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Clancy had quietly listened as they finalised and formulated their plan for the job, studying the map that had been set before them, the warnings of the obstacles and dangers they would face, and the division of the groups.

He was no stranger to getting into places where he wasn't welcome, but could not have said he'd ever pulled off a heist on purpose. Like it or not, his vice was [i]prey.[/i]

Stumbling into poison and loose change were sometimes a consequence of what he did - especially in the cities, but he never hung onto them, usually holding onto a few spare bills as his allowance, while tossing baggies and bricks were thrown in the furnace or, given the former's scarcity,  into the nearest body of water, more often than not. No doubt the fish had probably not thanked him for that, but it was better than leaving it for other [i]assholes[/i] to find.

Whatever their mutual doubt of one another, he could recognise that Britney was [i]right[/i] about the plan - or specifically, the lack of a backup. If the Greenwood people [i]weren't[/i] around to get them off, what was the plan?

[i]Swim for the shore?[/i] Clancy, for his part, was not so bothered about getting off the island this way.

He had forded streams, rivers, even [i]lakes.[/i] Why did an ocean matter?

The first time, when he had refused to accept his situation, when he was in denial, had been the worst. A dark, cold plunge that he thought - [i]hoped[/i] could've stopped him, except it [i]didn't[/i], as he found himself tearing at the entrails of a fresh  carcass less than an hour later, his clothes sodden, his face and fingers caked in mud, grit and [i]blood.[/i]

When you didn't need to breath or worry about the stuff flooding down your airway, water was just another environmental presence, like thicker air that moved over and around you. When you didn't need to care about the cold washing over your body, weighing down your clothes and holding you back from surfacing for air, or worry about feeling any pain from where the water would normally sting at your eyes and burn through your lungs, it was just another aspect to the world, like the difference between walking over snow, ice, grass, asphalt.

Clancy [i]could[/i] swim, but often times he found himself sinking like a stone, walking or wading close to the solid ground beneath, clawing at the silty bed for a better foothold here and a lunge there. It was how he'd left the Halloween Festival when the old man had driven the cane through his eye.

But there were others here, and they were a mixed bag. Britney didn't like him, nor he her. [i]Enough said.[/i] Sloane and Adora were [i]okay.[/i] Aislan, he knew less of, but he had no problms with her at this point. The Greenwood people were strangers, and probably saw him the same. Layla and Alizee had [i]made their bed[/i], and would now have to [i]lay in it.[/i]

That left Luca, probably the only one of them, apart from Adora, who he could trust to the furthest point he had trusted [i]anyone[/i] in his unnatural existence. Although they were all - Clancy aside - technically adults, he suspected Luca would benefit from a helping hand. He knew how fragile the skinny latino was, and how he was more at risk than most of the others on those benefits. The rest could, as far as he understood, look after themselves.

For that he hoped they wouldn't need another way out, because he didn't rate his chances of trying to drag their fragile bodies back to shore in the middle of the fall - hypothermia would do a faster job of killing most of them than any parasite could.

The others were dressed for the occasion. The Greenwood [i]Maidens[/i] in their sports gear, the others similarly garbed in caps, hoodies and masks. Some were [i]armed[/i] for the occasion, like the Ghost Woman - Amara - in her riot gear, complete with phantom figures stood beside her. [i]Where had she got that?[/i] He put it out of mind, that didn't matter - only that two of the phantoms were going to accompany them.

As far as disguises went, Clancy's had worked for him. There was no cutting or styling the hair, but he could hide his face and make it less obvious who he was. He'd traded the grey hoodie for a [i]navy[/i] one, this time with some dull faded sports branding across the side, and slipped on a yellow balaclava with the [url=https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51YW7IBKrXL._AC_SY1000_.jpg]likeness[/url] of some stupid kid's character called Jimbob Squareshorts or something [i]stupid[/i] like that, swiped from the post-Halloween bargain bin of a thrift store. The only part of him he didn't cover were his hands or eyes, and that because amything he did was likely to be torn off if they got into a scuffle.

Even if he didn't particularly care if some saw his face, he didn't want to make it so obvious by association. He'd spent a long time keeping under the radar, avoiding the supposed [i]magic feds[/i] and their like, even after surveillance cameras started showing up on every other street corner. He didn't want to risk that now, or the slim chance of the same people they were [i]taking[/i] these magic items from would make the connection between him, Luca and the others who'd hosted him

Not to mention the [i]hitwoman[/i] the old man had probably sent after him. For all he knew, these people might have had connections to her, as everyone in this town seemed to have with one another. A few fleeting words and thoughts passed through his mind, thinking back to what he'd learned at the club what must've been over a month back.

