Author's Note: Apologies if not much seems to occur in this chapter: we're mainly setting the base of things to come here. Thanks for the support so far, and if you guys have a moment, drop a review and let me know what I can do to improve!

'Radio check.'

'Wolf Seven copies.'

'Send, over.'

'Wolf is bringing home the hunt, Serpent. Offer's accepted.'

'Affirmative, Seven. Rendezvous at Outpost Watcher.'

'I thought Watcher was dismantled.'

'It was. The Seventh is moving back into the AO tomorrow.'

'Copy that, Serpent. Seven out.'

Insert 1.a. of intelligence report compiled by SAD: audio intercept. Command strongly advised to circulate warning to frontline elements immediately: previous intercept failed to provide sufficient warning. Frontline divisions forced to withdraw with significant casualties.

The road north was uneventful, if monotonous, as Stig guided the small van along the interstate at a speed that would have undoubtedly held lethal consequences, if another vehicle had decided to approach them from the opposite direction.

But none did, and, faced with confinement in rather cramped conditions, the only threat seemed to be the van's other occupants.

It was a mixed band; that much was certain. Chris spent most of the journey attempting his best to coax anything out of Ashley, trying his hand more than once at nursing, but a rapidly progressive van did not prove the best of locations for such delicate activities. Jessica was silent for the most part, still quite unable to come to terms with what exactly had hunted her and Matt in the darkness, as she attempted to settle her nerves with the passing landscape beyond the glass. Sam was also silent, though for her own reasons. Burying Josh had been hard; with only Mike's testimony and little else to go upon, the temptation had always been there to simply say Mike had snapped. That his eyes had deceived him, or that Josh had somehow escaped in the dark, despite everything logic would insist.

And now that he had resurfaced, she had naught to inform of her of what the 'normal' reaction would be, upon being told that a close friend, and more recently a schizophrenic, unhinged maniac, but still a friend, was still alive, stranded atop one of the most desolate locations across the Canadian border, injured and potentially responsible for an attack on a team of private contractors?

Another might have reacted violently, blaming Mike for failing to pursue Josh to his grave; perhaps blaming herself, for failing to die at his side, or even blaming the world for the most contrived of reasons to simply maintain one's sanity.

But Sam did not. She did not know how she felt, nor how she was meant to feel, and perhaps it was for the best.

And Mike had enough problems, considering the fact his relationship with Matt was hardly amicable.

The two had rarely spoken to one another even before that fateful night, and after he had discovered Mike, in an understandable state of fear and paranoia, had pulled a gun upon Emily, Matt's outlook upon Mike was icy at best.

Certainly, he too had finally decided to end the relationship with his overly-assertive girlfriend, but the decision had not entirely been his own. Despite his agreement to add his own voice to her defense, Emily's frustration at the fact he was in fact, absent at the aggrieved incident, and hence carried little weight in a trial that most of her friends had already sided against her in, quickly manifested as Emily's anger usually did. In the form of abuse.

That, and an uncautioned comment on his part in regards to her ingratitude, finally shoveled the last mound of dirt on their relationship, which Emily ended herself by unceremoniously throwing Matt out of her house.

Most would have hung up the attempt, but despite himself, Matt still clung onto the vague and self destructive hope that there would be reconciliation between the two. Perhaps if he had concluded the disaster himself, things would be different. But she had slammed the door upon him, leaving him both disillusioned as well as regretful of his own choices; not in choosing to date her, that is, but rather the series of mistakes that led to their breakup.

It was a horrible mixture of regret and frustration at his own silence throughout her antics that tore at Matt, coupled by his inbuilt concept of loyalty. An admirable trait, but so often a shackle.

So when the topic of Mike's release reared it's ugly head, Matt had finally had enough. Perhaps out of a distorted belief that she would forgive him, for his defense of her name in absentia, that the argument started, and Mike, having recently endured an unyielding inquisition, that had not experienced the hunt of the Wendigo, was not willing to back down.

