After a good hard sleep, Tevos was refreshed, and considering the past week, feeling better then ever. Being back with people, and in the element that the conjurer thrived in, seemed to take a few acumlated years off him. A great deal of time was spent searching the area for other camps, looking for signs of human, or metahuman life on the island that would one day be a super power. One treck even led him as far as the french coast, but was cut short by a nagging hunger of some unknown sorce. But these excersions where strictly limited to the day light hours, the night had become a time to lay low, hoping the horrors didnt pick tonight to wipe this settlement from history.

Mid verse, during a poem he was singing for 2 of the younger children, the great white dragon appered, admist screaming and fleeing, of which briefly Tev was involved in. It took Gypsy standing up and adressing the beast to snap Tevos out of it.

Slinky is still thinking about the viability of her employee-employer relationship when Gypsy gets the strangest look on his face. Thinking back on their first days in the 4th world she came to know as the 'FragHereHeComes' Look. The great dragon appears with no fanfare, no lights or pixie dust, no beating of wings, no BAMF, he just is. All of a sudden. Right in the middle of the town green. Slinky and the others are buffeted by the passage of the townsfolk beating a hasty retreat.

Slinky blinks up at the blinding white tower of dragonflesh and draws her cloak futilely around her, trying to think the most innocent, innocuous thoughts she can. Puppies. Daffodils. Not a thing about firing Icewing. No sir. Butterflies. Kites. I like kites.

She reaches out to shove Gypsy to the ground as the elf neatly sidesteps her and begins to speak in the fluting, graceful tongue that is sperethiel. Wonder if you can make sperethiel sound nasty? Like curses or something. She makes a mental note to learn some vulgar sperethiel from Gypsy. She puts her hand on Sleel's arm and leans around Gypsy, peering curiously up at the dragon. Puppies. Kittens. Daisies.

"We have much to discuss children", the voice says in your head, "But right now, we need you on the front, they must be stopped. Follow me.", he says as he leaps into the air and begins flying south, towards the border. It would be at least a week to get to the border by walking, but the urgency in his voice was undeniable. A Dragon had just asked for help, the fighting must not be going very well.

Although the group had left Ireland behind less than a day before, it felt to Jack like he'd been running nonstop for weeks. He was tired, his nerves were taut, and the overwhelming stress was starting to get to him. The Boss was leaving them on loose leash, and Jack wanted to be alone. Very alone. He talked his way into being allowed to use an attic, more of a glorified crawlspace, and covering the cracks with his cloak, it left him in absolute darkness.

He felt like he was backed into a corner. He didn't want to be there anymore. He wanted to be back in Denver, to be home, to be anywhere where he could turn of a TV, tune in his headware, and just hear words from the rest of the world around him that things would turn out all right. Even in the dark, he kept finding himself facing the south. All of the able-bodied in the village, defending the gap that had been made in their defences there. It was such a familar feeling, having your back to the wall, waiting for the enemy's inevtiable coming, knowing that all you could do was fight and die.

He only spent a little time outside. He cleaned his weapons (in the process realizing that Slinky had managed to find his stash of synth-pop chips...), making sure that everything would be functional when it was needed. He was going to need more. It would be difficult to keep his shock gloves charged, and their bullets wouldn't last them long.

He made a couple of wooden training knives out of short length of dowel, and started practicing, alone in the dark. He would've given his left arm for a Fineblade. he found the Boss speaking with the villagers, trying to re-equip the group. "Boss, please inquire if they have any swords left, or gauntlets, something to reinforce and protect the hand."

He returned to his little hideaway, and then paced restlessly. Those who'd gone south had not returned. Danger would be making it's way north, there was no way to avoid it. The air tasted like a brewing storm.

When he heard the screams, it was like a spring had snapped inside of him. He leapt straight into the street, only to be brought up short by the sight of the Big Boss. " We have much to discuss children", the Great Dragon's voice said inside his head, "But right now, we need you on the front, they must be stopped. Follow me."
----------------------------

Dogma throws down the crackers he was enjoying next to his tea on the floor. "Well, can't shake a cat without hitting a Ghostwalker that needs help in this place"

"Gather round, everyone. Looks like we've got some place to go. Pack up, I already got us some horses. Jack, the stuff you asked for is in that bag over there."

