((collab between me and Malikai m-man))<br/><br/>Having decided that one more armed person is better than facing this unknown threat alone, the Stalker sentry provided Darina with ammunition. "Much obliged," she said with a grin, loading her pistol.<br/>The Stalker glanced at her eyes. "You a mu--"<br/>Darina shot him a look before he could finish the sentence, but she sighed and nodded. The fellow just gave her a means to defend herself properly; might as well act with a little more gratitude. "I don't hear anything like return gunfire," she remarked, "but you never know--wait." She pressed a finger to her lips, though she could tell from the look of consternation on the Stalker's face that whatever she had heard had, at least vaguely, been noticed by him, too. What would have sounded like feral shouting echoing from the woods sounded very much like a clear declaration to the redhead. I am Halak! Dar frowned.<br/>"Who's 'Halak'?" she asked him. The man frowned back at her.<br/>"Nobody here by that name. Why?"<br/>"He says his name is Halak. But I don't know if he's telling you that, or talking to somebody else." The man shook his head. Darina pointed to the direction she had heard the noise issue from ("and tell them to stop firing randomly, will you? It's messing with my ears," she added), and immediately the man ran back to the guard tower, signaling to his comrades with his raised hand.<br/><br/>The bandit--ex-bandit?--stood there for a moment, wondering if she should seek the safety of the guard tower or pursue the source further. After all, she had what she wanted. She pressed a hand over her stomach, cringing. On the other hand, she could still smell the trace of iron-odor from whoever was bleeding out there, and it didn't help her appetite. Maybe she could find something to eat, too. Groaning to herself, she holstered the pistol, unsheathed the knife, and crept onward through the underbrush. She had to stoop lower now and then to keep her balance, the forest floor growing slippery with moss here and there, sloping steeply in other places, or becoming heavily chocked with thick vines and gnarled roots, practically forcing her to half-crawl, half-climb. Her nose and eyes followed bloodstained brambles as if they were the only trail that existed before her.<br/><br/>Something about the air made her feel tense, not so much out of fear but excitement. She was getting close. The air around her seemed to vibrate almost, as if the ripples that sound created became more tactile. Breathing, she realized; she could hear it, whatever "it" was, take heavy breaths. Around her, more blood-stained leaves. Before she could stop herself, her fingers pinched one leaf, sliding along its broad side, swiping the blood from it before bringing the fingers to her lips. Shit, the smell alone made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, goosebumps rising down her spine. She grimaced as she sucked on her stained thumb and forefinger.<br/><br/>One taste was enough. Like a curtain unveiling before her, he appeared. Or, not so much appeared as materialized out of thin air. A hulking figure, not quite as outlandish as Rock Hammer, but no mere mortal, either. He was scratched all over, and very badly at that, but she could faintly see other older scars on his skin. "Fuck," she breathed, taking a step back, seeing the fangs protruding from where normal human canine teeth should be. And the look on his face! She wasn't that near him yet, but she knew it would be idiotic to pretend he hadn't seen her.<br/><br/>Gulping, she stepped forward so he could get a clearer look at her. Hanging around Rock Hammer made her hesitant to try talking with her gun first. She sheathed the knife and raised her hands, her own racing heart drumming painfully in her ears. "I'm just a scout," she said, cringing as she heard her own trembling voice. "Why are you here?"<br/><br/><br/>It writhed in him, this abhorrent alter-ego, as it fought for control. Halak briefly considered the possibility of just giving in for the sake of survival. He knew that his power would reach its pinnacle, but it wasn't worth it. Never would the overwhelming emptiness be worth whatever small measure of existence he might scratch out for himself.<br/><br/>The air shifted suddenly and thrust him from his melancholy musings. It was a new scent wafting on the slight breeze coming in from behind him. There was something familiar about it, something he couldn't help but recognize though his mind made no connection. It was sweet, but there was also a predatory bite to his olfactory senses.<br/><br/>And there she was.<br/><br/>She caught Halak off his guard. So deep was he lost to his thoughts that he didn't notice the petite woman stalk up to him. Despite his agony Halak lurched to his feet. Blood coated his right side and still open wounds let yet more of his life flow from him. His eyes narrowed on her, but Halak eased slightly after a moment realizing that she meant no immediate threat. Another minute passed as he held her eyes with his. There was a flash of something in that deep amber, something he again recognized, but it was gone.<br/><br/>He couldn't fight anymore, his body too ravaged to continue, and he collapsed. Pleading now he looked to her. "Help… Me." Halak could only whisper to her.