Act 5: Resurgence

Scene 18: Ascension:

Stavikk, Ralph, and Olivia stealthily moved towards the electrically charged fence surrounding the complex, seeing the top of an old, sleek looking spaceship positioned perpendicular to the ground, surrounded by a concrete launch station. The complex looked quite old and withered in general, mostly built upon a clearing of the rainforest, but since it had been abandoned for so long, the forest started to reclaim the buildings, and the earth for itself. Because of this, plant life such as thick vines and tree-like plants began to grow in and out of the concrete structures, causing their stability to become severely weakened, and the infrastructure of the roads there to be crippled.

This was where Stavikk’s strength came in; because of his mutated, thickened skin along with hard leather gloves, he had a strong resistance against the electric fence. He used the cleaver bayonet of his assault rifle to slice through the hinges of one of the doors without being electrocuted himself. After doing so, he simply gently pushed open the door, making but a creak as the three of them carefully walked through. Stavikk closed the door behind them, and they continued forward, carefully as ever. They noticed, for what they could see, that there were three major patrols in the area, organized, and wielding Russian-esc assault rifles. They wore robber masks under their helmets, and their equipment and armor was mostly painted silver, though scratch marks had shown a dull grey underneath. Stavikk, Olivia, and Ralph hid behind a shack, seeing cover in the area in the form of sandbags, which was limited, but existent. They weren’t even close to being optimally armed, but what they had in firearms had to be enough. Olivia Osgood backed up Stavikk with her sniper rifle as he revealed himself to one of the patrols, certain that they would fire back, but determined to try one last time to spare them.

Indeed they did fire back, and more than Stavikk expected. He was hit three times in the stomach, and forced to retreat behind the shack, continuing to shoot them with his assault rifle, killing some of them, but most of them were able to take cover in time. The fighters realized this and rushed forward, and around the corner of the shack. Ralph, who shredded some of their bodies with his double-barreled shotgun, punished them for this. Since Stavikk still had a cleaver bayonet on his assault rifle, he sliced through a few fighters that ran at him around the corner. Right when a fighter pointed his assault rifle at Stavikk’s head, he himself was shot by Olivia, wielding a revolver. Stavikk and Ralph got their bearings together, and, now armed to the teeth, rushed for cover behind sandbags, before their enemies could see them. Olivia, of course initiated fire on the next patrol with her sniper rifle, getting a quick headshot on the next patrol’s captain. However, because of this, she actually got the attention of three more squads, and a helicopter.

This is where their training came in. Stavikk moved quietly under and through the cover, then quickly scaled the wall on another concrete building with his thick nails. Firing with two assault rifles from above, he was able to get the surprise on the squadron below. Instinctively, they ran for cover behind the sandbags, which were perhaps their worst mistake. Stavikk jumped off the opposite side of the building from where he was, getting out of the way of their gunfire. Ralph threw an incendiary grenade over and into the sandbags, which started a furious inferno that consumed half of the squadron by fire.

The helicopter flew faster than Olivia could ever predict, hovering almost directly over her, and fired a volley of missiles, leaving Olivia Osgood and the shack in scorched pieces. Stavikk and Ralph, Devastated that their friend died to a helicopter, were both certain making sure she died not in vain. Stavikk climbed to the highest building he could, and later jumping onto the side of the helicopter, using his assault rifle to support his weight on the metal ski of the helicopter. After making sure no one saw him, he got his hold on the metal ski with one hand, and shot bullets through the bottom of the helicopter, killing whomever he could from below.

Meanwhile, Ralph Woodhill fought off some of the troops from below, using grenades and sneak attacks to thin their numbers. He was aided in his efforts by Stavikk, who managed to shoot off one of the missile pods with his rifle, and then barrel threw it down at the troops below, causing all of the missiles to explode at once, and killing them all in a massive explosion. Finally, Stavikk dragged open one of the slide doors, seeing that the internal room was lined with corpses, and a four-armed mutant awaiting him from the cockpit. The four armed mutant, General Tylvac wore much of the Red Sickle’s iconography, and possessed a grim, ferocious look on his face.

Tylvac made the first move, swinging his null blade at Stavikk, trying to decapitate him. Stavikk instinctually ducked out of the way, and then shoved the barrel of his assault rifle into Tylvac’s stomach, his bayonet and bullets being blocked by Tylvac’s smart armor, but his stomach armor did start to crack open. Tylvac responded by clawing Stavikk across the stomach, then trying to shoot him in the head with an assault rifle, which would kill him instantly. Luckily, Stavikk was the stronger of the two, and pushed Tylvac off of the side of the helicopter, causing him to fall 25 feet onto the hot, flaming earth. While this broke multiple bones in Tylvac’s body, it did not kill him, and he was able to get up after approximately 10 seconds after falling thanks to his smart armor, without fail. Tylvac, soon after, made the decision to throw his null blade at the helicopter, too big of a target to miss, which cleaved into its hull and caused its propeller to fail. Stavikk, quick to act, quickly stole a jetpack from one of the would-be flying fighters of the Red Sickle. As Stavikk fell, he activated his jetpack to fly in a downward arc toward Tylvac, taking hold of his body with his long arms, and slammed him into a broken brick wall, causing him to suffer major bodily force damage. Afterwards, Stavikk killed the engine on his jetpack, causing him to fall, but he absorbed most of the force of impact. The helicopter, however, flew directly into the ground, splitting it apart, and blades and shards of metal flew, slicing and sawing into the earth.

