[IC] The Hidden People

[Exie]

The ride over had been trying for Kaori. Gray's smell was too provocative for her to be in a small space with, and the scent of the lycan was foul. It was like spraying perfume over body-odor. Most of the ride she spent holding her breath. She was extremely relieved when they arrived at the small castle.

Kaori could almost taste the anxious energy radiating off of the group. She didn't blame them. To someone unfamiliar with Holzberg manor, it looked like something out of a horror story. The property wasn't unfamiliar territory to a vampire. Although she and her kind never ventured inside the building, the park was a popular feeding ground if you had a taste for the macabre.

She lowered herself from the vehicle, now clean and fully recharged. Her shirt had been obliterated from the struggle, so she had tied the dark robe around her torso. She imagined she looked more like a doll this way, delicate and unlike the beast that had nearly ripped their hunters throat out. But that was the nature of a vampire, to lure with charm and devour with ferocity.

"I'll be pairing up with Kaori." It was obvious Rikive meant to play babysitter.

"I'm flattered," she sarcastically responded.

As the others offered their hands forward, Kaori crossed her arms casually in front of her chest. She meant to make the action unnoticeable. In the same way they didn't trust her, she didn't feel inclined to trust a group of rebel kidnappers.

[HeySeuss]

"Yeah, yeah, marker." Tony was not enthralled at being the toddler carrier out of the group. A part of him wanted to scream, He's too white to be mine! It looks off! but apparently the logic was lost on the group.

In any case, the thunder was starting as they stepped out of the van and into the park itself, up a winding path to the Schloss that was leeringly overgrown in the nighttime, when the sounds of crickets and nature threatened to overwhelm. It was almost reassuring, as he set out in a rolling gait with a toddler-Parael hanging off his back -- sure, he was probably the fittest of the bunch outside of the hunter and the hunter was walking around with smoothbore artillery and enough ammo to wage war against an entire battalion of action movie goons. So yeah, put the toddler on the back of the drooling manbeast that could flip a switch into Taz mode, why not?

The real answer was that they wanted to give Parael to Autumn, but got cold feet on how to suggest it. So there Tony was.

"Fuck, got a raincoat in that bag?" he asked rhetorically as the drops started and they started slogging through the grass and the path. Jogger trail by day, sodden march through junkie country by night. Grim thought that reminded him of...

Suddenly, the rain was down in torrents, pouring a sheet of water that obscured vision, isolating people from it. More steps, trying to find a shelter and some place to avoid the deluge, though in about a nanosecond out in it, he was already sodden to the bone, the clothes clinging to him-- Parry probably wasn't happy either, but Tony was learning to tune out whiny little kids in a real hurry, which was a good skill to have when the whiny little kid happened to be an adult bitching about how he lost his sword and became the target of a witch's curse.

Sheltering under a tree in the park, trying to keep himself and the kid covered from the worst of the rain, which was bringing branches down all around him, he was surprised when he looked up after it finally let up, about three minutes later.

It was verdant green broken up with the riotous colors of flowering plant life all around them, and the sun shining through a triple canopy. There was nipa palm, banana trees, bamboo and liana all around and the sound of running water, the Mekong slowly winding its meandering way down from Cambodia into the Delta, which was knee-high mud that Tony was standing in, and lianna all around.. There was a persistent buzz of insect life and the occasional song of birds that one wouldn't hear in Camden. Emerald green, mud brown, the sunlight filtered through the trees.

"Parry, we're in a world of shit, man."

Parael could feel Tony as the shakes started, bigtime.

[KuroTenshi]

Rikive repressed a shiver as she and Kaori split off from the rest of the group, heading to the area they were supposed to scout. The cold wasn't what made her want to shiver, nor the needle like iciness of the rain pouring down on them. This entire park had a very unsettling feeling to it, and as they grew closer to the mansion, looming like a giant in the distance; it just grew worse.

Her pale eyes looked up to the sky as thunder rumbled over head. It taunted her, every boom of thunder, every flash of lightning for a split second made her think Thor was with them. But he wasn't. She wished he was, she wished any of the other Asgardian's were here with her or help guide her. Help get this horribly unorganized and undisciplined group working together in a well functioning unit.

