Book Two, Chapter Five: The Broken Tether

[albatross]

Jeckle is able to scoot away, but her infrared search reveals nothing. The control of this creature must be a good distance away.

Inside the prisoner stammers in Chinese. "He says he doesn't know who it is, but he will ask," Ionic translates after relaying Shroud's question to him.

The frog is still trying to attack Dante with its whiplike tongue.

[dakota]

Khris looks at his ring, then summoned Khamai," Gotta stop that frog, partner." he directed the chameleon while holstering his weapons.

[Dome]

Dante attempts to create a shield around the creature, containing it, since physical attacks do not seem to work.

(d20 = 16)

[shiivster]

'outta range of the glasses ... ' Jeckle states as she regains her feet and moves to a tree for support

[albatross]

The frog manages to leap out of the way of the entire shield. So fast is all the goes through Dante's mind as the thing lashes him into the ground with its tongue. Dante is winded a little by the impact.

Khamai moves quickly, like a shadow, and manages to bite the Frog. But the frog snakes out his long tongue and licks Khamai and the chameleon hits the ground unconscious. Khamai is still breathing and shows no signs of fading, but isn't moving either.

Steelfist summons Glarung and the dragon lays down a stream of fire at the frog, which leaps to the side. Pausing for only the briefest of moments, the lightning quick creature takes a hop and leap and is into the trees and escaping.

[dakota]

Khris saw Khamai go down and felt a pang of panic. His pistols are exchanged for the AA-12 in a blink as he followed outside, slapping the safety off. " enough of this bloody crap." He hoisted the automatic shotgun to his shoulder and aimed in the frog's general direction, and unleashed a murderous barrage.

[ Half his drum fired, 20rnd burst. To hit = 1d20+1=14 ]

[albatross]

Trees turn to mulch under Shroud's shotgun barrage, but the nible frog sidesteps and twists out of reach and into the forest.

[dakota]

Khris wasn't sure which was causing the ringing in his ears, the twelve guage stacatto or the tirade of profanity that was accompaning it. " Sonuvamiserable****suckingmother******slimeylittle*****!" He finished with as he lowered the Auto Ausault 12 and scowled. " Bollocks!" He added as he stood outside the plane, his temper causing him to tremble slightly. With a thought he recalled Khamai to rest and heal while his mind raced .o0 How could Tiger have thought I could lead in her place? I just lost control and shot the bloody place to hell. They can't be expected to trust me to lead.

[albatross]

Glarung takes to the air and begins to try to follow the quick frog.

[Dome]

Dante struggles to his feet and shake his head, "did we get it? That thing was bloody quick. How can we fight something that quick? So what should we do now? Go after it, or let it go?"

[shiivster]

' ... call them back. call your creatures back ... they're trying to split us up from our ring creatures. if i had a head for tactics, its what i would do. Heckle had the brains in that department .. not me'

*she gets to her feet and pulls back the discharged wires and frowns at them 'well that shows me i'm really useless in a fight now .. doesn't it? oh well .. too bad, so sad. nothing i can do about it now. the 'owner' of hte frog wasn't in sight, so unless this place is under observation or even Binos, we'll never catch out who is the owner. i'ld say its one of 'HIS' prior teams trying to get us out of the way to find the prize or treasure or whatever it is he's looking for thats so freakin valuable here .... '

*she puts the spent weapon with wires into a bag and shoves it into a pocket, then gathers up the spittle the frog had, in case it has other functions, like acid or tracking or something disgusting like that. 'never know, might find a way to use it. man do i ever feel like an idiot. well i guess they're like that cartoon show 'pokemon' or that other one about he other dimension battler critters. saturday morning cartoons and such with cards falling from the skies .. its just rings .. and they have the upper hand. they know WE have some .. but we don't know who they are .... '

[dakota]

When the dragon soared overhead after the frog, Khris could still do nothing but stand there and contemplate. He wanted a drink badly, but knew that wasn't a good idea. He popped out the magazine and began to reload, difficult to do with his hands shaking. He heard the others talking inside, but it wasn't registering.

[albatross]

The dragon lays down some flames through the trees targeting the frog.

Steelfist listens to Jeckle, hesitates, and says, "Are we going after it?" He looks ready to charge into the jungle, but he fingers his ring, ready to call the pursuing dragon back.

[shiivster]

*Jeckle looks at Steelfist and shrugs and then points at Khris*

'don't ask me .. ask him .. he's the leader now. he's currently off in lala-land with shock or something ... '

*she crosses the arms after examining the coat 'hmm .. maybe some light kevlar? .. or some of that mixture i ... ' *she goes silent now. no point in talking about some of the goodies she's made or was working on. but that flex steel spray on the inside of the coat did seem like a good idea now.

'so what has gotten away that we know of? those are the ones that are gonna come after us with the others that we are still clueless about'

[Dome]

Dante seeing the inner struggle on Shroud's face, reaches out to his mind hoping this is the right thing to do he uses his telepathy, 'Kris, you can do this. You have to. We will all support you. Tiger trusted you to take her place. She knew you could step up, and so do I. Now's the time.'

Dante shows no outward sign of talking to Kris. He walks up and puts a hand on his shoulder. If Shroud looks at him he just looks him in the eye and nods his head, indicating his support.