Sweet Venom Arc 03 Ch. 13

"You're packing some heat, girl." He gurgled, drooling trickling down his chin. "Let's see if your back folds or not."

She knew she should have just pulled the trigger on the SAFU; it was loaded. He would be dead by now. But as he raised the hook, she caught a glimpse at the nomad, their dead, empty eyes, their mouth hanging open in what would have been a heart-wrenching scream as the hook came down and...

She dropped the SAFU and immediately raised her hands up to catch the hook as it hurtled towards her face. The metal met with her hands with a loud thump. The Baron was strong, but Seeth was stronger. As they stood against one another, the Baron's arms quivered and a dripping, toothy grin appeared.

"Well that I did not expect!" He inhaled her scent deeply, his sweaty belly pushing against her torso as he forced her back. "Quite the find! You'd make a fine apprentice with strength like that!"

"Only the best for you, you fucking cunt!"

Seeth locked her arms, ensuring the hook would not collide with her face, slowly sliding backwards until her shoulders bumped against the cold wall.

The Baron licked his lips again, his breath thick with putrid-smelling alcohol and meat. As he pressed the hook closer to her, the impaled nomad seemed to lean in closer, almost as if it was taunting her.

"Surrender to me, czarite and I'll show you a feast that will blow the idea of civility clean from your mind!"

"The fuck makes you think I want anything to do with your kind, Baron?" Seeth spat, feeling her body tense up as more of the Baron's sweaty body pressed up against her.

"I know what you are, czarite." He stared down, deep into her eyes, their arms still locked. "You're a monster, trying to reject your true nature. You're not here to fight us. You're here to fight yourself." He broke into a deep chortle, his shoulders shaking. "You've deluded yourself into thinking you're one of them. You are not. Your teeth would be better wrapped around their bones than bared at me."

"You got one part of that right, Baron." Seeth forced him back a couple of ground-shaking steps, finally freeing some space between them.

She pushed up against the wall behind her and kicked her leg out, booting the Baron straight in the knee with a deep crack. He dropped as his leg gave out, coming face to face with Seeth. As he roared in pain, she pulled the hook free of his hands, meeting his desperate grapple with an explosive headbutt, sending a shower of blood and teeth all over the floor as her carapace met with his mouth. She caught him as he tumbled backwards with the point of his hook, slamming it straight into his shoulder, sinking several inches of it straight into his body.

"I am a monster."

She clutched the handle of the hook with one hand, locking him in place, and launched several shattering punches into his face and neck with her other hand. Her jabs knocked chunks free from his already damaged face, splattering more blood and teeth against the walls. His heavy frame shuddered violently as she hit him, over and over again.

"You'll never fit in with them. No matter what you do." The Baron gargled, spitting blood with every slurred syllable.

Furious, she reeled back again, keeping her hand firmly on the hook's handle, and kicked him with all her might in the centre of his chest.

The hook tore free of its flesh prison in a brutal spray of gore. The Baron's mountainous corpse was hurled back into the corridor, skidding to a stop after slamming into the wall, leaving a significant dent as he fell onto a dead Rager. She quickly pulled the limp corpse off the hook and slung the weapon onto her shoulder. She grabbed the SAFU off the floor, and dove behind the dead Baron.

Leaning over the mass of fur, blubber and blood, she sent several more shells down range as the Baron's initial confidence waned. The shots ruptured the remaining Barons who were stepping over their dead kin, when a louder, metallic sounding footstep suddenly grabbed her attention.

Emerging from the very end of the corridor, a gigantic Baron clad in grey steel stomped into view, wielding a massive shield attached to his left arm. He practically filled the entire corridor. His legs had been replaced with four spider-like legs. His body and head were completely protected by the giant slab of metal he wielded, several inches thick at the very least.

"STAY BEHIND GORVUE, WE CLOSE THE DISTANCE AND FUCKING GUT HER!" A Baron called out from behind the metal goliath, the sound of his advancement echoing loudly down the corridor.

Seeth reached for her slug ammunition, but stopped as she heard a metallic screech from the hanger. A Famished was pushing itself through the broken pane in the door. Although still holding, the door was heavily bent out of shape and what was once a small rectangle of glass was now a torn open hole, big enough for the Famished to pour through as the axe wedged in the handle rattled loudly.

As the Famished clattered to the floor, its attention was immediately directed at the viscera-covered controller, who was dripping with Baron blood and taking cover against a corpse.

It bared its blades and charged at Seeth, whilst the stomping further down the corridor slowly made its way closer.

Not wanting to damage the door further, Seeth grabbed the hook from her shoulder and swung it at the Famished as it leapt through the air, blades first. Her reach was longer than its, and the hook swatted the awful thing out of the air in a single, violent motion. The hook slammed through its neck and sent it crashing into the wall. As it clattered to the ground, Seeth drove her foot onto its back and tore the hook free, pulling its head off in the process. A splutter of blood and brown fluid erupted from its severed neck and it ceased moving, but another Famished had already pulled itself through the door.

