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The fly was a total of 30 hours, during which I found I didn't really get tired. I guessed that Dragons had slightly more endurance than humans did and if that was the case, I wondered just how far I could push myself before I fell over. I was becoming accustomed to the feel of my new body, the length, the feel of four legs, my enhanced senses and the fact that there was this ball of what felt like fire burning inside of my chest. I had heard all the old stories about fire breathing dragons, and that burning feeling inside of me made me start to think that they might be true.

The card led me through a very dense bamboo jungle that was near the center of Vietnam before it started to make it's descent into the brush. There wasn't any way I was going to be able to fly through it with a 120 foot long wings, so I started looking for a place to land. I managed to find a small clearing that was covered mostly by tall grass and one or two saplings. It wasn't ideal, because the trees around it made me sure that I wasn't going to be able to touch down completely, and the last thing I wanted was a broken ankle, but I had to either take it, or look for another place to land, and I didn't have time for that, so I risked it. I circled the area until I had slowed down enough to come to a hover. Once I was hovering I lowered the speed at which I flapped my wings so I began to drop down towards the ground. I was long enough that I was able to get my rear legs on the ground and still come down enough so I could drop my upper half on the ground without braking anything.

"Not bad for the first time on the new wings", I said to myself, noticing that my back had a slight ache to it, "now let's see where the card leads me."

The card descended into the clearing, flashed a bright white, and then started off into the forest. I followed after it. Almost instantly I noticed the humidity and the heat. I felt my face get hot and the rest of my body felt like someone was baking me in a solar oven. I wasn't sure how dragon's expelled excess heat, if they sweat or if they panted like dogs, all I knew was that I was freaking hot. The membrane on my wings felt like it was in an oven and I had to flare them out to keep them from over heating, which opened me up to a cloud of quarter sized mosquitoes that had been hiding in the grass. I tried to not even mentally complain about the damn heat or the bugs and tried to just focus on what I was hear to do, which was save those Marines and then continue my mission, but to say the least it was difficult.

The card wound through the trees and snaked along decades old trails from the Vietnam War, leading me past old bunkers, villages and even destroyed British and American tanks. I knew that there was still a civil war going on in the country and that it was in full swing, so I couldn't help but think I'd be seeing some gunfire and a few NVA troops before I got out of here. I made a mental note to keep my eyes alert and ears primed as I followed the card through the dense, humid jungle, soon coming to a sizable hill that was covered in bamboo trees and had a sandbag emplacement with a rusty Machine gun on it that still had the corroded, live belt of ammunition disappearing into it. I wondered how many rainy nights and humid days it had sat there with it's barrel pointing downrange, ready to defend it's home from invaders. The card came to a stop at the base of the hill in front of a tangled mess of flowering vines.

"Why'd it stop here?", I asked myself as I started looking around, "all that's here is a hill."

I started pawing around where the card had stopped hoping to find something inconsistent with the surrounding area. I noticed that around the edges of the vines, there was what looked like light, but it seemed as if it were coming from the depths of the Earth itself.

"Why is there light coming from these vines?", I asked myself as I pawed at them, pulling them away to reveal a small hole that was about 3 feet wide, the card gave four small flashed and jumped into the hole, hovering for a few seconds before returning to the ground.

"I doubt those Marines were taken in through there", I said as I picked up the card. The box materialized in my paw and I placed it back inside when I noticed that the Fool card was flashing a bright red. My guess, the person on the Marine team that the card represented was in straits.

"I know they didn't fit in that hole", I said, "let's see if I can."

I took a deep breath and then stuck my head in the hole, slowly pulling the rest of my long body into it. It was a bit of a tight fit around my wings, but other wise I fit very nicely. I wiggled down the hole like a snake as I began to hear shouting, then a single gunshot. I stopped where I was and listened, John's voice pierced the deafening quiet of the corridor.

"You bastard", John growled, "I'm going to kill you all!"

"Bring in the next one", a man with a thick Russian accent replied, as if he were trying to intimidate John.

"Your all going to pay", John growled again, obviously not the least bit intimidated.

I could hear what sounded like a struggle and then Hudson shouting.

"Get your hands off me!", He said, "you can't kill me!"

"The bastards killed Jack", John said, sounding as if he were about to cry.

I felt my body shut down as the box of cards materialized in my hands. When I pulled the top back, I saw one card had become a thin piece of Obsidian with the outline of the fool engraved on it. I could hear Siazach laughing inside of my head.