The result was a change in seats after a quickly scheduled stop, and a rather silent atmosphere for at least twenty minutes before Chris finally cleared the air with an ill timed joke. An old and unrefined one for that matter, but a joke nonetheless, and a low babble of conversation began once more. In pairs, or at times trios, but nothing quite so dramatic as the near combat between Mike and Matt.

At the same time, Ashley's presence was one that both distributed comfort and unease at the same time. There had been more than a few objections raised to her involvement in returning to the cursed mountain, but she had proven more than adamant. And like Sam, she would not be left alone again. Breaking for the night at a motel on route north, she was clearly glad that the decision was made to occupy a pair of rooms with an adjoining door, that was, for the convenience of everyone's mind, kept open at all times, though Stig himself, grumbling something about the need for privacy, had acquired his own accommodation.

For her sake, Chris and Sam were both concerned for her wellbeing, but by the second day, her condition had vastly improved in the company of friends. A hot meal later, and with the two fridges between the rooms providing sufficient ice for the bruises, Ashley recovered at a rate none had anticipated. Her reaction to Sam's suggestion that they turn around to get her home quickly discarded any hopes possessed by her friends of removing her from the journey, and with a laugh, they embraced her return to the living.

After attempting to find Stig, to find the housekeeper already overturning his room, Sam found him already in the seat of his beaten van, with a distinctive snarl contort across his face that clearly indicated his opinion of the time.

Following a brief, morning scramble to replace the contents of strewn bags, the small band boarded the route north once more.

'So wait,' Ashley asked, hardly believing her ears, 'you mean that they tried to stick you with attempted murder?'

Mike let out a sigh as he stirred the coffee before him, drawing out the moment before the answer was finally fished from his throat. The final end of the court case had been able to relieve a great deal of strain from his shoulders, and now that he was in the company of friends, he could not help in relishing the attention just a little too long, Sam noted, as she rolled her eyes to the ceiling in rueful disbelief. Some people would never change.

'That's more or less how it went,' he finally replied, nodding as he did so. They had initially attempted to pry into what had exactly transpired to earn Ashley's black eye, and the other multitude of injuries, but, recovered or not, memory is a constantly raw nerve, and she had promptly clamped up. It had taken a skillful degree of maneuvering on Sam's part to pull the conversation back into shallow waters, and now that Matt had excused himself, at perhaps too convenient a time, Ashley had reopened the conversation, this time with the emphasis upon those who had not spent the past three months in lockup. By chance, that query had fallen to Mike, who had wasted no time in relating the court case Emily had brought to his doorstep. It was not so much that Mike knowingly felt the need to boast of his survival; rather, it was the human inability to refrain from withholding one's achievements, sufferings, or defiance of the odds. And with Matt no longer present to defend Emily, any other barriers had quickly vanished, as he related the tale.

'That's horrible,' she sighed when he was finished, looking down at the plate ahead of her.

'They were about to come after you as well,' Mike put in unthinkingly, before Sam elbowed him in the ribs, though it was already far too late for Mike to take it back.

'What?' She asked, confusion intermixed by fear, and Sam, having abandoned any hope of burying the conversation, took up the mantle.

'They wanted to charge you as an accessory,' she explained, 'but it's alright; Stig cleared it up.'

'I must say,' Mike put in, careful with his words now, 'whoever he's working for must have a lot of leverage. I mean, he just handed the judge a paper, and that was it! And that was after they'd even read out the sentence.'

'What would they have given you?' Chris asked, unable to suppress his intrigue.

'Life,' Mike replied sullenly. There was a garbled chorus in response; Jessica exclaimed her disgust and shock, for Mike had refrained from detailing any real details of the case until that breakfast, while Ashley and Chris looked on in horror, unable to comprehend the fact that any explanation for attempting to shoot someone, no matter how reasonable it seemed at the time, had a tendency to fall short in any court whose jury had not been dropped in a dark forest in time for a nocturnal predator's hunt.

