Ariel growled at Charles annoyedly before shifting back to her human form. "Dogs don't have opposible thumbs." she frowned, taking the tags and pen to begin labeling the bones. "By the way, you're really dumb for a smart guy." she added as she finished the labeling. She was soon shifting back into a husky and running around to make sure nothing else was going to attack. She was half-tempted to start digging through the snow again but decided against it as she wasn't smelling anything at the moment.

At first, the gargoyle stared at Dimitri as if one could punch out and reveal the truth about one's mental state just by eyeballing long and intensively enough. He couldn't determine what the monk really was up to. When Dimitri's hand started to emanate light and it became obvious that he intended to do something magical directly pointed at him, Vaughtar, still sitting on the ground, instinctively got himself into a defensive stance. It was a reaction much slower than usual - and totally worthless. The monk's magic didn't care about that immense wall of bone and muscle the gargoyle had put up by crossing his elbows in front of his chest. It went right into that realm of internal magic Vaughtar had no real idea about.

Luckily, Dimitri came to the 'I can help you'-part of his speech before things could escalate because of a misunderstanding. Vaughtar was more than willing to let the monk continue once he felt the positive effect of what he was doing. There was no more need to sit in the snow and do nothing. Just by seeing the difference between how Vaughtar was moving now and how he had been moving just minutes ago Dimitri would possibly be able to tell that his effort had not been in vain. The gargoyle leaned down towards him, positioning one of his wings in a way that allowed it act as a sound barrier between them and Rozalind - accidentally of course. In the lowest voice he could muster, he said: "Aside from having to thank you... Perhaps we can organize for such a time and place once the mission here is completed, but before we return to base."

He looked over to Dayna and Natasha when she suddenly used the radio to inform about something possibly approaching their position. "Hey... perhaps I could try to fly over there in a wide and evasive circle along the mountainside at low altitude and spy on it from behind. Would save us from having to wait until it comes closer I think." Vaughtar looked at Dimitri again. "If this gets approved I could probably need you over there in case your magic wears off too quickly."

Not all the bones were identifiable. Some were easily recognizable human bones, some were animal bones, others were... Well, like many within the company, not of this world. It seemed the laws of necromancy applied to otherworldly bodies. There were other worlds now, they could be sure, but what about death? Did they all go to the same place? The spirit of inspiration was catching, and, perhaps Charles adn Ariel were both able to recognize and infer more about the bones than they normally would. This one was human-like for it is almost a femur but with too much of a curve... This bone was the throat of the dog, more cartilaginous than a human bone, though it was not the bones original purpose the undead-dog was able to use this bone to create it's clicking-bark... Things like that.

As Vata meditated and summoned the Spirit of Inspiration to the castle, they might all feel something stir within them. Some people were more inclined to creativity than others, art was an important bridge between what was real and what was imagined. An artist used a medium to convey a statement that was to evanescent for conventional communication. Magicians also understood that they needed to bridge the divide between real and un-real. They used art too.

Under the snow there were three circles. Two were visible.

The white chalk was mostly blown away by the chaos of the event, and the weather. What symbols could be seen were beautiful and intricate sigils, sprawling alchemical mandalas. Yet, once the Spirit of Inspiration began to touch each member of the team, they could more easily see the correlation of partial symbols. It was somehow familiar. Something like If I were to make a magic circle, of course I would stand here... then they would look down below their and notice scorch marks on the cracked flagstones. The outer circle had the most scorch marks around it, a black corona etched out on the frosted flagstones. This outer circle was a clear boundary, or, it was supposed to be. That boundary was most certainly broken. What was within the circle was too strong to be contained.

The next circle in also had white chalk, but, red streaks stained the flagstones. These symbols were largely in tact with the assistance of a simple backlight, for, the red was not paint but blood. The symbols were jagged and rough. This was a circle of necromancy. Dimitri, who talked about the flow of life-force would feel very disturbed by this middle circle, Danya as well. The intent of necromancy was simple enough, to suck back life-force and corrupt it, trade it for what should be gone for good. This circle was meant to summon.

The last circle might require more time and meditation. It was never drawn with chalk or blood or with any material tool or art. Only the other worlders would guess that there might even be a third circle drawn tightly around the sacrificial alter.

