Author Notes: This section is still very deprived of Touhou references. Events in this arc don't lend me a good opportunity to sneak references in this time.
This chapter is a Modern Warfare 2 crossover, but it contains more than just MW2 this time. What I can say is, the last chapter and parts of this chapter sets events at Day 4 of events in MW2.

Author's Request (again): I would like to have a Beta-Reader for my story. If you are interested, please PM me. Thank you very much!
This is a second upload – the first upload was a bit choppy and some text was missing. My apologies.

"""""""

"Say, bro," mouthed Jack, "how did you save T.J. from those Russians back there at L.A.?"
"What'd you mean?" I asked, pretending not to know what he was talking about. I don't really intend to hide it from Jack or T.J. that much longer, but I don't want anybody else to be listening in on us while we're enduring a ride to the military base. I pinched him on his arm to signal my intention.

"Ah, well, if ya ain't willin' to say I won't be forcin', then."

The vehicle came to a stop gradually, and everyone on it was left wondering why.

"Private, what's the situation?"
"We've all run out of gas, sarge!"

Just as the private finished saying his piece, someone began to open fire from outside; it seemed to be sounding from somewhere behind us. It was really gut-turning to see the private splaying blood right after speaking to us; with his head outside the bus at that point of time I figured he was a goner.

"Ambush! It's the Russians! Open fire!"
"Everyone get down!"

Not a moment too soon – the entire vehicle rattled with bullet ping-pangs all over just as we threw ourselves to the bus floor; right behind us were the Russians, all screaming as though they want our blood real bad. If any of these god damn bullets hit us, we'll be done for. Glass shattered left and right of us, with most of the soldiers on the bus outside fighting for all of us.

"Go go go! Get out of this bus, it's not going to survive this gunfire!"

We quickly scrambled out of the bus – I ended up fireman-carrying T.J. off the bus despite my own limp, while the soldiers covered us. One of the army boys got hit right before we could enter the nearest building, and by the time I realized he was not following us, he was already riddled with bullets. Seconds later, the bus exploded in a ball of metallic flame, adding to the chaos that ensued.

"Bro! What the hell are you waiting for, get out of there!"

I felt totally helpless this time as Jack pushed me out of a grenade's way, as we both crashed into the nearest room before the corridor lit up in a flash of attrition. My head, fresh from experiences in Gensokyo, suddenly gave way as the fighting before me turned me from the inside out.

All that appeared before me was a blur, utter confusion.

I thought I could handle the situation like everything else before, but the time stop wouldn't happen. I have no time to recollect my thoughts, process the information, and all I could feel was my heart racing and my head spinning in whirls.

"Hey, did you guys see that sign over there?" One of the civilians on the same bus earlier screamed. "We're very close to an air-raid shelter! Hurry!"

"BRO! WE GOTTA MOVE NOW!" I could only hear Jack keep trying to push me and I, stumbling and falling my way through the apartment building along with T.J., which shook really hard from what I thought was some kind of air bombardment.

"Jack, push along! We gotta help our bro out of trouble man! He's freaked out!"

I wished I could react with a witty remark, but T.J. was spot-on – I am freaking out. With all the loud gunfire and shells fired off from tanks that couldn't resist making loud cannon noises, I don't know what to do, and all I got was blood on my mouth (from biting my lips too hard) and tears from my eyes.

"Dude, don'tcha break down on me man!" T.J.'s voice was getting increasingly frustrated, but I still have no response to it even though I was totally aware what I was not doing. "Push on! We're only a quarter of a klick from the air raid shelter!"

I gradually found myself starting to calm down a little bit, with my focus returning and my goal clear – to get to the air raid shelter before we all get hit.

"Argh!"
"Dammit! Jack's taken a hit!"
"It's the elbow… dammit, that hurts!"
"Take the gauze," shouted T.J., rummaging a nearby dead soldier's vest for a large piece of gauze before throwing it in Jack's direction. "Press this on your arm!"

"Got it! Thanks!"

We were edging closer and closer to the air raid shelter, with soldiers beckoning us to get in as soon as possible, when suddenly a tank shell struck from right behind us. The oomph from the shock threw the lucky ones on the floor, and the unlucky ones, I saw, were in a pile of recently-collapsed rubble.

I felt something snap from somewhere behind my head. I touched it gingerly, thinking that something had struck my head, but nothing was there.

"Hey… hey… Jack… T.J…. are you guys there?"

