Elise looked around. They had lost sight of the others completely. Every second meant they were getting further and further away, and possibly further and further into an even bigger mess.
"Maybe we should stop!" Elise called over the sound of crunching leaves. "We can't just go on without them!" She thought about this for a moment. There was no real reason for being attached to any of these people. Still, there was strength in numbers.

He could hear the noise of the oncoming monsters dying down, he stopped running by gradually jogging then stopping completely.

"What'd you just say?" He asked as he turned his head as far as he could to look at her. He was sure it had been something out the others falling behind, he let go of Elise abruptly, letting her fall onto the forest floor. There were strange colored leaves from the twisted trees strewn about the area, making it a slightly more soft and less dirty landing place than the dirt below them.

Noah turned around and looked behind them, and sure enough the others were gone.

"What the... where the heck are they!?" Noah said as he crossed his arms, "The weird chick with that chainsaw thing was really fast, they should have been ahead of us!" he tapped his foot, he seemed to be thinking. Through the trees he thought that he had seen some strange light and the glistening teeth of some sort of beast, and accompanying that glimpse was the sound of those awful bird monsters.

"We have to go back for them," he said as began to jog back the way they came, it seemed ridiculous, after all that was the directions that monster's calling seemed to be coming from.

"HEEEEEEY!!!! OLD MAN!!! ROBOT THING!!!!!! CRAZY GIRL!!!!! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!!!???" he called out as he went.

"What are you doing?!" Elise, sitting on the forest floor, swung her leg and kicked Noah in the shin. "You just dropped me! And why are you shouting like that? Are you trying to attract all of those things? You want to get...eaten or something?" She got up and brushed her clothes off. Wonderful.
"Did I sit on anything?" she asked. "I can't even see. Anyway, maybe we should wait. Unless you know where we're going." Elise reached over to pick up the spoon. "Otherwise, we'll just have to fight whatever comes until they get here." She shuddered. She never actually expected to have to use her kickboxing classes, but was grateful that her parents had made her take them.

"OWW! HEY!" Noah exclaimed as he rubbed his shin from the kick that Elise had given him.

"You complain too much!" He said starting to get a little agitated, "It's too dark for them to see us so I thought maybe they'd hear us," he said as he looked at her sideways then back towards the forest. His eyes widened as he saw a shadow move. Quickly he pushed Elise behind a tree to the right, and then followed, keeping them both pressed against the bark and out of view from the area they had been in. Elise was about to say something when Noah shushed her. The temperature began to drop as a faint breeze ruffled their hair and clothes. They heard a loud sound, like a huge sack of flour hitting the dirt, two at a time, it began to get louder, as if it the sound was closing in on them. Closer and closer it came at them, but they didn't dare peak out from behind the tree to look. Some sort of heavy breathing that sounded as if it were obstructed by something began to accompany the noise which could now be assumed to be footsteps.

Noah's muscles tensed, every cell in his body was telling him to run, but he couldn't, if he did, whatever was making that noise was sure to see him.

They could tell it was right behind the tree now, it stopped and sniffed around, they could hear it turning it's large head to sniff in different directions. Had it smelled them? Did it know they were there?

It took a step forward, and then another, it was being more cautious than before.

He had been so focused on the creature behind them that he hadn't noticed something appear beside them. But he sensed it. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He slowly turned his head to the right.

Elise shut up quickly. She didn't even say anything after being pushed over to the tree, though he really should watch it. Were they all so touchy-feely here?
The beast that was following them was approaching; she could hear it. She glanced at Noah, who stood ridgedly beside her. Was he going to look or-
There was a beast right next to them. She had two thoughts simultaneously. One was to inform Noah of the new company, the other, 'I'm not that whiny, am I?' The latter thought won out, so instead of bothering Noah (whom seemed to have figured it out already), she tightened her grip on the spoon and struck the monster.
She was lucky.
She had guessed where the beast was out of the corner of her eye. Fortunately, she managed to hit it in the face. In the split second that she and Noah took to observe the creature, she noted that the leathery flesh that had been whacked with the spoon was festering, like an infected burn. Later it would occur to her that a typical spoon, despite its size, should not be able to do that kind of damage.
The monster wailed. It was the size of a bull moose, and its body was covered in thick hair. It had eight legs, like a spider, but did not appear to have the grace of one. The body hung between the legs, which were hairless and leathery, like the face. The face was the face of a gorilla, minus the eyes. It appeared to be all snout.
"I-what-what should we do?" Elise strained to see around them.