Twain rolled in after some time, after the snow was cleared and the hard work was done. "What did I miss?" he asked with a grin.

~~~

Wolfe and Vaughtar, as reported by Natasha, would see movement in the snow. Something dipping in and out of the snow. He could wait to see if it got closer, or move to investigate.

Charles now understood Ariel slightly better in addition to feeling somewhat insulted. Looking very much like he had swallowed a whole lemon Charles fought to withhold a comment and maintain some sense of professionalism as he continued his work.

Each of the bones were carefully photographed multiple times and then labelled with a number and their name, or otherwise simply the word ‘unidentified’, and packed safely away in the largest container, kept separate from one another by the black packaging foam, to avoid the golden thread being severed all together.

Charles tapped away on the tablet putting together a collection of small ideas he had about how each of the bones fitted together; “Being far too many femurs for a quadruped being as observed it’s likely some acted as rudimentary ribs.” He mumbled deep in thought as he typed.
He looked up from his spot amongst the collection of equipment and cases to gaze at the uncovered circled lit up in places by the lamps he had set up. Chewing his tongue in thought Charles felt something prickling in his mind, the same one he had felt when looking over the bones. Deciding to leave his ideas on how the bones worked to rest he let his thoughts be lead on by the feeling.

Pulling up images of the circle both from when they were first here and those more recently taken on his tablet Charles stared at them intently. It was as if someone had flipped a switch; one moment Charles was standing still and then the next he had a pen in hand and scribbling frantically on a sheet of paper.

“So maybe this went over here? Dammit drew that line wrong. How about over Here, which would put this over here or, no actually this symbol goes here. Might have been this, no went the other way.”

He drew the two visible circles on the paper with symbols placed along their outer edges, some being those that were no longer visible and others simply just blobs where he guessed unknown symbols to have been. It was messy, inaccurate and covered in a fair few scribbles and smudges but the basic idea was clear.

“Y’know, despite my own magic and working for this company the idea of magic and summoning circles still surprises me.” Pen tapping against his lips Charles stared at the drawing.

Hirshe might feel something brush up against his leg. When he looked down he would see wide pink eyes staring back up at him.

The creature didn't blink, it's eyes were wide domes, the pupils were not round but silted like a snake. It was cute The eyes were wide and round, he had a long snout with a little pink-tipped nose. It was white, with two long pointy ears that fell flat against the creatures head, the ears began to spread out as the creature tilted it's head back and forth, regarding the soldier with curiosity. The creature had a sleek body, covered in... well... It might be mistaken for fur, but in actually it was very fine needle-like scales, it's two front paws could be seen, teeny-tiny-widdle-paws with small sharp nails, the belly down was buried in snow. The creature had popped up like a rabbit hole. It was a lizard-like rabbit if one had to decided what it looked like. Like a snake, it seemed to be smiling up at Hirshe.

In the snow that Hirshe, Wolfe, Dimitir, and Vaughtar planned to investigate were more of these little creatures, but something else entirely.... The little rabbit snakes were investigating it already. Their noses smelling and prodding, their ears twitching against the back of their head. They were thinking to themselves It doesn't smell like meat... but... what is it?

The one who had found Hirshe was thinking, very pleased with itself. It smells like MEAT! I can't wait to tell the others.

~~~

Zesiro rolled his eyes. Uninterested in being inspired he folded his arms and watched. "Wizards are the worst." Was all he had to say to Charles about the matter.

Twain peered at the sketch that Charles was making as it began to take shape. "This makes some sense... Necromancy and arcane magic don't usually work well together. They are kind of opposite forces. This took a lot of time to plan out. People with experience. Summoning is really hard. I mean, it is easier to change something that already exists then to put something into being... And it is more dangerous because what you bring in is going to have a mind of it's own, it might not agree with how you plan to use it." Twain grimanced. "Didn't work out so well for these guys."

Dzel called to the husky "Ariel." If Ariel approached Dzel would run a hand through her fur, and maybe even scratch behind the ear of the husky. "If you are restless, let us join them." She walked to where Dimitri and Vaughtar were planning their next move. "We will go too. In case it is something dangerous."

There was a massive thud on the ground as the gargoyle suddenly had basically let himself tilt forward, intercepting his fall to the ground with his arms. He now was in a stance as if he intended to do push-ups, though his wings were spread wide apart, presenting his back and the incredible amount of muscle on it.

"Okay. If someone wants to look at things from the air, now would be a good time to make that decision."

