It was a dark Saturday evening in the military hanger bay. Sitting on a crate, a young man perhaps twenty-five or so, smoked a cigarette. Smoking wasn't allowed in the hanger bay, due to the high levels of jet fuel. Still, the blonde haired boy paid no real attention to the rule. While his back was turned, he was approached by eight other people.
"Are you the one flying us out today" asked a male voice.
The blonde boy quickly tossed his cigarette to the ground and stomped out the ashes before responding.
"Yes I'm...oh, it's just you Keitaro", said the man.
"Yes", Keitaro said saluting the other soldier. "I was told you could take me to where I'm required to go."
The man became confused by what Keitaro was saying.
"Dude, what's with the formalities, it's just us."
"Oh, I'm sorry", Keitaro apologized. "I was under the impression that we had to be formal all the time, Mr...uuuuhh..."
Keitaro trailed off, now realizing he didn't remember the other soldier's name.
"Are you drunk or something?...It's me, Nentou. We've been on the same squadron for the last eight months."
"Right, right, sorry" Keitaro apologized once again.
As Nentou rolled his eyes from Keitaro's forgetfulness, he noticed the other people behind Keitaro.
"We're's the rest of our squad", Nentou asked. "I don't recognize these people."
By a first glance, no one would be able to recognize them. The seven other soldiers wore the standard military outfit, but each one of them had a dark mask on that covered the entire lower half of their faces. Their hair was easily covered by a military cap too. Keitaro tried to think of an explanation for this as he looked back at them.
"They're a temporary squad."
"Oh yeah, from what division", Nentou asked.
"From uuuuhh", Keitaro struggled with an answer. "They're from the F division.
This was hard for Nentou to swallow. He gave a second glance at the other soldiers, then to Keitaro.
"Are you sure", questioned Nentou. "I remembered the F division being a bit bulkier...and taller.
Nanrou referred to the three shorter soldiers.
"They've cut down on the junk food", Keitaro quickly added.
"Aw, I see", Nentou said while nodding in belief. "So wat do we have today Keitaro?"
"Mission Charger", Keitaro said in a serious tone.
Nentou's eyes opened up extremely wide from this. It was almost as if it meant suicide, or just really, really, really bad.
The bay doors opened as a small, highly classified jet, began to hover in the hanger. Inside of the jet, Nentou sat at the controls, while Keitaro remained in the shotgun seat. In the back sat the seven other recruits. As the aircraft continued to hover, Nentou engaged the various buttons and knobs before looking back to Keitaro.
"Are you sure about this", Nentou said in a higher voice to speak over the jet. "We can always wait for the others."
"We'll be fine", Keitaro yelled over the earphones. "These seven soldiers are the best."
Putting his trust into the Urashima boy, Nentou resumed control of the jet. It passed through the open doors, and gained both speed and altitude on the way out.
While Nentou was occupied with pilot duties, he didn't notice how nervous the soldiers were. More mistakenly, he missed how nervous Keitaro was. As Keitaro scratched an imaginary itch behind his ear, there was a tanish putty on his gloves. Keitaro immediately wiped the substance in his pocket. "How did it get to this" Keitaro thought in his head. Except it wasn't Keitaro's voice in his head...it was Kanako's.
The night before, the girls of Hinata Sou surrounded the laptop as it spoke out "Welcome Cheetah Demon". The screen turned to other various settings. It looked more like an agenda board. The options were Mission Neon, Mission Class, Mission Progress, or Mission Request. No one around would know how to work any of these except for Keitaro. It was too late in the day to re visit Crenjer, and their money was kind of short now. The only options in a situation like this was to take an educated guess, or simply Innie-Minnie-Minney-Moe. Choosing the first one, Kitsune move the slector to Mission Neon. Once again the computer spoke to them while bringing up different things.
"Mission Neon Commencing, abort or select", the laptop asked.
The girl hesitated for a small time. It was probably out of impatience that Kitsune chose select.
"Due to a power outage of unknown reasons, project Cyber was recently stolen from military hands. It was soon discovered to be stolen by both Neon and Draconian, aka Project Blaster, and Project Dragon. Project Dragon's whereabouts are still unknown. However, it is believed Project Blaster is with project Cyber in hopes of obtaining a new type of technology from a business associate. The associate is identified as a weapon manufacturer named Darius. Main objective: Obtain project Cyber, capture both Darius and Project Neon. Your mission will now be set in progress. Be ready tomorrow evening by 19:00 hours, good luck soldier...Warning, this laptop will self destruct in ten seconds, please remove card immediately.
Wasting no more time, Motoko quickly removed the jet black cat before kicking the laptop a safe distance away. They all took cover behind boxes and other items. A large explosion was imminent, but they were disappointed as it blew up in a small "piff". The blast was not very exciting, but it was thankful for not destroying their home. They all realized now that this was the reason Crenjer gave them a free laptop. Now with this new set of information, the next thing to do was take care of this mission for Keitaro.
On board the military jet, sat the seven recruits from the F division. Nentou had no clue, that all of them were from a separate division called Hinata Sou. In their own seats sat Motoko, Kitsune, Sara, Su, Shinobu, Mutsumi, and Naru. In the pilot seats sat both Nentou and Keitaro...or so it seemed. Under a mask that would have fooled anyone in the world, was Kanako Urashima.
"I have to be careful no one discovers my identity", Kanako spoke in her head. "If we can pull of this mission for Keitaro, we can at least lighten his load a little bit. He's going up against so much, I don't want to see him get hurt."
From the jets glass window, the clouds disappeared and showed a small island.
