Who's Badlands?

-cringe warning-

read at the cost of your own brain cells.

prologue
On the night that the moon glowed brightly and the starry sky draped ever so delicately over the once peaceful world, howls and roars of pain and fury broke the silence of the night air like an angry, bursting dam. Swords and spears clashed, arrows soared through the sky, and blood, both red and purple splashed through the land as the warriors fought for their lives. It has been this way for years. Ever since the phantoms were driven out by the ancient alphas, they’ve been plotting revenge, and now it came. The animals had to rally together in such a short amount of time, and the alphas were nowhere to be seen. Both jammer and phantom have suffered without end, but neither would give in, and both sides were trying to outlast the other.

Amongst the turmoil, one animal- a cougar larger than the rest, leaped upon a frightened phantom, and tore them to shreds. His claws were already caked with the blood of his enemies, and his eyes were scorching across the battlefield, searching for his next victim. Before he could sink his teeth into another phantom warrior, the tentacles that seemed to belong to the entire night sky, had latched on to his body. With a jolt of it’s deadly electricity, the cougar fell to the boggy, bloodsoaked ground, twitching. Before the phantom could even acknowledge his small victory, a stray arrow from an archer pierced his soft and vulnerable eye, and he too, fell to his death. These horrid fates were not uncommon in those frightful days, in fact, this was the fate of thousands of pitiful warriors, that may or may not have died for a cause. Both sides knew that this war was going to slowly wither themselves away, but refuse to surrender. With this mentality of foolish persistence, their once bountiful and precious world was going to meet its end.

Juneberry
The once green and dew covered grass, were now yellowish and crunching under Juneberry’s massive, cougar paws as she trotted to the other side of the camp for guard duty. Juneberry both loved and hated guard duty. She could have hours, if not more, to sit in peaceful solitude, but she would have to endure the ominous noises and the cold of the nights all alone (or worse, with flutter, the loopy, crippled, bright purple fox that was good for nothing except for keeping watch and blurting out stupid things. He unfortunately was better at the latter). Twigs broke, and ferns crackled, sending eerie sounds echoing through the empty field as she walked. The suspense was filling Juneberry with anxiety. Despite being inside the fortress for years, she felt uneasy living out here, where the clearing ends and the forest starts. She always felt as if a hoard of phantoms would suddenly burst out of the foliage to spear her like a helpless fish. Juneberry shuddered. It has been about a month since the last battle she has been in. that was the very battle in which the leader of the cougars- her leader, had been killed. Without a leader, most of the cougars have pulled out of the war, and only a few like Juneberry remained.

“What idiots. On their own, they are no match for the hordes of those wretched phantoms.” muttered Juneberry, to herself, as she sat down at her post. Suddenly, Juneberry felt something, like a prickle along her spine. It was as if something was looming behind her, waiting to swallow her whole. She instinctively swiveled around, to see something bright purple flash by. It was an oddly familiar shade of purple….

“AAAAUUUGHHHHHHHH!” rang out a voice from behind, and Juneberry panicked. She ducked, rolled, and ran in a little circle before scrambling muzzle-first into a wall. It took her a second to get back to her senses, and when she eventually did, she found herself staring into the overly amused face of Flutter, the fox.