Scene 4: Grievances

The Reapers also heard, from Stavikk, about how the surviving soldier needed surgery. Since he was crippled, Stavikk suggested using some of the cybernetic limbs from the recently killed cyborg to repair the man’s broken body. Dolph was much more skeptical, however, and wasn’t sure how ready he was to trust who he considered a fascist just like the rest of Nexactus. They all came to a unanimous decision to investigate further before giving the man the power to throw a motorbike 10 feet in the air.

They scaled down the cliff using some rope, looted from an armored van, and went into the farmhouse to find the soldier, barely conscious, lying on a wooden table, with a crushed left arm and left leg. “This man needs amputation”, said the woman in the farmhouse. “Otherwise, internal bleeding is going to get him.” “Nexactus won’t have any use for him anymore”, Stavikk figured. He reached into a looted duffel bag to pull out two cybernetic limbs, and offered them as replacement parts after the surgery was complete. Evan offered his military knife on the table as the preferred surgery tool. While Stavikk’s chainsaw would cut through the arm easily, it would cause much more bleeding than the internal wounds themselves. The woman cut off the man’s crushed arm and leg, before attaching the sawed-off part of the cybernetic leg that would fit for the wound, and the cybernetic arm. The whole process was completed without using painkillers, so the man’s screams of agony could be heard clearly from outside the farmhouse.

Afterwards, the man was vitally in very good shape. He was clearly Black, with a square-shaped haircut, and deep brown eyes. He knew that Nexactus would have him executed for losing a battle, not wanting the public to find out, if they found him instead. Perhaps joining this new group would be much better for his survivability. While the man was recovering from the surgery, the woman of the farmhouse decided to introduce herself, despite it being late to do so. “My name is Olivia Osgood, though I suppose it was quite late to tell you”. “I was in a town called Shallowstone that was further east in the badlands, but they kicked me out after they found out I didn’t want my boys, Ted, and Jeremy, to be fighters”. “I still have hard feelings with them, but perhaps you would be better negotiators than who’s known as a traitor to them”. “What is this ‘Shallowstone’?” Stavikk inquired. Even if the residents weren’t people who he could work or negotiate with, he would at least be aware of it. “It’s a town of outlaws and criminals, to Nexactus, of course” said Olivia. “And your team doesn’t look nearly as slick as Nexactus personnel usually do, and I should know”. “Their patrols come out here a lot, and while they’re not moving said criminal from death camp to death camp, they often investigate me, thinking that I’m some sort of mob boss, even though I live alone, with no protection other than Ol’ Betty”. She said this as she clutched the barrel of her sniper rifle. “Since the Patrols come out here so often, I mistook Ol’ muscles over here for one of their cyborgs”. “Sorry bout’ that by the way.” “Anyway, the wanderers live about three miles to the east of here, and while the walk isn’t particularly treacherous, you’d better watch out for the beasties that reside out here”. “The ‘Burning Badlands’ aren’t exactly known for their hospitality, but you’ll have to cross through there if you want to go anywhere without Nexactus on your ass”.

Act 2: Rising

Scene 5: Excursion

The group, including the recently recruited soldier, by the name of Gabriello, began crossing through the “Burning Badlands”. The trip would prove to be a lot easier now with the addition of a trained and effective scout, Evan, who was able to use his affinity for the landscape and his powerful binoculars to determine the safest routes for the group. He was also was able to recognize and describe most of the species living there, even the dead ones. Some of the species he recognized were known as “manticores”, a reptilian species that were four legged, low to the ground, and had long, thin tails. They also had thin, aerodynamic bodies with thin, orange and gold scales, and blue eyes. They also had long stretches of skin going from their elbows to their hips, allowing them to easily glide across canyons, treacherous steppes, or whatever environmental barricades came their way. They were scavengers, picking off the last bits of meat from another dead species in the area, the leviathans. While leviathans weren’t extinct from Pharavanna, some of the leviathans that became landlocked died out here, as they were biologically a type of fish. Evan explained that the “Burning Badlands” were once part of the inland sea of “Shivau”, but became ridden of water after continental shifts. The consequences of this meant that many Leviathans died out here, and the manticores took the niche of picking the corpses clean. “The manticores almost never hunt humans,” Evan stated. “But they will feed on human corpses in times of desperation“. “Make sure you don’t pass out.”

