Seeing the first round have no effect, Sedryk drops to a knee and takes carefull aim as the bear rears up. Between the gun, the round, and the target, you are the weakest link. The round wants to become one with the target. Why do you stop it? Let what's to happen, happen and get the frag out of its way.

Taking a second aim at the bear's juglar Sedryk gently squeezed the trigger.

After firing his shot and holding fire for Skeeter, Sedryk taps the talk button on his wrist phone. "Just a second, having some problems with the wildlife, call you back."

The nature spirit seems to gather into itself before leaping forward in a rush.

As the Van emerges from the water, Paris gets his gear ready to move.

"Thor, anything we should know before we arrive?"

In a lackluster moment, the spirit vanishes under Belfast's magical onslaught.

Raven quickly realizes that the trail that the fleeing guard is taking has been used a half dozen times, but is still just a freshly cut, meandering trail. The sentry appears to have mounted up shortly after getting away from the ridge and the chase is on.

Some tracks lead off to the sides of the path, but the center rut shows the most wear, and it is that that Raven rides. Unfortuantely, part of the track appears to have been laid down as a trap as Raven rides over a small patch of foliage and the flanking hillside explodes outward at her.

Turning his head towards the blast, Belfast lets loose an exasperated sigh. "What did she do now?"

Leaving her bike behind, Bel launches into flight and follows Red Tom's telepathic cues to Raven's side at top speed.

Swift Eagle franticly exclaims to the other people in the bus, "Sedryk is being attacked by an animal or something. Let's get to the campsite fast!" He then calls up Raven. "Hey, Sedryk says he's having animal trouble."

So the horny bear wants to play? Skeeter thinks. "Tag! You're it!"

He hits at the creature, then realizing Skeeter might be feeding the bears, he focuses on the bear, closing out the distractions around him. He listens closely, almost hearing the bears joints move. He can feel its hot, moist breath flowing past its sharp teeth onto his exposed skin. His vision takes in the bears stance and balance, and those claws that could disembowel him in a swipe. Skeeter becomes a blur reacting to the bears attacks, counter-attacking whenever he can spare a moment from evading the creatures tooth or nail. He becomes a wild man himself, gouging for the bears eyes, clawing at its cold nose, biting an extended paw, kneeing the beast in the groin, kicking at its joints. They become a blur of twirling, spinning fur and man.

The erupting hillside catches Raven by complete surprise. She is thrown off her bike and slams into a tree as flames lick at her. When the fog of the explosion clears she groans quietly.

Busted a rib I'm sure. Little bastards are going to pay for that.

Skeeter rolls out of the bear things reach for a moment, crouching close to the ground. The bear thing stands as erect as possible, tilts its head a little and bellows a roar at the top of its lungs. Skeeter feels the force of the roar roll over him, his hands searching the ground like a person reading brail. His fingers close on a nice hunk of wood , the other hand scooping up dirt and leaves. Rising to his full hight, Skeeter lets loose a bellow of his own, thumps his chest and dives back into the bear, grinding the dirt and leaves into its eyes as he tries to wedge the piece of wood between those jaws of death.

Red Tom pops into being over Raven and waves his shelleighli. "Lass, you look in a fix." He mumbles a few words as he hovers over her and slaps her with a shamrock. It seems silly, but she can feel her woudns knitting.

"Ack, lassie, I think we'd best be headin' back. If'n ye hear that."

Indeed, over the wind the sound of several vehicles moving in Raven's direction.

While tearing through the terrain after the redneck shaman, Belfast reaches into his peacoat and plugs his transciever's earpiece into his ear. The brush slapping across his now-hardened flesh is of little consequence to him, but the constant rumbling creates some interesting static as he tunes in to the frequency Raven mentioned earlier.

"You there, lass?"

"Yes, I'm here dammit, thanks Tom, I feel better now. Listen, Bel. they have some vehicles coming this way, I am going to make my way back to the ambush spot. The Opel is toast, so I am on foot."

Raven holsters the pistol and rummages through the bike, retrieving her spare ammo and pistol if she can.

Skidding to a halt, Belfast's expression sours. "Roger that... you let the fookin' hayseed get a signal out to his fellow mossbacks. FOOK!" He pauses for a moment to collect himself. "Right. I'll have Red Tom give you some assistance in that. If you can run, do so. I'll meet you at the camp. If you get there before me, tell them to pack up and get ready to move, 'cause they know we have a camp there now."