They had no such help, just each other. They might as well be stuck in Jötunheimr. The thought of the home of the Jötunn made her want to shiver again. Nemsemet was horrible and there was so much they still didn't know about him, but thankfully they weren't trying to fight Jötunn. She could not even begin to describe how terrifying and ferocious the giant race was.

Rikive mentally tried to shake the doubts away and pulled her wet hair away from her face, digging out a rubberband from her jeans to tie it into a pony tail. As she finished tying up her hair, the near blinding rain suddenly stopped and she found herself surrounded on all sides by thick jungle. "What now?" She asked, her voice closer to a growl as she lowered her hand to draw her sword from it's place at her hip.

She held it in front of her and took a step forward, acutely aware of the vampire with her. The sunlight gleamed off the deathly sharp blade, the ancient ruins carved down the sword contrasted against the polished surface. Rikive slashed at a low hanging branch, feeling a hint of resistance with the cut. It felt real, but that wasn't what she had been testing.

"Useless sword." She muttered in frustration, shaking Winterthorn as though that would active it's power. "Can't even dis-spell a damned illusion." She slammed it back into its sheath. It rattled for a moment before growing quiet. Rikive ignored it and turned to her 'partner'. "Care to offer anything about, this?" She asked, pointing to the bright jungle around them.

[Trinais]

Parry hated- absolutely hated- being lugged around like a sack of coconuts. After a century of running the Little Angels center on and off in Camden, Parry had learned not to throw kids around like so much luggage in a backpack. If he'd been willing and hungry, he would've happily thrown up all over Tony to teach him a lesson. Alas, he wasn't willing to submit to the humiliation of drinking an actual bottle, so he was left with the marker that Tony handed him.

After putting a few magical resistance runes on everyone who wanted (and trying and failing to draw a giant penis on Flint's forehead) Parry had to settle for staying along for the ride.

When the rain started coming down on the trek through the park, Parry had to reach down into the upper pocket of the diaper bag, rummaging around at the top of the bag's lip to grasp anything he could with his pudgy fingers.

Armani cologne. Useless.

People Magazine. Or Playgirl. Equally useless.

Condoms. Technically count as raincoats. Useless.

Ah! This is either what I want, or it's a dildo. Please don't be a dildo. Please don't be a dildo. Please don't be a-

Parry looked down into his pudgy hand and saw the grip of a large, multicolored umbrella, big enough for two. Its top was labeled with "NYC Pride 2011" and had a few minor enchantments to keep the rain away.

"No waincoat," Parry said as he tried to offer it to Tony, "but dis'll work fow now." Which was when he noticed the rain had stopped coming down. And the overgrown park path had turned into a muddy river trail. The ditch of standing water he'd seen as they walked onto the property had turned into a true river. And the buzzing of mosquitos in the night air had been replaced with... the buzzing of much larger mosquitos. Banana trees where there were dead Apple trees seconds ago.

"Yeah," Parry said as he dropped the umbrella. He really, really should've put stronger anti-magic wards on everyone before they stepped onto the property. He'd kept them to the simpler ones for standard tricks and traps- fireballs, ice blasts, raging kobolds. Not psychological manifestations and/or time travel. "We'we boned." Parry reached up, grabbed a tiny fistful of Tony's hair and tugged to try and get his attention.

"Listen ta me. We'we boned togever. Got it?"

[HeySeuss]

Tony knew the smell of this place, and he knew the terrain. He crouched low out of instinct and lowered his voice, "Voice down, man." Parael might well have really thought he'd gone around the bend if he said, "Charlie's listening" so he avoided saying that, but it's really what he wanted to say.

"We gotta see if the others are here and find them. Keep your ears wide open, man." He whispered as he started to move through the brush, trying to step around the stuff that rustled, trying to keep his eyes in all directions. He'd been point several times, particularly when that fuckstick Lieutenant Pfluger decided that Tony's mouth was too much and up he'd go in front of the patrol. But now it was him and a toddler, and he had no fuckin' clue at all what was going to jump out of him in the jungle.

"Don't pop nothing that smells man, I don't know what's out here, but it'll be out of place in this shit. Watch my fuckin' back." Tony suddenly regretted taking any kind of shower before coming out, because fucking Charlie, or whatever horror was out there, could smell yankees on the basis of a couple things; sweat and diet and, most especially, soap, shaving cream and fucking aqua velva. Americans liked to go into the field barbered up and it smelled entirely out of place in the jungle. He'd learned that because he survived much of a tour in 1967 and early 1968 right before everything turned around in his life. Of course, he'd always had the senses, the vision and smell and hearing of a lycanthrope, and that was often what saved his ass.

