Emanuel's voice dropped low, the backyard fading as he painted '68's A Shau Valley, a steaming cauldron of triple canopy jungle, vines choking the air like nooses, the ground slick with monsoon mud that sucked at boots like hungry mouths. His LRRP team—six rangers in tiger stripe camo, faces smeared black, M16s slung, rucks heavy with C-rats and ammo—dropped from a Huey's skids, rotors thumping like a war drum, the chopper's downdraft flattening elephant grass. Emanuel, twenty-two and cocky, led as point man, his ERDL jacket blending into the green haze, eyes scanning for tripwires or VC patrols. "Stay frosty, assholes," he whispered, his team nodding—Sgt. Ramirez, a burly Mexican with a machete like an extension of his arm; Cpl. Le, a Vietnamese anthro fox with ears twitching like radar, his fur camo-painted; and the wolves, Luna and Zira, anthro females who looked mid-twenties but claimed decades, their claws sharp as bayonets, eyes glowing faintly in the dusk.
They humped through the bush, leeches latching like black ribbons, but these weren't normal—giant man-eaters, thick as arms, pulsing with unnatural hunger, their mouths ringed with teeth that whispered sanity-draining curses. One latched Ramirez's leg, swelling fat, its baby leeches swarming like maggots. "Fuck this shit!" Ramirez growled, burning it off with a Zippo, the creature shrieking like a banshee. VC chatter echoed distant, NVA patrols with Russian advisors—Spetsnaz shadows in the mist, their AKs glinting. But the real diabolical hit at dusk: a barnacle hippo burst from a riverbank, armored shell crusted with barnacles that shot sticky tongues like chameleon whips, grabbing Le mid-step, yanking him toward gaping jaws. Emanuel fired, M16 barking, bullets pinging off barnacles, but Luna slashed with claws, severing the tongue, Zira's rifle dropping the beast center mass, its blood green and fizzing.
They evaded a VC ambush, grenades popping like fireworks, but the hippo's death rift cracked open, tentacles writhing—Kraken arms from some abyssal hell, slapping the ground like whips. Emanuel's team fought back, lethal and precise, no mercy. "We ain't justice corps, kids," Emanuel told Ashton, eyes distant. "We were killers in the green."