"We'll leave as soon as everyone is ready..."

Gypsy shoulders his small satchel, adjusts his shades, and then leans against a nearby dwelling attempting to exude an air of nonchalance.

"I'm ready when you are."

When he thinks nobody is looking, he can't help glancing at the animals waiting nearby with more than a little trepidation.

Sleel gathers his drones in front of him and Slinky when Ghostwalker appears, ready to tell them to aim for the eyes and fire if Ghostwalker should decide that either of them look tasty.

"Right now, we need you on the front, they must be stopped. Follow me."

The drones stand down and begin lazily patrolling the air near Sleel and his sister.

"Pack up, I already got us some horses."

Sleel looks up, surprised, "Horses? How am I supposed to drive a horse? I'm likely to fall off the stupid thing, besides which, there isn't a steering wheel, or a gas pedal! I mean, what if I need the horse to do something, but it decides to do something else? What then?" Sleel sighs, "What I wouldn't give for even a jackrabbit right now...". Well, at least it looks like Sleel has recovered well from the hole that had been in him.

Rebo is startled as the white-scaled dragon swoops down and lands in their midst. Even after working for Ghostie all this time, he still hasn't gotten used to a building-sized lizard abruptly landing in front of him.

We're needed on the front? Great. Things can't be going great.

Rebo tries to ask him something, but he's cut off as the dragon takes wing and flies away.

Y'know, if you REALLY need us on the front so badly, you could at least carry us on your back so we can get there ASAP. Not all of us can fly, y'know.

Suiting up, Rebo gets on his armor jacket on and pulls his rifle out of his bag. Setting the switch to full-auto and slinging it, he puts on his holstered Alta, pocketing extra ammo for both weapons.

Picking up the duffel bag containing the rest of his stuff, Rebo sets out in the direction Ghostwalker flew off.

I just hope that EDP I'm working on actually works if we run into those shades...

Jack finds his shock gloves at full charge, tended, he guesses, by the careful ministrations of Slinky and her pal the sun.

Slinky feels her Will tugged by the dragon's demand. And feels a deep gnawing in her gut - alongside, though different from, the gnawing that Myrminoth causes - at the thought of facing anything like Hate again. Her hindbrain sends up a flurry of random thought snipets, a desperate smokescreen of static to keep the images and emotions of facing Hate at bay. She takes a deep breath, letting the dragon's voice and flaring wings pull her along.

She looks around for the cairn doctor and sees that Dogma arranged for a horse for the shy healer. "Meneer? You coming with us? We could really use you." She sees the villagers beginning to creep out from hiding and spots the archer she'd taken a shine to.

She trots over to him, "Thank you. And thank the others for us. For your hospitality. We'll send word when we can about what's happening at the front." She pauses, awkward, and bobs to her tiptoes to kiss the young man before dashing off, ears scarlet, white cloak trailing out behind her. Guess I get to ride off into the sunset... she coughs... or... into a dust cloud. She holds a warding arm up at the swirling grit and dirt raised by Icewing's hasty flight as she returns to the group and her brother's indignant tirade.

Sleel makes her laugh with his sputtering protests about riding. "Come on Sleel, we can't disappoint these yankees... all us Texans are supposed to ride and rope." She mimes tugging the brim of a hat down over her brow before mounting gracefully. Hmmm... lessee... what did cowboys do...? I think it was...

"Hya! Hya!" She whoops and kicks her horse's sides, while slapping the horse's shoulders with reins gathered up in one hand. Her ruthenium cloak streams out behind her as the horse lurches forward. She turns and looks back, wind strange on her bare scalp. She raises a hand in farewell and then looks forward again, hunkering down over the neck of her running horse. Ghostwalker is a far ahead, wings flashing in the sunlight.

Dear Diary: Today I left a village where they plant man-eating trees from sacks of meat so that I could chase a dragon across 4th world England to fight Horrors that could very well consume my soul. What the frag, Diary? What the fragging frag?

