I scowled at the ugly square brick building with splashes of peeling painted metal slats and random windows scattered around the building's walls over a set of bay windows. Jesus, I'd forgotten how hideous Centrist Bible Church was even before someone had taken the rusting cars from the used car dealership next door and used it to make a shoddy wall across the road, but not extending into the woods to either side of said road. Even from where I was watching about three hundred feet away my flicking tongue was inundated with the stench of rust, rotted oil, and excrement.

The defenses appeared to be non-existent beyond the crumbling noise walls from the old days and the rough wall of rusted cars. Even the two people sitting atop said wall of cars seemed to be more focused inwards and spending more time talking rather than actually watching for anything. Hell, I got the feeling that if I wanted to, I could probably conquer this place all on my own. Then again, Jorge had probably felt the same way about the Stadium.

Giving the property a second look wasn't doing much to change that opinion. The only water source seemed to be a small creek under the highway that barely touched the property line that people were quickly wearing a path too to get a drink or awkwardly fill up buckets with water. Everyone I saw seemed to have a heavy air of forlorn exhaustion about them that I recognized from some of my worst line jobs. I wasn't even hearing the noises of people talking, building, or cooking that had become the constant music of the stadium here. Hell, I didn't even see any smoke rising from the place, surely they must at least have someone who knew how to make a fire in there right?

Shaking my head I pulled back and slithered back to the freeway exit where the line of 'captives' and my own 'army' was waiting in the shade of the overpass. Donald looked my way as I returned and waved using his antennas as I approached, "How's it looking kid?"

"Everything I saw and felt seems to align with what Camila was telling us." I reported crisply, "A wall of junked cars across the road with a couple inattentive sentries on it. Not seeing any real activity in the woods around the church, no watchers on the highway I saw, but there is a worn trail there from people going there for water. From what she was saying there shouldn't be more than three or four members of the gang watching over a score of civilians inside, assuming they haven't convinced anyone to join on yet. Matilda did report a few brown nosers that seemed to be leaning that way yesterday."

"Noted," Donald nodded, "You want me in charge of this op of yours right kid?"

"Yes sir," I straightened my back a bit as I stated, "I would prefer a minimal amount of bloodshed though, I feel near certain we can convert most of these people to our way of doing things with a bit of pressure now that Jorge's gone. If we show them he's dead we-."

"Yeah, can that kid." Donald snapped, "You keep that damned head out of sight until this op is over, I don't need one of these clowns going nuts because they think they don't have help coming. Cut the whining about maybe having to kill more people while you're at it. Like it or not, you might have to put someone down in a fight, hesitating could result in you or others getting killed. Now are you going to be able to follow orders or are you going to sit your ass down and help babysit this crowd you decided to drag along with us instead of leaving them locked up at your place until the op was over?"

I tensed, feeling the near instinctive need to snap back at the man questioning me in front of others, but managed to keep my mouth firmly shut. Swallowing my words I hissed out a soft, "You're in charge sir, you lead and I'll follow."

"Damn straight," he stated before turning and pointing, "Rumi, Matilda, you're on baby sitting duty. Keep these people here and in line."

"What!?" Rumi whinnied angrily, "The hell Gruncle Donald!?"

"Oh I'm sorry, is keeping nearly three dozen men and women in check not glorious enough for you?" Donald barked, "Or are you upset that I think you're tough enough to be able to take all of these people by yourself and fast enough to catch any of them if they pull a runner? Well woman? Speak up?" Rumi just sort of stood there, her mouth hanging open mid retort seemingly unable to decide if she should be upset or flattered. Donald took the moment to whirl on Matilda, "Matilda, no complaints about your posting?"

"I'm sure you'll tell me how it's necessary for me to sit back here instead of helping secure those kids being held at the church." She stated with that tone that women seem to effortlessly manage that says 'I'm very mad at you and if I don't hear a good reason in the next minute I'll be making it your problem and even if you do I will still be upset for the rest of the day.'

