//------------------------------// // Hill 400 // Story: The Winds of Change: Fog of War // by AgentSnail //------------------------------// Hill 400 Jason let out a groan as he woke, his leg twitching in pain. That race? Stupid idea. Dash yawned next to him, and he moved a hoof just as painfully to rest a hoof on her foreleg. "So nice job 'breaking in the bed' last night" He started, "The whole, be really suggestive and then roll in and pass out thing was great." "Yeah, like there would've been anything worth doing after that race. You probably fell asleep right after me anyway." Jason blushed and looked away. "I thought so." She started to pull herself over to him on the bed before sighing at the protest from her arms. "Sucks, huh?" Jason asked. "We better be ripped after this." "What?" "Like, so muscular you rip your clothes. I'm going to assume that's where the expression came from." "Why would you want to rip clothes?" "The idea, probably impossible, is that you flex, and then a tight shirt rips along the back or the chest or whatever. It's a sign of strength more than anything else." She laid her head back against the cloud, less urgency in the conversation. "So were people strong where you were?" "No, yes? I don't know. I'm comparing two species, and it's not as easy as you'd think. Excuse me as I think out loud." He paused. "So you're kinda like a pack animal, at least in build. So you should be able to pull, push and carry large amounts of stuff relative to weight. I guess, we really only had leverage that came with being tall. So some things would be easier, like kicking or throwing a ball, punching, anything involving a lever arm." "What about speed?" "I definitely didn't expect you to ask about that..." He said sarcastically. "Well what's the answer?" "We're pretty slow. Thus the cars. But we can be pretty agile, way more so than an earth pony." "I doubt that, how could something that tall be agile?" "We had shoes that could get lots of traction and could throw our weight around pretty well. We were also pretty flexible, and given how much falling over was involved with walking on two legs, we got a pretty good idea of how to fall. I think I told you about parkour, where people jump all over the place?" "Yeah, the dangerous thing." "Well most people could do it if they put their mind to it." He paused. "And they weren't fat. Or Lazy." "Guess I'm not doing it then, even if I could." She chuckled. "Ha! I was such a lazy kid though, man. So back in high school, there was this thing called senioritis, and the idea is that it's the last year of high school kinda makes people not...care as much anymore. So that was me in sophomore year, two years prior. I pretty much just did my homework the day it was due." "Scoots gets hardly any homework, that couldn't possibly be that hard." "We took seven classes, and most of them gave homework." "Ah." She went silent, her rose eyes focusing on his. She struggled over and managed to get her hooves around him. "This is terrible." She mumbled into his fur. "Everything hurts." Jason smiled lightly, focusing some energy into her form, trying to heal up her sore muscles. She let out a sigh as she could feel her muscles loosen up, and moved her eyes to see his phantom horn ablaze. "You didn't have to do anything." She said, her leg twitching as the muscles were repaired. "This feels strange, like you were just relaxing everything at the same time." "That's one thing to call it." He chuckled, pulling her a little closer. He let the energy run out and watched her stretch, before feeling the fatigue that always came with healing. "It's not too late, do you want to just relax here? I'm not going to get up either way, so feel free to choose." "Do you really think I wouldn't stay here after you healed me?" She asked. "I'm just saying I wouldn't be mad if you wanted to leave." He replied. "Oh, okay." He flinched as she squeezed his ribs, aggravating the muscles under the pressure. "Careful there, Dash. I wasn't as sore as you when I woke up, but it's not like I can heal myself." She blushed and loosened her grip. "Sorry, you're just such a huggable guy." "Uh, thanks?" He paused. "Actually, a lot of people said that before, and I don't know what part of a tall, slightly skinny guy was particularly huggable." "You must've really had it going on, Mr. Hugs." She teased. "Yeah, with work all the time and all." He rolled his eyes. "Did I ever tell you how boring that was?" She smirked. "You may have touched on the subject." "I came up with so many things to occupy my time that weren't even funny in other circumstances. But of course, after running calculations and entering in numbers for hours on end, you tend to get a little hysterical." He paused. "So I tossed pencils into the ceiling, almost got caught one time when my boss heard laughing. I dropped my mouse and 'accidentally' kicked it around for like, an hour on end. One time I even talked to the weird guy that hangs around the water cooler." She deadpanned. "You did that all day?" "No, only after I got most of the day's work finished. But those pencils, I thought I was going to die laughing this one time when I stuck a pencil into the eraser of another pencil that was stuck on the ceiling." He