At that, he checks his watch to see how much time he thinks he has left, then continues on until he has five minutes remaining before heading back to camp at full speed. As he takes off, he also activates Concealment followed by Guard on himself and Elizabeth.

"Right, run." Raven stashes the spare weapons and ammo in her coat as best she can.

"Red Tom right? Can you help me run faster?"

With a deep breath the life time athlete took of in a dead run. She followed the path back the way she came, hoping to avoid any more surprises. Her goal was the other electric bike the dead man no longer had need for.

Red Tom tips his hat politely at the elf. "Way ahead of yae, lassie... way ahead of yae." At that, he lifts one leg and juts both arms back in an almost comic display of preparing for a run, then takes off at blinding speeds as the manitou's power kicks in.

Thor hurriedly drives towards the campsite, keeping the van at it's maximum safe offroad speed and adjusting the camoflague to fit his surroundings. "Hold tight guys, we may be entering a free fire zone in a few minutes!"

"You're kidding, right?" Brand responds to Swift Eagle's hysterics.

I knew that squirrel phobia would do him in.

"What's our ETA?"

Well now, it's interesting already? Paris wonders.

"See if you can get some more info on what they need. Do we need to be quiet? Do we need heavy damage? Find out what we're coming in to if you can" he says, as he pulls his Assault Rifle out, checks the clip, gets his radio and microphone in position, and prepares to come out of the van shooting.

Skeeter nimbly dodged under the bear's slashing claws, narrowly avoiding them and landing a swift punch to the bear's torso. The bear actually grunts in discomfort.

Sedryk fires another shot into the beast and scores a descent hit, blowing away part of its left ear and leaving a gash in the side of its head. The bear roars and swings at Skeeter again, but the kid is too fast and lands two more quick blows on the bear, though it doesn't seem to feel them.

Sedryk holsters the USP and quick draws the one from behind his back. Carefully not to hit Skeeter , he begins to unload the clip into the bear, firing six rounds.

Hellcow finally steps up from below decks, wearing trim camoflage fatigues.

"Hey guys, does this coat make my butt look FLAMING DREK!!"

The supplies Hellcow carried tumbled to the ground as he stared at the bear. The elf just stared incredulously for a moment, eyes bugging out of his head.

A frikkin BEAR! I've heard rumors of such 'animals' but i never seen...

Hellcow scrabbled for his pistol, drawing the gleaming gold-and ivory chased handcannon in a fluid movement. The bear seemed unimpressed.

Ok, just like the target comps. Just a paper target. A huge, hairy, moving paper target with claws and teeth that could gut me in less than a second. Standing 4 inches from a retarded child. Yep. Shoulda gone into accounting.

Skeeter dances with the bear, clearly its superior in melee combat, though his blows do little to the massive bulk of the creature. Hellcow finally starts assisting, only to find that his shots do little to the creature's massive hide.

Last, but certainly not least, the fire belching from Sedryk's gun scorches big chunks of the bear's fur, and some even penetrates to the flesh beneath. The creature bellows its rage and lurches past Skeeter, seeking to attack the source of its pain, but its injuries are too much to bear it to Sedryk before he places two more rounds in the beast's muzzle.

The horned bear wobbles and finally falls, its razor sharp claws only inches from Sedryk's boot.

As the fighters pant, trying to regain their breath, a loud slash sounds behind them. Each whirls, only to realize that it is Thor's van breaking through the waves. Another rustling in the bushes sounds to the side and again, they whirl, only this time it is just Belfast and an slightly injured (and very scorched) Raven returning from scouting.

Despite having chosen a seat so near the back, Brand manages to be one of the first ones out of the van.

With a cursory glance around the campsite for any menacing squirrels, she stretches the kinks out of her lithe, six foot frame, and breathes in the fresh air. Next time I'm definitely taking the boat.

"So..." Brand looks down at the huge bear carcass, and then up at the charred Raven stumbling out of the foliage. "What'd we miss?"

Raven scowled fiercely. Her scorched clothes and somewhat frazzled hair told a partial story, one that was not happy. She tossed the electric bike she was riding to the ground. A bike that was distinctly not her Opel.

“Fraggin poachers. Were not alone on this rock dammit. Looks like some poachers, or terrorists or something have a shop set up between here and the mine. We ran into ‘em about half a click that away,” she gestures with her hand.

It is only then she sees the humongous carcass of the horned bear lying on the ground.