'"Lost one already? I knew you were worthless, if only they knew he died because of you."

I found myself near tears as I placed the sharp, engraved rock back into the deck of cards, not failing to take notice that the other five cards belonging to members of Raven were beating fire truck red.

'Were gonna make them pay", Hudson growled.

"BAC, BAC, BAC!", a man with a Vietnamese accent shouted, "you shoot GI you shoot!"

"FUUUUUUCCCCKKKKK!", Hudson shouted. A click rolled through the bunker. An empty handgun...Russian Roulette. Barron and Antony as well as the motorcross stuntmen used to play that with a Nerf gun on slow nights. I wanted to jump out and help them, but my mind was telling me that I'd be shot to pieces by any number of VC that may have been hiding in the bunker, sealing the fate of the other nine Cursed in the process.

"What's the plan brother?", Hudson asked.

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking", John said as the thump of metal on wood rolled from the bunker and up into my hideaway.

"Play", the Vietnamese man said again.

"Six and eight", John said.

Seconds later a gunshot tore through the tunnels, followed by three more shots, the sounds of Velcro and then a charging machine gun.

"The Russian", John barked, "now!"

"I'm right behind you brother!", Hudson shouted.

I began to follow their footsteps. From the way the sound was hitting my ears, they ran from the room, through a 45 foot long hallway and into a large chamber. John was in front of several crates...Hudson was on the opposite side of the room and 12 feet separated them from...5 VC gunmen. Gunshots began to pierce through the rock walls of the bunker and from the sounds of things, their weapons were almost equal in terms of power, but John's Machine Gun had a much deeper magazine and seemed to be operating at a much higher rate of fire than VC weapons.

"That Russian is gonna die!", Hudson shouted.

"Damn right he is!", John replied.

John and his teammate quickly cleared their enemies from the room and pushed forward. Halfway down what sounded like a 25 foot long, 6 foot high tunnel, a VC man in light armor jumped from a cubby in the wall with a knife, he'd been so quiet that I hadn't heard him. John yanked his knife from it's sheath, drove it clean through the man's heart and yanked it out, killing the man before he hit the ground. They ran the rest of the tunnel and then came out to another, somewhat smaller room than they had before, facing a higher concentration of enemies.

"If that fucker gets out he'll warn every VC solider in the area!", Hudson shouted as they began fighting with the VC troops.

"He ain't getting' out", John said calmly, from the sound of his voice, I could tell he was a Southerner, for sure, I'd say, South, South West Texas, maybe Arizona.

There was about another minute, give or take, of gunfire and then I heard their voices again.

"This'll be useful", Hudson said charging another weapon, sounding like a shotgun.

"We gotta move!", John yelled angrily.

I heard their heavy boot steps pierce through the stone walls and then come to a stop.

"There!", John shouted, "weapons free!"

There was a tear of machine gun and shotgun fire that lasted for almost a minute, when it was finally over, I could smell gunpowder hanging in the air with burning, white hot metal, the heavy smell of blood roasted along with them.

"That was for Jackie!", John shouted.

"For Jackie!", Hudson answered.

There was a brief period of silence.

"Let's go back to Frank and Issac", John said, tears hinging on his voice, "we need to give Jack a proper sendoff."

The familiar sound of their footsteps came close by this time, not through the wall like they had been. I pulled myself further up into the tunnel as the two, beat up, sweat soaked Marines walked right in front of the tunnel and past without so much as shooting it a second look. Once I felt that they were a good distance away, I poked my head out of the hole and peered around. The bunker where I was turned out to be the first room that John and Hudson had pushed through and the room where their friend Jackson had died was just a stones throw away from where I was. I slunk out of my tunnel and then peered into the room where they were.

The 17 year old kid who had been carrying the sniper rifle was laying dead on the floor with his knees and throat torn to pieces. I could see one of them, who looked like he might be John's older brother, kneeling next to him while another man, the one who had the submachine gun, was trying to stitch closed the hole in Jackson's throat.

"John", Hudson said, sounding as if he was trying to hide the his crying, "your the CO, what do yo wanna do."

"I wanna fight!", John said turning to them, "we are gonna find Wyatt, we are gonna get out of this and we are gonna go home to our families. Strike fast, Strike hard, Strike as a team and we will prevail, now let's figure out how ere gonna get out of this mess. For Jack!"

"Okay", Hudson said, tears running down his face, "I'm with you brother."

"For Jackson", Issac said.

"For Jackson", Frank said.

"For Jackson", I answered stepping out of the shadows.