Ashes to Ashes

After the green glow begins to fade away, and they can once again see, they find yourself still sitting in the truck where they where. But the truck was slowly coming to a stop. The lights were all dead. The dashboard display has cracked, and all the dials were frozen in their last position. The smell of melted rubber and ozone fill the air. A quick look around the truck, and they can tell that everything that was electrical has been fried or shorted out for some reason.

In the back of the truck Hacker said quickly that Kermit was gone. Looking at where he was standing showed a strange outline of him, like that of a reverse shadow cast across the wall of the truck, and on the floor. The place where a shadow should be was normal, around that about a foot out, was all burned ash, and char. The device that fell into the open hood of the hover car has some how fussed with it, becoming one in a strange unnatural twisting of metal.

The sky was a strange dark reddish blue color. Not unlike when the sun sets and it has totally disappeared over the horizon, but it was still light. There were no stars, or even a moon, but there were also no clouds anyplace in the sky. It was late night when they left, but not it would seem to be either dusk or dawn.

Looking out they could see the light of a small town, or village. It looks as if they were only a little over half a mile or more away. The first question on the minds of the team was; where are we? The team then took time to gather weapons, and equipment. Agthork took one of the ion rifles that Viper took from the complex. He rapped the rifle in a bit of carpet that he tore from the trunk of the hover car. Using the strap from the rifle he slung the gun over was back; this would help to hide it from onlookers. Agthork also used his plant control powers to make women weapons for the team, as well as a wooden staff for himself.

Agthork and Glory move down toward the town to investigate. The town seems somewhat quiet, there were no people out on the street, not even a dog was barking. Ask they walked down the main street of the town, they could hear the clock town begin to chime one o'clock. They could see a bookstore, a dinner, electronics' shop, and several other unmarked buildings. There was a car parked in front of the dinner, it looked not unlike a car from the late 60's, very large, with fins and white walls. But there was something odd about it, it was unlike any kind of car Agthork or Glory had ever seen or head of from the 60's. The licensee plate on the car was Tennessee, with a renewal date of October 72. What they could see of the people in the dinner, they where farmers or blue-collar workers dressed in farm cloths and overalls. They believed that they had gone back in time, back to the 1972.

Suddenly to there left they could hear a trash can fall over, then another. They could make out the sounds of someone running very fast down the ally towards the group. They turned to look and could see a short older looking man, about 4'8", he had a white beard, and he was tripping, falling, and knocking over almost everything in was path as he came down the ally. Every time he hit the ground he looked behind, like he was trying to see if someone was following him. They see his face, and they see it was filled with total fear. He sees the group and rushes toward them. He grabs onto Agthork's shirt, saying in an English accent, "Please, you have to help me! The are after me! I don't belong here, please help me!"

The man quickly introduced himself as Gomer. He said that he was a temporal physicist working for a secret government organization. Glory quickly said that they should return to the base camp and decided what they should do. The two groups met half way, and Gomer repeated his story. He told them that he had come to this place only a couple hours ago, and not knowing where he was he just began to walk until he saw a town. When he got closer to the town, these large demon-looking creatures attacked him. They looked like large men, with huge bat wings and vulture's heads. They also looked as if they had no skin at all, and you could see their muscles and bones. When Gomer mentioned this, Hacker went white. Hacker said that he had also seen these things, when he and Captain had experienced something like they did when they first came in, but they had found some guard to a government project screaming, and howling. He seemed mad, talking about these creatures. Hacker continued saying that they creatures had come from some glowing green portal, and where attacking anything that moved. Gomer said that he was at the base of he portal when it opened, and that some how he, and some of the equipment had gone threw the vortex. He said that when the creatures saw him, that he had dropped it, and hide, they had taken it, and it looked like they flew into town with it. It also accrued to them that this man had disappeared from their Earth on June 27th.

The team gathered there equipment, and weapons, and moved into town. Menagerie changed into a bird and flew up, and over the town to get a better look. As they entered the town, people on the street, quickly moved into buildings. People in the dinner, just stopped when they where doing, and stared. Off in the distance the team could swear they could hear some old west music. When they got to close to the center of town they could see three of the creatures, one was on the roof to the gazebo, the other two where picking over the strange device that Gomer had brought with him. At this point, Gomer quickly hid behind a parked car, far away from the action.

Crusher decided she would run up at them, get their attention so the others could attack them quickly. As she moved forward, Menagerie did a dive bomb onto the one of the gazebo, and right before he hit him, he changed into a large Kodiak bear. Viper then took a shot and tried to take the wing off of one of the two on the ground. He hit the wing, but did not destroy it. Glory then took a shot at its head, she hit, but it only looked stunned. Agthork was not very good with a laser rifle, she he just shot at the creature hitting it, and making it mad. Hacker had almost been killed by these creatures the first time, so he aimed for its head, and took a good chunk out of it, and taking it down. Crusher shot at the one coming after her. The remaining one on the ground saw Crusher and rushed right at her, hitting her with it's sword. The one Menagerie attacked was very unhappy with him, and slashed him with it's sword, cutting him deeply. Menagerie took and clawed at the creature, hurting it, but not killing it. Viper shot at the head of the creature attacking Glory, hitting it in the head, but still not killing it. Glory and Agthork both took shots at the creature, doing great amounts of damage to it. Crusher shot point blank at the creature, hurting it badly, and taking it down. The group took several shots at the remaining monster, it hit Menagerie several times, and he had been brought to the point that he was almost dead. When the monster when to hit him again, he quickly changed into a snake, and the monster missed. The creature saw that it was loosing badly, and took to the air. As it passed over Viper, he took a shot at its wing, knocking it to the ground. Agthork moved over to Crusher, and wanted to get at the creature's sword. When he bent down to try and take it, the blade moved quickly and stabbed him in the chest. Crusher freaked, and emptied half a clip into the monster's body, finally killing it. Hacker, Crusher, and Viper all took shots at it while it was on the ground. Glory ran up to it, and tried to kick it in the head, but slipped on its blood. It rose to run away, when Viper shot the damn thing's head off.