Shit, SHIT! Famished first, I have to protect the nomads!

She snatched up the SAFU again, quickly loading it with more tungsten shells and clubbing the approaching Famished with the side of the shotgun, sending it flying back down the corridor in pieces. As another was trying to pull itself free through the hole, its metal limbs snagging on the jagged edges, Seeth slammed the barrel of the gun into it, hard, and forced it back through the hole. The SAFU's deadly barrel was aimed directly through the hole as the Famished screamed in its own horrifically unique manner at her.

She unloaded the whole magazine through the hole in rapid succession, furiously pumping the SAFU with each thunderous blast. As fast as lightning, she spun around and loaded four more slugs into her gun, taking aim at the gigantic metal beast that was shovelling corpses aside. The scrape of a giant butcher's blade echoed around the barge as it made its way closer.

Can't see the fucker's head! Guess I'm going for centre mass.

She aimed the SAFU, slowly this time, standing tall and strong in the middle of the corridor.

*BLAM*

A near deafening, metallic ring sounded, as though someone had shot a church bell with a cannon. A hole the size of a watermelon punctured through the baron's shield, right in the middle. He ground to a stop. His blade dropped out of his hand as he looked down at the hole in his stomach, showing just the peak of his chin.

*BLAM*

Gunfire ripped and tore through the corridor again, but this time, the Baron fell back instantly, collapsing to the floor with nothing but a bloody stump above the neck. There was a second, gaping hole in his defence.

As his body fell, Seeth came face to face with her final opponents, the last two Vora Barons on the ship. One was cradling their now missing arm, cleanly torn from their body by one of Seeth's shrapnel shots. The other raised her own weapon, taking aim at Seeth.

*BLAM-chuck-chik-BLAM*

Two more precise shots hit centre mass, punching both Barons down cleanly. Their corpses dropped to the floor with the same heavy, ground-shaking thump as the others.

With the Barons dealt with, Seeth turned her attention back to the hangar. She cleared her way through the remaining Famished that had trickled through the door with ease. She slammed the nose of her gun back through the window and fired, fired, and fired once more. She took a few steps back, reloaded the SAFU, then fired through the door. The squealing, gurgling sounds of the Famished on the other side of the door slowly dyed down. Even after Seeth had finished firing the SAFU, the echo of its shells continued to bounce down the corridor, and ring in the nomad's ears.

The hangar door was destroyed, riddled with highly compromising holes the size of a man's fist, punched straight through the solid metal.

The sound of combat faded away. The screams, the cries and the laughter had stopped, and the sudden quiet that enveloped them was deafening, heavy, almost. Vora Baron viscera dripped onto the floor and trickled down through the grates.

There was a pressure building in the barge, in the corridor, the space she was in suddenly felt so very small as Seeth looked around, breathing heavily, at the hundreds of gallons of blood that now plastered the damaged surfaces, at the piles of corpses that dwarfed the common man, at the mutilated, dead abominations littering the hangar. One victory. All this, for one victory.

She felt like she was going to burst, when -

The surviving nomads around her began to cheer. They cheered with all their hearts, they threw their arms around one another and cried with relief into each-other's shoulders. Slowly, as Seeth straightened herself up and re-holstered the SAFU cannon, she felt all of their eyes land on her. She pulled her axe out of the door and, as calmly as she could, slowly walked further out into the corridor to face them.

She was stained in Vora Baron blood. She must have looked awful, terrifying, like some sort of monst-

But as Seeth looked around at the nomads, the expressions they wore on their faces weren't ones of fear, or apprehension. Nor were they even ones of lust, and obsession.

They were thankful.

She had restored hope to this little colony of nomads, saved them from a slow, desperate and inevitably agonising death. She had beat the Vora Barons. A nomad had defeated the Vora Barons. And now, in the aftermath of the wreckage, the carnage, of a literal bloodbath that now stained the sides of what would have been their graves, Seeth had given them something incredible.

She had given them hope.

Today, she wasn't a monster.

Today, she was a hero.

And as the nomads approached her, took her hands, threw their arms around her and thanked her truly from the bottom of their hearts, Seeth couldn't help but think, that was just one ship. A small ship at that. This was her first contract of what could be hundreds. Seeth had gotten the drop on these ones too, and they didn't get the chance to bring out their big guns... this was only going to get harder. She didn't know how to feel, how to react, or what to say in that moment, as the nomads clambered around her and celebrated their survival.

But she did know that she wasn't going to stop.

Sighing gently, Seeth stowed the SAFU on her back and dropped the hook to the floor. Turning away she reached for the communicator strapped to her belt.

"Garnet? It's me. Send a pick-up, we have survivors who need medical aid."

Seeth glanced back at the nomads, who were still celebrating, and showed no signs of stopping any time soon. A small smile teased at the corner of her lips.

It may only be one ship, but for these nomads, that's their whole lives...

She clicked the button on her communicator again, interrupting the otter's torrent of questions that were currently cracking through the receiver.

"Also, bring me a change of clothes. I... really need a shower."