Wahno laughed like a madman, Pious coughed and gagged on her drink, and Alt sat in complete shock. None of them, not a single one, thought CAL foolish enough to not only interfere with Calica’s judgment, but to strike her as well. It was sheer insanity at its finest.
“W-W-W-What do we do?” Pious managed to choke out as she struggled to regain her composure. “We can’t interfere, but we can’t let them fight! CAL is going to get disassembled out there.”
Alt walked to the shattered window, looking down as the two stared at one another. “This is a Grade A case of Darwinism, let him learn to keep his nose out of other people’s business. Or die.”
Wahno couldn’t even speak, rolling in the air laughing.
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Calica rose to her feet, her sword flying back to her hand like a magnet. The rage in her voice was replaced by a sense of piqued interest and sociopathic glee.
“No, like seriously who the fuck are you? I need to know so I don’t mislabel the tombstone I’ll be placing over my mantle.”
“The name’s CAL, and I’m not-”
“CAL? Interesting. Like my name but shorter. Well Mr. CAL. You are a deadman walking.”
Her guards quickly lined up in front of her, weapons at the ready. But another simple tap of her foot, forced them to kneel.
“No, no, no. You boneheads failed to protect me, you don’t get the privilege of killing this fool.”
“Tell me this “Pirate Queen”,” The sarcastic tone of his voice drew out her title, both an insult and showing his clear scorn towards her. “Why did you choose to kill all of these prisoners, even the Innocent ones?”
Calica tilted her head, staring at CAL with blank confusion. “Three reasons cog brain. One, I fucking want to, and no one in this galaxy is going to tell me otherwise. Two, they were a part of that egg-shitting cyborg’s crew, willingly or unwillingly. And the captain’s crimes are the ship’s crimes, if you’re part of the damn crew you’re part of the damn ship. Three, if these infantile cretins were weak enough to get captured and not strong enough to work together and kill that beak faced borg, then they’re too weak to keep sucking in oxygen.”
Calica paused, cracking several of her joints in a single sickening motion.
“I just did my due diligence and offered you an explanation, now it’s time to die”
CAL attempted to retort, only to feel the piercing pain of Calica’s blade penetrating the side of his stomach. In a single movement, Calica covered 30 meters in the blink of an eye and began driving CAL backwards. Taking a second for his mind to catch up to the action, he snapped into Hardlight Mode. Grabbing her wrist with his left hand and punching her face with his right. Though the blow flew right past her as she spun around him, ripping the blade out of his left side, and ramming it into his right side.
CAL winced in pain, but did not let that stop him. Throwing himself to the left, he let the blade rip out of his side and turned himself around. This sudden act of self mutilation caught Calica off guard, granting CAL enough time to form a gauntlet on his right hand. In the split second between CAL forming the gauntlet and Calica seeing it, he caught the faint smile on her face right as she disappeared, dodging CAL’s attack completely.
Scanning the surroundings, CAL was clueless on her position. Feeling a tap on his shoulder, he swung around with a crisp blade. Calica ducked the swing, decking CAL in the jaw, shattering his face mask in a single blow. Impaling his foot to the ground with her blade, preventing him from falling back, he felt her finger saw through the right side of his neck like a jagged blade. Breaking his impaled leg’s knee with a single kick, before disappearing again. She unleashed a barrage of slash and cuts at sonic speed, cutting CAL to ribbons. Striking every single one of his most vulnerable areas, his body from head to toe was covered in wide weeping gashes. As the strikes continued, and his defenses were ever so quickly eroded, CAL took note of a small pause between the attacks. Immediately thinking he could use this as an opportunity to counter her, that thought left his mind completely as he heard the gasping screams of the prisoners.
CAL watched as she used the small break in her attacks to continue killing the prisoners, like a farmer culling cattle. The sight of this sent an animalistic rage coursing through his body. The hue of his hardlight mode began to shift to a deep Crimson. Feeling a sudden merciless bloodlust fillhis mind with each armor shredding strike. His gauntlet began to mutate, shifting from a standard smooth metal to a spiked, jagged form, molten metal dripping from every crack.
Calica came in for another slice, completely shocked as CAL allowed the blade to cut straight through his left hand and deep into his forearm. Unable to pull it out, she smiled, grabbing CAL’s arm and forcibly ripping it off. In her sadistic glee, she failed to notice the image of a crimson skull hovering over CAL’s face as the last of the tendons and wires snapped apart. CAL proceeded to punch her with his gauntlet crushing her left arm and sending her flying into the wall of the docks. Snapping back to normal as the bloodlust disappeared as quickly as it came, the skull vanished instantly, and CAL looked at his gauntlet in amazement.
“Now that was a punch!” Calica excitedly pulled herself out of the wall, giving Cal a full view of the abomination that was her left arm. Completely skeletal and coursing with pulsating green veins, the bones of her arms were pitch black, and oozing chucks of obliterated flesh.
