Battle Field: Earth

Chapter Twelve: To Protect

By: Sci-Fi Raptor

Disclaimer: See chapter one.

Nekomi, Japan

October 2002:

Skuld was starting to get worried about the darkness. She turned back to see what was going on, but found something even more disturbing. It was some demon charging an attack that was pointed directly at her. Before she could even scream, he unleashed his fury. Mercifully, her body chose that moment to blink. At least it'll be over quickly… she thought. Strangely, her face wasn't full of fear; it was content.

SLAM!

I wonder where I'm going to go now… Skuld thought, slowly opening her eyes. But what she saw surprised her. Everything was bright, as if she were back at Yaggdrassil. But she knew she wasn't; she was still standing in the same exact spot. Right before her eyes, there was a pair of great blue wings that were shielding her.

Noble Scarlet? Skuld automatically thought. How could she protect me from something like that?

Strangely, she felt warm. That's strange. I thought it was a bit chilly a few moments ago. She willed Noble Scarlet to show herself before her and another pair of wings showed. It positioned herself in front of her, a smile on her face; the protective pair of wings were still surrounding Skuld.

Wait a second… she thought. If Noble Scarlet is in front of me, whose wings are surrounding me right now? She turned back to see her savior.

A pair of burning red eyes stared back.

I know these eyes… Skuld realized. They weren't frightening at all. They were warm, and made her feel safe. She felt like turning around and hugging whatever was behind her. She also noticed that besides the eyes, everything about the creature was a glowing blue, as if he were made of cloud and had light shining inside of him.

It was crying, red tears falling down its face.

"I'm sorry…" she said for some reason. She didn't know why, but it sounded like those words would comfort it.

It mouthed something to her, but she couldn't hear. It stared at her for a little bit, then sobered up. It opened up its wings and exposed the outside world. It was still as dark and miserable as before. And it was still there. That horrible demon.

"Skuld!" Belldandy gasped.

"It's… it's a ghost!" Urd blurted out.

"A what?" Skuld asked, having no idea what she was talking about.

"T-there's a Ghost behind you! Get away!" she said urgently.

"Hurry Skuld!" Peorth said from somewhere. Since she was too confused to act, Noble Scarlet moved her away.

"Did you get hurt? Did it hurt you in any way?" Urd said. Belldadny just stared at the creature. Then she noticed the demon standing nearby, jaw agape.

"No, he didn't hurt Skuld. He saved her…" Belldandy said.

"What're you talking about? He was about to eat her!" Peorth said.

"No, Bell-chan is right. He protected me," Skuld explained. She pointed at the demon and said, "He's the one that attacked me."

"Bastard…" Urd said under her breath. "Urd specia-" before she could make a lightning strike, both the demon and the creature flared their wings. They started cirling each other and sparks stared flying. The light around Skuld's savior grew as the darkness around the demon consumed. They lingered in the air a bit, as if they were talking. Skuld looked closer and saw that they indeed were talking, but she just couldn't hear a word they were saying. At that moment, they rapidly gained hieght and went out of sight.

"Is it over?" Peorth asked, visibly shaken.

"I-I think so…" Belldandy said, equally shaken.

The sky burned.

Each of the Goddesses' angels automatically protected their hosts with their wings and shielded them from the great energy being expelled by the two great beings they had just seen.

Kami-sama protect us…protect my Keiichi! Belldandy thought as tears in space were created.

"My God… what is happening?" Urd siad, fear evident in her voice. "It can't be the end of the world already!?"

Skuld blinked. No, the sky wasn't burning. No, the two beings weren't fighting in space, and there weren't any tears. They just dissapeared.

"Skuld-chan?" Belldandy asked, confused. "What are you doing here?"

What was I doing here… Skuld thought, trying to remember. "I was going out shopping…" she said, her memories coming back. "What are you three doing here?" she asked, confused why the other three Goddesses were following her.

"Um…" Urd said. "Never mind," she said and teleported back home. The other two went home, though Belldandy lingered a little to give her a worried look.

What was that about? Skuld wondered. Seeing no need to worry, she continued on, thinking about what she would make for Gab.

(Behind some trees)

"Good, their memories have been erased," the green haired God siad.

"Then our job here is done," Lind siad, sighing with releif. One less thing to worry about. "Time to finish hunting him down."

"Hai," the other five said and set out after their objective.

Nekomi, Japan

October 2002

Morisato Residence:

Skuld was pissed. After all the work she put into making the Onigiri, and the trouble she went through to surprise Gab at the university, he wasn't even there! It turned out that he had left for some emergency meeting at some country and wouldn't be back until the next week. He should have told me at least!!! she brooded (actually, he called her but she was on her way to the university at that time, so he left a message on the answering machine that she didn't get to hear yet).

