Sean takes a step back. "Whoa there. No need to threaten. I'm not even entirely sure where I am to begin with. Sort of slept most of the way here." He grins then heads out the door. "Until next time, Miss Zoe." Once he is out the door Sean shifts and melts into the shadows.

Shinigami still in a meditative state stared blankly at his swords, the altar of the only god he had ever known, a harsh deity that respected only the victor and to all others dealt death. While his mind's eye swept across Marine Corps Base Oneida, his own irises turned to silver, reflecting the dancing candles about him. He had remained in trance for time while he searched for his prey, and at long last his vigilance was rewarded when he had spied a rather 'non-human' descent from a five story building.

"Wraith." Whispered the swordsman as he studied the trio. He recognized the one known as Dominic Cassius but the marine puzzled him, but then he realized that it must be the shape-shifter, Yelena.

His cell phone rang and Shinigami's eyes darkened as he once more saw through them. Procuring the phone he checked the caller I.D. and recognizing the number returned the phone to the table beside him without answering. He did not have time to listen to the worries, demands and idle threats of his employer and decided to let Colonel Petrovsky deal with matters in his own way. When and if, they escaped the base he would act, and not before.

The warrior humbly bowed before his swords and spoke a prayer in his native language. He then, turned while remaining in a kneeling position and poured himself some tea into a small ornate cup. As he took a sip, the flavour reminded him of his ancestral home in Noshiro, where the rare leaves were cultivated and recalled a time when life was simple, when he was a boy running along the rocky coast without a care in the world. It was only five mere jumps away, five seconds for him and yet it had been years since he had walked the forests of his lands and set foot in his own dojo. Every time he chose to draw blood with his blades he imagined that he would at last find peace and return home, but he knew that day would never come, so he drank his tea and remembered.

"Marnin' sunshine, sumptin' shur smells good. Yur gonna have me plumper than a prize hog, ya keep this up." Tim said as he walked into the kitchen. He looked at the window and said "I see yur friends ar right happy ta se ya this marnin' as well. Did ya sleep alright sweetheart?" Tim said as he gave MOrgan a kiss on the cheek, then poured himself a cup of coffee.

Sean finally made it to a national forest and hoped the instructions Zoe had written down were accurate. Staying in the shadows he made his way into the dense forest to look for the cabin they would be staying in. As he reached the ranger station he saw Frank getting into the red Audi and cursed silently. This was starting to turn into a bad day already.

As Frank Shepherd left the ranger station and pulled away in stolen car, a tall African-American man in a grey suit walked round a black SUV and watched the red Audi as it disappeared down the road. Twenty years on the job had sent up a signal flare when the guy had exited the ranger station, so he had remained behind the tinted glass of the SUV that was parked in amongst a few other vehicles close to the same year and model type, so it hardly stood out.

Agent Birkshire had memorized the license plate, an old habit. He strolled over to the SUV and rapped on one of the back windows. It slid down and the surveillance officer poked his head out. The supervising agent then recited the license plate of the car to the man then described the vehicle's make, model and colour. "Keep an eye on it." he ordered not bothering to explain why, but his men were used to his hunches. Birkshire had built his entire career on intuition, he was rarely wrong and his men knew it.

"Yes sir." replied the surveillance officer and he immediately zoomed a satellite camera on the road and located the red audi. He scanned the car then ran a program that would automatically follow it's movements then he resumed scanning over the National Forest. He had restored the sat-comm links last night and had then been rewarded with a whole four hours of sleep, it could have been worse though, at least he didn't have to drive around all day aimlessly like the other agents.

Birkshire entered the ranger station. Before he had noticed the man in the red Audi he stopping by to distribute some pictures of the 'Wrangler'. He spotted a ranger who just finished pouring himself a cup of coffee and strolling over to him introduced himself. "Hello, I'm Supervising Agent Birkshire of R.A.I.D." he then handed the man a few copies of his renderings of the Wrangler. The ranger with coffee in hand, reached with his free hand that already had a small stack of photocopies. The agent couldn't help but notice the picture on them and recognized it right away as Morgan Shepherd. "Where did you get those!" he pressed.

The ranger looked down at his hand and for the life of him couldn't remember. "I'm sorry sir, I... I can't recall."

"Well that had to have come from somewhere. Did that man drop them off?"

The ranger smiled in a humoring sort of way, "Uh... I'm sorry, sir. You're the first person we've seen this morning. Ask Julie." he said, gesturing to a cute bubbly blonde haired conservation officer at the counter.

Birkshire took the copies along with his photo renderings and dropped them in front of the girl. "Who left these? There was a man in here not five minutes ago. He was driving a red Audi, I just saw him."

The young girl smiled weakly not sure what to say to the man. "I'm sorry sir, but I think you're mistaken."

The ranger sipped his coffee nodding in agreement with the girl, thinking that the RAID agent was a little off his nut.

"Hey wait a minute!" said the girl as she noticed the picture of the Wrangler. "I know this guy!"

Birkshire eye's widened. "This man is a wanted felon, if you know where he is you should inform me immediately."

"I'm sorry." Julie apologized, "I don't know where he is, I just really feel like I know him.... some how... I don't know... my head hurts." The girl began to rub her temples, "Excuse me." She went into a back room to look for some tylenol.

'Something was definitely awry', Birkshire told himself, but he had seen this before and when the girl suffered a sudden headache he was sure what had happened. He went back over to the ranger and handed him the photos of the Wrangler. "This man is extremely dangerous. If you see him do not approach him, you just call me as soon as you can." He handed the ranger his card and left.

Birkshire was just exiting the ranger station when his blackberry went off. "Birkshire."