"You're damned right it's necessary woman," Donald barked at her, "You are the closest thing we've got to a radio operator at the moment and I am not risking you needlessly. Moreover, your abilities are perfect for helping Rumi lock down any troublemakers. So you are going to stay back here and relay signals for us. Clear?"

"Crystal," Matilda said with a huff, her fluffy antennas dancing angrily atop her head.

Donald muttered something under his breath that sounded like a complaint about women in the military, but he could just as easily been saying how much he loved women in uniform. Either way I couldn't find it in me to be too judgmental on the guy. "Angel! You ready to put that thing through its paces?" The corpse amalgamation waggled its 'hand' back and forth unsurely. "What do you mean so-so?"

The body pile made gesturing motions to its 'arms', pointing at the string holding them together and the rough bindings of the neck and boarilla body.

"You aren't sure it will hold together in combat?" The giant centipede/gorilla/pillbug asked with none of the surety he'd had moments ago. He received a nod. "Noah, can you use some wood and your threads to reinforce him a bit?"

"Not quickly sir," the wooden man squeaked, "I'd need more wood first and properly forming the joints to keep it-"

"No sir is good enough Noah!" Donald snapped. "Looks like you're going to have to make do, Angel. Your 'battle body' is the only thing that will be believable as a wandering monster and durable enough to take a beating as a distraction. Though if shit goes FUBAR I want you running even if you have to leave the thing behind."

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The insult to all things decent snapped a floppy salute that had Donald looking like he wanted to launch into a tirade on how to do a proper salute.

"Everyone else! We're going to be forming up in teams of two to approach through the woods as quietly as possible." Donald began to march back and forth in front of us, which was impressive considering how many legs he had. "You will not engage until we are in position and you receive the signal! You will immediately move to secure the captured civilians as quickly as possible. You will not let yourself be drawn into a prolonged fight before we have moved the civilians out of the compound.

"Teams one and two will be flanking the front of the civilian column during exfiltration. Team three, you will be acting as a rear guard both making sure no one falls behind and no one reaches the civies. Team four will be running interference for the other teams and trying to keep them pinned in place long enough for the other teams to escort the civies to safety and return to help finish off this gang of thugs." He stopped his back and forth patrol to turn to face the group. "Any questions?"

"Uh, what's the signal?" Michelle asked, raising one of her clawed wing/arm things. "And what if they attack us before we're in position?"

"Or if the people we're trying to rescue panic and attack us," Jeremy asked.

Donald just sighed, rubbing his monkey hands along his carapace, "Oh I hate working with fresh boots."

The next thirty minutes was Donald hammering what he called 'common fucking sense' into our heads and ensuring that it stuck while bemoaning lacking the time to run us through the most basic of basics. After that he assigned us each into teams and where to approach.

Guess who got assigned to team four with Donald?

At least our approach was the easiest one, coming up south from the creek through the cover of the woods. Donald had claimed that it was because we were both big and obvious, he didn't want to risk us getting spotted in maneuvers. Personally, I suspected he didn't trust me to follow his plan and wanted me in arms reach in case I tried to pull something.

I was just glad it left us close to the wall in case shit hit the fan.

We got into position fairly quickly, laying low in the trees, deep enough to be hard to see but to still easily observe. We could clearly see the group of animals I had to remind myself were people digging at the ground. Were they trying to plow a field? Quarrying for clay? Whatever it was they seemed to be doing a bad job of it, not in the least bit helped by the baboon holding an AR that had obviously seen better days.

I eyed the gun curiously, it could be hard to say with ARs due to people having a tendency to Frankenstein the modular guns, but if it was a base AR then at least a quarter of the people working the field had almost nothing to fear from the weapon. Then again, they probably just saw the gun that the news told them to be afraid of for half a decade and didn't know enough to know that the thing was probably non-functional and that its small caliber rounds would likely be painful but not lethal to their meatier members. For me and Donald at least the weapon wasn't a threat at all unless it caught us in the eye.

