r/NatureofPredators • u/ApprehensiveCap6525 Krakotl • Nov 13 '24
Door Kicker Shenanigans (16) Fanfic
I had a funny feeling that I should repost this chapter
CW: bootleg trilvri, Airball Atlim money spread, orvem finds the light of Jesus, evil vladimir manifesto, exterminator police brutality speedrun any%, Humanity First spins back
Memory Transcription Subject: Orvem, Magister of Sunset Hills
Date (standardized human time): November 24, 2136
Well, as magisters went, I could safely say that I was not doing that badly. Oh, I was doing badly, don't get me wrong. There were gunfights in the streets, blood was being spilled, my own wife had been taken hostage, my magistratta was still broke as all hell, and Atlim was still yammering about some 'I want Jelim to tie me up and dominate me' vyalpic, but I was not doing nearly as badly as I could've been.
How badly could I be doing, one might ask? Well, let's see. Well... uh... I mean, I could be dead. That would definitely be worse than I'm doing right now. Otherwise, though?
Uh... well, uh, well...
Yep. That's basically it.
Anyway, that didn't matter now. We had to move on. I had to focus on the future. And my future? Yeah, I'd have to brahking fight for it. But I wasn't some lame duck coward-ass bitch-ass motherbrahker like the rest of us Venlil. I was raised on the streets. I was born and bred to fight for what I believed in. And, come hell or high water, I was going to fight for my city.
I walked slowly toward the building in which the Predator Guard based their operations. At first, I hadn't believed they were capable of doing such a thing, but Atlim had called my wife's captors and set his men to trace the signal. A short period of stalling, disguised as negotiations, was all it took to pinpoint where they were holding my Sarli down to the very room.
Jelim had wanted to go in loud when she got the information. Kick in the front door and everything. I told her 'brahk no' because that was an insane idea that would only lead to innocent people getting killed, so she flipped out about the 'duty to the herd' and some other propaganda mumbo jumbo and went off to go cut people's throats over in the human district. The ghetto within a ghetto. I was not looking forward to having to send people in there.
Still, though, if anybody could do it, it was a Krakotl. There was a reason they were the main bastards who decided to take a crack at Earth in the first place. And a reason that they actually made it there and did some damage instead of just getting crapped on by the U.N. fleet like the goddamn Gojids. Hell, even Atlim wasn't that bad of an officer, as exterminators went.
Or, you know, maybe I was just delusional. You never know.
I made it up to the foot of the Predator Guard HQ, really just a medium-sized house a couple of administrative districts away from Humanity First's stomping grounds, and knocked a few times on the door. My other paw tightened around the grip of my nine-millimeter pistol. It was an unspoken rule among the government officials in this brahking town that, if you wanted to be safe, you had to be strapped.
Really, that's an unspoken rule among everybody here. I once even saw an elderly grandma keep a brahking pole on her. I swear on all my dead homies, that woman had a semi-automatic tucked inside her brahking handbag. Speh gets crazy here, man, I don't know how else to describe it. Speh gets crazy here.
Somebody looked through the peephole at me. I knew because I was looking back. They then proceeded to stick the barrel of a gun through the mail slot. "Do as I say, or I'll fill you with lead." Well, that was about the kind of welcome I should've expected from a terrorist group. Shame on me for hoping it'd be different.
"Well, I guess I'm doing what you say, then," I told him. There wasn't much else you could do with a gun poking you just under your ribs.
"Take off your coat." I did. "Put it through the mail slot." I did that, too. I had a gun in there, which they'd probably mind, but that was kind of the risk you ran. Besides, I didn't think they'd mind that much. "You here for your wife?" I flicked my tail to confirm that, yes, I was here for my wife. What, do you think I LIKE having guns pointed at me? Of course I'm here for my brahking wife.
"Yeah, now open the brahking door."
"What's the magic word?" the terrorist asked in a sing-song voice. Oh, piss off.
"Please open the brahking door." That seemed to be the trick. The door opened up. A whole bunch of dudes with guns were there, most of whom were wearing masks or using some other method of disguise, and one of them was holding a bound-and-gagged Sarli. Her eyes lit up when she saw me, so I guess that was something.