"It's Agent Henkel. Just thought I'd let you know that Frank Shepherd escaped last night." he said sheepishly. "It's the damnest thing too. The two guards and the psychiatrist that were with him reported that they heard a strange noise then he was gone, and the shrink said that his clothes had just disappeared off of his body. What do you make of that?"

It all made sense to Birkshire now. Frank Shepherd was in the area and he'd stake his career on the fact that he possessed the power of 'mental domination'. "Agent Henkel," he responded optimistically, "I think I've already found him."

Sean had followed after the Audi as quickly as he could. Unfortunately he lost the car just after passing the ranger station. Rising up into a solid form he checked the slip Zoe gave him and continued on his way to the cabin. As he got closer however the tree cover opened up and more sunlight was coming through. He could now see the cabin but was stopped by the one thing he feared most. After a moment Sean pulled the hood down and fixed his sunglasses before sprinting across the clearing that lead to the front door, smoking the whole way.

Sean dives through the door, rolling on the ground and landing on his back. He looks up at Morgan, breathing heavily. "Nothing. Just..need to....catch my....breath. Saw....Frank. He's close."

After Colonel Vacily Petrovsky had sent out his order to prevent any personal from leaving the base without being personally notified, he stormed out of his office without so much as a glance toward Sara-Lynn. She remained in his office leaning against the desk, her concern for Toril once more surfacing within her eyes. As she rose to leave the office and return to her duties, she noticed that Surge had been so distracted by the situation that he had left his computer logged in under his username. She could see that it had an automatic lock out and the final seconds were counting down, ten seconds to decide whether or not to risk helping a man who had chosen the enemy over her. Seven seconds to choose whether her loyalty to Beacon was more important than the life of an old friend. Five seconds. Sara-Lynn jumped behind the computer and canceled the log-out.

She had no idea when Surge would return, nor did she have any idea where Toril and his the 'resistant fighters' he had teamed up with were. Could they be considering going after the boy they had classified as 'Demon'? No, such a rescue attempt would be suicide. They had to be trying to get off the base.

Quickly Sara-Lynn typed up an order and addressed it using the name, Chris Arbon. It was a name that Toril would recognize, as it was the alias he used when they had first met. The message as it was written said:

To: Chris Arbon

Please inform this soldier that he will be observed by Captain Shinigami once he reports to his new station.

Colonel Petrovsky

Sara-Lynn knew that Toril was aware of the deadly assassin and that the message should alert him of his presence. She sent the message and logged off, only realizing after she had hit send of the consequences that would befall her action.

At all the perimeter gates, the soldiers received the message on their systems and all had the same reaction when first reading it; wondering why a rank was not given for the recipient. They figured, however, that the Colonel had his reasons and prepared to inquire of any personal that stopped at their gates for a Chris Arbon (so that they could give him his print out of the message). Even still, this person would have to detained in accordance with the previous order which they found confusing as well, but orders were orders.

Yelena, in the guise of the Marine Officer, moved the Humvee through the bas keeping a normal pace with the vehicle. If they went too slow or too fast they would fall under suspicion and that was something they couldn’t take a chance with. Cassius hunkered down low in the back seat while Toril sat up very straight and looked the part of a fellow officer with her.

Yelena wasn’t sure which way to go. Totally unfamiliar with the area, she more or less let instincts guide her to where she needed to go. The only thing she knew was that she needed to follow any route that would take them all closer to the perimeter of the base so they could slip out the fence that surrounded the place. Much easier said than done.

Little did she know Vacily had taken measures to prevent them from escaping. But little did Vacily know how desperate she was to get herself and her companions off the base and out of Beacon’s grimy hands. Even though she struggled with herself to turn around and try to talk some sense into the man. He had a compassionate side to him. She had SEEN it for her own self. And it had nothing to do with being deep under cover. There were just some thing you couldn’t fake and what she had seen from him she knew to be genuine.

Perhaps another time. Right now she HAD To get them the hell away from here and see if they could establish contact with Zoe and Tim once more. That wasn’t going to be easy. Any of it. But still they had to try.

Yelena made one last turn and could see the fence line about 100 yards off. Trees darkened the area beyond the fence line and she knew if they could get into those woods, they would be home free. But getting there was going to be the challenge. Especially when another vehicle pulled up behind them and put on the red and blue flashing lights. Looking in the rearview mirror Yelena muttered something under her breath in her native tongue then glanced over at Toril.

“I don’t think they escort us to fence. Best be ready.”

Looking at the vehicle behind them then at the fence line, Yelena decided to pull over instead of gunning the Humvee and going for it. She figured it was easier to disable the closest threat then alert the entire base to their get away. It was better to be sneaky than announce to the whole world what you planned on doing.

As the Marine in the passenger seat got out and started walking up towards the passenger side of the vehicle and the Marine behind the drivers wheel got out and started walking up to Yelena, she spoke quietly to her companions.

“Gentlemen..…get ready.”

When the Marines reached the vehicle, they both took up a defensive stance with their hand on their side arm. Yelena rolled the window down and the Marine on her side of the Humvee took the lead.

“Sir. I need you to step out of the vehicle please.”

“What appears to be the issue, Marine?”

“Just step out of the vehicle, sir.”

“And I asked you a question, Marine. Are you going to disobey an officers inquiry?”

“Yes sir. Especially when I receive orders from another officer that out ranks you.”

Yelena glared at the Marine for a moment then her face slowly broke into a smile.

“Well, that’s what I like to see. A Marine standing his ground and sticking to his orders. Too bad it will be your last.”

Before the Marine could react, Cassius leaned up from behind Yelena and shot the Marine dead. That left the Marine on the passenger side to deal with now.