Before Sandra's consciousness could comprehend the situation, her body moved. She shot upright, her head already moving from side to side as if scanning her surroundings before her eyes could even focus on what she saw. The movement caused her to stumble, and she almost tipped over as she felt pain from her feet, and a horrible sensation from her rear.

Sitting down, she looked at her feet and saw that the sides of her army boots had split at the seams. Sharp talons were poking through the ironed front of them, and putting her hands on them she froze. Those weren't her hands!

Covered in copper-colored scales and tipped with razor-sharp black nails, they reminded her of arrow tips. A stupid thought crossed her mind for a moment. She never did like painting her nails, and now it looked like she would never again have to worry about it.

Sniffing she decided it needed to wait, as her feet were telling her they needed immediate attention. Trying to remove the shoes the usual way proved impossible, and she wanted to rip them off in anger. Around her startled cries, and rustling showed the rest was waking up as well, and she took a deep breath trying calm herself.

Carefully she put one of her sharp fingernails behind the durable leather, and it sliced through as if it were butter. With a sigh of relief, she looked at her bare feet. Covered in the same coppery scales as her hands, they were longer then they had been and tipped with dangerous-looking talons.

With the pain from her feet ended, she again noticed an uncomfortable pressure from just below her back and getting an ominous feeling she felt around with her hands. It was as if a coiling snake was hiding inside her trousers. Shocked, she sucked in her belly and reached inside. Her amber eyes widened at what she found, and she pulled out a long tail. She was alarmed for a moment, but then she calmed down again, much faster than she had a right too. Lizards did have tails she decided before pushing back any lingering primal fear about now having a long bendable appendage below her waist. Looking at her nails, she poked a hole inside her pants. Carefully she stuck her tail through the hole feeling the material rip up further to accommodate the wrist-thick thing fit.

Finally done, she looked around. Green plants with purple leaves now covered the sandy ground and sitting close together were three beings dressed in army clothing. The outfit was a size too big for two of them, hanging loosely around their wiry frames. They hadn't noticed her yet, too preoccupied with examining their yellow and green faces. Coarse black hair that resembled wet plant roots lined pointy faces with eyes that seemed too large. Their mouths were opened a little as if they couldn't shut all the way, showing small pointy teeth.

Besides them sat a big, lumbering thing. Although mostly similar in looks to the other two, this one was much bigger and had a more human-like face. Its overly muscled arms had ripped apart the sleeves of the army jacket giving him a macho look. Examing its face, Sandra saw the large Goblin was staring straight at her.

"Sarge?" The deep rumbling voice seemed to be almost tangible.

Sandra nodded, keeping her eyes glued to his, trying to determine how much of the dumb brute was still left.

A wide grin, showing healthy and sharp teeth, covered his face, and he remained quiet. Sandra got a dangerous sensation as she saw a glint appear in his eyes. Feeling any lingering positive memories vanish, she stood and glared at him.

"On your feet, soldier. We have our orders." His face turned into a glare, but he nodded and got up. Looking down at the two smaller ones that were staring at him with a slightly awed expression he grinned. Reaching down, he picked both of them up by their necks and put them on their feet. The two showed no reaction.

Keeping an eye on Peltmans, Sandra looked around at the decimated trucks. They were either piled together in a crumpled heap or for some reason they lacked tires. They did have one thing in common; they had no more occupants. Groups of goblins, dressed in soldiers clothing, stood around talking and examine each other. Trying to find the other half of her squad she soon heard from the scattered conversations that everyone that had been in the vehicles had disappeared. Realizing Hernandez, her only real friend was gone struck her hard. Steeling herself, Sandra looked at the center of what previously had been a ring of trucks.

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Many of the Goblin soldiers were starting to head that way, so she signaled for Peltmans and the others to follow her and began following them. As she walked, she tried to determine how many non-goblins were around.

She knew from hidden glances and whispers that it hadn't gone unnoticed that she disobeyed orders. Touching the tail that kept trying to fling forward with her hand, she guessed it was kind of hard to miss as she probably looked like an oversized iguana.