Somehow the dragons invitation was expected. We are going to die, and there isn’t anything we can do about it.. It was a thought that resonated in Tevos' head. Somewhere quite suddenly, the smoldering ember that was left from the unbearable anger that the loss of the charin caused him, burst into a raging firestorm of emotion.
A look of refined rage cast across the features of the recently jovial human. Tevos walks out of the hut as it starts to shake, and within seconds has up rooted it self and followed the shaman near by where the team has gathered. In a voice still sounding more like that of an animal then a man
“Great sprit of the people of _____ (name of town here), tell me will these people live to see the next moon?” gesturing with an open hand over the gathered crowd of villagers.
The answer remains unknown to all those present.

Tevos mounts the horse and calls back to the animated hut “Protect these people while you are able, as your own existence depends on theirs.” A sudden stiff wind finds the back of the rider, and he rides off in a cloud of dust, the Mossberg flashing in the noonday sun as it flops across his back.

The man just departing the village was looking for his kilo of flesh, regardless of the horrors had it or not.

Dogma stands slightly astounded as Slinky seemingly expertly makes rides out of town. He blinks, then looks at Gypsy who's been looking at the horses kinda funny, and Sleel who, after ranting about modes of locomotion with no pedals, is now grumbling something about yankees.

"No, I don't know how to ride one." he says to Gypsy's raised eyebrow. "Seemed like a good idea at the time", he continues under his breath to himself. "Didn't actually think past acquiring them."

Where are the pedals?

Jack got the gauntlets out of the bag. They felt a lot like wearing his shockgloves, only heavier.

"Thank you, Slinky he said, tjem clipped those to his belt, where they would be in easy reach if he suddenly needed something that did elemental damage. He made sure that both of his pistols were secure in their holsters, his Cobra slung across his back. This was the storm that he had smelled coming, and the fact that they'd be confronting it while it was still far away was a coldly reassuring thing. He then took the sword in hand. It's weight still felt strange to him, but that was not to be helped. He found a sheath for it as well, and hung it from his belt.

He slipped his Aztlan chip into his chipjack for a moment. He knew that in some parts of the country, horseback was still the primary mode of transportation. "Lean forward towards it's neck, and put your legs in a comfortable position to hold on. Don't press your heaals into its sides, because that's the signal to go fast."

Following Slinky's example, Gypsy grabs the reins and then slings one leg over the horse's flank and settles on its back. Struggling to maintain his balance as the animal, sensing his nervousness, shifts underneath him, the elf barely manages to keep it under control. He waits for the rest of the team to mount, then sets out slightly behind Dogma.

After making final preperations, the team finds itself on Horseback, waving to the village as they fly towards the middle of the UK island. The speed at which they travel proving hazardous to the inexperienced horse riders, and the horses seem a bit spooked by how quickly the ground moves beneath them, but the love for speed keeps them running anyhows. It's no real surprise to anyone to see others scrambling to maintain their position on the horses back, grappling with the manes of the horses in an effort to hold their position. After about 5 minutes, the only thoughts in everyone's head is "Ok... only 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 hours left to do this...."

It is late evening when the fires are seen. Villages had been passed and left behind to be replaced with the view of war tents and armies. Dragons flew through the sky, and you feel like a pawn in a Warhammer army. Bon fires litter the sky along a single line that spans past perceptions in both directions. As you approach the army, men begin moving out of the way to grant you access to the center.

Dogma is considerably less than thrilled to be heading for a honest-to-drek battlefield. Battlefields were for grunts. Soldiers died where generals told them to. Shadowrunners were smarter than that.

They trotted along towards the center of the camp. Dirty, battle-weary faces looked up to them on either side, parting to make way for them. These were heavily armed soldiers. The dragons circling overhead made it obvious this was no small engagement.

On the upside, they were bound to run into powerful sorcerers around here. Maybe sorcerers who knew how to get them home. No doubt they'd have to trade their services in order to get anything, though. This was expected.

Dogma kept silent and stern-faced as they came closer and closer to the center of the camp. Who would they meet?

The rapid and sometimes frantic ride was almost unbearable to the elven sorcerer. Gypsy ached in places he was not even fully awar of before, and wasn't at all sure that his magic would be able do anything about it when the torture did finally come to an end.

The sight of the armed encampment was like a breath of fresh air, even though it boded more still danger ahead for the team, as it was also a sign that their punishing trek was almost over. The fact that the army's pickets that stood guard gave way for the team without issuing a challenge was a fairly good indication that their erstwhile benefactor had made preparations for the team's arrival. Not noticing the pale Great Dragon among those that circled overhead, Gypsy shifts his perception to the Astral to get a solid fix on just where Icewing was located.

