RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Writer's Block Vanguard International [Issue 15] World of Darkness

"Indeed we shall be!" bellowed Templar with another laugh as the shadows of the woods gave way to a meanecing form creeping from within. A massive form like none that the Vanguardians had ever seen lumbered into the clearing. The head was almost birdlike with large, curved teeth jutting from it's lower beak. The body was like a mixture of a bear and a lion. A dark, almost black, coat of fur clung tightly to it's body. Two whip-like tails wagged side to side, seperate of each other. The large paws contained razor sharp claws capable of shredding any living thing within minutes. An earshattering scream sounding as though several beasts had been swallowed whole and caught in the beast's throat was let loose. The creature was birthed from pure necromatic magic. It was a wraig.

Sam looked at his old friend, Danny. "You know we can run, right?"

Ten more wraigs came out of the shadows at the far edge of the clearing. Each one bore archers clad in red, reading their bows.

"A tactical retreat does sound like a good idea. Until we can shake the cobwebs from our heads. Priest, lay down some cover fire. Everyone else, let's get the hell out of here."

Raptor's form dove in a straight swoop, the cool turbulence bleeding over his temples. As he passed over the field, his eyes narrowed, piercing in their gaze. His mouth sneered involuntarily, as he could make out another pack of Waigs cresting the hilltop. Scanning down, he circled near Phil's solid stance....

A spark of movement....to his right.

The treeline.

Ed growled with a decisive grunt, heaving the fragmented standard of his mace.....

....straight at Phil Smith.

The moment seemed to slow in his perception, Euro's visual coordination skimming the ticks of a second. Between the blink of an eye, the mace collided with a single red shaft, splintering the projectile into matchsticks.

Phil's eyes jerked to his right as the mace embedded the damp soil directly beside his foot. The Alpha Waig suddenly growled a bit, Smith momentarily distracted.

"Shhh! Shhh!" he soothed mentally as well as verbally. "...it's okay...there's no one else around.....the water is fresh....rolling off the cliff in cool, clean gulps.....that's right..."

The creature's eyes, dazed off in the distance of its mind, lulled and hung, even as his tongue darted unconsciously out of its mouth.

"...why not take a nap..." he continued. "...the sun is warm, and inviting today...let it soothe you....rest your exhausted soul against the silken embrace of the high grass....that's right....sleep.........sleep.............sleep.........."

The creature finally slumped to the ground, resting peacefully unaware of the battle around him. And, one by one, the rest of the pack followed suit...

On the edge of the treeline, Drake ricocheted from limb to limb, fragments of loose leaves, and twigs, drizzling down in his wake. Two more arrows buried themselves along the trunk of what looked to be a sturdy oak, Marshall's now-bare feet slapping against the steady bark.

He somersaulted sideways, another arrow sliding directly under him. He landed in a low crouch, immediately spinning on one foot. His outstretched leg swept the ankles of two more archers, their shots going wild. He was back up, planting a single kick directly into the chest of a third attacker, as his head jerked back-and-right....an arrow whizzing past his left cheek.

Drake turned, and in one smooth motion, ran straight up the side of the tree. Backflipping in unison, four more shafts followed his path up the bark. The Vanguardian came down, immediately flowing into a series of quick backflips. The last flip bounced him higher, giving his body time to spin along the momentum, landing a solid roundhouse-kick into a shattering jaw.

He jerked his left arm up with a strained grunt, a swinging bow breaking along his forearm. Driving the man's nasal cavity with a solid flathand, Drake instantly rammed both of his elbows to each side, catching two archers in the throats.

The two bodies crumpled to the ground, clutching their throats in winded gasps....and the clearing beneath the canopy of trees went silent....

Drake panted a bit, wiping the sweat from his brow.

"...out of shape..." he murmured to himself.

After only a brief pause, he bolted straight for another low-hanging branch, effortlessly swinging off of it, flying higher into the branches....headed for the next position of archers.....

"Grimm! Grimm!!" Danny yelled, slapping the avatar's skulled visage a few times. "Come on man....snap out of it! We need you!"

Grimm didn't move, his enormous form silent, and still.

"...fuck..." Hearn growled.

Adem's eyes were wide, slumped against the wheel of the wooden cart. He stared around, back and forth, trying to pinpoint the sounds around him. His blind-like gaze settled onto Grimm's form directly in front of him.

"....it eats him...." he commented.

"What?" Danny jerked his eyes towards the alien.

"...this...this land...." he said, staring back off with a wide-eyed blindness. "...it eats him, as it does the rest of us...."

Danny sighed, rolling his eyes with exasperation.

"Well, thanks for the diagnosis---"

He dove flat against Grimm's chest, two arrows flying past. Adem didn't flinch as the crimson shafts lodged into the wood right next to his head.

"Adem, get down!" Danny barked with annoyance.

Adem slinked a bit further down on the ground. His fingers running over cool metal, he pulled Grimm's axe from its rest, holding the broad, flat metal over his upper torso...using the wide span of silver as a make-shift shield.

Two more Wiags lunged down towards the Vanguards position, Danny immediatey leaping to meet them. His mouth chattered a few words, his musculature altering to fit the needed requirements of the genetic blend.

"You! New guy!" Sam yelled.

"Epice--"

"Whatever!" the shapeshifter yelled, dropping another Waig with his morphed hand-blade. "Work your mojo! Do something!"

Michaels opened his mouth to respond, pausing....

"I...I don't control it that easily....it could be worse if I--"

"I don't care!!" he replied, the ferocity of battle growing larger and faster around them. "Hit these fuckers with all you've got!"

"I..." he stammered, uncertain.

"Do it!!" Sam repeated, another creature lunging at him.

In a fit of panic, Michaels quickly reached up to each of his shoulders....

....switching his harness off....

Then, closing his eyes, he slowly began raising his hands. His teeth gritted.

His face strained red with concentration.

His arms began to tremble.

And, just when he thought he couldn't handle the strain anymore.....

.....nothing happened.

His eyes snapped open, staring at his hands with a perplexed confusion.

"I...why didn't it....I don't understa--"

His words were suddenly cut off, as the ground began to tremble violently.

Michaels fell to the ground, as did most everyone else....the quake growing in depth and violence....

"I did it!!" he yelled with a wide smile, holding his fist up in triumph.

...and the ground began to fissure and split...

Michaels expression fell, as his eyes widened.

"...uh-oh...I did it...?" he said with a growing fear.

The fissures crawled over the field, widening with the quaking earth.

Ozzy was crawling along the shaking firmament, as an enormous fissure split open under him. The lower half of his body dropped into the opening, as he clawed with quick panic against the grass, trying to hold on.

"Brawler!" Mason Templar yelled, leaping from his crouched position. He landed chest first against the ground, stretching Caliburne straight out.

Ozzy grabbed the end of the blade, gripping as tightly as possible, trying to pull himself up....

....and the ground ripped open under him, his hand slipping off the blade....

The soil split directly up to Mason, who quickly jerked the emerald sword up, planting it firmly into a still solid segment of ground. His lower torso, slipped down off the edge of the abyss, as Raptor shot past behind him, headed in a straight free-fall dive directly into the mouth of the opening....

"Got you!" Priest yelled, grabbing Templar's wrist.

"Bah!" he retorted between grunts. "I am in no need of being gotten!"

And, even as Priest pulled him free from the embrace of the void below, Ed shot back up out of the widening chasm, Ozzy hoisted under one arm.

"Michaels!!" Danny yelled above the thunderous roar. "Shut it off!!"

"I--" the rookie began, his eyes suddenly widening.

Before him.....before them all.....the ground seized and lifted along the edge of the wide hilltop. Steam began to bubble and boil, as the ground pushed further and further up into a cone-like shape....

"...oh super fuck..." Michaels sighed. "...I did it alright..."

Glowing magma began to burst from the tip of the coned earth, spewing lava with a cracking thunder.

"Jeezus Criste'!!" Baxter yelled, Raptor taking evasive manuevers, as red-hot fire sprayed into the skies around them.

"Everyone!! Bail out! Bail out!!" Danny began yelled.

And, without warning, a light-violet energy wave suddenly ripped across the fields, enveloping every Vanguard member instantly.

And, like that.....they vanished.

The magma spewed forth, covering the field with a violent eruption. The Archers of the forest retreated as quickly as the Waigs....

*******************

Lord Godbolt's servant stood on the high balconey, built into the precipace of the ashen cliffside. His unearthly eyes stared out over the distance with a fearful silence, even as a thunder broke faintly in the distance.

"What was that?!" the voice of Lord Godbolt announced from inside.

The servant opened his mouth to reply, but, could not, as he stared out into the glowing horizon.

"Sir....I....uh..."

"SPEAK, HOUND! Did I not give you a tongue to wag? Speak!!" the voice came again.

"Well...sir....it appears that we now have a.....volcanoe.....to our east...."

***********************

The waterfall splashed with a rhythmic beat, the cool water lapping against Ozzy's face.

He suddenly bolted upright, eyes opening with a startled gasp...

"No more rice!!" he yelled for no apparent reason.

He blinked for a moment, looking around.

"Steady..." Phil said, gripping him by his outstrecthed hand. "...it takes a moment..."

Everyone was slowly coming to, gathering their wits in a groggy state....

"...what....what the hell happened?" Danny asked, looking around at the completely new geographic location. "Where are we?"

"Somewhere safe....for now...." Sam replied calmly.

"How did we get here?" Drake asked, looking back and forth at the two mountains that crested on either side of their view.

"That was sorcery...." Sam replied, rubbing his neck. "....you get used to the feel of it..."

"Sorcery?" Priest asked.

"Aye, the youth speaks the truth!" Templar nodded. "I have felt the after-burn of the devilish power such as this before."

"But....who did this?" Banshee asked.

"I don't know...." Sam said. "....but, it seems that Vanguard has an ally somewhere...."

The shadow of the dual mountains embraced the exhausted members of Vanguard as evening approached. The waterfall, rising a good five-hundred feet up, steadily poured crystal blue coolness into the wide collecting pool. Running off in twin streams on either side, the mountain water plunged off a three-thousand-foot drop into the thin mist below.

Danny stood ankle-deep in the icy water, peering over the side with great care. After a moment, he leaned back up, realizing that the team was secluded on an enormous precipace, halfway up a mountain range. Thick, untouched grass covered the ground, a few trees dotting around the perimeter of the wading pool.

Hearn said nothing. He thought nothing. Merely, Danny stared out over the vast horizon before them, drinking deeply the calmness of the moment. The sheer serenity of nothing but the rushing water, and the few screeches of birds far, far in the distance.

Sam strolled up next to him, his feet remaining on the grassy blanket of earth. He opened his mouth to speak, and paused almost immediately.

He and Danny had known each other for quite a while. They knew the others habits and traits. Recognized moods.

This was one of Danny's 'Quiet Times'. When Sam could see in his distant expression....in his slacked posture.....the need for...just a moment alone. Just a moment of silence. To get his bearings.

To get his thoughts in order.

....to calm his nerves.....

Danny was born and bred the leader of Vanguard. However, he was only human. And, it was these human moments that....out of all of Vanguard.....only Sam Dawson could see. Not just because he had gotten to know the man, as a friend....

....but, because Danny....allowed him to see them....

Of everyone he had encountered in the 21st century, Sam Dawson was the closest thing Daniel Hearn could come to describing as.....a 'best friend'.

Dawson simply turned his gaze, following Danny's stare into hazy field of stars that slowly revealed themselves....far out over the horizon of the oncoming night.

They said nothing....made no sound....for close to five minutes....

"Status?" Danny finally asked, his voice one of calmn demanor.

"Well....let's see...." Dawson replied, the two finally turning to face each other. "Priest and Mason suffered minor wounds. Nothing serious. Magma singed the tip edge of Bri's left wing. She'll be fine, and so will the wing. She may not want to overdue it, though...."

"What about Baxter?"

"Not sure what's going on there.....his skin seems to be....mutating..."

Danny just nodded, arms folded.

"Drake pulled his calf muscle, but blames it on his being 'rusty'......" Sam continued. "....Raptor and Phil are fine.....Adem's half-blind....Grimm is still out..."

"Michaels?" Hearn asked.

"Fine....but, he's starting down a spiral....blames himself for Bri's wing...." Sam replied, tilting his head towards the group. "....you may want to give him a talk....let'em know it's okay...."

"Hrm." Danny grunted.

If there was one down-side to the job of leadership, it was the 'Pep Talk'.

He hated the 'Pep Talk'.

"You know....you could talk to him, if you want...."

"...Danny...." Sam sighed with a small smile.

"...okay, okay..." Hearn nodded. He turned back towards the view, taking in the sharp crescent moon barely grazing the edge of the horizon. "Sam...what are we doing here......?"

Dawson grinned, nodding with the infered tone of his friend's voice.

"What we do best.......save the world, and charge a blasphemous fee...."

No matter how much he tried, Danny couldn't suppress the chuckle this caused, shooting the nastiest look he could muster at his friend.

The two allowed the happiness to proceed its normal course, feeling this might be the last moment they got, for quite a while to come.

Danny's eyes hardened back up, staring directly at Dawson.

"Are we in over our heads?" he asked. "I mean, invading a small country is one thing.....but an entirely new dimension?"

Anyone else that could have seen this might have been shocked to see Hearn's self-doubt break through....

A rare moment of vunerability.

"Danny...." Sam shook his head with another sigh.

But, not Dawson.

He had always been Dan's emotional bouncing board......his steadfast strongarm of alliance.

Danny needed Sam.

But, Sam wasn't a leader. Not like Danny. He may have possessed the skills....but not the fortitude the Australian so casually expressed.

Sam needed Danny.

"I mean it, Dawson...." Danny replied. "....we're on a blind journey, with impossible odds.....preparing to face god-knows-what.....and our power has already been halved. What are we doing out here?"

"Whatever it takes." he said. "Whatever we have to....to free these people.....to survive...."

The leader said nothing, looking back over at the crew sitting lazily throughout the comforting foliage.

"Night's coming...." he finally spoke. "....let's set-up camp here for the night....maybe we'll get a chance to regroup...."

Euro knelt down near Brianna. "How is your wing?"

"I'll be fine. I've felt much worse pain."

Euro sighed deeply. "So young too. I'm afraid that it will be a constant companion on the path you've chosen." He looked around at their teammates scattered around the campsite. "That we've all chosen."

Brianna smiled up at him. "Well, we seem to have better companions than pain, for the time being at least."

"Yes, you're right. I have a feeling, though, that one of us is feeling lonelier than usual. If you'll excuse me." Euro walked over to where Drake stood off by himself. "You shouldn't be standing, if your leg is hurt."

Drake didn't turn back, he still faced upward and away from the camp. "I've had plenty of time to sit. Besides, it isn't that bad. I could heal my leg while hopping on it, if I wanted to. We have something in common, Euro. We both used to be competitive athletes, at least I was until I entered college. I quit though, because I knew that my abilities would be too obvious. Well, there was a game where I broke my leg. Three fractures below the knee. I was walking the next day."

"No one suspected?"

"What would they think? Metas weren't too well known back then, they just thought that the reports of my injury had been exaggerated. But I knew I could never be that careless again."

"Why do you tell me this?"

"So you know I'll be OK. And you can tell the others. I'm not brooding. I'm not obsessing. I'm here to do a job. I don't have Drax to help me with it, but I have my old abilities back. When it's time for action, I'll be ready. But we're resting right now and right now I want to look at the stars."

"They're different here. I recognize none of the constellations."

"Nope, we're too far from home for that. Too...alone."

"Your dragon may be gone for now, Drake. But you don't need to be alone."

Drake turned around, a familiar crooked smile on his face. "You're right. It's too damn quiet without Drax jabbering in my head. Besides, I think I know someone else who can use a pep talk. Thanks."

"No problem, my friend."

Drake walked over to another figure, standing even more by himself than Drake had been. "Hey, Epstein. What's shakin'?" Drake's flippant introduction was met with silence by Epicenter. "Fine, fine. Bad choice of words. Look, nobody's mad at you."

"I could have killed the entire team shortly after the start of my first mission. Not much of a first impression, huh?"

"Don't sweat it. Look, you didn't get it quite right, but so what? you were pushing yourself to the limit in a high stress situation. We all saw it, we understand. We're going to move on. We're going to get this mission done. We just need you to do the same."

"Thank you. I'll do my best."

"You don't need to convince me, I saw you trying. And hey, if it makes you feel any better, I like you a lot better than the other guy I know with earth control powers."

"Really?"

"Oh, hell yeah. Let me tell you about a guy named Jonas Cascade..."

"Where are you going?" asked Brianna to Edulcore, as he walked away from the camp.

"Looking for food. A rabbit, a deer... with the cart gone, the ox too... and all of our stuff lost... it's better if we start to hunt, now that we have time to do..."

"Can I came? I have this!" The winged marvel produced a small crossbow from a sack hanging from her back.

"Cool."

"You gave me. Well not you. Mimic impersonating you in Mandelovia."

"It's small, but I guess it's deadly. Better than my hawk-bill, anyway." They were heading for the bushes, when they crossed the path of Mason Templar. "You come, Mason? We are going to hunt!"

The big man raised his head, which seemed lost in though, smiling. "No, not now, sorry. Gotta take care of Erasmus".

Euro shrugged, and kept walking, followed closely by the girl. a few hundred meters later, they found themselves on the rim of an ample pasture, where a few dozens of deers were grazing.
Similar in size and antlers dimension to roe deers, but oddly striped in grey and brown.

"Do you think we can reach them before they swarm away?" asked Brianna.

"No. That's why we'll do different, Bree. It's the golden eagle routine with chamois. I will wait here. You will fly in a big circular path away, and then you will attack them from the opposite side. They will run toward me, and I will slaughter as many as possible."

"With that?" said the girl, pointing at the hawk-bill.

