Sweet Venom Arc 03 Ch. 19

Eyes. All on her. She was being watched.

Seeth tried desperately to ignore them. The hunger gnawed at her insides; she was so close to that sweet release. Her mind was clouded and distracted, her thoughts only on the Mark before her, of indulging in Tora's body, running her hands over the demoness' skin, pinning her down and rutting her senseless.

She would look so much better drenched in me, wouldn't she? I already own her, she just doesn't know it yet.

But that crawling feeling along her spine would not go away. It itched at her shoulder blades, pulling Seeth away from her carnal desires. Her mind was torn, and both sides were as desperate as the other. One wanted to indulge, to let go and release. The other screamed at her to listen to her instincts, to be present, and to come out of the haze.

Fuck. FUCK! FINE, WHATS TEN MORE MINUTES AFTER SIX MONTHS OF WAITING?!

Her frustration boiled over as she begrudgingly let go of the sexual smog that was clouding her mind.

But the second she did, she felt her skin prickle and ignite, as though she had been pierced by thousands of tiny flaming arrows.

There were dozens of eyes, watching her through the Den's large glass windows.

Panic spread through her as she snapped her head around, to where she felt the staring coming from, but there was nobody there.

No! I can feel them! They're right there!

"Seeth? Are you okay -"

*PANG-PANG-PANG-PANG-PANG*

The Den shook violently. Tora gasped and threatened to fall over, but Seeth quickly reached out her hand and propped her up. Seeth, in contrast, seemed unfazed and remained in place, still staring at those unseen. The metallic thudding echoed around the Den, and the party, just on the other side of the door, slipped into a concerned silence.

And a blissful few seconds it was, for what would come next.

Several silver canisters suddenly penetrated the walls. They stuck there, protruding only a few inches into the room, but that was all the space they needed. A loud hiss filled the room.

Seeth immediately took a deep breath and held it. She eyed one of the closest canisters, and noticed a scratchy font etched into the protruding nozzle.

5%

"The fuck is tha..." Tora's voice trailed off immediately as the gas hit her.

At that moment, a ship flashed into vision through the glass. From inside, a squad of Vora Barons leered menacingly, gnashing their jaws and sharpening their weapons, all eyes on her. She didn't need to be able to hear what they were saying, as they spat, jeered and drooled at her person.

They have cloaking panels too?!

Seeth turned back to face Tora, but the demoness was already losing consciousness. She swayed side to side, before suddenly collapsing into Seeth's arms. Seeth's heart pounded in her chest; she could see the Barons docking at the Den already, preparing to board. Her party thudded to a stop, with the sound of multiple collapsing bodies filling the Den.

"Barons! The ventilation! Seeth!" Garnet stumbled out of the kitchen and into the lobby in a panic. He gestured back towards his office, but his voice was waning - he was about to collapse too. "Black Lance... arm... kill. Don't let them t-take... V..."

He fell to the floor, his voice stuck on his wife's name.

Seeth quickly scooped up the unconscious Garnet and, with Tora draped over her other arm, carried them quickly back down the corridor, and into Garnet's office. She laid them both down gently at the back of the room, doing her best to hide them behind the folding screen and the clothes rack.

The Den's forward airlocks hissed open, and the sound of the Baron's charge echoed through the Den, their heavy footsteps, their laboured breathing, and their clinking weapons.

"I WANT THEM ALL TAKEN ALIVE. WE'LL STRIP THEM ON THE SHIP, IN FRONT OF LOCKBLADE, UNDERSTOOD?"

Now... Why have you done this FUCKING NOW?!

Seeth's hands clenched into tight fists. Her heart was still hammering in her chest, although it wasn't just the adrenaline. She's been so close, so close to victory. And they'd snatched it away from her. She was beyond starving, her body aching with a selfish, deprived hunger. She stared down at Tora, and then at Garnet, and her thoughts drifted slightly to her friends, who were still in the loading bay, ripe and ready for Baron picking. She tried desperately to quench her fury - now was not the time for contemplating, every second mattered.

I need my gear. I need my weapons. I need to get downstairs.

She really was trying to stay focused, but those split sides of her psyche were pulsing with rage, and it was bubbling to the surface. A curiosity took over; she needed to know who dared to attack her, in her Den. She needed to see them with her own eyes.

So she slipped across the office again, back towards the corridor, and peered around the door.