For the inexperienced observer, there would appear to be two different variants on how to achieve the task: The first one was to sit on his more than broad enough shoulders and let one's thighs and feet dangle downwards left and right from Vaughtar's neck while possbily holding on to his horns for additional safety. The second one was to lie down lengthwise with one's ventral side facing his back, wrapping one's legs and feet around his one while holding on to his shoulders or wrapping one's arms around his neck. The second option apparently was more balanced in terms of weight distribution, but would probably also be the one with increased physical requirements.

Ariel was eyeing the circles curiously when she heard Dzel call her name. She perked her head before dashing through the snow towards the woman. She happily enjoyed Dzel's attention and pushed her head into the scratches. Once Dzel pulled her hand away, Ariel playfully growled at her before moving with her to join Dimitri and Vaughter. She glanced up at each of them, surveying the area as she listened. From her distance, she could tell Hirshe was looking at something but couldn't see what. She barked at the group behind her as she looked at Hirshe, wanting to run over and scare off or rip apart whatever he was looking at. She didn't trust anything here.

Embedded in the soft snow, pestered but the investigations of strange creatures, Shanon stirred. The first thing she noticed was how cold it was, like needles of ice prickling away at her skin The second thing she noticed were the constant prods she felt over her body, but they also felt slightly dulled as well like she was being prodded through a very soft blanket.

Shanon could hear things about her squeaking and pushing through the snow around. She tried to move but her limbs felt heavy, weighed down and stiff to move so that her joints creaked almost audibly.

With great effort Shanon managed to push herself up onto her front limbs, back legs still asleep in the snow, to stare at the strange small creatures. They looked like monsters but strangely they all looked identical to one another making hard for Shanon to distinguish one from the other as they scurried and chittered amongst each other. She didn’t like them.

Shanon growled at the strange creatures, breath turning to mist in the frigid air, and even tried to take a swipe at few closer to her.

The air was fridgid, and seem to still be dropping. Wolfe flexed his muscles attempting to draw blood to his stiffening areas. Hirsch was prone along with Wolfe overlooking the castle. It had been half an hour or so since anything had come over the radio. The sun will be setting soon, Wolfe wasn't sure about the rest of the team, but he made sure Hirsch and himself "tactically requisitioned" two sets of NVGs from the quatermaster. Wolfe distracted the quarter master and Hirsch snuck in and "acquired" the necessary equipment, and batteries. Hirsch may be many things, he is nothing else but methodical.

Hirsch sat staring down his optic on his SAW, looking from point of cover to point of cover.
Nothing, just like the last time, nothing.
'fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, why do I always get stuck on perimeter detail!' he thought to himself. He raised his head and sieghed as he stretched his neck.
As he was going to reshoulder his weapon he felt something sliding up his leg, he looked down. He smiled wide-
"Bunny!" he said as he began to reach for the rabbits head.

***(10 seconds earlier)***

Wolfe thought he caught some movement out in the distance, but the snow blowing around made it difficult to determine what it was. Wolfe was just about to raise his monocular when Hirsch exclaimed-
"Bunny!"
Hirsch reached for it, just then Wolfe got a sharp feeling that ran from his gut up to his neck, as the rabbits ears began to vibrate, as Hirsch got a closer look at the rabbit, which was not a rabbit but some unholy rabbit snake creature from hell.
"The fuck?-" Hirsch said before the creature suddenly jerked back and snapped its jaws wide showing a wide range of sharp, and pointy teeth. It hissed/screamed at Hirsch before it lunged at him.
"Jesus Christ! RUN AWAY!" he yelled as he threw his arm over his face, the creature sank its teeth into Hirsch's forearm and hand and began to jerk violently, while snapping its jaws for his face and neck.
Wolfe scrambled over and grabbed the creature at its mid section only to snatch his hand away with a snarl, blood began soaking through Wolfes glove almost immediately. Gritting his teeth in anger more than anything else he grabbed the snake like rabbit below its paws and pulled back, while Hirsch who already had his knife free; cut the creatures head off at the neck and yanked the severed head off his forearm, in a fit of rage he threw the head off the cliff and yelled at the corpse.

"Shoulda made that left at Albuquerque mother fucker!"

Then he recoiled in pain, along with Wolfe. Hirsch had a nasty gash on his forearm and bottom right portion of his left hand. After removing his glove and wiping off the blood in the snow, he inspected his hand, which began to bleed immediately after he wiped it clean, but he did notice the blood seeping from tiny holes on his hand. Wolfe wrapped his left hand tight with bandages, and secured a tourniquet an inch and a half above his elbow to stem the bleeding, he helped Hirsch do the same.