There were trails to be seen, but he wasn't getting on them. He assumed, even as he crouched and moved, that there was a trap somewhere, and sure enough, he spotted one as they moved through; a frag rigged with a tripwire on a little bamboo y-frame, concealed real well. Tony had a pocket knife on a keychain with some scissors, and he used that to snip the wire once he bent the cotter pin on the frag to keep it from popping out; M26 -- American. He took that up and put it in a pocket on his hoodie. But he held it up to Parry first, as if to say, here we are!

If the others were here, and while Flint had fought the Germans, he never saw anything like the fucking 'Nam, they were going to be in a real world of shit. "We gotta find the others before they step into punji stakes or trip a claymore man," Tony said, fearful desperation in his voice, "They don't know what this shit is like..."

[Trinais]

"Yeah, we'we gonna have ta find da odders," Parry whispered, leaning in closer to Tony's ear. "But you gotta keep your shit togevver man. I ain' got shit ta bring ta dis place. An' I can't turn my head a full one-eighty, so watchin' youw back is a pwobwem."

Parry lived through 'Nam like Tony. Unlike Tony, Parry lived through 'Nam while watching the war happen on TV, smoking his brains out on primo weed, and trying to forget that it was even going on. Even a retired Celestial got hints of human death. Every time you got a few million humans together for the sole purpose of massacring one another, you lined up a buffet for a Daemon to pop out of the Nether and go to town on everyone. Wars were messy. Wars gone metaphysical were nasty.

"I ain' gonna shit myself, Tony, so don' worry 'bout me dwoppin anyting," Parry said. Right before Tony showed him the M26 booby trap they came within inches of stepping on (Okay. Maybe it was a few feet, and Tony was on top of that shit, but when you went from an all-powerful Celestial to a drooling, pants shitting two-year-old in the space of twelve seconds, you understood mortality that much better). Right then and there, if Parry'd eaten anything before they left, he would've loaded up his pants. Thankfully, he was running on empty and wasn't about to tell Tony what would've happened.

"I got no burnin' sword. Buh I still got da mawkew," he said, tapping Tony's neck with the Sharpie. "I gots 'nough space back hewe fow one ow two wunes. Wet me know what you need. Night vision? Camofwage? Siwence? What'd you wish fow most in da jungwe, Tony?"

[twave]

Whilst getting a rune put on her the rain began to come down on Autumn. Where did it come from? It fell so fast that her vision was obscured. Taking a step back she tried to find some kind of cover. Before making it far though it cleared and she stepped right into water. Unable to stop herself she tumbled and fell with a splash. Flailing a bit she scrambled back onto land. She never was a particular fan of bodies of water. It made her slow and wet. For a moment she almost broke her disguise to get out. It was almost sad how something so simple could draw a panic.

Back on semi-dry land she wrung the water out of her hair and looked around. Great, an illusion or mind trap. There others didn't seem to be immediately nearby. They were split up in some wet jungle. Who's mental construction could this be? Despite the noise of the wildlife to her it was eerily silent. Usually she could hear her spawn chattering everywhere, talking to her. But in this imaginary world she did not hold sway of them.

Where the hell to begin. This place could be endless, filled with traps, monsters, and all manor of danger. All could be real to the mind. Speaking of which is was best to keep that in check. For now it was best to focus on finding the others or a way out. Anything else could just make the situation even worse.

[HeySeuss]

"Silence and something that lets me see where people messed around," Tony said after a minute. He was going to request metal detection, but that'd be no good for punji stick traps. It needed to be based on connections. "Like if someone disturbed a space. Cause Charlie likes to put traps in any place he thinks will get someone, and they have damn good camouflage."

Then, uncharacteristically for the 'Nam, he heard thunderous booming in the distance, dull thudding. He'd been shadowing a trail, checking for traps and trying to watch the river when he stopped at the sudden sound. Had to hand it to Tony, those lycanthrope senses were tuned, his every move was cautious and aware of the terrain. The silence ward wasn't changing his habits of movement here; and the way he plucked that grenade trap out of the ground was mute testament to how deadly the ground was; the jungle lent itself to perfect concealment, and punished the unwary.

