Disclaimer: I do not in any way own Naruto or any part of the USMC.

Author notes: All marines in this story are made up. This chapter is the only chapter to be released ahead of time; all others will be posted after Christmas.

Rank abbreviations from highest to lowest: Msgt Master Sergeant, GySgt Gunnery Sergeant, SSgt Staff Sergeant, Sgt Sergeant, CPL Corporal, LCpl Lance Corporal, and PFC Private First Class

"The Strangers"

"When are we going to get back to base?" whined Lance Corporal Connor.

"We'll get back when we get back." replied a rather annoyed Corporal Mitch. Corporal Mitch was an average sized man; in fact everything about him was average. He had brownish red hair with blue eyes and a long pink scar that ran across his neck.

"But we've be out on patrol for six hours." Connor whined again.

"And we'll be on patrol for another six if you don't shut your trap." Snapped Mitch

The driver of the vehicle smiled and laughed quietly to himself in a deep voice. He was a big guy, standing 6'6" with broad shoulders, his eyes were a dark mahogany and his hair was a curly brown mess. He would have been handsome if a grenade hadn't gone off in his face. It was covered with scars and one of the ears was almost completely torn off. Despite his frightening appearance, Master sergeant Chris Pierce was a very kind person, he loved kids and hated hurting people when it wasn't necessary.

Chris stopped smiling and laughing. He knew Mitch had every reason to be annoyed with Connor; the young Marine had been asking the same question every ten minutes. Chris thought that for a Marine Connor whined a lot, but then again the kid was only 21, fresh out of boot and wanting to see some action.

"Connor don't you even think about asking that question. In fact, I order you not to say another thing until we get back to base." Chris said, seeing the young man open his mouth again. It wasn't technically within his power, but that didn't matter.

"Y-yes sir" Connor replied sulkily.

"Come on Connor, you should be happy, getting to ride in a brand new Stryker. Hell, you evening get to be with the legendary Chris Pierce." Gunnery Sergeant John jokingly told the Lance Corporal. The Gunnery Sergeant was the exact opposite in physical appearance. He was 6'1", thin and willowy, bright blue eyes with extraordinarily blonde hair.

It was true though, at least the Stryker part, getting to ride in a brand new Stryker troop carrier was something not many soldiers got to do on patrols, especially this far north.

Chris looked down at his younger brother and smiled, so John had elevated him to legendary now. He wondered what stories John had been telling the other squad members. Chris looked around the small cramped interior of the Stryker at his squad. They had been called north to Norway to deal with some sort of uprising there. Currently they were driving on a dirt road coming back from a patrol.

There was a jingling sound as the squad's sniper, Adam, fingered the dog tags around his neck. Adam was a quiet man who almost never talked unless asked a question and when he did it was with as few words as possible. He had a shaved head; claiming hair got in the way when sniping, and had the palest blue eyes Chris had ever seen, they were almost completely white and never seemed to blink.

There was also the occasional click as the medical tools in the first aid kit were rearranged. Steven the only medic had an annoying habit of rearranging the med kit whenever he was bored, which was quite often. Steven had short spiky hair that never seemed to get combed. He had bright green eyes that could cheer anybody up; even a dying man, which was pretty often. Steven had been in seven different squads but they had all been killed except him, causing him to become emotionally distant from other squad members.

"Need assistance! I repeat we need assistance!" crackled over the radio suddenly, surprising the Marines.

"Okay, who are you and what is your position?" Chris asked urgently, it wasn't everyday that you got a distress call.

"This is Delta squad; we are in sector 3 and need immediate assistance." Came the reply

"What is going on, are you under attack?" Chris asked even more urgently. The voice on the radio had sounded frantic almost to the point of panic.

"I don't know what's happening. What the hell, what's happening to me? Ahhhhhhhhh!" the man's scream slowly faded on the radio. The whole squad had stopped what they were doing, and looked at the radio with interest. It was deathly quiet inside the cramped and dimly lit vehicle.

"Hello? Respond, please respond." Chris began yelling into the radio. Static was the only reply.

"Okay guys I don't know what the hell that was about, but we're going to go check it out. Get your weapons ready just incase." He didn't need to tell them that, as soon as they had heard the scream they began getting ready.

Half an hour later the Stryker reached the spot where the distress signal had come from. The Marines carefully got out the back and began looking around for the missing squad. After an hour of searching, and finding nothing Chris called them back together.