After not too long, another squadron of fighters ran out of the concrete building because of the loud noises outside, and the relative spike in the gunfire and explosions that they would normally hear. Since Stavikk and Tylvac were barely in the line of sight at the time, Stavikk did have time in which he punched Tylvac in the face, breaking off what little pieces of head armor he had, and cracking his jaw in two different locations. He held the wounded general up in front of him, and held a revolver to the side of his head as a threat to the squadron, who halted when they saw what they did.

Ralph Woodhill, unseen, looked around for some way to save his endangered friend, and chose to equip himself with a heavy machine gun that he found lying on the dry, hot ground. He rested it over cover, and then opened up fire on the squadron from another angle, catching them off guard, killing the overwhelming majority of them, and leaving the remaining four to be executed by Stavikk. Stavikk realized when he tried to shoot Tylvac that he was actually out of revolver rounds. Instead, he simply snapped Tylvac’s neck, stopping all movement in the mutant’s body. Since Stavikk nor Ralph knew the true extent of Tylvac’s mutant powers, they needed to make sure that he was dead. Stavikk, with a stolen shovel, dug a 5-foot deep hole, which Tylvac was thrown into, along with an armed incendiary grenade. The two of them slowly walked away from the fireworks, set on getting to Arborea as quickly and as easily as possible, in this case by spaceship.

Ralph and Stavikk crossed the burning, scarred earth, and reached a set of double metal doors, predictably locked, but nothing that couldn’t be solved with Ralph’s shotgun, blasting through the door hinges and allowing the two passage into the concrete building. Ralph attempted to turn on the lights, but to no avail, it appeared the building was out of power. “Looks like power’s out, pal”, Ralph remarked to Stavikk. “That’s ok”. Spaceship shouldn’t need it, anyways”, replied Stavikk. We’ll find our way around here eventually”. Behind him, Ralph heard an electronic noise behind him, but wasn’t confident as to what it was, he turned around to see, but as soon as he did, he saw a massive heat ray impale through Stavikk’s torso, scorching the inside flesh with jet black. As soon as this happened, Stavikk dropped his assault rifle, and clutched his Stomach with his hands, rapidly decreasing in temperature because of the devastating blood loss. Stavikk ground his teeth together in pain, with barely enough oxygen in his body to process his long known friend, Ralph, say “Stavikk!” “No!” “Stavikk!”, at the observation of his death in front of him.

Stavikk keeled over, forward, and lay face first in a growing pool of his own blood, massive at this point because of the destruction of his heart. Ralph looked over to see the perpetrator, which was none other than Tylvac himself, with a reclaimed confidence on his face. “You bastard!”, screamed Ralph. “I’m gonna kill you!”. Ralph raised his shotgun to try to shoot Tylvac in the face. Tylvac, of course, expected this, and shot him through the tissue of his arm, causing him to drop it. Seeing the heat ray cannon start to charge up again, Ralph pulled out his machete and threw it at the cannon, hitting it dead in the center and causing it to explode in his hands, crippling two of his arms, and causing pieces of metal to fly into his chest, stomach, and lower leg. Ralph Woodhill rushed forward, in a vengeful rage, picking up his machete and narrowly ducking a bullet that Tylvac shot to try to hit him in the head. He sliced off the arm of Tylvac wielding the revolver with the partially broken machete before picking up his shotgun once more, shooting him in the final arm. Finally, Tylvac was left to run, but outpaced by Ralph because of the blood loss. Ralph ripped off Tylvac’s helm, tackled him over, and beheaded him with the broken blade of the machete. Ralph held up the head of the recently beheaded, and roared in triumph, as Tylvac appeared to be looking down with a nervous panic in his face, seeing the blood fall from his neck, until his face rested as he deceased. Ralph Woodhill dragged Smokecutter’s corpse with him, mopping the concrete with blood. He looked for a body bag the right size, and put Stavikk in, wanting the dead mutant to reach Arborea one way or the other.

He searched through the panels controlling the ship, seeing the massive machine towering before him. He opened the main doors of the spaceship, to reveal its inner workings, supplies, weapons, and clothing. Ralph Woodhill gathered food supplies, which was all he could find from the launch station and brought it, along with Stavikk, into the spaceship on a quest for the heavens. Ralph, after prolonged research, was able to figure out how to operate the spaceship, activating its thermal jets, the hull security and the oxygen flow, before launching the spaceship into the great beyond. The jets left behind a streak of smoke and fire as the spaceship drove itself further and further from Pharavanna’s atmosphere, and towards the unimaginable, illuminating sphere of Arborea.

Ralph, in his dreams, again saw the golden-masked figure, this time in a cylindrical room with a hexagonal pattern of flooring, walls, and multiple lights in a circular pattern overhead. The masked figure sat in a metal chair, before having the chance to reveal her face for the first time. The young woman’s cloak fell from her shoulders, hitting the floor in a circle around her, and revealing her, standing up prominently, opposing Ralph Woodhill’s cautious stance. The young woman was wearing an extremely dark grey under armor, possessing the same hexagonal pattern all over it as if they were the scales of a reptile. They were made out of a material that Ralph could not recognize, possessing incredible malleability with the exceptional ability to retain shape. In between the hexagons that made up the under armor, there was a strange blue light emitting from within the cracks.