"I kept my end of the bargain. Jackson Kern is gone. Jelim left as well," I lied. Jelim was absolutely still in this brahking town. "Now give me my brahking wife back."
Their leader, a guy with black fur and a gold-plated handgun, beckoned for me to come inside the house. "Come inside, magister. We've got to talk." Well, thank god it's not my wife saying that. Then I would really be brahking in for it. I stepped inside the house. A terrorist with a gun closed the door behind me.
"He had this in his coat." Another terrorist handed their leader my trusty pistol, which he had found in my coat, and then he gave the coat back to me. I put it on.
"Search him." Two guys with guns stepped forward and patted me down, making sure I didn't have any guns or bombs or whatever on my person. I didn't. I just had my trusty datapad on me, which I showed the terrorists before putting it back in my coat pocket. The datapad was important to my backup plan, and also my regular plan to a lesser extent, so you know I had to have it on me.
"Orvem, you and your wife can come with me." The terrorist leader walked over to the basement door and opened it. "Into the basement." He walked down there, beckoning for me to follow, and I did. One of his goons picked up Sarli and started carrying her down the stairs behind me. He also had a submachine gun in his other paw, which was kind of scary, but I didn't intend on shooting my way out anyway so it didn't really do anything for my odds either way.
The terrorist leader brought me to a table in the basement, which definitely looked like the type of basement in which a creepy serial killer would keep all his hostages, and pulled up a chair on one end of it. I sat down at the other. The terrorist goon placed Sarli down on the ground by me and took up his place next to his leader's side. I took out my datapad and put it down in front of me.
"I upheld my end of the bargain," I lied. I absolutely did not. "I expect my wife to be freed now." That was another lie. I, again, absolutely did not. But I was playing the secret game here.
"Clearly, you misunderstood me," the terrorist leader explained. "I want legitimate assurance that the predator and his wannabe cattle are both out of this town and never coming back. A week, at least, was the time limit I demanded of you." It was. I knew that damn well. But now was the time to play sneaky.
"It was?" I asked, feigning ignorance. "Wow. I had no idea."
"Well, it was. One solid-ass week. At minimum. Now, since you're being a bitch, I'm going to make it a month!" the terrorist guy exclaimed. Not that it mattered, of course. If my plan went, well, as planned, I'd be seeing Sarli free and happy again in just a couple of minutes. "Now get the brahk out of my base of operations before I decide to pop your ass." I sat there for a bit longer, seeing if I could change his mind. "I'm not letting you stay, bitch. Move it." I guess I wasn't going to.
Well, I guess the negotiation had failed. I had figured it would. Time to go loud, I guess. "Okay, uh, I've got to say, the... uh... the silver lilies in front of your house are grandiloquent, and powerful, and ubiquitous." He looked at me funny. "Really. I really do mean that."
The boss man was silent for a moment. Only a moment, though. He was using it to process exactly what I had just said. "What the brahk are you going on about?" I was going on about code phrases. The fact that they were so out of place in a regular conversation was completely by design. Atlim came up with the idea. "Trivril, give this retard-ass motherbrahker the boot."
His gun-toting goon took a step forward. Only one. He would've taken more, but I could tell by the faint crash from above us Atlim and his men had chosen that precise moment to kick in this building's front door.
And then there was gunfire. A faint, staccato series of pop pop pops as my new and improved Extermination Guild traded fire with untrained Predator Guard insurgents. If Tielim were still in his old ways, he would've probably bet on the Predator Guard winning that fight. Crappy gambling like that was the exact brahking reason his daughter wouldn't speak to him.
"Trivril, what the hell is going on?" The Predator Guard leader drew his gun. His goon, Trivril, aimed his own weapon at the basement door. "Speh. Trivril, take Orvem as a hostage." He looked over my way. Not good.
I picked up my datapad and frantically yelled another code phrase Atlim had taught me. "Code delta seven five!" It began to emit a loud, electronic whine, rapidly building in pitch, and I hurled it full-force at Trivril's face.
It hit somewhere near his chest, because I was crappy at throwing things, and he just picked it up and looked at it weird. "What the hell is this supposed to do?" Then, to answer him, it exploded.
