The Wastelander

by Tipsy Wanderer

  Bang-bang-bang-bang!

  The crowded meeting room rang with the sound of gunfire.

  Academician Roste’s contingent also made its move. Their skin suddenly became thick with scales or fur, and then, they turned on their prey like hungry phantoms. All of a sudden, a violent skirmish broke out. The sound of bones breaking, pained screams, and angry roars reverberated off the walls. Together, the mutants charged and in a blink, killed one-third of the revolutionaries. Meanwhile, they only lost two of their number.

  These beasts… they were killing machines! A combination of human intellect and unbreakable animal ferocity.

  If their arms were cut off, they attacked with their feet. If their legs were broken, they gnawed with their fangs. Bullets seemed useless against their tough hides. So long as they drew breath, Roste’s monsters kept fighting.

  With ice-cold indifference, they killed anything in their path, so ruthlessly efficient that it was hard to believe. The best way to put them down was to sever their spines or pierce their brains. Otherwise, they would never stop.

  There was no winning a fight like this! They had to capture Roste alive.

  Iron Bear and Black Jackal worked together. The former snatched up his smaller companion and flung him through the air. Black Jackal traced a perfect arc over their attackers’ heads and broke their encirclement. He planted his knees on the ceiling and thrust off to increase his momentum. Like a comet, he crashed down right towards Roste.

  One of the bodyguards tried to bar his path, but Black Jackal knocked him away with the hammer in his left hand. With an open path, he brought his other hammer around for a killing blow, one that would shatter the old man’s skull. All the while, Academician Roste stood perfectly still, as though he did not even have the strength to defend himself.

  Was this the final moment! Were they going to succeed?

  Everyone was sure of it.

  Academician Roste’s eyes flashed with a cold light, and suddenly, his frail and sickly exterior melted away. That keen, wise light shone in his hard gaze, and his eyes turned a bloody red. A stifling murderous aura surged forth from his wrinkled body.

  Cloudhawk knew it right away. He foresaw the conclusion. His heart sank – they were done for!

  117 The Strongest Mutant

  Academician Roste went from slow to blinding fast in the space of a blink. He planted his staff in the ground beside him, easily sidestepped the hammer blow, and then shoved his attacker’s wrist away with his twig-like palm. The old man’s movements were effortless as if he were just brushing away a branch.

  Snap! Black Jackal’s wrist bent back at an unnatural angle. Shards of jagged bone split his skin and poked out from within.

  The burly warrior screamed in pain and surprise. Reacting instinctively to the pain, he attacked with his other hand.

  Roste effortlessly caught Black Jackal’s fist in his hand and crushed it as easily as he would a handful of leaves, leaving nothing but a bloody mangled mass.

  This eighty-year-old invalid was handling the seasoned warrior like the latter was a child! His defenses were almost thoughtless, like he was swatting a fly.

  In the decades he’d spent here as their leader, no one took Roste for a powerhouse, much less a font of vitality that would shame a man one-third his age. He fought as well as someone at his peak when all laws of nature dictated that he should hardly be able to walk at his age.

  A series of pops and cracks issued from the old man’s robes. It was the sound of his bones dislocating and restructuring!

  Everyone looked on in utter shock!

  As though suddenly filled with air, Roste’s body started to swell. His eyes adopted a deep black-green hue that shimmered with strange colors. Withered dry skin regained the elasticity and vigor of youth, and all the while, he was getting larger. Five feet… five and a half… six feet... At last, he completely transformed from a frail emaciated dwarf into a muscled behemoth!

  Any trace of the damage eighty years had laid on him was gone!

  His skin had taken on a pale blue tint, and muscles rippled tightly beneath. All his hair fell away, leaving him bald but with a skull as thick as a helmet. This transformation definitely wasn’t any sort of ability metahumans or mutants were capable of. The most telling sign was that this new form was perfectly normal looking; his body was symmetrical. Every muscle looked like it was masterfully carved from stone, aesthetically and mechanically perfect from head to toe. It was like he had been designed from a human blueprint.