Within moments she had found that roughly one out of ten soldiers were something else than a Goblin and she also noticed that many Goblins where casting covert glances at Peltmans. Hoping nothing terrible would come of it, she looked at the four lizard things she presumed where Kobold like her. They were by far the fewest in number. Besides the Kobolds, there were around ten greyish looking things that seemed like a cross between a human and a piece of charcoal; Fiends, she guessed.

What startled her the most was the group of horrifying insectoid things that were moving in a group grouped. Numbering eight, they all had insect-like traits and were green or blackish blue. With faces barely human, their utterly black and bulging eyes reminded her of those flies had. Their mouths resembled slits, showing virtually no expression and she shuddered. As far as she could tell, they were slightly taller than the goblins but smaller than the kobolds.

Taking another look around, she saw that besides her and Peltmans the tallest things around where the fiends. She wondered why she was almost one head taller than the other Kobolds she saw.

As she arrived close to the central group, she examined the Fiends and quickly saw they were wearing scientist outfits, and standing in two groups. One group was close to a few Goblins, while the others were standing apart. Besides the Fiends, she saw there was only a single Goblin wearing scientist clothes, and he was standing alone, glaring at the other scientists.

From the corner of her eye, she saw movement heading her way. Quickly turning her head, she found that the other Kobolds were walking towards her. She also saw that she was the only non-commissioned amongst them, and when they arrived, they fell in line behind her without a word.

There was a tense atmosphere in the air, and the eerie noises from the mysterious jungle behind them were not helping.

After a moment, one of the scientists moved forward and scraped his throat while fidgeting a bit.

"Right, we have a problem. The high-ranked officers were inside the central vehicle, and they have disappeared." Scraping his throat again, the Fiend puffed out its chest. "I have the provisional rank of Lieutenant, making me the highest-ranked officer left."

A soft murmur followed his statements, and within moments two goblins stepped forward.

"Sir. No offense, but are you capable of leading us?" One of the goblins said in a raspy voice. He was similar to the others, and only his army jacket showed he was a master sergeant. All of the goblins quieted at his words.

"We should head to the main base and find out what the situation is like there." The tall Fiend continued, seeming to ignore the goblins question.

"Why are you not like us?" A softly spoken question echoed out of the crowd.

The Fiend looked over and tried to find the soldier who had spoken out. He quickly realized that with the Goblins all looking the same it was impossible to determine.

"Because we need people of different kinds to survive what is to come." He finally said.

"What do you mean, what is to come? There is more?" One of the two master sergeants asked, sounding upset. His words caused another wave of muttering and angry shouting to fill the air, and some goblins moved forward. Soon a threatening atmosphere started to spread.

Stepping back, the Fiend looked around hesitantly, and the other scientists nodded quickly. Swallowing, he hastily continued. "Listen. The situation is worse than we anticipated. Some vehicles disappeared, and electricity stopped working. None of this was in the signals we received."

Seeing the Goblin turned soldiers stop and listen to him, he continued in a rushed voice.

"This was the first of a three-step process. We don't know the exact details, but the last step will completely absorb our world. If this first step was any indication, then not a lot of us or our world will survive the absorption." In the end, the Fiend fell silent, looking at the two goblins.

The two Goblins stared at him for a while before glancing at each other and exchanging a nod.

"Fine. We will head to the main base. There should be officers left that know what to do." one of the two said. "You will take half, and I will take the other half. It is going to take a day to walk, so we better get going." He continued looking at the other one.

A spark seemed to ignite between the two goblins as they looked at each other. The other humans turned Goblin became deathly quiet, and their eyes shined as they looked on with bated breath. The non-Goblins looked around in confusion at the sudden change. It lasted for only a moment before some semblance of the sergeants military training kicked in. They turned around almost as one and shouted orders to the soldiers. Without missing a beat, the Goblins quickly formed two long lines.

Within moments, all of the Goblins were ready to move out. All around them, the other mingled humans were standing around dumbstruck.