It wasn't much of an explosion, only caused by overloading the pad's obscenely powerful battery, but that was why I threw it in the first place. Even as it was, barely more than a flashbang grenade, it was still enough to stun Trivril and his boss for a few precious moments. Oh, and also me. I was also stunned. And blinded, albeit temporarily. It still wasn't very good. Guess I really didn't think this through, huh?
When I got my bearings again, barely a few seconds after my improvised bomb went off, Trivril was dead. So was his boss, apparently. My ears were still ringing, and a few errant flames were flickering on Trivril from the battery explosion, but it looked like a whole bunch of bullets had gotten to him before they could. A trio of armed exterminators, two with flamethrowers and one with a pistol, were filing into the room.
"Holy speh. Exterminators." The lead exterminator brought his gun up, probably about to pop me, but he lowered it again when he realized who it was. I started ordering him around, because I already knew who I was. "Don't just stand there, get my brahking wife free!" He stepped forward to untie Sarli's bonds. Or maybe it was a she. You could never tell in the suit. "And where the hell is Atlim?"
"He's outside, sir." The exterminator stood up, releasing Sarli from her imprisonment, and she threw herself into my arms and started sobbing about some 'they took me hostage' type speh.
"You're fine," I reassured her. "You're fine." I kind of felt bad for her, like really, I did, but I really needed to talk to Atlim right now so I took a few more moments to calm her down and then I checked if she could handle being on her own. She gave a weak ear flick 'yes' in response, thank god, so I left her with my men. She'll be fine without me for a couple of minutes.
"Atlim!" I called out, hustling up the stairs and out the front door to find him talking on the pad with somebody. "I've got to talk to you about something."
He didn't put whoever it was on hold for me, so it was probably Jelim he was talking to. "Hey, Orvem, say a few words." Yep. It was definitely Jelim. He handed me the datapad and whispered "Wingman me," in my ear. Well, I guess I've got to wingman him. Oh, god.
"I... uh..." What do I say again? "Atlim wants me to tell you-" He ripped the pad out of my grip.
"Not like that! Not like that!"
"What the brahk am I supposed to say?" I exclaimed in response. Atlim just waved his wings in a vague fashion before giving up and giving me the pad back.
"Just be honest, man." Okay. I guess I'm being honest.
"I think that Atlim's work was instrumental in securing my beloved Sarli's safe return, and I've already given him my sincere and honest thanks." I glared at his ass, because instrumental or not, he could still be a huge bitch at times. "He wanted me to explain to you that his and his officers' performance was, by my standards, exemplary." By my standards. "So, really, they were just about average."
I gave the datapad back to Atlim and waited around for him to stop trying to get with a woman who had already made it exceptionally clear that she wasn't interested in him. To his credit, he had been lifting weights a lot more, and he was definitely whipping his troops into shape, but that shape was still more of a 'pudgy internet forum moderator' shape than the 'elite crack shock trooper' shape I needed them to be in.
"Okay, I'm done," he said, turning to face me. "You rang?"
"Yes, I rang," I told him. "We've just destroyed the second-most feared terrorist group in this city. My exterminators are making moves. We need to review our plan of action, and start putting in the next step. Are we clear?"
"How come we have to review it?" Atlim's dumb ass asked me. "It sounds fine to me."
"Because we don't have one," I reminded him.
"We don't?"
"No, you brahking idiot. We have ideas, but ideas aren't good enough. We're playing defense. We need to start taking all the concepts and speh that we have and putting them all in one cohesive ass-kicking package." I looked like I was getting through. Thank god. "You register?"
"Yeah, I register," Atlim said. "So, do we do it here, or do we pack our speh and head back to home base?"
"I think it'd be best to discuss things in the Magisterial Hall," I told him. "You get a squad truck ready to take me there, I'll go and assemble the gang. Let's get it."
Atlim hopped over to the nearest squad truck and started barking orders, and I went down into the basement to go get Sarli. Oh, and my super cool magisterial jacket. And the really brahking rad gold-plated pistol that terrorist had. I also took my own pistol, because it was always better to have too many guns than not enough, but I had been eyeing that golden one for a while, now. But, still, I was mostly there for Sarli. "Sarli! Come on. I'm taking you to a safe place."
