Private/Closed Bootleg Bros. Ultimate - The Banished Campaign (Act 1)

[comic]

CAPTAIN KEYES​

Keyes watched as David familiarized himself with the plasma pistol, then declared he’d keep watch. Jacob had to admit, he didn’t really trust the man. Yes, he’d proven instrumental in their initial escape from their cells, but ‘David Kavarr’ bore the attitude of a man in it for himself, and himself alone. When the going got tough, the captain doubted David would be very reliable. He’d seen quite a few Insurrectionists bearing similar natures. Outlaws, bandits, people with a death wish...

As David sauntered off, Keyes turned his attention fully to the console, interacting with the central frame for a moment. This was... odd. Everything about this place was completely different from the Covenant architecture he’d grown used to, further enforcing the idea that this must have been a splinter faction.

The strangest part was that, despite prior experience tapping into Covenant mainframes... he couldn't bypass the security on the console. After a couple tries, Jacob took a step back with a slight sigh, glancing toward Copen. “Their cybersecurity is tighter than I remember... do you have experience with hacking? Want to have a go?” Keyes offered, making room for Copen to step in should he decide to.

Meanwhile, as the second group reached the rightmost door, it too hummed and slid open at their approach. Within was another short hallway, identical to the one on the left, but something stood out - there was a creature inside, in the middle of walking its way through the hall and toward them.

Unlike the brutes already seen before, this alien had a thick-shelled carapace of purplish-black, orange body armor covering its waist and chest. Natural bone-spikes, thick and dull, emerged from the back of its elbows, and formed hard caps on the knees, with its feet akin to that of an elephant in appearance - just much smaller.

On its back it carried a pyramid-shaped device that was connected to the mask it wore over its mouth, appearing like a gas mask. Its small, beady, orange eyes glittered like a glowing beetle just above the mask, and it swiveled to meet the eyes of the first being it saw when the door opened: Kazaak.

The alien stopped, staring back at them, and its eyes traveled up to JULIAN. The alien noticeably began to quiver as his left hand reached for a weapon hanging from his waist - a plasma pistol.​

 

[Fraseandchico]

JULIAN

Hardly paying attention to the Guardian behind him, JULIAN continued behind the Mantis known as Kazaaak, leading to a door - seemingly automatic. It was a hallway...with a creature inside. It was small, around the size of original-invasion era Sectoids. And it looked rather nervous while reaching for it's weapon upon seeing Kazaak and JULIAN, earning yet another mocking laughing, before JULIAN stopped and looked directly at it.

"Shoot the giant metal robot, I dare you." A taunt, it seemed, mocking the pointlessness of the alien trying to attack the robot. "I assure you, I won't be the one to kill you should you try. Chryssalid, slice him."

Oh, it felt good to try out giving orders to sentient beings for the first time instead of being forced to obey them. Fascinating.

 

[PaprusTeuton]

Kazaaak

They had come across a strange alien creature, which looked... scared? It quivered as it reached for what Kazaaak could only assume to be a pistol. But before he could do anything, JULIAN stepped forward. "Shoot the giant metal robot, I dare you," said the giant metal robot in question. "I assure you, I won't be the one to kill you should you try. Chryssalid, slice him."

Chryssalid? What's that? Is that some hidden companion of JULIAN's?
But as Kazaaak waited for this, he quickly realized that the robot was referring to him. He jumped onto the creature, sliced and bit the left arm to prevent it from grabbing the pistol, pinned the creature down with his weight, then turned to JULIAN. "Who you callin' Chryssalid!? I'm a Mantis!"

 

[comic]

Kazaak’s attack was enough to put the thick-skinned alien to the ground with a yelp, his attack exposing bioluminescent blue blood from its arm. Yet it wasn’t rendered helpless, as it let out a shout as the mantis spat back at JULIAN: “Me got claws, too!”

And his right claw raked across Kazaak’s own arm - and dug through his own carapace to expose the juicy bits underneath. This creature evidently had similar claws to the mantis himself, and the alien began to squirm under his weight, before shoving Kazaak off - it was much heavier than the lighter mantis, and growing frustrated. “You’s made big mistake, pickin’ on Banished! Now I’s gotta eats ya up!”​

 

[ArmedBlue]

Copen
​

While plasma pistols were not entirely new to Copen, the design and inner workings of the device he now held in his hand quickly got his interest. Relatively large weapons, with a similarly sized internal battery to match, from the looks of it. Was this type of weapon common in this world, or was it the preference of this faction and the Brutes?

His thoughts were interrupted by Keyes's words, the captain having trouble with cracking the system's defenses. The young man approached the consoles himself, looking over them for a moment, before he began to tap away, trying to make sense of things and figure out any methods of access he could utilize.

"My expertise might lie a little more in robotics," he admitted. "But I've got experience, yeah."​

 

[Gamingfan]

The Guardian
The Guardian too his time admiring the scenery, so when JULIAN came to a sudden halt, The Knight bumped into his back. For a second, he struggled see what was happening over the giant robot's frame, before deciding to simply move beside JULIAN.
Unfortunately, that meant he was to late to stop what was happening. The two least cooperative members of their group attacking the first sign of life they see. Fantastic.

“You’s made big mistake, pickin’ on Banished! Now I’s gotta eats ya up!” it cried as it fought back.

"Hold on! Wait!" The Guardian moved in front of JULIAN and waved his arms. "Can't we talk this out? We're not tasty, I swear!"

 

[comic]

CAPTAIN KEYES​

Keyes let Copen take over at the console, placing a hand on his chin as he watched the kid work. He’d taken a guess that Copen could have done something about this, given the way he carried himself, the design of the armor he wore. Jacob didn’t doubt some of that was a part of Copen’s body - prosthetics, to replace the organic that used to be there.

Copen’s fingers danced on the console, but the security was mightily staunch - unheard of for Covenant technology. Keyes doubted even a splinter faction would be more advanced. Maybe they were looking at this the wrong way, or—

“Got it,” Copen’s voice was a mutter under his breath as he took a step back, and the red monitor fizzled before it flashed. A strange, multi-triangular symbol appeared briefly before a map took its place.

“Good work, son,” Keyes let out a brief sigh, and leaned forward to look over the map. He didn’t recognize the landmass it depicted, which wasn’t surprising, he had spent the better part of two months in uncharted space after Reach. There was no telling where they were.

The map depicted an island, with a few points of interest indicated by the alien systems. Jacob squinted at the layout, before he drew a few conclusions. “We’re here,” he claimed, pointing at the icon indicating a point of interest toward the south of the island. At least the language was still the same as the Covenant. “Just a processing facility, not the main compound. Grakken Prison...”

He drifted his hand up, pointing at an icon at the northern tip of the island. “They have that labelled as an ‘Apex’—it’s an aerial station. We could find a bird and get off this rock...”

Keyes typed at the console, but an error flashed on the screen, roughly translating to ‘Insufficient Permission.’ More firewalls... how and why had the Covenant advanced their cybersecurity so quickly? He didn’t find what he was looking for. “I can’t find a schematic of this structure - not surprising, the Covenant don’t much care for that kind of thing. We should rendezvous with the others and discuss a plan of action.”

Meanwhile...

The grunt pulled out his plasma pistol, taking aim - before the voice of the knight stopped him. He let out a snort, cocking his head slightly to the side. “Maybe not on outsides...” he was eyeing the wound he’d inflicted on the mantis. “But me bets you’s insides much tastier! ‘Sides, you’d escapin’! Can’t haves that!”

He raised the pistol at Kazaaak.​