Aftermath

Aster opened her eyes to the bright room around her and felt, fuzzy. Very fuzzy. Like her body was made of bees. That idea was funny to her, a body made of bees. She wanted to laugh at how funny it was, but she couldn’t find the energy to do so.

At her stirring a blurry purple person came over, Aster stared at the pretty face until it started to look familiar. “Excuse me, miss. I think I’m in the wrong place.” She muttered.

The pretty girl pursed her lips, “Why do you say that?” she asked in that reassuring confident tone all doctors had.

“Because you’re an angle, and I’m not supposed to be in heaven. I could get in trouble if I were here” she said, why wasn’t it obvious to her?

The purple angle scowled “Why does everyone say that. Literally every time one of you Hellworlders wake up you ask why you aren’t in hell. Do you all want to be in hell?” she huffed.

Oh no, she made an angle mad, that had to be some sort of super sin. “Because Pandemonium is pretty this time of year. All the pretty purple trees. Are you made of trees? Is that why your purple, because your made of trees?”

The angle frowned again and fiddled with a knob on the hose attached to her arm “No I am not made of trees; did you say there were plants in hell?”

“Not hell, Pandemonium, it’s a planet.”

The angle frowned and looked like she was going to ask more questions, but she stopped herself for some reason. “No, you’re not in Hell, nor on Pandemonium. You’re in a surgical room in Clancy’s pub”

Aster frowned “I think I’d be safer in Hell” she said as everything went even more fuzzy, and she closed her eyes.

~~~*~~~

Alwen walked out of the surgical room after trading places with Brevot. The orange haired Irish man named Nick had given them a brief tour of the backrooms and told them to smoke on the roof if they had to since their boss didn’t like it in the building. Alwen didn’t smoke since her world couldn’t simply repair tar filled lungs like the Terrans could, but she knew that was where Gato was likely to be, and he had wanted to know as soon as the Captain woke up.

A lot a things had happened during the three or so days directly after the battle. The fleet had returned to the hanger after fighting with the Kruhur and Aunviry remnants for many stressful hours. There were now some empty berths, and the remaining ships didn’t look so hot either. All besides the Astaroth would require major yard time back on mars.

Alice and her team claimed the Igrathoth in the name of the Hellworlders and had been horrified to find many cages with beaten and broken Terran slaves. The work needed to rehabilitate them required Doctor Bachir and all the other Hellworlder doctors to set up a field hospital in one of the massive Aunviry sized rooms.

The most shocking change, at least to her, was that the leader of Irish mob had succeeded the kings throne. Which meant they were currently staying in the kings new home. Domnall Clancy had forced a vote only hours after the final battle was over, and the remaining council man had unanimously voted for him, even the ones who were Kazlum’s representatives. She had asked Gato what this would mean for them, and he said ‘nothing until the captain wakes up’.

Alwen had met the elderly Terran man who was now king of the pirates. He had invited her for tea and a Terran game called chess. He had seemed nice enough until he had gently insisted that it was best not to move the captain to her ship until she woke up. His words sounded nice, but the look in his eyes was anything but kind.

So now she and a small force of Hellworlders were staying within the lair of Domnall, king of the pirates, and second most successful space pirate in Terran history. Limey had only stayed until someone could relieve him, in the few short hours he was here he kept getting into arguments with the Irish.

She walked up the narrow stairs to stand on the roof above the smoldering remains of the once bustling market space. She walked over to the solitary figure in the corner of the flat roof and leaned in the bricks next to him “She woke up” she said softly.

Gato turned towards Alwen “What did she say?”

“The normal stuff, called me an angle, asked if I was made of trees.”

“Ah, so she’s still out of it.”

Alwen nodded “yeah, she will be in a lot of pain for a while, so I turned up her morphine dose, you know just in case she said anything she wasn’t supposed to around the king and his men.” She left what the Captain had said about Pandemonium to herself.

She was curious about whatever world Astarte was talking about, but it didn’t seem right to press for information in her current state. She had already suspected that the Hellworlders might have another place besides Sol where they had set up a base of operations.

“Hey Vi” Gato said, his body language changing to look almost bashful.

“Yes”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“I’m sorry for what I said back in the king’s throne room”

“What?”

“When I grabbed your wrist and snarled at you.” He said somberly.

“Oh that, don’t worry about it. you were right, I should have focused on helping the Captain, not killing Kazlum.” She said with a wave of her hand.

“That’s not why I said it” he grumbled. “I was mad you took what I considered to be my kill. I was upset and pissed off about the captain getting hurt and I should have tried to calm down and think clearer.”

Alwen frowned “You make it sound like this isn’t the first time its happened.”

“Its not”

“Do you need to talk about it?”

“Yes I do, but I don’t want to.” He said coyly.

“Needs, wants” she said quoting something she had heard the captain say before, an old Terran saying that made no grammatical sense. It was something called a malaphor she was told.

Gato groaned and was quiet for a long time. Alwen stayed silent because she knew that he was just gathering his thoughts. “When I see someone I consider a friend get hurt really badly something within me just snaps. It’s like I become an animal. I don’t like when I get like that because it’s how I acted back in the pit, and I wasn’t a very good person back then.”

“Do you consider yourself a good person now then?” Alwen asked.

“I, I don’t know. If a bad person does good things, does that make him good as well, even though underneath it all he’s rotten to the core?” he asked to the cold night-like atmosphere of the Great Hollow market.

“Your assuming that your rotten to the core already though, which I don’t think is the case. You want to be a good person, and if you had the option to do so in your past I’m sure you would have chosen to be good as well.”

“You don’t know what I did back then, the people I hurt.”

“I don’t need to” she said firmly to the wounded warrior.

They were silent for a long time before the door behind them opened up and Alice walked onto the roof.

Gato turned and frowned “Why are you here?”

“I’m your relief, your to return to the ship and rest. And I mean actually rest, no brooding in the gym.” She said as she prowled over to them.

Gato glanced back to Alwen, and she felt her heart skip a beat as he turned to walk away.

