The Bear reacted poorly to being dragged by the coat. Valencio had to decide exactly just how much he wanted to exert himself. Not because he didn't care to rescue his teammates, he did, but because he needed to decide if it was worth Fearless having information on him. At most their records probably had him down as Task Force 1 and an assassin for Kronos. An internal system that purged out bad agents and acted to advance the stranglehold of his master. Maybe, maybe, reports slowly went in about a monster that appeared wherever he went. They probably did not understand what that type of thing meant. Surely it was just something someone scared had said. Maybe they interpreted it as simply as a man who could manipulate his own shadow. That would be for the best. Certainly seemed to track as OMBRA coiled and bit at the thing that was tearing and ripping it. OMBRA was just a distraction, of course, and it was good that Rhon understood it as he swooped in and Hugo... became some kind of abomination.
The thought of taste crossed his mind from the Symbiote for a second before it was shaken off. Yue had cleared herself, as was the intention of her commander, who found himself slowly allowing himself to be supported by the symbiote itself. Higher planning and tactics were him, but the exertion of himself to manipulate the animalistic part of the ooze to keep ripping and tearing until it was done was a slight toll. Maybe it was the atmosphere of this place? Something didn't feel right as he wondered what the Fearless team was making of him. A man who explicitly wore sunglasses and blindfolds was either a genuine blind man or just so incredibly cocky that the very thought of looking at his targets was beneath him. Still, it was hard to truly think about how a stranger would react to something he had grown accustomed to. The symbiote ate EVERYTHING. Vehicles, drywall, research projects, researchers if Kronos willed it. It was a locust swarm with the power to kill just about any life before it. Hell, it had severed a Doomsday clone. It had eaten that lifeform as it was near impossible to counter something that had a habit of annihilating matter before it. Now, though, it was ripping through what Hugo had left behind, the sounds and sights too abhorrent to really consider outside of the academic sense.
"Do you see this? That will be you if I suspect foul play." OMBRA coiled around the corpse, overcoming and overwhelming the thing before it started to absorb the bear carcass. Bones, eyes, everything. Hugo's show of force was a freak of nature type thing. It was his own body that was transforming into a nightmare. Disgusting. He wasn't one to talk though, considering that the black ooze rumbled and bones popped out before being dragged back in and the sounds of cracking and grinding filled the stale Zone air. Valencio couldn't exactly lock eyes with Hugo, but a tentacle whipped over, glowing red eyes staring into the man's, a toothy grin emerging from the void. " Duly noted, Sir. You've all got nothing to worry about though. I tend to not want to kill people I get along with." They would see just how long this amicable attitude lasted. The Spaniard hoped, for his sake, he also understood the importance of the Kikimora being destroyed. Something that could do this was not fit for use for humans. They were children playing with a gun on a cosmic scale. Right now they needed to move. The area was obviously not safe even with the immediate threat dealt with. One dead bear was not an entire countryside secured. Even without the risk of the eldritch nightmares infecting the place it was understood that the Chornobyl Exclusionary Zone was such for a reason.
Despite being 'safe' to visit, in terms of radioactivity and not structural integrity, it would be another nearly twenty thousand years before people could live here again, this new addition another drop in the ever-growing hat that was the Zone. The visitation, as it was no doubt going to be recorded, was sudden. Yet it occurred in an area already plagued. Had this occurred somewhere more populated then it would have been a bigger issue. They were, as much as it pained to be said, lucky with where this happened. It could have Metropolis. It could have been Gotham, New York, Star City, or Madrid even. Yet it was here. The middle of, virtually, nowhere. A place long since abandoned except by the stupid and the adventurous. Which were they then? Thankfully the thought didn't linger as the group made the decision to take the cabin, a place that he could tell was nothing but a killing ground. Its ramshackle appearance wasn't added by the blood and claw marks that were the new decorations of this place. "Can't say I like what they've done with the place."
"WE KICK OUT UNRULY GUEST AND MISS PARTY." The coat said in a quiet tone, or at least what it thought was a quiet tone as he quickly patroled the limited space. Hugo did whatever he had to, and Yue and Rhon went over the map and their plan going forward. They needed to reach the Kikimora. It was becoming more and more apparent that this thing needed to go. Their next step, as Yue pointed out, was to head to another village. Hopefully, one that wasn't overrun by local wildlife. "We'll stay the night here. Tomorrow we'll move on." IS THAT WISE? The voice calls out into his brain, OMBRA rustling and bristling at the idea. They should have kept going. Even the symbiote seemed to understand the gravity of the situation as Yue appraised them of the situation. The car, the military one outside, was dead. Figured. For all they knew the vehicle had been there since the Cold War but judging by the blood and the smell of rot, it was more likely they had done the same thing their group had and run into the bear with conventional firepower. No doubt they too holed up in this very hovel; and no doubt they had paid the price for it.
"Either not many people survive or, I suspect, those who do hold the secrets closely. With how much we know about the Kikimora, and the zone, which is to say, not much, I suspect more experimentation will be needed” Valencio stood there in thought for a moment before he spoke up. "Even if anyone lives in The Zone, it seemed more likely that such information exists outside it. Stalkers and pirates and other such types routinely venturing in would know. We may not even be the first ones to be approaching whatever it is and, with our guides dead, it is all the harder." They were lost. They had to admit it. They did, however, have the briefing to fall back on. That the Kikimora, or whatever it was truly, was deep inside the zone. People lived in Pripyat still, or at least they did before Whatever Happened happened to the Zone. Maybe they'd get luck. Maybe they'd get extremely unlucky. Maybe this was a wild goose chase and the Kikimora didn't even exist. For now, all they could do was press on.
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