Set sometime in Season 7. No copyright infringement intended. Not making any money out of it. Etc Etc.

Survival of the fittest

Hello mudda, Hello fadda
Here I am at Camp Granada
Camp is very entertaining
They say we'll have some fun when it stops raining

Adam Sandler, Camp Granada lyrics

The pain in her side crossed the line from a mild annoyance to an unbearable throbbing, and Joy is slowly dragging her feet down the soft slope. She can see that further ahead there is some kind of clearing, where the trees thin out. Further away, she can see the valley with some cities. She's going in the direction of civilization, whether she would get there before her body gives up was a completely different matter. She stops and leans against a tree for a second, and looks attentively at the ground looking for any hunting or deer trail that might make her advance easier. She sees something further ahead that catches her attention; she stands up straighter and walks towards it.

The smell hits her first: the consistency and flies over the pile of poop indicate that the droppings were fresh, quite fresh.

Bears, she looks around the woods, that's all I needed now.

She walks around the droppings and tries to figure out through the paw prints the possible direction the bear went, so she might take the complete opposite.

She walks a couple of feet further, but a chill makes her look back and she sees a glimpse of something moving on the top of the slope that drives her to hide behind a tree.

Jarod's bright red shirt was a deep contrast to the muted tones of the forest. He is walking down the slope, studying the tracks and swinging his hunting rifle.

He is tracking her down, and he is almost on her.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

The dogs are imposing a frenetic rhythm to their run through the forest, "are you sure that this is the right direction?" Hotch looks at the sheriff, who nods, "the trail is just a couple of hours old, there are two tracks, and he points to the floor, "one has small feet, probably female, and is injured, there are traces of blood in some of the footprints, the other is a male in boots. Hers is old, but he went into this direction just a couple of hours ago."

"What are the odds of finding her in the woods?" DiNozzo, almost out of breath due to their forced march in the wilderness, wants to know. The sheriff shrugs, "it truly depends on her physical condition, if she is hurt or not, and how prepared she is to deal with the woods. If she is hurt, I just hope none of the natural predators finds her first."

"Predators?" McGee looks at the sheriff, deeply concerned, "besides Jarod, we also have to worry about predators?" one of the sheriff's aides is the one who answers, "we had a program to reintroduce wolves in the area a couple of years back, which was quite successful. Unfortunately it also resulted in quite a few incidents where the wild animals approached inhabited areas and gave us scares. Let's not forget also the bear population," Gibbs stops and stares at the two men, "bears?" "We have a bear population close to 200 thousand, spread out in the area of the park," says the sheriff, "they don't usually pose any problem, staying in their own protected areas, but some lonely male bears tend to wander around, and get irritated if someone walks into their territory."

Before he could ask more about the bears, they freeze as they hear a shot. The group of agents freezes for a second, trying to identify the direction whence the shot came, and they start running when more shots are fired one after the other, then just silence.

"This way!" and the dogs and men run, hoping for the best, fearing the worst.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Joy is frozen against the bark of the tree, studying the territory around looking for a weapon, any weapon she might use to defend herself. She fishes a screwdriver from her pillowcase, which she leaves silently on the floor. She holds the screwdriver in her hands, like a knife, she knows that in a one on one fight, she would be at a terrible disadvantage, but she would also be at a terrible disadvantage if she ran, a moving target is a dead target.

He keeps on walking towards her, and she closes her eyes and tries to control her breathing, that is making a hissing sound. She holds her breath, and the hissing can still be heard. She opens her eyes and looks up, and stares straight at a honeybee colony hanging just a few feet from her head, attached to the tree trunk. She frowns, and starts to think furiously.

Jarod still has his hunting riffle in his hands, and he is smiling. He knows she's close by. "It is time to go home, Servant," he swings the riffle to his right, where he thought that he might have seen some movement behind some bushes, but he can't identify anything in the faint light shining through the trees.

There is only silence in the woods, a faint singing of birds and geese flocks flying overhead. The dead leaves covering the floor crack softly under his feet, and keeps going down. "You shouldn't have left me, we are meant to be together. You are branded as a servant, and you must serve me." He swings to the left, there is nothing there, and the shadows are playing tricks with his mind.

"I can take care of you. Things will be just like before. Just you and me." He keeps walking four or five feet, he looks to the left again, the bushes are moving softly, under the cold early winter wind, close to a tree further down, he smiles, "you can run, but you can't really hide," he walks slowly, "we are meant to be together," and takes another step.

"Only over my dead body," and he is hit by a hissing projectile that explodes on his face and clothes, he swings his gun towards where the thing came from, but he only sees a petite female body running. He points the rifle, but has to wipe the honey away from his face, and the bees are a moving mass of angry workers, furious at having their home destroyed by this human, and are attacking him mercilessly, poking their poisonous stings on every centimeter of vulnerable skin they can find. He pats the honeybees away uselessly, but they don't stop their attack.

He can feel the bite of the stings and his body starting to shut down with their poison, as he is extremely allergic to them. He roars with fury, and looks in the direction where his prey is running away, away from him. He lifts his hunting rifle; he aims and shoots at the Servant. She flies a couple of feet with the impact, falls and starts to roll down the slope, and suddenly disappears from his view.

He goes back to fight with the army of bees and sees a black shadow running towards him from his left side, and when he looks up, the only sees a mouth full of teeth and a paw full of claws coming down towards his head.

He is hit and falls to the floor. Desperate, fighting for his life, he gets the rifle and shoots several times, but the bear is angry at having his territory trespassed, and his sleep disturbed by this noisy man with his firearm.

If you arm wrestle with nature, nature always wins. That's the rule of the forest: the survival of the fittest. He died in seconds. And finally the predator became prey.

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A/N: heheheh go bear! go bear!