He was there, Neshoba knew the reptile was hiding in a shack located in the middle of the Georgian woods. Months of tracking, the deaths, the unanswered questions. It could all finally come to an end. Claire was online but silent so as not to distract Neshoba when he would finally confront the monster and put an end to the madness.
The hunter readied his pistol, loaded with enchanted bullets that could punch through the thickest armour of any tank. He dons the Gauntlets of Gridmire. Technically, the gauntlets are thin leather gloves, besides a thick plate of steel armour. However, it still has the same enchantment used in the famed gauntlets used by some of the most famous martial artists from a time long gone. Capable of channelling an immense amount of energy into the target that was struck to inflict the maximum amount of damage possible. They were overkill, but they were tools necessary to kill the creature Neshoba was meant to put down. It was against the wishes of the Order, but it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission at that point.
Neshoba stalked to the door, his foot light and easy as he made his way over there. He could grab his rocket launcher and blow the shack to smithereens, or unload an entire magazine from his light machine gun in the boot of his car and tear the shack apart with a single volley. However, after seeing the aftermath of destruction brought upon by the mercenaries, a loud approach never worked. Neshoba needed to go in quietly and strike up close. They may not be as skilful as Jackson in a fight, but Neshoba was confident that months of constant engagement would’ve tired the reptile out. An advantage he wouldn’t go to waste.
With a swift kick followed by intensive breaching procedures at frightening speeds. His finger was firm on the trigger and ready to pull it the second he saw the reptile. Neshoba was ready for a brawl. Instead, he found no one. Jackson was already gone.
Neshoba was close, so close! Yet despite his best efforts getting to Jackson’s location as fast as possible to kill him. The reptile was gone. However, it was clear that Jackson didn’t go to the shack to rest. He came there with a war plan.
‘Shit!’ Neshoba mumbled before reaching for his earpiece to speak with Claire. ‘They are not here. I’m too late to get to them.’
‘Dammit!’ Claire swore at the other end, releasing a breath she had held on for what could be a long time. An unsatisfactory conclusion to the tension, but thankful that her old friend was okay. ‘Well, since you are there. Is there anything of use?’
Scattered across the workbench were various tools and ingredients. Like gunpowder, nails, magnesium, potassium nitrate, tin cans, and more. Stuff the reptile had gathered from the merc corpses, scavenged around, or stolen from stores he happened to come across. Next to them were half-finished or failed designs of Jackson’s homemade grenades and flashbangs. From the sketches on the table and cut-up PVC pipe, it also seemed that the reptile also built some sort of potato cannon.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
‘Jackson was making weapons,’ Neshoba nonchalantly said to Claire. ‘From the look of things, they were preparing for something big. It doesn’t seem like they were making tools on the go, but it looks like the target is planning on taking the fight to the mercs. So just to be safe, keep an eye out for any locations of possible interest near here. Anything ProTech, or something relating to the previous target they murdered. The reptile shouldn’t be too far.’
To his left, he noticed a simple jury-rigged chemistry set and a few empty Abilify bottles. Immediately, his mind went to a dark place, and he assumed that Jackson got hooked on something.
This is bad, Neshoba thought to himself as he noticed needles and a bloodied rag at the corner. Believing that Jackson had fully broken down and started using substances to cope with a changed world, or the fact that his mind had fallen apart.
‘Jackson went off the deep end.’ Neshoba continued, ‘poor guy seemed to have taken up some kind of illicit substance. From the smell alone, I assume meth. Looks like they couldn’t handle any of it.’ He bit his lip, not wanting to comment any further. For he saw that even the strongest, even a formal member of the Order, could break and fall apart. To Neshoba, killing Jackson would be an ethical thing to do for the reptile as much as it was necessary to defend humanity.
With the homemade weapons and the drug lab, Neshoba concluded that Jackson was going on a suicide mission or that his mental decline had caused him to gear up and turn himself into a deranged weapon against anyone who stood against the reptile’s path of destructive and misguided vengeance.
However, something caught his eye. There were a few leftover ingredients on the table. There were fly agarics, sugar, some black henbane…
Then it hit him. Those instruments were not some kitchen to create cheap kicks or ways to cope with his new world. Jackson was making something far worse. A combat enhancement, a violent cocktail that even the Order made illegal to use or create. Though primitive and very basic compared to the pure form of the drug, there was no doubt that Jackson had made something equally dangerous to both the user and everyone Jackson would go against. The reptile had made Rage.
‘Jesus, Claire! We have a problem.’ Neshoba blared before running out of the shack to head to his car. ‘The target made Rage! I say again, the target made Rage. Jackson has organised an attack and they are going on the offensive.’
‘Nes, it’s worse. I did some digging on ProTech, and a lot of hired guns recently turned up at a research facility, about 40 minutes from here if you break the speed limit. The place is now on high alert. If you head there now, you can stop Jackson or kill them at least.’
Neshoba raised a brow. ‘But why there? What makes that place important?’
