Towards the Light

Disclaimer: Same as before.

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New Earth laid a virgin world, untamed rugged natural beauty as far as the eye could see. That was what the mission codenamed Foxtrot One Two had been sent to aid. The Heartless had invaded the Titan AE dimension almost a year ago and Foxtrot One Two had been sent to aid the survivors of the devastating assault on New Earth to rebel against the Heartless. De Oppresso Liber, the motto of the Special Forces, Freedom for the Oppressed, was followed that day.

Martin Bilby felt his parachute jerk slowing his descent on the HALO jump. Already the C-130 was making tracks out of Heartless airspace. This was the start of the fateful Titan mission with the seven members of 3 Troop, Charlie Squadron that he had served faithfully with for nearly two years of his Special Forces career that began as a boy soldier with the 25th Infantry Division.

Akima was the leader of the Titan AE universe's resistance against the Heartless. Her beloved Cale had been captured and executed for his crimes by the Heartless. Within three hours of their landing, Foxtrot One Two made contact with the resistance. What followed were the events that had driven Bilby insane.

It was raining that night, the night where Bilby's soul had been torn from his body. Through the six weeks they had been on New Earth, Bilby and Akima had become some sort of an item. In doing so, Bilby had violated one of the Gamma unit's most cardinal rule. Never emotionally involve yourself with someone in a dimension that you're supposed to protect.

He still remembered that night as if it were yesterday. A Heartless convoy carrying several captured citizens of New Earth was driving up a jungle trail. Akima gave Bilby a tender peck on the cheek as he headed off to his sniper hide to trigger the ambush. The ambush had gone well at first, with the citizens being headed of to Zion, the stronghold of Akima's resistance.

They found the hidden stronghold burned to the ground, the few survivors being slaughtered without mercy by the Heartless. The ambushers were in turn ambushed and three Gamma soldiers went down. The running gunfight that followed was one where the survivors were shot down like dogs, one by one. The unit had regrouped when two shells exploded near their position.

Through his telescopic sight, Bilby could see Akima trying to crawl away. There was a large shrapnel injury in her midsection. The Heartless overran the first group and Bilby could see the Heartless drone put a pistol next to her ear and squeeze the trigger. She was a woman who was vital, full of life, and the Heartless only saw it fit to shoot her down like a dog. Bilby squeezed the trigger, exploding the head of the Heartless gunman. Through the scope, he could see Akima's face, smeared with mud and blood, lifeless and gone.

Martin Bilby sat up in bed breathing hard. He was in a hospital of some kind. There was an IV stuck in his right arm. His leg was bandaged but not broken because there wasn't a cast on it. "Where am I?" he asked.

"You're in the GI Joe Infirmary soldier." The tall blonde nurse said.

"GI Joe?" Bilby said.

"You must've heard of us in the army." The nurse replied.

"No not really." Bilby replied. Bree detected a distinctive Australian accent in the soldier's voice.

"So who's Akima?" Bree asked.

"None of your business." Bilby said defensively.

"She must have been someone special if you're so protective of her." Bree replied.

"I have to speak to your commanding officer." Bilby said and tried to stand up.

"Rest for now." Bree replied.

"How long was I out?" Bilby asked.

"A week." Bree replied.

"A week?" Bilby replied, "There's something I've got to warn your CO about instantly!"

"You mean those Heartless creatures you were muttering about in your sleep." Bree replied.

"Yeah, exactly." Bilby replied.

"We've already encountered them and we already know COBRA's working with them." Bree replied.

Lifeline walked in just then, "Our patient's awake."

"Listen to me, you're in terrible danger!" Bilby stated, sitting bolt upright in bed.

"Calm down." Lifeline said, he talked to his wrist after hitting a button on his watch, "Lady Jaye, this is Lifeline, our patient is up and he says he has valuable Intel on those Heartless guys."

Suddenly Lifeline's hands seemed to glow. "Whoa, what the hell." Bilby said.

"I'm not going to hurt you." Lifeline replied, "Let my touch heal your wounds."

Bilby closed his eyes and it seemed like a wave of serene energy was coursing through him. The stabbing needles of pain in his thigh reduced to small and dull aches and disappeared altogether. In the short meld, Lifeline staggered back, he had absorbed some of Bilby's emotional anguish.

Bilby noticed a slim angular brunette walk into the room, "Are you Bilby?"

"I'm not Dr. Livingston." Bilby replied, "About the Heartless. They are vicious. They seek to destroy and enslave worlds they discover. Think of the universe you live in, then imagine multiple universes existing in infinite quantities. Now imagine a plague that consumes and enslaves those universes. And there you have the Heartless."

"And what about you?" Lady Jaye asked.

"I'm a corporal with the US Army from a different universe. In my world we're fighting the Heartless all over the place. I'm part of a unit called the Gamma Unit, a division of the Special Forces responsible for containing or preventing any Heartless expansion." Bilby replied.

"Thank you, Corporal Bilby." Lady Jaye said.

"Bilby, you have visitors." Bree said.

Several teenage kids walked in just then. The first was a girl with black hair with blue streaks with Chinese coin earrings was first, followed by a shorter fellow with dirty blonde hair they were joined by a green skinned, reptilian-humanoid kid with a shock of dirty blonde hair.

"Who are you guys?" Bilby asked.

"We might ask the same about you." Xi replied.

"Althea Delgato. Don't call me Al." the girl replied.

"Todd Tolansky." Said the non lizard looking boy

"Xi." The lizard replied.

"Martin Bilby." Bilby replied.

