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The sound Anastacia's strike made was a meaty but woody sound. The branch shook hard and quite a few leaves fell from the thrust but there was no outcry of pain nor any tearing, ripping sound of flesh and sinew yielding to saber-like chitin. Drawing her wings back, the spider queen released another hiss of anger. The red she saw before her six eyes flashed and she spun around, the hiss quickly becoming another scream as a second arrow glided past her skin and hit the tree she had fruitlessly attacked. Pain coursed from a spot along her right side - just above her chitinous armor and just below her armpit along her ribs. The shock and pain knocked her from the air, sending the spider queen down in a black and purple mass of hair and spidery extras. From below came a bellow.

"ANASTACIA!"

Once Iorek had let him go Zeke had followed the sights and sounds that had come from Anya tearassing though the canopy above him, all the while calling his Raevan's name. Cesc and Iorek were afterthoughts right now and although his arm was sore where the Gargoyle had so uncerimoniously grabbed it and his body ached and burned and screamed for rest, he had to protect Anya. He had to protect his daughter.

It was because of this paternal instinct that he ran out to break the Virus' fall. The knife was thrown and landed on the ground with a distant sounding clatter. All Zeke saw in that moment was his Frei turning, falling, thrashing and then his arms stretching out to catch her. His ears were filled with the sound of his heartbeat thudding rapidly and her newest scream of pain and anger. The world seemed to slow. He got closer somehow as his legs and feet felt like they were suddenly gone. He only began to realize he had jumped forward when one of Anastacia's pinions came around and slashed him in the chest.

Pain erupted from the spot and Zeke released a strangled cry, falling to his knees in the grass. In an equally distant clatter Anastacia righted herself and took off for the sky again, but the raver did not see that - all he saw was grass, dirt, and his eyes focused quite clearly on a dark colored beetle skittering hurredly from one shadow to the next. He raised his left hand and clutched at the spot that had been hit. The cloth had weakened from the cut and sagged heavily down, weighted by a warm, expanding wetness that had moments before been only sweat. The world remained moving two times too slowly but when he raised his hand to see why it was so wet it shook almost too fast for his eyes to register.

It was covered in blood.

Zeke inhaled sharply and started to cough, trying to choke back a half-groan half-yell hybrid child of pain and failing miserably. He could only stare at his hand for what felt like eternity but another sharp crack from above jolted the world back into the right speed. His brain kicked back into motion and then Zeke was stripping the yellow shirt Cesc had given him off, rolling it into an imperfect cylinder, and pressing it hard to the slash that looked like a grotesque smile between his shoulders.

Above him, Anastacia continued her hunt - oblivious to her man injured by her own accidental doing and uncaring to his or any of her other teammates' whereabouts at this point in time. Now back in the air and fueled all the more by the pain and rage she felt, she took off in the direction the arrow had seemed to have come from. She was going to rend this ******** limb from limb if it was the last thing she did.

"

The stronger the scent of his prey became, the less clear thoughts Iorek made. Adrenaline and instinct thrummed through his body as he climbed through the trees and darted through the leaves. The thunderous beating of his heart sounded like the fierce drums of war. He was losing himself to the hunt.

But when the hungry beast triggered a trap a tiny part of his familiar self feared the outcome.

'Should not have done that...' A quiet voice remarked as it fluttered through the gargoyle's distorted mind.

A crackling noise drew his wide eyes up and in no time the foliage ceiling gave way to an enemy. It was big and toppling right for him.

There was no time to flee this huge creature. The trees had caged the beast and all he could do as the form tumbled into view was raise his large arms and prepare to strike.

Iorek was strong but his strength was no match against Mother Nature's forest children. The fist he threw did not demolish the tree. He did not shower his surroundings in tiny splinters and bathe in the loser's saw dust. Instead the mighty stump swallowed his hand into it's newly made wooden belly and proceeded to crush him.

No amount of pulling or tugging to free himself was fast enough.

A frightened yelp was the last move he made before a heavy weight silenced the raevan.

