Welcome to Gaia! ::

If she were reading the text properly--and there was a chance she hadn't, considering the source--than she was to appear at the Lighthouse at 0700 hours, packed and ready for a mission. Now, a mission to where, Gretchen had no idea. That information had been conspicuously missing from the message that she'd woken up to.

The message from Mark.

She frowned as she adjusted the scarf draped over her shoulders. Checked her pockets again for her phone, bandages, other assorted gear. She didn't have a clue where they were going, or what they would be doing, but she figured jeans were probably a good idea, no matter what sort of climate they ended up in.

This was not what Gretchen had been expecting to find. Not the sleeping Death assistant, nor the other hunter who seemed to be knitting. She stopped in the doorway to the lighthouse, honeyed gaze flicking from first one, then the other, before finally rolling her lips together and stepping forward to give Mark's shoulder a shake.

"Hey, hello?" Shake shake. "You summoned me here to a mission?" That's what the text had said, at least, but now that she was there she was beginning to wonder if it had been a mistake.

For the long stretched inactivity that followed Gretchen's attempts to wake Mark up, she found herself standing awkwardly beside him, gaze flicking to the other hunter in silent inquiry, before snapping back to Mark as he finally stirred. Not that he offered much by way of answers. "Um." Rep...threesome? She frowned, head shaking. "No, He...um. No."

Then there was more snoring, and the trainee found herself momentarily torn between annoyance and being impressed by his ability to fall asleep literally anywhere. It was kind of enviable. "Mark?"

And he was up again. Gretch took a quick step back as he sat up, startled. Then frowned at him, again. "I don't know what mission. You summoned me. Don't you remember, darlin?"

Two seconds was apparently not enough warning, and Gretchen would find herself forced through the portal along with the Death assistant, Caelius' voice still ringing in her ears. (Not that he'd shouted, he hadn't needed to. It was the tone. You know, the one that can make every hair on your body stand at attention.)

She recovered quickly enough though, and had gotten to her feet in time to see the Death lead disappearing into the mist.

"Maybe we should-" whatever she'd been about to say got cut off as Mark began dropping equipment into her arms. She scrambled to keep from dropping it, and wound up with headsets in all her pockets, one on her ear, and the cell phone in her back pants pocket. At the question she looked up again, and nodded in the direction of the foot prints. "The Lead went that way, are we supposed'ta be followin' him?"

She blinked back at him, not entirely sure what she could have said to earn te look he was giving her. "I just thought." Nope. The protest was cut off as even more tech was thrust into her arms. Once again she scrambled to hold on to it all, brows creasing as Mark went on the explain(not very well) what it was they were doing.

And then gestured to himself dramatically.

"Okay." Her voice was dipping into the sort of level calmness reserved for talking crazy people off of ledges. "Okay, zombie apocalypse wasteland." Brown eyes flicked out into the haze, then back, lingering on the glowing cube. What's that?

"And what do you want me to do with this stuff?" The stuff in her arms shifted a bit as she adjusted her grip on it, leaning in to get a better look at the cube.

Gretchen looked down at the bundle of wires, then back up, brows creased. Maybe he was color blind.

Sifting through the mess, she managed to find a red one, but there was more than one blue, and one of them had a somewhat distressing label. She tried though, matching the colors she could, and keeping close enough for Mark to grab any of the cables he needed for whatever it was he was doing.

At the last request she'd shift what she had left to one arm, using her free hand to untangle the green cord so she could plug it in, as directed. "Okay, all set. I think"

Very oddly and elaborately set up tech was not Gretchen's strength, but that short coming would become fairly obsolete once the system booted up. A map, simplistic in design, lit up the screen, and on it...

Now she noticed the shadows moving against the haze. Lumbering shapes creeping closer from out of the darkness. "Mark..." Gretchen summoned her weapon, eyes widening as she turned on the spot, counting shambling bodies.

Obediently she fell quiet, staff held out in a diagonal in front of her like a barrier.

The closer the things came, the less in control Gretchen felt in the moment. Her worst memories as a hunter, the things that haunted her the worst, had been the invasion at the mall, and the twisting, thorns covered vines that had filled the dorms, trapping and attacking. These...things, whatever they were, Seemed to bring about memories of both. The hairs on the back of her neck had lifted, knuckles molting on the staff from gripping it too tightly. She swallowed, ready to go on the offensive on command.

Instead, Mark had managed to pack up the gear with impressive speed, and was standing rigidly beside her. A whisper sounded through the headset, suggesting flight rather than fight, and Gretchen gave the barest twitch of a nod to show she'd heard him.

Fingers loosening, she adjusted her grip to hold the staff one handed, the other reaching out blindly until she found Mark's arm. Then she was nudging at him, moving her feet ever so carefully to keep the prosthetic from dragging at all. A step, as silent as was possible. Then another, and another. Then the trainee was falling into an all out sprint, hot on Mark's heels.