“You have a lot of questions, I presume?” she asked, expecting his presence. “Who are you?”, asked Ralph, seeing her for so long but never really understanding who, or what she was. “I am Victoria”, she stated as obviously as if she said the sky was blue, “and if you can get to me, I might be able to keep you alive for a bit longer”. Suddenly, a frown struck her face, as she said “But your friend Smokecutter, I’m not so sure…”. “How exactly am I supposed to find you, then?”, asked Ralph, concerned not only with navigating the civilization on Arborea, but also of his own safety as if he was walking into his own crypt, a miracle if he could ever walk out. “You need to find Amy Radcliff, recently promoted as a Captain, and the only person that I am completely confident won’t turn you in to Victor and his thugs”. “The same is likely for most other low-ranking officials, but generally won’t be as trustworthy as Amy herself”.

“So, how do I get to her without dying”, Ralph inquired, wanting to know more, as there were far easier ways to commit suicide. “There’s no easy answer to that, Ralph, but you’ll need to blend in or hide somehow”. “You’ll probably be able to find a disguise in the armory at around midnight when it’s at lowest alert”. “I detect you’re getting close to Arborea now, and I’ll need to wake you up in a second, but if it helps, remember that Amy was previously part of the Beta company”, said as a final note before snapping her fingers, creating a blue spark, and waking up Ralph just near the surface of Pharavanna’s great moon. He was able to land the spaceship somewhat successfully a few kilometers away from the main Nexactus facility known as Selene, and built inside of a massive crater, looking vaguely similar to that of the information Nexus. Going to the lower level of the ship and seeing Stavikk’s corpse, Ralph promised: “I’ll get you there, buddy”.

Scene 19: Desecration

Hextor Dios, the general of the Nexactus army was called in the early morning to arrive at the top floor of Beacon tower for a conference with Nexactus’s ruler, Benevola. He arrived at the tower by train, before ascending the great elevator to where Benevola was. Upon entering her great office, she sat with her hands together, with a devilish smirk on her face, unnerving Hextor. Benevola had always secretly terrified Hextor, as her uncanny cruelty towards prisoners, as well as underperforming workers was nothing to be ignorant of. Benevola announced: “We’ve created a new… initiation for you and your fighting abilities”. Already Hextor was uncomfortable, but he had to go along, or lose his rank in the military at best, and sent to the Gulag at worst. He hesitated, but later asked: “What kind of initiation did you have in mind”, so that at least he could be aware of what to expect. “You’ll find out soon”, said Benevola.

They arrived at the Eris Laboratories in the outskirts of the city by truck, all exiting to walk inside. The strict rigidness of the guards accompanying Benevola terrified Hextor, but there was no way he was going to be able to run away from this. They eventually entered the building, vaguely rectangular in shape, and with a roof with a single slant, and had a vaguely warehouse-esc look to it. They went through a set of glass doors in the front of the Laberatories, later navigating corridors where they reached an elevator leading them to a lower level. There were guards seemingly positioned everywhere in the warehouse. “Why?” Hextor wondered. “Why would this place need so much protection?” They reached the lower level of the building, and entering a great room where Hextor saw what could be described only as nightmare fuel. Dozens of corpses were strapped to the walls, some missing limbs, others cut completely in half. All of which, however, had robotic parts attached to them, and dried blood smeared all over them.

“No, no no”, said Hextor. “There’s no way you expect me to do this…”. At this point, the guards were aware of what was going on, and dragged Hextor, kicking and screaming to the opposite side of the room, where they strapped his body to the side of the wall. Hextor screamed, as loud as he could, but to no avail, as there was no way out for him. “We’ve had a lot of failures in the past, but we’ve corrected the process to make you my perfect weapon”, Benevola said. “Enjoy your new life, Hextor!”. Benevola and the guards left the room, where the two metal doors slammed shut behind him.

A finely crafted blade attached to a robotic arm protruded from the wall, and preceded to sever both his arms right at the end of his shoulders, causing them to fall limply to the ground, as Hextor’s blood sprayed profusely all over the wall behind him and floor. Hextor would have fell unconscious if it weren’t for the speed at which his arms were replaced with cybernetic ones to halt the bleeding. Bauling his eyes out from the pain, Hextor saw only the oppressive rays of light above him beaming into his eyes, causing him to cry down the width of his eyeball. After hours of waiting there in excruciating pain, needles going into his back, causing him to then be fully conscious before the next procedure, replaced the blood of the lost arms. The blades then cut off Hextor’s hips and everything below, causing him to lose almost half of his body weight, before they were quickly replaced with robotic hips and legs, much larger than his original ones. Then, a robotic arm from the wall ripped his right eye out of his skull, before jamming in a cybernetic one, and welding it into place, searing his skin and severing arteries in his head. Because of this, a huge black eye caused from the released blood hung below the cybernetic eye.

Finally, blades cut into the front and back of Hextor’s neck, and implanted a large metal device into the back before welding it into place causing excruciating pain. The other arms from the wall cut a small incision into the front of Hextor’s neck, implanting a metal voice modulator, before again, welding that into place. Hextor’s body then violently twitched in a variety of different ways, his face making thousands of expressions, and his mouth uttering words that would cripple the courage and morale of even the bravest hero. This twitching sent blood that was all over his body to fly everywhere, and the psychological suggestions of the device in his neck deprived Hextor of all emotion, and self-interest. Hextor was no longer truly human – he was something else. Benevola walked back into the room, seeing Hextor’s surrendered body lying still against the wall. Benevola smirked, and asked: “Who are you?”. This was rhetorical, as she expected and wanted only one answer:

“Diabolus”.