"With this. It's enough. Obviously when you scare them you could use the crossbow".

"Very well!" exclaimed Brianna, obviously relived to not have just a simple supporting role.

Euro laid down, looking at the animals under the bright moonshine.

Banshee took flight, flapping her wings with a graceful yet powerful beat.

Minutes passed, Euro ready to see the deer starting their run,m and Bri behind them. But the animals kept grazing, and no sign of the girl.

Then: "Ed, Ed! Come over here!" The voice of Brianna came from down the slope.

Ed fled there, following the direction of the voice.

Brianna was standing in the middle of a meadow dotted by countless burial barrows.

Every heap dug, violated.

"What's this, Ed?"

"A sacred field, Bri. A city of dead." Memories of others people, of heroes before his time were piling up in his mind.

A dense mist was rising from the ground, dissolving the surrounding to their sight.

And the, from one of the tumulus, they heard coming a weeping cry.

They walked there, hand in hand.

It was a woman, dead from long time. A skeleton, with long grey hair, decomposed muscles and tendons, rotten flesh. But from her empty sockets came tears. She was holding a little skeleton to her breasts.

The scene was inspiring just pity. There was no horror in that. Nor Ed, nor Bri were scared.

Euro kneeled in front of the woman, and lightly touched her.

The dead woman turned her head toward Edulcore, and cried, trying to move away, the little skeleton under one arm.

"Don't be scared" whispered Brianna.

"What happened?" asked Ed.

"You... are not Dark Riders, right?" The words resonated inside the minds of the two Vanguardians, as no tongue or vocal cords could have produced any sounds, being lost to the woman by decades.

"We are not from this world. We are... knights from another world, summoned here to bring peace."

"You will help me?"

"What happened, woman?"

"Godbolt necromancers came here and disturbed our peace. They awoke us. They made everyone slave, to work and fight for him, in his unlimited lust for power. I heard the spirits, they say the nations of the deads are rising to fighting Godbolt. I managed to escape, I wanted to find the resistance... but then I discovered this..." The zombie like creature was pointing at the little skeleton. "My son. He has not been awoken. He needs me in the Land of the deads, I can't leave him alone. Oh, great cavalier, sever my head, so that I can rejoin him!"

Euro felt a great compassion for the woman. His eyes went to Bri, which nodded slightly.

The hawkbill fell, the head rolled away from the body.

The two bird people composed the bodies of the woman and the child again in their tumulus, repaired the dug, and then returned to the camp, without preys but full of questions.

Phil placed a few more bits of wood on the fire and sat down with Ozzy, Danny, and Adem.

"So what happened out there?" Danny asked as Phil began rummaging through a knapsack.

Phil shrugged. "I'm not sure. This place is different."

"No shit, Sherlock," Ozzy muttered.

"His psionic emanations," Adem explained as he kept rubbing his eyes and squinting at the flames, "briefly aligned with the creatures' natural psi patterns."

"Meaning... what?" Ozzy asked as he leaned over to see what Phil had in the knapsack.

"Meaning," Danny replied, "that for a brief period of time, Phil was subliminally communicating with the wargs." He turned to Phil. "Right?"

The telepath nodded slowly. "I can't explain it," he said in reply. "Normally I don't have too much active influence on animals, or else it's pretty neutral. I know I can attempt to impose a calming effect over human minds, and occasionally it works on domesticated animals. This time..."

Phil shook his head. "Everything's all wrong here. I can't move objects around, and I can't feel my shield working. But, at the same time, it feels like somebody turned up the volume on the universe. I can pick up stuff I didn't even know was there before we came here." He paused. "I can project information faster, to more minds." He smiled briefly as he spotted what he was looking for in the bag. "And I'm starting to see stuff."

"See... what stuff?" Baxter asked.

Phil looked at him. "Other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, I think. I'm seeing thermal imprints in the dark, when warmer objects are around. Before the -Loader was destroyed, I was starting to see waves, I think low-level radiation, emanating from its engine." He frowned. "There's other stuff too. When the comms were functional, I could overhear all the chatter. When computers were up and running, I was picking up information streaming from them. In this place, it appears I'm able to see signals, fluctuations in whatever electromagnetic fields are in place here."

Adem nodded. "Before my vision went away, I began to perceive similar things. Under normal circumstances, I can take in a wider portion of the EM spectrum than human eyes are capable of seeing. But when we arrived here..." The alien winced. "Far too much... far too much."

Danny raised an eyebrow. "If Adem can't process all of this," he wondered aloud, "what's letting you do it? Is it the cybers in your head? They must be the only things working properly here."

Smith scratched his head as he thought about it. "I don't know, but whatever they're doing, they're not functioning as per usual."

Ozzy looked alarmed. "Whaddya mean?"

"When the wargs were coming at us," Phil replied, "my train of thought was derailed for a brief moment. Just a split second. And I remembered something. I think it was something from my past. My childhood."

Danny's eyes widened. "What was it?"

"It seems really random," Phil chuckled. "But it was really surreal, like in a dream where you can't really see anything clearly but you somehow know what's what." He looked up at the stars. "I was sitting on a little hill overlooking a cornfield. It was a late September afternoon, when the air was just starting to get chilly..." As Phil turned the memory over in his mind, more details began to surface. "It was my birthday," he said as a smile spread across his face. "I was eleven." His smile faded. "It was... during... the Depression."

Danny and Ozzy looked at him intently as Phil went on, his knapsack forgotten.

"It was my eleventh birthday," Phil repeated. "The year was... 1936. I could only get one present for my birthday. We were poor, even for the Depression... But that year, there was a big harvest, and my..." Phil dropped to his knees. "Aghhhhh!"

Danny rushed to help him up. "What? Your what?"

"My father," Phil gasped. "I can't remember him! But... he was there!"

"You okay, man?" Ozzy asked as he picked up a water bottle and prepared to empty it on the winded telepath.

Phil held up a hand. "I'm... I'm alright." He slowly sat up. "I think I've still got it in my head."

"A puppy," he continued. "My father gave me a puppy. A little beagle. I remember my dog." Emotions came flooding into his mind, and Phil fought desperately to remain focused and keep drawing out the memory. "That was it. I was sitting on the hill holding my new puppy. He fell asleep in my arms." A single tear trickled slowly down the cheek of a man who had once been New York's most feared vigilante. "Holding my puppy. Just me and my dog, and everything was all right with the world."

"And that's what you did to the wargs," Ozzy finished for him, making the connection.

Phil turned away to hide his face and nodded. "Not the memory itself. The feeling. I took all of those feelings and pushed them toward the leader of the pack." He smiled, his back to them. "And it worked."

"That's amazing," Danny said in astonishment. "But... how long?"

"How long what?" Baxter asked.

"How long will your abilities be altered in this manner?" Adem finished the question.

Phil looked at them and shrugged. "I don't know," he replied. "But it doesn't matter at the moment."

"Your shield doesn't work, man," Ozzy reminded him. "You can't move stuff. And you're getting all this information overload."

"I know," Phil replied. "I'm as puzzled as you are. But, I'm starting to remember things. If this is what it takes..." Phil smiled. "I'm okay with that."

"Remember, though," Danny cautioned him, "you're not here just to discover yourself. There are dangerous things here, Phil. We can't have you getting hurt - or worse - because your powers aren't working right."

Phil frowned. "I'm working on it. I might need help, but I'm gonna do my best to keep all this from getting in the way."

"So," Ozzy said, changing the subject, "what's in the bag?"

Phil turned and smiled as he reached into the bag and pulled out two wire hangers, which he unwound and straightened.

Ozzy got it. The prizefighter grinned.

"Interesting choice," Danny said as Phil pulled out a box of graham crackers, followed by a handful of Hershey bars. He tossed one of the bars and the box to Ozzy, who took one of the hangers.

"What is it?" Adem wondered as Phil got out a bag of marshmallows.

"A few of my favorite things," Phil said with a smile. He turned to Danny. "You never had these?"

The Aussie shrugged. "Never got the opportunity, mate."

Phil popped two marshmallows onto a hanger and began toasting them over the fire. "Food of the gods, my friend."

Adem looked on curiously, straining to see as Ozzy, sitting next to him, slipped a perfectly browned 'mallow between two halves of a graham cracker and a piece of chocolate. "Ozzy?"

"Want one?" Ozzy asked.

"One what?"

"Do you want a s'more?" Ozzy repeated.

Adem raised an eyebrow. "If I haven't had anything, how can I have some more of nothing?"

Phil couldn't resist. "You're killin' me, Smalls!"

Ozzy collapsed laughing. Danny and Adem looked at each other, puzzled.

"Here," Baxter said, offering the finished product to Adem. "Try one."

Adem bit into the concoction. "So much processed sugar," he observed. "Actually, it tastes... rather good."

"Not bad," Danny echoed as he finished off one Phil gave him.

"Glad you approve," Smith said as he polished off his second.

"Way to think ahead," Ozzy said around a mouthful of marshmallow-and-chocolate goodness.

Phil shrugged. "I figured we'd have a fire at some point, so why not have some fun with it?"

Danny chuckled. "Impressive strategic planning."

The four Vanguardians were silent for a moment as they enjoyed the toasted treats.

"Y'know something, Phil?" Danny asked.

The telepath turned.

"No matter how many missions we've been on," Hearn said, "you never cease to surprise me."

"I do what I can," Phil replied.

"Let's hope you can recall some more memories in the near future," Baxter said. "This place weirds me out."

"It's magic," Phil said nonchalantly.

"You believe in that stuff?" Ozzy asked, mildly amused.

"I see it," Phil replied.

Danny dropped half a s'more into the fire. "What?"

Phil gestured at the air with his hands. "Signals. I've seen these unidentifiable signals ever since we got here. And I've figured out what they are."

"Magic is an electromagnetic signal?" Danny asked incredulously.

"Not in the sense any of us would understand," Phil explained. "Magic is sort of... well... another programming language for reality. It's like reality is a big video game, and magic is the cheat codes. It doesn't line up with any 'commands' we'd recognize, but it lets the user temporarily suspend the rules of the game so they can do things they otherwise couldn't."

"You came up with all that?" Danny asked, clearly impressed.

"Actually," Phil replied, "I got most of it from The Drummer."

"Who?"

"Planetary," Phil replied. "Only my favorite comic ever."

Ozzy put a hand to his forehead and groaned.

"There are only two kinds of magic," Phil continued. "White, black, good, bad... with magic those are all subjective. The only way to classify magic is by what it does, and there are only two categories. Either you're altering reality, or you're altering others' perception of reality."

"Sam might not agree with you," Danny challenged.

"I suppose it depends on what you consider magic," Phil answered. "Once you can see it and understand how it works, it becomes applied science, albeit a bit metaphysical in nature."

"Where do you come up with all this stuff?" Ozzy asked.

Phil smirked. "In all honesty, I really don't recall."

"I suppose we'd better get some sleep, mates," Danny said, checking his pocket watch - his digital wristwatch was on the blink. "We've got a lot to do, and we need to be a hundred percent." He headed for his tent. "G'night, gentlemen."

"Danny's bunking with Sam and Drake," Ozzy said, "so I think that leaves us three in the second tent." He turned to Adem. "You gonna be alright?"

"Perhaps," the alien replied, "after I get some sleep."

"Don't hold your breath," Phil warned him. "This guy snores like you wouldn't believe," he said, jerking a thumb in Ozzy's direction.

The prizefighter paled. "How did you know..."

Phil laughed, still addressing Adem. "You shoulda seen the guy passed out on the sofa at the New Year's party after losing the drinking contest to Grimm."

"I was out of practice!" Baxter insisted.

The sky was dark and the team sat around a fire eating the flesh of a deer-like animal Brianna and Euro had hunted on their way back to the camp, just when they had given up all hopes of finding any food.

"Do you think we should be eating this meat?" Drake asked, "We don't know what effect it could have on us..."

"I DON'T CARE!" Mason Templar exclaimed as his teeth destroyed a piece of meat three times bigger than the one Drake was holding.

"Don't worry, Drake," Sam said, "I've been eating this for months and I seem to be okay..."

"Oh shit, now the whole team's gonna start calling me 'Ox'" Ozzy lamented.

As the team laughed, Phil looked at Matthews and asked, "Was it like this at the Strikeforce?"

"What?"

"Back in the Strikeforce," Phil continued, "did you ever have moments like this one with your teammates?"

Epicenter thought for a moment. "No," he said, staring blankly at the fire, "It was the opposite of this, actually. The senior members thought they were too good for everyone else... And everyone else was too busy trying to escalete positions to be friendly to each other. Even guys like Hero and Captain Ekorre were total jerks."

"Now that you're being open..." Priest said, "would you tell us your damn first name, man?"

"I'm not trying to hide it, it's just that every time I try to say it something bad happens!"

"Come on, that's silly..." Drake said. "Don't be superstitious."

"Okay, it's--" "BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURP!"

Everyone looked at Mason Templar as he sat back in relaxation. "Aaaaah..." he said "Haven't had a meal like that in a loooooooong time..." He suddenly looked very concerned. "I'm terribly sorry if I embarassed you, milady," he said, leaning in Brianna's direction.

"Umm... Don't worry about me," she replied, leaning back to avoid the smell of Templar's breath, that reached her though she was sitting on the opposite side of the fire.

"I suggest you refrain from saying your first name, Epicenter, if we don't want our mister Templar to liberate any other kind of gas..." Adem said, and with that the place was filled with the team's laughter, Templar's own being the loudest of them all.

As they were, one by one, standing up to find a good place to lye down to sleep, Brianna cried, and suddenly slapped Matthews in the face.

"What I have done?" exclaimed Epicenter, his eyes wide open in dismay.

"You touched my ass, you dork!" yelled Brianna, very upset.

"But that's not true! And why me? The big guy was right behind you!" said loudly the new recruit, pointing at Euro.

The Italian looked at the man narrowing his eyes, and growling like a bear. "It has been a very hard day for everyone, Matthews. The lady is nice, and you feel alone. Go to bed, and think over it. Tomorrow another stunt like this and you'll have a shower under the waterfall!" And then, to himself: "This place is really sickening us all".

"But I... oh, what the hell" Epicenter turned on his feet. "I didn't do anything" he mumbled, kneeling down and then lying on his side, covering himself with small branches of pines, freshly cut, having them lost all their rugs in the cart.

That night Brianna had strange dreams.

Brianna was somewhere outside the camp. She was lying down, naked, somewhere in the sand by the river. A thick layer of pale liquid was covering her entire body, and she was shaking from the cold. Why was she so cold? She move one arm in an attempt to get up when she noticed her own wing.

There were no feathers. Well, at least not the long off-white feathers Brianna was use to seeing on her wings. These feathers were short and thin and pale. Most of them clung to the flesh of her wings like a damp rag, but the dryer feathers near the tips were like soft down.

"Agh!" she said, but her tongue didn't seem coordinated. She tried to speak again, but nothing came out. She coughed up some fluid and tried a third time. A weak, but high pitched wail came out. Her arms, still weak, collapse, and she fell back into the dirt, and stayed there, shivering. She like a newborn chick -- defenseless, naked, mute, without any aid...

***

...it was the sound of Mason's giant bird, Erasmus, that woke Brianna up. She stood up and saw two threats -- a massive hawk to her left, and the remains of a camp fire on her right.

"Skreeeeee!"

Euro, sleeping closest to her, woke up. "Bri, what's going --"

"Skreeeeee!"

Euro clapped his hands over his ears. Brianna needed room. This area was too crowded for her. Too many threats. She needed to fly. Looking up at the sky, she opened her wings and made for the clearing in the trees, extinguishing the fire with her powerful wingbeats. She left her own teammates, although in her eyes they seemed like carnivorous apes to her. By the time they were up, she was only a speck in the air.

***

"So," said Ozzy to Phil, "any idea where she is?"

"Hush," snapped Euro, wincing and rubbing his head. Brianna's cry had injured his ears, and he was extra-sensitive to noise. "Every fucking leaf hitting the ground hurts. It'll pass soon."

Phil was looking up in the air. "I can enter her mind, but I'm not making much sense of it. Her thoughts are so...random. There's no sense of order. She's always been a little flighty -- she had a panic attack from all the gunshots she heard while we were all watching Reservior Dog."

"That was fucking hilarious," said Ozzy. His mind turned back to the present. "Euro said she acted like she didn't even recognize any of us."

Phil nodded. "You know what the primitive brain is?" Ozzy shook his head. "It's a small part of the human brain. It's a huge part in the lizards. The more primitive an animal, the larger precentage this primitive brain occupies. It controls the most basic things in life. It doesn't think, it reacts. That's what I'm getting from Brianna. Air too cold, turn towards heated air thermal. Predatory animal sounds from southeast, turn northweset."

Danny overheard the last bit. "Any chance of recovering Brianna, Phil?"

Phil didn't look very positive. "Danny, she's long gone. I don't think she'd even understand us if we talked to her."

Danny thought about it for a moment. "So her cheese has gone off her cracker. And we can't have Brianna get caught by the opposition and have them find out about us." He spoke loud enough for everyone to hear him. "Anyone spies the Banshee, try to catch her and restrain her. And if it looks like she might aid the enemy, don't be afraid to stop her...any way you can."

The group turned as one, startled by a loud, hacking, coughing noise. Grimm sat upwards and coughed up another mass of black liquid onto the ground next to him. "Bllleaarrrghhh!!!"

"Bloody marvelous. . ." Danny exclaimed, rolling his eyes. "You, newbie!" he said, pointing at Epicenter. "Stay here, and watch the sick guys." he motioned at Adem and Grimm.

"Me??!!" Epicenter cried out. "I'm gonna get killed by something while you guys out there! I'm the new guy that nobody knows yet! Don't you watch movies?! I'm the cannonfodder!" Epicenter was raving, his mind reeled by the concept of dimensional travel.