chuckled at the memory. "Ah, man. Best day of work ever." Dash didn't credit his story with a response, simply replacing her head in it's normal comfortable position. "So do you know what time it is?" She finally asked. Jason floated the alarm clock over, sighing pleasantly. "Yeah, it's six thirty, we can just go back to sleep." Dash hummed thoughtfully, shifting her positioning slightly and poking Jason's thigh, causing him to jerk backwards at the unexpected pain. "Jeez, how sore are you?" Dash asked after she checked that he was alright. "It's not that bad anymore, maybe if I'm lucky it'll be gone when I wake up, or at least lessened." He paused, recalling another memory. "The most sore I've ever been, in my legs at least, was when I went to these two summer camps, and they had capture the flag games every day. And so I played them, and by the end of the second week, I wasn't doing too well." He let out a hiss as he tried to shift his weight. "But you know I never give up!" He said in a valiant voice, earning a chuckle from Dash. "And three weeks later I was still playing the game, kind of. Rolling around still counts." "So is capture the flag more interesting with humans? Cuz all it is here is ponies not being able to change direction fast enough. Especially when magic and flying aren't allowed." "Yeah, like I said, humans are pretty much only good at agility stuff. But of course, we're all pretty good at that so it comes down to acceleration and distractions. Now go to sleep, I hurt." He heard a giggle as he laid his head down, feeling the soft hair of Dash's mane under his chin. He smiled as his eyes fell shut, remembering the days after he'd met the mare belonging to the trademark rainbow mane. Things were simple back then, no war, no soul magic. That struck a nerve, even after all this was over, he'd still have to deal with that moron, assuming Luna couldn't find him in time. They wouldn't even be stuck here that long, so such an easy solution seemed doubtful. Oh well, at least there hadn't been any side effects of the dreams yet, so he could rest easier with the possibility of a repeat occurrence. He was starting to pick up Dash's point of view on the subject: if it wasn't harming either of them, why worry? He figured it was rare, if not unheard of for dreams to be shared, even if they weren't in control of them, so he may as well enjoy the experience. With pleasant thoughts floating around in his head, he quickly dozed off. _______________________________________________________ For as long as Jason could remember, he had never really woken up normally. There was always some sort of thing making him jolt awake, or something prodding him. So following statistical evidence, this time was no exception. He partially woke up before he kinda recognized the feeling of falling, although he couldn't figure out why. He got his answer a fraction of a second later as his back hit the ground with a heavy thud. His eyes shot open, and he fought the feeling of airlessness as he tried to regain the wind that had been knocked out of his lungs. He made a few strangled sounds, trying to push himself up with an arm. He finally got his lungs working again, and took a few excessively deep breaths. He slowly got to his hooves, feeling the remnants of soreness, still painful but bearable. Dash was passed out, an arm outstretched towards the area he had previously occupied. Funny, he thought he was closer to the middle of the cloud than that. He sighed and stepped onto the bed, trying to resume his previous position without disturbing her. As he draped her foreleg back over his side he breathed a sigh of relief. "Achoo!" He immediately facehoofed, partially because Dash's eyes were already open in confusion, and partially because he hadn't been able to prepare for the sneeze, and his face had been directed towards hers. She looked around tiredly for a few more seconds before moving a hoof to her face. "Why's my face kinda wet?" She looked at her hoof for a moment before throwing an accusatory glare towards Jason. "Your doing, I assume?" "I definitely didn't sneeze on your face if that's what you're asking." She wiped a hoof across her face again, her expression turning from blame to simple annoyance, and she punched him in the shoulder. "I don't know what comes up out of your throat, that's disgusting!" She rolled over and grabbed a rag, sweeping it all over her face as soon as she rolled back over. "It's not like I had much warning." "Yeah, whatever. Let's just hope you aren't getting sick." Jason sighed and grabbed his computer from the saddlebag at the side of the room, sticking an arm around Dash as he pulled it up. He opened a program, and started typing away, to the best of his ability with hooves. There was something he didn't particularly like about using magic when he could just use his own two hooves, like it was just a way to boast. "What are you doing, Jason?" Dash looked up from a book she was reading. Wait... "I'll answer your question if you tell me why you're reading, Mrs. Not an egghead." Dash blushed, showing him the cover of The Things They Carried. "I found it a while ago, and I've just kinda started reading it. I only kinda understand it from what you told me about Vietnam." "Yeah, I