"Okay, this is definitely the strangest thing I have ever seen. Not a single sign of the squad or their vehicles except some tire tracks." Adam said when everybody was back together.

The place they were in was a large clearing surrounded by tall pine trees and very little underbrush. The sun had set leaving the clearing in almost complete darkness. The only sign that they had found of the missing Marine squad was the tire tracks of their vehicles.

"Do we even know what vehicles the squad was driving at the time of their disappearance?" John asked looking at Chris.

"I called base and told them of the distress signal. They said Delta squad had two humvee's with .50 cal machine guns and two cargo trucks." Chris replied looking at a small piece of paper in his hand.

There was a sudden smell of smoke and sulphur, John fell to his face contorted with pain, screaming and flashing different colors.

"What the fuck? What's happening to him?" Connor screamed in panic, when suddenly he too fell to the ground on his back, screaming and flashing bright white just like John.

"Steven, do something!" Chris yelled at the medic.

"I don't know what to do! I've never seen this before." The panicked medic yelled back at Chris, before he too succumbed to the strange flashing and pain. A minute later the entire squad was flashing white and on the ground screaming in pain before they all disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Chris screamed as his entire body reappeared in a large cloud of smoke. He began to pant as the pain quickly subsided. Eventually he opened his eyes and was surprised at what he saw. He was standing up with his gun in his hands. His entire squad was there as well along with the Stryker. He began to take in his surroundings; he was standing in a road that was surrounded by thick green foliage. It was daytime, but the thing that surprised and scared him most was the scene in front of him.

It looked like a scene from a horror movie. The Marines looked around in horror. The clearing they were in was the seen of a fight; that was about as much they could tell. There were bodies burned black and smoking on the ground. While others somehow had rocks impaled through their chests, some had strange knives and ninja stars in them as well. One man had even been cut in half. Others had bullet holes which was comforting, in a sick way.

All of the dead men had the same strange uniforms on; gray shirts, long black pants, black masks, and headbands with a musical note on it. It was the strangest uniform any of the Marines had ever seen, it had no camouflage capabilities, anyway to block a gunshot, and it looked like the wearer would overheat very quickly.

Connor was the first to break the silence "What the fuck happened here? This can't be real…" his voice trailed off shakily.

"Well if it's not real, then what is it?" Mitch asked Connor in a voice that was just as shaky and scared.

To every ones surprise and horror one of the bodies groaned and began to move. The man crawled towards the Marines, groaning every time one of his cuts reopened. Eventually he collapsed, blood trickling from his mouth and his eyes staring into nothingness.

Everyone took a step back in surprise. Steven walked towards the previously assumed dead man. He bent down and put his fingers to the man's neck checking for a pulse, he shook his head, closing the man's eyes before grabbing two scrolls and a headband from the dead man. He walked back to the squad and showed Chris the scrolls and headband, Chris frowned when he read one of the scrolls.

"What did the scrolls say? Do they have anything to do with this battle, or how we got here?" Adam asked quickly, very much unlike his usually slow and uncaring attitude.

"One of the scrolls said something about a summoning jutsu, whatever that is, and the other was some sort of message to somebody called Hokage." Chris answered.

"Well if that's what the scrolls said then what's with the headband?" It was John who asked this question.

"Look for yourself." Chris said frowning as he tossed the bloody headband to John. He caught it and frowned when he looked at it.

"What? What is it?" Connor pestered John.

"Look at the design, this is a swirl, it's nothing like that musical note on the other headbands." John told Connor.

"So what does that mean?" Connor asked, still not understanding.

"It means that this guy wasn't with all these dead people." Mitch said angrily.

The members of Alpha squad stood there staring at the bloody ground lost in their thoughts. It was Chris who broke the silence and came to a conclusion.

"None of this matters, the only thing that does matter is finding Delta squad and getting back to base." The squad leader said.

"Everybody get in the Stryker and prepare for combat, we don't want to get caught off guard. Now move!" Chris ordered the Marines. Five minutes later after collecting anything of value the squad climbed into the Stryker and began driving through the forest.

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"Did you see that?" Steven asked the group. They had been driving for ten minutes when the question was asked.

"See what?" Connor asked nervously, he had been nervous since they had gotten to the strange forest.

"It looked like a humvee. But I can't be sure, we were moving to fast." Steven told Connor who was looking unsure.

"If it is then it might be Delta squad, we're going back." Chris turned the Stryker around knocking down several saplings.