"This isn't a movie, newbie. You'll be okay. . ." Danny tried to interrupt.

Epicenter was too busy ranting. "Don't hand me that! You guys don't even know my name!"

"Oh, yes we do. . ." Danny started again.

"Do you?! DO YOU?!" he screamed at Hearn.

". . .It's Michaels, right?" Sam piped in.

"MATTHEWS! IT'S MATTHEWS!" he screamed out. "Oh, god, I'm gonna die. . ." Epicenter sat down and rocked back and forth as Sam and Danny looked at each other, their expressions were of annoyment.

"Danny, can you come over here for a sec?" Drake called from near where Grimm lay on the ground, a small trail of black liquid dripping from his jaw.

"What is it, Drake? Any idea what's wrong with him?" Hearn asked the former vigilante.

"Well, this stuff he keeps coughing up. . ." Marshall began, "it's very caustic, first of all, so I don't advise touching it."

"Go on. . ." Hearn began to look worried.

"Well," Marshall continued, "I think it's his blood."

"His blood? Are you sure?"

Drake shook his head, squatting down. He stared at the thick, black bile-like substance bubbling with glints of moonlight, running a small twig through it.

"No....I said I think it's his blood..." he replied, squinting at the edge of the stick, bringing it eye-level.

Wisps of smoke drizzled into the night air, the tip end of the wood sizzling from the corrosive liquid.

"...excellent..." the leader sighed, looking around to see everyone gathering for the search. "....bad enough I don't understand his whole Avatar of Death schtick as it is...."

"Oh for the love of God....stop crying!" Ozzy barked at Matthews, Danny and Drake both turning to their left.

"Says the guy that can't be hurt!" Matthews replied with, what sounded like, a hurt tone.

Ozzy just rolled his eyes, his teeth gritting with annoyance. Phil casually stepped up behind him, leaning in towards his ear.

"I seem to remember someone else bitching like a little girl on their first mission...." he spoke quietly.

Ozzy turned to meet him with a cocked eyebrow, Phil just smiling with his hands up in a submitting posture.

"Those S'mores will only get you so far, Smith." he replied under his breath.

"...just saying..." Smith said, walking away.

Ozzy watched him go, a snarl curling his upper lip. He turned back looking at the Epicenter, who was sitting with his face buried in his hands.

"...fine..." he breathed, turning to Danny. "Hey Aussie-man...."

"Don't call me that." Danny replied evenly.

"...I'll stay with Mikey here...." he said, thumbing towards the rookie. "...figure he might need some back-up if the boogeymen learn to climb a mountain...."

"Matthews! Dammit!!" Epicenter interjected.

Danny and Ozzy looked at him briefly, returning their gaze back to each other.

"Couldn't hurt." Hearn said.

"Yeah..." Ozzy replied.

They both looked back down at Matthews, and then, back up again.

"Right." they said in unison, Danny walking off towards the group.

Dawson rubbed the back of his neck, yawning. Danny walked by, smacking him lightly in the back of the head.

"Wake up...." he said flatly.

"...asshole...." Sam grimaced. "We got, what? Maybe four hours sleep?"

"You'll live."

"Yeah....I will...." Dawson sneered. "...but, I'm going to be in a bitchy mood about it..."

"What's new?" Danny grinned, walking on.

Feet suddenly dropped from the sky, Ed landing directly next to Hearn.

"She is headed west...." the Italian stated evenly.

"Okay, then we go west."

"Danny....that will take us over two more mountain ranges..." he replied in a low, respectful voice. "...to make this trek in the daylight is one thing....but, at night?"

"We can't risk losing her, Euro...." Hearn replied, his voice just as hushed. "....I won't lose anyone here...."

Ed nodded.

"As you wish." he replied.

"Templar?" Danny looked off to his left. "Can Erasmus fly at night?"

"Aye, lad..." he replied, thick arms folded. "...but, she can only bear, perhaps, four loads....anymore, and you'll tire her out...."

Danny thought for a moment.

"Okay....we need Phil and Raptor to help guide us...." Hearn began. "...Templar to fly the bloody animal...."

He turned to Sam.

"And I'm going. That leaves Drake, Priest, and you. One of you will have to stay behind with the rest."

"I'll stay." Drake interjected, both men looking over at him.

"Okay..." Danny nodded. "Well..."

"I'll stay, as well." Dawson nodded. "If we're going to pack up and follow on foot in the morning....they'll need a guide...."

"I understand." Hearn nodded.

Sam looked up at the mountain peaks above them.

"We'll head west, and try to catch up with you guys...."

"You just want to get some more sleep...." Hearn replied.

Sam smiled.

"Is it that obvious?"

He and Danny stared at each other for a brief moment.

"Watch your back, wanker."

"Back at you, bitch."

Danny reached up, taking Mason's offered hand, lifting him steadily up onto the massive creature. Phil and Priest both mounted the great bird, Templar tightening the reigns.

"May your passage be safe!" the man's boisterous voice echoed thoughout the canyon. "And luck to us all! YAAAAAH!!"

Erasmus spread her mighty wings, the turbulence whipping the smoldering embers of the campfire. Lifting off, Mason's laughter could be heard echoing across the moonlit night....

"FLY ERASMUS! FLY!! TO GREAT ADVENTURE!! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!"

"See you soon." Ed smiled, giving a curt nod to Drake, and, lifted off after them...

Sam turned, looking at the group.

"...we're gonna die..." Matthews moaned.

"oh shut up." Ozzy sighed.

"Ooh, look! Phil left the s'mores behind..." Drake added, walking off towards the campfire.

Adem sat shaking and twitching from the sugar overdose, his eyes wide with perplexion.

Grimm lurched up, spewing black blood from his mouth again.

Sam turned, looking back as Erasmus climbed into the night's sky.

"....is it too late to change my mind...?" he breathed to himself.

Adaptation

Erasmus soared well above the treetops, but to Phil Smith they looked close enough to touch. He was 'listening' right now, placing himself in a passive state so he could pick up uncluttered information from the outside world.

"Anything yet?" Danny asked above the whistling winds.

Phil shook his head. "Noise. Too much of it. I'm passive and can't make anything out."

Danny mulled that over for a moment. "Can you go active?" he asked. "Maybe try and scan around like a radar or something? See if you can't lock onto her somehow?"

Phil frowned. "I don't know, Danny. There's an awful lot of clutter out there. Thousands, millions of voices, and I can't be sure I'll be able to process them all."

"We'll have found the girl anyway," Ed said sarcastically, "by the time he decides to try."

"You've done some pretty high-impact things before," Priest reminded him. "Antarctica, especially."

"This is different," Phil insisted. "This place, this world... it's alive somehow. It's as though there are voices in nature itself."

"Come on," Danny began to reply. "You can't be serious!"

Sam nodded. "It's true. This place has a will of its own. You can either struggle to defeat that will, or you can attempt to become allied with it, learn to let its power flow through your own."

"It's why my TK powers haven't been working," Phil said. "I'm struggling with something way bigger than me."

"Then maybe," Templar suggested, "you ought to try the other option, lad."

Sam nodded. "I think that's the only choice you have if you want to be able to function here."

Phil looked at Danny. "What do you think? Try and merge with all these currents? Or keep doing what we're doing?"

Danny's brow furrowed. "We don't have time for this," he said. "We've gotta find Bri, and we've gotta get back to the mission." He looked down. "Do it. I'm afraid Sam might be right on this one."

"I guess the council has spoken," Phil quipped. He closed his eyes and reached out to try and contact whatever sentience was out there.

<<Hello?>>

[GREETINGS.]

It was like trying to shower under Niagara Falls. Whirlwinds of thought whipped around Phil's mind, torrents of flowing sentience cascade through his consciousness.

<<Who are you?>> Phil managed to ask, fighting to keep from being crushed under the 'weight' of it all.

[WE ARE], it replied. [WHO ARE YOU?]

<<I am not your enemy>>, Phil managed. <<I wish to ally myself with you.>>

[AS YOU WISH], the voices replied with just a hint of amusement.

It was too much. Phil felt the raw power of it coursing through him, overloading his senses.

It was enough to destroy him.

Unless he let go.

<<This is going to cost me, isn't it?>>

[IT ALWAYS DOES]

Phil sighed. <<Very well.>>

He would have toppled from Erasmus' back had Priest not caught him and pulled him back up. "Careful!"

Phil didn't respond at first. His entire body twitched spasmodically for a moment. Finally he took a deep breath and attempted to regain his composure.

"You alright, mate?" Danny asked nervously.

Phil nodded. "I'm okay."

"Look at him," Templar stammered. "Gods."

"What?" Phil began to feel very apprehensive all of a sudden.

"Can't you tell?" Priest said. "You're lit up like a piece of Chernobyl!"

"Can you see it?" Danny asked.

"I can see," Phil insisted. His head turned back and forth erratically, his gaze wild-eyed. His hair looked like strands of platinum and gleamed even in the pale light. A faint sapphire-hued glow issued from his eyes.

"You're lying," Priest said as he waved a hand in front of Phil's face. He turned to Danny.

"Blind as a bat."

"Shit," Danny muttered. "We've gotta go back," he said.

"No," Phil protested.

"But you can't see!," Danny insisted.

"You're right," Phil agreed as he reached up toward his unseeing eyes. "From these... I have no sight." He looked around. "But here," he said, pointing to his head, "I can see."

"What can you see?" Sam asked.

Phil smiled.

"Everything."

A chill ran down Danny's spine. He looked at Sam. "Now what?"

"You're the leader," Sam reminded him. "But we don't have time to keep going back and forth with every new development."

"You're right," Danny agreed. He turned to Templar. "Let's keep going."

"What was that?" Epicenter asked, looking at Ozzy.

Ozzy was lying on the floor, resting his head on his palms. He lifted his head a bit and looked at Matthews. "What was what?"

"That sound. I heard something moving in the bushes." Epicenter answered. He sounded preocuppied.

Ozzy lifted an eyebrow. "I didn't hear nothin'. Drake?"

"I wasn't paying attention," Drake, that was sitting near Adem and Grimm, said. "But I think I may have heard something."

"Probably the wind or one of those deers..." Ozzy observed as he lowered his head placing it back on his hands.

"But it could be something else," Epicenter insisted. "Maybe it's one of those beasts that attacked us before, or..."

"You go check, then." Ozzy interrupted.

"What?! Why me?!"

"You're the newbie. The newbie has to go check. Those are the rules," Ozzy explained, his straight face as unbreakable as his body.

"What?!" Epicenter exclaimed. "Drake?!"

Drake just nodded, not really paying attention to what his two teammates were talking about. He figured it would be something about fishsticks. It's always something about fishsticks.

Epicenter reluctantly stood up and entered the dense vegetation. "Fine, I'll go..."

"Hey, if you see anything, just yell!" Ozzy added before Epicenter left.

"Yeah, whatever..." Epicenter replied. He made his way through the vegetation slowly and trying not to make much noise. He started creating small waves that moved the branches in front of him with little effort and practically no sound. He had no idea he could do that.
Before walking for a while he divised a small clearing in front of him. It occured to him that whatever was moving in the bushes was probably heading to this place. Very carefully he peeked to see what was in the clearing and saw...
...nothing.
He walked out to the clearing and looked everywhere. Completely empty. Just the vegetation and him.

"...fuck it, I'll yell anyway so that lazy fuck has to stand up..." he said under his breath, right before a speeding red arrow pierced his throat.

Epicenter spat blood as he bended in pain and fell to the floor in fetal position. From there he saw someone walking out of the vegetation directly in front of him. It was a man dressed in red and holding a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other. His skin was pale and his eyes were light blue like the short hair on his head.

In his moments of agony Epicenter did all he could to keep his eyes open. He saw another man coming from his right, dressed with the same red robes and red hat as the other man and with the same pale skin, only his eyes were light green and his hair blonde.

"Khak... Kkkk..." was the only noise Epicenter's mouth could make, as he continued to spit blood on the grass next to him.

As Epicenter looked at the red acrher on his right, he noticed from the corner of his eye that the one in front of him was loading his bow. Less than a second later that arrow impacted Epicenter's chest, going through the hard metalic armor on it as if it was tissue. The impulse from the arrow made Epicenter's body roll over, leaving him with his back against the grass and his arms spread.

"<Zarch,>" the archer in front of Epicenter said to the one on his right, "<make sure he's dead.>"

"<Don't give me orders, Hark,>" Zarch said he kneeled next to Epicenter's body and placed his fingers on the Vanguardian's throat. His eyes were wide open but the dark hazel pupils didn't move. Zarch felt a faint beat, but nothing after that. "<He's dead.>"

Hark smiled from ear to ear. "<That's one more for me. You're three killings behind. Maybe we'll even things out with this one's friends.>"

Zarch was still kneeling next to Epicenter's corpse. "<Hark...>" he said, without taking his eyes off the body, "<Do you know what it feels like to die?>"

Before Hark could say anything, Zarch, with the characteristic speed of Lord Godbolt's Red Archers, quivered an arrow that pierced Hark's skull and reached his brain, killing him instantly.

As Hark fell, Zarch stood up and looked down at the dead corpse of his comrade with his dark green eyes. "<Now you do,> motherfucker."

Zarch used his increased Red Archer senses to make sure nobody, Red Archer or Vanguardian, was watching him from the vegetation. He examined his own hands and noticed that a dark silk covered them. He realized the same silk covered his arms, under his red robes. After much examination, he concluded that this red silk gave him the amazing speed that allowed him to load and release the arrow that killed Hark.
Inside a small leather pocket in his belt he discovered a small knife, and when he held it in his hands the knowledge of how to fabricate more arrows suddenly flooded his brain.

"So, Zarch the Red Archer it is," he said to himself in perfect English. "...I'm gonna have some 'splaining to do..."

Stop it...you're not like this! Seven times eight is...forty-five? No, its fifty-six. Feck, you have a name...what's my name? Agh, my head feels like its splitting open. 'What's in a name' -- spliting head, must crash now, and stop headache.

***

Up above her, Erasmus had spotted Brianna. Banshee was halfway in a small pool of water. There was no movement from the Irish siren. "Phil," said Mason, "is the lass alive?"

Phil concentrated. He could see into Brianna's mind -- that tangled web of both human and animal, girl and woman. He could see into her memories, and they flashed into Phil's mind. Waves of information about the past few months hit Phil.

Aisling, Brianna? What did Walker tell you?

"She's alive," said Phil. "Let's go get her."

Erasmus landed in a small clearing and the Vanguard team members jumped off to help their friend. Euro and Phil were in the lead. Brianna's outer garmets had been torn by the foliage -- both of the men spied bits of fabric in the tree branches. She had been reduced to her corset and the long underpants.

"Bri?" Phil lifted her head. Her forehead was bloody, and her hair was matted with blood. There was some red on the large stones on the opposite side of the pool. "So...she dove into the clearing...hit the rock...and crashed into the water."

There was a groan, and Euro tried to wake Brianna up. "Brianna? Brianna? Come on, get up!"

Brianna...I know that word...

Phil could hear Brianna...the human part of her brain was taking over again. It's your name...remember what a name is?

"Ahh!" shouted Brianna, getting up. It sounded to everyone but Phil that Brianna was crying from the cut on her forehead. Phil knew better. In less than a tenth of a second Brianna had gone to having the brain of a bird to that of a human. She was simply mentally overwhelmed for a moment. She looked at everyone for a moment, like she hadn't seen them in years. "You...you're Euro?"

Raptor smiled. "You remember me."

Wings, screams, Mason's Erasmus and s'mores... "What happened? I know something happened."

"You...lost it," said Phil. "You left us. You attacked Euro and left the camp."

Brianna tucked her wings closer to her body. She had realized she wasn't very covered, and modesty is a very human trait. "This place...it taps into a different part of me...I don't like this part. I feel like a pheasent about to be flushed out of a bush by a dog. I don't feel human."

Euro nodded. "It's happening to most of us, Bri. Look, we've got to get back and do what we came here to do. Can you fly Bri?"

But Bri wouldn't fly. Lucky for everyone she was light enough for Erasmus to carry. They headed back to the camp. Brianna seemed mostly recovered, but she had a dazed look in her eye, like a simple beast, for the rest of the mission.

Mason Templar sat astride the great, thick neck of Erasmus, his hands resting firmly but gently on the bird and taking hold of it's feathers.

"We'll be back at camp soon. Then we can both have dinner. And a nice long drink, right girl?" Mason said to his avian companion. "Left, now. Camp's that way," He said in a tender voice.

"Something's happened to Epicentre," Phil suddenly said out loud.

"What?" Danny replied.

Phil was staring forward, his useless eyes pointed at the horizon while his mind was pointed completely elsewhere.

"Red. And... and dark. And cold," Phil said. "And... pain!" He shouted the last word.

"That doesn't sound good."

"It doesn't feel good."

Brianna sat listening in, her knees held close to her chest and her wings pressed tightly against her side.

"I hope he's okay," She said softly.

"Somebody's sending a signal across the land. From the north to the south-east," Phil told Danny.

"What? Like a radio signal?" Danny asked.

"Somewhat. More like..." Phil's face bunched up in concentration. "More like a telepathic command."

"They have telepaths here?"

"It would seem so."

"A telepathic command from who?"

"Not sure."

"To what?"

"I would say... those," Phil said. His face stayed facing forward, but his left arm stretched out to the side. Danny followed his point and found, rising from the trees several miles away but rapidly getting closer, four remarkably large bats.

All four were almost the size of Erasmus, with a comparable wingspan. Their faces were elongated, a hideous snarl painted across them. And upon each of their backs, there sat a fully armed Red Archer.

"Bats? There's giant bats now? Are people just making this crap up as they go along?" Priest lamented.

"Probably. You up for a mid-air fight?" Danny asked.