never really liked that one, at least not most of it." He paused. "Did you get to the Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong one yet?" "No..." She flipped backwards to the table of contents. "It's a couple further." "You know, this is the first thing we've both read? The only literary work we're jointly familiar with?" "And your point is?" "I dunno, just drawing a connection. And to answer I started writing a program, just basic stuff at the moment, but I'm hoping I can do something interesting with it later." "I'm not even going to ask what any of that stuff on the screen means." "Yeah, I don't really know that much, so I'm going to kinda have to teach myself the rest. I think there's help here, I just hope it's not online." Some clattering was heard, and Jason looked over to see that Dash had somehow put down the book and started going through the rest of the box of human stuff. "Hey, what's this book about?" She asked, holding a rather square shaped paperback. "Football?" "You remember that really complicated game I was talking about? Because now I don't have to explain the entire thing to you anymore if we have this!" He gestured for Dash to come over, and he flattened out the covers on the bed to provide a flat place to set the book. "So this might take a while?" "You have paper?" She nodded, handing him a few crumpled sheets and a pencil from her saddlebag. "Not too long." _________________________________________________________ "So on an option they get the ball to the left guard then the other running back?" "No, just the two running backs, all the guards do is pull back from the line and go in front to block." "But what about this one, why are all the lineman moving backwards in this one? What's the point of that?" "It's a screen, they move back so the quarterback can just throw over the line and give his guy a better chance to run." "But can't they\ defensive guys just stay on the line of scrimmage?" "Ah, the idea is to lure them back, because the defensive linemen want to sack the quarterback. Sometimes it's too obvious and it doesn't work." "So why exactly did people decide to make the game this complicated?" "It's really not, you just need some skill to know what's going on, and what your part is in the whole thing." He sighed. "That was about the only part of football I was actually good at." "You played?" "Pfft, in high school. I was just a cornerback, but I always read the play and got to the ball carrier, sometimes before the lineman. But that was where it ended, with all the pads weighing you down in summer heat, it's not easy to do anything physical. And I wasn't good tackler." "I can imagine, with all the stuff you humans already wear." "Yeah, so now all we need to do is find a football, which I'm sure someone picked up by now. I mean, there were millions, maybe billions of them, statistically they should be common. I guess we could use a regular ball too, but it just wouldn't really work. I'll call the troops together and see if they have one." "You want to play it with them?" "Well sure, I guess. It's not like we're going to have a lot to do after this place gets fortified." "Fortified?" "Yeah, we're on a hill, and we could be attacked, so I figured we'd just get some defenses up." "What, trenches?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. "Well, that and some other stuff. It's going to be like Hill 400, a position that Americans took and then defended from several German counter-attacks during World War Two. Those worked, we may as well get something up that emulates them." "Why do you know so many things?" "Truthfully? I just played some video games that were set during World War Two, and then did a little research." He paused and sighed before stretching out and moving to get up. "Come on, I need to loosen up these muscles." "Is it bad?" Dash asked. "Nah, just kinda sore is all. The usual." He turned and pushed through the flaps of the tent, turning back to address her. "You coming?" "Yeah, I'm just going to write Scoots, see if she wants to give me any word on something or other." "Okay, I'm gonna get a work force together." He looked up, it was probably around ten judging by the sun. "They should be out and about." Dash nodded as he let the flap closed, and he turned to move into the center of the camp. There were several flattened tents lying around, along with fairly large piles of planks. He wouldn't need those anyway, at least not many of them. He peered into a buggy as he passed by, seeing a multitude of tools inside, from axes to shovels, and even hoes. He passed between a few close together tents, emerging into a clearing that he judged was probably the area with the most commotion. He carefully stepped up onto a pile of planks, not wanting to fall over in front of everyone here, and opened his mouth to speak. "ATEN-SHUN!" He yelled, startling the ponies going about their business. Most of them turned just looked confused. Jason facehoofed and dropped his Alternis disguise. Most of the ponies just gasped and gave solutes, but a few were too startled to react quickly. He was beginning to think they'd never get over this stuff. He waited for the clattering of hooves to stop before continuing. "I'm sure all of