Scene 20: Toil & Trouble

Gerard McCuff stroked his greyish beard in his Captain’s quarters, and looking out the window, releasing a heavy sigh as he saw the glowing planet, Pharavanna, in the distance from the spaceship. Gerard woke up early that day, and faced extreme stress early that morning. Today was his big day, as him and the regiment that he was in was going to go on a massive campaign sweeping through western Feronia in an attempt to destroy strongholds occupied by the Red Sickle. Luckily for him, he was going into battle with the mighty general himself, Diabolus, who was intimidating enough for Gerard, and very likely a force to be reckoned with.

Gerard walked out of his quarters for breakfast, rolling his shoulders to ease some of the stiffness that came with his sleep. He walked out into the halls, which, while almost completely empty at this time, did include a familiar and non-comforting face. As he leaned back, took the cigar out of his mouth, and exhaled slowly through his mouth, Sanders looked at Gerard with utter contempt, before striking conversation in an unexpected manner. “Do you think you’ll be brought back in a body bag, or do you deserve such a thing?”, Sanders rudely asked. “Or maybe you’ll be left to rot out there, eaten alive by animals?” “It’s all meaningless in the end… for you, though, of course”. “And maybe if you were the kind of man who could actually follow protocol, that wouldn’t happen to you, now would it?” “But you can’t be trusted with anything, now, can you”. As Sanders said these things, he stopped his loitering on the wall, and started walking towards Gerard, with cool confidence, and utter certainty.

At this point, Gerard made a terrible, potentially deadly mistake. He talked back: “Yeah, I’m sure it’s real easy to say from your ivory tower, but for those that actually bother to get our hands dirty…” “Did you just talk back to your commanding officer?”, Sanders interjected. As he pulled out his combat knife from his holster, and played with it in his fingers, he said: “That’s really something you… shouldn’t do”. “If you keep up talking like that, then the firing squad’s going to get you first”. Sanders slid his knife gently against Gerard’s cheek, causing his face to be slowly painted with crimson as he bled from the cut wound. Sanders took a paper towel from the countertop of one of the tables and cleaned his knife blade with it, before sliding it back into the holster, then throwing the paper towel at Gerard. Sanders then vanished into the darkness, and Gerard was left with an empty feeling of helplessness as he sat there contemplating what had just happened, but there was seemingly nothing he could do about it.

Gerard lied to his friends that breakfast, which arrived later than he did. They were a little bit more full of energy than he was, since they slept longer, and observed that the cut wound looked extremely fresh. Gerard’s claim was that the cut wound was from him falling on his desk, but his cohorts at the table were prudent, and saw that the wound was too clean to be a product of a desk cut. They figured that it had to be something else, but had no idea why Gerard would tell them otherwise, so they played along, secretly disbelieving him.

His two Cohorts were actually siblings, Roger and Amy Radcliff, who both possessed light blue eyes, and seemingly very resilient and reliant characters to them. They spoke in a very careful manner, and were naturally very skeptical individuals. They ate breakfast with him genuinely wondering what had hurt him, but didn’t bother to ask. It wasn’t like he was going to tell them, anyway.

Eventually, the battle cruiser swept above the jungles of Feronia, initially striking down with napalm bombardment, which caused massive forest fires. Gerard could see out of the ship four different helicopters flying beside the spaceship, opening their side doors imbued with the Sickle’s symbol to reveal crude machine guns, firing a barrage of lead at the battle cruiser. Surprisingly, these did almost nothing against the shielding of the ship, along with the incredibly durable hull, which was able to shake off bullets like they were nothing. The Battle Cruiser, in response, fired volleys of missiles that completely annihilated the helicopters. As the Battle Cruiser flew directly over the canopy, anti-air guns bombarded the bottom of the ship, causing slight damage.

A few minutes later, the battle cruiser stopped within a kilometer of a Red Sickle Stronghold, with red and silver flags soaring above, and the Regiment climbed down by the use of rope ladders. Gerard, Amy, and Roger, along with their regiment of Soldiers, ultimately lead by the war-renowned Diabolus charged through the burning forest. The ruthless tactician, however, could not hope to keep the whole regiment in line by himself, and so gave specific orders to Commander Rydell, Sanders, and Borus, who commanded three Companies: Alpha, Beta, and Gamma, who would attack a cluster of strongholds in a trident formation, giving the Regiment the nickname: “Trident”. Since Gerard was a Captain, he did have control of a platoon of soldiers, including, of course, Amy and Roger. Their platoon was within the company Beta, and so they went straight forward with the fighting assistance of several Pheonix fighters overhead, shooting napalm rockets at the enemy helicopters, and engaging in a blazing dogfight in the sky. The use of Napalm was actually a strategic choice by Nexactus in this battle, as a common trap used by the Red Sickle was a thorned plant that could be grown into an arch to trip and poison Nexactus troops with neurotoxins, killing them within twenty seconds or less. However, this plant’s response to intense heat nearby was to retreat back into the earth, and removing its threat in the battle. This strategic choice allowed the Beta Company to advance much faster, being led by Commander Rydell. Eventually they ran into a deadly position, as concrete trenches shaped like a semicircle surrounded them, and lighting the company up with machine gun fire. In response, Commander Rydell ordered the company to deploy the auto-guns, which protected them temporarily with bubble shields.