“Holy frellin drek. Sedryk, you okay?”

Skeeter goes and retrieves his tomohawk.

Paris, weilding his AK-97, walks carefully out of the van. He scans the area, noting the bear, the evidence of a fight, and the condition of the various participants.

"Looks like we missed the fun. Anybody hurt?"

He speaks to the group, but as he does so his eyes dart out into the wilds, scanning for further interlopers.

Skeeter looks at Raven almost oblivious to her blown-up state. What about me? he thinks, the adrenaline still coursing through his system.

"Thanks Sed-rick, but you could have got bad hurt," Skeeter says, then raises the tomohawk high overhead in a two handed grip and swings it down as he drops to his knees, putting everything he has into the blow to the creatures neck. "Sammy always said, 'Got to make sure dead things stay dead'," he says as he hacks away at the bear things neck.

Stepping from the brush only a few moments after Raven's arrival, Belfast looks the area over.

"What' the fook is going on here?"

When he sees the mental incompetent crudely hacking away at the corpse of one of Gaia's children, his already aggitated mood worsens. "And what the 'ell are ya doing to that poor bear ya fookin' retard?!" He then begins heading towards the ork with a mission and with his sour mood clearly painted on his face.

Evans sits on the edge of the van door once everyone has gone out. The 10 hours in the van had cramped him up somewhat, and he was busy rubbing his shoulders, looking on rather disinterestedly at the mage and ork squabbling, hoping he wouldn't have to patch anyone up.

He spots Raven then his eyes shoot open, and he gets up and walks speedily over to her. "Hey, what happened? You need any help?" Evans goes over to help her, propping her up or propping her down against something if (IF) she needs support.

Skeeter chops one more time and the head rolls away from the body. "Sammy says, 'take its head, make sure its dead,' 'cause it don't want to fight me no more, but it almost got Sed-rick. And I don't think I coulda got it off'n Sed-rick. And Hell...Hell-cow must have been sleeping or somethin'."

Skeeter sinks the tomohawk into the ground, rises and turns to face the man who screamed at him, releasing the pent up feelings. Letting loose his anger at the smirks and ugly looks some have been casting upon him, the under their breath barely heard snide remarks and scathing comments whispered to each other. "And I might not be the smartest person here, but I was unloading the 'quipment and helpin' Sed-rick, not run-runnin' off into the woods after some, some slitch ya lazy bastard! And how smart are you retards runnin' off into the woods? I listened." very professionally Skeeter reminds himself, "when Mr. Johnson said there were people in the woods. And if it was so easy to do what he wanted, why is he paying us so much to come here? And why were you splitting up the team even more?"

The adrenalin has run its course and Skeeter is about out of steam. "I mightn't not be the smartest person here, but damn me if I'll take drek from a half-hooped fragger like you."

Looking down at the bear at his feet, Sedryk exchanges the half empty magizine for a full one from his web gear. Kneeling beside the corpse, he uses his Fine Blade knife to remove the three longest claws from it's right paw. After placing the claws into a pocket on his web gear, he picks up his spent brass from the ground.

"We're fine. How many did you come across? Any idea where their camp is Raven ?"

Hearing Skeeter's rant at Belfast, he reaches up and places his hand on Skeeter's shoulder. "Nows not the time, we gotta be professional about this." Leaning in closer, "You alright? Once you're done skining it, we'll bury here." gesturing to the hole he was working on.

Turning back to his hole in the ground he continues digging. Without looking up, "Belfast, did you call your spirit away from here, leaving the rest of us undefended magically? 'Cause if you needed it, and it sounds like you did, I understand. And don't call him a retard."

Somewhat surprised at the Evan's reaction, Raven let's him lead her to a tree and prop her up as he looks her over for wounds.

"Got anything in that kit for pride? I got caught in a trap, an explosion of some kind. Totalled my bike. Luckily that and my armor took most of the damage," she points at Belfast, "he healed me some as well. Feels like a busted a rib though."

Belfast doesn't even bother responding directly to the imbecile as he approaches the bear. He squats down near it and rests his elbows on his knees as he gives it the once over. After a moment, he stands up and addresses the others, ignoring Skeeter as if he were the mindless piece of shite he perceived him to be.

"Whatever you've already unloaded, load it back up and get ready to move. We can't stay here. The rednecks the skirt," he paused to jut a thumb at Raven "torqued off on the scouting mission will doubtlessly be looking for us near the river, and thanks to Einstein's carving open of this poor bear here, every carnivore in a hundred square miles will be heading this way. If anyone's seriously wounded, patch 'em up so they can move then get to work. We're leaving now."