"What in the wild FUCK was that thing?" Hirsch wondered aloud.

"No idea, looked like a snake, and a rabbit." Wolfe guessed.

"I fucking hate snakes!" Hirsch yelled.

"Calm down, your gonna need stitches but you'll be fine." Wolfe said as he finished wrapping Hirsch's arm.

"Can you carry your gat?" Wolfe asked.

Standing up a bit slow, Hirsch winced in pain as he shouldered his weapon. He placed the weapon the ground, it's bipods extended so it remained up right.  He grabbed more gauze from his IFAK and began wrapping his hand more, then took out some duct tape and wrapped his hand again. He then hefted the 24lbs weapon, and nodded.

"Yea... I'm good to go," he said finally.

Wolfe was impressed with Hirsch's first aide skills and did the same with more gauze and duct tape, surprisingly holding his rifle felt better now that his hand had more gauze and duct tape for protection. Not a permanent fix but a good temporary.
They both moved to investigate the corpse, using his knife, Wolfe lifted the scales on the body, it was if they were tiny needles, and they were sharp!
Hirsch shuddered, he had a legitimate fear of snakes.

"What bullshit James Cameron Monty Python twisted movie am I fucking in?! Huh?-oof" Hirsch was kicked in the butt and pushed to the ground.

"Stow it marine, get you shit toghether, I'm getting a bad feeling again," As Wolfe finished the radio crackled to life.

"Ember Star to Alpha. Possible movement on our twelve. Can you confirm?"

It was the other operator, Natasha, Wolfe was impressed he couldn't spot her in her area. She seemed locked on and extremely capable. Remembering the movment Wolfe pulled up his monocular, and zoomed in. Sure enough movement ahead, just below the castle and beyond its northern perimeter. His gut feeling kicked off again, It looked like a dog...with six legs, but it wasn't the creature that concerned him, Wolfe noticed many more of those rabbit snake creatures attacking or moving aggressively toward it.

"Copy Ember Star, I have eyes on a creature not of this world, break," he let go of the mic for second and bit his lip, Wolfe always had a soft spot for animals, no matter what they looked like, and he hated seeing things suffer, and right now, he was fairly motivated into hating the cute widdle snake rabbit monsters from hell.
He looked to Hirsch who seemed to be on the same page.

"Let's go fuck start Bugs's mutant family" Hirsch said through clenched teeth.

Wolfe picked the mic back up, "Moving to reinforce the target," he said and then put the mic away.

"Let's rock," Wolfe said as they both kicked off the hill. For the first three hundred meters down the slope they half ran and half slid down the snow embankment. Once to ground level they broke into a sprint, Wolfe slightly ahead of Hirsch. In reality Hirsch was a faster runner in both terms of speed and endurance than Wolfe, however Hirsch was also carrying more weight than Wolfe making him a bit slower.
The creature happened to be 600 meters from where Wolfe and Hirsch had been located, but due to the high winds and the light snow blowing making out detail at more than one hundred meters almost impossible.
The two marines made the trek in just over four minutes, by the time they got there, the creature was under full assault by the snake creatures.
Wolfe attached his bayonet to his M4 while Hirsch pulled his own eight inch blade out, with his weapon slung over his back.
Running up Wolfe stepped on the tail of one snabbit(snake/rabbit) and jammed his bayonet through its head. Hirsch picked one up by the face, keeping its jaws from opening while he slammed it against a rock repeatedly until it stopped moving.
A Snabbit tried to jump for Wolfes neck but was knocked away by the butt of his weapon, teeth and blood flew with it, however another almost sank its jaws into his right shoulder. Grabbing the point of its tail he threw it to the ground, shouldered his m4 and fired five rounds. The damn things were agile, only two rounds struck the creature, but was more than enough to put it down.
The large monster began defending itself with more fervor, for every snabbit the monster shook off Wolfe and Hirsch killed it, either with bludgeoning or stabbing, slashing, and hacking.
The numbers thinned out, but Wolfe got a strong feeling up his spine, when he looked northwest he got a stronger feeling, he focused throgh the blowing snow...
There! He saw it, it appeared to be the opening to a burrow, and more snabbits we're beging to burrow their way out.
Seizing the moment, while Hirsch and the monster killed the last of the snabbits near them, Wolfe removed his bayonet and loaded a 40mm high explosive dual purpose round into his M203 on the belly of his M4. Flipping his leaf sight he estimated the range, flipped off the safety, and squeezed the trigger.
THUNK!
It flew for a couple of second before impacting with a thud directly into the snabbit hole.
Hirsch cheered.
"Yea! It's wabbit season biotch!"