Tony would have the freak out at the flood of old memories, doors long barred shut, later. Now was necessity.

"Not artillery, not mortars and not any kind of explosion," he told Parry.

[teapotshark]

Beth felt an unnatural shudder ripple through her ethereal body as she scouted the park with Autumn. The sensation worsened when raindrops began falling, then pouring down. With some reluctance, her body became solid again, and the raindrops bounced off. Splitting from the group as per Rikive's orders, she trudged through the downpour, a quiet grumble slipping past her lips every so often.

The rain stopped all too suddenly to be of any comfort. Beth paused where she stood, squinting at her surroundings. The park had been a mess, sure, but not as overgrown as it was now. Since when did parks turn into jungles after a little rainfall? Just a moment ago, the moon barely peeked through the wooded park, now the sun shone on trees that certainly didn't belong in New Camden.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling nothing, and muttered to herself. "Some sort of magic, isn't it? Wonderful."

With the rain gone she became intangible again -- before all this Nemsemet mess she'd never had to switch in and out so frequently, it was starting to make her nauseas. Even passing through shrubbery as she was, she moved cautiously, eyeing every hiding place imaginable. Assuming the illusion served as a defence for the manor, it had to go pretty deep, or there was something more inside. Their best bet was to find the other pairs, regroup, and think their way out of it. So Beth moved silently forward, listening for the slightest sign of her comrades and feeling, like some kind of bug, for the energies that hung around them.

She thought the thunder returned when she heard that big boom, but it dulled soon after, and didn't sound like any kind of thunder she'd heard before. She stilled except to turn her head, made a rough guess at where it came from, then started off in the opposite direction. The second step she took, she felt something different zip through her foot -- not leaves or twigs, but something metal. Manufactured crap always felt cold, unlike something natural. Beth turned and crouched, low and carefully, and just about caught sight of the thinnest of wires spread taut from one bush to another.

She really needed to find the others.

[Necrophage]

The deluge started. With the others running ahead and otherwise taking cover he strolled along. It was like being in Oregon in the middle of the year where torrential downpours were commonplace. He enjoyed the sound of the rain and getting wet wasn't unpleasant to him. The patter gave way to a blinding sun that was completely out of place. The building that should have been there was replaced by a vibrant display of unfamiliar trees. The cool night air was replaced by a humidity that clung to you like a filthy diaper.

"What?" He shook his head with a heavy sigh. "I hate magic. It'd be different if I had some. I wonder if Karram can fix this. Where am I anyway?" He conversed with himself.

[salamimike]

Flint had been taken by surprise by the sudden change of atmosphere. Of course if you had looked at him you wouldn’t have noticed. He had preferred the rain however, to wherever he was now, too hot and damp. He began to rack his brain, really look around, it was some sort of forest he knew that much, and the fauna was not American, neither European. Maybe South American, hell for all he knew he could be in Asia. No, he had to stick with the facts, he was still at the manor home, just some kind of magic wards protecting the place. Flint began to walk along what seemed like a trodden path. He needed to find the manor, or at least whatever the manor was hidden under in this place.

The ground under Flint began to become more messy, leaves seemingly covering where a path once was twigs seemingly placed to look random rather than naturally forming, it seemed someone was attempting to hide the path, or possibly to hide a trip…

The thought was interrupted by the familiar click of a grenades pin being removed.

Luckily Flint’s reactions whereas on point as they were 60 years ago, and the man was covered in solid rock as the explosion occurred, the shrapnel chipping away at the dirt and stone but not making its way through, Flint shifted the barrier out of his way as he wiped the sweat off his brow.

“That was a close one…” Flint muttered to himself, trailing off as he soon realised this wasn’t any ordinary jungle, this was a battleground. Just not one he had thought in, it was a guerrilla war, a lot more sneakiness and a lot more camouflage. Like some of his brethren in Japan, the war Flint avoided to be shipped off to France.

This was going to be ‘fun’

[twave]

An explosion nearby alerted Autumn to someone else nearby. Kind of hard to miss a grenade going off. It was a semi-familiar sound even though she had not been in any wars. There were enough through history to educate her about many different weapons of war. Given that this was a illusion it was probably a safe bet to assume it was constructed from one of their minds. Given the terrain she would say Tony. This looked enough like Vietnam to draw a decent conclusion. It didn't entirely help though because they were still trapped.

