Author's Note: Longest chapter so far. Damn near 8 pages. Might not seem like much, but I was told to write more this summer by my professors so every new chapter is another milestone for me.

Enjoy.

~Chapter 3~

It was an unspoken rule in sparring matches that a kunai to the throat meant a loss for whomever wasn't holding the knife, and for good reason. There weren't many options for defending or countering against it. The number of options varied based on the skills of the two ninjas involved in that particular scenario and fortunately, she knew them all. TenTen was a chūnin going on jōnin rank against a foe with unknown skills who had her cornered.

Not to say that her teammates were preoccupied with her enemy's teammates. If her opponent was worth half his salt he would be ready to slit her throat before she could finish signaling for help. Not five yards away from her squad and she was on her own, she would have to take a gamble…

Focusing chakra to her feet was her first step and thanks to Sai's briefing, she was already in a crouched position ready to spring forward if necessary. Before she could second guess herself, Tenten shifted her body weight backwards into her attacker simultaneously tucking her head in so that her chin was touching her chest, keeping her neck safe. Then, she lunged herself backwards into her attacker's arms while throwing her own hands up to grab his weapon, thus the momentum knocked the both of them back and sent each tumbling over one another into the bushes. Tenten, however, managed to flip herself on top of her assailant and put his kunai arm in a judo hold. With her immediate threat neutralized, Tenten snapped her head facing her team to shout at them:

"AMBUSH!"

~break~

Chōji had since removed his too small baby blue butterfly mask in order to better see Sai's commands. It was just as well since he was already wearing a black mask with the ninja equivalent of under armor underneath to deal with the evening wind chill. Why the ANBU bothered with such things was beyond Chōji as all their masks were primarily white and stood out against the nighttime forest as well as anything. His train of thought was quickly derailed when he heard a scuffle coming from Tenten's direction followed by Panda shouting out that they were under attack. And just like that, the switch was flipped and a dozen years of training kicked in. Chōji leapt from his side just in time to dodge a hail of kunai and shuriken whereas Sai and Shino weren't so lucky, at least that's what Chōji initially thought before seeing the two of them turning into ink and a swarm of beetles.

There was no time to react, only to act so Chōji clapped his hands together to form his family's signature jutsu, this time only focusing the chakra to his right arm instead of his torso. His arm inflated like a balloon, this time not only increasing in size, but in density turning his right fist into a large mallet.

The only problem was that he couldn't spot an enemy to hit. He kept moving though, not wanting to turn himself into an easy target. Truth be told he was never the best at sensing other's chakra because that was his female teammate's job, Ino. Now, he was running around the woods blind as a bat while the sounds of battle picked up all around him, the enemy could be five feet away and he wouldn't know it. Come to think of it, so could his allies.

"DIE!"

Thank the Sage for newbies. Chōji thought.

With his inflated hand, Chōji performed a quick counter to the idiot behind him celebrating stabbing Chōji in the back by loudly screaming it aloud.

The green rogue was thrown to the ground by his own momentum, where Chōji immediately pounded him in the back of his bald head with an enlarged fist. His face ate the dirt and that was one enemy down.

The old Chōji might have reveled in his one hit KO for a bit but this was war veteran Chōji, he knew the battle was far from over and he needed to fight his next opponent. The problem was, the ANBU squad member was back to square one for he still couldn't see any other threats.

The sounds of fighting were all around him, swords and kunai clashing, shuriken imbedding themselves into tree trunks, scampering feet kicking up dirt, leaves, and twigs. And of course the sounds of men crying out in agony but none of them sounded like his comrades. That was hardly a comfort when Chōji knew he was basically standing around being useless. The Akimichi heir apparent never was the best at sensing other people's chakra because he was the steamroller on his old team. His other teammates like Ino would sense where the enemies were and Chōji would smash everything in that general direction. Left on his own his was a loveable brute fumbling in the darkness. Had Ino and Shikamaru been here, the three of them could have done their Ino-Shika-Cho Shadow Yo-Yo technique and taken out the lot of the engaging enemies.

