Into the Strange
Unknown Location, 0600
"Omen to Nobody, do you read?"
The other side was nothing but quiet static, the tell-tale sign of dead air, and the only response Omen had received since trying to contact his superiors.
Patience and Heretic sat thirty feet from each other, their weapons shouldered as they kept a continuous scan of their surroundings to protect the spotter and pilot's flank. Dove sat up against a tree holding her head, which had a single bandage wrapped around it. Her green flight suit was also torn in a few places, covered in oil and dirt. Yet she was alive and well, though a little sore.
Something had happened during their extraction, and it resulted in a hard landing. One that could have been a lot worse if not for Dove's skills. However, shortly after the helicopter landed, a fire broke out which resulted in the aircraft exploding.
Miraculously, outside of the small cut and bruises on Dove's head, the rest of the team made it out with no other injuries outside of a few bruises and an episode of tinnitus. Even better, before the aircraft exploded, they had managed to grab most of the supplies that were on the helicopter. Ammo, med supplies, and a few extra MRE's had bolstered their moods and stock despite not being able to contact their superiors.
They had continued their trek east on foot, with Patience taking point, and Heretic guarding the rear while Omen kept Dove at his side between his two squadmates. Every fifteen minutes they would stop to assess Dove and try radioing their superiors again. The pilot always signalled she was fine, though their radio was still nothing but soft static.
It had been two and a half hours since the crash, nearing 0800 hours.
Despite the silence over the comms, there was something else bothering Omen, his cohorts as well.
The vegetation of the jungle itself. It seemed…different. The trees were massive, the flowers and bushes were triple the expected size, and pushed the definition of 'exotic' with their shapes. The animal sounds were different as well, though Omen wondered if he had hit his head at some point.
"Dove, hanging in there?" He whispered.
"Yea, pain is a bit more tolerable now, so we can move more." She held her forehead in her hand, taking a slow breath over five seconds.
"Roger." Omen looked up, caught eye contact with both Patience and Heretic, and signaled to get moving again.
This time, he had them continue their trek even after fifteen minutes, thinking that the more ground they covered, the better chances they had at hailing their superiors.
"Even after this headache is gone, I think you should keep calling the shots." Dove muttered quietly as she gripped her head again, but kept her pace.
-Oh captain, I could fall in love with you for that.-
Omen only looked back at her, then past her at Heretic. "That would certainly improve our chances. Do you need to sit?"
"No, it's manageable."
Omen nodded, and gave a thumbs up. Beyond, Heretic returned it with one of his own.
On they trekked. Omen pushed for an hour before they stopped again. This time, Patience returned to assess Dove while Omen tried the radio again. Outside their perimeter, Heretic stalked the jungle.
"Nobody, this is Omen. Do you read?"
Still nothing.
"Think this will be like Columbia?" Patience asked, finishing his work on replacing the wrap on Dove's head and giving her some oral pain killers, along with his canteen.
"Shit, probably." Omen replied as he muted the mic to his comms. He pulled out a folded paper from a chest pocket, pulling it open slowly. The parcel was a few layers of thick paper stacked on each other, and he flipped through each one, studying the various map data that was printed on each paper.
With nothing but jungle around them, and no landmarks, getting the precise location would be difficult. All he had to go off of was the marked areas for their insertion, which was a blind guess at best, and the margin of error became pretty wide.
All he could do was go east and hope they arrive at the coastal area. Villages were out of the question, as the terrorist group they were after could be within those.
"Best case, we make it to the coast within two days."
"And the worst?" Dove asked as she topped Patience's canteen and handed it back to the sniper.
"A fun camping trip for a week."
"Oh, great. We don't have enough MRE's for that, do we?"
"Heh, nope." Omen signaled for Patience to take point again. "Eight in total."
The sniper quietly ran ahead, and again led the group as they trudged through the jungle. This time, however, they wouldn't stop at the hour mark.
Eventually the vegetation began to thin, and Patience signaled to stop. Omen held up a fist so Heretic would know to stop. Only when the spotter knew that their pilot was safely hidden, did he sneak up beside Patience.