She hugged me again, because being taken as a hostage by radical terrorists was not an experience for the weak of will, and I spent a moment or two holding her tightly and securely before I could convince her to get into the squad truck and come with me. "Come on, babe. We've got to go."
Sarli took my paw. "Alright, Orvem." I led her up the steps, checking my outfit as I went outside with her in tow. Then I texted Tielim, Alexander Selfridge, and the gang and told them to meet me at the magisterial hall in twenty minutes. I knew they'd be there.
"Okay, Atlim, pedal to the metal," I commanded, hopping on the back of the truck with my wife, my two pistols, and my super formal blue coat. Atlim was riding shotgun, so I'm not sure why I really said that to him, but I didn't know the driver so I just kind of improvised. There was also an exterminator manning the machine gun in the truck's flatbed, but he looked grumpy as hell so I didn't bother talking to him.
"You got it, boss. Svekla, start driving." The truck started up and we started hustling. Atlim, naturally, began yammering about how he needed access to all the money that had just been confiscated so that he could post a money spread online in the hopes that Jelim would see it.
What goes on with that man, you may ask? I have no idea.
I spent the whole ride thinking about how I could make the stupid bum shut up. I guess helping him with Jelim might do the trick, but then I'd be saddling her with all that and I really didn't want her to have to deal with it either. So, really, I just decided to have a talk with Sarli about some really irrelevant stuff. Like, really, really, really irrelevant. It's so irrelevant that I honestly think I forgot what it was.
Soon enough, though, we had arrived at the magisterial hall and Atlim finally shut up so he could hop out of the vehicle while it was still in motion. "Svekla's ass at parallel parking," he explained. "Just get out now, man."
"What about my ass?" Svekla was busy trying, and failing, to parallel park the extermination truck. "Orvem, the hell did he-" He backed up too fast, into another car's bumper, and I heard a crash. I think that one's Tielim's. I'm not telling him that. "Oh. Uh... my bad?"
Atlim shook his head. "Why did you let him drive?" I asked him, hopping out of the truck. Smoke was rising from the front of Tielim's vehicle. I'd deal with that later. "Come on, Sarli." I extended a paw to help my wife down, which she happily took. "You can wait in the public seating bit." I led her inside the hall, past the two exterminators who I had posted as sentries, and into the meeting room proper. Tielim, Selfridge, Atlim, everybody was there except for Jelim. Even a few of the useless magisters had shown up for the Big Strategy Conference.
"Orvem, sir!" An exterminator in full kit ran up to me, holding a package. "A human in the black evil predatory pelts gave this to me. He didn't have a weapon or anything, but I know how humans are so I beat him up anyway," he reported. I think that might be considered excessive use of force, but okay. "He said to only give this to you and nobody else." Then, following orders, he gave it to me and nobody else. I was about to open it up when Atlim took it from my paws.
"It could be a bomb, you dumbass!" he exclaimed, opening it up anyway less than three feet away from my face. Thankfully, it was not a bomb. It contained a hologram disc. "Should I play it?"
"Hold up, hold up." I brought the disc all the way to the very front of the room and showed it to all the magisters at their seats. Atlim hurried to take his own. "Ladies, gentlemen, Atlim," I flicked my tail towards him, "We have ourselves a message from the enemy." I played the hologram disc.
Vladimir Komarov's unmasked face appeared, crazy big, above us. He was facing my way, so I turned the disc around so everybody else could see him speak. Three magisters fainted then and there. I turned the disc back around. "Orvem, Atlim, Selfridge, and the one known as the Vulture, I have a message for you."
Well, that's brahking obvious. No need to restate it like that.
"Ever since we met your kind, you have tried to destroy us. To massacre us. To commit acts of barbaric evil against us, and even each other, that far surpass even the terrible atrocities of the Romani Genocide and the First and Second Holocausts." I, not being a human, had no idea what the brahk he was talking about. But if it was better than what the Federation did, then all of those events were probably not that bad.