When he came to the world was a buzz. A high-pitched buzzing sound was the only thing he could hear. That, and pain. So much pain he could hear it. Was that even possible?

The powerful drumming of his heart was gone. There was no sound to rally him to fight. Only a terribly raw and new feeling his body had never experienced before. It was a deep ache that burned from his arm and bloomed to the rest of his body until it reached the tip of his ribbon tail.

Iorek struggled to breathe has he laid pinned against the trees. The beast had been frightened away by this terrible new feeling and left the confused and frightened Reks to clean up the mess.

He could barely remember how he got here. After leaving his teammates the rest was a blur. But whatever occurred had ended badly and he was stuck in quite the predicament.

The next few minutes was a pathetic showing of the gargoyle struggling to free himself. There was a lot of rolling, tugging, clawing at tree bark, and screaming going on as every nerve in his body decided to share just how bruised they were.

Tears trickled down his dirt smudged face as every motion sent a series of rippling pain coursing from his arm and out.

Somehow, someway, pity found him. After a few more tries Reks was able to pull his arm and then himself free from the horrible trap that his foolishness had only made worse.

Iorek shuddered at what he knew he had to do now. Survey the damage. But it wasn't to the area, it was to him. Slowly and carefully he craned his head to try and see where the beacons were to the pain and shock-induced numbness.

His wings had taken the brunt of the weight when he and the tree stump landed and it definitely showed. They were mangled, scratched, and would certainly ache with bruising in the oncoming days just like everything else that was a part of him. It hurt to move them but as a much needed piece to the lovely puzzle-of-Iorek they were needed so the pain would have to do.

But as Iorek brushed aside this and that as he inspected himself, the last injury would not receive the same treatment. Carefully, Reks raised his right arm to see how badly the stump got him.

Purple. A deep shade of purple splattered all over from his fingers to, glancing to the side, his shoulder. Wide green eyes stared at the liquid in absolute shock.

Blood.

Iorek, the stone beast, was bleeding.

Never in all his years had he bled. He didn't even think he had blood! He'd never seen it before. For some reason or another the gargoyle just assumed he was sculpted from stone.

But that was not the case. He had blood and his whole right arm was covered in it.

Slowly Reks pulled up the tatter sleeve of his purple-soaked hoodie to get a better look. It was absolutely frightening and fascinating until he saw the true damage. Pieces of him were gone and craters remained. All the air whooshed right out of him in that moment.

A harsh crack had formed from his forearm and spread like a spider-web outwards. The force had been too much for his rock skin to take. Some pieces of the dark stone that lay randomly across his arm had even popped off, leaving pockets of bubbling blood to ooze out and paint his gray skin.

What had he done? He broke....himself.

All Iorek could do was stare at the sight. That would be the last thing he would remember. The switched was flipped. Red painted over his sight, distorting his vision and dulling common sense. The war drums harsh call broke through the high pitched buzzing and brought back the monster who had run from a fallen tree.

The smell of his own blood and tears filled his nostrils but so did a small scent of hunter. His hunter.

Rage quieted the screams of pain as Iorek dashed off into the jungle once again. It was the one that picked him up when he stumbled over wounded limbs, and it was the one that shut away his humanity.

What was now leaping and hurling itself through the woods, following just a familiar smell, possessed no human thought. It was all creature, hell-bent on taking down the opposing force at whatever the cost.

The tree tops above her spun and drew closer as the spider queen righted herself and took off right where she left off. She had felt her wing come into contact with something solid but it was not important right now. Nothing was important - the soreness in her wing joints from the heavy flapping they had been doing, the damp patter of something having just spattered on her skin during her hit wing's corrective arc, the constant crackling noise in her ears that sounded like the much hated radio static, even the throbbing pain that had set her off and kept her going even now - nothing was as important as finding her assailant and finishing him off like he needed to be.