"Oh, I get it. 'up for'... 'mid air'... he's not just a great leader, folks, he's also the star of Thursday Night at the Improv," Priest said. Danny laughed.

The Raptor dove off Erasmus screaming and headed for the nearest Archer.

An arrow whizzed towards them at terrifying speed, headed straight for Templar's head. Priest caught it in an outstretched right hand.

"Nicely done," Danny said. Priest grinned in response.

At that, Danny dove off the side of Erasmus and sprouted a huge pair of eagle wings. He shot straight for their attackers, gliding down with as much thrust as he could muster.

Priest stood up on the great bird's back.

"I really hope I don't fall off," He said. Brianna wrapped her arms around his legs and held her weight downwards, keeping him from toppling off Erasmus' back.

Priest raised the gun he had strapped to his side, and took aim at the archer that had fired at Mason. He squeezed the trigger once and missed, swearing under his breath. He squeezed it a second time, and was right on the mark. The archer was thrown backwards off the side of his bat, and was sent hurtling downwards. He disappeared somewhere in the forest and was quickly lost as both his comrades and his enemies continued streaking through the sky.

Ed flew quickly through the sky, ducking left and right and trying his hardest to remain a moving target. Arrows whizzed past him several times, the closest one nicking one of his feathers. He hurtled towards the archer he'd set his sights on, and was momentarily amused to see a look of fear on his opponent's face.

The Raptor must have presented a frightening sight. A winged man moving at almost superhuman speed, diving from the back of a great bird. The Red Archer had not seen the likes of it before. He didn't get to see it for long, as Ed approached the bat and punched the man firmly in the head. He blacked out, and Ed flew over the bat to continue towards the next one.

"I've got one..." Phil said softly to nobody in particular. "This is just going to take some suggesting."

Danny momentarily held together an exoskeleton, strong enough to deflect an arrow shot at full speed. The Red Archer Danny had targeted, sitting confidently astride his bat, had let loose three arrows in the time since Danny had jumped off Erasmus. They all ricocheted off and were sent harmlessly to the forest floor, but even through the black shell they hurt. Danny felt sore in several places. He was lucky none of them cracked the shell.

As Danny got closer, he banked sideways and ducked under the bat's head, disappearing briefly from the archer's line of sight. He reappeared on the other side of the bat, grabbing the archer firmly around the head. His reversed his exoskeleton, and jabbed the archer in the neck with a spur that had appeared in his wrist. A poison flowed quickly into the archer's bloodstream, killing him before Danny even had a chance to throw him off the bat.

Danny found himself atop the back of something very large and very pissed off that he had no idea how to ride.

The Raptor tackled one of the Archer's hard from behind, sending them both toppling off the bat and into mid-air. Ed was not really bothered by this. He, of course, had wings. The Archer... of course... did not.

Priest still stood atop Erasmus' back, looking at the bat that he had just left riderless. It still came towards them, snarling with an animalistic rage that remained even if it now lacked the focus of a jockey.

"Mason! Circle back! Priest yelled. Templar nodded and whispered a suggestion to Erasmus, at the same time exerting a certain amount of pressure on the bird's neck. They circled back, positioning themselves above the bat that Priest had left riderless.

Priest jumped off Erasmus, falling like a stone towards the bat. He grabbed it's neck as he passed it, and pulled himself upwards onto it's back.

He found himself riding the great bat as best he could, though he really had no idea how. He looked to his left and found Danny in much the same predicament.

Even more alarming was that just above him were the two bats that The Raptor had attacked, disposing of their riders.

Priest was somewhat relieved to find that Erasmus had gained altitude, positioning itself above one of the bats. The creature wheeled around helplessly beneath the great eagle, unable to shake his giant avian stalker.

Erasmus let out an almighty shriek and dove down hard on top of the bat, digging his claws hard into the bat's back and drawing what was an quite a large amount of blood. Another slash of Erasmus' great talons shredded the bat's wings and sent it hurtling towards the ground.

Danny passed quickly in front of Priest, struggling to control his own winged vehicle. He'd found that he could steer it by digging his claws into it's shoulders, though it really didn't seem to like that method.

Danny was beginning to grasp left, right, up and down. "Stop" was proving to be a bit of a problem. He looked down and made eye contact with Priest. Priest met his gaze, and the basic elements of a Plan A passed between them in that gaze.

Danny pushed his bat downwards, below Priest's. He circled it around to face it's companion, the one that currently bore Priest. They flew towards each other at breakneck speed, and if Danny's had been a few feet higher they would be about to collide.

Priest drove both fists into the back of his bat's neck, driving it down a few feet. The two bats collided with a deafening shriek.

Brianna screamed, watching this from Erasmus' back. She was relieved to see Danny spread his wings wide and grab Priest by the shoulders, pulling him from the collision. Her relief was shortlived, as she realised the fourth bat was flying straight towards them. It was too fast for them to outrace, especially since Danny was weighed down by Priest's weight.

"Still adjusting to this new awareness...This took more suggesting than I thought it would," Phil said.

"What did?" Brianna asked.

"This."

The bat that was attacking Priest and Danny suddenly slowed and dropped, almost passing out before them. It fell harmless into the forest, and everyone heard a thud.

"That's four," Phil said, smiling.

The Raptor took his place below them, matching speed with Erasmus. They all slowed down to meet Danny, who hoisted Priest up onto the great bird's back.

"That was fun," Danny said to Ed.

The sun was rising behind a ridge of snow topped mountains, and the small team of airborne Vanguardians, Mason, Priest, Phil and Brianna riding Erasmus, and Euro and Danny on their own, were flying back to the camp, relieved that what could have been a dangerous detour from the mission has been resolved so quickly, even if with annoyance of the passing archers.

The winged girl was sleeping, held like a baby by Priest. Phil was lost in though, mesmerized by the voices of the planet. The only one talking was Mason, and maybe the right word would be yelling: "I am ... DISMAYED! Splitting the team in HALF! To run behind the ass of the girl! There is no planning in advance! There is no strategy!"

Danny and Euro were flying lower, near the top of the trees, yet near enough to hear the booming voice of templar.

"Don't care, Danny! He's just a braggart!" said the Raptor, circling around the Australian, with an easiness envied by danny, that has to strongly push over his bat like giant wings, not to fall down on the thin air of the high quote.

"You think the same, Euro" stated danny, as a matter of fact, without resentment.

Euro opened wide his eyes, taken by surprise. "I am so obvious, or now you have telepathy, Dan?" asked the feathered meta, an half smile appearing on his face.

"No, it's just that I know you from the start. From that day in desert. I watched you leading us reluctantly, and then enjoying that. I remember how you were always planning up head, you and Kristogar. I don't, and you don't like it".

Euro stayed silent for some moments. Then: "Don't care, Danny!" Euro was smiling. "I have never been trusted. You, TC, Nowhereman... were always on opposite positions. I had not the charisma. I had to plan up carefully anything. To explain any move. You don't, Danny. YOu have the charisma. You are a born leader. You just shout "Move your ass, Vanguard" and they will jump, whenever, wherever. That's why you are a way better leader than I would be. don't ever care about what Mason or myself can say."

"Thanks" whispered danny, diving off to fly alone for some time. He dove fast, behind the crest of a series of wooden hills.

Mere seconds after, he was flying back toward the others, flapping his wings furiously.

"Get down, get down" he was shouting.

Euro and Erasmus followed his lead, landing just meters below the crest.

"What's happening, Danny?" asked Euro. The Australian put his index finger in front of his mouth, to silence him, and with the other hand signaled to follow him.

Mason tied the bird bridles to a tree, and then they all walked to the crest, Brianna still on the arms of Priest. Their heads leaned above the crest... and their lower jaws dropped at unison.

At the foot of the other side of the hills, a big road cut through the forest... and over it, an army of thousands of men were moving, going east. At the front there were hundreds of Knights, with shining armors above massive horses with colorful paraments. Behind them, mounted on black animals big as elephants, but more sleek, and with big fangs, where a dozen of warriors dressed all in back. Then were coming a company of archers, fifty at the least, dressed all in red, forming a perfect square. Behind them, then it was the time of twelve wolf like creatures, like the one they fought the day before, and five of the big bird-bear giants. And then, lastly, hundreds of zombies, carrying and pushing strange wooden and brass machines, shaped like incredible animals. Others archer closed the long line.

"They seems ready for a siege" said Euro.

"And we should fight those things? We are twelve, dammit!" shouted Priest.

"No. We must find the head that control it, and cut it off" said Danny.

"Are you sure that you're up to this?" Ozzy asked, pushing branches from in front of him. Strange metal patches speckled his face like freckles on a child.

"The headache is not so much now," Different responded. "My vision is still peculiar, but I'm beginning to get used to it. It’s not really my eyesight that is being interfered with. It’s my perception. Besides, I think you look better with yellow skin."

"Why don't you just keep those kooky eyes of your's looking for that Michaels guy."

"Matthews, I believe."

"Whatever." Baxter said as he passed by a shadowed figure without paying it any attention. "Guy probably got lost. Walked out here in the woods and couldn't find his way back. Now we have to search for him."

"Why do you treat him like an amateur?" Different side-stepped a rock jutting from the ground. "He is a former member of Strikeforce. From what I understand, I doubt that they would accept someone without some experience."

Ozzy stiffened for a moment. "It's a coping mechanism. We don't have beer, so I do the best I can."

As the two Vanguardians circumvented a large tree in their path, the lifeless form of Epicenter lay on the ground. Ozzy checked Epicenter's body for a pulse and couldn't find one. Adem examined the body of the archer. "He's dead," Baxter announced while he felt like a total, insensitive ass.

"Interesting," Adem pondered aloud.

"You're not about to give me some bullshit about your planet not having death, are you?" Ozzy's tone was serious and slightly angry. "Now's not the time for jokes."

"Of course it isn't," Adem said loudly in response. "Two men are dead by very mysterious circumstances which can mean very serious and fatal repercussions for the rest of us. What color is that feather?" Different pointed to the shaft of the arrow protruding from Epicenter's chest.

The ex-boxer looked down, then back at the alien. "Red," he answered.

"Orange is red," Adem mumbled to himself.

"Yes, red. Just like the arrows those guys were shooting at us earlier." Baxter pointed at the archer's corpse.

"And the arrow embedded in his skull," Adem observed. "How do you suppose that happened?"

"Obviously, Matthews was able to snag and arrow and kill the guy with it before he died. Isn't it?"

“And how would he launch it with enough force to penetrate the archer’s skull?”

“Maybe he could have used his powers to do it. We still don’t know everything that he can do.” Ozzy looked at the body laying at his feet. “Did.”

“Which is what confuses me. This seemingly inconsistencies of abilities your race displays is very perplexing. But, even so, the evidence does not suggest that Matthews retaliated. If you’ll notice the position of the archer’s body from Epicenter, the shot doesn’t line up. The archer’s body was thrown back and to the left.”

“Back and to the left?”

“Back and to the left,” the alien repeated. "Which suggests that the shot came from somewhere to the right of Matthews.” Adem walked over to the right of Epicenter and examined the ground. “And this establishes that there was a second archer,” he said pointing to barely visible foot prints close to the head of the newest and deadest Vanguardian.

“Why would he kill his own guy? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t,” Adem said, standing up. “But the fact remains that there is another Orang.... Red Archer, and he’s still out there.”

“Let’s get Matthews back to the camp,” Ozzy said, looking down upon the body. “We can decide what to do next there.”

"His eyes," Adem said to Ozzy, as they carried Matthew's lifeless body. "What color are his eyes?"

Ozzy looked at Epicenter's eyes, that remained open after his death. "Hazel."

"Dark hazel or light hazel?" Adem asked.

"Light hazel..." Ozzy answered in a low voice.

"Interesting. I seem to recall Matthews' eyes were dark hazel before his death..." Adem said, his curiosity increasing.

"Fuck, would you listen to yourself?!" Ozzy suddenly exclaimed. "Does any of that shit matter?! The guy's dead, okay? He's fucking dead!"

The two Vanguardians walked in silence for a while.
"I'm sorry," Adem said.

"So am I," Ozzy said under his breath. "So am I..."

"...oh god..." Dawson gasped.

Sam and Drake walked over to meet Ozzy, as he and Adem reached the campsite. The body of Epicenter lay limply in Baxter's outstreched arms, the ex-boxer's tattered, white t-shirt covering the face.

"What....what happened....?" Drake's hushed voice broke evenly with the crackling campfire, as the body was layed gently to a bed of straw and leaves.

"Don't look at me....." Ozzy sighed in a somber tone. ".....Diff's got all the answers...."

"Theories, Oswald.....theories...." the gaunt alien corrected, kneeling down next to the body.

"....tell me..." Sam replied in an even tone.

....and he did....Dawson's jaw clenching tighter and tighter, Adem's theories playing out in gruesome detail within his mind's eye.....

Adem's voice never waivered. Never broke. It wasn't as much lack of emotions, as it was a professional mannerism. This wasn't about the death of a teammate. Or even a human.

For right now.....it was simply about the facts.

Sam listened to every word. Every nuance. Every detail.

And his expression did not change.

Once Different had finished, there was an audible pause as everyone realized that Sam was not moving. Or blinking. As if his face were etched in stone.

Suddenly, he whirled around, splintering a chunk of meat out of the nearest tree. Flecks of dust, mixed with tiny splinters, showered the ground around him, his left fist still molded into a spiked, metal mace.

"....goddammit..." he breathed sharply.

"We're going after them."

Everyone paused, looking over at Drake pulling his boots off.

"You're fucking right we are!" Sam barked.

"No....we...." Drake said very succinctly, pointing back and forth at himself and Ozzy. "....we are going after them."

"What?!" Dawson half-yelled. "You're not going alone!"

"Dawson, listen...." Marshall began. "....I don't know you all that well....and you don't really know me at all....I used to be a vigilante.....used to be a good one...."

"What does that have to do with anything?!"

"Simple....heights. We're on a precipace....probably around half-a-mile up the side of a mountain......planning to go hunting within the forest that crawls along the ridges of this thing." he explained, turning his view towards the forrest. "That is no different than any urban rooftop. It's dense....varies in height....and you're a long way up if you slip."

"Dra--"

"It will be light soon." he continued. "This encampment will be an easy target. We need someone to protect the others...."

"What about HIM!" he said, pointing at Ozzy.

"Hey!" Baxter frowned. "I want a piece of this action, too, you know!"

"You didn't even know the guy!" Sam replied angrily.

"NEITHER DID YOU!" Ozzy yelled back, taking a step forward....

"No." Drake said, stepping between them.

He looked at Ozzy, Baxter almost immediately backing down.

Drake was, after all, his hero.

Marshall turned to Sam.

"I'm bringing him because he can't be hurt." he explained in a calm, and serious tone. "I want back-up, but, I will not risk having a liability."

"What the fuck are you saying, Marshall?! That I'm a liability?!!" Sam replied, getting even angrier. "I have seniority here!"

"You have seniority in the MBL.....this is Vanguard...." the man replied.

"Where do you think you live, huh?!" Dawson said, jutting a finger. "It's my home!"

"What does that have to do with any--"

"...you two can argue about this all night, if you wish...."

Everyone stopped, looking down at Adem.

"....however, the longer you wait, the lighter it becomes.....and the less likely you will be in achieving the prospective goals..."

Silence followed. Sam, still staring down at Adem.....Drake, still staring at Sam.....Ozzy....staring at them all.

The tension was getting to them. The situation. With the sudden death, it had all become very real....their dilema. Their task.

The reality of this mission.

It was no longer about toppling some dark power.

Now....now....it was about survival.

And Ozzy realized that this was the first time he had 'seen behind the curtain'. Behind the professional, care-free facade the team projected.

They were scared.

They were human.

"Fine." Sam finally sighed. He stared off to his left, refusing to look at Drake. "Just go.....go and get those fuckers....."

Drake glanced at Ozzy, both setting off for the woods.

"....good luck...."

They glanced back at Sam, who was still not looking at them.

And, with that, they disappeared into the woods.....

A light haze peeked through the canopy, spotlighting the somber morning glow on the open cleft. Surrounded by trees in an almost perfect circular fashion, the grassy plateau glittered with a slick morning dew. The breeze was chilly, but, not to the point of being chilling.

'Chilling' was the word to describe Ozzy's clenched-gut reaction to stepping into the murder-scene, once again.

"...about here...." he said, his voice low, and serious. "...we found him here..."

He pointed to a small, crimson-stained patch of grass, keeping his distance from it. As if trying to keep those horrible moments at bay in his mind.

Drake squatted down, his bare feet planted comfortably in the morning-wet green. He examined the red shafts lying near, caked in a dry, reddish-black blood. He glanced over, staring at the body of the fallen archer, lying very still a few feet away. After a pause, he rose his view, looking back and forth....all around the treeline perimeter.

"That way is too steep...." he pointed to the northern section of woods, talking mainly to himself. "....not saying they couldn't do it, but, why?"

He turned to the southern perimeter, Ozzy following his gaze.

"That way is much easier...." he mumbled, his eyes glancing up. "....flat ground, but, it leads through that river just down the slope...."

He thought for a moment, still staring at the southern line of trees.

"Of course...these Archers have shown to be methodical tacticians...." he finally said. "So, they definitely went north."

He and Ozzy both turned, simultaneously to the north.

And both halted dead in their tracks...simultaneously...

Drake stood perfectly still, the razor-tip of a single arrow resting decisively against the middle of his forehead. In front of him, an Archer's single eye peered from the side of the crimson longbow.

"...or, perhaps, they merely went a few feet into the northern woodline, and waited..." the Archer known as Zarch added.

Ozzy barely inched forward.

"Don't even flinch, Baxter..." Zarch said, his crisp tone the only sound. "...or Marshall here gets a third eye..."