you know that we're perched on top of this hill, and that probably makes you feel safe. It should not, in any way. We're going to build defenses today, to tilt any fighting further in our favor. That means that I expect all uninjured ponies to lend a hoof." "Sir, what are we building exactly, sir!?" One of the ponies asked. "I'm glad you asked. We're going to start with a trench built into the side of the hill, then we'll be cutting down some trees to use for defensive huts, spikes, stuff like that. So feel free to eat, drink, whatever, but I want to see all of you in front of the buggy over there in ten minutes." He jumped off the pile, buzzing his wings slightly to lessen the impact. That stupid hind hoof still had yet to get anywhere close to its prior toughness. He sighed, bringing a hoof to his forehead. At least that crack was most of the way gone. He walked back to Dash's tent, finding her in the process of scarfing down a couple apples and reforming the bed to be less...cloud shaped. She looked up and smiled, leaning over to kiss him. He put a hoof around the back of her head and pulled her in harder, roughening the kiss for a moment before letting go. "You're such a fun kisser." Dash said. "I never really know what you're going to do. I like the unpredictability." She walked over and put a wing around him. "So why are you back so soon?" "I told everyone to meet at the buggy with shovels and stuff in eight or so minutes, so I came back to get you." "What, I have to work?" She pouted, sticking out her lower lip. "I can't just play favorites all the time, Dash. Plus, I moved all the stuff." "When does the rest of our stuff come in, by the way? All we brought were the saddlebags and that box, and we had a lot of good stuff in that delivery." He shrugged. "It's probably around here somewhere, although I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't get shipped right away, considering the fact that moving troops out here is probably more important." "Yeah, but I want to play the drums again..." Jason chuckled. "I think you can wait a few hours, Dash." "But I'm really impatient!" "Funny, I never noticed." She laughed and wrapped him in a hug. "I love you, ya big goof." "As do I, madame." He took one of her hooves off of his shoulder in a dignified way and dropped it in a disgusted manner. "Ugh, I don't know where that's been. You could've been *gasp* walking!" He swooned, missing the bed and hitting the ground slightly harder than he had wanted to. "It appears to me that you are now the dirty one." Dash said, observing a hoof. "I--" God dammit, he'd knocked the air out of himself again. "I do believe that we are both indeed dirty at this point," He started to get up, but felt something move out of place in his knee, sending out a lance of pain. "And I think that the only logical--man this hurts." Dash's expression changed from haughty to concerned, and she immediately started to help him to his feet. "No, stop!" She let go, and he started to pull himself over towards the bed with a forearm, clutching one of his knees with his free hoof. "What's wrong?" She asked, struggling against her impulse to help. "Well I figured the whole change of species thing got rid of this, but I guess I was wrong. I would be doing random things and then my knee would decide to dislocate itself. Like one time I got up off a bench." He paused, giving his arm a rest. "On second thought, can you drag me on my back?" "Sure, just tell me if something goes wrong." He nodded as she threaded her forelegs under his armpits and started to pull. "So does it hurt to put back in?" He gritted his teeth. "No, it only hurts when it's out, like now." He felt the side of the bed on his back, and braced his hind leg as Dash hauled him up. "So what do you do, exactly." He moved himself to the edge of the bed, hanging his leg over. "What works the best is to just slowly extend it while I'm hanging it, like this. And then once I get far enough," He cringed. "It just pops back in." Dash watched as his knee did a sudden jerk and straitened out, bones and ligaments returning to their normal positions. He got up and tested it, trotting around in the small space. "So you're good, just like that?" "Yeah, it's always strange to go from hurting that much to nothing. It's not bad, just weird." "Well at least I know nothing's ever going to get boring between the two of us. Isn't that right, Mr. Harding." She batted her eyelashes. "Ugh, I don't even really like that name." He complained. "Plus, this only happens like twice a year. I'll never understand why." "I guess we should get going, huh? You're a minute late for your own meeting." "Ah, whatever, I can just pull rank. It's not without its benefits." "What rank are we, I think you might be slightly higher, but I mean, I dunno." "Well assuming Shining's using the same system as we did, we're both two star generals. And I think he's a five star general, which is the highest possible rank. There've been maybe...one or two of those in American history ever." "Which wars? The world wars?" She asked. "No, I think it was World War Two and the Civil War, but I'm not sure about that second one." "What was the civil war about?" "I'll tell you later, we have to get this project