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Upon cursory assessment, Lexington found that their chosen space for camp offered many topographical similarities to his old home. A stark contrast to the Bermuda island, the forest spoke of enormously tall trees, the distinct scent of pine and clear air, familiar mountainous terrain, and all too many avenues in which one could get lost for good. The melting dash of snow took with it the height of his homesickness for Germany's familiar forests. Here, at least, he felt a half-step away from Aachen rather than stranded on a beachside version of the Sahara. He could live with that.

Orders had Von patrolling in the burgeoning morning with a name he did not recognize - which said little, considering how green he was to the whole Deus Ex affair. Armed with little more than the knowledge provided by pamphlets, and a rudimentary sparring match under his belt, he imagined that any signs of trouble would end in a tragedy on his part. The orders given listed nothing about his assigned partner, either - was this William Hughes a resident badass, another greenhorn, one of the faceless middle that seldom reached achievement? He knew not how to spot him; Lexington only knew to meet him on the southern edge of camp, where the evergreens encroached on their new environment.

The chill hanging in the air left Lexington dressed in his usual zippered hoodie, turtleneck and jeans - all black, and none terribly indicative of any great personality. The occasional rip in the jeans belied constant use more than designer decision, and the old hoodie's once-brilliant colors mellowed out into muted roses and a bleached skull on which the peeling phrase 'No Regrets' was imposed.

"You waste too much energy on worrying. He might have cigarettes, you know. That's all you seem to think about these days."

You couldn't just stay quiet, could you. Lexington loosed a long breath, and the fog of it dissipated into crisp air. If nothing else, they faced a good hike.

A shock of red informed him of an approach, and Lexington stared blankly at the marred man who hailed him. Is this what I'll look like if I stick around long enough? The ridging of countless scars promised a mirror of the mountains they climbed, and flecked him with hints of pales and rose hues. At a glance, Von determined that the man saw battle for a long time, and with frequency. Comparatively, the pale, ill-dressed goth looked like someone who recently ventured out of the Seattle scene to get lost in the local forests. Rep looked like he fell out of every war imaginable and came here to get away from his utterly damaged psyche. He supposed that, if trouble came along, Rep would make quick work of it.

"Is it zat easy to tell?" Von clicked his tongue against his teeth. "Lexington Vondrasek-Laurent. I'f been called Von, or Lex, or anysing in between. Part of Mist, I guess." Gretchen explained it much earlier in the description of his coat.

"You look like you'f seen ze a** end of Hell," he commented offhandedly. Hands still in pockets, he started up one of the steeper trails. Beneath the flattened snow, the ever-present brown of fallen leaves peeked out. They appeared so utterly mundane compared to what he processed from the week prior; he scarcely believed that these two vastly different worlds could possibly intersect. "Zat jewelry," he paused to gesture to his neck, "is it your weapon?" It stuck out to him, perhaps more than the odd hair, and about as much as the host of scars that claimed his features. While they could explain away the scars to any potential passersby, a giant hunk of rock around his neck proved much more difficult to believably dismiss.

Which one was Death again? s**t… I'm already tired of trying to figure all of this out.

"I'm still waiting for you to impress me, Hunter. Would you dare to make a friend for me?"

I'd rather stick a needle in my eye.

"You're already blind. What difference would it make?"

"Crow it is." Neun, zehn, kann die Krähen sehen. Briefly he considered asking about Rep's weapon totem, but figured the hunter would tell him to ******** off for it. He already made a point out of the jewel as a red herring; why would he grant that kind of insight to a stranger? The series of pamphlets warned enough about splinter factions and untrustworthies - which reminded him, starkly, of old propaganda techniques. Deus Ex was savvy in setting up distinct definitions for 'us' and for 'them'; undoubtedly its long-term supporters internalized these affairs.

"So what is it? Your jewel - is it just a decoration, or? And how do you know your weapon's a demon?" He couldn't recall reading anything of the sort, and Malicious herself seldom gave up personal information.

"I'm a harpy, just so you know."

Does that make you a demon?

"It makes me a harpy."

Helpful. He continued the hike without further retort to his weapon; he found it much more difficult now to keep outside of his head for necessary conversations. Hopefully his partner assignment either didn't notice or didn't care. If Lexington had to guess, Rep probably didn't care. If hell amounted to a vacation for him, then he'd been through too much to care a whit for some new blood's questions or frequent bouts of depersonalization. "And what's it like? To fight somesing, I mean."