The ex-boxer became statuesque, staring with unbridled hostility at the man holding Drake at bay.

Zarch looked back and forth at the two.

"Now, listen...." he began almost apologetically. "....I'm sorry I had to do it this way. I know I haven't been around long enough to know you guys, but, I feel pretty confident that I know how you would generally react in a situation like this. And, quite simply, I don't want to fight you."

"Then why were you waiting on us?" Drake began very calmly.

"I wasn't waiting on you...." he said, his voice dropping into a hushed tone. "...I was waiting---"

"Tervehdys! Apa hoe gaan dit met....moya hann!"

Drake and Ozzy cut their eyes towards the southern perimeter, Zarch peering past Marshall.

".......for them........" Zarch sighed.

Four new Archers had just crested the southern perimeter, walking into the field. Their weapons down, all they saw was that one of their own had taken prisoners.

Zarch glanced back at Drake.

"Baxter, get ready. Marshall....." he began very succinctly, and as matter-of-factly as he could muster. "...they can't understand what I'm saying. The moment the word 'understood' leaves my lips, this arrow is going to leave my bow. If you drop, I'll hit the middle one. If you don't, you'll have a clean hole through your cerebellum, and I'll use your body as a shield before I let it hit the ground....."

Drake took a deep breath.

".....understood?"

Drake instantly dropped, Zarch launching the arrow in unison.

The middle of the four archers never felt the shaft slice straight into his forehead, as the other three jerked their bows up in alarm.

Ozzy dove at one of them, tackling him to the ground, as Zarch notched another arrow into his bow. At the same time, Drake rolled with a single motion, grabbing the old, blood-encrusted arrow from the murder scene, and flung it directly into the eye socket of a third attacker. As he fell, screaming in pain, another arrow impacted his sternum, as well as, the throat of the fourth bowman next to him.

It had all happened in the blink of an eye, as everything went silent, except for the savage beating Baxter was giving his opponent. Ozzy pounded his downed Archer repeatedly, impervious fists breaking the bone and meat of his cranium. He paused, panting heavily, as the blood dripped from his knuckles.

"....that was for Matthews...." he growled.

"Okay...that's what I want to talk to you guys about...." Zarch said, even as Drake was rising to his feet.

Without even a moments pause, Ozzy whirled up-and-around, meeting Zarch with a full right-cross.

The Archer hit the ground unconscious.

Baxter and Drake stood there for a moment, looking around for more enemies.

"Okay...." Marshall began, certain that no one was around. "....let's get our prisoner back to camp...."

He began to move, pausing, noticing that Ozzy wasn't flinching.

"Ozzy?"

Baxter stared down at the unconscious form at his feet.

"I say we drop him off the cliffside." he finally mumbled.

Drake stared at him silently for a moment.

"Don't go down that road, Ozzy. Trust me." he said very evenly. "It's not the answer, and it never gets better."

Ozzy looked up at his hero.

"Okay?" Drake nodded.

Baxter finally nodded in return.

Drake grinned.

"Besides....I want to find out some information.....troop movements....that kind of thing." he added, beginning to rip red strips of cloth from the bodies of the Archers. "Here.....let's bind and gag him...."

As the two finished, Baxter hoisted him over his shoulders, beginning the trek back to camp.

"We were lucky there were only five...." the white-haired man said, Drake pushing limbs out of his way.

"Lucky?" Marshall asked. "That wasn't luck. When I tackled some of their brood yesterday evening, I noticed that they hunt in packs between two and five."

He paused, looking at the unconscious form of Zarch, hanging over Ozzy's shoulder.

"These guys fight with aggression, and prowess. They're not hired thugs, or simple thieves. Their entire method of attack lacks even a shred of teamwork." he continued. "They all want their own personal kill."

"I'm...not following you...."

"Given so few wounds on Matthews' body, I surmised that he ran into one of the smaller groups. Otherwise, they would have all taken a shot at the single target."

"Why?"

"Easy prey.....and anyone can claim the kill...." he replied.

"Wait...." Ozzy came to a stop, turning to face him. "....you knew this guy would be out there waiting....didn't you?"

Drake smiled, never breaking his stride.

"I knew if we made ourselves the same easy target as Matthews......they would do our work for us......" he shrugged, walking past the man.

Ozzy turned, watching him walk, a bemused expression on his face.

"Like when you drew out the Panoptica Cult, back in '95!" he nodded with a smile. "Incredible!"

"How do you know about that?" the man asked, frowning.

Ozzy began walking to catch up with the former vigilante.

"I used to read The Daily Chronicle...." he shrugged.

"That tabloid shit? Come on, Ozzy!" he shook his head.

"But, it's true, isn't it?" he goaded. "Isn't it?"

Drake finally broke into a full smile.

"...I was pretty smart in those days..."

"Ha! I knew it!" Baxter laughed. "And the Python Quagmire of '98?"

"...yeah..." he admitted.

"And the Hathaway Clinic disaster?"

"That was a tough case..."

"The Beaumont Circle Gang?"

"Yep."

"Alexandra the Evil?"

"Yes..."

"And that alien princess you married?"

"Yeah, she was hot....I---Wait! No, no....uhh...." he stammered, looking at Ozzy with a frantic glare. "....that never happened. No. Never happened. Nope."

Ozzy paused, his eyes narrowing.

"Suuuurrreee JQ.....sssuuurree...." he finally drolled out, walking on.

Drake frowned,

"....who the hell is 'JQ'....?"

The two continued moving towards camp....

Adem stared at the corpse of Epicenter as Sam gathered wood and laid it around the body. "You can't be that fascinated by death," Sam said as he dropped a load of branches and twigs.

"It's not his death that is fascinating me. It's his life. At least what little bit of it that he spent with us," the alien responded.

"Huh?" Sam grunted as he began to roll a log to the pile.

"Matthews didn't seem to fit his own skin. I never fully realized it until recently. Human psychology is still an area that I'm working on adjusting to."

"I'm not sure I follow you." The shapeshifter pushed the log into place and plopped down onto the ground.

"Something I said while Ozzy and I were looking for him just came back to me." Different moved in closer to Epicenter's body, as though there might be another more subtle clue he had missed before. "This was a man who was a member of an elite military force, yet he didn't act like it. His performance when we were attacked wasn't very well thought out or executed. Now, he's killed without so much as a struggle. It doesn't fit."

The wind kicked up as Eramus and his passengers landed in the clearing. "We have returned!" Mason decreed in his loud, booming voice. The Vanguardians jumped off the large bird. Rays of sunlight began to peer over the stone edges of the mountains.

"What's going on here?" Danny asked Sam as the team approached the wood pile.

"Epicenter.... Matthews," Sam began before his voice left him.

"The archers got him," Different finished. "He went into the woods on his own, and this is how Ozzy and I found him."

"And the meaning of this?" Raptor asked, picking up a branch from the pile.

"We're here to fight an army of the undead," Sam reminded everyone. "He may have been a collegue once, but here it wouldn't take long for him to just become another zombie we'd have to fight. Cremating the body is the only way to keep him from coming back in the first place."

"Damn," Danny said to himself. He was both lamenting and angry. "And we just pulled him in without any thought." He looked at the faces around him. "Where's Drake and Baxter?"

Drake and Ozzy come out of the woods carrying their prisoner. "Don't worry," Ozzy announced. "We caught the bastard."

"We ran into more of them ...," Drake began to add before Ozzy interrupted.

"But they were no match for this Dynamic Duo."

"But there could be more out there," Drake continued. "Danny, we need to talk. Something weird happened out there." The two men stepped to the side to talk in private.

"Here you go," Adem said to Brianna. The young woman jumped a little. The alien was holding a folded up robe. "This was the disguise that Ed gave me earlier. Truth be told, I don't need it." A white band rode down his body, replacing his present clothes with animal skins and wool.

"Thank you," she said, taking the robe.

"Excuse me," Different said and walked away towards Ozzy. "It's not your fault."

"What?" the ex-boxer was confused.

"Matthews. What happened is not your fault. There was nothing you could have done."

"You're way off, spaceman."

Different remained vigil. "No, I believe that I'm right about this. I may not have completely grasped human psychology, but I consider myself to be an budding expert in Ozzy psycholgy. I've noticed that your people take death very personally. You more so."

"I could have gone out there," Ozzy whispered. "There was nothing they could have done to me. Instead, I had to be a prick and push him out there."

"No, Ozzy, he went on his own. Matthews was responsible for his own life. Just like you and I are for our own." Different's hand paused, awkwardly, then continued until it rested on his friend's shoulder.

Danny, Mason, Brianna, Priest and Phil lay crouched at the edge of the cliff, watching the immense army of soldiers and beasts march off into the distance.

"Okay... we should regroup with the others," Danny said, edging back from the cliff edge, then standing up. "Mason, can Erasmus get us back to camp?"

"Of course. But he may need to stop for water," Mason replied.

"Sure. I think there's a river in the forest somewhere along the way. You guys ready to head back?" Danny asked.

"That... that was an army. A huge... just a huge army. How are we supposed to fight that?!" Brianna said, a note of fear creeping into her voice.

"They answer to someone, somewhere. They have to. We find the boss and take away their leadership. Simple," Priest replied.

"Let's go," Danny said sternly.

Shortly after, they found themselves in flight. Mason, Priest and Phil rode atop Erasmus, clinging to the bird's huge feathers. Brianna, Danny and The Raptor followed to the left of the great bird.

"There!" Danny yelled to Mason, pointing to the ground. He'd spotted a river where Erasmus could stop to drink.

Moments later, they were on the ground. Erasmus's huge head was lowered to the water, taking in immense gulps of water. The others sat for a moment on the riverbank, savouring the moment's rest.

Their attention was suddenly grabbed by a yell from the opposite bank. Danny looked up to see two men on the opposite bank, filling up buckets with water. One was yelling at the other, pointing at the Vanguardians. They were dressed in the red gear of the archers they'd faced earlier, but lacking any weapons.

"Shit," Danny muttered.

The two archers ran away.

"What the hell?" Priest exclaimed.

"That's bad," Danny said.

"How?"

Mason interjected. "They have obviously gone to report to their superiors about the strangely clad demons and the shiny bird on the other side of the river. We can expect more company very soon."

"Shit," Priest replied.

"That's what I said," Added Danny.

"So what do we do now? Shouldn't we get out of here?" Brianna asked.

"Or do we just wait here to get ambushed by a horde of archers?" Priest asked. It sounded less sarcastic than it does when it's written.

"Neither. We're going to take the fight to them," Danny said. He sprouted wings and darted over to the other side of the river, quickly disappearing in the forest in hot pursuit of the archers.

"Well... you heard the boss," Phil said.

Danny ran quickly through the thick growth of the forest. He'd ditched the wings as soon as he'd crossed the river, and was now using think scales to protect him from the scratches and pokes of the trees that surrounded him. His dog ears heard the sound of the two men disappearing through the forest. His wolf's nose smelled them.

He was hunting. His prey would not lose him.

Following quickly behind him were his teammates. Priest led the charge on foot, while the others were just behind riding on Erasmus.

Danny was stunned to find a path suddenly appear before him. He heard the archers to his left, and shot off down the path. Priest found it soon after him and followed.

Danny noticed a shadow fall over the path . Erasmus was here.

Danny's cheetah legs propelled him forward, and he soon found himself within range of the two men.

He stopped in his tracks when an entire village appeared before him.

It stretched on for what looked like almost a kilometre. Stone and grass huts of varying sizes, most guarded by a red archer. Or a team of them.

The two that Danny had followed from the river appeared to be reporting to a group of their comrades. Their large, fully-armed comrades.

"Shit," Danny heard Priest's voice say from behind him.

The soldiers attention was suddenly grabbed by the sight of Erasmus appearing above them, and landing in the space in front of Danny and Priest.

"Another battle?" Mason asked.

"It would appear so," Danny said.

"Excellent."

Dozens of red archers charged forwards at the Vanguardians. Danny stepped to the side as they came forward, trying to avoid the thrust of the pack of soldiers. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that the peasants of the village were disappearing back inside their huts, or escaping into the nearby forest. They weren't helping the archers. They weren't offering words of encouragement.

Danny gathered that the occupation of this village by the red archers wasn't exactly friendly.

Mason leapt off Erasmus brandishing Caliburn before him and ran at the soldiers. Priest followed, wielding the gun he'd brought with him. He fired a few concussive blasts into the fray, leaving some of the red archers on the ground and barely conscious.

Phil quietly slipped off the side of the bird.

"BANSHEE! DISTRACTION!" Danny yelled at Brianna. She understood immediately, and took off from Erasmus' back. Many of the archers took aim and fired at her, their attention taken away from Danny and the others completely.

She proved too difficult to hit. Brianna made for an incredibly agile moving target, and nobody could get a lock on her.

Priest ran to the left of the soldiers, ducking a few arrows as he went. Mason went the opposite direction, and deflected an arrow with Caliburn as he went.

They both ducked into nearby stone buildings. Soldiers followed after them.

Phil strode confidently through the centre of the village. He knew where each archer was, and what they were planning to do. He stepped softly to the left as an arrow flew past him, then ducked a few inches to avoid another. A calm smile could be seen across his face.

Priest found himself inside a blacksmith's workshop. He smiled.

"It's hot in here..." He said. He walked through the building, absorbing all the heat energy he could. An arrow smacked his shoulder ineffectually, and a soldier charged at him. One swipe with the back of Priest's hand left the soldier unconscious on the floor.

He heard the other archers spilling through the doorway after him. He grabbed a freshly made axe from the wall, then spun around and hurled it at the doorway. The blade sliced through a man's shoulder, while the handle smacked another in the face. They both fell to the ground.

Priest leap over an oven. It still gave off intense heat, which he savoured. It seemed a blacksmith had abandoned his post midway through working.

Priest grabbed an arrow from mid air and hurled it back the way it came.

On the other side of the village, Mason Templar found himself in what seemed to be a tavern. A makeshift bar and chairs had been constructed from logs, and kegs littered the floor around him. Mason wished he had a chance to stop and stretch his legs with a nice tankard of whatever was in the kegs.

He took a huge wooden bench and threw it across the doorway, watching as some of the red archers were cut off at the legs and stumbled over the huge wooden blank. Mason then upended the bar and stood behind it, protected from the arrows that struck the exposed side of the wooden bar with a loud thunk.

Danny, meanwhile, was finding the soldiers easy pickings. His hands bore claws and he wielded a strong poison, and he merely walked up to a soldier and rendered him unconscious.

All of the red archers who were currently outdoors had their gaze towards the sky, trying desperately to get a shot at the winged woman who was proving to frustrate them all.

Brianna would duck and dart through the sky, distracting the soldiers. Danny would sneak up behind them and knock them out. The two were making a good team.

But the village was big, and full of people and many Red Archers, and soon the Vanguardians had to retreat to a defensive position, grouped together inside a big tower, that was cleared from his occupants by Priest.

"But where is Raptor?" asked Brianna. Nobody was able to answer.

______________________________________________________


I am the son of Zeus, Erakles, lord of the west. The wife of my father , that witch known as Hera, enchanted me into killing my wife Megara and all my sons and daughters. The oracle of Delphi order me, to expiate my sin, to put myself at the service of Euristeus, king of Argo, Mikonos and Tirintus. And him appointed me twelve labours, of which now I have to complete the sixth.

The job of a slave, cleaning up the stables of Augias, king of Elides. Hundreds of stables, requiring the efforrt of thousands of slaves for many days, and Euristeus appointed me to do that alone.

He want to humiliate me.

Fool!

I need just to dig a little here... move these rocks... building a dam here... arghhhh!!!!!! Done!

The river Alpheus leaves his bed, and slowly at first, then building up velocity, like an unstoppable charge of stallions... it flows through the stables, washing them from centuries of horse's dirt.

________________________________________________________


Up in the tower, the assembled Vanguardians were looking at the veritable horde of Red Archers shooting poisoned arrows at them. The darts were so many, it was impossible to fly without being hit, and so Brianna, Danny and Erasmus had to stay behind the crown of merlons, with Phil, and Priest.

"Oh, fuck" said Danny, as a big wooden assault tower on wheels, pulled by two of those wolf like creatures was approaching. The rain of arrows was becoming harder, if it was possible. "It seems we are fucked up, guys... ready to jump!"

But in that moment a distant rumble, like a summer thunder, was heard. And then, the ground began to shake, and flocks of birds sprouted up from the surrounding forest, flying upward in the sky.

And then it came.

A wall of water, brown and foaming appeared behind the curtains of the village, and then it splashed everywhere, submerging and sweeping everything: archers, peoples, houses, carriages, wargs... everything.

Just the tower remained intact, emerging by a few meter by the newly formed lake.

Coming down the sky, the Raptor landed in front of Danny.

"You did this?" asked the Vanguard leader.

"It seems so"

"How?"

"Mhhh... a pebble here, one there, I diverge the river".

"Don't it seem to farfetched? Plus, you stole the fun from the other posters"

"Look, it wasn't me to decide to attack a whole city of Red archer after we were written as being returned to the camp. There was need to re-estabilish consistency though the story. You know, continuity..."

"Don't even say that word. In any case, well done. Let's go"

The bird with his three riders, plus the three winged heroes left the tower, flying east toward the camp and the fourth post backward from this.

Several hours later, the Vanguardians were huddled around the campfire reminiscing about their past and occasionally discussing ideas for what to do next. Suddenly they were all startled by a

THUD!

as what looked like a deer carcass landed next to the fire between Ozzy Baxter and Phil Smith.

"Fuck!" Ozzy shouted as he darted out of the way instinctually. A fragment of broken deer-antler struck him in the eye, though it did him no harm due to his invulnerability.

"Ho, Vanguardians!" Mason Templar shouted as he landed Erasmus a few feet away from them and tied the great bird up to the tree. Erasmus immediately began feasting upon another deer carcass, the stomach of which Templar had slit open for it. "I come bearing gifts of food and drink!"