Captain Gerard, given time to focus, noticed an anti-air heat-ray turret attached at the back of the small bunker complex. This turret had a massive gun, with a series of tubes that went from the sides and top of the gun, all the way down to the base where the turret rotated on. It fired a huge heat beam, which tore through both the energy shielding and hulls of the phoenix fighters, sending them crashing down like meteors onto the ground, streaking the sky with orange and red.

Gerard had a new strategy. Him and his platoon divided into two squadrons and went in opposite directions around the trenches, and evading being seen by crawling through the undergrowth. Naturally, Gerard went first, going under barbed wire and evading gunfire, proved to be a grave mistake. Dirt that he crawled over shifted downward, Gerard hearing a mechanical noise. Gerard realized that he walked over a landmine, and having no way out on his own. Roger looked at him, his face expressing sadness, before acceptance a few seconds later. Gerard, realizing Roger’s plan, yelled: “No!” before Roger rushed forward taking Gerard off and absorbing the shrapnel and fire from the landmine himself. Gerard, while having his life saved, was not completely unscathed, as the explosion blew his left foot right off of his leg, and twisting and warping his tendons. Roger’s body lay next to him, seeing that his back suffered third degree burns, and his skull was caved in from the force. Gerard looked down, shook his head, and continued forward.

He saw the behind of the trenches and heat ray cannon, and was helped walking by another soldier. Gerard ordered his platoon to make a coordinated assault on the middle trench, as the rest of the regiment was already attacking the ones on the side.

Gerard threw an incendiary grenade inside the middle trench right before him and his platoon was spotted. The loyal soldier carrying him was shot, and Gerard was shot once through the stomach, bleeding profusely and crawling on the ground, backed up by his allies. Gerard noticed that the rest of the Beta regiment was the prime target for the fighters in the trench. He heard gunfire and explosions coming from the other side. Unnoticed, Gerard slowly crawled towards the heat ray cannon, before blasting open the top door open with his shotgun, crawling inside, and killing the pilot inside it.

Gerard saw surprisingly clearly inside of the turret, the walls seeming like a huge windshield from the inside, but before seemed like walls from the outside. Bleeding profusely, and losing focus, Gerard sought to figure out the controls of the cannon, and started firing heat rays at the red sickle fighters inside the trenches, all of which adjacent to the cannon. The heat rays burned through the damp soil, causing water in and on it to quickly evaporate, and scorching and drying the dirt to a crisp. The heat rays slaughtered fighters there within seconds, and they barely had time to notice him. Fighters rushed out of the trenches, surrounding Gerard and shooting him from all sides, putting bullet holes through all sides of the turret, Gerard just barely surviving the first five seconds of shooting by desperately ducking low in the turret, but bullets whipping through his left leg, brutalizing his calf muscles and causing the inside of the turret to be painted red.

Gerard, barely conscious, was able to hear a barrage of gunshots, seemingly quieter than the ones heard before, and left the area silent of gunfire, at least temporarily. While the gunshots were gone, he could hear many more landmines go off in the same vicinity, presumably either because of heat or soldiers running desperately for their lives. Soon, the steel top door was ripped off with excessive force, before revealing Diabolus, showing an unfazed expression and bearing his machine gun, cooling with steam and vapor being released from the internal chambers.

“Advance, soldier.”, said Diabolus, with the most obvious impression of apathy that Gerard had ever witnessed. “I think that’s his way of saying ‘let’s go’”, said Gerard’s first lieutenant, carrying his railgun over his shoulder. “And I think your friend Amy…” “She’s a bit broken up, to say the least…” Gerard looked over to see Amy breaking down over the body of her brother, and demanding Gerard come over, sweeping the tears from her eyes, and her helmet on the ground. “Go over instead. I can’t afford to wait any longer”, Gerard said, limping forward. Gerard’s lieutenant stood there, in complete awe, staring at him with a face of pure confusion. “What?”, asked the lieutenant. “Are you sure you want to do that?” “You have your orders, Lieutenant”, said Gerard, trying to seem authoritative, but deep down under, his gruff persona was starting to crack, and he was beginning to lose his way with his first Lieutenant, James Quiver, who followed through, but secretly disagreed with Gerard’s decision. Gerard moved forward, with, of course, the help of his fellow soldiers, which slowed down the group slightly. As they advanced, a soldier from the company operated the heat ray cannon and fired continuously at opposing air forces, before being killed himself by a helicopter missile strike.

They finally reached the central stronghold in Haltvia, the far western province of Feronia that was currently under control by the Red Sickle, and provided a somewhat airborne advantage from above. However, they lost contact with the two other companies, and presumed them both to be dead. They came upon the middle stronghold, appearing crude in its design, with cracked concrete, Rusty Steel beams, and brown sand bags composing its design. The fort was blocked off by a huge, plasma death-field possessing the same “N” projected on it. This made it obvious that it was stolen Nexactus technology, something that Diabolus, the Regiment’s General knew how to deal with. Before he could, however, he noticed, with his cybernetic, bulky, scope eye that there were snipers climbing atop the walls of the fort, and identified their weapons as railguns. He also noticed a massive gun turret atop the main, rectangular looking building, and, with precise vision, was able to see that it was a massive fuel rod gun. From a distance, the snipers were annihilating his troops. Gerard, hiding behind cover, aided his allies in getting through by deploying a helicopter drone that, since Nexactus technology, flew right through the death field with ease, and blew up at the other side, disabling the projectors and granting the regiment passage into the stronghold, appropriately nicknamed “Fort Hades”.

