Right, chapter two up for those of you who like this thing.

...please review...

Disclaimer:

Chapter 2

Mission Start! Help from the inside?

Recap:

Jiraiya nodded, "Then we accept." He turned to Kakashi, "Kakashi, I'm leaving this mission in your command. I have to go back and report to Tsunade about all this."

"And I will lend you a drop shuttle." Van Voytz said, "As for the rest of you, spend the night here and leave tomorrow. My tactician, Biota, will lead you to your barracks."

With that, Biota stepped up, saying, "Follow me.", and led them out the door.

Before they went to far, Van Voytz's voice rang through the door, "Oh, and before I forget, there will be extra payment if you assassinate the leader responsible for the abduction!"

End Recap:

Eilhad Whitman walked back from the mines. His arms were still numb from the mindless work that he was required to do; breaking rocks made your arms reverberate until there was no more feeling left in them. However, he still had work to do. As soon as he reached the habs, he went inside his room to retrieve something. Waiting a few hours for dusk, he calmly strode out of his hab tucking his autopistol into a hidden pocket of his grey and black camo version of his worker's uniform.

Stepping out into the cooling air of the streets, he started running. Hurrying through alleys and above walkways to avoid the patrols of the various Chaos-spawned mutants that served as the local militia.

He was closing into the market now, or what was left of it. When the Chaos descended upon the planet of Lexion, a majority of the traders, over half of them being from off-world, were scared off and fled or went into hiding. Thus the building, which used to be a large domed stadium, is now half collapsed by the Chaos raid, and the rest that was still standing was quickly deteriorating. There were a few merchants still there, selling their sparse wares for exorbitant prices in hopes that they could still make a living out of their profession.

He was almost through the back door when an alarm sounded. The large klaxons that popped up, blaring at him loud and clear, scared him and apparently the merchants as well. Whatever had happened, he did not want to be caught in it, and even as the merchants disappeared, melting into the background, he ran out the back door, through the small stretch of field before coming to a small hole nestled into an area of tall grass. He jumped through not a moment to soon as a group of three minotaur-like mutants ran past. Trying to calm his breathing, he walked through the dirt tunnel and knocked on the steel door. A slit about eye level opened up and a voice spoke. "Password?" it said.

"The taint withers"

"Even as it kills" the voice answered. The doors then swung open and two pairs of hands sprung forth from the darkness, grabbing Whitman and dragging him bodily inside.

Inside, he was put on a chair as a small light turned on above him. There was a squad of similarly dressed men, all pointing their pump-action autorifles at him. Then, a moderately tall and bulky man in his late 30's walked into the light's pale glow. "Good evening, lieutenant Balker." Whitman said, turning to the man that just entered.

Balker nodded, "Good evening, to you too, Sergeant Whitman. Are you clean?"

In response to this Whitman stood up and half the soldiers strapped their guns to their soldiers and checked him over, looking for signs of the taint or chaos-made tools. When they were done, one soldier stepped forward and said, "He's clean, sir" before he turned up Whitman's right hand and exposed his wrist, where there was a some sort of seal, "but he's got himself marked."

"I see" Balker replied, "You'll need to get that removed if you want to go to the mission tonight."

"Yes sir." Whitman said, saluting his commanding officer. With that, he walked into the next room, which was lit with candles and had a room-sized symbol of the Imperial Eagle and holding and aquila. Someone was there waiting for him. He was a priest, robed in regal red, white, and purple robes. "Ayatani Saur, can you remove this seal?"

Saur simply nodded silently, before leading Whitman into the center and putting him on his back, in the same direction as the eagle. He then proceeded to position his right arm at a 90 degree angle from his body, wrist up. All he said was a simple, "This will hurt…terribly." Before he took out an necklace aquila, anointed it with a dab of holy water, and pressed it firmly into the center of the seal.

Whitman felt his whole arm explode in pain. He felt as if his whole arm was being skinned alive. All he could do was scream and writhe in pure agony as dots danced before his eyes, trying to lure him into sweet unconsciousness.

Ten whole agonizing minutes had passed. It was finally over. Whitman tried to stand, but failed and had to sit back down. It was obvious he wouldn't be able to for a while, though, because he was panting and sweating lakes, half moons already forming around his armpits and collar.

------------------10 minutes later-----------------------------------------

They were holding the briefing. Lieutenant Balker was pacing around the center of the semicircle of men, telling them about what they were going to do, when they were going to do it, and other things that were expected of them. "Alright. The Guard's forward squads are scheduled to be here to meet us at about 0200 hours. Whitman, Vanderson, Dilram, you're all to go up the side of the local munitorum shipping grounds and meet up in this shed, here." Pointing to the map to illustrate his point, he then turned to the other eleven men of the group, "The rest of you are coming with me. We'll be making a…diversion for those three."

