Lornaine Forest

So far while everyone was pinned down, there seemed to be no casualties, and the sergeant was hard at work trying to figure out how to mount an advance as rounds were striking all around him. The fog was beginning to change, and warp, entities forming within which distracted the Marines, and stray disruptor bolts whizzed into the fog in attempts to strike out at the entities out of a primal fear of what was coming.

"Hold your fire!" The Sergeant called out, raising his hand causing his men to duck further into cover and cease firing their weapons which granted the Death Squad a brief reprieve, even as both the Anti-Armor and Marksman both were suppressed by the hail of incoming fire.

"We need to flank them." The Sergeant whispered as he unclasped a spherical device from his load bearing vest, a powerful ECM Grenade designed to break an enemy's line of sight. Hurling it with all his strength, the grenade detonated between their positions releasing a charged chaff that was intended to jam thermals, and most other forms of sights, hopefully blinding them for a short time as the Marine Sergeant waved his hand, and directed his men to move immediately south, and perpendicular to the SEC Team to acquire a better field of fire.

Their weapons silenced, and the smokescreen up, the Marines began to move slowly away from their position, using the low visibility conditions to their advantage, even if the figures in the fog were frightening. "Only open fire if attacked, we must not give away our position."

As the silhouettes moved in the fog the light of the bursts of the white phosphorus grenades illuminated some form of smooth white figures, only humanoid by standing on two legs and having two arms, faceless and literally congealing out from the fog itself. Their opaque forms were thick enough that light was absorbed, illuminating their uncanny shapes. Some writhing, some contorting, as they moved, vague eyeless faces turned to each person as they moved in a disjointed writhing dance. Despite their lack of any visible mouths and nostrils, a cacophony of breathing became the new ambience of the forest, along with sickeningly wet steps upon the earth.



As this chaos unfolded, the form of the Kreznik seemed to... no, did manifest from the fog, having repositioned behind the SEC. With course breath, more frustrated than before, she outstretched her hand once again and pointed at the box pumping arm more furiously, a guttural utterance emitted from behind the mask. She then outstretched another arm, and with a grinding sound etched with a finger deep into the trunk of a tree, one word:

"WHAT"

Most of the soldiers are blinded by the white flare of light brought around by the ECM, but around five, including the rookie and the UL, manage to flip up their ORD's before it begins jamming. The arc the grenade followed was clearly shown by the white phosphorus, and they begin firing upon the origin of it, towards the thrower. The other soldiers quickly change out their lenses, fumbling with the tech in the dark, momentarily rendering half the force effectively blind except for the light that's generated by the shield. "Fuck, that's a diversionary. They're moving up," whispers one of the soldiers, and a barrage of fire is quickly lain down onto the ground in front of the forward motion.

The UL turns, hearing the sound of the scraping, and flinches back for a split second before lowering his rifle. "Fuck, TOC, what do I tell this thing? What does it want?" "TOC to FOT, extract is in 12 minutes. Begin hostility measures towards threatening anomalies. Recommended to attempt contact with both enemy force and the masked one." The UL quickly patches into radio comms on the local frequency, broadcasting to anything that could be received.
"This is the SEC Field Operation Team 10 to hostile forces, be warned, you are being given a chance to surrender without any bloodshed, or any further bloodshed. We want everyone to get out of this alive, and I'd prefer we leave this with some dignity. Nothing stopping us from both leaving, or just wiping out these... yeah, you see them. We likely outnumber you, and there's no shame in a ceasefire."

A quarter of the SEC units begin firing into the fog in an attempt to shoot down whichever of the creatures that stalk through it, successfully striking as many of them as they could hit in the darkness. While they're doing this, the rookie walks over to the Kreznik, raising both of his hands and pulling down the lip of his mask, again.
"Hi, uh, oh, What? Well, uh, we just obtained this-" He winces as a round flies from a guy standing next to him, and steps closer to the barrier to get away from it. "This is an important person, and we're trying to get them, uh, out of here so we can have them somewhere safe. The box is a, ah, precaution."

The Kreznik frozen in place meets eyes-to-eyeholes with the rookie, and for once now gives him particular focus. As around, the SEC shoot the fogged forms, them falling to the ground in a manner too reminiscent of dying humans, albeit bloodless and only a vapor escaping the holes in their bodies, before writing a bit and twitching before bursting into a fine steamy mist. It was as if they both are and aren't, a vague existence as their very being itself is vague. Aside from that, they seemed unaffected by the flashes of light and loud noises of gunfire, lacking eyes and ears, fittingly only sensing, perhaps, by vibrations in the mist, or maybe even more eerily, by sensing life itself. As they were shot, as if triggered by the aggression began to rush the marines and SEC alike who were further away from the Kreznik. Manifested as they were by her, they seemed to operate only on a very basic automatic impulse.

