Scene 9: Casualties

Ralph was the last one through inside the information nexus before the Guerillas sealed the door, so he only got a glimpse of the events that would happen next. The Guerilla fighters outside the building were a doomed squadron, and with a captain named Aubrina Goodlyn, also known as Aubrina one-eye by her prison inmates, as she lost an eye during a fight during hell week at the Sepam Gulag against an opponent who punched her with a nail. Luckily, the nail went into the side of her eye instead of straight through, missing the vital parts of her brain. Because of this, she had massive overconfidence issues, believing that she could take on the platoon of Nexactus soldiers arriving at the scene. She saw glowing beacons in the distance at first, but seeing a behemoth tank arriving in the distance, having a massive body, six treads, and having two squadrons marching to each side of it, composing the platoon. The behemoth tank also had a massive turret on top, and Auto-guns mounted on all sides of it.

The platoon continued to march, side by side, until snipers atop the wall broke their formation, causing them to run for whatever cover there was behind rocks and dunes of sand. The behemoth tank, in response, fired beams of nuclear runoff at the snipers atop, the three barrels of the cannon rotating after every shot, causing snipers to be atomized, and having no protection from the height. While the landmines were still intact before the tank could actually reach the wall, the landmines did not destroy the tank, instead, it destroyed the treads one by one, until it was left with only three left, gradually moving the tank, slowly and steadily up to the wall, its door slammed shut. The behemoth tank approached the door, and blasted it open with a combination of nuclear runoff, and rockets fired from RPG-wielding soldiers. Aubrina ordered her fighters to throw grenades at the tank’s treads to slow it down. The troops did so, and the tank’s front left middle tread soon came off the wheels, putting the tank to a dead halt.

Mortars flew overhead from Nexactus soldiers, who set up mortar cannons behind cover, and they soon killed all of the snipers on the wall, and all Fighters near the wall. In response, Aubrina ordered her Fighters to take cover behind bubble shields of the Auto-guns, hoping to stave off the mortars a little bit longer. After what felt like hours of mortar bombardment, the giant metal doors on the wall was blown apart, and the remainder of the platoon rushed in, having assisted fire from the tank. Aubrina and her Fighters took a defensive formation near the door, holding cover from barricades and the bubble shield. Aubrina and her fighters did their best to mow down incoming troops with gunfire, but the troops just kept coming. The barricades were blown apart by blasts from the tank before the rest of the troops, as well as robots deployed from the tank, came to wipe them out. Aubrina, in a last-ditch effort, decided to end it herself, running into a crowd of soldiers and pulling the pins on two grenades, killing herself, and a bunch of soldiers around her. The remaining Fighters were killed off, before Nexactus commandos blew open the door with C4, and then rushed in, only to find a massive fire there, and a dead commander. The fire grew exponentially quickly, causing the whole building to melt down. Many different alarms and sprinklers went off, but they weren’t enough to stop the fire, and the Nexactus troops decided to flee, understanding that staying any later would be asking to die. The robots, eerily, tried to stay to complete their mission, but their wires caught up in flames when they tried to walk through, destroying their ability to function. Their metal parts quickly warped and turned black, from the overwhelming heat. The soldiers there tried closing the slide door, but failed as they already blew it open, and were unable to put it back in place. Few soldiers actually survived the explosion of the information nexus, and those that survived that quickly perished in the wastes. The behemoth tank was ground to a halt, so there was no way that they would be able to escape using it. Instead, they had to try to last on the food sources from the tank, of which proved insufficient for the trip back across the yellow wastes.

Scene 10: Death Wish

The helicopters deployed Stavikk, Ralph, Gabriello, and the remaining Fighters at the third floor of Beacon tower, and Evan was deployed at the top floor of another skyscraper known as the Opal Obelisk, and having a semi-Obelisk shape, but shaped more like a blade than a square base. Meanwhile, Elyse focused on piloting the helicopter herself.