Sighing she began to make her way toward where she heard the explosion. On the way she stopped at one point. A nigh invisible line stretched across a clearing. She'd made enough webs for it to stand out clear as day. She practically invented this kind of thing. That wouldn't be the only trap around though. The ground and water were dangerous. Maybe it was time to forgo some of the things she was hiding. Losing her shoes she took to climbing over the vegetation. Her hands and feet easily clung to the foliage and made getting around much easier.

Only down side was the noise it made. Most of the plant life wasn't strong enough to not flex under her weight. Beat finding a trap though. Before long she managed to spot Flint. Landing in a safe spot she stepped over to him. "Flint, stumbling around explosives?"
@solamelike

[Necrophage]

A lanky figure knelt in the distance. Even with the dirtied clothing covering it there seemed to be something unsettling. Gray drew closer quietly, his feet barely rustling the grass. The kneeling figure breathed with short hard breaths, hyperventilating like a dog. The straw hat on their head shifted as Gray stepped a little too loud.

Slowly the head turned. It stopped turning before he could see it. Rising to its feet it completed the revolution. Skin ashen like a dead man, face trapped in a state of terrifying rage, eyes that were shriveled from being unable to blink. Without those she would seem like a normal Vietnamese villager. With a deafening shriek of rage the 'blessed' of Abigor sprinted at Gray like an uncaring PCP addict. "Shit." Was what he managed before raising the shotgun level with her chest and unloading three shots. They stunned her for a moment before she started running again, practically unhindered by the more than a dozen bleeding holes scattered across her chest.

After cranking off a few more shots the cursed woman closed the distance and despite severe wounds and clear holes through her face she screamed with unearthly fury, grabbing at the shotgun and disarming him. Gray happened to be still attached to the shotgun by a strap and was thrown along with the weapon by her beastly strength.

Rolling back onto his feet as quickly as he could, he leveled his weapon instead for her right bicep. Bam, bam, bam! Splintered bone and sinew still allowed the worthless limb to cling onto the woman. She jolted forward, clearly unaffected by the pain of her mortal wound. "That's right!" Gray shouted, aiming for the throat. Another three bangs rang through the air. Vital fluids emptied from the devastating wound to her neck. The volume of her gurgling was unnerving as she kept moving forward.

The kukri slid cleanly out of its sheathe on his chest. With a quick and strong sweep he cleaved into the unprotected flesh on the right side of her neck. The kukri met spine and Gray pulled it out. Blood spattered onto his vest. His unbalanced adversary was dizzy, no longer screaming and now tottering uneasily. He pulled the blade back and aimed at the neck one more time. This time the heavy silver knife sliced all the way through and the head sailed to the side. The body remained standing for another few seconds, the hand remaining intact reached out to grasp her enemy in a last fit of anger before falling free.

Gray kicked the prone body a little. Comfortable that it could no longer try to kill him he wiped the bloody kukri off on a less sullied part of her clothing. "I hate these things." The knife was returned to its sheathe. These followers of rage and war were rarely alone. He looked around to make sure that there wasn't another hiding in wait to strike. His adversary's project wasn't at all comforting. The bed of razor-pointed bamboo spikes was half buried in the grass. "I hope the others are doing well." Gray spoke to himself.

[teapotshark]

Against her better judgement, and for lack of any other idea, Beth pushed forward towards the sounds of gunfire and unnatural thunder. Whatever illusion this was, she maintained it was just that: an illusion. A realistic one at that, but nevertheless. She remained physically intangible, yet kept her eyes to the ground. Whenever she found a tripwire, she cautiously brushed apart the foliage on the ground. If luck prevailed, the disturbance would draw attention to the trap.

Every so often the snap of a twig or rustling of leaves would bring Beth to her feet, but nothing came out of the trees, and no sounds followed those. She moved back several paces once, investigated all the hiding place she could find, and found nothing. She blamed the magic of the illusion for playing with her mind.

At the sound of another burst of gunfire, nearer this time, she jogged ahead. Perhaps the sounds belonged to Flint, or Tony had retrieved a gun. She'd even welcome the hunter at this point. Emerging into a clearing, sure that this was where the sounds came from, Beth saw an old woman.