Their attention was immediately turned to the large animal behind them, it looked like a cross between a dog, a lion, had horns, weird sets of eyes, on the side of its head and tongue.

"Shit man I hope we didn't make a mistake," Hirsch said slinging his gun back around.

Wolfe had his rifle at the ready, not directly pointing his muzzle at the creature but it wouldn't take but a twitch for Wolfe to let loose a round or two accurately.
Wolfe did not have any gut feeling when he regarded the creature, it didn't seem to be outright hostile.
Wolfe got a sense for inteligent sentience from the creature. Slowly he lowered his gun, and held a hand up, universal sign of "no threat". Wolfe and Hirsch waited tensley for the creatures response.

Natasha hadn't really had the time to respond back to the marine's last messages but she had caught their confirmation that there was movement, she could already smell the strange scents permeating from the Snabbits as a pile of them emerged from distant burrow. She watched the snow and her sharp eyes caught sight of Hirsch and Wolfe descending the slopes and the metallic tinge of blood that was drifting from their direction. They were injured but the wounds did not seem to be slowing them down much, proof of their rigorous training. It was some relief to the MOON operative that they could look after themselves as she moved unnaturally fast towards their location. Between the two marines and the other worldly creature they were protecting they were managing to keep the snake like creatures at bay but there were quite a few more lingering around and emerging from their rocky burrow. She called over her shoulder towards Dayna who was doing a fine job of matching Natasha's speed
"Dayna stay with them, I'm moving towards that burrow"

The ball of light complied without argument and slowed to a stop near the others as Natasha moved on with her own knife in hand.
She twisted her torso and caught a Snabbit by the head just behind its jaws mid flight as it leaped from the snow towards her with its needle like teeth bared. As her fingers dug into the meaty area at the hinge of its jaw she dropped to the ground and slid under another one of the creatures proceeding to open its soft underbelly with her blade as it flew over her head. In one fluid movement she tossed the Snabbit she was holding right into the jaws of another one, spun a round and drew her pistol firing several rounds into each of the creatures before they could recover.

The MOON operative was close to the burrow now, too close!
“Shit” was the only word she had time to mumble as the blur of Wolfe’s explosive round dropped into the Snabbit Hole. Natasha hit the deck. A few seconds later a geyser of Snabbit bits and pieces erupted then rained down on her staining the area a strange tint of red. The smell of the blood was almost overwhelming for Natasha and she felt the definitive feeling of sensory overload beginning to well up inside of her as she attempted to recover and stand up once more. It could not have happened at a worse time as the death of their kin seemed to send the surviving creatures into a rage. She fell to one knee and jabbed the of tip of her knife into her own fore arm and focused on that pain in order to stave off a blackout due to powerful scent of creature blood that was still lingering in the air around her.

Once the lightheaded feeling subsided she opened her eyes once more to find that she was surrounded by at pack of enraged Snabbits. Natasha was good, but to take on all of them at once by herself, was a bit suicidal even for her. The redhead holstered her pistol and slowly drew a second knife responding to their hisses with a growl she accessed the situation once more then dove at the creatures blocking her escape route. Once she cut them down, she would have an opening and could move towards the Marines giving them both clear shots at the pack of Rabid Snabbits.

Time seemed to slow as Natasha let her animal instincts take over. In her initial dive the blades found their marks sinking into the heads of two of them as she tucked into a shoulder roll with barely enough time to recover before she felt the teeth sink into her upper back. If she stopped moving now they would all be upon her in moments so she used the momentum of the creature’s attack and dropped into another roll twisting her torso mid roll so her legs kicked out as she drew her pistol and dropped two more of them. The red head landed rather ungracefully on her back and grit her teeth as the needle like scales of the creature that was still latched onto her sank into her skin. She arched her back and flicked herself onto her feet sparing only a moment to reach around and rip the thing off her back with a grunt as those damned scales sank into her hand. The bite wound shredded her skin as she forced the creature higher up to her shoulder before it finally tore free. She tossed it to the ground with a roar and fired five shots into its head before spinning around to face the distant marines. Moving in a wide arc towards them Natasha's remarkable speed kept her ahead of the pack but she would still have to stagger the path so the marines could open fire on the remaining creatures that were following her. Hopefully they were good shots!