Evan was left to defend himself if anyone tried to stop him, and he immediately set up his rail gun and started assisting his friends as soon as Nexactus noticed them. Stavikk and the others essentially jumped through the broken windows, as thick as they were, and started immediately attacking. There was a lot of computers and tables on the floor, but didn’t stop much in the way of bullets. Most of the people there were simple guards, with not much capability of fighting, and so were killed relatively quickly. For speed’s sake, Gabriello, Stavikk, and Ralph each fought on different floors along with their squadrons. Gabriello took the lowest floor, Ralph took the middle, and Stavikk took the highest and most dangerous floor above them. Gabriello was on the fourth floor, and came with a squadron of prison fighters. The floor was mostly full of cubicles, so it would be difficult to see. Luckily, Gabriello, even though he was injured from the fight in the nexus, was still a master at guerilla warfare. He and his squad confused and ambushed enemies who couldn’t see them. Still, there were some very efficient fighters among the fourth floor. Nexactus fighters, and managed to kill off a fourth of Gabriello’s squadron, leaving him with only eight remaining fighters.

Ralph ascended to the fifth floor, which was divided by walls instead of just cubicles, and the floors were made out of white, hexagonal tiles, and possessed red mats, displaying that someone of status owns the floor. Ralph noticed by the lack of soldiers in most of the floor that the remaining troops either fled to another floor, or were holding down in a defensive maneuver. Ralph considered the first option very unlikely, and led his Fighters through very carefully until he met a long hallway with the Nexactus soldiers on the other side. These soldiers were protected by the bubble shield of their Auto-gun, and would take shots only when they needed to. In what Ralph saw of the hallway before being shot in the arm, he saw another room to the side of the hallway. His strategy was to push them back into the room in the side. If only he could do that, they would be very easy to all finish. He tossed a grenade behind the wall he was hiding beside, which blew up a few of the soldiers there, as well as the Auto-gun, but the explosion was contained within the bubble shield, but blasted through the floor, revealing parts of the fourth floor and rain and buildings from outside.

Stavikk’s strategy was somewhat less subtle, however, and bravely led the charge against the many enemies on the sixth floor, chewing down enemies with his two assault rifles. Since the floor had many windows, it would be easy to shoot through, and it was an all out lead storm. While his strategy was the fastest to kill all enemies, it was also the highest on soldier casualties and ammo waste. Stavikk and his five remaining soldiers looted guns from the corpses, as well as ammunition. To assist Ralph, he used a cable to swing down and crash through the window to the fifth floor, where he was able to sneak attack the soldiers at the other end of the hallway at a good angle and slaughtered them easily. Ralph then threw a grenade into the room. The explosion this time was not contained, and the Nexactus soldiers that ran out of the room to escape the explosion were shot by Stavikk and his two assault rifles.

After the first six floors were cleared the group moved on to floors eight to ten, floor seven being completely cleared by Evan Scorchfield’s sniping and torpedoes from the two remaining helicopters. Each member and their squadrons continued to fight together as earlier. Gabriello and his squadron found themselves in a room with another similar hexagonal pattern to the flooring, but this time, their enemies were prepared for them, containing multiple Nexactus elite commandos as well as a tough-looking cyborg, but one that looked tougher than most. This cyborg, known as Diabolus, had not only a machine gun arm, but also had missile pads on his back, and massive, metal claws of death. Gabriello and his Fighters actually fought very efficiently against the commandos thanks to steel barricades there as cover. Gabriello lost half of his fighting force this way, however, and now only being assisted by three other fighters. Diabolus’s machine gun, Gabriello only surviving because his Fighters tried to save him, shred his fighters down. Gabriello was hiding behind cover, taking pot shots and throwing grenades. He did all that he could before Diabolus picked him up with one hand, and then shanked his stomach and torso over and over again with his cold, metal hands, stealing the life from Gabriello’s body with each thrust. Finally, Diabolus whipped Gabriello’s dead body onto the ground with no question, sympathy, or tiny bit of remorse. The helicopter, piloted by Elyse, attempted to kill Diabolus with the helicopter torpedoes. However, Diabolus shot his missiles off of his missile pads, hitting Elyse’s helicopter, and causing it to go crashing down.