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“I’m really going to enjoy hanging your flaccid corpse in my bedroom!” Pulling her sword back to her, she dusted herself off and laughed. “I might actually have to take you seriously now.”
“I think you should, because this next hit is coming with full power!”
“Good! I’ll match it and hope there’s enough of you to collect afterwards!”
Both CAL and Calica disappeared, both charging at one another with their most powerful attacks. Both landing perfectly, unleashing the full brunt of their fury, but neither reaching their targets.
Standing in between them, holding CAL’s fist and Calica’s blade, completely unphased by either attack, was Naught, appearing as a monolithic bulwark against the weakness which struck him.
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“I leave for 10 minutes to deal with Federation bureaucracy and I come back to find both of you trying to murder one another.”
Naught sighed heavily as he tossed both of them back, both separating them and disarming the situation in a single motion.
“Quickly explain to me what happened here, and maybe we can come to some sort of peaceful resolution.”
Pointing her blade at CAL, Calica irritably described the situation.
“The tin can standing to your left not only interrupted my execution, he kicked me in the face! Fucker didn’t even bother to take me to dinner before playing dirty.”
“I wasn’t going to stand by and let you just torture and murder all of these people! Most of them aren’t even guilty of any crime aside from being slaves and cannon fodder for Negas.”
“It is exactly because they were weak enough to be enslaved that they must die. See those suffering creatures tied down over there?”
She gestured pointedly at her throne.
“Those were the four other Pirate lords that decided to venture out on their own and ignore my commands. I personally removed each and every member of their crew from the galactic census with my own hands. Want to know why? Because it is my right and duty as the Queen of the fucking Pirates to erase any trace of their treacherous thoughts from my ranks. Innocent, guilty, uninvolved, I don’t give a shit what their status is. If they have been around such despicable treachery they must be purged.”
Summoning an axe in his good hand, CAL retorted harshly. “If you want to kill them you’re going to have to go through me. Your rights and duties are meaningless if the result is the murder of dozens of innocent lives, just to kill a single idea most of them aren’t even considering. They just want to be free and live their lives. Are there some sick freaks jumbled within their ranks? Of course, but even that doesn’t justify straight up murder.”
Calica pulled back her blade, ready to strike at a moment's notice. CAL equally lowered his stance, to pounce at the slightest movement.
“Okay, calm down! Both of you, just calm down! I’ve heard both of your arguments and I can tell neither of you are willing to back down on this. So let’s make this a fair deal, and give you both a chance to fight for your beliefs on an even playing field.
Naught looked them both in the eyes before announcing his proposal.
“A challenge through combat. Each of you will fight one another, if CAL wins, regardless of your right to do so. Calica, you will surrender your right to the prisoners to CAL. If Calica wins, she may do as she desires with the prisoners. Does that work for both of you?”
Both of them relaxed their posture, contemplating the newly issued Challenge. Calica spoke her mind first as CAL continued to consider it.
“A chance to remind the dregs of my power and bury this upstart tin can in the same moment. I will agree to this Challenge, on two conditions.”
“And what would those be, I’m open to making amendments if this settles the issue between you two.”
“One, I want this battle to take place on my Capital station, The Drowning Maiden. Two, I want to broadcast the battle across the galaxy and retain all profits from it.”
“Okay that is three things but I think those are reasonable terms. CAL, unless you have any terms, I would like to make one for you.”
“I can’t think of anything I would want, so go ahead.”
“Good! Calica, CAL requires this challenge to take place one month from tomorrow. To give him enough time to recover from his wounds and train for the battle, that way it’s more entertaining of a battle for you. After all, you wouldn’t want to K.O. him in a single blow and let all of that potential revenue slip out of your fingers.”
Calica smirked, grunting as she tried not to laugh at the suggestion. “You know, I know you’re playing me with this caveat. But you’re right. I agree to the terms.”
“And so do I.”
“Then as the overseer of this agreement, I declare this made and final.”
Calica began walking away, ordering her men to pack up and leave. Turning back to look at CAL only as she reached her throne.
“I’ll eagerly be awaiting our battle CAL. Get strong, because I really want to make that new Demia Skin Rug.”
Her sick laughter echoed through the entire docks as she left. Leaving a sense of haunting unease throughout the entire Station.
CAL sternly watched the Baleful Mourning detach and fly off, turning his attention to the prisoners only after he was sure the ship left.
“Um, Cal, a word.”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
In the moment between turning around and his head hitting the floor, CAL saw for the first time Naught’s piercing red eyes, cutting a hole through his soul. As his titanic fist collided with CAL’s battered face, a metal bending crunch was heard across the entirety of the Golden Mile. Just prior to blacking out he heard Naught’s threatening words as he fell limp.
“If you ever threaten the safety of my people, my station or the greater galaxy as a whole again I will bury you. Etch that into the back of your visor, because this is the only warning you get.”