Maruarding within the lobby, hazmat-suited Barons carrying massive silver casks on their shoulders stomped towards her, wearing black gas masks with bright blue lenses.

"I HEAR HER, SHE'S THIS WAY!"

Sense suddenly shuddered back through her mind. This wasn't - couldn't - be about revenge-killing Barons. This was about saving her friends' lives. Seeth leapt back across the room, out of their vision, searching frantically for the panic button. She still wasn't thinking clearly, her brain was foggy, but that heavy thumping of the Baron's getting closer helped her focus a little, and she finally reached down to Garnet's desk. "Thank you!" Seeth sighed with relief as she found both the panic button, and Garnet's emergency control panel. She smacked her hand onto the bright red button, causing all the fans in every room to spin up. The main buckhead doors slammed shut with a synchronous *BOOM* across the Den, sealing most of the Baron's forces within the lobby, at least for now.

As the fans drained the room of the Baron's noxious gas, Seeth cautiously sucked in a mouthful of air through the corner of her mouth. A wave of relief washed over her as she felt no change to herself, but everyone else was still out.

"Haw haw haw! Look at this, Lockblade's getting married! Sorry to crash the party." A pair of Barons had squeezed through the office door, both holding those giant silver caskets on their shoulders and suited with the same hazard suits and gasmasks. The Baron in front also held a one-handed super-sized taser rifle, a copper wire looping around its body and a thick black cable connected to a battery pack on the baron's thigh. "Caught you by surprise, have we?" He asked, noting Seeth's complete lack of armament with a yellow-stained toothy grin. "Such a shaaaame."

"We're taking our pound of flesh, today, Lockblade." The second Baron growled, glancing behind Seeth at Garnet's unmoving body. "And we're taking some much owed meat from your crew, too."

The taser rifle spat a handful of barbed darts at Seeth, slamming across her body and hooking into her skin, sending a paralysing discharge through the cables now connecting her to the Baron.

Her body tensed up and locked in place, her limbs quivering. She couldn't move.

A guttural roar of victory screeched out from behind the Baron's mask as he clambered forward, the lenses of his mask firmly locked onto the statue-still Seeth as the tac-tac-tac-tac of the taser rifle played out endlessly.

An unbridled rage forced itself to the front of her mind. This fat sack of maggot shit needed to die.

They all did.

He stomped across the room, reaching a gloved hand out towards Seeth... and then he froze.

Behind Seeth's pretty lips, a mouth full of daggers curled and snarled into view as the Controller roared back at the Barons, a half-synthesised, bassy screech like thunder at dawn, rumbling through their bodies and vibrating their bones.

She wrenched herself free of the electrical assault and bared her claws, plunging them into the Baron's suit. They pierced straight through his flesh, like daggers of purest ice, and with every ounce of furious strength she could muster, she raked the skin and muscle clean from his bones.

As he screamed out in agony, her other hand broke free of its electrical tension and snapped cleanly around his mask. The mask crumpled beneath her overwhelming grip, and the Baron instantly fell limp, as her claws punctured straight into his soft flesh. He collapsed with an earth-shaking *smack,* his taser rifle still clacking as it and the casket dropped to the floor.

"POUND OF FLESH YOU SAY?!" Seeth roared, yanking the remaining barbs out of her skin.

The other Baron stared, frozen in horror, his finger repeatedly slamming on the trigger of his own taser rifle. He dropped it to the floor and raised his arm to defend himself as Seeth lunged at his neck from across the room, slashing at his forearms and shunting him back against the wall. He leaned into her charge and went to slam his casket at her, but a surgically-precise slash of his wrists rendered his hands limp and ineffective. The casket rolled off his shoulder as the Baron lost his grip.

Overcome with rage, Seeth lunged at his neck again and clamped her teeth straight into the front of his throat. In one swift movement she tore the front half of his neck out cleanly and spat the pulsing flesh to the floor, then clamped her hands onto his head and tore the entire fat thing off in a single, clean pull. She launched it at the far wall of Garnet's office, where it hit with a sharp crack before splattering against the metal.

The front of her white dress was now splashed with a brilliant crimson.

Another crash rattled through the Den, but on the opposite side now.

The crash was followed by an alarming whirring, and the clacking of barbed clubs against the floor. Ragers. A second craft must have punched through the Den's walls further down.

The back-up.