A familiar old woman, sun-tanned, with wrinkles deep set in her cheeks and around her eyes, just as Beth remembered her. She stood clutching a rotting heart in one age-spotted hand and a ruby pendant in the other. I buried that, Beth reminded herself. The witch smiled at her, as though she weren't straining to crush either heart or ruby, but her eyes held no warmth. The witch had to be a construct of the illusion, for she had no place in the jungle. And still, fear crept into Beth's mind and clouded her logic with doubt.

Heaviness began to set in. The light-weightedness she'd grown so used to ebbed away. The old witch swung the pendant gently side to side, while the odd thunderous rumble carried on elsewhere. Beth felt her knees hit solid ground and her hands fall into her lap, and all she could do was watch the ruby swing.

[Exie]

The rain had been so merciless, that it had soaked through the thick curtain of Kaori's ebony hair within the few moments it had lasted. Fantastic, she had sarcastically thought to herself. Although, even then, before the world around them changed to a jungle of bright light, she had felt as if something were off. She was not a very magically aware creature, but even she knew it was too peculiar for a sky-less night to suddenly erupt in downpour.

Just as suddenly, it felt as if someone had pulled back the curtains on a lazy morning. The rainclouds parted and the sun seemed to explode into the night sky. It was all she was aware of. The ball of fire burning too close, too low and seeping into her skin like a thousand poisoned needles.

She was instantly more animal than person. With a vicious hiss, she sprang from her spot beside Rikive and lunged for the closed sanctuary of a shadow. She found herself gripping a tree, clawing at its bark as if to hollow it out and envelop herself inside. Which, she might if she survived long enough.

"How the hell should I know anything about this?!" she growled at Rikive. In her fear, she experienced a sort of fury that rode on the tails of adrenaline. She wasn't personally angry at Rikive, even though she would have thought that to be a stupid question, sun or not. The frustrated squeals that drew from her throat seemed to make that clear as she assaulted the tree bark.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, it began to occur to her that she should have gone up in flames the instant the sun had licked her skin, but she was too panicked to really pause to think that through.

[KuroTenshi]

Rikive stared at the vampire as she clawed with panicked desperation at the bark of tree she clung too. It was...an oddly amusing sight. Seeing the overly confident creature of darkness reduced to a scrambling coward was satisfying to say the least. Shame the hunter wasn't here to see this, he would have gotten some enjoyment out of it.

Rikive rubbed her hand over her mouth to hide her grin and stepped closer to the terrified vampire. "I'm fairly certain that all of this," Rikive waved her hand around them. "Is fake. Which means," she pointed to the sunlight shining innocently through the canopy. "That sun is fake as well. So you're safe, alright?" Likely that wouldn't be enough to get her to leave the 'safety' of the tree so Rikive took a step back.

"Here." She pulled Winterthorn from it's sheath and in a cloud of smoke the sheath transformed into her shield. Rikive stabbed Winterthorn into the ground and removed the shield from her arm. The demi-goddess held out the shield for her 'companion' and raised her eyebrows. "Hold this over your head for shade, we need to start moving and looking for the others. Now if we're lucky, I'll be able to hear them somewhere in all of this, but that's going to be hard if you're screeching like-" Rikive cut herself off as a sound reached her ears. "Ssh." She held up her finger to her lips to signal Kaori to be quiet.

In the distance she heard a dull thump. Shortly after the first one, there was a second one. There was a rhythm to them, one she had heard before a few centuries ago. "We need to go. Now." Rikive yanked her sword out of the ground, gripping it tight while her eyes scanned their surroundings. "So pull it together. We've got big trouble coming our way."

[HeySeuss]

There was a screech in the air and that was where Tony headed, rather than the muffled thumps of explosives and the other things. This was a battlefield of limited vision, of thick ground growth and moisture; he was not entirely surprised, with Parael on his back, when they stepped into chest-high water, and Tony kept going, with Parael held above the waterline so he wouldn't drown as they waded through. Water like this was safer, relatively speaking, though there was the danger of leeches and other things in the water.

He knew that haste was dangerous -- to crash around in the bush was to bring the attention of whatever was lurking in it. And so even though there was a fear-driven wish to rush toward, he held himself, tremblingly, as he moved forward deliberately, clambering onto dry(-er) land and then back into boggy swamp. There was one advantage, in a sense, to this. He wasn't laden down like he was as an infantryman in this crap. Moving through it in the throes of his first change after a disastrous firebase action that put his company under siege and overrun, even hit with friendly fire from artillery at Dong Tam, didn't give him much in the way of memories besides a surrealistic blur of animal instinct and pain, hunger and rage. It was his first change out here, and he didn't want to repeat the experience. His animal nature, which he closely reigned in ever since, went wild out here.