~~~*~~~

Alice watched Gato walk away from her and Alwen. They hadn’t been talking when she came up, but from the set of their shoulders Alice guessed that they had been talking about some pretty intense stuff. Alice had known Gato for close to ten years now and she hadn’t seen him look like that since Wendy had been killed, back when Alice and Gato were still a couple.

She and her sister were just coming into their own as marines when they had been sent to LA to support the local law enforcements attempts to curb stomp the rampant violent crime syndicates who were strangling the city’s growth and reconstruction efforts after one of the sea walls failed and had flooded half the city.

Part of that mission was destroying their sources of income. Street peddlers and drug pushers were easy enough to knab, but more always took their place. So instead they decided to hit their real money makers, a ring of underground animal fights where they forced big dangerous predators to fight and kill for their amusement while they made a fortune off of the bets being made. Even though sapient Mammaloids have been walking the earth for over a hundred years, many humans still refused to acknowledge them as people. Alice and Wendy took that mission a little to personally, and had set up a way to rehabilitate the big predators used in the pens. Helped them go from frightened angry animals to smart and social people who were trying to address their traumas.

Many Mammaloids had returned to the wild after the traumatic process of having their bodies warped and their minds changed so suddenly, those wild Mammaloids feared being near humans and refused to act or do anything that was deemed too human. Even though creating preconceived notions on what was and wasn’t human like was very human behavior. They eventually had kids, and taught those kids how not to be like humans. Until many had forgotten things like language, higher reason, and social skills.

Their own mother had been like that, and would have still hated and feared humans if the marines hadn’t taken them and their mother in when their mother was very hurt. Alice’s mom, who never even had a name, grew to trust humans and past that trust onto her kids before she passed away after being in human care for less than a month. Alice and Wendy who also didn’t have names grew up around the other sapient human like Mammaloids and other Humans and had learned the difference between being a wild animal and person firsthand.