She would be the one to do it. She had been personally harmed and everything in her was telling her to be the one to end it. Like the pain it drove her onward and fueled her fire although she could only detect the faintest stirring of leaves through that buzz in her head. From behind and somewhere below there was an earth shaking crash, but being aloft it did not affect the Raevan as it should have. She listened for the next rustling and upon finding it, dove in after it. Leaves, branches, smaller creatures that huddled there; all were annoyances rather than obstacles and Anastacia blew threw them all and left her mark upon everything she touched. Using both hands now, several new strands of webbing from her left hand joined the original few from her right. They stretched out behind her and stuck to everything she laid hands on or were unfortunate enough to have the gossamer strands fall upon as their maker flew ever onward.

A rustling came from her left and to her mad eyes the Virus was so sure she saw a foot disappearing into the gloom. Swinging herself around she coiled her body and then sprung outward, reaching out to grab what she had seen. She grabbed something hard and pulled herself out of the canopy, but instead of a whoop of joy there was only an arachnid scream of frustration. She had grabbed hold branch that had grown in a foot-like way. Her fingers tightened around the object and with a crack that sounded like a gunshot she had it broken off and hurtling toward the ground so far below. Her mind screamed choice obsenities to holler toward the black sky but it was another wordless scream that ripped once more from the Widow's lips instead.

He pressed as hard as he could manage, but through fear and shaking hands, it was easier said than done. Zeke had managed to get his coughing under control, but now he knelt in the middle of god-knows-where alone, afraid, and injured. He knew what he had to do, but what that was was a two-pronged fork. One prong was to go after Anya. The other was to go back and get the first aid kit and patch himself up before something really bad happened to him. To some the choice was obvious but Zeke had never been more conflicted. The prideful male part of himself - the one had held the shred of machismo that Zeke usually flaunted only in play - told him he could go on ahead without worry. It whispered in his ears that he was a fit twenty-nine year old and fit twenty-nine year olds needn't double back to tend to what would surely amount to a scratch when their family members were running blood-drunk through unfamiliar jungles. Alternatively, the sensible, medically-trained part of himself spat that what he was nursing was no mere scratch. He could feel the shirt growing damper and had seen the blood cover his entire palm and fingers for himself to see that. He needed to go back so that he could then go forward with no risk to himself or hinderance to others. What use would he be to anyone - especially Anya - if he passed out from the pigheaded stupidity he was currently contemplating?

The sensible side was making the most sense, but paternal instinct had allied with pride and machismo. Two against three, and Zeke had always had a habit of running forward into danger first before thinking about it. He stood slowly, shakily, and for a moment looked between his two options as though they were open doors rather than metaphors. His eyes were wide and he was trembling all over, clutching Cesc's shirt as though it were a life preserver and he was adrift at sea. He only had minutes - no, seconds! - to decide and time was ticking away.

There was a deafening crash.

The ground shook beneath Zeke's feet and he stumbled, but caught himself before he went down into the dirt again. The vet immediately snapped his head upward, looking toward the source of the sound. It was farther into the jungle. The vet gaped and started taking steps forward toward the crash sight as though he were on a rail.

No!

He stopped himself. Iorek's roar pierced the air, accompanied by the sounds of struggle. Zeke called the Gargoyle's name but the sound was thin, higher than it should have been, and broke over the start of the name's second syllable. He knew the sound of a creature in pain when he heard it. Dog, cat, horse, human - no matter the species, the sound of someone or something in pain always had the same ring to it. Iorek's bellow carried that note and Zeke's blood ran cold.

I need the first aid kit, the world spun on its axis. But Iorek needs it more!

He wanted to cry out 'hold on' or 'I'm coming' but the words did not leave his lips. Zeke grit his teeth and spun on his heel, charging forward as he doubled back. Though this place was overgrown and underused, his headlong rush to this spot had left apparent markers. He broke through to the clearing where they had first been attacked today and there it all was - waiting out for him as though someone was looking out for him. Zeke grabbed the handle of the kit as he slid in the dirt for it. He scrambled to open the cover and had to bite his tongue to gain some control over his otherwise numb-feeling hands and fingers. When the contents were revealed, his brow furrowed. The box had been tampered with. Some things were missing and again Zeke raised his head like a deer in headlights to look around as though he believed they were simply lying around somewhere close by. It was then his gaze found the compass, and he focused quite clearly on the blood smeared over one direction on the face.