Diabolus then went onto the steel porch outside of the floor, and jumped up, using his jet-powered legs, to floor nine. Once he was there, he was faced with Ralph Woodhill, who immediately shot him in the head with his double-barreled shotgun. Thanks to Diabolus’s head armor and shielding, it dazed, but didn’t kill him. Immediately afterwards, Ralph got down into the prone position, taking cover behind a steel barricade. It was then that the remaining helicopter belonging to the Guerillas rose from the previous floor, and shot all of its torpedoes at Diabolus. Before he could respond, the torpedoes crashed into his body, violently exploding and flinging the Steel Barricade off of the building, but Ralph ten feet instead. Ralph landed safely near the edge of the building, cut all over his body by shrapnel and bleeding profusely from his wounds. Diabolus wasn’t so fortunate, however, and got blown into pieces, his cybernetic limbs falling off of Beacon tower, inflamed and broken apart by the explosion force.

Stavikk rallied the remaining Fighters, with only four left at his side, and Ascended to the eleventh floor, where they killed the remaining Nexactus soldiers and commandos with somewhat difficulty, Stavikk using his two assault rifles as usual. At this point, there were two other fighters at Stavikk’s side. They destroyed the Auto-guns on the sides of the floor quite easily through the use of grenades, blowing them up and making a clear path for the remaining helicopter. Stavikk had only one thing to say to them: “I need you two to make sure Gabriello and Ralph are still alive before we get out of here”. “I’m going after Benevola”.

Stavikk ascended Beacon tower by helicopter, keeping the slide door closed until the last seconds, as to protect him from bullets shot by the soldiers on the floors in between. Eventually, Stavikk made it to the top floor, swung the slide door open, and shot and jumped through the broken window. There were still two doors in front of him, which he swung open confidently, leading him to a staircase, still each tile with the hexagonal pattern and with a red carpet leading up the staircase. Stavikk found himself walking right in the middle of a huge squadron of Nexactus elite commandos, all of them pointing their guns at Stavikk, surrounding him. Ironically, Stavikk wasn’t intimidated at all, walking into the room confidently but not getting too close that he would be shot.

“It’s over”, said Benevola, her sitting with her hands together at her desk in the middle and back of the room, her prominent voice standing out amongst the obvious tension in the room. “Your little adventure’s over, and once reinforcements get here, they’re gonna kill you all”. “That’s right”. “No mercy anymore for you or your group of misfit toys after what you did to my Gulag and information nexus”. “So just admit it”. “You’re already dead”. “Then why are you still talking to me?” replied Stavikk. “The truth is, I’m just getting started, because you’ve made one assumption leaving you wide open, and if you continue to believe you’re safe just because you’re in your controlled domain, you’re in for an unpleasant surprise”. “You’re out of your mind”. “Your group is just a bunch of outlaws with no purpose on this planet.” “I have a firing squad, and all you have is an arrogant attitude and a disgusting-ass face!” What could you, you hideous piece of shit of a human being, possibly have against me?”

“I’ll give you ten seconds to surrender, maybe I’ll let you live” Stavikk said flatly, with nothing but sincerity in his voice. Up until now, Benevola thought this to be some sort of bluff or attempt to intimidate her. But now, she wasn’t so sure. Benevola was used to being able to read people very well, and figuring out their tells and weaknesses. All that Benevola heard so far, though, seemed to be all-true. What could she be possibly missing? “Ten”. “Nine”. “Eight”. “Seven”. “Six”. There had to be something more at play here. There was no other reason that Stavikk would be able to keep up the act and composure for so long. “Five”. “Four”. “Three”. “Two”. “One”. It was over now. Benevola was certain that she was going to be attacked, and she was desperately trying to think of ways to avoid dying. Finally, the helicopter ascended from the floor below, and shot its machine guns and torpedoes at Benevola and her firing squad. Stavikk would have been shot for sure if it weren’t for the distraction of the helicopter. He jumped behind the staircase, narrowly avoiding the explosion but being peppered with other bullets. Stavikk was hurt, but thankful that he was still alive.