Chōji felt movement behind him and snapped around to deliver another jutsu powered punch, ending in hitting up a tree. The sheer force of the blow blew the trunk in half, knocking the whole thing down. Above him, Chōji could hear a handful of men scattering to other branches to continue sniping Chōji and the rest of Copper squad, no doubt about that.

It's something, but I'm still not doing as much as I could!

He was tempted to just enlarge his whole body and belly flop the battlefield. But the enemy could still easily evade his attack and more importantly he could accidently hurt his friends. Besides, they were still on a stealth mission and body-slamming a forest when you're the size of the Hokage tower would not be classified as stealthy.

The best he could do would be to react to the attacks as they came which proved to be a poor strategy when Chōji felt the ice cold metal of a kunai impale itself into his upper back.

~break~

Shino heard an outcry coming from about fifty yards, at ten O'clock. The voice could only be Chōji's and judging from the pitch, whatever happened had caught Chōji off-guard. Being the sensor type in his old squad of trackers, Shino had developed a tendency to know exactly where an individual was located based off of sound and chakra sensing. While not at the same level as Kiba and Hinata in term of smell, hearing, and vision respectively the bug user had a knack for keeping track of multiple chakra signatures, seeing as it had been a requirement for him to utilize his clan's signature jutsu effectively. It was a skill he wished the rest of his new teammates shared as they were quite literally surrounded and fumbling about in the dark.

The enemy had succeeded in concealing their chakra signatures enough to stage an ambush. They had positioned snipers in key locations with enough ground forces to keep their targets pre-occupied. How they had prepared such an elaborate ambush so quickly and precisely baffled Shino. Perhaps they had advanced sensor types working with them which was odd considering that their ninjutsu and taijutsu skills were subpar at best. Even Shino who never prided himself on his close-combat skills was quite easily holding his own against their overwhelming numbers. When Shino had first encountered a ground troop he had expected someone of mid chūnin level given how fast their response time was to discovering Copper squad's infiltration. Especially after all the pre-cautions they had taken. He met his opponent's kunai assault with his own kunai in kind. Shino remembered that Sai had ordered Copper squad to keep from using any clan specific jutsu.

The two traded blows for a while. Shino meeting his foe's strikes and stabs with ripostes and parries until Shino realized that his enemy was severely below his league and so he made one final counter to disarm his opponent and then made a quick jab at his windpipe to knock him out. He was attacked almost immediately by another thug wielding a kunai and employing the tactics of a fresh from the Academy genin. Shino didn't play around with this one and employed the same advanced parry he used before and subdued the enemy with ease. The same thing kept happening with all the enemy ninja he faced.

This doesn't make sense. They set the perfect trap and we damn near fell for it like amateurs but their complete lack of skill puts us at an advantage. They haven't used any real ninjutsu yet so the possibility that they have sensor units that could pinpoint our exactly landing point in time to prepare this ambush is very doubtful, unless they have an inside man who tipped them off about our arrival or they got extremely lucky or we just got extremely unlucky. Either way, the tactics they employed were beyond the level of rogue ninja like their fighting skills indicated. They could have been organized by a more skillful leader, a rogue jōnin at least. But who?

BOOM!

Shino's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of gale force winds ripping through the trees. Shattering them like they were twigs. Before he could think, a mini tidal wave crashed through some more trees, taking a few unlucky grunts with it, then a fire ball the diameter of a person went sailing through the tree tops setting them ablaze while several bodies fell to the ground below.

Shino didn't need to sense the incoming chakra source, he already knew that that was his comrade, Panda/Tenten who was utilizing her newest weapon: the Elemental Fan.

A gift from the Lightning Village (well she says gift, but actually she had grown attached to the weapon after fighting with it on the beach front during the 4th War and then she promised several favors to Naruto who in turn called in favors with the Raikage and Killer Bee to let her keep the sacred weapon of the Sage of Six Paths). It was a powerful artifact that sent out bursts of 5 different elemental attacks with each swing. The weapon was crazy powerful and damn effective against crowds but it drained the user's chakra almost instantly. To anyone who wasn't a jinchūriki or a Kage who had a particularly hearty breakfast that morning, the fan was all but useless but Tenten had been going through extensive training with the fan for the past several months pushing herself to the limits of chakra exhaustion so often that even Lee had at one time suggested that she take a break. It had paid off, though. Although she was nowhere near the level of say Naruto in terms of chakra reserves she had increased her own reserves dramatically and had learned to use them effectively. Now, she could pull of nearly 50 swings before succumbing to chakra exhaustion which explained why she was swinging freely at any direction she could think of.