Movement in the corner of my vision caught my attention, it was one of Matilda's little moths spreading its wings wide. The signal that Angel was about to begin his distraction and everyone was in place.

There was no roar to herald the start of the operation, Angel apparently didn't have enough control to make the body breathe or speak, there was a heavy metallic crunch of a car husk being hurled into the outer wall. Shouting started, as did the sound of someone slamming a stick into a metal plate, I could see a small group of three, including a familiar fluffy rhino, rushing towards the gate as the screaming continued. The baboon with a gun started shouting at the crowd and gesturing towards the church parking lot. The crowd was slow to move, seeming confused and trying to see what was happening even as the baboon kicked them and made threatening motions with his gun.

I waited, watching Matilda's moth, for the signal that Tango had committed to attacking Angel's creation. The seconds seemed to rapidly tick by as the moth remained motionless. The crowd was getting further from us as the monkey did his work. Finally the moth took off, signaling the attack.

I immediately fired off a Lunge, rocketing me out of the woods and halfway towards the crowd, I slithered for half a second to correct my aim before lunging again, aimed directly at the little monkey, my mouth spread wide.

My approach was quickly noticed, with a large chunk of the crowd crying out in alarm as they noticed me and actively trying to flee me. The baboon whirled at me with his gun raised and froze in wide eyed terror as he saw a snake bigger around than he was tall alarmingly close and closing fast, jaws opened wide and full of needle sharp teeth.

My jaws slammed close on him before he had a chance to recover. His tiny three foot body disappeared completely within my jaws.

Don't swallow! Don't swallow! Don't swallow! I mentally screamed fighting down a nearly overwhelming reflex built into this body akin to a gag reflex.

I could hear the muffled screaming from the man in my mouth along with the horribly uncomfortable feeling of him moving in there, or trying anyway. It felt like he was firmly held in place by the many backwards facing needle teeth in there. Then there was a muffled *crack crack crack* with a feeling like I'd just crack a tooth that made me bite down harder from the pain.

–You have taken 18 piercing damage–

–You have taken 5 overpressure damage–

–Grappling Strike has leveled up!–

–Gained 3xp–

What the hell I thought I'd disabled those pop ups? Did I screw something up while fiddling around with the notepad? Damn it, I'm not entirely sure how I turned off the pop ups to begin with!

I turned to the now panicking crowd of civilians only to realize I could hardly try and reassure them while my mouth was full of gun monkey. Thankfully the other teams were catching up and quickly starting to direct the crowd back towards the highway and away what was starting to sound like a real fight back towards the gate. I reached out to hold Noah in place for a moment to spit out the wet, bloody, and moaning baboon into his awkwardly heavy wooden hands. I was trying very hard not to focus on the taste of blood, piss, and cordite filling my mouth as I spat a few more times on the ground.

Donald cast a baleful glare my way before turning to watch the gate. I turned away from the still very nervous crowd of people being hurried away from us to watch the gate as well.

Angel was certainly proving to be a distraction, he had one of his attackers firmly locked down in the mass of jackal-snake heads that made up his hands while another flew about the 'arm' trying to free the captive. The big rhino, what had his name been? Half-Breed? was repeatedly charging Angel's legs forcing him to dance around the big rhino while also desperately avoiding a giant slug. Some sort of six legged tiger had somehow gotten up to his neck and was clawing apart the boarilla head even as the thing slammed blows into the tigers ribs. It was difficult to say who was winning at the moment, but it certainly looked to me like Angel couldn't keep up such a stalemate for long.

"Should we help him?" I asked worriedly.

Donald gave me a reproachful look as he growled, "I'm not going to stop you if you decide to charge in half cocked as you seem want to do."

If he was hoping to shame me into inaction, he was going to be sorely disappointed. I aimed a Leap at the walls and flew through the air.