An afternoon on horseback has taught Jack a very valuable lesson: dermal sheathing makes the chafing worse. The long ride had worn down his hair trigger readiness, and he was grateful for the oppurtunity to simply get off of the horse. Maybe one of the mages could fireball a pond, and they could all take hot baths.

He had not expected to see an army. Such a number of people made him feel small, insignifigant. That was good. Maybe the Horrors would overlook him when the time came. He could live with that, especially if the end result was that he got to keep on living.

It had been years since Tevos had ridden. But the basics came back pretty fast. Certinly the speed at which they where traveling was something new however. The world whiped by at speeds that he hadent even dared on a moterbike.

The rise gave a view of the massed army, complete with scaly air cover. It was like something out of a movie. This wasent reality, this was trick cinimatography. This wasent a 4th world military encampment, this was a movie set somewhere in Hong Kong. What ever this was though, it was no fake. Something almost wanted to make Tevos trade the .12 guage across his back for a poleaxe.

Rebo gets a huge rush out of riding a horse for the first time. Sure, he can't do much except make it run straight forward, but it was such a different feeling from riding in an APC. He couldn't help but feel a bit like Gandalf riding towards Helm's Deep, as much as he didn't believe in magic.

Getting within sight of the battle, Rebo unslings his rifle, holding it in one hand while using his other hand to hold onto his horse. Just maybe, with all their modern technology and psionic know-how, they could turn the tide.

Stepping off of the horses, it becomes painfully aware that the armies are gathering and forming formations as instruments of war are pointed to the other side of the field. As if to signal a war, a trebuchet slips it's knotch, and you watch in splendored admiration as a boulder the size of a tractor slowly makes its way into the air and flies across the field out of sight. The rock must have weighed in at 10 tons, and it just flew right over your heads as if someone had casually thrown it. Meanwhile Gypsy points towards a tent, his astral link seeming to be attached to the tent itself.

As you approach the tent, the guards make way for you to enter. The tent itself is roughly the size of a small apartment, and you suspect that your benefactor is in human form as you pass through the flap. To your surprise, you find that he's in Dragon form, and the inside of the tent is roughly 100x bigger than the outside. "You are the outsiders who don't belong here. Your existance here causes accidents to happen all over the world as nature tries to repair itself. Although you're not the intentional cause of the disasters which follow you, your being here is the cause. You must return to your own time. I've arranged a way to do just that, and in the process close the hole created on the last haven of mankind.", He points towards different exits in the tent, "Each of you take a different exit, and stand in the middle of the circle if you wish to return home. You are not forced to, but know this, staying here makes you little more than a snack for the likes of me.", he replies in an unveiled threat.

"Slinky," Jack said as you all headed for the tent, "spam doesn't just generate spontaneously. If you're receiving it, that means it's being transmitted from somewhere. Somewhere that I'm quite sure isn't here. I've never been happy getting spammed before, but the transmissions must be coming through some other hole to the future. Following the promise of enlarged penii just might get us home."

His stride faltered when he stepped into the tent, taken by surprise by both the size, and the dragon. "You are the outsiders who don't belong here," Ghostwalker said without preamble. "Your existence here causes accidents to happen all over the world as nature tries to repair itself. Although you're not the intentional cause of the disasters which follow you, your being here is the cause. You must return to your own time. I've arranged a way to do just that, and in the process close the hole created on the last haven of mankind. Each of you take a different exit, and stand in the middle of the circle if you wish to return home. You are not forced to, but know this, staying here makes you little more than a snack for the likes of me." The threat in his words was clear.

Jack's eyes followed the dragon's talons in the directions of the exits. "If that would repair the haven's breach, I'd do it even if it killed me instead of sending me home." He meant that. He'd seen people make that kind of decision many times in Chicago. He straightened his aching back, and saluted the dragon. "I return to your service in the Sixth World," he said, then turned towards the rightmost exit.

The inside of the tent was a strange contrast to the outside. Plush luxuries surrounded the massive dragon, giving the beast a slight Jabba the Hut look.