Even before coming to a crouch beside the sniper, Omen could see a clearing nearly forty feet ahead. He took out his map, looking between the parcel and the clearing.
"Any threats?" The spotter asked, his brow furrowing in confusion as he scoured the map for this clearing.
"Hard to say. Looks like wildlife, but…weird."
Omen looked up again, this time taking a good look in the direction Patience was pointing towards. There was certainly some movement at the clearing, the shapes like wildlife, but…
"Is…are those…insects?" Omen decided to take a risk, and pulled out his binoculars to take a peek. Sure enough, he saw a cluster of bees flying around a massive flower. The bulb was big enough that he could sit in it, and the petals flowed with a curved elegance that barely kissed the ground at their lowest point. But the bees…
Each one was the size of a basketball, perhaps bigger.
"What the fuck?" Omen handed the binocs to Patience, who took and gazed through them.
"...I second that."
Omen peered through the binoculars again when they were handed back, then put them away. "I never heard about bees getting that big, have you?"
"If I had, we wouldn't be having this conversation, cuz I'd never leave my fucking house."
"Fair point. Let's give them a wide berth. A few klicks southeast before going east again." Omen patted the sniper before silently returning to Dove. Despite his face paint keeping his expression mostly hidden, the pilot still caught the confusion within his eyes. Yet before she could ask, he had them moving again.
"Beehive ahead." Omen explained. "Going southeast a few klicks before we resume east."
"For a beehive?"
"The bees are the size of basketballs, maybe bigger."
Dove's eyes went wide, and she stumbled over her own feet. Omen spun and caught her before she hit the ground, sitting her upright.
As if it didn't happen, he continued walking, and Dove was more careful as she followed behind him. She thought to ask him to explain, but given the circumstance, she'd have to wait.
Still, bees the size of basketballs.
Barely a minute had passed when Omen pointed to the north at the clearing, and she could see some subtle movements.
And then the mentioned bees.
"Holy fuck…" She gasped quietly, stopping for only a second before the spotter quietly snapped his fingers at her.
A moment later, Omen looked back at Heretic, and cracked a smile when seeing the flanker's eyes go wide.
Five minutes later, and they were at another clearing, but this one had a path going northeast. Clean, unlike their current trek. But this time, the animals roaming the clearing were large, bipedal and white skinned reptiles. Their body vaguely resembling that of a block.
"The fuck kind of lizard is that?" Heretic asked.
"Albino gator?" Dove offered.
"No, these things only have two legs." Patience answered quietly. "We also have monkeys in the trees, yet they're…oddly large and lanky. More so than I remember…"
Omen took a peek through the binoculars, spotting the mentioned creatures with ease. They were certainly monkeys, but their eyes were huge, their bodies more slender than he remembered. But with the large bees and these albino looking block lizards, these monkeys were the closest thing to normal in this jungle by far.
"Strange animals." Omen hummed, then looked northeast towards the open path. "I wouldn't mind walking parallel of that path though."
"Why not on it?" Dove asked.
"That poses a risk of getting spotted by the enemy." The spotter replied as respectfully as he could, but a little ounce of venom managed to creep in.
"Right. Right."
No argument. Just a slight amount of tension that quickly melted away. Omen was beginning to like this pilot a bit more.
They continued. Keeping themselves hidden within the jungle vegetation while keeping the path in sight. Omen realized it was like a road, and with it brought forward some thoughts. Mostly what options he had if a vehicle were to come through. Yet no such thing happened, and after thirty minutes of trailing this path, they came across a large field.
The ground was mostly rock, rather than the lush ground they had been traversing. The jungle wrapped the north and west sections, with a tall rocky wall at the south which had a cascade feeding a river that cut across the field, and a cave just to the right of the waterfall. East had a similar rock wall, but it was only a quarter height of the southern wall. A thin mist covered the rocky floor, swirling and roiling slowly as it was fed from the cascade. To the soldiers, they thought it a relatively nice vista, and yet…
"Something's up…" Heretic shrugged his shoulders, as if trying to shake off a chill.
"No animals here, despite the water source." Omen scanned the whole area repeatedly, even looking at his map. However that only brought more confusion, as this landscape didn't match any locations marked on the map. "And I'm beginning to think we were given the wrong map."