[i]Dollhouse. Judas' connections to them. Who were Shayton's bosses?[/i] He put the thoughts out of his mind for the moment, focused on the matter of [i]artifacts.[/i]

By his understanding, the axe he'd taken from the nazi had been such a thing. It had felt powerful, in its way, although the only thing he'd found it good for was cutting things in two a little more efficiently than with a butter knife. [i]Perhaps[/i] it was the source of the tattooed nazi's strength, but for him - his existence a different kind of strength - it seemed only to serve as a sharp tool, and even then it had been lost to him when the 8th Street assholes had turned the scene outside the cabin to mud.

Still, the axe would've been helpful for the stone dog, for the eventuality that it turned up. For now, he'd have to manage without. The artifact group were going with [i]minimal baggage[/i], and he was about as best as they could get for-

[i]The veil fell.[/i] His train of thought interrupted, their assembled groups were moving. Within moments, he found old ground disappearing beneath him in one moment and new ground apparating in the next.

[i]Teleportation?[/i] They were here. No time to think on it.

[hr]
[code]Elysium Island - Artifact Group[/code]
Luca [@FernStone], Sloane [@Atrophy], Artifact Group
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As they progressed, gunfire and other panicked noises crackled in the background. He was no stranger to such things, although perhaps not on this scale. Usually it was closer, directed at, above or beneath him, rather than being on the score of half an island away. It was rare to run into [i]assholes[/i] with the kind of power on display here. A distant [i]thunderclap[/i] underpinned that musing.

And not usually with [i]explosions.[/i]

Clancy wondered if this was what his old man and Uncle Gerry had been through in [i]their[/i] wars of long ago. What Frank had been unable to escape. Except there was a clear difference; Clancy didn't care so much about getting through it alive. He wasn't living, had nothing to lose except the prospect of [i]failing[/i], and while [i]they[/i] were still trying to get back home, the only thing that he could hope for was the end of the line.

There wasn't a home left to which he could return, either way.

Luca had volunteered to demolish whatever doors sat between them, but Clancy was inclined to agree with Sloane on letting [i]her[/i] or one of the others try it first. Using the Rot was a double-ended sword, with no safe way to use it.

As for the 'Starving Dog'...

[b]"If the dog comes, I'll buy you time,"[/b] he put the notion forward, then continued, [b]"Focus on getting whatever you'll need to find Father Wolf. It can't hurt me."[/b]

Unless it happened to have teeth that were made from the same crystalline material that had pained him so. [i]Nothing[i] would've surprised him at this stage, and it was a chance he was willing to take if would get them a shot at Father Wolf. [i]For Ashley.[/i]

Perhap to undermine the point about something being unlikely to hurt him, there was a blinding light off somewhere on the horizon, as though the sun itself were bearing down on the island, centered on the mansion. Clancy's attention had been directed towards Luca and Sloane, but even so the light had briefly flashed through the fabric of his hoodie and mask.

He stopped in his tracks, almost blinded for a few seconds, fingers tightening into half-fists as he raised one to shield the half of his face until he could adjust. Off in the distance, he could smell what could've only been described as [i]ozone[/i] and [i]charcoal[/i] mingled together, along with something else closer.

[i]Meat[/i] he thought at first. 

[i]No,[/i] he corrected himself. It was rotting.

[i]Dead.[/i]

Clancy threw a hand up in a silent gesture to the others, still half-balled into a fist, then approached a clearing amidst the trees they'd pushed through. There, where the daylight bored down, he spotted a pair of silhouettes lurching over tree roots, barely avoiding getting thei footing tangled in some of the oversized root systems that cut through the ground.

The boy veered off to the left, leaning against one tree, then pounced, slamming a foot into the hamstring of one undead guard that had been faced away from him to break their footing, and brusquely grasping and mashing their head into the tree trunk aside in a mangled smear of dark viscera. 

.
The other wight, half-turned, was subsequently shoved at waist-height over a thick patch of moss and overgrowth, and the boy soon concluded its existence by driving his knee into the undead creature's skull before it could wheeze out another strangled roar.

[i]Useless, rotting meat.[/i] The base instinct at the back of his consciousness would've recoiled more out of disappointment than disgust.

The others no doubt were catching up, as fast as they could go given their limitations. There was no time to be annoyed or disoriented. [b]"Few more nearby. Can smell them."[/b]