  “You worms… you wish to kill me?”

  Roste grabbed Black Jackal in his hands and began to squeeze. Like kneading dough, he crushed the poor warrior in his enormous fists until his bones were splintered. Black Jackal’s neck was crushed and bent, his hands and feet smooshed together until ultimately, he was turned into a butchered orb of leaking meat.

  “Did you think that I was only researching how to transform soldiers after all these years?”

  His incredible strength, his grotesque and terrifying methods, sent a chill down everyone’s spine.

  Hellflower immediately threw up her hands and fired off half a dozen shots at the freak, but he didn’t even try to dodge. Once the bullets hit, Roste’s grey-blue skin instantly hardened until he was practically made of iron. The bullets even made a metallic ringing noise as they ricocheted off of him.

  “This body is perfect, allowing me to adapt to any environment or condition. In the cold, I will grow a fur coat to protect myself; underwater, I will develop gills; when I need to jump, my bones and joints will change accordingly; if I need to run, the muscles and structure of my leg will change as needed. And in the event of a serious threat, I can even grow a protective exoskeleton.” In one hand, Roste gripped the crushed remains of Black Jackal. Nothing remained of the frail old man they’d known, and the sound that came from his throat was like the growl of a hundred angry animals. In fact, Roste was now a complicated amalgamation of genetic material – no longer a human in the true sense of the word. “What can any of you do to stand against me?!”

  Horrifyingly, although Black Jackal had been broken into the shape of a fleshy ball, Roste was careful not to kill him. Piteous whines issued from the orb of mangled flesh.

  Roste heaved the meat sphere, the muscles of his arms bulging, flinging it with enough force that it was as destructive as a boulder shot from a trebuchet [1]. Black Jackal’s tortured body shot towards a soldier as fast as a runaway car. There was no way for the warrior to avoid him. They collided with such force that every bone and joint in both men shattered before they then smashed into a third person. In an instant, all three had been snuffed out.

  The ancient white-haired scientist looked on in soundless horror at the three massacred fighters as their remains barreled towards him. He was the fourth victim, and when, ultimately, they hit the wall, it was impossible to tell the parts of one from another.

  This mad Academician seemed to be even stronger than the Caliph’s dual-horned lieutenant!

  As the chaos ensued around him, Cloudhawk saw his predicament clearly. It wasn’t Hyena he’d seen in the labs…

  … it was Roste!

  The Academician had long known of this little pocket of resistance. He also knew that Hellflower was their chosen agent. Because she had proven to be a very effective assistant, he chose not to reveal that he knew. However, she’d crossed the line when she tried to steal all of his painstaking efforts for her own. It had sent Roste into a rage and convinced him that now was the time to deal with these irritating malcontents.

  To that end, Roste purposefully arranged it so that Hellflower would inherit Hyena’s position as captain of the guard. He knew that he would have to appear completely vulnerable in order to galvanize these old men into meeting. Once they were all together, he could catch them all at once.

  Working with this mob of degenerates had been Hellflower’s first error. Her second had been to underestimate his schemes.

  Of course, her most fata
l miscalculation was that she did not expect the old man to be so strong. This level of tyrannical ability was simply outside the scope of what she thought was possible. Roste was a freak, a monster through and through, a humanoid weapon of pure might and power!

  Yet, she fought on, unwilling to resign herself to death.

  However, her piddling handguns were no threat to what Roste had become. He was an abomination that could quickly adapt to any situation. Even his skin could harden the instant her bullets hit him and knock them away.

  Academician Roste’s twisted face bore a mocking sneer. “Mine is a perfect body. Perfect power. I have become the pinnacle of all that lives in the wastelands, and once I consume the essence of the demon hunter, I will be the strongest being in the entire world!”