Anastacia had gone off well before him. Iorek had taken off after the femme Raevan and her quarry too but was now hurt and struggling somewhere. Zeke had attempted to follow but had gotten caught up. And Cesc...Cesc was...

The crash and second bellow from Iorek in the far jungle ahead did not seem to affect Zeke for the moment. Everything whirled and once again he felt sick to his stomach, which flopped and twisted and gave his realization even grimmer notes.

"Where's Cesc?"

Push harder. Move faster. Be stronger.

All of Iorek's conscious thoughts were gone. Poof. As soon as he began this rampage clear thinking had disappeared. His teammates had become a distant memory and while they possessed worry and fear for him, he felt nothing for them.

Splinters sprayed the ground as he hurtled himself through the thick jungle treetops. His rage could be heard a mile away through his loud roars and thrashing. The concern for even his well-being was set aside as the berserker gathered new white scrapes along his skin and rips in his ribbon.

Iorek had lost himself to the beast.

And this creature was out for blood. It had been dying to be bathed in it since the first bout with the mysterious man.

But the land was slowing this creature down and every time he drew closer to his enemy a large tree or a heavily foliaged area would crop up. Anger kept him going when these obstacles emerged. The fierce heat that ebbed through his body, the piercing ache in his arm, only made him fight harder to move faster. Soon more smells joined that of the hunter's, familiar smells, raevan smells.

But if he reached them in time would he even care? Or would they simply be seen as expendable? A wall that needed to be demolished to reach the finish line.

Where's Cesc?

As soon as he uttered the question, the phrase filled Zeke's head in a repetitive loop. The Stag had been with him when Iorek had grabbed the two stragglers in his anger and haste to catch up with the hunter, but once the Gargoyle had dropped him, Zeke now realized that Cesc hadn't been beside him. The Dawn Frei had perhaps fallen behind, but if he had, he should have caught up to the veterinarian or at least been spotted on Zeke's trek back to the discarded belongings.

Kneeling in the dirt, Zeke wildly looked around the surrounding area as though the youngest Frei would suddenly appear from behind a tree or around some overgrown shrub. His eyes kept returning to the compass and the smear of blood on one side of it as he struggled to grasp the answer and yet also tried to deny the very idea.

He wouldn't... Yet there was the compass and its second arrow that only pointed in one obvious direction. Zeke jumped to his feet, half of the Stag's full name on his lips before being lost to a cry of pain. The movement of his arms tugged the muscles beneath the injury he now bore and made the damnable thing burn and sting. Blood still flowed from the slice but exposed to the air it was beginning to slow as the red ooze dried and caked over his skin. The raver went to his knees again, propping one up to hug it to his chest as he bit back a groan. s**t had hit the fan several times over and here he was; alone and injured, with the world falling down around his ears. To say he was scared right now would be an understatement. 'Terrified' would be more apt with how his heart thundered in his ears, his skin felt cold and clammy even in the midst of jungle heat, and realization settled in like a hard back hand across the face. He was alone - his team separated to the four winds and perhaps meeting their untimely demises for all he knew - and he was powerless to stop it all and make it right again. The last notion staggered him most of all and sank like a heavy rock in his sickly gut. Anya, Iorek, Rhedefre, and even himself - they were at the mercy of a faceless hunter and deep down an idea was now dawning that no matter what he did he was effectively useless. A team of four had been scattered and no matter how much running through the jungle with a knife he did, he himself could not fix this in any way he normally could.

Zeke looked down at his still shaking hands - covered with blood, dirt, sweat, and who knows what else at this point - and then to the compass again. Back and forth he went for what felt like an eternity thanks to the world reeling around him. Several times his eyes passed over the way he had gone and come back from and then to the direction which the blood arrow pointed to. He didn't know what to do. He could patch himself up, yes - and slowly his hands found their way to the medical supplies again - but then what? What could he do? What could one measly, injured, s**t-scared-out-of-him guy do against an unfamiliar jungle and an even more unknown but long ranged adversary? What had happened to Cesc? What had happened to Iorek? Where was Anastacia and what was happening to her in her own rage-fueled absence?