"You get out of here!" Noah said to Elise as he stood in front of her and took up a fighting stance against the monster. "Try to find the others as fast as you can. I'll keep this guy busy for awhile-" The eight legged monster raised one of it's legs and attempted to squash Noah who jumped out of the way. The thing was large but it wasn't quick. Although as he looked down at the impact the thing had caused as it hit the ground he saw it went several feet into the ground. Getting hit by that thing was not an option.

The previous monster who had been walking out in the more open area heard the noise and immediately gravitated towards them. It rounded the tree and made itself clear to see. It had a large strange beak and large beady eyes that swiveled around looking in all directions, a set of horns protruded from it's head-they were knobbly, like wood, it's body seemed to be clothes in some sort of ragged cloth from which two large stump like feet descended into the dirt, it's toenails dug into the ground with every step. It set it's eyes on the spider-like monster and clamped down on it's closest leg. The spider monster let out a howl and turned it's attention to the monster with the giant beak. It attempted to beat it off furiously with it's other legs.

"Or... we can let them work things out..." Noah said as he stared blankly at the battling monsters in front of him. He put a hand on Elise's shoulder and said suavely, "I guess that's a victory for us," he then removed his hand, "But seriously, let's run the hell away from here and find the others!" He said as he began to run.

Wil and Gate were already up to their chests in the quicksand before William felt something beneath his feet. It was a tree root from a tree on the edge of the pool. It seemed sturdy enough for Wil to walk on...
He reached out toward Gate whose feet didn't seem to find the same root. He must have been standing on the tip of it.
"Take my hand! I can get us out of here!"
His outstretched hand fell a few feet short from her. He wondered if she could even reach him...

"Did you think you were going to take that thing by yourself?" Elise asked Noah as they jogged in the direction they hoped was towards Wil and the strange girl. "Was that supposed to be chivalry, or did you just not think I could handle it?"
She checked herself; she knew better than to waste energy on this. She was cool, she was collected...
The forest they were running through did not seem familiar. It was hard to remember what they had ran through, especially since it was dark. Fortunately they had the idea to move towards the light, and if things didn't seem to be getting lighter, they switched direction. It was also fortunate that they hadn't moved further than they did, or else they might not have been able to find the light at all.
"It's like amoebas, or single-celled organisms," Elise panted. "They move towards light to live; they don't need to see or anything, they just can sense light because that's one of the few things they need to survive." Of course, this information was lost on Noah, and they continued running, Elise's temper rising. She only wanted to make conversation. He only wanted to let testosterone do the talking. Lovely.
There was a point when a large petrified tree trunk lay in their path. Their was no choice but to go around it, and it was fortunate they did, because at the end-
"There's Wil! And...her!" Elise pointed. "But, what-they're in quicksand!" She grabbed Noah's arm and stopped. "We've got to get them out of there!"

"Gaah! I'm sinking! I'm sinking! I thought I was out of the jungle!" Gate screamed as she flailed about. Hearing Will yelling and reaching for her, she frantically clawed for his hand, missing it by inches.

Damn my weight! Being small and this heavy sucks!

With all of her moving around, the sand seemed to welcome her with more enthusiasm
than normal until all she could see was pitch black...

Am I going to die here..? Wait...I don't breath! What am I thinking, I'm so dumb.