  Many kinds of metahumans roamed the wastes. From enhanced power to blinding agility, increased fortitude to heightened intelligence – all sorts were a common sight. However, there was one type of wastelands denizen that was rarely encountered: those that were actually able to reconstruct their bodies. The freak in black Cloudhawk had once contended against had abilities somewhat like that. It had been a surprise when he learned the freak could turn his left arm into barbed tentacles or a bone sword.

  Roste was naturally gifted with considerable reconstruction abilities. All these years experimenting on soldiers were so that he could forge his body’s own talents. Through his natural gifts and rare intellect, he made it his goal to turn his own body into the perfect being: one that combined all the best traits of the wastelands’ myriad beasts. One who could survive in all the world’s harshest environments. Be it sweltering heat, bitter cold, intense pressures, or forceful blows, nothing was beyond his ability to adapt to and overcome!

  And the shapeshifting soldiers? They were just experimental byproducts! Roste needed materials for his research, and the best place to get them was the Dark Atom. Their trade arrangement was where he got what he needed, for the process of research was costly.

  For decades, Academician Roste’s body was a perfect specimen. He was sure that he was the greatest force in the wastelands and so didn’t bother with the creatures therein. He’d turned his sights to the Elysian lands and the demon hunters who resided there.

  Just one final step!

  If he could transplant the abilities of a demon hunter into himself, he would succeed in combining the best of the wastelands with the best of the Elysian lands. The ultimate, elusive marriage of science and magic! If he could do this, Roste would become the most powerful creature in the entire world! This obsession was why his desire to capture a demon hunter had been all-consuming.

  Before Cloudhawk’s arrival, his plan had been to work with Dark Atom, and through them, capture a demon hunter alive from the Elysian lands. However, such a brazen ask was risky and would likely turn the ire of the Elysians on Blackwater Base. Then, like a gift from heaven, a demon hunter wandered into his territory from the wastelands. His greatest desire was delivered right to his doorstep.

  This had to be fate! How could Roste not be ecstatic with this turn of events?

  “Are you out of ideas?” Roste pulled out a four-foot-long sword. “Then, I suppose it’s my turn!”

  Hellflower’s clips were empty, and Roste was completely unscathed.

  Cloudhawk pulled the rifle off his back and threw it at her. “Use this!”

  Roste’s legs suddenly began to change. His knees popped and twisted, bending backward like a kangaroo’s to help him jump farther. He bounded forward at incredible speed, easily cutting apart anyone who came too close.

  The heavily-armored Iron Bear leapt into his path, shield raised. Of all the base’s fighters, he had the sturdiest defense, especially with his shield. It was a thick slab, plain and flat, and was made from a strong metal alloy. Few things in the wastelands could even scratch it.

  Roste’s sword came hacking down.

  As easily as a hot knife through butter, Roste’s sword cleaved Iron Bear’s shield in half. It didn’t stop, cutting the mighty warrior down the center of his body from his head down to his legs. As Iron Bear began to split apart, Roste swiped his weapon crosswise at the waist, removing his legs. The mountain of a man, who moments before had seemed like a moving fortress, tumbled to the ground with his shield in six pieces.

  His sword! There was something going on there! Hellflower could see it.

  Roste was enormously powerful but certainly was not strong enough to cleave someone like Iron Bear so cleanly in half. His weapon was particularly thin, and its edge was outlined in a faint black line. It was that strip of black that was responsible for the sword’s unparalleled keenness. This was no ordinary sword – it was a high-frequency particle blade!

  Hellflower had only ever heard of them. Supposedly, somewhere else in the wastelands, someone had dug one up. It was a masterpiece of the ancient days that vibrated on a molecular level and could cut almost anything. A weapon like this was sharper than anything one could imagine and could even cut iron apart as easily as one would cut paper.

  Roste was a terror, and with this weapon in his hands, who could stand against him? Even before Hellflower could fire her gun, he was bearing down on her – too quickly for her to defend herself!