"There it is", Nentou spoke out, "Darius's private island. Neon should be there with project Cyber, you know what to do Urashima."
Keitaro/Kanako nodded to Nentou.
"I'll drop you all off by the eastern part of the island. You'll have to walk the last two miles. There's some comlinks under your chairs, if something goes wrong, or if you finish early, give me a ring."
The girls began to check under their seats to find the small communication devices. The jet began to descend lower and lower, signalling the beginning of their mission.
In the living room of Hinata Sou, Haruka Urashima sat on the couch drinking tea while reading the newspaper. Despite it being later in the day, she didn't make any time to read most of the articles. With the girls gone out, and Seta off to who knows where, she had the quiet time she needed to thoroughly read the paper. He quietness was soon interrupted by a knocking at the door. As Haruka stood up to answer, she could see through the glass that it was Keitaro. It took a second to realize it was him for sure, since he didn't wear his glasses anymore, and now had a pine martin on his shoulder.
"Hello Keitaro, what brings you here", his adopted relative asked.
"Hi aunt Haruka. I barely just realized this, but I think I left my wallet here.
"Aw yes", Haruka reached into her pocket to hand Keitaro his belongings. "The girls brought it back yesterday."
"Thanks Aunt Haruka, I..."
The boy ceased all conversation as he searched his wallet. By the look on his face and his frantic searching, Keitaro was missing something.
"Is something wrong", the woman asked.
"Yeah, I could have sworn I had some money in here", Keitaro said. "It's no big deal, but I'm also missing someone's address.
While Keitaro had no clue that Kanako crumbled, and trashed the index card with an address, he was smart enough to know someone had dug around in his wallet. The other cards were there, all in their rightful slots. Feeling somewhat suspisiouc, Keitaro pulled out a small device from his pocket. He ran his jet black mission card trough the machine. The device immediately responding with a reading.
"Keitaro asked", Mission activated? Mission Charger? How did they find out about this?...Crenjer!"
The only one who could have possibly known about this would be the one he did the most business with. He wasn't one to squeal about something, but he could be easily bribed. The word bribed, brought up the thought of money; and the thought of money brought up other suspicions. Keitaro swiped his card through the machine again to find something out.
"Emergency Spendings Account has been emptied...Kitsune!"
"Keitaro what are you yelling about? What's going on?"
"Sorry aunt Haruka", Keitaro said as he dashed out of the Hinata House. "I have to take care of something."
Keitaro pocket his wallet and device while pulling out a comlink headset. He tried to support his balance as he rapidly went down the steps.
"Communication this is Cheetah Demon I need the location of Mission Charger pronto, and I need a ride there...That's too slow...then set me up in a parachute jet...I'll be at the base in about an hour. Keep the afterburners hot.
On the island of Darius, Motoko lead the way using her katana to cut through the vegetation. Behind her were Su and Sara with flashlights in handy. No one could tell who they were exactly, but among themselves, they could distinguish who was who.
"We're getting closer", Kanako said, "The map show that the based should be just ahead."
"Hang in there everyone, we're almost there", Naru cheered on.
Motoko cut through one last palm tree before arriving at a clearing. Ahead of them was a large cement wall. It stood a good eighteen feet tall, with barbwire, and search lights at the top.
"So what's the plan hun", Kitsune asked.
"Maybe we can blow up the wall and make a doorway", Su said while waving her flashlight around.
"You know", a new voice interrupted. "Shinning the light in the darkness is not a good idea for infiltration."
The other girls spun around in shock as they found a new person with them. He had on a metalic jumpsuit without sleeves. It looked like the armor someone would wear when they rode a motorcycle, but it had a combat look to it. He was about Seta's size, just a little bit more muscular with a wavy highlighter colored hair. The hair looked ridiculous, but no one was laughing, because there was something very intimidating about this man. Motoko immediately took up her sword in a defensie pose.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
"I should be asking you those questions", said the man
The clanking and winning od automatic weapons rang through the area. Dozens of firearm lasers displayed all over the Hinata Sou girls as dozens of mercenaries emerged from hiding. The girls slowly raised their hands into the air. Even Motoko admitted defeat as she placed her sword into her sheath. Her clan was always taught not to surrender, even take their own lives to prevent this. However, without her, there's no telling what would happen to the others. Thinking more about them, Motoko played the yield card. While the guns remained on their targets, the strange chair colored man walked up to the captives. The sound of his boots and armor rang like tremors as he came closer, and closer. The main one he kept his eyes on was Keitaro.
"When we caught signal of you flashlights I thought, how can he make such a poor mistake." the man chuckled to himself as he continued to approach. "Letting the enemy see you as you approach? That's a rookie mistake! The great Cheetah Demon, giving away his position? It's unheard of!
By now, the man was at arm's length of Keitaro. Eyes locked with one another despite the darkness.
"Then I look into your eyes", the man said as he grabbed Keitaro's cheek, "And I realize..."
In one clean piece, the highlighter haired man tears of Kanako's mask.
"...the Cheetah Demon was simply a copy cat."
He turned around and slowly walked away. The man gave a signal to his subordinated to take the girls away. As they struggled against the mercenaries' grips, the man stared at the mask in his hands. His hands began glowing a neon color as the mask began to dissolve into little pieced. Before long there was nothing left of the mask.
I can't believe how late I posted this chapter. I should be asleep right now. The mission has started, with an immediate capture. What will happen, find out and see. I want to thank for all the comments. It's the most I've had in a fanfic. I'm shooting for firty comments. I'll do the writing and posting, if you'll do the favoriting and following. Hope you all enjoy.