.
"Let's go!" Tsunade ordered.