'You're kidding me, right?'

'No, he ain't,' Sam admitted, 'really thought he was up for the chopping block when Stig passed the letter up.'

'Who is he, exactly?' Jessica asked. They looked at her as if she were mad, before realising none of them in fact could answer the question, as Jessica moved to elaborate. 'I mean, he overturned your sentence with a sheet of paper. Did he actually say how high up he is?'

'He never actually said,' Mike admitted sheepishly, 'he just said he works for someone. I'm guessing that's the guy that pulls the weight.'

'Speaking of which,' Chris asked, slightly unsettled by what could have been quickly heaped upon Ashley's head in the same legal swordstroke, 'where is he? I didn't see him come in with us?'

'Probably prowling around the van again,' Jessica mumbled, as she took another sip of the coffee, now at a satisfactory temperature that would not set the skin ablaze with the slightest touch.

Since their initial meeting, Stig had remained discreetly below the conversational radar of the small band of friends, and his conversations with them had been somewhat limited in scope, to perhaps the occasional growl, or curt reminder that another day, and hence a fraction of one's precious life, was slipping away. It was only with the greatest reluctance he had allowed them to halt for a late lunch at a fast food outlet just off the highway, and he did not in fact seem to be present to accompany them.

'I mean, did he even eaten breakfast?' Ashley asked. Sam gave her a shrug in reply, before explaining how she had only come across the housecleaner at dawn within his room.

'Hey,' whispered a familiar voice, 'you seeing this?'

Matt's return to the table had gone entirely unnoticed, but he did not seem to, appearing to be entirely engrossed in a nearby television set, wired to a corner of the ceiling, and slowly, their eyes turned about, unanimously falling silent as their ears strained to pick up what was being said.

'...another costly battle on the outskirts of Washington has been confirmed to have claimed nearly two thousand more lives, and military planners are currently under pressure to provide answers for the defeat. We have live footage of the JSOC press conference, coming up now.'

The screens were switched over with what could only be described as anarchy. The number of camera flashes that flickered across the display was a tremendous strain upon the eyes, and more than a few of them turned away from the maddening screen. The audio quality also fell, scattered by both the distortion of a microphone as well as the abhorrent background noise present, as someone began to speak, without providing any answers. The Public Relations act went on for quite a while, stressing in the strongest terms both their efforts to ascertain the reasons and motives behind the sudden attack, before turning the vague speech upon it's head, to express condolences for the families of the fallen, and interests in the whole affair quickly fell once more, until the newreader added that they intended to play a short piece of rare footage, of the enemy, no less, with a warning that the following scenes would be disturbing.

It was met with a variety of responses. Mike and Matt, despite their differences, turned their heads about entirely, while Jessica fell against Mike's shoulder, smothering her sight from what was to come in a fashion that did not seem to bother Mike in any way. Sam, Chris and Ashley, on the other hand, made a half hearted attempt to raise their eyes, but with better judgement, decided they had enough nightmares to worry about.

So it was quite understandable that when Matt emitted a quiet 'Jesus' beneath his breath, curiosity got the better of those who had obstructed their gazes, and unthinkingly, they surrendered to instinct, in time to see a man; his age obstructed by the quality of the video, sliding down a wall, to the ground in a crumpled heap. Just ahead of him lay an outstretched arm, concealed by black fatigues, that clutched a guilty pistol, held approximately to where the corpse's head might have once resided. To his surprise, Mike realised that upon closer inspection, the arm in question was actually covered by a complicated pattern of darkened metallic segments, producing, at least in appearance, a formidable body armor, that overlay the black fabric. And despite the hideous, pixelation of the footage from a distance, Mike thought he could make out something upon the rifle. Something circular above the trigger that looked more ceremonial than functional, like an insignia, but the quality defeated him, as the footage panned out, revealing more of the executioner for the public to attack. That is, it would have, had the guilty man decided to not immediately begin stalking off in the opposite direction, leaving only the black cloak draped upon his shoulders for the media to identify him with.