started." He turned and pushed his way out of the tent, with Dash in her usual position leaning against his side. "Does the leaning have some sort of significance I'm missing?" "Well it generally just means we're mare-friend and colt-friend, but it's also really comfortable." She giggled and stumbled on a rock and Jason stuck out a leg in case she fell. She didn't, and they walked between the tents and into the clearing. "So I guess you're not embarrassed to act like you're attracted to me." "Like I'd need to hide being a unit with a general, and somepony that happens to be able to be anypony." She poked him in the chest. "You're going to have to tell me why you like the whole shape changing thing." "Well that's easy. It's not the changing I like, it's the fact that you love me enough to indulge my crazy ideas in place of you being yourself." Jason smiled, figuring he didn't particularly need a response. Several ponies stared at the quietly talking pair before Jason jumped back on top of the woodpile, leaving Dash behind. "So, we're going to be starting with a trench around this place a ways above the bottom of the hill. Make sure that it leaves adequate space for more tents. We also need another small group to cut down a couple of trees and strip the branches, then chop them up into skinnier pieces. We'll be building with those. So grab a shovel or an axe, and get started." There was a light stomping of hooves before the crowd shifted over towards the buggy and started getting out their tools. This wasn't going to be a particularly interesting day. _____________________________________________________ Jason stood up, wiping some dirt from his forehead as he repositioned the shovel. He stomped it back into the ground and used its leverage to pull out a sizable chunk of the damp ground. He threw it over his shoulder, adding it to the pile of dirt in front of the trench. He was working on one of the larger parts of the trench that they would later be covering and using as more of a lookout station. He went to put in the shovel again, before bumping it into another shovel. He looked up the handle, seeing Dash at the other end. His attention shifted to Tank behind her, who was shoveling away like the dirt was weightless. Well, maybe that was exaggerating a little, but comparing the progress Tank had compared to his own, the guy must not even be getting tired. Jason sighed and pushed the shovel back into the ground, displacing another chunk of dirt. "So this civil war..." Dash started, leaning on her shovel. "Yeah, you remember the shape of America?" She shrugged. "Kinda, I guess." "Well it was only settled in the eastern half and the west coast at the time, and the North and South were at odds, because of their different economies, mostly." He took a breath, trying to pull a bit of dirt out of one of the holes on his leg absentmindedly. "And the short version is, things came to a head when President Lincoln was elected because southerners believed he would threaten slavery." "Wait, slavery?" Jason sighed, moving a hoof down his face. "Yeah, a hundred and fifty years ago, there were slaves all over the place, mostly because they were cheap labor. They were enslaved because the old suppliers that were located in the eastern Mediterranean were taken over by another empire. Just tell me if you get lost." She nodded. "So the war wasn't really over slavery, although it was one reason why issues came to a head. The South seceded from the union, and the Northerners went to war mostly to put the South in its place, not to end slavery." "Why wouldn't you want to end slavery?" "Well, besides the racism, southerners were getting money, and they were feeding their families. Northern factories were benefitting from southern cotton. You have less of a reason to question a system that keeps your family fed, don't you think?" "Yeah, I guess, you don't still have it though, do you?" "No, it was ended after the war. Why don't we talk about something more...lighthearted?" "Okay, so those video games that we found, do you like those?" "Now there's a conversation starter." He chuckled. "Well, you see... _______________________________________________________________ Jason levitated a thin log over, laying it on top of the frame that sprung up from the bunker they had dug earlier. He laid a few others next to those before running out of space and tying the logs together. He stepped back and admired his work, the other ponies around doing the same. A couple of other ponies went by, planting sharpened sticks into the ground as further deterrent. "So we're finally done?" Dash asked, tapping Jason on the shoulder. "I guess..." He looked up at the gently setting sun. "We should be good if some griffins decide to attack here." He vaulted off the ground, hovering around the group of coalesced ponies. "Listen up! We're going to need a system of ponies on watch to give warning if we're in danger. I want one of you at each station, so spread the word to your companies. Rotate around. So figure it out and get a pony on the shift before twelve and the shift until dawn. All ponies on watch will be excused from heavy physical labor the following day." He looked around at the ponies, which were eerily silent. "That