Chapter 3 Swamp

The swamp which Ben and Ricky were trying to explore was created due to the crashing of destroyed alien ships, even though the ships were removed for research purposes, the scientists couldn't explain what caused these swamps to be created.

First, they planned to stop at the place that was attacked by the beast,

'Clockworks street'.

"Ben look at the old clocktower it is totally destroyed", said Ricky while inspecting the claw marks and damage over other buildings.

" Looks like only the clock tower was destroyed ", thought Ben and was trying to figure out what was the reason for the beast to attack the clock tower.

"Ricky do you know anything about the rank of the beast," asked Ben with a wry smile. "I don't know buddy, but I think it's an unknown species of sound beast," said Ricky, explaining his assumptions based on the damages caused and the size of claw size on the buildings and its reason to attack the old clock tower as it makes a sound every hour.

In each building on which the beast placed its paws, there was a 35-inch hole and there were also burn marks on some places, which they assumed were the places where the beast's tail would have landed.

(Beasts can improve their ranks by eating and hibernating which increases the mutations inside their body which increases the strength of the beasts 10 folds leading them to grow and helping them increase their levels and ranks among other beasts. Cyborgs can  grow by enhancing their gear and also by acquiring upgrades and new mods, they can also increase their ranks among other cyborgs by customizing themselves which is really hard as they would have to understand every part of the technology in their body.)

" Ricky let's go let's not waste our time, we must return home before sundown, let's go to the swamp," said Ben looking at the time in his watch.

They walked slowly towards the swamp, Ben started recalling some funny events which happened in his Grandpa's workshop today.

They reached the swamp. They quickly wore swamp suits which help them explore the swamp easily.

Ben and Ricky made their way through the swamp, the swamp was always silent and people didn't visit it often. So Ben and Ricky entered the swamp and went in search of the newly discovered plant species which was said to have remarkable healing qualities.

Ben wanted to find ways to cure his eyesight because he always wanted to go to school without facing any discrimination, but he couldn't become a cyborg as it was costly to do gene modification to cure his eyes or insert nanites to become a cyborg as his family can't afford them.

"Ricky look at that, it's a frog, my grandpa said these species were very small and we can easily crush them with our foot, but look at its size it is gigantic," said Ben staring excitedly at every species around him.

They slowly evaded every place that seemed dangerous and also attracted the attention of the surrounding beasts.

Ricky took out a mutation radar and started to scan his surroundings and found that the mutation levels were very higher than it was at the swamp when they had entered it, he showed his readings to Ben and suggested leaving the place immediately as high mutation levels are sometimes habitats to high-level beasts.

But Ben hesitated for some time as he was desperate to find the plant. Ben searched his surroundings for some time and was preparing to leave. When he turned to leave he felt a sudden urge to turn again, upon turning he found the plant he wanted, it was inside a pod behind a tree trunk hidden in plain sight, but it was hard to perceive the correct location as it was covered by the shadow of a huge Banyan tree which was there.

Ben called Ricky and started to move fastly to the location of the plant. He saw that the plant was inside a huge pod and was covered in half by a mucous membrane.

Ricky immediately scanned the pod-shaped thing covered in the mucous membrane, but he couldn't scan it and thought his radar was malfunctioning.

While Ricky was checking the radar, Ben started to go near the pod-shaped thing and was about to pull the plant from the mucous membrane.

Suddenly Ben disappeared and Ricky stood there still because he couldn't perceive what happened.

The plant started to suddenly go inside the pod-shaped membrane and was disappearing and Ricky was still searching for Ben, when he saw the plant going inside the pod-shaped membrane, he had a hunch that Ben must have been taken by the pod and was starting to rush into the pod preparing to break it open using a blade which he formed from his hands using his mod. When he stepped near the pod it suddenly disappeared and Ben was lying in a blood pool.

"Bennnn.." shouted Ricky retracting his blades; sweat started pouring out from his body, he took a deep breath and took his friend in his arms to start first aid.

Ricky was shocked to find a big hole in the place where Ben's heart should have been, Rick took an emergency computerized heart from his emergency kit and placed it in Ben, Ricky lost all hope seeing his friend's condition and was breaking down. He checked for a pulse and didn't get any.

Ricky placed a body monitor on Ben and changed his legs into steel legs with boosters using his mod energy and took a hoverboard out of his backpack after removing his suit completely.

He took Ben in his hands and started to move towards Ben's house, enhancing his speed using the boosters. He did this all in mere seconds as he was always prepared for any emergencies.

He made calls along the way to Ben's grandpa and grandma, as he knew they were proficient in the medical field due to their past lives, and they were still known to treat some patients who aided their help including Rick's grandpa whose condition couldn't be treated by modern methods as he was old.

He told them about his situation and told them to make preparations as he was going to bring him into grandpa Tim's lab. As he was moving he felt a slight pulse in the body monitor which relieved him a bit, so he rushed increasing his speed another notch it almost took away all his mod energy.

He made it to the lab within 2 minutes and placed Ben in the place where grandpa Tim told him.