There was more; denunciations of the enemy, warnings of the danger they posed to the public, and more calls to join the army, but by then, the company had decided to move on, before more trauma could be wrought.

'Interesting,' Chris uttered.

'Alright, what do you want us to see?' Mike asked him in mock exhaustion, leaving Chris slightly bemused at that remark. They were in the van again, devoid of real interesting items to converse about, and of course, Chris had said it at a volume slightly above that of casual interest, and sharing was clearly on his agenda; a motion he quickly lived up to as he cleared his throat.

'It says here that, well, logically at least, the attack that happened yesterday? Absolutely stupid.'

'What?'

'This guy; he's some retired general or something, and he said it was a tactical blunder.'

'Chris,' Mike piped up again, 'not to disrupt your story, but how are you reading that?'

Chris gave an indignant shrug, before answering.

'My phone.'

'Haven't you used up all of your credit or something?' Jessica asked, playing along.

'No, I'm on a data plan. It's a real bargain you know-'

'Alright, alright,' Sam put in, sparing them all another lecture on the wonders of technology, 'so what did this general say?'

'Ex-general, mind you,' he corrected her, without the slightest trace of superiority, 'no, he was saying that from a military standpoint, it just makes no sense.'

'What?' Mike asked in sarcastic disbelief, as he turned around in his chair to face Chris, 'you think 'hit the other guy' would not be a good idea in a fight?'

'It's strategy, man. If you're weak and outnumbered, the only way you beat the other guy is to fight on the ground that suits you.'

'Example?'

'Like an alley,' Matt suggested, perhaps too eager to show Mike up, 'they can't get around you, and they can only face you one at a time.'

'Except these guys; they went and did the opposite. And they still won!'

'Maybe they just did the unpredictable,' Ashley suggested, 'no one thought they would and so they did?'

'Maybe,' Chris conceded, 'but then this guy's saying that now, because they advanced, they're stood on open ground. It's suicide.'

He was met with a blank expression, and Chris had little experience in military matters, yet he felt he had earned an understanding of the topic by reading an article, so he tried again.

'It's like...in a fight, if you were to punch the guy without blocking, you'd get hit in the face.'

'So why not just do both?'

'Oh for the love of the Great Father,' a furious voice snapped from the front, 'forget that gobshite. Basically, when an army's stood still, d'ya think they stand around with their fingers in their arses? No! They dig trenches, set up killzones, heavy weapons, machine guns, yada yada yada. That way, when the other guy comes to turn you into a kebab, you are ready: he's out in the open, you've got several walls to hide behind, and you know how high you need to aim to blow his socks off. You attack, and you lose all those preparations. Your new frontline is the enemy's old one, where all the shit is facing the wrong way. So when they come back for you, you either have to get ready from square one, which takes time mind you, or you stand and fight with your trousers down. Are we clear?'

'Yes,' Ashley replied meekly.

'You seem to know quite a bit about warfare,' Sam suggested, before Stig rounded his head about, eyes narrowed into fine slits, while he continued to drive onward at maybe eighty miles per hour.

'Really, Sammy? Well lass, I'm highly complimented-'

'Watch the road!'

'-but I'm just a simple man exercising the logic of violence.' He seemed to be content with that, and, to the great relief of all those around him, he finally turned back to the front, exhaling one last drawn out breath.

'So why would they even attack?' Ashley asked, desperate to avoid another silence. Interestingly, Stig held his tongue this time. Perhaps he was a little more tolerant of her questions for the trials she had endured in prison, and he took a moment to answer.

'Why do we think in terms of land? Won or lost? Who's to say it's not something else?'

'You think that they wanted something?'

Stig just grunted in reply, sinking that line of conversation.

'What exactly is your take on the war, Stig?' Matt asked.

