Wicke adjusted the strap that reached sideways across her chest. Her lanyard hung from a hole in the center. It read, "PSEF Scout 1019 Wicke".
Of course, Wicke wasn't her actual name. Her real name was Lucina. But when she was contacted by RimOps and given the special opportunity to become a full-fledged scout for PSEF, she took on the codename Wicke. It was for privacy and secrecy reasons.
Nobody, not even her family, could know exactly what kind of work her employment entailed. She did, however, receive quite a large sum of money for her efforts. It was enough to keep her family healthy and happy, and so they didn't tend to ask many questions.
Wicke was young. She was just barely over the age of eighteen. Her birthday had been a few months earlier, and that was when she began to undergo her training. It was rigorous, her coach Charybdis mysterious and exacting. Wicke could never tell what she was thinking, and if she was disappointed in her or not.
Wicke was a very anxious, neurotic individual, and her training had only amplified those tendencies. She was determined to prove herself to Charybdis and to her family. Today was her first mission.
It wasn't anything special – just run-of-the-mill nighttime border patrol of a sector outside the city of Lachlan. Because the humans of eras past had bombarded this area with nuclear weapons, Lachlan had to be enclosed inside a semi-circular magical barrier at all times to prevent radiation from seeping in. While the radiation had begun to die down, it was still unsafe for monsters to inhabit the area. Scouts like Wicke, however, could visit the area, deemed "the Badlands" for short periods of time to measure radiation levels and tag ferals.
RimOps had trained Wicke to become a scout for PSEF – the Private Sapien Extermination Force. There was a third, secret objective – to find humans and eradicate them – but since Leviathan had captured the last living human, Dr. Huxley, that part was no longer necessary. Wicke had it easy.
She sat under the shaded roof of the caravan – which looked more like a trailer than a traditional caravan. It was grey and orange and had malleable tires that morphed to fit the terrain. Beside her sat the driver, a veteran scout named Double J, and a young voxen man named Slick. Slick's orange fox fur fit his sleek black scout outfit stylishly. His nine white tails lay delicately to the side. He was juggling in his hand a bag of new camera batteries. Double J was a burly ram with horns that made Wicke feel claustrophobic and small.
The caravan rolled smoothly and silently into the Badlands in the dark of night, sliding over rocks and grass, brushing the tips. They swerved around heavy vegetation with the sun beating down on the caravan's metal surface. Double J pulled it to a stop as Wicke spotted a camera tied to a tree with black metal wire. She and Slick got out, taking the batteries from the bag and planting it into the camera.
"That's one down, twenty-four to go," Slick said with a sigh, as if this job bored him. That made Wicke feel a little more confident. If changing camera batteries like this was all she needed to do, she would complete her first mission with flying colors.
Just as Wicke was about to step inside the sliding caravan doors, a shift in her peripheral vision alerted her to a change in the surroundings. She saw a monstrous lizard-like creature sudden materialize out of thin air to her left. It was one-eyed bristleback, a horrifying cross between a giant tortoise, a salamander, and a porcupine. It was fiercely territorial and could camouflage itself at will. Because of this, it was a scout's nightmare. They were nearly impossible to track down and tag, so they often remained unchecked, popping out unexpectedly in remote areas and brutally killing the entire border patrol. What's worse, they barely slept. Wicke had trained for this moment, just in case, but as soon as she locked eyes with its murderous, belligerent gaze, all that went straight out the window.
Immediately Slick dropped the bag of batteries and pushed his hands out, fire gathering at the tips of his fingers. He grit his teeth as he released a fireball so powerful it rocked the caravan. It shot out like a laser and hit the bristleback square between the eyes. It bellowed angrily, shaking its head as if trying to dispel a few annoying fleas. It lowered its head, unfazed by the attack, preparing to change. Its long, serpentine tail wriggled spasmodically like an anaconda in an electric chair.
"Get down!" Double J shouted, tackling Wicke to the ground. The world tumbled before her eyes and the impact blurred her vision. The dark grey sky turned to a blur as she felt Double J's massive weight on her chest. Suddenly, the weight was lifted as the ram jumped up and lowered his head, his horns pointed at the bristleback.
Wicke stumbled to her feet, tripping as she clumsily tried to run away as Double J stood his ground, preparing to meet the bristleback head on, who dashed towards them faster than seemed possible. It was light on its feet, but even still it pummeled the ground as it thundered towards them. It opened its mouth to reveal rows of dagger-like teeth. The inside of its throat began to glow an ominous red and Double J could see saliva and chucks of meat caught in between its incisors.
As it bore down upon the three hapless scouts it released a beam of infernal fire that dwarfed Slick's puny fireball. The force of the explosion blew Wicke into a cluster of bushes as the entirety of the caravan went up in flames.