"Hey, someone who didn't freak out when seeing Xi for the first time can't be all bad." Althea said, "I'll go talk to my Dad and see if we can't take you in when you get out of the hospital."

"Thanks." Bilby replied. He looked up and grinned, because he recognized a face from the Counterrevolutionary Wing (CRW) posing as one of hundreds of anonymous green shirts on this base. Turns out he wasn't alone after all. The dark haired soldier was Jose Hedaya, another member of his old sniper team before he got rotated into the CRW.

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"Sergeant Rumpler," said Copperhead, "Will you please care to inform me as to what your mission was?"

"I've told you this before, we're an air rescue team that was sent in after a distress signal was send by a surveillance aircraft." Rumpler replied.

Two Heartless were in the room, "What surveillance aircraft?"

"They never tell us these things." Rumpler replied, "They just told me and my guys that a plane went down, we grabbed our gear and inserted. The Chinook took heavy gunfire and dropped the first group off in the desert. They also accidentally inserted the other half of our group further away from us."

"Seems consistent with a rescue gone wrong, only there's one mistake sergeant." Copperhead replied. "You know what that is?"

"We know you're a commando. One of your men broke. I believe his name was Stoney Brown." Copperhead added. As an interrogator, he knew that that wasn't the case. None of the captives broke. They did have some survivors from the assorted firefights with the Gamma unit troopers, but the key thing as an interrogator, Copperhead knew, was to break the will of the subject to resist.

The Heartless kicked the sergeant in his kneecap, where currently an AK-47 round was lodged. Rumpler winced in pain. "You told us earlier there were seven men on the team. I have here a survivor from that first encounter and he counted eight of you." Copperhead replied.

"Oh, your man was able to count when he was being shot at. If he's a good soldier he should have been shooting at the enemy force." Rumpler replied sarcastically. He got a kick to the ribs from the Heartless for his trouble.

"I know for a fact one of your men, the eighth you failed to tell us about, the sniper I believe it was, got killed." Copperhead replied. He knew that was a blatant outright lie, but Rumpler didn't know that. If the reports were true, that sniper was currently in GI Joe's hands. That sniper had in fact killed, at conservative estimates, nearly ninety COBRA and Heartless troops. The entire eight man team had accounted for over 300 casualties on his side. The fact that eight men armed only with small arms and light machineguns had killed so many was a right humiliation for both the Heartless and COBRA.

"Hah, I bet that sniper blew a hell of a lot of you bastards to hell." Rumpler grinned, despite himself.

He got butt stroked by a rifle in the face. Blood gushed from his mouth, at least two teeth felt loosened. "Take him back to his cell." Copperhead ordered.

~ ~ ~ ~

Sergeant Jose Hedaya watched Bilby throw on a new set of desert camouflage, courtesy of Cover Girl and his trademark Afrika Korps field cap. "I'll make contact with you later pal." Hedaya replied, he knew that Bilby had seen him.

He was part of mission India Three One, a two-man reconnaissance operation to attempt to determine the fate of Kilo Two Zero. From that info he figured out that Bilby had survived, and not only that, he also figured from intercepted COBRA message traffic that at least ninety enemy troops were shot dead by Bilby's deadly shooting. He also knew that two of Kilo Two Zero's eight men were dead and that another five were in the hands of COBRA.

His top priorities now were to contact Bilby and get on the next mission to attack any COBRA bases for the purpose of rescuing the captured comrades of Kilo Two Zero. Staff Sergeant David Falk, was another sniper team member, a recent graduate of the US Army sniper school. He was also a veteran of the CRW who was working in the communications area, posing as communications unit green shirt where Hedaya was impersonating a medic green shirt.

He ran into Falk at chow, "Hey Dave, I found Bilby. They're moving him into the Misfit house."

"Any way of getting yourself assigned there?" Falk ordered.

"Not unless they need full time medics, anyway they'd probably assign Lifeline down there." Hedaya replied.

"Well, we can set up an observation post outside Shipwreck's house that one of us can man when off duty." Falk whispered back.

"Great idea Dave." Hedaya replied.

"What the hell did I say about calling me Dave. It's either Falk or David, quit calling me that. Only my wife rates doing that." Falk replied.

"Got it." Hedaya replied as he stood up, "Dave."

"Damn you Hedaya." Falk joked back.

~ ~ ~ ~

Low Light was driving the jeep to Shipwreck's house with Bilby sitting in the front seat. "I've got your rifle and kit back at the house." Low Light said.

"Just be careful of those insane Triplets, the alcoholic parrot, and the flying food and you'll live." Low Light continued.

"Rewind mate, alcoholic parrot, drunken parrot, insane Triplets? What kind of a looney bin is this place?" Bilby asked.

"That's what I'm still trying to figure out and I've been here for quite a while." Low Light replied, "The kids are a little crazy, but after a while they grow on you. I think I'm going soft, this bodyguard assignment is really starting to grow on me."

"Don't let it do that." Bilby replied.

"You're talking from personal experience." Low Light replied, "I'm not gonna ask."

"Well we're here." Low Light said, "And one more thing. If you tell ANY of the Misfits that they've grown on me, I'll kill you."

"Sniper to sniper Low Light, I'm not gonna say a word." Bilby replied.

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Up Next: What happens when Bilby moves into the Misfit's household? The answer insanity, food fights and chaos? He survived fighting a massive army of COBRA and Heartless troops, but can he survive the trials and travails of an alcoholic parrot, an insane sailor and family, two mutant babies, and the former Brotherhood.? Stay tuned.