She was about to have some more nasty thoughts about him, but she heard the wind pick up outside. She went out to investigate and saw her sisters, Peorth, Hild and five other people waiting.

"So your mission had been completed successfully?" Belldandy asked.

"Yes," Hild siad. She and the two Goddesses that accompanied her teleported back. Then Skuld noticed something else, there was a tall God with red eyes among the group. When he noticed her, he gave her a smile. Then he closed his eyes and teleported to where the Goddesses went.

"Thank you again for your kindness," the God with the green hair said and bowed.

"Anytime," Belldandy said with her trademark smile. The boy stepped back to the circle where the other two boys were.

Before they dissapeared, she overheard one of the Gods say, "He seemed sad today…"

Skuld didn't know why, but she started crying. It was quiet at first, but then it became louder as tears dripped then flowed out of her eyes. Belldandy came up to her to try and comfort her while the other two Goddesses stood there wondering what was wrong with her. But for some reason, when Belldandy came up to her, she cried even harder as she held onto her sister for dear life.

Egypt

Late October 2002

Somewhere In The Desert:

Shit!

Gab barrelrolled left as three SAM's flew past. He stopped in time to miss crashing into an AAM. He turned the Talon until it was upside down and yanked down hard. Within seconds, the SAM site was within his bearings and he dropped a laser-guided smart bomb at it. The loss of the ballast jolted the aircraft upward and made him miss a short burst of caonnon fire from an incoming enemy aircraft.

Trying to see through eyes burning from sweat, he locked on a sidewinder missle at the enemy and shot him down. There were three more enemies left, but he knew it wouldn't be as hard to defeat them with the SAM site gone.

"Talia, prep the RAM jets," Gab said to the green haired woman co-piloting the Talon with him.

"Hai, Anata…" she said affectionately.

She still won't stop that… Gab mentally sighed. Nichevo, he thought, choosing a fitting time to use the Russian word for "It can't be helped." He had the aircraft upright and blasted the afterburners. The sudden increase in thrust pushed Gab into his seat, but he didn't just take it. He yanked up so hard that the aircraft was nearly vertical. The burners somehow provided enough thrust to push them above the enemy aircraft's ceiling, but Gab wasn't done yet. Lets see if our work was in vain, Professor Kakuta, Gab thought as he pushed the bright yellow button recently added to his panel.

Ducts from the side of the aircraft opened and the fuel burned even hotter then before, causing the Talon to go up even higher.

"Approaching Inonosphere," Talia said through the comm. "It seems that your mission was a succes, Ananta."

"Yeah," Gab replied, not as joyfully as he could have. "Lock on all enemy fighters and fire," Gab ordered as he pitched the plane down. He cut off the jets so that the fall wouldn't happen too quickly and Talia would have ample time to lock on the enemies.

"Lock and fire," Talia said as three vessels of death screamed down. They embraced their targets so quickly, that the only things that betrayed their existance was the smoke from their spent fuel and the fiery flowers they painted into the sky when they met their fate. "Radar clear, we can proceed with the mission."

"Good," Gab siad. He transferred all controls to Talia and prepared to be ejected. When they reached the target area, a few meters from the annihilated SAM site, Gab pulled the ejection chord and was thrust out of the aircraft. He unstrapped himself from the seat and left air resistance slow him down sufficiently. When he thought he had decellerated enough, he pulled the parachute's chord and felt it suddenly slow him down.

My organs… Gab thought morosely, thinking about the strain they had just gone through. I had too many g's for too long and I've been flung this way and that too much. This body can't take punishment like this… unlike Talia, he thought bitterely. He knew it was a hot drop, so he took out his AR and hooked his Uzi to his vest in case he needed to pull it out quickly.

Man was it hot! Not only did he have the sun scorching him, he also had at least five gunmen with Soviets shooting at him. They didn't have great accuracy, but who needed accuracy to shoot something as big as a parachute. Before he went back to freefall, Gab managed to shoot two of the gunmen. He fell down, hard, but was slightly cushioned by the sand. Unfortunately, that made it hard for him to get his footing in the slippery stuff, and let one of the gunmen get his left forearm.

Gab ended his life with no mercy and then screamed in pain. That got the attention of the dead man's friends, which ended up with them randomly shooting in his direction. Fortunetely, Gab had already dashed into the cover the dead man used and sniped the two remaining gunmen one by one.

He took out his knife and cut out a strip of cloth from the dead man a few inches from him, his freshly spilled blood boiling from the desert sun. He tied it over his fresh wound and hoped for the best. Lets hope something doesn't infect me for once!