With every exhale, a low growl escaped her throat. She determinedly snatched up both giant silver caskets, off of the floor, before moving to the corridor.

A line of Ragers, too numerous to count and too dangerous to ignore, were walking up the corridor, armed with barbed clubs and taser rifles. Their rage-engines, clamped to their backs, were spinning up to the furious hum. Behind her, the sealed blast-door to the lobby entrance fizzled and creaked; the Barons were cutting through the door. In between her and the rapidly-approaching Ragers lay her friends, still out-cold and frustratingly vulnerable. She forced her gaze away from the nomads, and focused her eyes on the Ragers.

"None of you are leaving this station alive." Seeth spat, her eyes twitching as her fists tightened on the caskets.

The Ragers screamed back at her and broke into a frantic sprint, thrashing and frothing at the mouth, clawing their way down the corridor at the Controller, when she launched the first casket, straight at their charge. Half a tonne of metal crunched and ploughed into their galloping bodies like a car crash, with an ear-splitting thwack. She managed to knock out several of the Ragers, but more of them poured out their barge, leaping over their dead, clubs in hand.

Seeth raised the second casket and clutched it with both hands, using the space where the loading bay intersected the corridor to fight. Her hands squeezed the metal, bending it to the shape of her palms as she swung the colossal keg at the approaching Rager.

*PANG*

The Rager was sent skittering back down the corridor, his body flapping like a plastic bag as the force of blow liquified his skeleton. A second Rager immediately leapt over the first and raised his club, but found no opening as Seeth swung the casket again, never letting its momentum drop. A hurricane of steel found its way to the Rager's face, this time in an upwards arc. His muscular body pinged into the ceiling, flattened and broken, punching into the ceiling tiles and getting tangled in the once-hidden cabling.

More of them approached, each as angry and deviant as the last, but each met with the bone-liquifying force of the blood stained casket, turning their once proud forms into little more than chunk addled slurry.

Seeth heard a loud, definitive clunk and hiss behind her, but all she saw was red. Every furious beat of her heart sent a fresh wave of fury coursing through her blood, filling every inch, every nook of her body.

Every swing of the casket sent a handful of bodies skittering back down the hallway, each body as broken and busted as the last, leaving a carpet of mangled limbs and spluttering rage engines.

Only two Ragers remained now, along with a Baron, who was still clambering through the breach-hole. Seeth launched the casket at the Rager further back, punching straight through him and embedding itself in the Den's wall, the Rager's body pinned and flattened between the two.

The last Rager screamed at her, frothing at the mouth and swinging for her face, before suddenly finding himself snatched up in the Controllers grasp. Her hands bent his body out of shape, crushing his bones, as though they were little more than cardboard.

The Baron in the pod stumbled out into the hallway after her lessers. That crazed look of insatiable hunger quickly disappeared from her eyes and the colour drained from her eyes, she watched Seeth dig her claws into the seizing Rager's body and rip him in two down the length of his body, heaving with every ounce of strength she had. Her dress now completely drenched in fresh Baron blood.

The Baron shuddered in horror as that wet cracking of a ribcage, meat still attached, ruptured through the Den, mixed with the sputtering sound of a dying rage engine. She turned on her heels and tried to clamber back into the breach pod, shaking as she heard the slop of the Rager's corpse being thrown to the floor, in two fleshy, dripping thumps.

Your turn.

Seeth locked onto the Baron and sprinted down the corridor, snatching the casket free from the wall. She raised it up and slammed it into the base of the Baron's back. The monster cried in pain, feeling her legs go numb, but managed to spin around as Seeth raised the casket again. A blade shot out from under the Baron's wrist, twelve inches long with a curious orange colour to its edge and she raised it to defend herself.

Seeth brought the casket down again on the baron, flattering her skull with it, the baron's defence doing little to save her own life, but as Seeth lifted the casket from the body, she heard a loud hiss emanating from the casket's dented silver body.

The blade had punctured the casket cleanly and a jet of ice-cold gas washed over her face, filling her mouth and whistling through her teeth.

The gas' effect was powerful and immediate. Her head spun and the den turned into a grey and red blur. She quickly threw the hissing casket away and watched as it sailed back down the corridor, only to be greeted with the sight of more Vora Barons, carrying their fresh haul out of the loading bay and towards the lobby...

A slither of salt and pepper fur, grasped crudely in the clutches of a Baron, dragging his body across the floor...