Diabolus needed no such passage. His hydraulic, Jet powered legs allowed him to fly up onto the thick, concrete walls. Bullets and rail gun blasts eventually cut through his defender suit, but his juggernaut armor underneath was able to, to a certain extent, bounce sound into and away itself, meaning that it would break chunks off of the armor instead of going any further. The fighters in the vicinity were no matches for the Beta Company alongside Diabolus, and as he mowed down enemies with precision and computer targeting, he launched two volleys of missiles at helicopters overhead, blasting them out of the sky. Overhead, the fuel-rod turret was devastating phoenix fighters, the radiation from the blasts killing the pilots instantly, leading the spaceships simply to fall and crash land. Their plasma blasts cut through the energy shielding, but barely left a dent in the armor of the turret itself. As Diabolus reloaded his missile pods on his back, he launched a final two volleys of missiles at the massive fuel rod cannon, causing it to essentially fall apart with the explosion force. Diabolus then lead the rest of the company through Fort Hades, the armored war machine helping to disrupt defensive maneuvers. However, because the Red Sickle did have the defensive edge in this case, they were able to sneak attack the company and eventually reduced it to a mere platoon. Since Gerard was lagging behind and was severely injured, a squadron of attacked him, armed to the teeth and wearing black masks, sporting the Red Sickle emblem on their shoulders. Gerard was mowed down by assault rifle fire, and was left to die in a pool of his own blood. Diabolus and what little remained of the Beta company hustled forward at a consistent pace towards a plethora of barricades and gun turrets spewing forth bullets, and initially having the upper hand against the company. Diabolus, one of the most armed beings on Pharavanna, moved his metallic wrist to dispense grenades from his arm piece into his hand, which he through continuously over the barricades, breaking apart the cover, and sending shrapnel and fire everywhere.

Commander Sanders, a gruff tactician, kept his wits about him, and made sure not to rush anything too soon. After wiping sweat from his brow, he had an idea: if he could bring the fight to himself and cause the enemies to budge, he would have an opportunity to wipe them out. He told Diabolus of his plan, and the mechanical death machine hid inside a partially ruined building. He ordered his troops to retreat, losing cover but gaining the bluff of seeming at a disadvantage. His troops ran back, some of them dying in the process, and the opposing fighters there followed, carefully of course. Once they got a reasonable distance ahead of Diabolus, he, along with the soldiers of Commander sanders, were able to surprise attack the previously protected. Since the soldiers of Sanders were able to take cover, they only lost two more soldiers in the process.

The doors of the main building were torn open by Diabolus’s huge metal hand, revealing a huge stone stairway towards an array of masked marauders. Leading the group was General Tylvac, a four armed mutant trained by Kargas’s deceased father, and had alike to Diabolus, had a reputation of never being defeated in battle. Tylvac was a man with straight, jet-black hair, and had a many-horned head along with rough, scarred, crimson skin. Also an escapee of the Sepam Gulag, Tylvac naturally abandoned the cause of Smokecutter, seeing the Guerillas as a doomed group. Naturally, he found himself later joining the Red Sickle in a quest for power, camaraderie, status, fame, and wealth by becoming one of Kargas’s Generals later during the conflict.

Both fighting groups merely pointed guns at each other, and tried to see who would budge first. After all, they each wanted a capture of the opposing general for more information instead of just killing them outright. Although Tylvac had Diabolus outnumbered, Tylvac recognized Diabolus as a superb fighter, perhaps even surpassing him. Both sides refused to fire from fear of mutually assured destruction, because even if Diabolus died, a nuclear warhead attached to him would explode within twenty seconds, but that would mean that the Beta Company would die as well, killing everyone in the room, including both generals, so not within any of the factions’ goals.

Diabolus decided that it was worth it to trade his own life to conquer this stronghold and kill general Tylvac, and so as he raised his arm to open up fire, Tylvac was able to reflexively throw a null blade, which sliced into Diabolus’s shoulder, disabling his machine gun. However, Diabolus wasn’t out of options, and deployed a grenade into his other hand, but one of Tylvac’s soldiers shot the grenade with his assault rifle, causing it to explode, and sent pieces of shrapnel to fly into the walls, floor, and ceiling, and destroyed Diabolus’s hand and forearm.

Diabolus had to do it. He commanded a full retreat for the only surviving platoon, the Beta Company, before it got too late. However, forces from the two other strongholds rushed towards them in a pincer-esc move. Diabolus, his machine gun arm coming back online, was able to fire countless bullets at approaching hover cars, causing some of them to explode as they rushed towards the platoon. Since by this time the Nexactus air force here was essentially obliterated except for a few still surviving phoenix fighters who completely retreated after the aerial onslaught that occurred beforehand. The battle cruiser was long gone, and the surviving platoon was reduced to three soldiers, Sanders, and Diabolus. The cybernetic commander’s goal at this time to save Commander Sanders and himself, and so he used his jet powered legs to fly away with Commander Sanders and essentially mag-locked onto Diabolus.

Amy Radcliff and Gerard’s Lieutenant, Lieutenant Newman were watching over a steep hill, signaling their locations so that the remaining soldiers could find them, and a drop ship could rescue them. The seven remaining Soldiers walked through one of the side doors to fly back to Arborea. As the doors closed behind Newman, he wondered if this is truly what he wanted. If he wanted to work for a ruler that would sooner put his people in danger than she would help them. “We can’t do this”, Newman said. “We made it out of this alive, but Benevola’s just going to find another bullshit excuse to get us killed”. Most of the soldiers in the drop ship had their heads sunken in their hands, Amy included. Newman’s method of coping with this sort of situation, however, was just to distance himself from it. He found that much easier than getting involved with a problem he could not solve. “You’re right”, one of the soldiers said in a sob. “If we come back here, we’re dead”. “Goddamit, we have to do something”.