Great, so he's got God's ballsack hanging around his neck. Good for him. Von continued through the wintry landscape unperturbed, however; Rep came off as fairly bored with explaining to the young and ignorant, and Von imagined he would feel similarly if their roles were reversed. Next to violence, meek explanations of resources sounded utterly droll.

The redhead perked up at the mention of violence and launched into his own ******** dissertation on it. Or, Von could only assume a dissertation - half the phrasing came out garbled with glaswegian accenting and he lost the thread of conversation at times. When Rep compared fighting to sex, Von found himself at a loss - comparing two experiences unknown to him left him very much in the dark over the matter. He tried to play it knowingly, and simply glanced back at his partner with a raised brow. Tepid incredulity should cover his potentially obvious lack of comprehension, he decided.

"Full charge? You mean a FEAR attack?" Lexington remembered his own, and with that, found some common ground. Perhaps more exposure might amount to that level of reaction; for Von, he simply found it exciting. Hearing his weapon moan in his ear about it wasn't exactly a drawback, either.

Lexington snorted at Rep's backpedaling. "It would make all of zis feel more real. I don't know much about how to use zis weapon, so you'd be alone for most of ze fight. I'm afraid I'm not a very good bedpartner in zat respect," he offered dryly. "I wonder what ze likelihood is of even being spotted out here. If it's anysing like back in Aachen, you could get lost for days in ze forest wis' good chance of not finding anozzer person. We'd be hard-pressed to explain zat fat jewel around your neck to anyone - same wis' ze scars." The woods folded about them tightly, almost to a claustrophobic extent, and the trees offered no vew beyond some thirty feet.

Not far beyond them, footsteps sounded off-tempo to their own; others marched over fresh snow and fallen leaves toward an inevitable intersection with the hunters. A team of two it was - two female hikers of comparable age to one another, and a thirst for exploring the outdoors. All blazing cyan directional signs went unhindered; they saw nothing more than the towering trees and soft snows that left the scenery crisp with winter.

"Is zat so?" He wished he knew of this earlier; Lexington would've managed a better spar with Gretchen if he recognized that Malicious wanted a modicum of control. He imagined that surrendering something so integral as control over one's body entailed terrible consequences, but could not parse how he himself would feel about it. Perhaps the thought strayed too far beyond the realm of his imagination. "How are you supposed to - oh."

Lexington stared ahead dully at the pair marching up the path. Some distance remained between them still; they had enough time to cobble together a cohesive story. Briefly he considered America's suggestion from the camp - that they conducted research further ahead - but he decided against it. Between the two of them, a man that looked like he fell out of a grunge scene and saw too many mosh pits paired with a twice-rejected mall goth, they looked nothing like researchers. And since his company appeared far more combat-minded about these affairs, the situation provided him an opportunity.

"We'll go wis' closed," he decided after a minute. "Construction. Zey haf' it zoned off. Hej, you look like you hike enough; tell zem to double back and detour a half mile east or somesing. And if zey insist…" He half-grimaced and shrugged. "Kill zem and hide ze bodies?" It's a forest. How hard could that be?

"You're starting to make a career out of being a walking cliché."

They say stick to what you're good at.

"Hey." He approached first, and the girls looked immediately put off by the laissez-faire opening. He paid it little heed; his body language enunciated his lack of interest in engaging others. "Zey'f closed ze pass up ahead. It's a construction area."

One of the girls sighed, her stance shifting to contrapposto. Her ponytail bobbed animatedly as she spoke. "Okay. Why aren't we hearing backhoes then? Or engines? Or anything, really?" She paused, and her point was made clear by crisp silence.

You're shitting me. "Zey're in a surveying phase right now. You're not going to hear anysing until zey get clearance to dig."

The other girl, though less agumentative, wasn't helping. "Oh, they should let us through then. Come on, the canyon's up this way-"

"Do you know anysing about surveying? Zey're scoping ze site for archaeological significance. Ze whole sing is under site preservation until zey clear it. Zey won't let anyone srough here until zey'f determined it doesn't hold any ant'ropological value. A couple of hikers could just as easily stomp across some rare artifacts and not even recognize it."

"Then where are we supposed to go?" The first girl shrugged arms outward, obviously perplexed.