<br/><br/>Now, here was a dilemma. Darina flinched as the man stumbled, and even then, seeing him lying bleeding on the ground, it took her a couple of beats to rush to his side. “Ah, shit, man, how did you get so roughed up?” she muttered. She hadn’t thought to bring anything with her besides the weapons, having left her backpack behind with the other Stalkers. It didn’t look like the majority of his injuries were inflicted by bullets, so he must have gotten here already in bad shape. But what was she going to do? She heard her stomach rumble, and she swallowed saliva that had begun to pool in her mouth at the close proximity to all this wounded flesh. Goddammit.<br/><br/>“Okay. Okay,” she muttered, talking more to herself than to him, “okay. I’ll run back, ask for supplies. I might have an expired can of antibac spray and some fibrin glue in my pack. Don’t move!” She backed away from him, not yet willing to turn her back to him, until she was well into the thicket again, where, hopefully, the trees and wild underbrush would slow him down should he give chase. It didn’t sound like he was, and she listened to his labored breathing before breaking into a full on dash, almost tripping here and there before reaching the outpost.<br/>“Well?”<br/>“Lone person. Weak and injured. Should be easily six foot tall,” she said, not wanting to tell them about his mutation just yet, “do we have bandages?”<br/><br/>She returned with the other Stalker guards, carrying the supplies she needed in her backpack. They were still armed and wary, understandably, but she led the way, making it clear to them that she was unafraid after insisting that she could administer first aid to him before they transport him to a better facility. She knelt beside the bleeding stranger, mopping up his bloody skin with strips of cloth, cleaning him as best as she could before spraying him with the antibac. The fibrin glue helped, though she used it sparingly; he would need to be stitched up, anyway, and by a real doctor, too.<br/><br/>“So, what’s your name, then?” she asked, letting the others do most of the bandaging while she slipped the bloody rags she had used earlier into her pants pockets. If it would take a while for her to find something to hunt, she would need something to tide her over for the meantime.<br/><br/>Halak was beginning to sense the source of his familiarity. It wasn't just her eyes, but the way that they were watching him, like she was hungry. Mental flares of alert shot through his nervous system and the hunger of his own began to whisper for violence. Still, there was also a compassion in her. Despite whatever she warred with inside herself, her body language was that of concern.<br/><br/>Eventually she made her way to him and made something of a helpless gesture as her amber eyes looked him over. Halak heard her mutter as she checked his wounds, but spikes of pain centering around his abdomen made it nothing but noise. Slowly exerting his right arm, he pushed himself onto his side in time to see her backing toward the forest. She spoke, louder now, and she let him know that she would return shortly with help. Halak kept eye contact with her until she was out of sight, only making a noise to grunt in response to her declaration. She is wise as well, Halak thought. She never left herself needlessly open. That meant she knew the ways of a predator and Halak could see how dangerous she was, though maybe she didn't quite realize it yet.<br/><br/>as even her scent left the immediate area. New pain lashed at him when he tried to push himself to a somewhat upright position, but he swallowed the agony. Small pinpricks of fear started to form as he wondered if she was really coming back. Why would she? She didn't know him. Still he held to the small hope that was there, and to his surprise, she returned.<br/><br/>Strangers came as well and began to bandage his already scarred torso, applying antibacterial sprays and ointments as they went. The woman wiped blood from his face and asked for his name. Halak looked back to her face. It had been so long since he'd actually spoken to another person.<br/><br/>"I," The words were elusive, but he managed to speak clearly. "I am Halak Arston. I come from north." He did his best to point in the correct direction, but he was barely sure as to where the front of him was. "I was in accident, explosion, underground bunker with strange…" His words and sentences felt so broken when he spoke. It bothered him in a strange way that he didn't quite understand, and it only grew worse the harder it was for him to articulate his thoughts. "Strange technology inside." He hoped that was enough.<br/><br/>Something caught his eye though, those sparks of suspicion surfacing once more. With great skill in sleight of hand, she shoved the blood soaked rags into her pocket. There were mutants out there that could do terrible things with a person's blood, and he wasn't sure if she was one of them. Her assistance was greatly appreciated and Halak knew he was indebted to her, but this raised questions in his mind. They would wait though, for a while at least. Halak cleared his mind and brought his attention back to her and waited for her to speak once more.