Scene 21: Insurrection

The firing squads had long taken the lives of Lieutenant Newman and his vocal supporter after higher-ranking officials such as Sanders and Diabolus found out about what they said via drop ship camera. This news, spread among by rumor, strongly swayed many individuals against Benevola’s rule, and some were actually quite relieved when finding out of her death at the hands of the famous or infamous Smokecutter. After the death of Benevola, the people of Nexactus were simply disappointed with their new dictator, Victor, as they observed his weakness when dealing with The Red Sickle. Amy Radcliff in particular was extremely distraught because she watched everything she fought for melt away, and the vanity of her brother, Roger, dying.

The Red Sickle had reclaimed the territory that was originally conquered by the Trident regiment of Nexactus during the invasion of Fort Hades all because Victor decided to focus Nexactus’s energy and resources towards building civilization on Arborea. For this reason, Victor was seen as being a weak and impotent, incapable of leading Nexactus correctly.

Ralph deployed a small hover car from the spacecraft, gently pushing moon dust away from its hull as it bobbed over the milky white surface, and projecting purple light from its front, shaped in a triangular-esc pattern. Ralph, in his spacesuit, carried Stavikk’s corpse within the body bag into the trunk of the back of the hover car, making several trips back and forth to gather all of his supplies before driving towards the Selene base, zooming across the surface of Arborea, and bouncing high over the indents made by craters, but the hover car catching itself just before the hull would hit the ground. In that moment, Ralph Woodhill never felt more alive. He eventually arrived outside a side door to the colossal base of Selene, seeing a huge metal door with a keypad to enter a password. After parking right next to it, he walked up to it, seeing the alphabet and numbers 1-10 embarked on it, and contemplated what to do next.

Amy Radcliff and her followers met in private when on scavenging missions across Arborea, as Victor nor his regime made any effort to track what was said on specific missions, or what groups met together with one another. This was potentially Victor’s biggest weakness, because every time these groups met out in the distance, the threat of a rebellion consistently grew. At this point, Amy and her squadron were explaining away a series of suspicious radio messages to their superiors in the radio center of Selene. After their information Nexus was destroyed, Nexactus had to work with what they had, and so built a far inferior version of that on Selene.

“The password is Arborea”, Victoria said telepathically to Ralph. He put in the passcode, and to no surprise, the doors immediately opened from up and down, allowing Ralph passage into Selene. Ralph, looking at every digital clock he could find said it was early evening at the time, not quite midnight, and Ralph’s optimal time to find a disguise for himself, and find Amy Radcliff. What Ralph decided to do to stay unsuspicious was to wait in a bathroom stall until midnight, the only place he would not be recorded by camera.

Midnight finally came around, and Ralph exited the washroom normally, walking towards the armory, where he quickly changed into a more Nexactus-appropriate spacesuit and replacing his double-barreled shotgun with a Nexactus-manufactured pump-action shotgun. He left the armory, leaving his previous gear behind him, hopefully recognized by no one. Ralph Woodhill inquired to other soldiers about the Beta Company, and its fate and implications, at which point he was seen in a much more suspicious light, as the Beta Company was almost annihilated during the battle of Hades. As a result, to ask about the Beta Company was inappropriate to say the least. He eventually learned this fact, and chose instead to ask where Amy Radcliff was. He was inaccurate in his guesses of her rank multiple times, but eventually managed to track her to the radio center. At this point, Amy’s superiors had already left, and Ralph was left to speak with her and her platoon. Ralph removed his helmet, showing his helmet to everyone there.

“How the hell are you still alive?”, Amy asked reasonably. “Long story”. “Short story is I need your help, I don’t have much time”, replied Ralph.“I asked you a question, soldier!” “Now give me an answer, or you’re getting the burner!”, Amy yelled, acting as if she was in control even though she didn’t care. “I’m not a soldier, Amy, I’m the last living member of the Guerillas”, Ralph explained. “Holy fuck”, Amy said. “How did you know my name?” “I’ll explain everything soon, but we need to go now, or we’re all dead”, Ralph said. “Do you know where Victoria is?” “Whoa. There’s no way you’re getting to her without being pumped full of lead”, Amy said flatly. “I’m not going to Victoria, and neither are you!”.

Amy then went up to Ralph and whispered to him where Victoria was kept, pointing out all of the barriers that stood between him and Victoria, and how to get past. First, there was the fact that Selene was crawling with Nexactus loyalists, Robots, and the like. The only way to get through those was with a distraction, and an ability to climb through the ventilation system of the base. The vents, too, however, were not safe either. Upon the detection of entry, the vents would release a burning, poisonous gas that would suffocate any organism passing through, as well as burning skin to the touch. Finally, a high-ranking general must be present in order to open any door of the facility. Because every general in the Nexactus army was a cyborg, they would be equipped with a voice modulator that requires puncturing of the trachea to be used. In other words, Ralph would need to kill another Diabolus, scorch his skin, and puncture his throat with a stainless steel blade. He was ready. Shortly after Ralph hid away in a janitor’s closet, Amy and her platoon was met with opposition once again in a cybernetic General named Lucifix, with a platoon of his own with the purpose of interrogation. Since, on camera, Amy acted as if she wasn’t affiliated with Ralph, Lucifix was more lenient. Amy requested that she could talk with Lucifix alone, keeping the information “to themselves”. However, she had a different purpose in mind.