In the back of his mind, Iorek and the Gargoyle's injured cries had not been forgotten, rather temporarily misplaced as Zeke found himself pulled thin in several directions at once. Slowly they came back to the forefront of his mind, gaining prominence as gauze pads and E-Z Tear medical tape were placed gingerly over mangled flesh. The act of bandaging his injuries offered a little stability in this chaotic place and allowed Zeke to process the situation clearer, if not by much and still riddled with the pervasive cloud of self-doubt and questioning. However, it was that very doubt that gave him a platform to stand on and make a decision, as rash and second guessed during his run to the location he chose as it was.

He knew he couldn't do this, not by himself. Not as one man, human or Raevan or any species aside. He could try as hard as he wanted, run in all the directions he could with all the strength he could muster, but he knew in the end he would just be a target and more likely a causality. Alone, he couldn't do a thing except be a big bloody bulls-eye. But where one would fail, a team would more than likely succeed as proven time and again. Anastacia was too far gone ahead to find so easily, Cesc had vanished like dawn into morning proper, but Iorek...Zeke knew he could find Iorek.

Once I get him patched up, he kept telling himself, gripping the compass hard in one hand and the first aid kit in the other, he'll help. I know he will.

And if the gods were good, Iorek would have found Anya and things would - could - be that much easier.


Her scream came to an end and the air buzzed with the final note of the newest declaration of the spider queen's rage. She floated high in the air; chest heaving, body stiff, eyes wild, hair tangled and littered with earthly debris - a bizarro world portrait of the normally stoic, aloof, and primly kept Black Widow. Her body burned all over as though she had been set aflame from the inside. Her mind whirled in a torrent of extreme emotions she had rarely - if ever - felt before. Rational and cautious thinking - the normal Anastacia's bread and butter - was not here. Where it should have been was instead fury; a red hot monster that scuttled like a spider but filled every inch of her like a living vapor...and continued to expand as she hovered there, looking for her assailant and present prey. The very thought that he had given her the slip after all this chasing only fed the monster inside her. As it passed briefly through her head the Virus Frei snapped her wings and crown wide and uttered another deadly hiss. The logic she ran on right now told her he had not, rather he was merely hiding like the yellow-bellied coward that he was. He was hiding from her, afraid, conscious of what she would do to him once she got her hands around his neck and started twisting. She was sure of it.

The thought of violence made the monster smile, which in turn made the Arachnid smile - a gruesome and cruel-looking disfigurement that would not suit the normal Anastacia at all, even if she did feel inclined to talk down to someone and felt proud by her choice of flashy words and cutting diction. The look was jagged, raw, and it reached all six of her eyes; making them shine in an equally horrible light. Twisting a neck - she rather liked the thought of that. To keep him from struggling she might even bind him. She knew she had the means to and right now she more than had the will.

Find him. It was all she had to do. Hunt him down. Make him pay.

The words became a mantra, a chant which wiped out all other thought. Find him. Hunt him down. Make him pay. Over and over, fueling the fire within and sending her into the trees again with renewed vigor. Branches broke when she grabbed them, bark was raked away with a brush of her fingernails, and leaves fell like rain to the earth below. Every rustle not made by her, every disturbance that was unexplained, she went for. She found traps and tricks left behind by her quarry but not the man himself. The mantra acted like a funnel, releasing the rage at these misleadings into her veins at an even stream, cooling her head somewhat and giving her more of a predator's mind than that of a beserker.

Find him. Hunt him down. Make him pay.

His traps were growing more frequent and were more hastily thrown together, she could tell. He was trying to divert her. He was growing even more panicked. The smile stretched farther across her face. She was closing in and there was nothing he could do to stop her. His volleys had done the exact opposite of what he had intended. His weapon had turned against him and his prey now stalked rather than fell before him.

