บท 55: Dogfight
-Gulmira, Afghanistan-
-May 28, 2009, 0700h local-
"What are we doing this time?" Erik asked from atop a cliff, positioning himself as an overwatch.
"The ten rings are moving their forces inside Gulmira. They're going to make it their new forwarding base..." Naruto replied through the comms on the other side of the village. "I know someone from here, and we're going to do him a favor."
As expected, Tony and Pepper were surprised by Naruto's revelation, causing them to forget temporarily about the SHIELD talk. Being an alien god really does send anyone into an existential tailspin.
After an hour of Naruto calming the couple down, he had been forced by Tony to do all kinds of tricks with chakra, including walking up walls and making fires. Good thing Naruto had the forward-thinking not to blurt out that he could call for the dead and the make anything he can imagine.
The whole reveal finally convinced Pepper that Naruto was more than qualified to guard Morgan. His 'price' to protect Morgan was a copy of Tony's armor and the base code for JARVIS's program. Who knows what he could come up with if he combines Wakandan tech and Tony's designs.
Naruto decided to stay with the Starks for three days, giving Natasha and Jessica more than enough time to work things out. However, he was checking in on the location of the pair from time to time. That was why he was surprised when he sensed them going to Washington and staying there for a day.
Before Naruto left, he planted an invisible Hiraishin tag on Morgan. He also gave her a twelve bead bracelet similar to the Wakandan kimoyo beads. But this time, each bead was a fortified henged clone placed into stasis. This effectively gave Morgan a twelve-man bodyguard team. He conveniently left this detail out of Pepper and Tony's knowledge, though.
When Naruto got back to New York, he was surprised to learn that Nat had already filed for leave so that Naruto could push forward with her operation. Naruto tried to subtly, well subtle for him, pry out what Nat's and Jess's disagreement had been about. But both of them immediately shuts up every time he tries to pry more on the topic.
Naruto brought Nat and Jess to Switzerland to utilize the already existing equipment he used for Peggy's de-aging. He was only able to release a calming breath after the operation was finished.
Natasha never felt so weak before, which caused her to panic a little. Good thing, Peggy was there to reassure her that it was normal. The group decided that Nat would stay with Peggy for the duration of her three-month rehabilitation before she goes back to light duty. Jessica has no choice but to return to New York since she still has to go to Uni.
Naruto was snapped from his thoughts when something moving at high speeds got inside his default sensing range. He activated his Shinigan before focusing on the incoming object.
"Motherfucker." Naruto said in a whisper.
"What's happening?" Erik asked when he heard Naruto's exclamation through the comms.
"We're going to have a visitor. Don't shoot it or blow it up." Naruto replied.
"You're not going to tell me who or what it is?" Erik said incredulously.
"You'll know when you see it..." Was Naruto's short reply. "He's here."
Erik scanned the area through his high magnification spotting scope, trying to figure out where 'he' is, but he didn't see anything. That was when he heard a faint whirring sound coming from the sky behind him. As soon as he turned around, he saw a red and gold streak flying towards the center of Gulmira, near where the rockets were.
"What the hell was that!" Erik exclaimed while repositioning the scope to get a better look at the streak. Through his spotting scope, he could see that the blur was actually a red and gold armor.
"Damn, he finally finished it. Took him longer than I thought." Erik heard Naruto say through the comms.
"Of course you know the guy in the suit of armor. I mean, why wouldn't you..." Erik commented exasperatedly, while still looking at the events unfolding below. The dude was doing everything, taking out terrorists, and blowing up the weapons cache and vehicles, leaving a mess behind. "Are we even needed here?"
"Guess not..." Naruto replied. "But we should stay here in case something unexpected happens."
It was a good thing that fate decided not to throw Naruto another curveball since ten minutes later, the armor started flying out again after taking out a group of terrorists holding some civilians hostages and a tank who shot him down after his initial takeoff. The armor suit flew off to god knows where leaving a path of destruction in its wake.
Seeing that there was nothing else for them to do, Erik started packing up the stuff, but not before sweeping his sights through Gulmira to make sure everything had been handled. He stopped in his tracks, though, when he heard Naruto behind him.
"The fucker is going to get himself killed..." Naruto said before Erik turned around. Naruto pulled out his phone and dialed a number. "Hey, JARVIS. Can you patch me through to Tony's suit?" He asked.
This was Erik's first concrete proof that there's someone inside that suit.
"Of course, sir. Patching you through now." JARVIS replied quickly.
"Naruto. Hey. I'm kinda busy driving right now. I'll call you back." Tony said quickly through the phone.
"Don't fuck with me, Tony. I just saw you blow up a tank." Naruto replied in an exasperated tone.
"What the hell!? I just saw you at the gala before I left!" Tony exclaimed.
"That's a clone! Does Pepper know about this!?" Naruto asked.
Naruto knew that Tony left the gala, but he didn't keep track of him since Tony left with Happy. He thought he was just fed up with dealing with the press. The press had been trying for the past three months to get some scoop on the family. Even Congress can't get enough traction to force Tony to change his decision about holding the military contracts.