He paused for a moment as he dusted his jeans off and sneered in Skeeter's direction before moving off towards the van. When he manages to find Thor, he walks up to him instead. "All right, there's no way we'll be able to get this van anywhere near the mine as the forest is too thick to get it there without spending a few days clearing a path. We'll need to move a few miles further down river to find a new camp site. If this tin can of yours has the ability or the map you have is detailed enough, see if you can scan up or down river for a good place to land and hide both the van and the boat. I know the river gets a bit shallow further up, but we'll cross that obstacle if we need to unless you think it'd be better to just load everyone in the van and leave it here. Get to work on that while the rest of us get this place cleared up, savvy?"

After finishing with Thor, Bel gives an exasperated sigh when Sedryk decides to pipe up.

The medkit goes on top of a nearby rock and Evans slides his hands smoothly through it as he had done countlessly in the past, flipping it open and drawing and snapping off a roll of bandage in one fluid motion.

"Now you just relax." He says. "Don't mind Miss, but could you remove your armour so I can bandage up your sides? I can't do much more for you since your injuries look to have closed up already. Magical healing by Belfast?"

The question was more or less rhetorical. Evans worked on her as the rest of the team packed up. After applying three layers of light bandage, he reaches into his medkit and pulls out a small bottle of ointment, then hands it to Raven.

"The bandages are already medicated, but that should help if you still hurt. I'd apply it for you, but, well, you never know how sensitive someone might be." He smiles, then folds up his medkit.

"It's my duty to tell you not to over-strain yourself, but realistically speaking that's not very possible now. Need a hand to the van?"

"Thanks, Evans, you have a magic touch. I feel better already," she says as she puts her armor, and shirt back on.


"Sounds like a plan Bel, luckily it doesn't look like they got to much unpacked."

After finishing up with the burial, Bel nods towards Raven but pauses for a moment as if having a thought. A second later, and he's off to hunt down Brand.

"You mentioned something about being into explosives, didn't you? Think you can rig up a surprise or two within the next ten minutes for anyone who might wander by looking for us? If so, get to work on it."

Sedryk claims a few trophies while Belfast and Skeeter are arguing. The head and body, however, are quickly lost as Belfast causes the earth to swallow up the bear's body. The smell of blood is still strong about the area, though.

Moving the boat upstream, while a sound idea, is impossible because there is the last navigable point along the waterway. It may be possible to go back downstream and try a different path, though nothing is guaranteed.

"I do what I can." Evans replies with a smile. He then plops himself back inside the van, since it seems the team didn't unpack very much yet. But already trouble had cropped up. Planning wasn't his forte, so he helped arrange the equipment in the van to better allow the riders to get a good rest, then waited. Non of the others seemed like they needed any patching up anyway.

Brand's vaguely bored expression suddenly vanishes, and her eyes almost seem to sparkle at Bel's suggestion.
She squints thoughtfully at the space behind his shoulder, pondering something while one hand starts rummaging through her duffle.

"Ahh. I think I've got just the thing.... yeah.. that should do it.."
Whatever she was thinking of amused her immensely, because she actually seems to be laughing quietly to herself as she withdraws to find a flat surface to work on.

Skeeter starts digging into the earth where the bear was swallowed up.

"Now what do you think you're doing, oh scholarly one," Belfast says in his usual high and might tone.

"If you'd pay attention - ever, you'd see that you buried my tomohawk, yar highnie-ass,' Skeeter tells him.

Sedryk beings loading gear with Hellcow and then helps Skeeter recover his tomahawk.

After attaching the underbarrel grenade launcher to his Colt, Sedryk walks over to Belfast and speaks in a lowered voice. "For the record, I don't like you, and I have a strong suspicion that you don't like me." After pausing for a moment, The ork smiles, "But thats alright because right now we're being paid to do the same thing. So as long as you and your pets are able to handle your area of expertise, there shouldn't be any problem. Just as long as you let the rest of us do our jobs. And as I asked before, no more comments, sarcastics or otherwise about Skeeter's intelligence."

Turning to address the rest of the group. "One thing we should consider is that your little scouting trip might have shown us the opposition. Now, they maybe just a group of backwood breeders, but given that they are here, they should be looked into. I'm not saying that we find their camp and wipe them out, no reason to yet. But if they're here after the same thing we are, we could exploit that. If nothing else intel on them might be worth something extra to the Johnson, so he'll know who is neighbors are."