In the middle of their discussion about the former events, Amy reached very carefully towards Lucifix, feigning a hand gesture, but at the last second ripping out Lucifix’s voice modulator. Amy, who would have been dead in that moment if not for distracting Lucifix, as he was coughing up blood, ran out of the room, sliding the voice modulator under the door of the janitor closet. Lucifix quickly ran after Amy, more concerned for her life than his modulator, lighting her up with his machine gun and killing her before opening the door to the Janitor closet. Luckily, Ralph was prepared against such a scenario, with a heat ray cannon positioned perfectly, and with his back against the wall. As Lucifix swung open the door, he was unpleasantly surprised with a heat ray that drove through his face, disintegrating his head completely, and causing him to be killed instantly.

Ralph, in possession of the voice modulator, ran down multiple hallways to avoid the explosion caused by the recently executed Lucifix’s self-destruction. This explosion, which tore through a steel wall, caused other airlock systems in Selene to activate, closing off a whole section of the base. This caused more soldiers to go investigate, as an explosion in a corner of the base wasn’t exactly a telling of good times. Ralph, using a stolen crowbar from the janitor closet, broke off the covering plate of an air vent and climbed in, putting on a stolen gas mask. As Ralph climbed through, he began to stress the journey ahead, the poison gas, and could only hope nothing below him went wrong.

The platoon of the recently deceased Amy created as many distractions in Selene as possible, which, while aiding Ralph, heavily increased suspicion around them. As soon as they found the dead Lucifix, they immediately presumed Amy’s platoon guilty, but pressed the investigation further until they found the exact culprit. After all, it wasn’t like Victor’s nobles had the time to Lynch them all.

Ralph came upon a section of the ventilation system that was almost impossible to access through simple reach or climbing because of its sheer height. Below him in this vertical tunnel was a fully functioning, huge turbine, but did almost nothing to Ralph except create ripples in his clothing, which waved as the air passed by. The controls were accessible on a platform next to the giant turbine. “I detect you’re getting close”, said Victoria telepathically. “Just get past the poison gas, and you should have an open route to my chamber, Olympia”. “Make sure to reverse the direction of the air going through the turbine after you hear the poison gas entering, to lead the gas away from you and your precious skin”. Ralph activated the turbine, steadily pushing his body upwards as he was in the “X” position. He then grabbed a hold of the ledge allowing him to climb through the upper vent. Before too long of crawling through the vents, he heard the sound of poison gas being released from parts of the vents, presumably detected by motion detectors. The mere touch of this gas on Ralph’s skin caused it to turn red, and bubble on his left forearm, as it was the point of first contact. Ralph hollered in pain and raced back towards the turbine, putting his body into a pencil-esc shape, and drifting back down to the fan. He reactivated the controls, pushing the air the other way through, and watched the poison gas as it left the hallways. Victor himself came down to investigate, after prolonged delay, and looked through some of the camera footage. He played the footage multiple times before sitting there, jaw dropped. He yelled to his nearest Commander: “It’s Woodhill!”. “He’s here for Victoria!” “Get him!”. Victor and a division searched the entirety of Selene’s halls unable to find Ralph.

Ralph rushed through hallway after hallway, rigidly determined to find Victoria, before coming upon an opening in the vents, where there was a dome shaped ceiling, flat, hexagonally patterned floor, which failed before a giant metal door in the floor, accessible through one final passcode. Ralph was so close to Victoria that he could clearly picture her face while she telepathically communicated to him: “The password is me, Victoria”. If this password didn’t work, it would be all for nothing, and he would have no way of reaching Victoria. Judging too by the wires overhead, there may have been some other programmed response. Ralph inserted the voice modulator’s needle into his throat, a painful process to say the least. Blood came running down from the piercing as he said, in a bizarre robotic voice: “Victoria” into a microphone next to the door. The door creaked open, appearing not to have been used in years. As the door came slightly open, a ray of blue light exited in between the blunt teeth of the door way. It came open, and Ralph fell down, finding Victoria lying dormant on her bed, still conscious, but appearing malnourished, dehydrated, and wounded. She had a black eye, blood running down her lower lip, and a broken nose. She was still wearing the hexagonal under-armor as Ralph saw before, and the bed jet black. Judging by her figure at the time, Victoria seemed to be in a similar state as to late anorexia, starved and beaten by whoever kept her there. Ralph picked her up off of the bed, opening another door on the wall from the inside, trying to get her out of whatever horrible place she was in. As soon as Ralph opened the doors, which slid up and down to open, Victor and his division greeted him with guns to the face and threatening looks.

“Don’t shoot”, Victoria said, with the last reserve of her energy. Strangely, the division seemed to listen, and no bullets were fired. “Kill em’ already”, Victor demanded irritably. Still, their guns released no hot brass or lead, and the soldiers refused to fire. Suddenly, Victor began to look extremely nervous, and yelled: “Fire!” “Why the hell aren’t you firing?!”. “She’s the one giving the orders now, Victor”, his next-in-charge Commander said to him, making Victor’s face go pale white. “Your reign is over, Victor”, Victoria declared. “I’m the true heir”.