<br/><br/>"Hello, Halak Arston," she replied, crossing her arms as she sat back. Around her, the Stalkers debated on whether or not to carry the man all the way back to the base. The smell of blood on Halak, and on her, tugged at her appetite, and she was acutely, irritatingly aware of the soaked rags she had hidden in her pocket. What he said about the underground bunker, though, piqued her interest in a totally different way, and for a few moments the bandit in her salivated at the idea. A bunker full of strange technology? Sounded very dangerous. It could be either quite deadly, or quite profitable. What did he mean, though, by technology? Or strange? Did it cause his mutation? Was it a room full of artifacts? If he were to recover properly, would he remember where the place was, exactly?<br/><br/>"Name's Darina. Currently a guest of these lovely folk here," she said, gesturing vaguely at the men, who seemed to have come to the grudging conclusion of bringing the man to the base for further examination. "Now, I can't babysit you for long, I have things to do, but I'll walk with you all back to the base." Maybe she could ask Viktor if she could have a bunk or something, someplace quite and private. They all trudged back to the outpost first, Darina hanging back while the rest carried the bulky man on a stretcher as best they could on the rough terrain.<br/><br/>Once they reached the guard tower, Darina hung back and called out to them, "Hey, uh, I'll be back to check in. I gotta check something out back there first. Make sure he's really alone." The Stalker nearest to her shrugged, and she gave him a lousy salute before running off, back towards the clearing where she had first found him. Looking over her shoulder, she almost sobbed in relief, which both surprised and disgusted her. God, how little self-control did she have left? The question was quickly forgotten, however, as she took out the rags and stuffed one of them into her mouth, sucking Halak's blood from it. She wished she could shut out the whimper that escaped her throat as she practically chewed on the cloth. It didn't give her the same euphoria that corpse had back at the Underbelly, but it gave her a hint of it. At the very least, it was like scratching an itch, and she spat the rag out, working on the next piece until all the scraps of cloth had lost their appeal for her.<br/><br/>Leaning back on a tree, Darina closed her eyes, licking her lips. She was about to suck on the residual blood on her fingers when she choked back a scream, finding that her right hand had disappeared. No--wait. Covering her mouth with her left, she flexed the fingers, found a mirage-like shimmer that vaguely formed the shape of her right hand, until it disappeared, replaced by her very real, very human, flesh. Camouflage. Insects buzzed around her head, but when she tried waving them off, they weren't there. Darina blinked, her vision acquiring a weird fish-eye perspective. Goddammit, did the blood make her sick? She shut her eyes again, kept them that way for what felt like several minutes, and finally opened them again, relieved at seeing her usual vision restored. Or, well, as 'usual' as her senses were, anyway. Remembering how Halak had seemingly materialized out of thin air earlier, she realized that her hand had done the same thing. "What the shit?" she breathed, as she stood on shaky legs. She would have to ask him about this later.<br/><br/>Darina… Halak forced her face into memory, if only just to ask her about the blood, but there might be something else of importance once his mind was free of the pain, blood loss, and numbing roar of the hunger. Two men pulled him along into a large warehouse structure that seemed to be set up like some sort of headquarters. A sea of people flooded by and all eyes seemed to be on him. There wasn't much time to speculate as his vision began blurring to grey. Noise became static and eventually there was nothing but the contents of his mind. It was peaceful for once, the hunger finally losing its strength to fight for control. His mind drifted back to the woman that found him. She was the first human contact Halak had in years, but there was something more to her. Then, with subtle grace, even his mind grew quiet.<br/><br/>Darina…<br/><br/>It was a while before the redhead bandit returned to the Stalker base. She hadn’t bothered to completely clean off some of the blood from the front of her jacket. It took a bit of doing, but she had managed to chase down and eat a good-sized rat earlier. Apparently, the creature had been attracted to all the blood Halak had lost. More food for her, then. Unfortunately, whatever she had gotten from Halak’s blood had interfered with her vision somewhat, making it a longer chase than necessary, but somehow she had managed to kill it with only her knife. Lucky.<span style="font-style: italic">Lucky</span>, she muttered out loud, as the sentries let her into the warehouse.<br/><br/>She felt sick. No, not sick, not exactly. She felt almost like the way she did after seeing Scott’s defiled corpse earlier, but she wasn’t sure why. Was she irritated at the inconvenience of her earlier meal? Or at the mystery of his blood? When she bumped into somebody, a growl escaped her, followed quickly by an apology. She kept her head down, making her way towards the bar like it was the only thing that was inside the warehouse. God, she wanted a drink, and to hell with anyone who noticed how disheveled she looked right now. Worse part was, she liked the taste of Halak's blood better than the rat's. Well, the alcohol should wash them both down.