Seeing that there were no more instructions for them, Whitman, Vanderson, and Dilram left to prepare their supplies. Meanwhile, the rest of the resistance cell were planning out their diversion, "We'll be the only ones out there other than the cell from the north" he began, "We'll set up some incendiary bombs here, here, and here. Afterwards, we'll meet up with those sent by the northern cell up here and fight off any patrols or soldiers sent and leave the minute we see an opportunity." He finished, crossing red X's where they were supposed to set up the bomb and green X's where they were to meet with the other cell.

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Whitman, Dilram, and Vanderson moved as quietly as they could up the alley. Darting between cover, they tried to avoid the few patrols that came across the area. It was ten minutes until the incendiaries were set to go off, and they wanted to be back into the city by then. They were happy that they remembered to smear grox blood across their skin, so the fetch-hounds could not sense them. They were making good time out of the city to the meeting spot when they encountered…something. There was not telling what it was, because it had no definite shape. It was a glyph, an amorphous blob of enchanted metal that constantly reformed into different blasphemous symbols that could put even the most hardened veteran guardsman into fits of convulsions, weeping and throwing up in agony if one looked at it.

Apparently, it was sensing around, searching for any unmarked that were lurking around after daylight. All of them turned away, hoping to not be found. Luckily, they had their seals removed, and could not be sensed by the glyph. "Great, it can't sense us. Whitman stated. Vanderson, Dilram, let's hurry. He reached the next small wall before he noticed that no one was following him and ran back. When he did, he came upon the sight of Dilram, lying on the floor in seizure, drooling and showing the whites of his eyes. He obviously didn't look away in time. Whitman sighed. He didn't know what to do; he couldn't very well just leave him there, but there didn't seem to be many alternatives.

Right on cue, Vanderson spoke up, "He's finally calmed down, but he should be out for the rest of the night. What should we do with him sir?"

Annoyed both by the coincidence and by the fact that he didn't know the answer, he tried to massage the anger vein in his forehead and answered shortly, "I don't know."

"But-" Vanderson sputtered, but was interrupted by Whitman who sent a deathly glare his way. "We're…We're not going to leave him, are we?"

Whitman sighed. Vanderson was still new and young; he was only 20 when he joined the PDF, and hadn't yet experienced most of the tragedies and traumas that occurred during war. "No, Van. We're not going to leave him. We're going to…come back for him…" He couldn't meet the rookie's eyes.

Vanderson may have been new, but he wasn't an idiot; and so it was natural that he noticed that his squad leader was avoiding his eyes, "You lie." At that, the sergeant's eyes widened as he was surprised and stunned, but he still didn't say anything and continued to avoid his gaze. "I don't understand. Why can't we just take him with us?" Vanderson asked, his voice had an almost plaintive quality to it.

"Because, it'll slow us down and we'll increase our chances of being caught. His whole body will react to the glyph's gaze now, that's how it works." Whitman answered simply.

"I don't care!" Vanderson argued, "I'll carry him the whole way, it's not as bad if I get caught, right?"

The exasperated sergeant sighed, "Fine, but he's your responsibility. Let's move." So, after a period of stagnation that was way longer than necessary, they finally started to move again.

They were almost to the meeting point now, but Vanderson was starting to get tired. He was lagging behind, Dilram's limp body flailing out from atop his back. There was no cover available now; it was a straight dash for the shed, hoping to not get caught. They were even closer now, only fifty meters…

Twenty meters…

Ten meters…

Five meters left. But suddenly, shouts exploded in our ears and we stopped in our tracks. A little off to our right, there was a group of three minotaur-like mutants; they had seen us and were coming upon us, their lascarbines at the ready. Only one thing ran through Whitman's mind as they dropped to the grass Shit! Shitshitshitshitshitshit! The mutant patrol was close enough now, and they had started firing. Whitman and Vanderson returned fire with their autorifles, but it was looking pretty hopeless because of their superior numbers and superior weapons.

They were pinned. They were about to die. The mutants were closing in, lascarbines braced at their waist and muzzles pointing right between their eyes. So, they sat still, waiting for that ever-faithful las-bolt to send them to the Emperor's side. They heard voices; small unintelligible mutterings and grunts and every so often, the sentence, "Ruum, Dar Madre! 1" Finally, the clack and whine of three lascarbines being reloaded and armed alerted them as the mutants raised and aimed their weapons…

1. These words don't mean anything. I have absolutely no grasp on Chaos language and so made up some words. It's supposed to be, "Le'ts kill them now!"

Wheeee! a cliffhanger! I feel so evil now...but I couldn't resist doing it just once... Will they die? Where's Naruto and the others? How is the city battle going? Review and then read next time, when To Ally with Ghosts (TAWG for short...lol...TAWG sounds funny...) is updated!

Once again, please review...