What Evan just briefly mentioned would be the main killer in this journey, water loss. If heat stroke came in for at least one of the members in the group, the other members might have to leave them behind to die in the wastes. The group came upon a pass of rocky hills, with what appeared to be hardened, thorned vines sprouting through the rocky cracks. In some of the drops, the group could see pools of yellow liquid with bubbles coming out of it. It smelled like a mix of putrid and sweet, like gasoline, but seemed thoroughly unappetizing to the travellers. Stavikk, in particular, recognized the same, bright and sickly yellow color, and it had disturbing similarities to the liquids injected into his bloodstream.

As the group travelled through the pass, they came upon many corpses of manticores, which had staggering differences from the ones that they saw earlier. They had bizarre, disproportioned body parts from the ones seen earlier, some with broken bones, and spikey tumors and growths coming out of them. The group, shaken from what happened here, continued their journey across the treacherous pass, using rope and hooks to scale up and down the cliffs. Suddenly, they heard a sharp calling noise from the other side of one of the cliffs. Before they could react, a giant manticore leaped up onto the cliff, breaking pieces off of the rocks. The horrendous beast looked much different from other manticores seen earlier. It had red and black scales in addition to the orange and gold scales, giving it a jaguar-esc color scheme. The creature also had bony growths on its tail and forefeet, and had a jaw that was oversized on the left side. The creature went for Stavikk first, seeing him as the meatiest target. He, however, revved up his chainsaw and cut off two of the creature’s teeth as it leaned in to bite. The creature, in pain, instinctively ducked under the cliff and leaped to another cliff face, gliding gracefully over the drop and climbed up the cliff. The manticore, though, was being shot during its movement to the other cliff, and bullet holes through its gliding skin didn’t exactly give it a benefit to altitude. Still, its movement was quite efficient, and it started hurling needles off of its tail at the group. One hit Evan in the leg, one hit Dolph in the stomach, 2 hit Stavikk in the stomach and chest, and the rest missed the group. Gabriello, the only one that wasn’t hit and able to maintain focus, started lighting up the manticore with his burst fire rifle, his favored weapon, Wanting, needing a way to deal with Gabriello, the manticore leaped back onto the cliff where the group was, and began attacking Gabriello. Gabriello managed to land one punch, breaking the manticore’s jaw before being knocked off the cliff in one foul swoop, plummeting to the ground. Gabriello, luckily, having a cybernetic leg and competent with Nexactus technology, switched his cybernetic leg to mag-lock mode. What this did was made his leg attracted to magnetic-related metals. While there wasn’t too much metal in the cliffs of the Burning Badlands, it was enough to give him a light hold on the Cliffside. Gabriello, hanging alive by a thread, decided to trade his rifle for not dying, as he dropped his rifle down the cliff to spare his other hand for switching his cybernetic arm into mag-lock mode as well, allowing him to scale the cliff.

Stavikk continued to slice gashes in the creature’s side while Evan and Dolph were lighting up the manticore with gunshots; Evan using a sniper rifle, and Dolph using a pump-action shotgun. The manticore was losing blood – fast, and in response, it clawed Dolph directly across the chest, cutting right through his leather jacket, and cutting significantly into his flesh. Gabriello was nearly to the top of the cliff face, climbing slowly and steadily up and over the rocks. Unaware of the commotion happening above, he decided to wait until it was the right time to strike, and yelled to the others to let him know when the coast was clear. The manticore tried to bite Stavikk in two, finishing him off for good. Stavikk, seeing this, jumped to the side, but the manticore didn’t miss completely. Its bite landed in Stavikk’s shoulder. In response, Stavikk shoved the chainsaw through its cheek, essentially sawing off the back of the manticore’s jaw, dislocating it. Both of them backed away, both in fear and in pain. The manticore grew desperate, resorting to tactics that would kill the members of the group, but making them unfit for eating. It used both of its arms, one of them cut in response, to push Stavikk off the ledge. Stavikk instinctively used the jetpack from earlier, and he had just enough fuel remaining to boost himself back up in time. However, he also dropped his chainsaw in the process, leaving him to resort to his sidearm, a handgun that he switched to burst fire mode. He landed more gracefully than previously, still almost tripping in the process. Gabriello peeked up, and, seeing an opportunity, switched his cybernetic arm off of mag-lock mode, and ran up to the manticore with their last grenade in his hand. The beast instinctively bit Gabriello’s arm off, but finding it rather difficult to chew. Gabriello then used his cybernetic leg to force kick the manticore off the cliff. The manticore was able to glide and climb to safety from everything but the grenade, as Gabriello told everyone to get down behind the other side of the ledge.

As the manticore’s head exploded, pieces of its jaw, skull and neck came flying in every direction. Pieces of its shoulders came flying off, and there were huge tears in its wing-like blankets of skin. The manticore fell into the boiling yellow liquid below, making not another movement or sound.