Dogma was surprised by the Great Dragon's words. Of course, he did not trust the dragon, he knew him well enough to know that. It seemed his way out was too easy. Perhaps, though, the dragon really did want to fix the damage being done by their presence.

In any case, there was no point debating the point. Out the doors, or into the mouth. Dogma nodded to the rest of the team, and headed for one of the exits.

After dismounting, Gypsy tries to discretely massage his aching inner thighs, among other things, and then attempts to walk into the tent without letting his legs rub together too much. Unfortunately the second task proves all but impossible after such a long time on horseback, and the occasional wince crosses the elf's features.

Once inside the tent, the Great Dragon's words cause him to all but forget about his discomfort though. Gypsy cocks an eyebrow as his mind rapidly sifts through several different scenarios related to Icewing's proposed course of action. It was not at all reassuring that most of those scenarios could, and probably would end with very unpleasant results.

In the end though, the sorcerer remains silent, and follows the team leader's example, choosing one of the central exits.

Rebo steps into the tent and is surprised by the huge space before him.

"As without, not so within," he mutters in awe as he takes sight of everything in there, including his future dragon boss.

Listening to Ghostwalker's explanation, Rebo shrugs, figuring this was the case all along.

"I always knew time travel was trouble," he said out loud after Ghostwalker finishes explaining. "I just hope that once we get home it isn't 'Planet of the Shades.'"

Hefting his duffel bag, checking to make sure anything not in the bag is on him (i.e. his weapons) and taking one of the exits that would take him to his own time, Rebo looks at the dragon that would FINALLY be sending them home.

"Good luck with your efforts here against the evil forces. See you on the other side...Ghostwalker," Rebo grins, using the future name for the dragon.

Slinky rode the most easily of the Team, perhaps it was years of enduring the rigor of the tiring yoga that is B&E. Or perhaps it was just the synergy girls and ponies. She was just as sore and bitterly tired as the group crested a rise to the sight of a massive army arrayed for war. The horses stopped, sensing the moment of transition. The descent into the routinized chaos below. Or maybe the smoke of endless bonfires gave them pause. Whatever the reason, before taking the downward plunge Slinky and the others saw a force arrayed that beggared the imagination. As they moved through the tents and fires and tents and fires and tents and - how far does this go? - Slinky blinked and rubbed her eyes, burning with smoke of thousands upon thousands of fires.

She gives sidelong glances at the others as they ride through the endless camp. All were a mix of awe and tension and as she looked from face to face she felt a deep fondness for the mixed bag of them expand in her chest. These men are the best kind. Her eyes well and she dashes the tears on her shoulder, making clean smear in the dirt caked on her face from the marathon ride.

Wait, these horses should be dead... she looks down worried for the animal that should, by all accounts, be breathing bloody foam and sees, flanks alternately dark and pale with lathered sweat. He's breathing hard... he? She swivels her head around first one way and then the other, leaning dangerously in the saddle. Huh. Didn't even look when we left. She pats the creature on its side. Thanks, anyway...Horse. I'll try to see that you get something to drink and eat. She looks up, brain chattering a litany of survival, begging her to hide from a sky full of dragons. She looks down at the horse. Oh... I hope horses don't have ...other... purposes here.

She pats the horse again as Gypsy nods his head at a tent. Linked to the Ghostwalker. That's so strange. Wonder if we get home it'll still be there. Or if it will be here... Mind spinning with that tangled web she dismounts, grimacing with the rest of the gang. She hands her horse to an young... lizard? and says, "I know you take good care of... uh," she ducks her head down to look finally, "...him. But please see he is good snack and drink. I promised." She blinks, not certain that the meaning is what she intended. Nodding, she hands over the reins.

Jack's words are comforting. "Yeah, that makes sense. A hole somewhere. One that we can maybe slip back through." She smiles at his joke and at the faint scent hope in the soot and ash.

Sleel bumps into his sister as she ducks under the tent flaps and stops dead in her tracks on seeing the cavernous interior of the tent and it's Occupant. With a capital O.

"How...?" her brow furrows. "H...?" she stammers, moving forward tentatively.

Icewing looms, his 'voice' rattling her from head to toe. "...Your existance here causes accidents to happen all over the world as nature tries to repair itself. Although you're not the intentional cause of the disasters which follow you, your being here is the cause."