That was why he was trembling.

And then the rounds started to land, creeping up behind them, huge blasts that landed with a plume of dirt, water, smoke and fire, leveling the trees; not just one hit of artillery, which could shake the entire world if one was close enough, but a creeping barrage of 155mm rounds, hitting one after the other and moving up in their direction.

Now he ran, now he sprinted, heedless of the traps, while his eyes sought some sort of cover, some place to cower from the awesome and impossible firepower of field artillery.

This is what made him snap the first time.

[HeySeuss]

The artillery barrage went over the area quickly; a couple shots and done, but it was a preparation fire. As the smoke cleared and Tony pulled himself up from where he cowered in terror, where he'd dove for shelter in a desperate instance of knowing he was on the receiving end of incoming fire, he heard the sound that every infantryman in Vietnam wanted to hear.

Whoop-whoop-whoop, the blades of hueys, bringing in the fire; the sound of machinegun and rocket fire from up above suppressing the enemies in the area -- it was hard to tell where the enemies were but apparently the helicopters had guidance.

Tony didn't have smoke to pop. He didn't have a radio. He didn't have a lot of things, but he managed to find his way into a clearing, and started waving his arms at the birds circling over head, the door gunners with their pigs (note: M60 machineguns) thundering away at targets of opportunity.

They could see him and they weren't shooting, so that meant that they were friendly...

Tony dared again, yelling, "THIS WAY!" for the others to hear, if they were indeed around, "HURRY!"

He didn't want to be left behind, and he didn't want to leave others behind.

[Necrophage]

A thundering barrage drowned the world with sound, dirt and terror. The deafening volley devastated the landscape. If Gray had a second chance to look before hitting the wet soil he would have sworn the scenery changed despite the assault of artillery. The hazy world smoked around him. Through his stunned eyes he could make out a figure rushing forward with adrenaline fueled vigor. He seemed to be carrying an awkward-looking backpack that.. clung to him?

Gray rubbed his eyes clear of dirt. There was a little figure on his back! It was Tony with Parry. He started shouting something that sounded like nothing more than a murmur below the boom of ordnance and whirlwind of chopper blades. Tony scrambled for the choppers as they starting touching down ahead. Screw this placee! Anywhere was better than being stuck in a jungle war zone. Whether this was a nightmare of Vietnam or Korea didn't matter. Wherever those choppers are headed can't be any worse than this piss-smelling, blood-soaked mosquito hell.

The hunter jetted off the ground. Adrenaline and fury were his blood. He surged forward to would-be safety in the outdated death traps.

[teapotshark]

Beth's knees sunk into mud but she kept her eyes shut tight and her hands over her ears. Even then she could hear the jingle of the pendant swaying in the old woman's hand, and her cackle, like something out of a bad movie. It took fast-paced footfalls originating from behind her to get Beth to raise her head. She turned and saw four men sprinting towards her, pistols in hand and definitely not belonging to the jungle. Her body began to move of its own accord and she jumped to her feet. She ran forward, past the faded visage of the old woman, back into the jungle.

The shouts continued, fainter if she sped up and louder when she slowed. Beth tried to push the image of the witch from her mind and instead think of the team she came here with. They would ground her. All must be experiencing some illusion, as they had when it began. It was a trick, designed to defeat them, and it had worked at least on her. But who else, if anyone?

"This way!" The voice, distinctively different from those of her pursuers, cut through their shouts. She paused, unsteady in her footing, to listen. The jeering stopped and Tony's voice came again, accompanied by the sound of helicopters. "Hurry!" Beth took off again, following his call. Without the weight of her delusion, she ran faster and, after some effort, became intangible.

As the trees and undergrowth began to shift in the wind of the choppers, she spotted one flying low up ahead. Then she saw Tony with Parael on his back, then the hunter. Beth would never admit being happy to see him, but Tony and their infant friend were welcome sights. She felt her confidence returning already, secure in her ghostly state.

Before she caught up to them, she called out for the others and tried to pinpoint their energy signals. "This way! Head for the helicopters!"