Find him. Hunt him down. Make him pay.

She felt as if her blood now took up the cry. Her heart pumped in time with the words as they looped over and the world slowed around her. Her eyes still failed at distance, but despite the short sight they made up for being acutely aware of what she could see. Anya paused on a branch to survey her surroundings, "crouching" with her wing tips placed almost delicately upon the bough. Leaves and shade covered her, the lack of light darkened her hair while her all black outfit was natural camouflage for her. Through her perch she could "see" beyond what her eyes allowed as the subtle vibrations from the swaying acted as an outward stretching beacon and filled in the darkness with white rings and outlines.

Find him.

Her head suddenly snapped to the left. Anastacia faced the trunk of the tree she waited upon but it was as though she were seeing through the ancient plant as though it were an open window. A human-shaped figure was fiddling with the thick bough he crouched upon, toying with something that was obscured by the outlines of leaves but what she knew was his next trap.

Hunt him down.

She moved as though time's slowness suddenly affected her. Hand over hand, spider leg over spider leg, feeling each vibration and humoring herself with the idea that each pulse was the hunter's heart. She crawled at an angle over the great tree's face, drawing her webbing over it as though dragging a net behind her. She paused on the other side. Much of her hair had fallen into her face but she could see him through the wayward locks and strands, his hands occupied with another pointless, pathetic stick-and-rope trick. It seemed that he did not see her.

Make him pay.

Effortlessly, feeling weightless, Anastacia slowly crouched...and then launched upon her prey. Her wings were pulled high and back behind her, their points readied for the strike that was to follow once she had her hands and her threads on the man who had dared attack her. The world moved in slow motion, like in some of those action-packed movies someone the normal Anastacia knew watched. Her hands stretched out before her, gobs of white silk pulling back from her fingertips from the force. Out of the corner of her eye she saw something break through the trees, but it was nothing to her. Not now. Not as she grabbed fistfuls of cloth and the flesh beneath it and fell upon her prey with all the weight she had in her partial form.

Nothing mattered now. Nothing except the way her wings felt when she released them from their tightly wound stance and sunk them into flesh and sinew for the very first time.

Closer and closer.

Reks could smell him. A mix of sweat, blood, nature, and...fear?

He shivered.

It smelled delicious.

The landscaped raced past Iorek as he chased the aroma. If the gargoyle wasn't so focused on the one sense he may have noticed thatHe was almost there. The scent was strong and tugged the gargoyle along like a leash. Every time he was snagged on a tree or sent tumbling over branches the beast just got right back up and continued his rampage.

A path of destruction laid in Iorek's wake. Splinters, broken trees, and demolished branches marked his trail.

The thunderous beating in his chest grew and grew until it was silenced when he finally made it. Nature gave way to his force and the monster broke out of the jungle's cage. His vision, painted red, landed immediately on the target but he and his prey were not alone.

Someone else was there.

Someone else was stealing his prey.

"He's mine!" Iorek screamed with fury.

He suffered in this hunt. He battled his way to this point. This, this scum of man, was his prize. Reks immediately charged the two with fangs bared and spit dribbling down his chin. The raevan looked absolutely crazed covered in blood, debris, and mud. He had become a twisted version of his former self.

There was no stopping him now. The other could not have his hunter. Reks would not lose this kill. He dove forward with claws outstretched, jaw opened wide, and moving as quick as he could.

This would be the end!

But rather than claw at his foe's skin which the beast begged to do, Iorek's dominant hand suddenly turned into a fist and delivered a mighty punch to the hunter's strong form.

Anastacia didn't even have a moment to realize she had pierced a dummy before she found herself spinning through the air by some heavy, hard force that had come from her left. Her rage momentarily faded into a dull stupor as the world suddenly did not make sense. Before her eyes everything became a green, brown, and black whirl that was damn near nauseous with its speed. It flipped over and over and over and her hands were full of cloth that had been ripped from her prey.

Her prey.