No response. That got my whole being paralysed – have we failed to survive after all?

Slowly but surely, I stood up from where I was lying down on – the asphalt to be precise.

I surveyed my surroundings, and immediately realized two things; one, it turned azure blue all over, and two, everything stopped in place.

"Is this a time stop again?" I pondered, raising my hand to myself. In doing so I realize that a blue streak of lightning (the exact same one that surrounded my shot leg from earlier) surrounded my entire right forearm. Its blue nicely blended with the azure blue in the environment. The time stop, while entirely unexpected, brought my confidence back up by a big notch and I began to figure out the immediate circumstances of the situation.

We, the survivors, were at most about a hundred meters away from the shelter's entrance, but I spotted a large vehicle firing in our direction (with the long bullets hurtling towards our group in mid-air). I presumed those to be from the enemy, and from the looks of it the troops at the front door were the apparent targets. Seeing that I have basically nothing to lose already at this moment, I took up a slab of brick from the nearby rubble and struck at the long bullets, which snapped after a few hits.

"Ouch!" I accidentally touched the bullet and its heat snapped at my fingertip while I sought to redirect the split bullets somehow, thinking that even if I managed to snap the bullets I would most likely just cause two bullets, instead of one, to hit the defenders. Seeing that there were quite a number of bullets along the way, I just snapped every bullet that was flying in our way just to buy us all some time in the event of the time-stop fading away. The surroundings began to look slightly brighter than azure, so I acted faster.

I decided to conduct a little experiment with the Russians, so I delivered a few kicks to individual soldiers along the bullets' paths. I noticed three soldiers that previously we did not notice and was about to fire on our group, so I punched them hard in the neck. All I got from the kicks and punches, however, were their bodies being dented in like a ping-pong ball. At this time, the surrounding became even brighter than before, which alerted me to what I thought was a likely end to the time-stop.

"I gotta lie in the asphalt I stood up from… just in case the rest of the guys suspect me again," I thought, laying myself down on the asphalt that I struggled to stand up from just moments earlier. As I lay, I noticed the blue wave on my arm getting dimmer and dimmer.

Then it just simply vanished, and time suddenly resumed – it was like pressing the play button on the VCR. The results were pretty spectacular; the bullets I split exploded in mid-air, not fly in two directions as I had originally anticipated; I looked in the direction of the Russians that our group didn't notice, and was quite disgusted to find their splattered heads on a wall nearby – spine attached to it and all, straight out of a certain violent video game I've seen before when I was seven; our group yelped in shock and the soldiers were all surprised to see the explosions and stuff, maybe they were thinking that multiple mines have gone off in the area or something.

"What the hell just happened?" screamed T.J."Pas, you there man? We've gotta haul ass to the bunker now!"

""""""

"And, and then did you see that just now? I was like, shit, the BTR's gonna hit us and this bunker's not gonna hold with so much gunfire. Then suddenly the whole god damn place exploded and then these civvies came running in like their pants were on fire."
"Shit me not, Captain Obvious, they are running while the soldiers are shooting their asses man!"
"Yea, but I mean, yea, they were like all shocked and stuff."
"Just like you maybe? Look at you and your incoherence!"

The idle chatter of the group of soldiers nearby didn't cut much ice with me.
I blurted, "Give me a break guys. You're disturbing our rest."

"Well, sorry… considering we barely have enough space for ourselves, mate," retorted one of the soldiers. I snarled – they probably figured themselves as heroes of Americans and were acting like they were the boss.

"Forget it bro. They're probably just as tired and surprised as we are," remarked T.J. as he poured me a cup of coffee from the communal dining area. "At least we now got somewhere to cover our asses."
"Yea, while half the city's occupied by the Russians," remarked Jack. "I don't like how this is going on."

"Take it easy guys," replied the same soldier who irritated me. "We've got most of the anti-air battery active and last I heard, the SEALS are pounding their subs and bases," reassured one of the privates.

"How would you know, soldier," blurted T.J. in apparent astonishment, "that's another service from yours and I remember the soldiers don't usually do cross-service talk like this."
"Who are you to question me in times of war like this, man?" The soldier was clearly pissed at T.J. "There's so much you don't know about our army anyway!"

T.J. flashed a tattoo on his arm – one that I've never seen before since he always wears a T-shirt in boxing practice – which looked like a service badge or something.
"I was of 82nd Airborne. I served two tours in the Middle East since 2007. I'm at least ten years older than you, kid, so piss off. I know what's real and what's braggin'."

