The Red base was quiet. Their mechanical droid was nowhere to be found, and the noisy Sergeant wasn't out ordering people around.

The Red base was too quiet.

"Hey guys! How ya been?"

Now it was too loud. Church facepalmed and punched the naïve medic in the gut.

"Ow! What?" Doc glared, rubbing at his stomach.

"Are you crazy?" hissed Church, "whatever that's attacked Donut might still be in there!"

Doc's face reddened in realization and embarrassment. "Oh. Sorry."

Church sighed again. "You probably alerted them anyway. Let's move round the back."

"Okay."

Church and Doc moved quietly, or as quietly as their armor would allow, around the Red base towards the back entrance. Looking carefully around a corner, Church motioned Doc to go further around, towards the rock. Doc nodded and ran off. Not two second later Church heard him scream like a little girl. Sighing, he ran off towards the rocks.

When he arrived to where the medic was the other wasn't responding in any way to his presence. Then Church saw what Doc was staring at.

"Holy mother of-"

There, not three feet away and soaked in a pool of drying blood, was a mangled body of Grif, body parts sprawled around in unnatural angles from the body. The torso itself was half-imbedded with a small, sharp boulder.

Church made his way to the bloody corpse, cringing as he saw the face staring towards his direction. Grif's face looked like he exploded from the inside. He would have tried to close the body's eyes as he did to Donut, but Grif's face seemed like it was bloated, eyes almost literally popping out of their socket. Blood trailed down from the eyelids like bloody tears. Church wished he had a hanky right then. Or a blanket. Anything to cover those eyes.

"It looks like he got pushed off a cliff or something," said he, looking up to the high cliff wall right next to the body. "Hey Doc, go look up there, would ya?"

"What? No! What if the thing's still up there?" Doc protested, crossing his arms defensively.

"I know. That's why I told you to go up."

"No way! There still might be people in there," said Doc, pointing at the Red Base. "You need me! They need me!"

"Okay, fine," grumbled Church. "We'll see if there's anyone home, and if not, you're going up there."

"Fine." Agreed Doc. Until his mind processed the words. "Wait, what?"

"Shh!"

Church's mind went into 'awesome-spy-movie-action-figure-mode' as soon as they entered the Red base. Running silently, rolling for no obvious reason, jumping around in shadows, he quickly left Doc at the front step, still quivering and scared.

Looking fearfully left and right, Doc felt compelled to find a source of security, preferably by the form of a live person. It was too dark to seek for a visual refuge anyway.

Rummaging clumsily as he ran over multiple furniture and weaponry and one spleen ball, Doc's hand finally laid onto something hard and muscular.

Relieved, Doc opened his eyes that he didn't remember closing, and waited for his eyes to settle in the dark. The black sitting silhouette started to clear, and Doc started talking to the man, trying to get some kind of a response before he ran off again to do his 'uber-cool-spy-stuff'.

"Hey, Church? Please don't run off on your own – it's really creepy in he-ARGHPLEASEDON'THURTMEI'MHARMLESSPLEASESAVEMEHELPAAAAAARGH!"

Hahahahah, I don't even know.

Yes, Grif is dead. He's been pushed off a cliff and onto a pile of sharp rocks. Gruesome, isn't it, folks? I liked the eye-popping thing. I blame it on this horror comic I'm reading. Something of supernatural stuff that caused a pregnant woman to pour blood out everywhere. Maybe I'll try that with Edward later. *evil grin*

Anyways, for people who don't understand, Grif's wearing his armor, but not his helmet. That's why people can't see how blood is coagulating into an icky web-kinda like thing in between the armor and the body.

XD I came kinda loose on terms like 'uber-cool-spy-stuff' and 'awesome-spy-movie-action-figure-mode', just because that seemed like how Doc or Church would say it. … Or maybe Donut. Heh. I'm not going to upload the next chapter until I am satisfied with the number of reviews I get! ... Though, knowing my impatience, I don't really know if I can hold out that long... damn.

Mrawgirl09