The words came up suddenly in her mind's eye and as she spun around and crashed through everything she came across she began to puzzle her predicament out. She had pounced upon the man, sunk her pinions into him for but a brief moment before something had roared out of the forest and barreled into her. And that thing...That thing...

"SON OF A b***h!"

Her rage was back and in full force. Without warning, one of those cloth-filled hands balled into a fist and she swung at her attacker, crying out in a mix of anger and pain as her knuckles broke upon stone rather than soft flesh. She recoiled her hand but struck out with her wings, scuttling the appendages but again only scraping over rock. Still, the hard surface they moved across was sturdy enough and she was able to push herself away from the painful, obstructive thing and right herself in the air. As soon as the world was back on its proper axis the spider queen had her aching hand cradled to her chest and everything spidery about her raised in attack mode. She actively sought out her newest 'attacker', and the one who had now just earned the brunt of her ire. The fact the "hunter" was now in a million pieces upon the jungle floor was not even registered.

The jungle grew tighter around Zeke but he pressed on. The worry nagged at him, but he kept going. Doubt and indecision threatened to pull him apart from the inside, but by god Zeke kept putting one foot in front of the other, trying so hard to get to where he just knew Iorek was and get there now. The Gargoyle's name was chanted over and over in the vet's head, as it was one of the things keeping him from bolting in a different direction in a panicked chaos.

Find Iorek, help Iorek, get Iorek's help.

Over and over he told himself that even as he scrambled over downed trees, around (or sometimes through) bramble, and skirted upturned roots. Once he got to Iorek, everything would be fine. Iorek would be fine, surely, the Frei was made of stone! Something had snared him like last night, that was all. Zeke had the knife. He could do what Cesc had the night before; he could set him free.

All the same, as he went the vet clutched the first aid kit's handle tighter and tighter, his knuckles quickly a stark white in color. Every muscle in his body burned and screamed for rest but the vet ignored them. There wasn't any time for this. No time to stop and catch a breath, no time to dilly dally. He had to get there and he had to get Iorek and then they would be off and everything would be okay...

A root came up from seemingly no where and Zeke's foot caught in it. He cried out as the first aid kit went flying, but luck decided to smile upon him this one time today. The raver caught himself before he tumbled into the dirt, his hands grabbing onto a damp tree that stood just within reach. He righted himself and went for the now discarded kit, stopping when his hand made a peculiar purple hand print on the top of the case as he grabbed it.

"What?"

The word escaped him without any thought and Zeke whipped around to view the thing he had touched. Even in the eerie twilight that this part of the jungle had, Zeke could make out the splatter marks and purple color of the substance that now coated his hands. Not only that, but he easily found the trap that had struck Iorek and the mark the Gargoyle Raevan had made upon the tree he had been smashed into. Zeke looked at his hands again and they shook as they had when he had surveyed his own blood upon them.

Blood... The rocks littering the grass below were not natural. Not only did they look out of place but they too were marred by the purple stuff which Zeke now realized was still warm.

"Oh God no." The trees around him grew that much taller as Zeke's knees buckled under him. Tears stung his eyes and he shook his head and pounded his fists into the hard ground beneath him. "No, no, no, no, NO NO NO!"

He swore heavily. His head swam as thoughts of Iorek's attack and possible fate filled his mind. He had made the wrong decision. He had gone back when he should have gone forward. Zeke started shaking violently and he gripped what grass lay beneath him as though that would steady him. It did nothing of the sort.

He had made the wrong decision. He had failed. Iorek hadn't been snared; Iorek had been hurt, actually physically hurt, and now he was gone. The hunter had taken him again. In the growing dark there was no sign of him and Zeke had been too late. With his decision having been made in that clearing, he was now sure it was too late for Cesc and Anya and even Kyou too. They weren't getting out, none of them were. They had made a terrible mistake; he had made a terrible mistake. Zeke curled forward and his sweaty brow touched the packed dirt beneath him. The cheery, glass half full vet was gone and in his place was only a frightened man who was so sure he had failed them all.

"I should've gone ahead. I should've gone ahead. I should...I should've..."