After it was dead, Menagerie and Glory took several blood and tissue samples, as the rest of the team reloaded. When Gomer saw the fighting was over he went to his equipment. Hacker and Gomer determined that the creatures had done a great deal of damage to the device, and that it would need to be repaired. Gomer told them not to fear, that the parts they needed would be easy to find. Crusher fixed up Agthork and Menagerie the best she could. Agthork when to get the monsters sword, but was unable to pick the sword up. As the team was trying to decide what to do with the bodies, several towns people came out to great them. To the team's surprise, the towns people where very upset, and said that the team had done a great wrong, and that the Hunters would come and attack the town because they killed some of there group. Agthork and Hacker went to the electric store that they had seen when they came in. When the two entered the shop, there mouths just dropped. Inside this shop the most advanced thing they had was vacuum tubes. Agthork talked with the sales man, and he figured out that this was the best they had, and the team was in serious trouble.

The team moved out and returned to there truck. Menagerie, Glory and Agthork moved into town, they needed to get some kind of transportation to get to there next destination. The group had almost no money, so they needed a quick way to get some cash. They went to a bar just outside of town. There Glory bet a man that she could beet him in an arm-wrestling match. The guy quickly agreed, but when Glory beet him, he quickly called her a "Mutie", and refused to pay. He tried to attack her with a chair, but Menagerie quickly moved and grabbed the chair. Glory picked him up with one arm and told him to give her the money. One of the guys buddies pulled a shotgun on Glory and Menagerie, but Agthork pulled his gun on that guy. The guy said he didn't have all the money. so the team said they would take his wheels. He game them the keys, and his wallet and said his was the red truck parked out back. His truck was a beet-up junker, with high wood planks that ran on either side above the back. The group jumped in and drove back. When they got back they removed the back seat from the hover car, and mounted it to the back of the truck so they could have a place to sit as they drove.

As the group talked about where they would go, a man walked up toward the group. Before he even talked the group recognized him as Johnny Shawanga. His hair was darker, and he look just like he did when the team met him in their time. With him were three guys, and a woman. Two of the guys had a club, and a metal pipe, the others didn't seem to have any weapons. One of the guys had strange dark black tuff looking skin. Johnny said that he knew that they where not from this pace, and that from what he saw of the battle, he knew that they had some great technology, and he offered a triad. The girl looked at Glory, and her eyes just got wide, and she said, "Oh you are an interesting one, here let me help you" At this point Glory's mind just filled with the knowledge that she was really a robot, and that she was not really human. Glory started to flip out, and threatened the girl. The guy with the black skin, jumped in her way and they started throwing remarks back and forth. Johnny got the group to calm down. The group talked it over and said for him to come back tomorrow and they would have their answer. As a show of faith Glory gave Johnny her rifle. The group decided to triad them the busted hover car if they could fix the portal. Glory was very upset, and started to run, she ran all the way to Rosswel, New Mexico. When she got there she only found a farm, and no sign of the space craft that crashed there. She then went to Area 51, and found the remains of a military base. She then returned to the group, running at full speed. When she returned it was almost 6 am.

When Glory was of running Crusher went down to the town to try and find out something about Johnny and his group. She went to the bar and started asking some questions, and also when to the local sheriff and asked him as well. What she learned that he was a so called "Freedom Fighter" but what his group was doing was robbing and stealing food and weapons from around the area, and possibly even in other towns near by. He was a trouble maker. The sheriff told her that there was possibly five maybe six people in his gang.

The group setup watches to see if anymore people might show, but no one else showed. At about 7 am Johnny and his group arrived. The girl had a set of tools, and some equipment. The group had already moved the hover car out of the truck and had it waiting for them. The girl opened the hood and started to work on it, Johnny just stood there, and watched the girl work. Gomer said there was no way they could get it to work. The girl got out from under the hood, and one of her friends started it up. The group was shocked. She then went and started to look over the portal. As the group watcher he work on the portal, the rest of Johnny's group got into the hover car, and waited. The girl messed with the device, and some how got it to work. She moved back, and told them to turn it on. She stood very close to Johnny at this point. Gomer leaned down and switched the machine on. The group saw the green portal open. When the entire teams attention was on the portal, the hover car and the girl quickly drove off as Johnny flew away. The moment the girl drove off the portal closed before anyone could enter it. Menagerie quickly pulled his rifle and went to fire at the group. But before he could get a shot off, a black shard of some kind hit him in the arm. Crusher pulled her gun, but could not see anyone. Agthork and Glory could see some kind of heat signature in the forest. Agthork fired on it, but the his energy beams just hit something right before him. Crusher fired at the point Agthork had, but was unsure if she it anything. Glory quickly ran into the forest to hit the person, but smashed face first into a force field. The person ran off, as the group fired one or two shots, but decided it was not worth following.

The team gather some food, water and gas with the money they got from the man's wallet. They set there sights for Area 51, maybe they could find something to help them on there way, or maybe they might just find someone who could help them.