She's not even aiming at anything. Shino thought before jumping out of the way of a lightning blast unknowingly aimed at him. It did, however, take out the fool who had been trying to sneak up behind Shino for the last ten seconds.

We need to end this battle quickly. If we haven't already blown our cover reinforcements are surely on their way.

Shino looked closer at Tenten's blasts and noticed only a few of them actually hitting any enemies. Most of them hit nothing. The rogues may have been rank amateurs, but even they knew to stick to the shadows and avoid the crazy kunoichi with the magic fan.

She still can't see them.

Even with the trees set on fire, there were still too many of them to provide enough shadows to hide in. And Tenten's water jutsu were putting out as many fires as the fan started.

Where the hell is Sai? He should have ordered a retreat so that we can regroup and plan our next strategy.

Ever since the battle started Shino had only been sensing brief windows of Sai's chakra, followed by one of the enemy's chakra being snuffed out. No doubt he's utilizing his Root training. Shino thought. It barely helped, though; because their team was still vastly outnumbered.

"HUMAN BULLET TANK!"

Shino heard a very-welcomed war cry as Chōji used one of his clan's signature techniques to turn himself into a human pinball of death. He rolled right past Shino like an unstoppable juggernaut tearing up the landscape and knocking ninjas aside like they were human bowling pins. It wasn't long before the enemy finally figured out how to steer clear of Chōji's rampage. They needed a plan. If only they could see… Another rogue ninja ran out on the darkness directly into Shino's line of sight it seemed for the sole purpose of interrupting his train of thought. The man was armed with, oddly, a shovel standing there with a look of terror on his face like he couldn't believe what he was doing either.

Shino had run out of patience and choose to put this guy down quick. As the thug swung this shovel at Shino, he used the momentum of the swing to yank the shovel out of the guy's hand and grabbed his arm and spun him face first into a tree that had completely been engulfed in flames. The man bounced off, but not without getting a face full of burning tree first.

That's it! He realized.

Immediately, Shino leaped to the nearby branches to gain some altitude then concentrated his chakra to call upon the aid of a specific species of insect he had at his disposal. Not many people realized this, but Shino's Aburame clan didn't just train insects and let them nest inside their bodies. They imposed their will upon them through mental commands, similar to Ino Yamanaka's clan's mental jutsu. But instead of probing or controlling the minds of humans and animals, the Aburame controlled insects meaning that Shino could control select groups of insects with his thoughts alone.

So he continued concentrating on the bugs that would be most helpful in this situation. Sai had ordered them to stick to non-recognizable jutsu, but the situation called for some advanced ninjutsu.

Shino finished issuing commands and released his swarm.

Like an explosion of fairy dust, hundreds of fireflies flew outward in all directions, seeking hostile targets to latch on too.

Within seconds Shino could hear it working. "What the fuck is with all these damn bugs? Get off of me!"

As if this wasn't easy enough, Shino looked up to see three snipers perched on top of branches ready to rain kunai and shuriken down upon him all his mates, not that they hadn't been trying that for the last five minutes, but hey. Before, they were completely hidden in the shadows and now they had dozens of bright fireflies buzzing around their heads or resting on their clothes making them stand out quite nicely in the pitch black forest.

Like a freakin' Christmas tree. Shino commented in his head as he threw three well aimed kunai at the hearts of his three would be snipers. Each of them were a direct hit. Hearing those bodies fall and hit the ground in perfect harmony was just so satisfying. It seemed that the rest of his teammates soon caught on to his clever plan.

Tenten started aiming her shots more precisely. "Like freakin' Christmas trees!" She yelled.

Chōji had ended his Human Bullet Tank technique and had enlarged both his hands to pick up a discarded tree, which he used like a baseball bat to swat at the remaining enemy ninja still perched on the treetops. "Here's payback for what you did to my ass!" He shouted.