"Yea? Well why'd you become a civvie then, pussy old man?"

T.J. bit his lip – a sign of rising anger. "I landed flat on my face three years ago because the stupid idiot who prepared the parachute poked a hole into my fuckin' gear. I have a fear of flyin' now. Happy, jackass?"

"What, you think you're B.A. Baracus or something, with a fear of flyin'? That's a laugh! You just look it! You ain't even a fuckin' Ranger!"

T.J. was about to explode – I know the last time someone made a joke of it he threw the poor sod out of the fight club through the window – but I held him back. Before I could respond in defense of T.J , though, a burly guy bigger than our in-house muscleman by sheer girth, grabbed the foul-mouthed bugger of a soldier by the throat. It was rather amusing when I spotted the tattoo on his hand – it spelt "FOOL", which is perhaps the most ironic reference to the guy he's grabbing the throat of now.

"Nobody mentions me as an insult to anyone, fool."
"Leggo, buddy!" The soldier kicked and thrashed, but couldn't reach any part of the juggernaut at all.
"And nobody's gonna give a lecture on my behalf about planes."

"Settle down, Baracus," spoke another voice. The man, sporting an almost-balding head and looking pretty spirited in a wheelchair, was probably well into his seventies, but his voice was pretty sharp and commanding for his age.
"What's it about flying, man? I'm probably the best pilot in the world and no one doubts it," sang another voice off a skinny-looking veteran, teasing the big black who proceeded to drop the fool from his hand and engage in a lengthy argument.

"I didn't expect B.A.'s name to be mentioned here," laughed the man. "Over thirty years, half of it outside service, and still we're getting some pretty good mentions, huh, Face?"
"Yea, boss, that's a pretty long time already. Then again, we'd probably all die tomorrow. Look at them Russians running about L.A. doing crazy stuff."
"We go on so many missions having so many people tell us we'll die, and we survived every one of them. Remember, we've been through those god-damn jungles too."

"My god, it's the legendary A-Team," breathed T.J. "Why're they getting stuck in this particular bunker?"
"The A-Team, what the heck do they do? Look at you, being a fanboy."

The man in the wheelchair looked at me, and I couldn't help but feel slightly overawed despite what I just said.

"We do anything, and everything, kid," he smirked. "We're soldiers of fortune living day-to-day outta vans, and we pulled off gigs all over the country."
"With lots of explosions," added the skinny guy. "And lots of planes, and helicopters."
"Shut it, you pilot worse than my mother."
"Is that right, Scooter-boy?"

That sing-song tone was a very remarkable taunt, I'll be sure to use it when I get back to Gensokyo.

"I heard you guys had a pretty big bang behind your arses before you came in. We saw a few other guys around where you guys were running in from, who died pretty unnaturally, too," blurted the balding man.

Well, I wondered how to explain that. No one would believe me if I said I cut the bullets in half with a brick, or kicked people and saw ping-pong dents in their throats.

"Probably Russians and their misfiring equipment," laughed the other guy whose name I remembered as Face. "In any case, d'you guys plan to enlist as fighting civilians tomorrow? The National Guard units were hit pretty hard and they're not expected until the day after."
"I am," answered T.J. "82nd Airborne, sir. I've heard of stories about your break-out from Fort Bragg."
"Well, that was donkey years ago. I'm not sure we could still do that now," chortle the senior militant. "But T.J. – that's the name right? – if you want to fight tomorrow, why not come along with us?"
"Wait, you're asking me to join the A-Team? Pas bro, pinch me, I can't tell if I'm dreaming."

I hoofed him with my knee, and both of us yelped a little bit – him because I kicked a tad too hard, and me because I was injured.

"Hey, kid with the white hair, you want to join too?"
"Me?" I asked, rather incredulously. "But I am not a soldier. You give me a gun and I'll probably use it to club someone else rather than use it to shoot."
"As long as you can fight, kid," smirked the old man. "We've got a plan for tomorrow."

""""""

"This is pretty suicidal," I remarked. "Four guys, one helicopter, Russian uniforms, and a plan to blow up the ammo base with their own equipment."
"I agree," gulped T.J, who by now must have regretted the decision to join the fight.
"No sweat," laughed Face as he patted down on us from behind, as we walked quietly towards what seems to be a temporary office – I can't tell, everything's in Russian where we were.