"You're joking, right?" Heretic pulled his gaze away from the vista, his eyes full of disbelief.
"No."
Dove stepped up and looked over Omen's shoulder, and he shifted quietly so that she could get a better look. A moment later she took the map from the spotter's hands, and flipped through every page repeatedly. As the seconds ticked by, her brow grew more furrowed by confusion.
"Perhaps…outdated?" Dove offered, but she shook her head. "No…it's Brazil. Sat images are all up to date."
"This elevation and river don't match at all." Omen confirmed their suspicions. Heretic spat at the ground, while Patience could only offer a hum of amusement.
"We weren't in the air that long to have gone way off the flight path either." Dove handed the map to Omen, her other hand lightly tapping against her bandaged forehead.
Silence remained between them while Omen mentally ran through his options. They couldn't stop long, he felt that the risk of the enemy catching up to them was too high. Yet not once has the terrorists been seen since retreating.
"We keep going east." Omen pointed across the field towards the northeast corner, where a small path was just barely visible. A trail that would have been easily missed by a regular person, but he was trained for these types of situations.
They all were, and yet he, as well as the rest of them, couldn't shake the feeling that something was amiss.
"Contact. North." Patience whispered, causing all of them to duck down within the vegetation. All eyes went to the same direction, yet nothing could be seen.
"Are yo-"
Distant shouting cut Dove off, her face contorting with confusion as the voices gradually grew louder.
"Yo, that doesn't sound like our terrorist group." Heretic looked back at Omen, sharing the same puzzled look.
"No, it doesn't." Omen inched closer to the line where forest ended and field began, crawling on his belly in order to remain as invisible as possible. Just as he reached the boundary, he saw the targets in question. "I have visual…huh?"
"...is that a group of armored Oompa Loompas?" Heretic hissed, covering his mouth after in fear that he may have spoken too loud. Yet the approaching group didn't seem to have noticed.
From a small opening at the north west area, slowly cutting diagonally across the stony field, a group of four individuals slowly walked. Three stout and short "persons", with one of them pulling a slightly taller and slender person with a rope. A woman, Omen realized, with tan skin and barely covered with meager, tribal-like clothing that only hid the intimate areas of the body. However, her head was completely hidden by a cloth bag. But the strangest detail was…a tail?
Omen shook his head, looking at the three shorter individuals. The one pulling the tailed woman was completely covered in metal armor from head to toe, with the other two in what could be described as cloth and leather armor. Yet their faces were covered by a strange mask, with only their large, pointed green ears jutting out from the sides.
"What in the hot topic fuck is going on here?" Dove rubbed her eyes briefly, then looked at the strange group after blinking several times. She even pinched herself, wincing slightly yet managing to remain quiet.
The group of strange individuals stopped at the center of the field then, with the ironclad oompa loompa kicking the back of the bound woman's knees to force her down. One of the others back handed her after, and she fell over on her side.
"Shall we intervene?" Patience asked, slowly pulling the bolt back on his TAC-50.
"Spread out. Patience, get the tin can. Dove, stick with Patience." Omen ordered, slowly inching up a bit further to barely clear the forest line.
There wasn't a word from them, only the gentle shuffling of vegetation as his team moved to their spots. A process that only took thirty seconds, and during that time these strange creatures kicked and punched their prone captive. Hooting and hollering as they took turns.
"Patience, in position. Target locked." The sniper's voice was barely a buzz in Omen's earpiece. The spotter slowly pushed himself into a crouch, shouldering his M4 and putting one of the cloth-armored creatures in his sight.
"On target, east midget."
"Heretic, ready. North oompa-loompa."
"On your shot, Patience." Omen spoke into the comms, then slowly took a steadying breath.
A sudden crack of thunder, and the armored "tin can" erupted in an explosion of metal shrapnel and crimson mist. Omen squeezed the trigger immediately after, watching his target jerk back and fall to the ground at the sametime as the north creature did.
"Targets down, Heretic with me. Patience, watch our six!" Omen was already moving as he gave the order, sprinting towards the prone woman.