An animal can’t address their pain and trauma, an animal can only get angry and snarl at whatever hurt it. A person on the other could work past their issues and grow stronger. It was hard, and their were many bad days, but they could heal.

They had raided many rings and had rescued many hurt and scared Mammaloids, but Alice knew instinctively that there was something different about the large, grizzled jaguar lurking in the shadows of that cage. It was much older than the others they had rescued, almost her own age. And it was covered in many scars.

Wendy had approached his cage in that gloomy stock room with all her usual poise and tenderness. “Its okay, we’re not here to hurt you like the others” she had cooed “we’re not going to kill you.”

The jaguar, whose fur was the shade of blackest night growled.

“Its fine, we’re going to get you out of here” her sister cooed.

“Leave me alone” the jaguar growled.

Alice was stunned, this was the first time they had met a pit animal was already fully sapient and capable of speech. “Hey Wendy, I think this one might be too old to save” she had said nervously.

Her sister, her twin who had taken on the role of older sibling and role model, scoffed. “I don’t think anyone is beyond saving.”

“Look at him, he’s much older than the rest, and he can think. What if he’s a psychopath, his brain might be too warped to help. If he goes on a rampage then who knows who he’ll hurt.”

“She’s right” the jaguar agreed “I have killed many enemies; I might kill you” it growled.

Wendy just rolled her eyes “And now I know your full of shit, you just want me to put one between the eyes because its easier than facing what you’ve done.” she growled at the dangerous beast on the other side of the bars, “How many did you kill to survive? They died so that you could live another day in this filthy place, and now you just want to take the cowards way out when you have a real chance to get out because that’s easier.”

The jaguar didn’t like what her sister said, it roared at her like some animal and had thrown itself against the bars of its cage. Alice snapped her gun up and fixed on the beast near her sister, but Wendy didn’t even flinch. Her sister had known that it was just trying to get her to panic and kill it.

The jaguar stayed near the bars and growled at Wendy, but Wendy had just reached her hand in and put her paw against its head. The jaguar looked confused and stopped growling “There, there” she had cooed soothingly. “Do you have a name?”

The jaguar looked at the arm outstretched to him, the arm he could easily shred and relaxed a bit “Gato Negrito” it rumbled.

Alice had scoffed at hearing such a stupid remark “That’s not a name, its and insult.”

The jaguar, Gato, growled “Its what everyone calls me, what else is a name for?”

“You could always pick a new one.” Wendy said casually. “We picked ours from our favorite stories. I chose Wendy from Peter Pan, and Alice chose hers from Alice in Wonderland.”

“I don’t care” Gato growled.

“That’s fine, I’m going to open this cage, don’t maul us and I can promise you a place to sleep with some good hot food” she said and popped the latch without consulting Alice.

Obviously, he didn’t maul them, and had instead come to live with them. He had even helped them shut down some other pit fights. He stuck by Wendy side like a loyal guard dog and eventually began training to be like them. They taught him to read, though he didn’t much care for it. And had even potty trained the grown man, which was just as embarrassing as it sounds for all parties involved. Eventually Alice’s heart had softened for the hurt and grieving man, and when they left earth to join the Astaroth he had come along, and Alice finally confessed her feeling for him.

“Hey Alice” Alwen said after clearing her throat, snapping Alice out of her reminiscing.

Alice turned to Alwen and saw that her face was bright purple, and her heart filled with dread. “Yeah” she said cautiously.

“I think I’m in love with Gato, what should I do?” she squeaked, her embarrassment nearly choking off her last words.

Alice felt her heart break as the very thing she had feared since that day in the training room after Wraith died had come true. Alwen liked Gato, and Gato probably liked her as well. Alice knew it wasn’t right to hate Alwen for falling in love with the man she had left behind, but she did. For just a moment she felt herself really hate this wonderful and kind girl she had only seconds early been proud to call a friend.

It was black, and toxic, and she had to push it down deep to not let it show. “Oh really, how did it happen?” was all she could manage to say.

Alwen completely oblivious to Alice’s inner turmoil buried her face in her hands “I don’t know”