Several hours before this, we were transported to the location in a container tank. As per instructions, we dressed up like the locals… in base, that is, meaning we took some Russian uniforms and used it as our own. Then we were instructed to stick some lapels on, which I understood as rank tags or something, and there we were walking in their base like we owned the whole place… or something.

Probably something to do with what the two veterans were wearing, I thought.

The crazy pilot guy walked in front of us, as per the old man's 'precise instructions'. It became apparent why, as men after men stopped to salute him. I didn't dare ask any question because I was afraid that speaking in perfectly American English would cause us to blow our cover, so I had to assume it was something the guy was wearing. My heart raced even faster as we approached what seemed to be a canteen area, and when I looked to my right side T.J was breaking out in cold sweat.

Despite that, however, our fears were rather unfounded. It became apparent why we were waved through checkpoint after checkpoint – the two guys front and back of us were speaking Russian, enough to convince even me and T.J. that they were Russian. The last hurdle was cleared as we entered a huge metallic container of some sort.

"Face, you've still got some of the best forgery skills in town."
"And you've got some pretty good acting chops," came the compliment. "Now, you guys had better know what to do. We snuck the two of you in because we figured they would not question the two of you for being a size or two larger than usual as long as officers walked in front of them."

So that's what it was, forging documents to get into base?

We complied, placing the explosives we'd packed in practically every part of our stolen uniform. I was left wondering how the Army managed to pack explosives into something not bigger than a pack of smokes, but I just did what I was told – place the explosives, one every ten steps away from the walls. Since there was more than just one room, we just rinsed and repeated this process through the corridor.

"Speed up. The cameras would notice our action sooner or later. We've got to pack these rooms with explosives in two minutes, tops."

T.J. and I tried, but by the sixth of eight containers, it was apparent we might not be able to accomplish the overall objective. Noticing a red stream of something in my arm appearing on my arm, I pressed hard on it until it turned blue – and then suddenly the whole place turned blue again, just like the time stop I accidentally did yesterday.

"So this is how I control the time stop," I muttered, as I quickly packed the room with explosives. Unlike yesterday's time stop, however, the blue faded pretty fast this time; I barely made it out of the room and back into my walking position at the seventh room when the time stop faded.

"Shit, we've got no time to pack the room," growled the skinnier guy, who proceeded to shout something of a warning in Russian as he ran out of the room.

"Throw away every remaining explosive on you already!"

"A-alright!" T.J. started to throw the items off and I pretended to throw as well by standing right behind our big guy, when in fact I've already placed whatever I had in the right places.

As the soldiers started to run into one of the ammo rooms with fire extinguishers (I assumed he shouted "fire" or something) and we out of the immediate corridor with the ammunition, the whole place shook worse than a magnitude seven earthquake as the explosions engulfed the entire corridor with flames and screaming Russians.

"Why'd the last room explode as well? We didn't arm anything in it!" Exclaimed an incredulous Face.
"Probably the explosives rolled in, sir," I quickly brushed it off. "Please, we've got to run now!"

When we reached the end of the corridor, a rather light-looking open-top car was already there waiting for us.

"What took you so long, fools?"

Gunfire rattled from behind us, which I took as my cue to shove the now-overawed T.J. into the car as we scrambled to leave the base. Our vehicle shook badly after a while – I think one of the bullets hit the left tire – and the old guys decided it was time to throw some grenades as they chucked the grenades beside the doors.

"Woohoo!" Screamed T.J., who I figured was probably in a state of induced euphoria. "I'm one of the A-Team now! My name's T.J. Terrence and I'm unstoppable!"

Unstoppable he was in throwing grenades, this much I concede. I noticed that despite how the vehicle twisted and turned through the base, T.J. was cool with grenades and had them chucked perfectly into the vehicles that kept chasing us. The motherlode of achievements was when a vehicle similar to the one I split the bullets from appeared in front of us, and T.J. just chucked a grenade right into the man operating the turret. Needless to say, that throw ended the chase since the vehicle exploded spectacularly enough from the inside out, disrupting whoever chased us.

"On three, we jump off the vehicle!" shouted Face. "We're near the chopper now! One, two…"

I didn't wait for the three as I hopped off the vehicle, rolling on the asphalt. It sucked to have my face repeatedly slam the tarmac, but at least I was out of the vehicle. I then noticed the rest of my group hopping off more than two hundred meters from me.