Sai was still nowhere to be found, but it didn't matter as the three of them managed to route all of the enemy combatants in less than a minute now that they could see them clearly.

In no time at all, the three chūnin had all the remaining enemy ninja tied up to the still standing trees and were feeling pretty good about themselves.

"We showed them what's what!" Tenten declared.

"Yeah," Chōji agreed while reaching for his backside. "And not a-Humph!-scratch on us." Chōji pulled out one of the enemy's kunai, then tossed it aside.

"Oh my god Chō- Butterfly… Chōji. Are you wounded?" Tenten asked in concern.

"It's nothing Panda, it's just a scratch." Chōji replied in earnest, sighing all the while.

"Let me check it anyway. Who knows, those idiots might have used poison."

"No, no! It's just embarrassing, that's all…"

"Butterfly," Shino interjected. "If the kunai was poisoned and penetrated your skin in your back the poison could easily enter your blood stream through your spinal column. We need to check it."

"It didn't penetrate my back, Beetle. It penetrated my… ass…" Chōji replied, embarrassed that he tried to throw Shino's words back at him.

Everywhere around them the rogue ninja that were still conscious and eavesdropping were snickering to themselves.

"Shut up!" Tenten commanded. Which kept the rogues quiet, but couldn't stop them from smirking at their captor's expense.

"Just let me double check to make sure it isn't foaming or green. I'm no medic nin, but I've got plenty of experience patching up Team Guy."

Chōji realized that he wasn't going to get out of this mission with his dignity intact and proceeded to drop his pants.

That's when Sai appeared out of the shadows wearing one of his rare glimpses of emotion. Sai looked at all of them like they had come into his house and took a shit on his rug.

"What the hell are you three doing? I gave you all clear instructions that we are too flee in the face of enemy encounters. Instead I find all of you facing down an entire platoon!"

Everyone was blown back at Sai's venomous statement. He was normally smiling that fake smile of his and making small dick jokes about Naruto's size. To have him talk down to all of them like that when they were all in the same age group was jarring. Tenten, however, was the first to recover from the shock.

"What were we doing? We were fighting the bad guys while you were off doing Lord knows what!"

"I was regrouping at the spot 300 yards east of the Willow tree as I instructed all of you to do in case of an enemy encounter. I gave very clear instructions during the briefing."

Now it was Chōji's turn to retort (right after he pulled up his pants). "We couldn't understand you. Between the masks and the pitch black darkness, nobody could read your hand signs."

"You would have understood the orders if you had been paying attention. If you need orders repeated at you to fully understand them then you tell your superior officer."

"There was no time for repeats! We were under attack. Why didn't you just issue the orders verbally on the ride here?"

"It doesn't matter when I issue the orders. What matters is that you follow them. As it stands you have disobeyed standing orders made by your squad leader and by your Kage. This was supposed to be a reconnaissance mission; observe and report. We were not green lit to engage the enemy. Instead, the three of you create a mini war in the forest. I could hear you shouting from the Willow tree."

Chōji and Tenten looked down in disappointment of themselves.

"And what's worse is that you Chōji, disobeyed my direct order of not using any infamous clan jutsu, jutsu that can be easily linked back to our village. We will have to eliminate everyone now."

"Whoa, hey, hold on!" Tenten shouted, clearly outraged at what Sai was saying. "We can't do that. There are twenty guys here and they're all subdued. They're our prisoners!"

"They are not prisoners. This isn't war. This is ANBU and they are witnesses."

Tenten and Chōji couldn't quite find the words to retort against Sai and that is because technically, he was right. Shino was busy contemplating about how new this was to all of them, sure they had all been ninjas since the age of twelve. Most of them had grown up surrounded by this lifestyle. Chōji and Shino had been raised in noteworthy ninja clans, and Sai had been trained even earlier by Root; an underground Black Ops unit operating in secret outside of the Hokage's jurisdiction but it had been disbanded a year after the death of Danzō. Only Tenten could have claimed to have what the civilian population would call a normal childhood. Either way, the three of them still had more than enough experience in killing, but they never executed prisoners in cold blood. Not even during the 4th Shinobi War had they killed any POWs. Not that there had been any chance to in the first place since the whole war had been fought against these White Zetsu clones which were humanoid looking plant warriors with bone white skin that were made up of the 1st Hokage's cells and the reanimated corpses of the Shinobi Alliance's most infamous late ninjas. Needless to say, there weren't any enemy soldiers to show mercy too. Just a whole bunch of monsters to mercilessly slaughter. There were standing orders to capture Kabuto to have him undo the Reanimation Jutsu, but that objective had been fulfilled by an unknown ally who the Alliance brass had later revealed to be Sasuke Uchiha.