Tony's in-depth investigation of the books, through JARVIS's help, turned up some pretty interesting things, and he didn't like where it was going. Every bit of evidence that he uncovered points out that someone high up, like someone high enough to sit on the executive table, was manipulating the system.
"I liked it better when we didn't know about you. I could still counter how you found out stuff in front of Pepper." Tony retorted.
"Do you still want to know what I'm going to tell you?"
"Just say it, man! It isn't easy to fly in a suit of armor."
"Well, it's about to get a whole lot harder. You just flew over a US military restricted air space. Expect some tails on you."
"Fuck." Was all Tony said before he cut off the comms.
"Well, that was rude.." Naruto commented before pocketing his phone and turning his head back to Erik. "You're going down there to sweep the main areas. Make sure nothing dangerous got left behind."
"What are you going to do?" Erik asked while picking up his gear.
"I'm going to help the guy in the armor. He's about to get shot down by a squadron of F22s..." Naruto answered before picking up the excess gear left by Erik. "Let's meet back here in 3 hours." He added before suddenly disappearing.
"What the hell is he going to do against 4 F22s." Erik mused before running down the mountain to do what's left of his mission.
Naruto, on the other hand, Hiraishined just under Tony's armor. He had to activate his flying ability to prevent himself from falling from the sky. Tony's radar must have been compromised when the tank shot Tony down. He knocked on Tony's chest plate to get Tony's attention.
Tony was trying to reboot his evasive and detection systems while flying when he heard knocking on his armor. He looked down and saw something a lot crazier than his armor, Naruto flying just below him. The crazy part was he was flying just over Mach 1. His surprise caused him to tumble through the air before stabilizing himself again and hovering around 25000 feet.
"You can fly!? Of course, you can fly! Why wouldn't you." Tony sarcastically commented.
"We have no time for that..." Naruto interjected. "You have 4 F22 incoming we have got to go now..." He said before trying to reach Tony, but he suddenly stopped the second before his hand touched Tony's armor. "Fuck. We're too late. They have visual."
As soon as Naruto said that, he pushed Tony away from himself. Cuts started appearing across his skin, which alarmed Tony. Especially after strands started coming out of those cuts and started crawling over his skin, eventually covering his whole body. The strings weaved themselves together to look like some sort of fabric. In the end, Naruto looked like he was wearing a slightly bulky full bodysuit. He was also now wearing a dark orange helmet
Tony finally understood why Naruto was so obsessed with his armor design. Although Naruto's armor was a lot more streamlined than his own and had the ability to be deployed anywhere quickly, he could influence his project knight plan based on Naruto's armor. He also made a mental note to ask Naruto about the metastatic stands that form his armor.
JARVIS also managed to fix Tony's evasion system, but the radar was still offline.
"Stop daydreaming, Tony..." Naruto said as he shook Tony's shoulder, snapping him out of his stupor. "We need to take those planes down or at least break their line of sight, as well as the satellite surely aimed at us. Fly low and head for the mountain ranges when you get rid of your tail. Stay on radio contact. I'm on channel 43..." He explained the plan.
When the jets were finally a few kilometers away, the pair nodded to each other before separating.
-Creech Air Force Base, Nevada-
-May 27, 2009, 2120h local-
Rhodey was rushing towards mission control. Creech AFB was the primary base for operations conducted overseas. Being called down here instead of Edward's office meant something happened overseas and since he was the Air Force's expert on advance and experimental planes, they found something they couldn't identify.
As soon as he passed through the doors, Major Michael Allen immediately pulled him aside to brief him. Some people might wonder why a major could be disrespectful to a colonel, but there were some insinuating circumstances involved. Mainly because Rhodey primarily worked on the R and D, and Allen is on operations.
"At 19:45h local, something showed up on the radar in Bagram. It was as fast as a commercial jet, and it was headed towards Eastern Afghanistan. They first taught it was a system glitch since analysis showed that it was small, smaller than a car. But after rechecking, they determined that it was not a glitch..." Major Allen explained. This information surprised Rhodey. He couldn't think of any object that fits into those parameters except for a slow rocket, but they would have already considered it. "We lost it when it got below the mountain ranges. An hour later, it showed up again, and this time it flew through restricted airspace. The on-site officer decided that he wouldn't take any chances and decided to scramble four raptors. They're going to have visual any minute now. That's where you come in. We need you to identify the aircraft."
"You got satellites overhead?" Rhodey asked.
"We borrowed the satellite that the CIA was using over Iraq. The problem is, it's an old model. The best we can do is track the objects that we're monitoring. But it's better than nothing." Allen replied.
After Major Allen finished, the wing leader reported, his voice loud and clear over the speakers.
"This is Raptor 1. We just got visual on our HUD. Still too far for visual confirmation." The pilot reported.
"Do a fly by. Find out whatever the hell it is." Allen ordered.