"What the shit, didn't he say hop off on three?" I quickly scrambled towards the rest of the group, running in the same direction as they were running. But my running speed isn't nearly as good as my punching speed, and I noticed some of the Russians were shooting in my direction. I decided I had no choice but to keep running, and that was when time slows intermittently occurred. It was pretty ridiculous to run at normal speed when the bullets were all headed to my ass at different speeds. I kept on having to adjust my position with each time-stop, and I had a close shave with more than three bullets as they came close to either the left side of my head, or the back of my neck. I had to dodge them while I was running, and in their eyes I must've been teleporting.

"Hurry, Pas-kid! We need to get out of here now!" The helicopter nearby started, but before I could worry about friendly fire the helicopter's gun wiped out the Russians shooting at me.

"Alright! I'm in!" I screamed, jumping into the side of the helicopter. I nearly flew out of it when the chopper tilted backwards with the hatch at the back of the chopper open, and I had T.J. to thank for grabbing on to me as the chopper tilted forward again.

"You crazy ass idiot, the hatch behind's still open!"
"Whoopsie-daisy," sang the pilot – the same guy that man B.A. was shouting at yesterday about a fear of flying. It then became pretty apparent why B.A. had a fear of flying – it must've been some stunt this guy pulled.

"I'd advise grabbing a hook now," shouted Faceman as the howling of the chopper made our voices choppy as well. I complied, and snagged two hooks to my clothing as we made a mad scramble out.

"When you have no flares," declared pilot-man, "we go cold."

Then the chopper suddenly went silent.

I didn't even have enough time to think of "what the fuck" before our bird suddenly dipped and nosedived. As it did so I heard a loud explosion coming from behind us – which technically speaking was above us, since we're actually falling to the ground – and then the chopper started up again, this time causing the whole chopper to swing around. I nearly puked with all the force straining my body, and T.J. already couldn't hold it in. The comical side of things was that, because the intermittent time-stop kept right on occurring to me, I could see T.J.'s puke in the air and its exact composition of beef and spaghetti.

"Sorry, I couldn't hold it," T.J apologized.
"No need. Sir, are we out of the danger zone yet?"

"I think we are out! Watch out, fighters incoming!"

I noticed several fighters coming in swiftly to take out the aerial vehicles chasing us, to which the two old men cheered hard for.

"I love it when Hannibal's plans come together," shouted Face in jubilation.
"Alright, we're all headed home now! And for once I didn't need to cook curry tapenades!"
"Well, that's 'cause he knows L.A. better by road than by air!"

I was relieved that this fight was over in less than thirty minutes. I now see why T.J. admired these guys so much, though I probably wouldn't take a second aerial ride with that crazy pilot.

""""""

"Thanks for the ride," shouted T.J. as the chopper took off with only that guy called Face at the back of it. "And thanks for the Desert Eagles!"

I held the rather heavy pistol gingerly, then decided I'll pass this to Jack instead.

"Too bad they're still constantly wanted by the government," sighed T.J. "But I do wonder where these guys get all the intel to put us both in such a crazy fight."

True indeed – how'd they get to know exactly what was inside, and how to sneak the explosives in?

"Well, I wouldn't ask now that that's over," I laughed. "Then again, why didn't you guys jump like I did just now?"
"Because he said three, and you jumped at two!"
"Really? I thought he'd have said three at that moment!"
"You ass, you assumed too much! Come to think of it, though…"

I know. I guess Face and that other guy might've not noticed it, but since T.J.'s my buddy he'll definitely catch on to things.

"Yes. I figured you saw me running in a weird manner just now, right?"
"Well… you did seem like you were teleporting forward bit by bit. Face and the other guy were too busy setting up the bird, but I saw you running like you've got that, uh, what was that… oh yea, that Maple Story teleport spell on you or something. You even fell to the floor like in the Matrix or something, and at that point I nearly wanted to call you Neo."

"Well, that's a laugh," I joked.

Jokes aside, however… it was time to be truthful.

"Well, T.J.," I said, taking off my headgear to allow myself a breather as we jogged towards the shelter, "you wanted to know what really is going on, right?"
"With what, Pas-bro?"
"With everything, like… From yesterday's wounding that you saw, to the teleporting run you saw earlier; I want to explain it all."

T.J. eyed me for a few moments. "I knew it. The Pasonia I knew didn't suddenly change so much. What old hag story are ya gonna give me, eh?"

I smirked, happy that, at last, someone I knew is going to know the full inside story.

"Well, it all began when I reached Narita…"