A light goes off in the girl's head and her hand flutters to her forearm as the pieces of a puzzle drop into place. She looks at Jack and at Icewing. "Wait... what if it's not us? What if it's spam? Clearly someone in the 6th world has figured out how to jetison spam into the 4th world." She looks at Jack, eyes bright with the epiphany, "This is where all the filtered spam goes! And it's causing natural disasters!"

She refocuses at the word 'snack' and her mouth snaps shut with an audible click. "Uh... right, Sir." She swallows and salutes awkwardly overly conscious all of a sudden of their current location. She watches Jack and Dogma and Gypsy and Rebo disappear through the tent flaps. Oh... Planet of the Shades. I hadn't thought of that. She swallows again, mouth suddenly dry. She gives Sleel's hand a squeeze and walks toward an exit - or is it an entrance - on the left - eyes scanning warily ahead. She stops and turns toward Icewing. "Um, Squrlifcreatilliader, sir? Should I leave this?" She holds Myrminoth out, gleaming white and shimmering in the dim of the tent. "I don't want to ...uh break the future."

The dragon nods as Slinky hands him the bow, but then raises a paw in refusal. "You have attached it to yourself, it is now part of you. Take it with you or I shall have to destroy it."

Stepping out of the tent, you find yourself standing alone in the middle of a stone circle. Pillar like stones are standing up all around you, and a pillar like stone combines every other standing pillar, creating a circle of huge stone doorways. A single thought enters your mind from the get-go. Stonehenge. Astral perception (for those that have it) shows that you are standing dead center of a powerful leyline. It heads right through the center of the circle, and you stand there in it, nervously waiting for what's to come next. Looking behind you, you see a hill with what appears to be bonfires above, and realize you're standing in the wall that seperates the horror creatures from the armies. In a quick, startled-like reaction, your head snaps back to the other direction, and you could swear you see figures ambling towards you. As they get closer, you see that they are the walking dead, still wearing the armours and weapons they had at death, indicating that those that die in this battle are actually only changing sides. Suddenly a beam of light bursts forth from your circle of stones, and the deadlike creatures shambling towards you scream in pain as their souls are ripped from their bodies. At the same time, the sky is filled with flaming arrows and boulders that are launched simultaneously. You feel your heart beating harder and faster, but not from the excitement... something is wrong. Then the pain starts, like having your leg asleep and trying to walk on it, but it's your whole body. Trying to move just makes it worse, and as you stand there, knees buckling, you realize this is the end. You fall to your knees, then to your side, trying to crawl towards the border to escape the pain. You look at your arm and see it withering as your soul is removed from your body bit by bit. No longer able to breath from the pain, you hold your breath as lights pass before your eyes, and then all turns black.

Waking up, you find yourself laying on the ground, some stones from the age-old pillars lying around you. The pain is gone, but your muscles feel like you've been asleep for a year. Everything is wobbly as you try to move. It appears to be late evening, or early morning, and you are alone

Except Gypsy:

"Nuuugh" whines Dogma, too exhausted by pain to do anything for the moment than lay on the ground. Where, when, were they? Back to the 'present'?Maybe. Without it being altered? Maybe. First things first.

Since it requires no movement on his part, a big criteria for the selection of his activities at the moment, Dogma sends out a mental radio message to his team. <<Roll call, everyone here?>>

Opening another comm line, he tries to dial back to HQ... maybe it would work...

"Uhhhh"
Time travel is a real b*tch, its like being hit by a pack of pot belly pigs, it wont kill you out right, but its going to hurt, and it might be enough to do you in, in the long run.

Somehow the will to so much as open his eyes hasent struck Tevos. Somehow it was much easier to just open to the astral.

Holy frag... its all black. Nothing... its gone. What the hell is going...
Then it struck him that he was laying face down.

The pain of the ritual overshadowed everything, making the relatively small aches that had accompanied the previous experience with the horse pale in comparison. Gypsy can't help but fall flat as each and every muscle in his body contracts in agony, his unheard voice rising in an uncontrollable scream as all thought is driven from his mind.

Suddenly the torture stops, not abating slowly, but ending abruptly, leaving his prone body numb and almost nerveless. No sooner does this penetrate the elf's consciousness, when he becomes aware of muffled voices and bright flashes of light around him. Opening his eyes and struggling to a sitting position, Gypsy finds himself in a strange circle of stones surrounded by curious onlookers, staring at him and some even taking photos.