"You fat fuckhead!" Ozzy cried out, still angry. "You could've killed someone with that trick!"

Templar laughed mockingly, "Oh-ho-ho, Mr. Baxter! It seems your much-vaunted 'toughness' does not extend itself beyond the physical... Our psionic, here, had no worries about being damaged by this fine specimen of meat, did you, Mr. Smith?"

Phil shook his head and said, "Leave me out of this, you two."

"One of these days, Templar, someone's going to lose patience with your attitude," Ozzy added as he regained control over himself. He never allowed himself to be angry in a boxing ring before, and he wasn't about to begin now with a fellow teammate.

"And are you that 'someone,' Mr. Baxter?" Templar said, all laughter gone from his voice. "You should know that I've heard countless similar threats over the course of my lifetime."

"Yeah? So?"

"So, Mr. Baxter, each and every one of my enemies is now very deceased. I've outlived them all." Ozzy was about to reply, when Templar spoke up again with his usual booming, careless voice, "But enough of this nonsense! Let us eat, drink, and be merry!"

"...'for tomorrow we die'," Phil added glumly.

Mason Templar laughed once more and said, "Just to show there are no hard feelings, Mr. Baxter, let me offer you a flagon of mead." Ozzy Baxter took the mead warily and nodded once in appreciation. This wasn't over between the two, but this was likewise not the time for such things.

Danny stoop up and paced back and forth before his teammates.

"Okay, so what do we know?" He began rhetorically. "There's an army out there who are working for whoever runs the show here. Their primary offense is archery. And they're not threatened by anyone."

"What makes you say that?" Priest asked.

"They dress in red and orange. In the middle of the forest. If they were seriously worried about being threatened by anyone, they wouldn't want to stand out as much," Danny explained.

"But they have some sort of opposition..." Mason interjected.

"Right. Those knights we fought when we first got here," Danny replied. "And it's safe to say that all these people want to kill us."

"I say our next mission involves rescuing a cake factory from a squad of puppies," Brianna said.

"Ah, that was a grand meal," Templar bellowed after releasing a great deal of gas in a loud belch. "One could say that it was a meal fit for a king, except that we can scarcely claim to have deserved it, can we?" Mason rose with a loud sigh and said, "Excuse me, gentlemen. I have business to attend to." He walked a few feet away from the campfire.

"I think we need to get back to discussing our strategy here," Phil broke in.

"Right," Danny said. "Sam, we're going to need your h--"

"OHHHHHHH, YES!"

Sam shot Danny a "what the fuck?" look and said, "Uh, yeah... well, there's the living, and there's the dead, of course, not to mention the--"

"OHHH, GOD, THAT WAS A GOOD SHIT!"

The group around the campfire shuddered collectively, and Danny said, "Anyways..."

Mason Templar then came back around the campfire and plopped himself down on a log. He held something steaming in his hand. "Now that was a right good shit. I haven't had a bowel movement that satisfying in decades. The feeling I had when dropping that fecal matter was akin to a religious experience, it was so good."

"Dammit, Mason," Danny said, "must you go on about that?"

"Oh, I'm so very sorry, young Master Daniel!" Templar bellowed sarcastically. "I wouldn't want to interrupt your little tea party. I didn't realise you were all a bunch of bleeding fairies too bashful to discuss the pleasantries of a bowel movement. Let me remove myself from your company, as I'm obviously too blunt and caustic for such delicate ears..."

"Let's get back to strategising," Phil growled.

"Ah-ha, it's finally come to that, has it?" Templar said. "Strategy is a last resort with this little organisation, isn't it?"

Danny said, "If you have something to say, Templar, just say it. We're all ears."

Mason Templar was still holding the steaming pile of shit in his ungloved hand. "Look at this pile of shit, smell its aroma. There's something very satisfying about the smell of shit, isn't there? A person's own defecate is somehow pleasing to him; it is a kind of primal response to find satisfaction from sniffing one's own shit."

"Is this going somewhere?" asked Adem.

"It's a good thing you asked that question, Mr. Different, or whatever your true name is on Mars, or whatever planet you come from. I was getting to my point. As I was saying, there's something very satisfying about shit, a satisfaction which goes back to the beginning of time. Most animals mark their territory with their shit, and everyone leaves small parts of himself behind when he defecates. But in the end, it's just shit."

Mason threw the pile of shit into the campfire, which promptly began to stink as it began to steam and burn. Before anyone could start complaining, he wiped his hand on the grass next to him and continued, "Likewise, a good battle is one of the most satisfying things in the world for men like us, particularly when it has been too long for some of us since our last battle, eh, Daniel? In the end, though, if battle doesn't serve a strategic purpose, it's as futile as squirming around in quicksand. It's just shit."

Dan shook his head. "Look, Mason, if you have something to say to me, just say it. Enough of this pussyfooting around the issue."

"Oho, yes. Yes, I was getting to it," said Templar. "Now, since we've been here we have managed to engage ourselves in pointless battles which resulted in the death of our newest member and almost resulted something much worse: Our plans thwarted before they ever had a chance to begin. We've been running around like chickens with our heads cut off since we arrived, merely reacting to whatever is thrown in our way, battling courageously but futilely for a cause we know nothing of. Now, Daniel, we are all of us aware of your natural leadership abilities, and we applaud and support you as our chosen leader."

"Thank you."

"However... you are untrained and inexperienced. You have never led a campaign against an army before, but have merely led small skirmishes which rarely became very dangerous. It is notable that you were absent during the Antarctica campaign, but we cannot fault you for that, nor will I try. Suffice it to say that you are a very green leader, green being used in this context as inexperienced. You are a boy. A talented boy, yes, but a mere boy without enough experience to lead a worldwide revolution on this planet."

Danny rose one eyebrow. "And you think you can do a better job, I suppose?"

"Oh ho ho ho!" Templar laughed. "No, don't worry, young Daniel -- I'm not trying to take over your position. Far from it. I do have a great deal of experience in leading an army to war, however, and you would benefit from my experience, and I am offering my services as your advisor in that regard. Let my experience in leading several armies to battle in the past work in the present."

"Fine," Danny said, waving his hands in the air out of frustration. "What do you suggest, Mason?"

"We know nothing of this world except what Mr. Dawson has told us, and he was sheltered from the realities of this land. Thus his story lacks a great deal of information which we require if we are to 'free' this world from domination, whatever the hell that means."

Mason Templar reached behind him and tossed a large sack in front of him. "While I was out hunting up our dinner tonight, gentlemen, I chanced to come across a small peasant village and stopped by a tavern to pick up our mead as well as several necessary supplies in exchange for game. While I was in there, I decided to find out for myself what the situation is by hearing the talk of the peasants and their village elders. Well, it turns out that the situation on this world is much more complicated than we at first thought. The economy of this land has been built upon the backs of slaves, going back hundreds of years. Godbolt is their master. Yet, in the past few decades the slaves have begun to revolt, removing themselves from the occultic hold that dread wizard had on them. And they have begun to fight the living in order to gain freedom for themselves."

"I have heard something similar myself, recently," said the Raptor, who just arrived back at the campfire after an evening flight. "A graveyard was desecrated not far from here."

"Ah yes, yes. The great necropolises, or cities of the dead, have been ransacked by Lord Godbolt in search of slaves. Yes, you are hearing me correctly -- the dead have been resurrected in order to be enslaved, and the ones who have rebelled against Lord Godbolt are seen as the enemy. It is the rebellious dead slaves who Mr. Dawson was sent to fight against, yet they are NOT in the wrong. They require freedom from their mortal coils once more, freedom from this dark necromancy which has brought them back to a kind of un-life.

"Suffice it to say, Daniel -- we need more information before we can take another step. I propose that we split into groups of two or three in order to find out more about this land, about this world we have found ourselves on. As sad as I am to say this, we cannot risk any further battles until we have discovered for ourselves exactly who is our enemy or enemies here and what their capabilities are, and we must -- we MUST -- find for ourselves allies on this world. We must win the hearts and minds of the people if we are ever to free them from the clutches of Lord Godbolt and anyone else who preys upon the living and the dead for their own gain. And to do this we need time. Days, weeks, or even months, if necessary. Time to explore, time to learn about the people and find trustworthy allies from among them, both the living and the dead -- I hope that Grimm can be of some use amongst the latter -- for we will need an army of the people if we expect to help them to free themselves. What good will it do if we topple their masters without involving them in the process? It will only result in another tyrant or tyrants stepping in to take over. Trust me -- I've seen it happen far too many times in my lifetime to want to see it happen again."

Templar rose from his place at the fire again and began to walk over to Erasmus. "I shall leave it to the rest of you to do with what you will, then. But a decision must be made. We cannot continue as we have been doing if we expect to accomplish anything."

The Raptor walked away from the group, now in heated discussion, towards Mason Templar, who was carefully brushing the feathers of Erasmus while cooing in the great bird's ear.

"Templar," Euro said.

Mason Templar didn't reply at first. Finally, without turning his head, he said, "Aye, Cicciotto?"

"Something about your story didn't make sense to me."

"Eh? What's that, man?"

"How did you happen to overhear all that information about the condition of this world? Without Phil's influence, none of us except Sam can understand the language of this world."

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong," Templar said, turning to meet his eyes. "The language in this land is not unlike that of an obscure dialect on Earth, one which I happen to be familiar with. It's akin to Basque, in fact."

"Oh, really...?"

"Aye," Templar said. He pulled out a bundle of scrolls and tossed one to Euro. "Here, look at this map. It's a map of this entire world."

The Raptor unfurled the scroll and gasped as he realised what he was looking at. "Pangaea?"

"Well, it's certainly similar to Pangaea," Templar said. "Indeed, the continents never split on this world, making it all the easier for one powerful figure to dominate. If you'll look at the dimensions, however, you'll notice that this world's supercontinent is much, much smaller."

"Yes," Euro said as he looked around it, "this world's equivalent of the Americas, Africa, and Asia are much reduced in size. And Danny's Australia doesn't seem to exist."

"Or at least it hasn't been discovered yet. The Americas were flooded, in fact. The coastline of the North American equivalent of this world's supercontinent extends from the Great Lakes rather than California. And the entire southern halves of South America and Africa is completely missing, as is much of Asia. It seems that the European subcontinent is the only one not missing any mass whatsoever."

"So this is a much smaller world?"

Mason Templar laughed. "You're not as daft as you look, Italian. Here, I have five map-scrolls for the group. Take them to Daniel, will you? There's a good lad."

The Raptor did so, Templar's condescending comments notwithstanding. There was something about the man that Euro did not like.

"Thanks, Ed. These might come in handy," Daniel said. "And thank Mason for me."

Ed didn't respond to this last comment, jumping right to his question. "So what do you want to do next?"

Danny thought for only the briefest of moments before replying. "I want that village."

"The village? The one you went to see right after you got back to camp, only to fight some guys and come right back?" Ed asked.

"What?"

"Well, that's what must have happened."

"Oh, yeah, right," Danny agreed. "Anyway... I want the village."

"Why?" The Raptor asked.

"The village is important. It means stone huts, better protection from the elements than we have here. The place is most likely built close to sources of food and water. And those soldiers had taken the place over, meaning it's important to them," Danny explained.

"So... we want the village."

"Exactly."

"What about the people there?" Ed asked.

"I think they were scared off by the fight. Plus, I don't think their homes and goods will be in great condition."

"Why?"

"The place got flooded somehow," Danny said, and laughed. "Besides, if we clear the place of the red archers, something tells me the villagers will actually be grateful."

"So, to the village it is, then," The Raptor said, following Danny to where the rest of the team were gathered.

Logical Explanations

"But it doesn't hurt?" Ozzy asked curiously.

"Not really sure whether pain is what it is or not," Phil replied. Talking to the telepath was still taking some getting used to. He was already learning to turn his head to follow a speaker's sound rather than try to look at them, and his sightless eyes seemed to peer into an endless distance - which would have been unsettling enough without the blue glow within them that seemed to intensify daily.

"What I experienced," Adem explained, "was acute physical pain as a result of some form of sensory overload. The absence of similar pain might mean your optical functions have simply been deactivated temporarily."

The trio was sitting around the same campfire, but the mood was decidedly less cheery than their last gathering here.

"It's crazy, whatever it is," Ozzy mused to no one in particular. He turned. "Smith?" He snapped his fingers. "Hey!"

At length Phil turned slowly. "Sorry, Ozzy. Distracted."

"What are you hearing?" Baxter wondered.

"Voices," Phil replied. "Many voices that were distinct, incoherent, confused. They're merging... coming together. There's a pattern - there's order - where previously there was none."

Ozzy shook his head. "Trippy."

"I fear I am unable to understand the nature of this... this link you've formed," Adem confessed. "I find it hard to believe that nature itself is so full of sentient voices."

"You never picked up any of these vibes in our world," Ozzy added.

"I'm not surprised," Phil replied. "I doubt there is such a level of sentience as what I'm seeing here in our world. But perhaps there once was. If so, do you think it would have persisted through the Industrial Revolution and fossil fuels? Strip-mining and deforestation? Power plants spewing sulfur dioxide even as acid rain obliterates Europe's forests? Industry aside, our wars and weapons alone would be more than enough to drown such a presence out altogether." Smith turned and faced off into the distance, unable to see what they could see yet able to see what they couldn't. "Bullets, bombs, and artillery. Mustard gas, nerve gas, bio-weapons. The bomb. The bomb, Ozzy. If our world were like this one, imagine how much damage a natural presence might be dealt from all the nukes that have been used, in war or in tests." Phil shook his head. "If there is sentience within nature on our Earth, I'd say we've successfully subdued it by now."

"You're scarin' me, man," Baxter said nervously. "Too many Captain Planet reruns?"

Phil chuckled. "No, no. I'm not advocating a 'return to nature' policy for our society. I'm not one of those Greenpeace simpletons who think we can somehow undo what's been done by voluntarily reverting to the Dark Ages. We ought to try to take better care of what's around us, so that we as human beings have a future on Earth. But the planet itself - and the life on it - is more than capable of surviving us. I'm just wondering if we haven't already lost things that are too fragile to outlast us."

"So what are you saying?" Ozzy asked. "And where does this world fit into all this?"

"Industry, technology... hell, even war... those are simply part of reality for us. Necessary evils to some, mere extensions of natural selection to others. Arguing that is a moot point for our world. But this world..."

Phil looked around him, smiling as he beheld breathtaking sights beyond the reach of human eyes. "This world hasn't been touched by those things. This place is primitive, to be sure. It's a very primal place. Life, if you can understand this, is more alive here."

He turned to face Ozzy again. "And that's why it's so important that we do what we can to save this place."

"Is that why you did what you did?" Adem asked.

Phil shook his head. "At the time," he confessed, "my main concern was regaining the use of my abilities. We needed them to find Bri, and to be honest I've gotten to the point where I'm starting to feel incomplete without them. So for me, it was simply a gamble to get my powers back." He thought a moment. "But it seems that whoever or whatever's out there had other plans for me."

"So this... sentience... has taken control of your abilities?" the alien asked.

"I don't think it needs my powers," Phil answered, "as much as it needs me."

"I don't follow you," Ozzy said, puzzled.

"Whatever the presence is that inhabits this world," Phil explained, "it's not a complete entity as we would understand it. It's sentient, but not intelligent. There's a very strong will, but no mind that I can perceive. It lacks order, and I think it's aware of that." He rested his chin in his hands. "I think that entity needs me to bring order to chaos."

"It appears that this world was functioning in its 'chaotic' state for quite some time before we arrived here," Adem observed, "and from what we know, your 'entity' did not exhibit a need for such order before. What, I wonder, has changed?"

"Many things are changing," Smith replied. "Godbolt's magic is derived differently from other magic here. Remember how I said that you can either try to dominate nature or work with it? Godbolt is attempting to dominate the forces here and bend them to his own will. Thus far it seems he's been successful to a great extent. The world is bending to him. It wants to fight back but doesn't know how. So the solution, it appears, means using me as some kind of central entity, a point of control for all the chaotic forces. Simply put, nature here is shaping itself into a weapon against Godbolt. A living, guided weapon of unimaginable power. And it appears to be using me as both the scope and the trigger - whether I want it to or not."

Ozzy put a hand to his head, baffled at the scope of it.

"Is there anything you can do?" Adem asked.

Phil shook his head. "I don't believe so. Not until we overthrow Godbolt, at least. I can't extract myself from this connection on my own. Until it accomplishes whatever it's using me for, this place won't let me leave."

The day proceeded at pace, the morning giving way to a day of activity among the group. Danny, Raptor, Sam, and Templar consumed a certifiable amount of mead, and continued their strategy sessions......consisting, mainly, of long-periods of loud shouting, curses being thrown back and forth, and Sam giving Templar the finger forty-seven times within a six-hour period. Many dirt patches huddled over, scratched at with sticks, wiped away by Templar, scratched at again, smoothed over by Sam, scratched at again, smoothed over by Raptor....scratched at again.....and, then, stomped on visciously by Hearn. The scratching and the huddling stopped when Danny broke everyone's stick, and ordered that no one in Vanguard could ever, ever touch another piece of wood again.

Brianna rested against the flat portion of a moss-covered stone, rising smoothly along the tip of the wading pool. Her right wing outstretched a bit, the burned lower tip remained submerged. The effect, as well as the seemingly-dim sunlight, soothed her senses, allowing her primal mind to calm.

Phil sat fully back against the cool stone of the precipace, his pale eyes wide and slightly upturned. He continued to explain his newfound abilties, and what his presence in this world meant to existence. Zarch continued to listen, still bound and gagged. And unconscious.

Priest had nothing to say, and, thus, took a nap.

No one noticed.