  Just as the Academician was preparing to cut her in two, Cloudhawk – invisible and sped up by the power of his cloak – swept in between them. He held his exorcist rod up in the path of the particle blade. Surprisingly, even the ancient technological wonder couldn’t split this minor relic from the Elysian lands. However the screech that issued from their clash was deafening, and cracks appeared along the exorcist rod’s surface.

  “Now! Do it now!”

  Hellflower fired the rifle right into Roste’s chest. The impact shoved him back several feet, but his adaptive body curled back on his legs like coiled springs. In the midst of being knocked back, he was already preparing to launch back at them!

  “Get out of the way!”

  Cloudhawk, benefiting from the speed granted by his cloak, grabbed Hellflower and yanked her out of Roste’s path. Moments later, Roste’s powerful legs shot him forward like a rocket, and he slammed into the wall at full force. Half of it collapsed, leaving an enormous hole.

  Roste clambered out of the dusty hole with his sword in hand, grinning darkly. “You are no match. Submit. Make this easier on yourself. Do not fret giving your power to me. You will not be entirely destroyed. Your will and tenacity will live on within me. Stand with me. Stand at the peak of biological perfection!”

  Cloudhawk could not deny that in terms of skill, Roste was no less capable than the Bloodsoaked Queen.

  The Queen, aside from her extraordinary skill, derived her powers from the might of relics. In contrast, Roste’s abilities came from him alone. His body was an unnatural freakish thing that could adapt to anything. He feared neither fire, ice, water, knife, nor bullet. Perfection was not an exaggeration.

  “You think you’re the most perfect thing in the wastelands, eh? Stop with your bullshit!” Cloudhawk spied the spot in Roste’s chest where Hellflower had shot him. Although it hadn’t injured him or left a hole, he could tell that the muscle tissue was damaged. “You ain’t shit compared to someone else I’ve come across!”

  1. The superior siege engine.

  118 Mad Torture

  Cloudhawk was naturally referring to the Caliph of the Sands. When he fought the demon, before the end, he was barely able to make a dent in that monster’s skin. The demon had even been able to catch bullets out of midair.

  Roste was strong, but he was at most comparable to the Bloodsoaked Queen. His body was malleable, but at best, he was like a combination of the demon’s fallen lieutenants. Compared to the demon? He was nothing.

  “What did you say?!”

  Veins bulged out against his pale blue flesh. This body was his pride, his masterpiece, the tool he’d spent his life cultivating to perfection. Cloudhawk’s scorn was an affront he couldn’t tolerate.

  The wound
to his chest healed quickly. After a few moments, only the slightest mark remained.

  Hellflower was preparing to take another shot when Roste once more began to change. His body shifted from burly and muscled to slithery and streamlined, built for explosive speed and power. When he moved towards them again, he was wholly one-third faster than he was before.

  Cloudhawk swung his staff to try and dissuade the Academician but missed and swung through a vague afterimage. With realization spreading across his face, Cloudhawk was too late in turning and felt a fierce blow to the back of his neck. Everything began to spin, and he hit the ground with a dull thud.

  Hellflower’s finger was on the trigger when Roste’s particle sword sheared it in two. Quick as a flash, he swung again and the weapons master’s hands were severed above the wrist. Before she could even feel the pain, Roste shoved his masterwork blade into her body.

  Struggling to get back up, Cloudhawk turned his head in time to see Hellflower collapse in a pool of blood and lose consciousness. With his work done, the Academician snatched up his cane once again as his body shrunk. Little by little, he withered until the five-foot-tall bag of bones people recognized returned. He put his glasses back on and hung the strange finger-bone necklace around his neck.

  “Take them away!”

  Another blow. Cloudhawk’s world went dark.

  Two mutant bodyguards lifted him and left the secret chamber.

  Roste was exhausted, drenched in sweat. For all the power inside him, it seemed his old body could barely bear the strain. As his boney fingers played over his necklace, the light in his eyes hardened. “I will succeed. I must. All that remains is the power of the demon hunters, and then, I will be the most perfect specimen in the entire world!”