Though she was unable to see, Gate moved about, trying to find something to latch on to. Oh no, if I don't find something soon, my whole system is gonna get mucked up...
There! She felt something, roots maybe? She began pulling herself towards them and slowly dragged herself upward, reaching the surface minutes before her system would've gone down.

"Ahh! I can't believe that!" Looking around, Gate noticed that Will had already gotten out and was being tended to while the odd orange haired boy was frantically throwing rocks and vines into the sand pit.

"Hey! I'm over here!" she said, waving with a big smile on her face.
"Ugh, I have to clean off...fast."

"Wow, bad luck for you guys! Hahahahaha!" Noah said as he jovially smacked Wil on the back. He looked over at Gate, "What are you anyway, girlie? You seem kinda different..." he said as he folded his arms, "All of us are from different dimensions, I'm guessing you are too?" suddenly there was a strange humming noise and a light was emitting from the pocketwatch-like object that was in his pants pocket. Noah withdrew it and looked at it questioningly. Then it dawned on him.

"Damnit! This is what happened the last time when-" Before he could finish his sentence the scenery around him changed by warping around the edges, everything was engulfed in light and then there was nothing.




((OOC: hopefully it's okay to just switch gears like this? It didn't seem like anyone had anything planned for the forest. If someone did then you could just have it be like Noah's object was activating on it's own, or only he has been transported, or something else entirely, it's up to whoever posts next.))

Noah disappeared instantaneously. There was a flash, which reminded Elise of when she had been brought to the place, and then he was gone. They found Wil and the strange girl, and now Noah was gone.
"Are you both all right?" Elise asked. "Nice of him to go off without telling us how to use these things. This," she held out the spoon,"and that" she indicated the gear in Echo's head, "is what I meant. I think they're why we're here in the first place. But how did you get here?" Elise asked the new girl.
"I'm Elise, by the way."

"Nice to meet you! My name is Gate...I'd shake your hand but I'm covered in sand..." Looking around her, Gate snaps her head back to the two people who were in front of her now, "Hey! Why were you guys running away from me?! Do I look that scary..."

Sitting down on a nearby rock, Gate starts cleaning off her arms, "I guess it doesn't matter anymore...we should figure out what happened to speedy orange hair, shouldn't we?"

"Sorry, it was just...that thing you had, with the blade...you're right, though, it doesn't matter." Truth be told, Elise felt a little more relaxed knowing Gate was on their side. It would be a great advantage to have another fighter. It was also a great advantage (to her, anyway) to have another girl on the team. Supposing they were a team...
"I think Noah must have used that watch somehow. So we can probably use our items to get out of here, too, the only thing is I don't know how. Are you from here, Gate?"

"Maybe? I don't know where we are...this is probably the strangest thing to ever happen to me... I'm from Loreth, are you from the southern continent? You don't really look like anyone I know, and I know a lot of humans!" Finishing her cleaning, for the most part, Gate jumps to her feet and pops a screen up on her left forearm and hits a couple buttons. Numbers run across the screen as it begins to flicker. "Oh nooooo...my screen is dying, this is so not good...but everything looks to be ok for now.."

Walking over to where Noah had disappeared, the screen on Gate's wrist begins to fluctuate. "Ugh, I hate temporal magic, it kills my hardware..." She bursts in disgust as she backs away. Plopping herself onto the ground, she leans back and looks at Elise. "I know he jumped through a wormhole, that's about all I can tell you...this sucks. What should we do now? I wanna get out of the woods...they give me the creeps..."

"No...I'm..I'm not really sure where I'm from anymore...the place I was from is called Selegna Sol. It's a city..." Elise was talking without paying much attention to what she was saying. Gate was like some kind of robot, but not. She tried not to stare as Gate produced a computer screen out of her body.
"Wormholes are kind of sporadic, right? I suppose that's we were so arbitrarily put here. We really should find a way to follow him. At least, I think it would be a good idea. Maybe we can get these objects to do something. What do you think, Wil?" Elise noticed his robot hovering nearby. "Erm, Echo?"