Ozzy, Adem, and Drake sat in a circle with an opening to include Grimm's unconscious form. A rough-cut chunk of wood sat between them, bearing the weight of three mugs, and a pile of cash in the middle. Three pairs of eyes peered over a total of fifteen playing cards, each with delusions of momentary grandeur in mind.

"I can't believe you brought cards with you...." Drake commented, shuffling his cards back and forth.

"And yet, you all had money on you." Ozzy smiled with an even pride.

"Holding currency in any land is always advised, Ozzy...." Adem replied, still staring at his cards. "....you never know when it might be useful in some aspect."

"Exactly...." Baxter nodded, throwing in another bill. "....I'm in for five..."

Adem and Drake both sighed in unison, meeting the bet.

"See?" Ozzy grinned. "It's useful to me right now."

"Is Grimm in or out?" Drake nodded at the form lying next to them.

Ozzy leaned over, lifting the man's limp hand up off the makeshift table, where they had previously placed it. Underneath the motionless palm, five playing cards lay face-down. Ozzy leaned in towards him, acting as if he was listening to something.

"He's still in." Ozzy nodded, replacing the hand.

"Still holding that fourth ace, eh, Grimm?" Drake said to no one, shuffling his cards around again.

"Skully's a natural...." Ozzy replied with a casual wink.

Drake smiled, Adem looking back and forth between them, not quite getting the joke.

"So, boys.....what you got?" Baxter asked.

"...two-pair...nine-high...." Marshall sighed, laying his cards down.

"Should've backed-out, Marshall...." Ozzy shook his head with a chuckle.

Drake just shrugged. Ozzy glanced at Adem.

"...three of these ruling females..." Adem announced, laying the cards down. "....with two numerical cards....a four and a two...."

"Three Queens....sweet...." Baxter nodded. "....but...."

.....he produced four Kings......

"....not sweet enough...."

Adem cocked an eyebrow, Drake sighing deeply as Ozzy reached out to rake his winnings.

"Wait." Adem said, Ozzy halting in place. "What about Grimm?"

Ozzy frowned, reaching over to the still-down cards. He slipped them from Grimm's limp grasp, and tossed them over onto the table.

Drake immediately began laughing, watching as Ozzy's eyes widened, and mouth drop open.

"Ah." Adem nodded. "Four Aces. He truly is a natural."
.

At the ruins of the peasant village some hours (after Pro's post ), Danny Hearn, the Raptor, Banshee and Mason Templar were salvaging anything they could. The three had spent several hours damming the river-waters which had flooded the town, a job made simpler by the fact that the waters had been receding by themselves for quite some time. They made a point of destroying the bridges along the river, however, as they wanted to make it difficult for any of the Red Archers to return any time soon. Thanks to Erasmus and the winged Vanguardians, they had little trouble bringing in any supplies they needed.

While the watchtower in the town was the only building that had apparently remained intact, many of the other buildings were sturdy enough to remain mostly intact after the waters had receded.

And then there were the bodies.

There were several Red Archers, naturally, as well as a few Wargs, but there were also many dead villagers, mostly old women and children. While the Vanguardians began fortifying the town to use as their new, temporary base of operations, the Raptor spied a few villagers who had survived the flooding and were slowly coming back. He landed before one, an old man with a long white beard, and addressed him with the few words that Sam and Mason had taught the team so far:

"{{Man, where you go why return?}}"

The old man looked bewildered yet too old and tired to bother running away. "{{Your accent is strange, winged one, but if you are asking why we have returned, it is because this was our village before the Red Archers took it over. We are merely poor hunters and gatherers, though there are a few peasant farmers among us who work the lands of Lord Grayavale. We know nothing of your strange battles in far-off lands. We want nothing to do with it.}}"

Euro shook his head, trying to make out the words but failing. "Mason, can you understand what this man is saying?" he called.

Mason Templar had the man repeat his words and carefully explained them to Euro as if he was an ignorant child.

"Thank you," Euro said sarcastically. "Maybe you can get this man to understand that we've arrived to free him and his people from domination."

"Right, right. But is that true? After all, are you not the one who destroyed their village?" Templar said with a wink. "Ah, but they don't need to know that. Let them assume, as they already do, that it was the will of the gods that the river overflowed and defeated the army of Red Archers for them. The villagers will be returning, however. If we expected to take over an empty village, we've misjudged the intentions of the villagers drastically. A few of them survived the flood in the town, and besides, the majority of them were out working in the fields or out in hunting parties, so the population of this village is largely intact. If we're going to use this village as our headquarters -- even if only for a short time -- we'll need their cooperation."

Templar chuckled. "And we may have to contend with their landlord as well. This 'Lord Grayavale' might not take too kindly to our appropriating the villagers for our own needs. I've never been fond of the nobility, but we may need his help -- we'll have to find out whether he can be turned into an ally or whether he's allied with Godbolt."

“Archers!” Phil yelled suddenly, grabbing everyone’s attention.

“What?” Ed said, turning to face Phil.

“Red Archers! Headed here for the village…” Phil said. His eyes were closed, but his head darted around in all directions.

“Take cover! We move when we know what we’re up against!” Danny yelled, and headed for the forest. Mason addressed the villagers, telling them to take cover somewhere safe in the forest until the archers were taken care of.

“What’s the plan?” Priest said, leaning in close to Danny and whispering.

“Well, we go into the village…” Danny began.

“Right.”

“And then…”

“Uh huh.”

“…we fight,” Danny concluded.

“Excellent plan.”

“Thanks. It took me hours.”

“My gun’s running out of juice, you know,” Priest said.

“So? Find an energy source, then go and punch things,” Danny answered. Priest nodded.

<…dozens…> Said a voice in Danny’s head. It seemed vaguely familiar, then he realised with a start that it was Phil.

<…there’s dozens of them… at least…>

Danny looked back at the rest of the team. Phil sat with his eyes closed, his hands clutched against his temples. He realised that Phil wasn’t intentionally sending him a telepathic message. The thoughts were just spilling out.

“Hundreds of them. Eight of us. Anybody here call themselves a gambling man?” Danny said.

There was a large, wide path that led through the village, stretching from the north end to the south. To either side of it were huts constructed from stone and mud. There were smaller ones at the south end, domestic abodes and storage sheds. Larger ones were grouped at the north end, which houses places of a more public nature like the tavern. The blacksmith was the last building at the south end, and it looked over a small clearing.

The Red Archers were situating themselves along this main path, concentrating their numbers at each end. A few were scattered around the other buildings. Several were in the tavern, going through several kegs of mead and feasting off a dead boar.

Some were supervising the dragging into the village of a cart from the south end.

One of them stood at the northernmost tip of the path, where it tapered off and became indistinguishable from the floor of the forest. He noticed, much to his surprise, that a man with wings had exploded from out of the brush and was heading straight for him.

The Raptor swooped down before the Archer could react, keeping one hand stretched out below him and grabbing his prey by the shoulder as he passed. Ed threw the man hard against the stone wall of the nearest building.

An arrow flew past Ed’s shoulder, and he banked sharply to the left. Banshee appeared alongside him, and the two matched speed as they flew down the length of the village. Ed covered his ears as Brianna’s scream laid waste to the scene below her. Soldiers dropped their weapons and fell to the ground, clutching the sides of their head.

The Raptor distanced himself from her, trying not to let the sound of her scream throw him off his balance.

Priest raised his gun from the shelter of the forest and picked off the three closest guards. Another one noticed them falling and quickly raised his bow, finding nothing to shoot at but trees and grass.

Ozzy jumped out of the bushes and ran quickly across the edge of the path, disappearing behind the building that The Raptor had just knocked a man out against. The guard with the raised bow followed him, finding Ozzy standing motionless against the wall.

“Oh, hey,” Ozzy said. “What’s up.”

The man with the bow fired. The tip of the arrow slammed against Ozzy’s chest, falling to the ground ineffectually.

“Ow. You got me. I’m done for,” Ozzy said in a deadpan monotone. The archer had no time to react before a lethal dose of snake poison was jammed into his neck.

“Hi Danny.”

“Hey.”

“You got a guy behind you.”

“You too.”

They both spun around and connected with hard right hands to the jaws of their respective opponents. Danny had once again sheathed himself in a shiny black exoskeleton. An arrow hit his surface and snapped. Danny looked up to the source of the attack and saw a man on the roof, his bow raised and a look of confusion across his face.

“Turns out they’re stationed on the rooftops,” Danny said to Baxter.

The archer suddenly toppled off the roof, landing in a heap in front of Danny and Ozzy. A second quickly followed him. They both looked up to find Drake standing there, looking down at this two teammates.

“How’d you get up there without them noticing you?” Ozzy asked.

“Secret dragon magic.”

“I see.”

Drake spun around as something in the corner of his eye grabbed his attention. He instinctively shot out his right arm, catching an arrow firmly in his hand. A sound from behind him indicated the presence of a third man climbing onto the rooftop. In one fluid motion, he pivoted on his left foot and deposited the arrow in the kidney off his new opponent.

He ducked backwards and another arrow glided across his chest, barely missing him. He ducked to the ground and rolled across to the side of the roof, grabbing the edge in his hand and pulling himself off it. He landed on his feet on the ground where Danny and Ozzy had been standing a moment ago. Drake wasn’t surprised to find them gone.

The two men had charged confidently into the middle of the road that cut through the centre of town. Ozzy prided himself on being a particularly resilient distraction, and Danny’s shell had so far been providing a rather effective defence from the attacks of the Red Archers. An arrow smacked against his stomach, and another against his chest. He laughed, and launched a blob of poison laced spit directly into the face of the nearest attacker.

“So… This is the fun part,” Said Ozzy, running to the side of the road to engage an archer in a fistfight. He kneed the man in the groin, and then punched him in the back of the head, Ozzy felt a sword smack him in the shoulder, and spun around on the ball of his right foot to land a punch directly on his attacker’s Adam’s apple. Another approached Ozzy from the left, and the boxer stuck out his foot to trip the man. As he stumbled, Ozzy grabbed his arm and threw him shoulder first into his other opponent. The two sprawled to the ground at Ozzy’s feet.

Ozzy heard a loud thud and felt something odd tickling the inside of his ear. He turned his head and noticed that another archer had his bow levelled straight at him, the string still shaking as if it had just let loose an arrow. Danny punched the man across the jaw and he fell to the ground. Danny then turned to Ozzy and burst out laughing.

It took Ozzy Baxter a moment to realise that he had an arrow sticking out of his ear. If he’d been a normal man it would have split his head right open. He reached up a hand and began to wiggle it free.

“It’s not funny, you know!” He yelled to Danny as he marched back across the street, deflecting an attack from an archer by striking him across the face with the back of his hand as he walked. He brandished the arrow at Danny to make the point.

Priest was making his way through the undergrowth that surrounded the village. He was hoping that the blacksmith was still pretty hot inside, or that there were at least materials to build a fire. He’d be more useful with some immediate energy to siphon off.

He sprung out of the bushes and grabbed a guard from behind, driving him forward and smacking his head against the stone wall at the back of the blacksmith. A second one appeared from the around the corner, a sword gripped tightly in his hand. Priest pressed his palm against the side of the blade, deflecting the weapon. He stepped in close and punched the man in the side of the head, sending him to the ground.

There was a small opening in the back of the stone building, which he quickly crawled through. He found that the room was still warm, and Priest immediately began building strength. A quick search turned up a small fire still burning in one of the ovens. Some prodding and adding of fuel had it quickly building.

A red archer ran through the door, shouting at Priest. Priest ducked and rolled as an arrow shot overheard and smacked against the stone wall, and then he stood up and grabbed a freshly made sword from a rack. He threw it hard and it lodged in the shoulder of his attacker. He stepped to the side and grabbed another sword, then ran to the door brandishing it. Another guard stepped in and he slammed the sword deep into the man’s thigh, and then slammed the hilt of the sword into a third man’s chin as he withdrew it.

The room was filling with heat as his fired burned. He could feel it.

Drake had his arms around a man’s throat, slamming his head repeatedly into a stone wall until he fell unconscious. Drake was pressed firmly and silently against the back of the tavern. He jumped up, grabbed the edge of the roof, and hauled himself up onto it.

He noticed the archer before the archer noticed him. He quickly shot out his left leg and cut the man off at the shins, sending the man crashing to the stone roof. Drake shot out an arm and stole the man’s bow as he clamped a hand over the guard’s mouth, keeping him silent and cutting off his breathing.

Drake heard the sound of a man yelling coming from inside the tavern. He realised with some amusement that it was Mason.

Templar picked up and empty keg and hurled it at the door, slamming an incoming guard across the chest and sending him crashing to the floor. He upended a long plank being used as a bench and pushed it to the side, hitting two guards that were running at him with swords; they sprawled to the ground, one of them unconscious. The second one thrust his sword at Mason.

Mason parried with Caliburn and stepped forward, forcing his opponent into a defensive position. Their blades collided with a huge clanging noise, and then Mason pushed the man away with an outstretched right foot. He ran back towards the door, cutting one man in the thigh with his blade while ramming a hard knee into another’s stomach.

Banshee ducked nervously back into the relative safety of the trees, Ed following right behind.

“You’re much higher than them. You’re moving at incredible speed. You’re a moving target. They’re distracted by our teammates on the ground. Trust me, you won’t get hit,” The Raptor said reassuringly.

“I know. I just need a second to catch my breath,” Brianna replied.

“And then what?”

“We target that cart. Notice how many guys are standing around it, guarding it? It’s important to them. Weapons, maybe. Or their supply of food. Taking it from them will weaken them,” Brianna said.

The guards around the cart span around without focus as they heard screaming from above. They looked up to find two people coming at them from the sky, huge wingspans casting shadows across the ground.

Most of them ran away in that moment.

<I can see them!>

The voice slammed into all of their heads at once, momentarily stunning the Vanguardians.

“Phil?” Danny said out loud.

<Sorry for the shock. Still getting used to this. I can see all the guards.>

“You can see them? I thought you were blind…”

<Seeing… with my eyes? Oh yeah. People do that sometimes…>

“O… kay.”

<Sorry it took a while to get in touch. A lot to process. And I had to persuade Erasmus to do me a favour. I think we need all the archers gathered together.>

“Can you co-ordinate, Phil?” Danny asked.

<We’ll see.>

“There’s a clearing at the south end of the road.”

<Got it Danny. You and Ozzy grab the archers’ attention. Lead them to the south end of the road. >

A crack had appeared in the left side of Danny’s exoskeleton where a particularly forceful sword-swing had hit him. It hurt like hell, and he favoured the right side of his body. But he swung out his left arm and connected with a guard’s jaw.

<Fly ahead, Danny. There’s a small path that leads into the forest. Block it off before too many of the men get there. Ozzy can lead them there after you.>

Without a word, Danny sprouted a huge pair of wings. He hauled himself up onto the roof behind him, then launched from there and sped to the south clearing.

“Phil! I’ll need some back up once I’m down there!”

<Ed. Brianna. I think you should catch up with him.>

Danny found the small path that Phil had mentioned to him. He quickly covered the entrance to it with a huge spider web.

“Okay, guys, follow me…” Ozzy said. He ran down the road, glad to see that most of the men followed him. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that a few stayed, watching the north end of the road.

<Mason?>

The few men who’d remained at the north end of the road were shocked to find themselves set upon by a huge man with a sword who leaped out of the tavern door.

<Priest. Wait near the blacksmith entrance. When I say so, exit. Cover the road..>

Ozzy soon reached the south end of the road, finding the clearing. Danny, Ed, and Brianna were standing opposite him, keeping any escape into the forest closely guarded. Ozzy spun around to find a pack of men behind him. A few arrows smacked against his chest.

The Red Archers slowed their attack when they noticed the semicircle of Vanguardians standing before them, and the shadow that was rapidly growing larger on the ground around them. It started to dawn on them that they may have been led into a trap.

<Priest! Now!>

The ones at the back of the group turned around to head back into the village, when they found their way blocked by the largest man they’d ever seen. He stepped quickly out of the blacksmith’s hut, a huge axe held tightly in his left hand. With his right he grabbed the closest archer, throwing him twenty metres through the air into a stone wall with what seemed like almost no effort.

The shadow around the gathered archers grew. Before any of them fully processed what was happening, Erasmus unleashed his load.

Thick, sticky bird excrement showered down upon them.

“Nice, Phil…” Danny said softly.

The nearby Vanguardians took advantage of the opportunity to leap into the fray and disarm the men, when a yell from a nearby rooftop caught their attention.

A Red Archer stood there atop the building, an arrow in his bow ready to be fired.

“Shit,” Ed said.

<Got it covered.>

Drake kicked the archer in the small of the back, sending the man crashing to the ground.

Life and Limb

Phil Smith sat on the ground amid a thicket of young birch and pine trees near the town square. All around him, his teammates were fighting for their lives and the lives of the villagers. Red Archers swarmed about, taking aim at the Vanguardians.

More than anything, Phil wanted to quick-draw and charge headlong into the middle of the battle, guns blazing, as he was so accustomed to doing.

But there were a few intervening variables.

First of all, he couldn't see. The streams of information pouring in from the world around him helped him form a sort of picture of his surroundings, after a fashion. But it wasn't a complete substitute for normal human sight, as the telepath had discovered after several encounters with inconveniently-placed stones low to the ground.

That, however, wasn't quite as alarming as Phil's most recent discovery, which happened shortly after he took his current position in the middle of the trees.

He wasn't planning on telling the others any time soon. But Phil figured they'd eventually notice that he couldn't move.

It wasn't uncomfortable, but it was definitely disconcerting. Phil couldn't get his legs to move, no matter what he tried. He was stuck there, sitting among the trees.

And the trees just wouldn't shut up.

"Well," Phil murmured to himself, "this is an interesting development."

Three Red Archers spotted him and began heading in his direction.