A golden lioness with a hand clutched around her throat, squeezing her tightly as the monster prepared her for transport...

The tail of a soft, white rat, visible for only a moment as she was pulled away from Seeth's blurred vision.

Baron hands were on her friends. Right now. The entire Den was at their mercy.

Her head spun, her thoughts a blur, she was barely able to keep herself upright. It was like the Den was a ship, riding the waves through the darkest of storms. Suddenly the ground gave way beneath her, and she stumbled. The momentum of the slight fall carried her. Again, her lurching stumble failed to find ground, the fall was larger this time.

A single coherent thought entered her mind; Stairs.

She braced herself as the momentum carried her straight to the bottom of the stairs, where a room cloaked in darkness awaited her. She fell back, thumping against the wall and braced herself, trying to move the gas out of her lungs. One breath at a time, her mind slowly stabilised, air in, then out, through blood stained, pursed lips. Her head swayed as the gas slowly left her lungs, and that red fog clouding her vision also started to lift. She was still angry, but not uncontrollably so anymore.

She wasn't sure how long it had taken for her to return to her senses, it could have been mere seconds or entire minutes, but the Den rumbled with the sound of approaching Barons. She could hear the approach of their heavy feet, slick with the blood of their fallen kin, and the jangle of their ammo belts, rattling across their bodies and hanging from their guns.

"Where the fuck she gone?!"

The Baron's grating voice echoed down the stairwell, and Seeth felt her heart jolt in her chest.

"Fuck wit! She's gone down there, where the obvious blood trail leads?!"

"She's killed three more of us, I say we bring her down. Boss can have his fill cold."

There was a grunt of agreement, followed by the rustling of weapons.

"I know you can hear us, Lockblade. You can stay down in your fuckin' hole and listen to your friends getting carted off, or you can come out and face the lead." One of the Barons bellowed, thumping his chest.

Seeth peaked out from behind the wall, glancing up the staircase to see it absolutely packed with fat, heaving Barons. They stood in a staggered formation, pointing their auto-cannons into the darkness, waiting for the slightest movement.

A frontal assault would be suicide. There was simply no way Seeth could get close without getting hammered by auto-cannon shells. She ducked back behind the wall and looked around the room; maybe she could pry the panels off, there must be something she could use as a shield, or a projectile...when a scream tore through her thoughts.

"NO! NOT AGAIN! I CAN'T GO BACK IN YOUR CAGES! STOP! SEETH! DIEGO! HELP ME, PLEASE!"

Those cries were followed by one of the most harrowing screams Seeth had ever heard, nothing but pure terror echoing through the Den.

Tivy?!

Seeth could hear a faint commotion now, the nomads were waking up, but the Barons were hell-bent on taking them, awake or not. Not that they would be able to put up much of a fight - in their slurred sleepy state, the nomads were unarmed and powerless versus the Barons that were now swarming the Den.

Tivy was still screaming, screaming with all the might her little body had, and prompting a wave of cruel laughter from the Barons blocking Seeth in.

"Listen to that, Lockblade. Ain't so tough when you're caught by surprise, are ya'?"

"If you touch a hair on her fucking head..." Seeth growled. She could feel it, her mind was on the cusp of something... she was reaching out, into the darkest and most forbidden parts of her psyche.

"That little shit? Haw-haw. Critters aren't worth the effort of butchering. Not enough meat." The Baron chortled. "We eat 'em whole. They have a nice crunch to them!"

The thought of Tivy being eaten alive, her precious little light extinguished by these monsters swelled inside Seeth's head, when they were suddenly interrupted: More commotion in the Den - it sounded like someone was fighting back.

"NO! SEETH HELP, PLEASE! SOMEONE! ANYONE!" Tivy cried out again, her voice hoarse and dry. A Baron further down the corridor suddenly yelled back.

"Someone shut that little shit up? I can't hear myself think."

*Thump*

And with that, Tivy fell silent.

"We're gonna drag all your friends out, one by one, Lockblade." Another Baron growled. She could hear the sinister snarl growing over his face as he spoke. "And, one by one, we're gonna turn them into meat paste."

"I-If I surrender, will you let them go? It's me you're after, not them!" Seeth pleaded, the tips of her claws digging into her palms as she squeezed her fists tightly as her mind continued to tease at the darkness inside her, itching, crying, begging to be unleashed.