The Kreznik, after hearing the rookie's explanation finally moved, leaning in closer to him, practically hovering over him as the obscured face was only centimeters from his own, and, taking a hand lifted the mask slightly, just enough to reveal grayed skin and chapped lips, though, strangely, quite human. A hissing exhale of steamy breath, then inhales again, readying to finally speak, it seemed.

"Tai-nt-ed..." a strangled hissing whisper escaping tortured lips, a statement, not a question.

Moving slowly through the fog, the squad of Imperial Marines kept their voices hushed while listening in on the communication from the SEC. They considered the comms for a moment, and all of them looked to each other. Seemed to them to be a local Terran force.

"This is the 2nd Marine Squad, Imperial Aschen Navy, it is you who are outnumbered and outgunned, challenge us at your own peril. Disengage if you wish to live." The message was stern, and heavily accented with a strange lilting accent. While the EM Chaff began to dissipate, the men had already moved, bobbing and weaving through the mysterious shapes in the forest.

"Switch to Antimana, give it a try, see if we can disperse these things while our enemy considers their options." The Marine said quietly as he unfastened a chrome sphere from his load bearing vest, and tossed it into the fog as hard as he could. Following a three second delay, a powerful disruptive antimana pulse fired outwards in all directions, in hopes it would disperse the creatures that were closing in on them.

"Alright, you heard them. Easier to send an apology, I guess."
There's a general nodding from around the interior of the barrier, a clock ticking down on the rod stuck in the ground.
Eight minutes.

The Unit Leader, 10-Charlie, does a quick mental assessment of the situation.
They've run through around 28 magazines, each 20 rounds. They don't know if they've hit anything beyond the visual confirmation of targets dropping. There's a zombie or something at the back of the protective barrier breathing down the back of their necks, and they don't want to shoot that thing for obvious reasons. The airstrike that was called in by the Imps wasn't coming, he figures, as TOC would have called it in already. Well, unless they killed comms, but that meant they couldn't talk to them in the first place. There were... things... in the fog, and they seemed to go down with a shot or two. The objective was safe, so if they could keep it that way, then they could get out of here. The Imps seemed to have thrown a grenade, by the smell it was probably something anti-maj, so maybe that would help.
"Fuck," he whispers, running his hand over the top of his helmet.
"Alright, team. Kill the shield and set it to widening, high freak. Rifles loaded, we're getting the fuck out of here."
He calls the rookie over to work the shield, holding a hand up to signal the timing, as the rest of the Death Unit load their C-CARS with fresh magazines.
"SEC to 2nd Marine Squad, sounds good. We'll be disengaging shortly, have fun with this. Security and Exchange Company FOT-10 out."
He gives the signal, everyone withdrawing to close in on the barrier rod, forming a tight circle around it, one of them taking the time to activate the containment cube. The force shield slowly withdraws, the light making it up dimming as it does so, until it's a close circle around the soldiers. Then, unexpectedly, it brightens tenfold and widens drastically, forcefully shoving even the fog backwards as it continues to widen, likely the Kreznik as well. "Alright, MOVE, MOVE, MOVE," shouts the UL, and the soldiers uproot the stake and begin to sprint with it across the woods in an attempt to make a path to the outer edge of the fog. The units, shooting and moving, do their best to clear out the figures in the fog before they hit the barrier, the timer rapidly ticking down as they sprint towards the clearing across the treeline.

The Kreznik experienced a momentary surprise, a guttural grunt escaping her as she collided with an unexpected barrier. Frustration etched across her otherwise inscrutable features, she steadied herself, determined not to yield control of the situation. As the obstacle ceased, the target she pursued started to move along with the mercenaries in their retreat. Disregarding the approaching adversaries that effortlessly dispatched the feeble fog spawn with their various advanced weaponry, she pushed forward to steadily match the pace of the target. She didn't need to actively act as an aggressor, simply outlast. All the while her blade seemed to move of its own accord, grinding against the earth towards her.

Extending her arm, she nonchalantly seized the hilt of the blade, dragging it along as she followed in the wake of the shielded target. The question loomed in her mind: What purpose did these mortals have with a tainted being? Did they not understand the risk or did they just not care?

Meanwhile, the fog, which had been an extension of her essence, moved in tandem with her. The manifestations within it met their demise easily against the firepower of the Aschen marines, but their purpose, along with the distorting fog, was only to delay their approach anyways. Sooner than later that distance was shortening, however.

Kailar Railech has arrived, coming from Lutetia City.

Kailar Railech has left the area, heading out towards Lutetia.