L. in A.d. ( The confrontation )

Barett's plan, at least the version he could come up with in 30 seconds, is to get out of here and find Utah. He is trying to pressure these locals to let him move out of the building, he needs room to move, get a sense for what is going on. From what he can deduce from the elephant and others is that there is a rivalry going on in town. The two groups argue and fight over things and have divided the town in half. They are afraid to leave the village because of the Predators at night, and are fighting among themselves in the village during the day. No real blood has been spilt yet.
Barett moves out in to the small plaza in the center of the village, right next to the odd church. Trying to excite the villagers and make a lot of noise, in the attempt to find Utah. He brings the group right to the edge but they won't go further, stopping just at the halfway mark. From across the town the other group has assembled, two large crocadile bipedals are at the center, one holds a large caliber revolver, the only gun he has seen so far, the rest hold tribal swords and the like. Out of the big building on the southside, steps Utah, surrounded by six others. Barett is a little surprised to see him in the opposite camp, but it looks like from the way they are acting that they hired Utah for the same purpose as Barett, to control the whole village. Shouting insults at Utah, he tries to incite a riot, so that he can escape. No luck on that, just as things start heating up a large hippo bipedal steps out from a small hut, his priest like robes wrapped hastily around him. He starts calming the villagers down, " My brothers, my brothers. " he says. " Please calm yourselves, there is no need for violence, please stop." His large presence and charisma calm the crowd, he speaks in tones of love and the like, very convincing like. If Barett wasn't such a hardened solider he may have believed some of it. The elephant drags him away from picking a fight with the Hippo, and back to the large distillary. The building is really a series of interconnected structures, maze like in its configuration, one addition connected to another. He stills thinks that burning this whole place down may have been the right idea. The elephant leads him upstairs to a large, well decorated room where an old man sits, surrounded by lackies. This is the real leader, he questions Barett about a few things then summons a strange old women from the shadows. He didn't notice her before and gets a strange vibe that she is all trouble for him. The old man asks her to read the future about Barett and the other stranger. Before she even pulls out her bag of magic crap, he butts in.
" Look I'm trouble and death for everyone around me." He says with as much grit and menace that he can muster. " That other mans my brother, my twin brother. I can take him, and you.." pointing at the old man. " Will rule this village, is that not what you wanted ? " The old man nods at Barett then waves his hand at the Witch. She throws some bones with writing on them on the ground, and spits in her hands, mumbling something to herself. She looks up at Barett and then to the old man. " He will betray you, he is dangerous. " she snarls between her rotting, black teeth.
" I told you that I'm trouble, but I will do my part, I will shoot this man." says Barett.
The old man looks him over and the old witch, then over to the elephant.
" We can't do anything till dawn as long as the priest is here, we will wait till then, find him a comfortable room to rest till then." and motions for Barett to leave.
On his walk to the room Barett finds out that the village makes a alcohol that is picked up from men that come in trucks about once a month, another 3 weeks away. The other group on Utah's side of town grow the grain they use to make the alcohol, there has been some problems in the past. Then the Hippo priest came in, then things settled down, but the old tensions are still there. The Priest is an outsider, someone they think was sent by the people who buy the alcohol. But none of these things really matter to Barett, right now he is going to get some needed rest, at lest for three hours.
In the morning, having slept with his hand on his gun, he marches right out to the plaza. " Hey you ignorant, slob come out and fight me. " He screams at the top of his lungs, towards the other big house. Utah steps out not long afterwards with a Girl Barett recognizes, Tsai Lee, the swordwomen. The two crocs are with him also. Barett keeps yelling at Utah and pointing to his chest where the armor plate is, signalling him to shoot him there. Just to get things started Barett shoots the croc with the pistol in the head. It was a clean shot and he drops where he stood, this agrivates the other croc and he lunges at Barett. Utah commands him to step back, but he still goes forward. Hitting Barett in the shoulder with a tribal sword ( well more like a machete ). Utah fires at the same time hitting the croc and killing him. Barett falls back and lets the body of the croc fall on top of him, faking death.
This event causes the whole crowd on both sides to go wild, and a massive riot rolls out through the whole village. Seeing an oppertunity to leave Utah grabs Barett, swings him over this shoulder. " He is one of mine, I will do what I want with him. " He yells, as they approach to tear Barett's body limb from limb. The Hippo priest is trying desperately to restore order but the whole thing has turned into one big bar brawl. Being ignored for now Utah starts walking out of town, Barett over his shoulder and the girl in tow. Barett whispers," Lets get some food and water before we go, maybe start some fires on the way out." Utah agrees and sends Tsai lee to start some homes on fire, as they grab some food at the little shop by the gate.
Barett learns from Utah that they had Tsai Lee tied up in the basement, naked and tortured. She had been sent on a mission almost 4 weeks ago that had gone wrong, and she was left here. They gave her to Utah to work for them. Clothed and with a tribal sword she walked with them out into the desert. Barett knew she was trouble, he was just hoping it was the good kind of trouble.