clear?" "SIR YES SIR!!!" The ponies below spread out, moving in random directions as they returned to the camp. Jason hadn't really looked towards town much during construction, but now that he was in the air he could tell that the number of tents had at least doubled. Dash swooped down next to him, doing a small flip as she enjoyed the open air. "Jason, let's go flying!" Dash said as she glided past. "Just go ahead, I've got to go talk to Shining, assuming he's here now." "Come on, we never fly together anymore." "I'll fly with you tomorrow morning, I promise." She hovered in front of him and frowned. "Seriously?" "Completely." "Okay, I can wait till tomorrow." Jason smirked. "Yeah, because you're so good at waiting." He started descending towards the ground, gliding around a tent. Dash followed him down, hovering just above. "I don't need to wait with most stuff, we just procrastinate." "Or, you know, we don't sleep instead." "Yeah, but you know being with me's better." "Oh yeah, tough decision there." He chuckled and walked inside a larger tent, looking around briefly before he figured it was the right place. "Shining?" He called out, hoping the general was already here. A head popped up from behind the map, his eyes locking on Jason. "Yeah?" "Why are you behind the map like that?" "It's not level, I was sticking a book under here." "Ah." "Nice job with those trenches by the way." "Thanks, so what's the plan here?" "We're close to where the griffin said troop movements were, so I'm hoping we'll be able to get them pushed out of here. The capitol isn't too far away, so anything we win here will just put us closer to victory." "Yeah, so we'll probably start scouting and stuff tomorrow?" "I'd have to get some different units together for something like this, but yeah. It probably won't be Team Green Bean, I'll probably split up the members and give them their own little groups. That would probably be more time saving." "Okay, I guess I'll leave you to it." He yawned and turned to leave, remembering to turn back and solute before leaving. He immediately felt something contact his back and run him into the ground. He was laughing for some reason, although it wasn't particularly funny. He knew it had to be Dash, and he managed to roll over under her grip. "Why?" He asked, pushing up against her hooves, which were pushing down on top of his. "Because it's fun to watch you struggle." "I may not be as strong as Tank, but that doesn't mean I can't push you off." He pushed his arms forward, slowly lifting the mare off the ground. She giggled and pushed back, reversing his progress. He got a hoof free and pushed her chest back, getting up before she could react. "Drat." She said, putting on a pouting face that was slightly better than the last one. "Wanna go back to the tent?" She asked. "Might as well, I'm pretty tired, honestly. But I guess no one said army work was easy." "Well you act like you're just a private around here." "I'll sway opinion that way, ponies'll start to like me if I don't just act lazy because of my rank. And it's better than being bored all day." "Being bored wasn't that bad, really." He walked into the tent behind Dash, diving onto the now reshaped bed and shifting into Alternis midair. He pulled the blanket up, letting Dash inside before putting it back down. He yawned before putting his hooves around her form and pulling her closer. "Have I ever told you how warm you are?" Dash asked, seemingly trying to pull herself as close as she could. "It may have come up." He yawned again, and put his head down on the bed. "You're a really nice mare to hug though." There was a slight change in her emotions telling her she'd blushed, before returning to normal. "I love you Jason." "Same here, Dash." He sighed pleasantly, eyes closing to thoughts of the mare he was holding close to himself. ______________________________________________________________________ Jason was moving through a Canterlot hallway, moving towards an intersecting corridor at the other end. He moved carefully, feeling that usual urge to try to grip his knives tighter. He moved up to one side of the door, watching as Dash moved to the other side. A griffin walked by, and they moved out behind him. Jason jumped up from behind and slit his throat, gesturing to Dash to move up. That's when he saw a wall of smoke, moving down the corridor behind her. He pointed, and they watched as it grew nearer. They had broken into a trot, speeding up as the smoke accelerated. Pretty soon it overtook the galloping ponies, leaving them coughing and spluttering before Jason brought Dash down to floor level. He could see a light in the cloud of smoke, growing brighter as he stared through his stinging eyes. All too late he realized what it was, and got up at Dash's insistence to run. The smoke started to clear as they went down the hallway, but the light only grew brighter. A stained glass window came into view and they sprinted towards the impromptu exit, getting closer as the light reached a fever pitch. Fire came out of the clouds, barreling into them as they broke through the window. Jason's eyes shot open, taking a moment to fully examine the situation. And in one fell swoop, he realized what was wrong. The tent was aflame.