After getting to the spot where Steven said he thought he saw the humvee the squad got out of the Stryker, with their weapons at the ready. Alpha squad crossed the threshold into the forest and was immediately engulfed in darkness. The forest canopy was thick, with even thicker underbrush. It would be almost impossible to find a camouflaged humvee in thought Adam. He would know considering he was a sniper whose job it was to remain hidden.

"There, I think I see something." John said surprising everybody. He was pointing towards a bush that looked like the hundreds of other bushes. Upon closer inspection though the Marines could see the outline of a humvee.

"Well, looks like Steven was right, there really was a humvee. But where's the driver?" Mitch questioned everybody.

"I-I think I found him, a-and the rest of D-Delta squad." Connor called back to the rest of the squad in a shaky voice. He was ten feet ahead, at the edge of a clearing.

"What do you mean you think? Either you know or you don't." Chris said unsurely. Something wasn't right, what could Connor mean by 'I think'.

Alpha squad moved forward to see what Connor had meant. What they saw shocked them all. As they got closer the smell of burning flesh hit their noses. As they reached the clearings edge they all stopped in their tracks. In the middle of the clearing was two military cargo trucks, a humvee, and a pile of burned bodies.

Chris walked towards the dead bodies, his boots kicking aside hundreds of spent shell casings. He bent down and ripped the dog tags off a burned body. He read it for a second before shaking his head.

"Its Delta squad alright, the dog tag proves it and the vehicles are a big clue too." Chris said sadly looking at the corpses that had once been people.

"But what the hell happened? How could they all have been killed without killing a single enemy?" John yelled out. This was too much for him; he had been trained to deal with lots of stuff, but not this.

"John calm down okay, every things fine, but if you panic things could go wrong. Besides your wrong, Delta squad managed to kill at least one person. Remember the guy with bullet wounds; I'm guessing he was killed by Delta squad. What probably happened was that they appeared here, went scouting, were attacked by the masked guys, and killed one before retreating and getting killed here." Chris said it with no emotion, like a computer, but John could tell that Chris was greatly saddened. He could see it in his big brothers eyes; their usual dark brown seemed even darker and sadder than usual.

"You guys stay here, Adam and I are going to go scout ahead. Clean up the bodies and make camp, but no fires. Adam get your ghillie suit, Barrett and follow me." Chris ordered.

"Yes sir!" everybody snapped off a salute before doing what they were ordered.

Adam walked forward wearing his ghillie suit, looking like some sort of grass monster. The two walked forward through the underbrush, barely making a sound as they stepped through bushes and over logs. Soon they saw the end of the forest, by now night had begun to fall and a light fog had moved in making the forest seem eerie and seem sinister.

They finally burst through the tree line and were stunned at what they saw. It was a city surrounded by a hundred foot high wall and a mountain that looked like Mount Rushmore.

"Guess this is where the guys in the masks are from." Chris said stunned. He had never seen anything like this before.

"I think you might be right, or at least partly." Adam said stunned as well. He was looking through his scope watching the gates into the city. What he saw surprised him. The city had walls and a gate; two completely outdated things by modern standards. He noticed three shapes running through the fog. They were just kids, two boys and a girl; one of the boys was a blonde, the other boy had brown hair with a dog on his head, the girl had a strange bluish black hair. They were wearing headbands with the same swirl pattern, like the one that the guy carrying the scrolls wore.

"What do you mean 'partly right'?" Chris asked, puzzled.

"The only people I see with headbands, have headbands with swirls on them, not musical notes." Adam stated.

"So do you think that the masked guys are an invading army or something?" Chris asked. If this was true it would be important to choose a side and make sure that the squad lived.

"I'll stay here and do a little recon, try and find out anything else." Adam began to climb into tree and look through his sniper scope.

"Okay, just don't get seen or it's all over." Chris warned before turning around.

"Don't worry, I won't get caught." Adam replied in his uncaring voice.

Chris knew that Adam was right, if Adam didn't want to be seen he wouldn't be. As he walked back towards camp he looked over his shoulder trying to see Adam, all he couldn't see anything other than a tree and some bushes.

"Now the fun begins." Adam muttered to himself before he turned to look through the sniper scope…

Notes: This chapter will be the only one released early. All the others will come out sometime after Christmas. This is also now the longest thing I have ever written, and the first thing I have ever written willingly. Please review; any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.