They made their way to towards the screams of the villagers. As they turned the corner Commander Sam ducked as a gremlin sailed over his head. Soki quickly shot it in the face in mid-air sending it crashing into the ground. A few of the villagers had already been either bitten or scratched and began to turn. Their skin became a pale purple-blue color as their eyes began to recede into their skulls. Their nails grew longer and sharper along with their teeth, which began to ooze a dark yellow liquid. Those that turned immediately began going after those that were either injured or in good health. Sam and Soki raised their weapons but Tsunade grabbed his rifle.
"Is it too late for the antidote? I don't think you should resign yourself to killing them if they can be cured." Tsunade said angrily.
"Of course there's an antidote, but I don't know how many gremlin are in your village or how many villagers have already turned. We don't want to risk an outbreak across your entire village." Sam said calmly.
"Neji, Hinata, how many gremlin do you see in the village?" Tsunade asked.
"With that one dead there are two more." Neji said.
"One is straight ahead of us, and the other is near the academy." Hinata added.
"Shikamaru, immoblize these people and that one gremlin. Neji, go with Soki and make sure that gremlin hasn't infected anyone else. If it has, incapacitate them so they can get treatment." Tsunade said.
"HQ this is Commander Sam requesting a quarantine barrier. We have two gremlin and multiple infected. Sonya, go with them and make sure to freeze anyone injured by it." Sam said.
"Right." Soki and Sonya said in unison and took off with Neji.
Shikamaru used his Shadow Imitation Technique to quickly immoblize everyone in the area. A gremlin jumped from the roof of a nearby house to strike. Sam quickly pulled out a pistol and shot it in the chest. The gremlin hit the ground, twitching and drooling, then lay motionless.
"It's not dead, but at least now we've captured a live one." he said putting the pistol away.
"What was in that bullet?" Shikamaru asked.
Sam smirked,"Sharp aren't you? It's a drug out guys in the lab have been working on. The material the bullet is made out of is brittle, shattering as it punctures the target. The drug, we call it "The Sleeper", is a neurotoxin that slowly but peacefully shuts down the brain and all other body functions, sending the target to sleep for about 48 hours."
"That would've come in handy on someone multiple times." Yamato mumbled thinking about Naruto.
Soki, Neji and Sonya chased the gremlin down the street.
"I take it that thing knows we're after it?" Neji asked.
"Not only that, they hunt in packs; alone they're basically cowards." Soki said.
Neji pulled out a kunai,"Might as well stop him here."
He threw the kunai at the gremlin, which chose that moment to shift between rifts.
"What the-"
"Oh no you don't!" Sonya pushing her hand forward. A stream of white light impaled the gremlin just in time for the kunai to impale its skull. It slumped over, gave a low growl, then died.
"Y-you pulled it back into this dimension...how?" Neji asked looking at Sonya.
She didn't say, only grabbed her right arm and headed back to the others.
"She doesn't like to talk about it, but I guess I can tell you after we've cleared this whole mess up." Soki offered as she threw a vial or orange liquid onto the gremlin corpse, igniting as it burst open.
The sound of helicopters filled the air as five helicopters carrying a pentagon shaped blue barrier hovered over the infected. Men in the same armor as the first four dropped from the helicopter.
"Commander Sam." One said, saluting him as he walked up.
"Did you bring enough of the antidote?" Sam asked.
"We brought enough for those that are injured sir; the ones that have transformed will have to wait awhile longer while our scientists make more."
Sam sighed,"Fine, inject the injured and get them out of there so they can drop the quarintine barrier."
"Yes Sir."
When the injured were pulled out, the helicopters gently put the barrier down around those that were already mutated. Shikamaru released his shadow imitation technique, and the mutants proceeded to growl, roar and bash against the barrier in a futile effort to escape.
"Will that hold them?" Hinata asked.
"Yeah, they're not getting out." Sam told them.
"Were you able to get into contact with Theta sir?" the soldier asked.
"He'd kill you if he heard you calling him that, and no. Did you pick up anything on the way here? Some strange formation of rocks or caves that doesn't seem natural?"
"We picked up a cave formation deep in the forest. Further scans showed multiple tunnels not made by any animal I've seen."
"Then let's get this situation handled before we head out." Sam said.
The soldiers all grabbed onto the ropes and were pulled back up into the helicopters, which immediately took off.
"Once again Lady Tsunade, I must apologize for this situation to happen in your village, I know you've all been through alot." Sam said putting his weapon away.
"You can make it up to me by explaining who you are and what the hell just happened." Tsunade said folding her arms.
"Fair enough...We belong to a society that collectively call themselves the Greek Alphabet; each section within is named after a certain greek alphabet. For example, I belong to section Xi, while Soki belongs to section Upsilon. In a way, you can relate with how your village is made up of different ninja clans. Like every large society, there exist the dark secrets that don't stay hidden for long. For us, it was unauthorized experimentations on humans that led to some defections and exterminations. The gremlin, were children that belonged to section Zeta and Delta that were the victims of experimentation involving moving between dimensions. From what our records that we uncovered showed, jumping through dimensions changes people. Each time a child 'rift jumped', they would come back less human and more savage, until one day a few broke out. At first we had no idea of their venom and its effects, and lost many good men and women to it; however we soon found a cure, and now we rectify that problem. They're were a few special cases...such as Sonya and Sozin, but out of respect for them I won't get into that, you'll have to ask them. We know, from what we found in their abandoned labs, that they've uncovered means to create monsters that would put your tailed beasts to shame. The scientists that defected from our society are in your lands experimenting on God knows what to achieve whatever twisted purpose they have, and we aim to stop them. Nori's disappearance in this area and the sudden appearance of more gremlin on cement our suspicions of rogue labs somewhere in your borders."
"Well, if you'll stay here for the night, we can get started on this tomorrow." Tsunade offered.
"Oh thank god, I could use a shower." Soki said relieved.