Dimitri glanced at Dzel and the husky trying hard not to picture her in human form without clothes on. It was proving quite difficult. Stranger things resided back home on Temperance but shape-shifting humans were still a new concept for the monk. Clearly his healing methods had been successful on Vaughter as he was more energetic and now it appeared he was preparing to get an aerial view of the area. his eye slid to Dzel and then fell to Ariel who was enjoying Dzel's attention.
“Well don’t look at me, I’m not riding him!” he chuckled “No offense Vaughter..” his words trailed off as the gunfire began and soon after an explosion resonated. “That can’t be a good thing” he stated as he looked towards the commotion.

The situation developed - for not saying 'worsened' - much faster than the gargoyle had anticipated. Vaughtar instantaneously decided that it was damn time to head out and be of assistance as even he could hear the incredibly loud sound of this strange kind of weapon the marines were using and smell blood. It smelled exactly the same as it did on Munimis...

One could guess how many calories he was burning off during the seconds of his ascend. The dark, grey creature vanished in a plume of white dust as it launched forward on all four as if there had been a really big thing in front of him that he had suddenly wanted to rip into innocent pieces. However it was 'just' him breaking through the cloud, already airborne after just like two dozen feet or so. On the ground, the whiteout continued to grow as now air was pushed downwards onto the snow cover with each of his wing flaps.

Vaughtar didn't go up to a high altitude however. Both the severely impaired visibility conditions and the fact that the distance he had to cover was rather short made it futile to go anywhere above like 50 feet. The downward slope increased his speed rapidly, reducing the few hundred meters to a very short hop.

But where to engage ? The snabbit's hole was already blown out and the marines seemed to be able to keep them at bay quite well. As the gargoyle circled in order to assess the situation more closely, he felt pretty oversized for fighting such small creatures. However Natasha seemed to be in distress, and though it appeared that the marines could open fire on her pursuers, he decided to kick himself into action by performing a slam-dunk approach.

He didn't flare. Behind Natasha, there was an enormous thud moments after Vaughtar's shadow had gone over her head. He had crashed deliberately, creating a mess consisting of a wall of snow, another white cloud and snabbits buried in it. According to the trail of blood, he had made ground contact on at least two of them and spread their bodies along his line of skidding. Now what did the marines call these things they had just used for blowing that hole ? He didn't have the word at hand, but he tried to get airborne and out again as fast as he could in order to allow them being less hesitant about using it again.

“Well wouldn’t something have to be given in return?” Charles asked over his shoulder.

After placing the drawing down on a box for anyone to add their own symbols and notes he had begun to walk the perimeter of the circles trying to more accurately gauge its size as well as switch on the remaining lights in preparation for the growing darkness. The lamps buzzed and flickered into life casting small bubbles of shadow across the floors uneven surface.

“Even with my magic something has to be given in return, normally just air though sometimes it does take the top layer of skin if I’m too far away from the things I want. After Sans deniers Georges ne chante; you can’t get something for nothing.” He finished with a shrug.

“Which, if such a law applies to this we have to ask the question: what was sacrificed to bring so many individuals from different worlds?” Or Whom even spoke Charles mind.


Shanon stared intently at the humans. The smells of blood and the Snabbit guts hung almost sickly in the air. At some point during the bloody battle Shanon had managed to get her back legs working again and contribute a fair amount, as fair an amount can be for a giant multi-limbed monster can be, to the carnage around them.

At first she had intended to fight the humans but when they had made moves to save her from the Snabbits attacking she hazard a guess that they didn’t intend to harm her. It was this guess that led her to now be standing on all limbs, staring down the human as he placed down his weapon. As far as she could tell neither of them smelled like Agents, but they certainly looked like them.

Much like the Humans, Shanon also bore tears and gashes in her flesh from the Snabbits relentless attacks but her wounds didn’t bleed. Where the fur of her pelt hung in tatters beneath it was flesh that looked like overcooked pork, even smelled of it too.
“Humans, friend?” She asked with a warning flick of her tail.

An almighty crash that sent up a plume of snow grabbed Shanons attention. Another Monster had appeared from the sky and crushing a number of the Snabbits beneath their bulk as another Human ran towards Shanon and the other humans. Shanon glanced between the Human running to her and the other two humans.

“Will help friend.”

Shannon careened through the snow, charging a shallow ditch through it that sent up small plumes of the glittery powder. Her muscles still ached and burned from the exertion but the skirmish had warmed her muscles enough to allow her to move much more swiftly. She still didn’t quite trust her legs though.