L.in A.D..The village

It was right out of some 1970's National Geographic magazine, right down to the fuzzy lens shot, there sat the small village. The red mud walls about ten feet tall, small one man look out towers unevenly spaced along it, the out line less a geometric shape and more a exageration of the natural roll and twist of the small valley it was sprawled in. Larger than it looked from the distance, the village contained several large buildings, multiple entrances and one large church like complex in the center. On the west side were several large fields and stock yards, and a large gap between the towers along that wall. The strange thing to Barett was that this village did not show up on any of the intel maps he had seen, or even a hint of one on the map he now carried. By now it was almost 2:30 in the morning, things were pretty quiet, almost dead in the village.
" There are no incandescant lights in this place." whispers Utah to Barett, " That just ain't right, all the lights we saw are lanterns and fires, best to not disturb the locals. I say we sneak in on the west side into the gardens, check the place out."
Barett agrees, the plan being to throw rocks at opposite sides to distract the guards and jump over the wall in the middle at the darkest spot. Barett goes first, swinging over the wall and into the gardens quietly. Utah makes the jump good but catches his foot on a wooden grape vine support, breaking the wood, the shaking grapes, making a loud noise. Running through the garden to the church like building, they hear the beating of metal drums, a warning cry goes up through the whole village. Managing to sneak into the large church building and climb the small tower, Barett can see dozens of people gathering along the wall. Strangly they stay on either side of what would be considered the middle of the village. After some cursory searching the two parties start arguing with each other. Deciding that this distraction would work well for cover, the brothers start to sneak over to the largest building on the north end. They leave the church, at least thats what they called it, more like a cross between a buddist temple and a country cathedral, with a large fat hippo statue at the head, behind a podium. They make thier way almost two hundred feet before popping around a corner, only to scare a small child. Instantly it screams, that high pitched, nails on chalkboard, but higher decibel level, death scream. As he is running towards the large building, people start streaming from the small huts along the way, Barett thinks, ' where did all these people come from and why do they even have metal drums at all, this kid is better than a air raid siren ? '
Diving through the makeshift window on the wall closest to him,in to the largest building in the village, as two seperate groups converge on him. Barett finds himself in what appears to be a large, medevil design but operating, distillery. Large wooden barells, charcoal stoked fires, tubes and vats. Thinking that his last flash/boom grenade in here would make a great distraction, he contemplates blowing the whole thing up. Looking around he notices that Utah did not come through the window with him, he is no where to be found. 'Where the hell is Utah' thinks Barett. Heading for the door on the east side he is confronted by villagers with farm tools, spinning to the west he can see a large elephant at the head of another group. Slowing down enough to realize that killing all these people is a bad idea, he waits for them to make the next move, slowly lowering his rifle and waiting on them.
The large bipedal Elephant speaks in a think south african accent, difficult to understand when added with his bad lisp. " How did you get past the predators, how did you get in ?" Barett finally makes out after the third time. Seeing that none of them are carrying guns, but tribal swords and spears mixed with farm tools , he relaxes a little more. " I killed it with my big boom stick. " Says Barett loudly, shaking his rifle in front of him. " Nasty little bugger, quick as hell."
"You killeddd de Predetor, You kiillleddd de nasssty ?" Spits out the Elephant surprised.
"Yea, I killed it." says Barett throwing down the metal dart he took from it.
The whole crowd goes hush, as they look back at Barett then the dart.
"You work for me, do job. " says the Elephant, all excited now, Barett can tell he is not all with it, a bit slow. " Be big man, much good, Silver bars in it for you, food, women, what you want?"
" Sure " says Barett, " lets do it now, who do I need to kill?.....where is the target ?"

Lost in African Desert

The cool night air moving across Barett's arm, lazily draped out the open window of the beat-up 68' camero, was the most comfortable thing that had touched his body in the last 48 hours. The open desert was dark and quiet, the dirt road, if that is what you wanted to call it, more of a rut through the red dirt and low weeds, meandered mostly straight ahead, to the south. Utah Blaine sat next to him, almost unseen, all decked out in black combat gear, a subdued skull in camo painted on his face. Utah kept tapping the fuel gauge on the dash and swearing, the needle dropping faster than even this lead sled should comsume. Barett eased back in the seat, inhaling deeply, the stench of stale tobacco and spilled coffee invaded his nostrils, the stolen camero had done it's job, gotten them away from the complete cluster failure of the mission drop zone. But now they were heading south, instead of north to the pick up landing, gas slowly leaking out of the old car, lost temporarily somewhere in the desert.
That would not be so bad, if it wasn't for the fact the radio's were toast, so much for high impact plastics. Ammo was low, lest than 80 rounds between them and seperated from the rest of the team. The twin brothers sat silently in the dark, waiting for the last drops of gas to push the camero as far as it could. Utah pulled it to the side off into the sand and weeds, the ground was flat and open with no real cover, letting it roll to a stop. Stepping out onto the sandy ground they stared at each other. "Lets keep moving south, most roads go somewhere, or past something. Perhaps we can find a radio or phone to get an extraction point out of here." Barett says, nodding towards the south. " I agree, nothing left to do but look for a place to hold up and get a line out." Says Utah Blaine, weary with the only option being to walk through the desert in the dark.
The walk goes with out excitement for almost two hours, the night sky not lending much light to the road they are following. Soon the dim lights of a small settlement shimmer in the distance, not very bright they seem more like fires than incadesant lights. Barett guesses that it could be 10 miles or more away, and suggests they keep an eye out, about two miles later they hear a scream in the distance. The scream and the unknown village, not on the intel maps, make them very cautious. After some time they come across the bloody mess of a gut pile. Searching the organs they appear to have been humanoid, and the large paw prints show that something came this way not long ago. Following the prints they come to a small ravine hidden by the shadows and rocks. Down at the bottom they see the remains of a goatman shepard, local sandals and robes lay bloodied around the pile of torn flesh.
They are just setting up to follow the tracks when two figures race toward them, one on each side of the ravine. Moving quickly on all fours the first throws a small, metal dart at Barett the second one at Utah. The twins duck and seperate, Barett to the left Utah to the right. The first tango ( unknown figure ) jumps at Barett. Swinging his rifle stock up to block the blown, and knock him down he makes a lucky strike right across the bridge of the nose, cracking the skull and killing him. The second tango moves away as Utah strikes at it missing. Barett takes a couple of shots with the rifle but he has moved to far away in the dark for any more shots to be taken. After some discussion they decide to heads towards the small village.