"Sir. The satellite indicates we have two bogeys, but they are too close to each other for the radar to confirm." An operator reported to Allen.
"Raptor 1. We have a reason to believe that there might be bogeys. Please confirm." Allen said to the comms.
"10 4..." The pilot replied, but something happened. Two signatures suddenly appeared on the radar. "We got confirmation! Break 2! Break 2!" The lead pilot ordered, causing the squadron to split up. "Both attempts of radio contact failed. Permission to engage."
"Negative! Confirm visual contact first." Allen replied.
-Central Afghanistan-
-May 28, 2009, 0850h local-
Naruto was enjoying himself flying through the sky. He was still holding himself back a lot just to let the US's best fighter jet catch up. He made sure to create the illusion of rockets similar to what Tony had with his armor. This was to make them think that he used some form of external propulsion.
"Let's see how fast a raptor can go." Naruto whispered to himself before speeding up to Mach 2 and climbing to 50000 feet.
Tony, on the other hand, did the opposite. He dropped to 5000 feet and opened up his air breaks, causing the jet to zoom past him. The low altitude flight severely restricted the F22's flight capabilities. He should know; he helped design the thing. But the pilots were better than he thought since they were on him again after a minute.
"They're good..." Tony commented. "How are you doing?" He asked.
"Having fun..." Naruto replied. "Your planes can't turn. You should look into that."
"I wanted to fix that. They were just too cheap to pay for it..." Tony retorted, still annoyed with the whole thing.
Naruto laughed at Tony's statement before speaking.
"I'm going to spice things up a bit. Just warning you."
Naruto then made a titanium steel alloy javelin and threw it towards the second Raptor.
-Creech Air Force Base, Nevada-
-May 27, 2009, 2140h local-
"Bogey A just went supersonic! Engaging Afterburners..." The lead pilot reported. "Still trying to get a visual."
"Raptor 3. Bogey B looks like a man, but I'm not sure." The pilot following the second object reported.
The report gave Rhodey an idea, but he just could seem to zero in on it.
"Something almost hit Raptor 2! Permission to engage!" The lead pilot shouted through the comms.
"Shit..." Allen exclaimed. "Permission granted."
"Amraam launched..." The pilot said. "We got a hit!" He reported after flying past the ball fire
"Good work. Help out with the second Bogey." Allen ordered, still looking at the aerial view of the area.
"Sir! We're still picking up a reading." The same operator reported.
"Raptor 1! The bogey is still in the air. I repeat! It's still in the air!"
- Central Afghanistan-
-May 28, 2009, 0910h local-
"Fucking hell! They're not playing around." Naruto exclaimed while shaking his head. He dropped to 40000 feet since he didn't expect the strength of the explosion.
"What was that?" Tony asked, still trying to evade the jets.
"They just used an Amraam on me. Took me by surprise..." Naruto replied while trying to remove a creek in his neck. "How much are those planes again?"
"I feel like I should not answer that question, but what the hell, it's not mine anyway. It's 150 million apiece." Tony answered.
"So 300 million, huh. That's cheap enough..." Naruto mused to himself. "Try to stay out of the air space near me, Tony."
Naruto followed the two raptors that just tried to shoot him down. It looked like they were trying to circle back towards his previous position.
-Creech Air Force Base, Nevada-
-May 27, 2009, 2147h local-
Rhodey pulled out his phone and dialed a number. After three rings, the other lined finally answered, but there was a lot of background noise.
"Tony! Tony! Why is it so loud?" Rhodey asked.
"I'm driving. What do you need?"
"I just need to know if you have got some toys left behind in Afghanistan."
"Nothing. Why?"
"Good. Cause I got two assholes that we're going to blow to kingdom come." Rhodey said before closing the phone and focusing back on the comms.
"Something just landed behind me!" Raptor 2 shouted.
"Go in front of me. I can't see you from here... I got a visual! A man is standing just behind your cockpit. Shake him off!" Raptor 1 ordered.
"Fuck! I can't shake him off!... Shit!"
"What the hell is happening!?" Allen shouted.
"The guy just activated my ejector seat." Raptor 2 reported while slowly falling. His jet was not so lucky, though, since it crashed on the mountainside.
"This is Raptor 3! Bogey 2 is also a man. He's holding onto Raptor 4's belly!"
That's when Rhodey's phone started ringing again.
"It's me!" Tony shouted.
"What?"
"It's me in the suit, and the other one is Naruto!"
-Central Afghanistan-
-May 28, 2009, 0920h local-
"That was just awesome..." Naruto said to himself before turning his head back towards the other plane that was headed straight towards him. "Let's try this one. Katon: Goryaku no Jutsu."
A fireball turned dragon launched out of Naruto's mouth and flew towards the F22. The pilot tried to evade the fireball, but it just followed him around. After a few seconds, the pilot just bailed on his plane. Naruto then commanded the dragon to hit F22, virtually engulfing it in a ball fire. This also caused all the ammo and armaments to explode.
"Damn. Probably too much chakra." Naruto commented with a sheepish look.
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