“Down” She ordered the human as she approached.

Hopefully Natasha would duck in time for Shanon to dive over her and tear apart the remaining Snabbits, otherwise Natasha could possibly gain a very painful headache.

Ariel saw a fight break out around Hirshe and immediately began running to help. She got there in time to take out a few of the creatures but still not as fast as Vaughter. Then she saw something new. Whatever it was started running towards Natasha, telling her to get down. Ariel moved quickly, pushing the woman to the ground as she watched Shanon go after a few more of the creatures. With her mouth and paws in pain, she grabbed a blade from whoever she could nearby and began fighting alongside the newcomer. With the last of them killed, she dropped the blade before barking softly at the one beside her. It was a friendly gesture.

The lithe Dzel decided to hop onto the Gargoyles back to watch. She was so light that the Gargoyle would be completely unencumbered by her as they flew.

She held on tight when they swooped down and crashed in the snow, she jumped off at just the last minute and into a snowbank. Where, several moments later, her dark face popped up from the white snow. Unfazed and unharmed.

She made no move to participate in teh battle of the Snabbits. The others took care of them quickly. She looked placidly down at the long body of one snabbit, perhaps pitying the creature. Then she turned her attention to the new creature that they had found.

"Are you alright?" She asked. "Do you have a name? My name is Dzel. We are here to help."

~~~

Twain touched his chin. "Yeah. In theory. Maybe that was the girl we found cut open on the altar, but, one life for all this? Doesn't seem even, maybe there were more that we never found. It is possible that there were other victims, but, too cut up to separate out from all this mess."

Rozalind chimed in, she was looking through a break in the stone wall, over at a disturbance in the distant snow. "Wizards like to tempt the rules." She was distrustful of magic, and outright hated necromancy, everyone knew that.

XIII had been silent for a long time. After he had helped clear the snow, something had been nagging at him. He watched as Charles sketched the circles around the altar on a piece of paper. Something was missing. It was if there was another circle calling out to him. There was nothing to indicate that there was another circle, but he could feel it tugging at him. An idea occurred to him as he listened to Twain.

"What if it was just the girl." XIII made his way over to the group and picked up the piece of paper. He drew a circle that tightly surrounded the Altar then thickened the lines of both the altar and the inner circle. "But hundreds, maybe even thousands of times over."

Charles raised an eyebrow at XIII with a look of mild disbelief when he brought up the suggestion of the sacrifice being used a few hundred times.

“That sounds a bit more than just ‘tempting the rules’ if you ask me, after all once a person’s dead that’s it isn’t it? Wouldn’t you need more energy to bring someone back from the dead?” Here Charles tapped his foot and gripped his chin again in thought trying to apply logic to the somewhat ‘illogical’ occurrences. “After all a pretty large electrical shock is needed to restart a human heart, something like 200–1000 volts, and that’s on top of whatever power is being is being drawn to and used here at the same time.”

“In all honesty it’s a shame we weren’t able to gather more material at the time of the incident.” He grimaced with the subject change. “Would’ve made deciding on how many sacrifices were used a bit easier. As it is the folks at the lab confirmed that the corpse we found on the alter was human, but as for the others it’s mostly been inconclusive. Which is to say, in this case anyway, that the bodies were from other worlders.”

As he had been talking Charles had also managed to lap around the circle and come up beside XIII. He cocked his head at the additional circle, glancing between the drawing and the actual circle nearby.

“What’s this?”


“Shanon.” Shanon replied carefully.

She was still uncertain about the humans around her, as well as what she assumed to be a dog of some kind. Shanon knew what dogs were and she knew what they smelled like, but this particular dog did smell like one but neither did it smell like a monster or human. She wondered what it was.

On the plus side though Shanon felt that she didn’t have to worry about the small snabbit monsters anymore. This left her to easily keep an eye on all the humans around her, plus the strange dog and Monster flying above.

“Thank you for help.” Shanon shouted quite loudly so that the other humans who had found her earlier could still hear her from where they were.

“Why Monsters and Humans working with other?” Such a thing was very strange to Shanon, but it did mean she wouldn’t be shot at any time soon hopefully.

"Holy shit, it talks." Hirsch said in bewilderment.

"She.." Wolfe corrected, when Hirsch looked to him confused, he repeated, "IT...is a she...and her name is Shanon," Wolfe said with a grin.

"And she's beautiful," he said with a nod.