Danny noticed. "Shit!" he shouted. "Phil!" He tried to get to the telepath, but was surrounded by far too many opponents.

Phil saw the Archers coming. He realized he couldn't run, couldn't even dodge their attacks. He couldn't feel his psionic shield working, and wasn't carrying any of his guns.

"Hiding in the trees, young man?" one of the Red Archers asked mockingly in his native tongue.

<If I wanted to hide>, Phil replied, <do you think you'd be able to see me right now, you mindless little bastard?>

That didn't go over well with the Red Archer. He strode toward the trees, notching an arrow.

What to do now? Phil mused.

Oh. Right.

His assailant stopped in his tracks. He dropped his bow and his hands flew to the sides of his head. "By the gods!" He writhed in pain and dropped to the ground.

Phil couldn't see the man, but he could make out enough of an imprint in the metaphysical terrain to enjoy watching him roll around. "Brain-freeze!" he cackled mirthfully.

"I've had enough of this, magician!" one of the remaining Red Archers snapped. He and his companion charged toward the trees, drawing sinister-looking daggers.

"Fuck this," Danny said. "Quills!" His attackers jumped back after being stung by a small arsenal of the porcupine barbs. He rushed toward Phil, hoping to get there in time.

Phil tried to assess the situation. He couldn't coordinate his teammates' attacks and keep these two off him and keep the first guy down.

It'd really suck to go down like this.

The two Archers were maybe ten feet from him.

"Make peace with your gods, conjurer," one said with an evil grin.

He barely finished his sentence. A single swipe from an unseen, amazingly strong arm sent him flying. An instant later, another unseen blow dispatched his compatriot.

"That was interesting," Phil murmured, barely able to contain his own surprise.

Those two blows had come from the branches of a nearby oak tree.

Danny skidded to a halt, trying to come to grips with what he was seeing.

The small cluster of trees shifted and buckled as their branches intertwined around Phil to form a protective canopy.

<Thanks for the assist.>

The trees didn't seem to mind.

"But... where are Sam and Different?" asked Euro, to no one in particular, amid the fray.

He threw himself back in the sky, flapping his arms powerfully, gaining quote with every push of his feathers over the air. The sun was being blocked by a thick, low mantle of clouds. The wind was chilling, and scarce flocks of snow began to fall.

Ed was scanning the area with his eagle sight, when finally the blue hairs of Adem took his attention. Repaired between the overturned cart and the wall of a big hut, Different and Sam were defending the lying form of Grimm and the tied up killer of Epicentre from a few, still free Archers.

Euro simply retracted the feathers, instantly diving down, his hawk-bill axe held with both hands. The impact over two archers was devastating, their skull exploding in a mess of brain matter, blood and bone fragments.

Euro rolled away, jumping and landing on his feet right in front of a third archer. The hawk-bill entered his body at pelvis height, and exited from his hair. The two halves of the archer fell on the ground at opposite directions.

Ed turned, ready to jump at another archer, but there was no one still alive. Their corpses were lying down,each one with a short arrow at the base of their neck. Brianna was hovering a few metres above.

"Thanks, Bree" whispered the Italian. Then he walked to the cart.

Behind it...

...a Red Archer waited with bated breath. This "bird-man" was utterly ruthless. Ordinary tactics were obviously failing against him and his fellows. He looked up in the air and saw his winged companion -- she didn't see him, however. He lay flat against the ground and rose his arms, extending his bow and arrow in place, ready to fire. All he needed to do was wait until he had a clear shot. The only problem was this winged man moving closer -- the Red Archer would have to waste an arrow as soon as he stepped into view before he could shoot the bird-girl.

Euro stepped forward towards the cart, about to walk around it. He stopped suddenly, however, hearing the call of Danny, and took to the air. The battle was still going on, and he was needed.

The Red Archer realized that he was still alive, and that the bird-man had left. And now the bird-girl had heard the call of one of her fellows as well and spun around to fly off in that direction. She was otherwise completely alone. The Archer let go of his bowstring...

...the arrow shot into the air...

************

"Have at thee, you filthy bastards!" Mason Templar cried as he thrust his sword towards three Red Archers, who had no way of using their arrows in such close quarters as they found themselves cornered in the tavern. Caliburn almost seemed to swing of its own accord, as if it had a mind of its own. It moved in perfect rhythm to Templar's movements, but whether the sword was being directed by Templar or Templar the sword, an observer could not tell. It hardly mattered, since it was very effective. Caliburn was as merciless as Templar.

The burly man finished off his opponents by beheading them and ran swiftly up the stairway, pushing a trap-door leading onto the roof out of the way. Whistling, he made a sound imperceptible to human ears, and a moment later a large shadow passed overhead, and in another moment Templar was gone from the roof.

"Oh-ho-ho, Erasmus!" Templar shouted, affixing himself in place between the giant pigeon-hawk's head and wings. "We are in battle joined once again!"

Just as on the ground Mason Templar seemed to be at one with his sword, in the air Templar and Erasmus functioned as if they were one, their minds of one accord. Templar had merely to place his hand in a certain part of the bird's head for it to turn, he had merely to whisper a word for the bird to swoop as it now did, grabbing two bewildered Red Archers unprepared for the impossible swiftness of this giant bird. Erasmus continued to fly low, using the bodies of the two Red Archers to batter another group of those crimson-clad villains. Finally, Erasmus flew into the air and dropped the battered bodies of the Red Archers atop another group of Red Archers preparing to fire.

Mason Templar laughed at his victory, his laughter like a rallying cry for his allies and a fearsome din for his enemies.

************

The battle continued, and amazingly enough the strange ones, though they were few in number, seemed to be on the verge of success. Most of the Red Archers had been killed or captured, and the Archer who had hidden behind the cart was clever enough to keep out of sight.

"I think that's the last of 'em," said Priest, who had shrunken back to normal size as his absorbed energy was used up during the battle. "What next, chief?" His newfound camaraderie with his one-time enemy, Daniel Hearn, was strangely satisfying. He had lost his purpose in life but was beginning to find a new one in Vanguard, and the future was but a blank page upon which anything could be writ.

"Well, the battle's over, but there could be more of these Red Archers on the way," Danny said, looking around at his friends and allies. "They just keep on popping up all the time, don't they?"

"I've killed two dozen of them in this battle alone!" Mason Templar laughed. "But the bastards keep on coming."

"I think we might need to find a better place than this village," said Euro. "It's obvious that there's too much traffic through this area for a good headquarters. We'll be kept too busy fighting off new troops of Red Archers or knights that we won't have any time to plan."

Danny frowned. "Hmm... good point."

"Well, I would rather be enjoined in constant battle than have to hear another long, drawn-out explanation of Phil's 'self-discovery'," said Templar. "If I have to hear him say 'I can't see' one more time, I'll shoot myself."

"And if I have to listen to another of your lectures on antiquated combat techniques," Phil retorted, "I'll shoot MYself."

"Those so-called 'antiquated' combat techniques just happen to be more advanced than anything we've seen on THIS world so far, Mr. Smith!" Templar shouted angrily. "The rules of modern warfare DO NOT APPLY in a mediaeval setting, since the technology required has not yet been invent--"

"Hey," Danny interrupted, "has anyone seen Bree?"

"Brianna?" Euro said, his voice tense. "No, I haven't seen her since I was over by the other side of the village."

Danny said, "Let's find her."

"Waitasec, chief," Ozzy Baxter said, pointing towards a group of armed knights riding on horseback toward them over a field. "We have company."

"Again with the knights," Danny sighed. "Okay, guys, you know the drill. Vanguard, kick ass!"

"One moment," a voice said from behind them. The Vanguardians turned and saw a Red Archer, his face spattered with blood and walking with a slight limp. That was not what got their attention, however. The fact that he held their teammate, Bree, who was bound and gagged and bleeding from an arrow-wound in her side, stopped them from movement. The Red Archer also held the tip of the arrow at the bird-girl's throat. "I will kill your winged damsel if you do not surrender yourselves to Lord Grayavale's men."

Lord Grayavale's personal force of knights arrived just then and surrounded the Vanguardians.

"Dan?" Drake said.

Danny sighed and held up his hands. "All right, all right, we surrender."

The knights bound their prisoners: Danny, Euro, Drake, Phil, Priest, Mason (and Erasmus), Ozzy, and Adem. Banshee was kept under close guard to ensure the Vanguardians' cooperation, while Vanguard's own recently-imprisoned Red Archers (the ones who had survived the battle) were freed and instructed to remain behind at the village to secure it before more Red Archers arrived.

As Lord Grayavale's knights loaded their prisoners on a cart, one of the men moved toward's Grimm's emaciated form. "What about this one? Fine weapon. . ." As he reached toward's the body, another armored hand grabbed his wrist.

"Not that one, boy. Take another look. That's obviously another undead. It needs disposing of. You go on with the others. I'll burn the remains. . .Oh, and I'll be taking that weapon." The man lifted the axe out of the knight's hand.

"Yes, sir!" The knight returned to his former position by the cart and took up a spot next to Banshee, admiring her "costume."

As the knights left the village, the newcomer drug Grimm's form around a corner and made like he was heading for a small area used for bonfires. Once out of sight, his armor began to liquify and melt away, reforming into the familiar shape of Sam Dawson. Leaning back against the wall of a hut, he sighed and said. "That was close. . ."

The nine Vanguardians were brought trough the huge gate of a megalithic fortress, adorned with complex carving of winged lions.

They were brought across infinite dungeons and down by spiral staircases, to dark and dirty cells, accompanied by 24 four guards. Their weapons were taken away from themselves, and they were put in a big room, humid and full of spiderwebs covered with decades of dust.

When the door of the cell was closed behind them, a new face appeared behind the little opening on the door. A face scarred by many battles, and worn by the years. The guards were on attention, like that person was someone important.

Through the hole, he looked at each one Vanguardian, his piercing eyes penetrating their souls, reading them like open books. Then, he whispered ancient words, stroking the wood of the door, and finally he turned on his feet, going away followed by the guards. Only two of them remained there, to do their duty.

"I can't change, shit" said Danny. Hal was mute in his brain.

"No feathers, look" said Euro his right arm raised in front of his face, He wasn't able to produce anything more than goose-bumps.

"The enchantment... obviously was a spell to eliminate our powers, when we are in this cell" observed Mason.

"In this cell? Do you think it's not permanent?" asked Danny.

"No. I am no mage, but I have met more than one in my life... my long life. Magic so powerful to cancel the metagene I don't think if they exist... but surely it would take more than a few words. It would need lot of struggle... fatigue. That one never even sweated. Plus, he stroke the door while reciting the enchantment... that should mean it was not toward us, but toward the room that the spell was directed" explained Mason Templar.

"Ok. Well, we take down the door the old way, and then we'll regain the powers then?" asked Danny.

Priest pushed the door. "It doesn't move".

"I fear the spell is weakening us, not just removing our powers" said calmly Phil, which was sitting in a lotus position on the ground. "I feel it."

The Vanguardians remained for some time stanbding next to the door, trying to see something across the little hole on the door, or pushing it in vain. Then, one by one they sat on the ground, silently.

Hours passed, when Brianna jumped on her feet, slapping the face of Mason with her left wing, which was sitting behind her.

"Pig! You grabbed my ass!"

Mason was on his feet, the right hand, open, ready to slap the face of the girl. "You insolent child! How do you dare?" he yelled, but the hand didn't move, bloked by the secure grip of Priest.

"Stop. Now!" shouted Edulcore Cicciotto, standing up. He walked toward Brianna. "Now I know what's happening" he said, slightly smiling.

With a powerful gesture, he tore off Brianna's gown, and before she could talk, he tore away also her strange underwear.

The girl screamed, and luckily without consequences, as her power was not working. She tried to cover herself with both hands, but the eyes of all the presents were over Euro, which was shaking hard the underpants, like he had lost his wits.

But before anyone had the time to say anything, the underpants left the place to a little man, not taller than ten inches, totally naked and with an evident erection.

"A massariol" said Euro, keeping the creature for the back of his neck. "A creature of central Italian folk lore, that evidently here is a lot more real than in my country. Little peoples that have the ability to change into ladies underwear, to fulfill their wicked pleasures..."

Brianna had adjusted the gown back. "I... had that thing on me since yesterday?" asked disgusted.

"Sadly, yes. I am terribly sorry for having brought it to you, Bree. He surely had took this form before I spotted those clothes hanging...".

"Can you understand me, creature?" asked Euro, bringing the massariol nose to nose with himself. The little man nodded heavily.

"Good! You know I can easily snap your neck, right?"

The little man nodded even more heavily.

"I will not if you free us from here. Look at that guard. You take the key hanging from his belt, and bring it to me, and I will spare you. Understood?"

The creature nodded again. Euro brought him to the little opening in the door. The massariol disappeared through it.

"Ed! he will simply ran away! Why should he return?" asked Danny. different was looking at the scene more puzzled than usual.

"If it's like his Italian namesake, he should be enough dumb not to figure it.

And in fact it was. Mere seconds after, the little man was back with the key.

Danny smiled. He took the key, put it in the keyhole, turned it and opened the door.

One step further, and he felt Hal talking back to him, again, like it should always be.

Danny smiled. "Vanguard, move your ass!"

Danny was surprised to see Brianna grab his hand...well, his claw, anyways. "The last time you said that, I had a arrow in my side and was tied up like a game turkey."

"So?"

"So? Can't you say something else? 'Go go go Vanguard'? 'Let's roll'? 'Semper Fi Vanguard'?"

"How about 'Brianna, get airborn so you don't get attack from the back again?"

Brianna placed her hand on her hip and stuck out her tongue. "I just want you to know, he snuck up on me." And then she jumped into the air. Euro joined her. Their backs and wing tips were brushing against the ceiling as they flew past everyone else.

Priest and Danny were running shortly behind them. "So what's your plan, Animalman?"

"Don't call me that!" hissed Danny.

"Sorry. It rhymed."

"We've got to find Grayavale. Although it's looking like he may not want to help us."

***

Up ahead, Euro was saying the same thing to Brianna.

"Then why not kill me?" she asked.

"What?" said Euro.

They were flying in a tall, dark, stony hallway. There were doors and fireplaces and windows that broke the stone pattern every few moments. The hallway also seemed to have a slight slope, so the two Vanguardians seem to be going up. "Grayavale's men. I got shot in the side, and I turned around and tried to scream but I think the arrow pinched my diaphram. That's how come I was caputred so easily. But they weren't rough with me at all. The one guard wanted to question me, but his superior said to wait." Brianna thought for a moment. "He said to wait...like there would be questioning later. This place is very strange. I don't think he brought us here to kill us. Do you think...do you think maybe this was Grayavale's only way of getting us here? To talk?"

"If that's the case, what's your idea?"

"Get Grayavale in a situation where we're the ones in charge. It's like with animals. Grayavale's testing us to see how dominant we are. We need to show him that we're tough but we not necessary his enemy?"

"Where did you learn all that?" asked Euro.

Brianna smiled. "Birdwatching."

"Where is everyone?" Drake asked as the team moved up the corridor.

"There is a lot of activity going on," Phil said using Priest as a guide dog. "I can't tell exactly what. It's all....... muttled."

"Is everything okay there, Diff'?" Ozzy asked as the alien's pace slowed a bit. His face contored into a very uncomfortable condition that Ozzy had never seen before.

Adem answered, "It's that headache again. For some reason, it just intensified."

"It probably doesn't mean anything good," the ex-boxer sighed. "Nothing like that every means anything good."

The troop stopped dead in their tracks. Right in front of them stood a large stone door. "Where's Brianna and Ed?" Danny asked looking at the barrier in front of them.

"Nope," Ozzy continued, "not good at all."

"Should we go through the door?" Preist put his hand against the door.

"It's obviously a trap." Adem scratched his head more out of imitation than habit.

"Of course it's a trap. We're not stupid," Phil said looking at a wall he thought was Adem.

Ozzy spoke up, "Maybe would should just go ahead and go through it. The last thing they'll expect is us walking into a trap when we know it's a trap."

"No," Drake interjected. "That's not true. You'd think it would be, but it's not. I bet that they are, in fact, ready for us being ready for them."

"If they are ready to taste my steel, who am I to disappoint them?" Templar boasted as he moved to unsheat his sword before remembering that the guards had previously confiscated it from him. "That shall not stop me," he proclaimed with a hearty laugh, probably as a cover. "I shall tear the flesh from their bones with my bare hands."


The door slowly raised on it's own. Bright rays of sunshine blinded the Vanguardians. The stone beneath them came alive and rose upwards. The team was pushed out of the hallway and into the bright light.

<So you are the ones who have been causing me so much trouble!> The voice was gravely and the speech unknown to the team. Templar could discern it just as he had the peasants in the village. Different's translator had studied the language as it had been spoken to them since their arrival and found the meanings of the words. <I shall show you how I, Lord Godbolt, deal with pests.>

"What'd he say?" Ozzy asked.

"We're in trouble," Adem answered in a tone of wonder, as if the idea was unfanthomable.

"Aye! That we are! Hahahahahahahaha!" Templar smiled from ear to ear.

The ground shook violently as the earth shook. The team could now see that they were in some sort of arena. Godbolt sat on a large throne, flanked by a somewhat nervous Grayavale. A large, red scaled beast entered the arena from the other side. In it's right hand hung a net holding the limp forms of Raptor and Banshee. The left impacted with the ground, sending a shockwave that knocked the team over like bowling pins.

"Oh, what fun," Danny spit out blood while attempting to pick himself up off the ground.

Ozzy charged the beast with a primal scream as his metallic hand balled into a fist. What would normally be referred to as a bitch slap knocked the man across the field and into the stone wall.

"You're the professional in this situation," Adem said looking at Mason. "What do you suggest we do here?"

"Why, my boy, we fight! A-haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"