When Hellcow decides to suddenly come to life and pretend that he's a leader, it takes every ounce of willpower Belfast has to keep his Irish nature under control. Combing his fingers through his hair as he inwardly counts to ten, he turns and stares the elf down.

"It's amazing how brilliant one becomes in hindsight, inn'it? I didn't see you coming up with any plans whatsoever, nor did I see you getting people off their arse so we could get the job done, and I certainly didn't see you shooting down the idea to scout the terrain ahead while the others set up camp.

"If the lot of you little... if the lot of you couldn't handle a single bear on your own and you're gonna sit about whining and backstabbing like a mosh of school children, you might as well be the ones to pack up and run home to momma. 'Cause I can assure you, if that," he gestures towards where he buried the horned bear, "was a major concern for you, you're gonna be shitein' your pants before the job's over. Savvy?"

His voice grow a bit louder as a few other meek voices suddenly start mewling out of nowhere. "Now from what Red Tom said, those hicks are mobile and most likely heading this way. So unless you," he stares daggers at Hellcow, "or anyone else has a better plan... pipe it with the fookin' bickering and get to work so we can get outta 'ere 'fore those fookin' hillbillies decide to come knockin'."

"Well, nice to know you two have burried the hatchet," Swift Eagle quips. "Nice tomohawk by the way. So, sounds like we need to retreat and then march in on foot, or else go around the forest and find a road, eh?"

A silvery peal of laughter erupts from Brand at Swift Eagle's comment.
She looks up and winks at him before turning her attention back to her task.

"We could move our main camp down stream like you suggested fearless leader, and leave a few suprises behind for your playmates. But I think we'd be over looking fact that we have a ready made trap for them right here. I'm not sure if it would help, but I'd like to have a better idea of why they are here and what it'll take to deal with them." Sedryk waits for a reply.

As he calms down a bit, largely due to Swift Eagle's jibe, Bel's accent seems to largely goes into submission again. But just before he was about to head off to find a few more fey folk to lead assistance, Sedryk intercepts him, and Bel turns to reply.

"I'm aware of that, and I'd love nothing more than to learn who those fookers are myself. But we have to prioritize outselves. We were forced to take one of them down when they ambushed us, so they're doubtlessly looking for some payback. Nothing we can do to change that now, so we're just going to have to deal with it.

"As for setting up a trap here, anything we can do to lower their numbers is a good thing. Even if it only takes one down, that's one less we'll have to deal with if we run into 'em again. Best of all, we'll know if they found the site and can prepare ourselves that much more.

"While we finish up here, I'm going to try and enlist a little help to see if we can learn a little more about them. Dunno if it'll be much help since they have quite a bit of magic on their side, too, but you never know.

"So yeah, unless you have any other ideas, I need to get this done so we can get out of here. Time for a cozy chit chat isn't a luxury we have at the moment."

Behind a steady undercurrent of infighting, Brand plants a few explosives as carefully as possible in the underbrush, trying her best to set the trip wires strong enough that squirrels and rabbits won't set them off.

Skeeter digs at the earth with incredible strength, though he doesn't seem to get much of anywhere. Red Tom seems to be having a good laugh from the trees (quietly) about the whole affair as he uses the spell he is sustaining to confound the boy's progress. After a few minutes, however, the saddness of the whole thing seems to sink through to him and he uses the spell to pull the tomohawk up just beneath the surface. Skeeter's camp shovel hits on it and he pulls it free, shaking the dirt off of the handle. The blade itself is as clean as the day it was dikoted.

Thor checks the maps and spots a possible alternate route and passes Sedryk the coordinates and some directions. The group mounts up and heads downstream, then back up a secondary channel. This channel ends in a somewhat less ideal lagoon than the first, but it is sufficient for getting the boat out of the water and establishing a base camp, if one is warranted. The van rolls up the rocky shoreline without too much trouble, as well.

After the long ride in closed quarters, everyone finds that their tempers have eased. This is about the job, after all. Fighting amongst the team would only screw everyone out of the payoff.

It is nearly 2pm by the time the group breaks onto the secondary beach.

"I don't really see the need for a base camp. Since we now know there is opposition here we should stay close together. Maybe we can tie the boat up or something and hide the van. Either way we should head for the mine post haste, were running out of time."