"Shanon, my name is Matthew Wolfe, and this is Joeseph Hirsch, we're allies...er...friends, your in no danger," he said to Shanon.

He pointed to the gargoyle. "That's Vaughtar, also a friend, and that dog over there is actually a woman named Ariel, also a friend."

"Welcome to earth, a pleasure to meet you," he said.

The comotion done, all the snabbits dead, now just the aftermath. Natasha was still down in a kneeling position in a kneeling position, she seemed to have an injury. Wolfe didn't even realize She was there until it was all said and done. She was too fast for Wolfe, had he known she was there he wouldn't have fired the grenade. He rushed over to her side and helped her up.

"Hey, I didn't see you there, Fuck,  your tough, no wonder you come with such high regard..." he examined her arm, he pulled some pressure dressing from his IFAK, he noticed he was still bleeding through the bandage, but he ignored it to help Natasha.

"Let me get you squared away?" he offered to dress her wound.

Hirsch in the meantime moved toward Vaughtar.

"Goliath! Ma main monster Whats up Knucka!?"

Hirsch didn't realize that his wound had re opened and he was bleeding through his bandage.
Until he held his hand out for a high five.

"Well...shit... This is starting to hurt..."

The gargoyle had been busy grabbing several hands full of snow and rubbing them against his chest. Judging by their color after he had finished and dropped them to the ground, the snabbits had left quite their bloody traces on his skin. Could Vaughtar get a cold ? If so, he'd soon find out as he still was almost fully naked. His horns were the only place were snow could drop and settle down without melting.

"Don't worry. I'm harmless." he directed his words towards Shanon as he noticed her looking at him and the others as if trying to assess who was dangerous and who not. If it had not been for the marine approaching him, Vaughtar would have come close and engaged in more talking.

For someone having been thrown out of Munimis just a few days ago and having been a loner over there, it was perhaps understandable that the gargoyle didn't recognize the high five gesture until a rather embarrassing amount of time had passed. When it finally sunk in his head, he noted Hirsch bleeding. Spontaneously, Vaughtar wrapped his giant hand around the blood-soaked bandage and squeezed the arm beneath it. It was incredibly makeshift and most likely not very pleasant, but... "Can't let you walk around with this unsealed wound. Perhaps we should get you back to base camp for proper treatment ? Who knows if these creatures are poisonous and it just takes a while to kick in."

Dimitri decided to hang back with Rozalind and the others unwilling to leave the alter sight unguarded. He wasn't sure of the level of competence in regards to combat with Rozalind and Charles and the monk was almost certain the new other worlder didn't need a ton of people around it right now but damn was he impressed with the fighting prowess of Hirsch, Wolfe and Natasha though. they seemed to all have similar training and with that he turned to Rozalind "It seems that Earth has some very competent fighters." From the monk's vantage point he was unable to tell exactly who was injured and who was not, but it seemed unrealistic that everyone had gotten through that skirmish unscathed but for now he felt base doff the level of at least Natasha and the Marines they could handle the bleeding for now and he could always step in later to patch everyone up.

After Wolfe offered his help Natasha pulled herself to her feet, sparing a moment to tame her matted blood soaked hair before she tore a strip of cloth from Wolfe's sleeve to bind her arm wound. "This wound on my arm is nothing serious." She commented before nonchalantly sliding what was left of her tattered shirt down past her shoulder without so much of a wince as it brushed over the torn skin of her shoulder wound.
"I'm more concerned with this one! If you don't mind dressing this mess then I'll take a look at your wounds" she added then squeezed his bandage rather roughly to get back at him for almost blowing her to bits. She supposed it couldn't be helped though even Trident had limited knowledge of the Moon operatives and their abilities, so chances are these other folks had absolutely no clue.
As she squeezed his bandage she leaned into him "That's for almost blowing me to hell! now if you don't mind, cover this shoulder wound would you." she finished with a sweet smile before looking over her shoulder at Vaughter. "Thanks for swooping in back there! I wasn't sure how many of them were following me but judging by the mess, I'd say you definitely got a few of those things!"

"Oh you poor fleshlings! your ether is leaking everywhere, you should all be more careful if you're that delicate!" Dayna's voice echoed sternly as she hovered around the group pausing in front of Shannon with no regard of personal space "Hi there I'm Dayna. she drew closer narrowing the orbs that were her eyes inquisitively. "How are you feeling?" She asked as she slowly circled the creature "You look similar to some of the elemental beasts where I come from"