'Photos?!?'

Taking a closer look at the people gathered around him, Gypsy takes in their clothing style, and the assorted electronics and such that they are carrying. A smile lights his features, and once on his feet he forces his way through the onlookers and looks around hopefully in order to find the rest of his companions.

Jack's head was ringing, every piece of cyberware he had feeling like the neural intterface had been coated with sandpaper. And his ass still hurt from the horseback ride.

He carefully looked around, trying not to move his head too fast. No Horrors, no deadites, no dragons, and the stone circle looked like it'd aged about six thousand years in the few moments since he'd closed his eyes. Yes! Kiss my ass fourth world, and eat my dust!

Then he realized that he also saw no team mates. <<Boss? Hello, anyone out there?>>

Rebo wakes up, his muscles aching from the strain of the time travel.

Did he make it?

Looking up, he sees the standing stones - but no teammates.

Where'd they go?

Shaking off the shock, Rebo sits down, letting his aural form pass out of his physical, and floats high above to get a bird-eye view, searching for the rest of the team.

Sleel passes through his gate shortly after watching his sister pass through hers. The drones obediently follow after him.

Finding himself in agnoy, Sleel is tempted to jump into the drones to activate the RAS Override built into his VCR unit... he decides he should at least stay with himself for now, at least until it stops.

Upon stopping, Sleel quickly activates his captains chair mode and spreads his drones out above his prone form. He begins looking for his sister immidiately, as well as the other teammates.

Destroy Myrminoth! No! But I don't wa... A great rumbling fills the tent and Slinky turns to bolt for what she hopes isn't oblivion. Was that his stomach? How the heck do you field an effective army if your leadership consists of dividing troops into Snack Battalions 1 and 2...

She dives through the opening and when through sees the circle of standing stones, all sharp edges and iconic carvings. Fresh, harsh and cold. A thrumming rises in her chest as she steps across the threshhold into the circle. Oh boy, here we... the thought never finishes as hordes of zombie warriors charge across the landscape and her spirit is ripped from her withering body. There is no breath to scream and no scream that could touch the pain. Another shares her misery, its pain in harmony with hers. Linked. Slinky clings to the thread, feeling somehow not alone as she is pulled apart from inside out...

...she wakes. Shaking, tired, covered with sweat. Or is that... she opens her eyes and can smell the damp earth beneath her. See the aged stones tumbled down around her and half grown over with turf. Feel the wind on her face. And not a hint of zombies. Static crackles over the comms as she rolls onto her side and into a ball. Tears flow onto her cheeks from a pain that can't be expressed in words or even thoughts. She drags her arms in tight and feels a resistance, a weight. Myrminoth. The other. The thread. Panting she sits upright noticing a wetness on her hands. The gleaming white bow is smeared with red... ...it is. It's blood. But...? Diagnostics run at a flicker of the girl's thought. All my cyber checks out. She sits up groaning. Unh... I feel like I've been pulled through a knothole backwards. She stares down at the blood smeared on her synthetic hands, smeared on the bow. How?

The crackling over the comms finally sinks in and she tunes to the team's rally channel. << Slinky here. Sleel? Dogma? Do you copy? Come in, over. >>

Earth. 21st century Earth, there was no doubt about it. The inhabitants weren't apes like in some old 20th century black and white flick, everything actually looked quite normal... at first. Heading towards civilization, or perhaps away, as you seek to find your bearings, looking for a road, city-sign, or anything to give you a general feel for where you are, you start to notice some oddities. Bulkier than neccessary items, less aerodynamic cars, printed instead of digital signs. It could just be that this part of England is a bit behind the times, that or.... well, except for the fact that that newspaper/bulletin board/watch/clock that you happen to be looking at has a date of 2048 instead of 2064. Data storage, be it mental of software immediately tries to recall what England was like in 2048 and if anything significant was in the works. Perhaps there was someone that you knew back then that could help you out now. There's no telling what year the others returned to, you could very well be on your own, 16 years ahead of schedule. Suddenly you think you hear something static-like over the secure channel you share... someone else is here in this age with you.