Within a single blink of an eye, he had covered the distance and slid to a complete stop. He dropped to one knee, looking east, then south through the scope on his M4. Heretic showed up just barely a second after, looking west and north. With no other targets in view, Omen lowered his rifle and placed a gentle hand on the woman's shoulder.
"Hold still, we're going to get you out of here." He kept his voice low, hoping that the woman knew english. When there was a subtle movement of her head resembling that of a nod, he quietly sighed with relief.
Only to stare in disbelief at the woman once he pulled the bag off. She looked human, and yet…didn't. Her eyes were slightly larger than what he was used to, with slitted pupils that narrowed as the light hit them, and atop her head of messy blonde hair was..
"...cat ears?" Heretic, despite keeping his rifle trained towards the north, looked over his shoulder, his face completely overtaken with shock.
"B-bastokans?" The strange cat woman asked, her accent slightly similar to that of an islander. At least that's what Omen thought initially, until her question registered to him fully.
He opened his mouth to speak, but any and all conversation to be had was cut off as a shrill shriek came from the cave. Both he and Heretic snapped their weapons in that direction, both moving to get between the cat woman and the cave.
"Saha…gin!" She winced, trying to stand but only fell over with a pained whine. "We must…go!"
-Saha-what?-
Omen kept his eyes on the cave, but could only stare dumbfounded at what emerged. Fishmen. Literal fishmen. One…three…eight of them walked out.
They were the same height as the three midget creatures they had killed just moments ago, except these creatures were extremely fish-like. Their faces reminded him of piranhas, but he wasn't worried about that. These piranha men had arms tipped with viscous looking claws, and walked on two legs!
"Omen." Patience ranged in his ear piece. "Contact, north. More of those strange tin men."
The spotter glanced over his shoulder, growling as he saw four more of those armored oompa loompa-like creatures approach them, each holding crossbows that they had aimed in their direction.
"Can you walk?" Omen asked the cat woman.
"I…can try…" She answered weakly.
-Fuck.-
In one fluid motion, Omen slung his M4 over his shoulder as he spun on his heels, dipping low to scoop the cat woman up into a fireman's carry. Instead of turning again to face these sahagins, he pulled out his 9mm beretta and trained it on the approaching oompa-loompa-like creatures.
"Patience, cover our escape, then regroup northeast." Omen's voice was as calm as ever, despite their predicament.
"Roger."
"Heretic."
"Flashy exit?" He sounded almost giddy.
"Blast the oompa-loompas." Omen tugged a flash bang from his vest, a slender tube that remained mostly hidden within his hands as he slowly turned back towards the sahagins.
Heretic turned as well, but trained his A2 towards the armored tin men, though his angle was slightly higher.
"On your shot, Patience."
"Three." Patience came across the comms. Omen pulled the pin with his teeth and held the tube over his chest.
"Two."
The sahagins hopped up and down, releasing guttural roars and hisses. One of them lifted a spear, as if ready to throw.
A shot rang out, two sahagins were vaporized, then all became deathly quiet.
Omen tossed out the flash bang, dropping to a low crouch as he closed his eyes.
Another shot, then a loud pop.
It felt as if his ears had been filled with water, as any and all sound vanished within an instant, then gradually became an ascending ringing. He opened his eyes, watching as blurred lines quickly focused into sharp images within a second; a result of hard training.
A distant explosion rumbled the ground beneath his feet, but he could stand no problem. His movements were smooth like silk as he began to back away northeast, popping shots with his pistol at the sahagins. Each pull of the trigger delivering a 9mm bullet to the head or chest of the fishmen. A few of them he watched completely become vaporized; a present from his sniper.
With each step towards their exit, the ringing within his ears slowly became replaced with muffled noises. The once merging of screams, shrieks, and gunshots gradually becoming separate and clear again.
By the time they reached the northeast line, all the targets were downed. Omen went to speak in the comms, but then more shrieks came from the cave.
"Front clear! Let's go!" Heretic patted Omen's shoulder, and both turned and dashed into the jungle with their rescuee. Vanishing like ghosts within the thick vegetation.