Strangely enough, it was one of the captives who broke the silence. "Hey now, come on, you don't really have to kill us right?"

His buddy beside him quickly pitches in, "Yeah, that's right we don't know nothing about who you are."

"And we especially don't know anything about the Akimichi clan's Expansion jutsu from the Hidden Leaf." Their third friend chimed in. Which caused the two thugs to look at their friend who just realized his mistake with a look of you dumb fuck.

Sai had an indifferent look on his face as he walked up to the third restrained ninja, grabbed him by his brown hair, and slit his throat as calmly as you would pick an apple.

Before the thug next to him could scream out he felt a glove pressed against his mouth and a damp blade pressed against his neck.

Tenten stepped in though to prevent Sai from dragging the short sword along. "That's enough!"

Sai turned around to face her with an even more terrifying look of anger. "Don't you start Panda. It's bad enough that Butterfly gave away our origin. But your fan no doubt alerted the entire valley to our presence. I'm surprised that we haven't seen reinforcements already. All because you had to go around throwing out elemental attacks like a damn buuji."

"What fan?!" Tenten pulled out the Elemental Fan to hold it up. "Oh, you mean this fan?"

"Are you threatening me?"

"Maybe I am you emotionless bastard."

At this point Shino jumped in between them.

"I shouldn't be surprised by how you acting. Given your previous sensei's habit of overdoing it."

Typical Sai of saving the most insensitive things at the most inopportune times. It was an unspoken rule in the shinobi forces that you could insult someone's mother before you insulted their genin squad leader. Like 'em or not, those S.O.B.s were family and you don't mess with family.

"What did you say?" Tenten threatened.

Shino should have known better, but he needed to intervene, "Tenten, look, just calm down."

"You're taking his side?!" She screeched, unbelieving that Shino wasn't backing her up. Sure he was one of the few in their age group who hadn't lost a mentor over the years (unless you count maternity leave). But to just stand by while Sai insulted Tenten's crippled sensei…

"I'm not taking sides. You both made good points and we all need to keep a level head. So if you'll just put the fan down-

"YOU WANT ME TO PUT THE FAN DOWN?!"

Tenten swung her fan down like some other culture's mystic hammer, unleashing a powerful bolt of lightning that knocked the rest of her squad away like rag dolls.

She stood there panting, surrounded by the charred earth and squad mates laid out on their backs all around her. Butterfly and Beetle looked up tentatively. Both weren't badly hurt, but they knew not to further mess with a woman scorned.

Tenten then realized how she had screwed up and began apologizing for her outburst, but Copper/Sai was having none of it.

He dusted himself off and walked towards Panda, unflinching in the potential risk of another fan assault.

"I officially fail you, Tenten, from the ANBU exams. You and Chōji, for disobeying orders and putting the mission in jeopardy. Neither of you has what it takes. The two of you shall remain hidden in a predetermined location while Beetle and I continue on with the mission. Is that understood?"

The rest of Copper Squad looked on in disbelief. As always though, it was Tenten who regained her voice first. "You know what? Screw you Sai." She turned her heel and re-strapped the Elemental Fan to her back before addressing Butterfly, "Come on Chōji, let's go." Tenten then leaped into the trees and took off. Chōji soon followed behind her without a word.

Author's Note: Whelp, things are off to a flying start for Copper squad. What say we check in with Gold and Silver squad next chapter to see how they're doing?

Gotta give a shout out of thanks to two authors on this site. Ghostpoet for betaing this chapter and adding the lines that go over the o's in Chōji. Also to SoleAccord, who provided the Fan Down line for Tenten, as well as the feedback on the two previous chapters. Check 'em both out. They are amazing writers.