He quickly dashed to the remains of the SAM site he ruined, in hopes that if anyone else was alive, they wouldn't notice him. Where is it??? Gab deserately thought as he searched for the entrance to the underground bunker. "There!" he exclaimed when he could discern the hidden door. He blasted the lock with a small C-4 charge and quickly climbed down the reinforced shaft.

First go to the lab, Gab thought, mentally reviewing his objectives. Take plans and destroy prototype. Can't be that hard. I did it with the American's early rocket experiments, didn't I?

Finding the lad was easy; the first corner he turned led directly to it. Fortunately, noone was there, so he could quietly so his work without having to kill people. Fortunately, right.

Gab hacked into the mainframe 007 style and uploaded the data to the Talon's databanks. When Talia gave him the all clear, he left a C-4 charge big enough to level a skyscraper set to ten minutes hidden near the mainframe. Now for the prototype, Gab thought. It was just as easy; the mainframe had it all stored in there. Gab discreetly went through a few rooms and corridors, shooting a few people with his silenced Uzi, and found the prototype.

He laughed.

All this for this piece of crap? He thought when he saw it. He held it in his right hand and put it up to his face. He jumped back when it opened its eyes.

"Hi! Me Furby. I play with you…" it said, its eyes glowing red. Gab quickly pointed it away from him just as it shot.

"God Almighty!" he said, throwing it on the ground and shredding it with his silenced Uzi on automatic. What kind of toys to kids play with these days? Gab thought in amazment.

"Time to get going, Anata," Talia said over the comm.

"Damn, how much time till that C-4 goes?" he said, realizing he'd been in the bunker for quiet some time.

"Oh… about three minutes…" she said playfully.

"Three!!!" he exclaimed and ran like hell. He hustled as fast as he could and climbed out of the shaft within seconds of its exploding.

(In The Lab)

"With this, we can force the American President to bend to our will," Heinrich Drucker said with disposition.

"Indeed," Lui Mei said, a thin smile forming on her lips. "Who would think one of the strongest men on earth would succumb to something as childish as a toy animal?"

"I did," Otto Schorzeny said coldly.

"Hahahahaaaaa" they all laughed like a bunch of evil super villains. Who were very evil.

"Bang, bang, you're dead," someone near the mainframe said, wild western style.

"Who was that? Show yourself!" Otto siad, he gun up in nanoseconds. Lui Mei daringly made her way to the mainframe, he gun ready and looked with concern at what she found. She picked up something and showed it to Otto.

His face turned very, very pale.

Shit! he thought as the C-4 charge blew up in his face.

(Back At The Surface)

Gab wiped his forehead when the pillar of smoke and fire blasted out of the shaft not because it was so hot outside, but because his mission was over and he wasn't shredded up like at Volvograd. He shuddered, thinking back to what happened at Volvograd.

"Ritz crackers now have cheese," Gab said over the comm, the code words to tell Talia to extract him. He headed to the pre-determined evac-point and stood, waving to the air so Talia would notice him. The Talon quickly came into view, but something was wrong. Horribly wrong; the fighter's special cannons were extended down and forward, like the talons of a falcon to its prey and it was hovering with its VTOL abilities.

She fired.

He flattened himself on the ground with speed that only came from training or experience. He started shooting back with his AR, but realized that she was shooting behind him. He turned back, and sure enough, there was another bunch of enemies with a lethal set of weaponry pointed at the Talon. They had a few stingers with them and fired them at the Talon. Talia manged to shoot down most of them, but missed one. Gab brought his gun to bear, and blasted the little bundle of joy mere meters from the Talon's canopy. He could see Talia's face and it was one full of gratitute.

Then fear.

Suddenly, he couldn't feel his arm. He looked to it and saw that it was a few feet away from him, blood still spewing from it. He felt something hit his side, as if he were suckerpunch. Then everything went black.

(Talon's cockpit)

Talia stared in horror as one of the enemy started shredding Gab apart after he noticed him shoot at the stinger. Talia could not longer keep her rage in check and emptied all of the rocket pods. She quickly VTOLed the Talon as close to Gab as she could, jumping out of the cockpit as the computer finished touching ground. She ran to him and checked for vitals. Thank God, he's still alive.

She checked his status and saw that he was critical and would die soon if she didn't do something. She smiled devilishly, stripping him, then herself. I guess I'll have to nurse you back to health again, Anata, just like at Volvograd. She gently put her naked body over his as she started the healing…

(O)

I know… I didn't update for so long… and what's worse is that these chapters have been sitting on my hard drive, collecting dust…

Oh well… I hope you all enjoyed them anyway. They seem so childish now, after all the work I've done with my Love Hina stories, but I still like it and plan on updating sometime in the future…

Remember; click the 'Go' button on your way out. (Flames are understandable and especially welcome if critical)

Cheers! )