'My take on the war.' Stig seemed to muse over the question, drawing it out in a most sardonic fashion. 'My take on the war, let's see: I've been shot at on the road by a drone, I've been splattered with someone's blood in a triage center, do you really want me to go on?'

'I meant,' Matt seemed gravely uncertain of his position, but he pushed on after a moment's thought, 'who do you think is winning?'

'No one, of course!'

'Well then, who's loosing?'

'Everyone.'

'This is going to sound really stupid,' Ashley admitted quietly, at a volume kept low enough so that it did not reach the driver's seat, 'but who exactly are 'they'?'

Her friends gave her an incredulous look, and she moved on quickly to elaborate her confusion.

'I mean, they weren't exactly broadcasting the news in solitary. Would you mind, like, bringing me up to speed?'

She was met with silence again, but this time for a very, very different reason, for the simple fact was that no one could truly answer her question. There were many theories on how a rogue military force had wound up on the East Coast, with no flag, and enough weapons to take on the entire USMC. 'Mercenaries' seemed fairly apt, since there were more than a few weapons in the arsenal of the 'enemy' as the news constantly seemed to refer to the foreign force as, and there were many PMCs who had access to equipment beyond that of the regular military. But no one had claimed responsibility, and even a few PMCs themselves had been hurled into the fray, each with less than substantial results. 'Terrorists' was another word, since that was all that seemed to be on the agenda of the media; an execution of unarmed captives, a mother and her children found mutilated in a cellar, the list of atrocities was long, but seemed to garner quite minimal attention for their nature. Why the government had decided to keep the news on a tight leash on the matter of drumming the patriotism obligation into viewers was beyond any who had kept up with events to the East, since it still appeared to be the most effective maneuver in gathering a sizable army of new recruits, eager for blood: to give them something to hate. Something that could be seen as less than human.

Others had their claims as well: some denounced it as a Russian invasion in disguise; a ridiculous notion considering the fact Russia had, as of the previous week, agreed to deploy the Baltic fleet to assist its oldest foe, though that detail had also eluded Ashley's friends. Then there were the outlandish; astrologers or simple conspiracy theorists that insisted it was an alien force that had made landing, but was now locked in a bitter ground war with US troops, or even a splinter special forces brigade from the CIA's clandestine works. Both theories were quickly addressed with all the strength government censorship, and simple logic, had to offer, but they still floated around the airwaves, eager for support in the same way fire awaits oxygen, to fuel it's uncontrollable and indiscriminate rage.

Eventually, Mike decided to try his luck.

'Well, Ash,' he started, 'last I heard, it's a pretty well equipped terrorist group-'

He didn't get any further before a burst of raucous laughter smothered his explanation entirely, and upon turning about to the driver's seat, they found Stig snorting to conceal the hilarity he had found in that declaration.

'What's so funny?'

'Terrorists,' Stig sighed, entirely oblivious to the glances he was getting, 'is that the new name now? Father, they get stupider by the day.'

'Would you know anything about them?'

'I think I would have enough sense to know that terrorists couldn't get their hands on enough weaponry to outstrip the US military,' he cackled, eying Mike in the mirror, 'and I'll be damned before one of those numpties decided to take on a first world military in conventional warfare. Believe me when I say it, the 'enemy', as you call them, are a professional force.'

'But they're on the run right?' Ashley asked. Clearly, she was beginning to regret her questions, and it would have been no surprise to her friends to know that she was scanning the horizon in earnest, as if fearful that any moment, a tank brigade might suddenly roll into view and begin opening fire, as if a $10,000 armor piercing sabot round could be warranted for the destruction of an innocuous van carrying six teenagers, and a middle aged man with serious attitude problems.

'According to this, they will be soon,' Chris answered, falling back into the safety of his phone, 'there's a lot of shit headed their way. I don't think anyone would be eager to stand in front of a tank brigade. Or ten.'

'What was that, Stig?' Sam asked.

'Depends on the one.'