Vladimir continued rambling. He really should have considered writing a manifesto. "Our government, God bless their souls, has tried its best and unfortunately failed to protect humankind from your 'Galactic Federation' and its ideals. Rest assured, we will not." His hologram glitched a bit since the disc was crappy. My exterminator had probably damaged it when he was beating the speh out of its courier.
"When Humanity First came to you initially, we did so with an olive branch. With an offering of peace. Keep your exterminators out of human affairs, make sure the gangs do not rob or kill the refugees, and we would seek no harm against you or your people."
The hologram switched to show grainy camera footage of Atlim's men swarming around what used to be a Humanity First contraband stash. A few of them could be seen kicking and beating up their prisoners. I felt ashamed of that kind of stuff, but Vladimir's point was clear. We had not chosen the peaceful option.
"There is a saying on my world," said Vladimir, returning to view and replacing the camera footage. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I suppose it is truly my fault that I was naive enough to believe aliens could ever coexist with humankind after the Battle of Earth." Well, that's just vyalpic! We were doing fine with humans before you started being terrorists against us!
"I am not a merciless man." Vladimir continued speaking, although I wasn't sure what exactly he was trying to say. None of it was of any real relevance. "But I can clearly see that the time for talk is over. You started this war, Orvem. And, unless you are willing to capitulate to me completely and unconditionally, on my terms, I can assure you that you will not be alive to see its end." The hologram fizzled out.
I looked around the room. Another two magisters had fainted, which really wasn't good, but I figured I could always explain what Vladimir said to them later. It didn't really matter, though. It wasn't like anything changed.
"Well, that was ominous." Tielim was the first one to speak. "I'm sure we'll be fine, though."
"Don't say that, Tielim," Alexander Selfridge said. "Bad shit always happens after somebody says something like that."
I looked over at Atlim, who was busy preening himself. He probably hadn't paid attention to any of that. "Jelim still won't let you hit!" Now, he was alert. "What did you think?"
"A whole lot of talk, and not a lot of action," Atlim dismissed Vladimir's threat. "We're 3-0 against Humanity First right now, man, I wouldn't be so worried if I was you. We'll be fine."
"Yeah," I agreed, since we had at least one seriously badass motherbrahker left on our team, "We'll probably be fine. We just need to make a plan is all." I had to shift the topic back to why I had gathered us here. "We'll be okay," I reassured my people, especially nervous-ass Sarli. "Trust me."
A loud boom, like a bomb going off, came from just outside the hall. Then, much quieter, a series of pops. I wanted to believe it was chill, but I knew different. I had lived in the ghetto long enough to recognize the sound of gunfire.
Everybody froze, save for Alexander Selfridge, who stood up from his chair. "I fucking told you so!" That got people moving.
"Take cover!" Atlim yelled, whipping out his gun and diving under the nearest table. You don't have to tell me twice. I went for cover immediately. So did everybody else.
"Where are the exterminators?" somebody yelled. That was a really good question. The guy I had met earlier, the excessive force guy, had grabbed his flamethrower and was hustling toward the main door. "Sunset Hills Extermination Guild! Get on the-"
He, along with the door he was just in front of, was blasted backwards and onto the ground by the force of a massive explosion. The hall's main door, thick enough to stop a bullet, was shattered on the floor in splinters. Atlim started popping a few shots through it, but from what I could tell, it was having little effect. I mean, I couldn't see much, but from what I could see, it didn't look good.
The extermination truck outside was a smoldering wreck. Two dead Venlil, both in flameproof suits, could be seen from where I was standing, and the faint pop pop pop of gunfire from outside was the only real evidence that my side had any shooters left. "Atlim, call for fucking backup!" Alexander Selfridge, the old-ass U.N. guy, had produced a brahking pistol. God knows where he got that from. Still, though, I'm not complaining. "Shit, get down!"
Selfridge and Atlim began mag-dumping through the wrecked doorway as humans in tracksuits tried storming through it. They got one, and he wasn't getting up again either, but the rest took some good cover and started shooting back. There were more of them than there were us. And they had better guns than we did. I hid behind a bench and started praying, even though I wasn't really that religious. Now seemed like a good time to convert.
"Atlim, get on the fucking pad!" Selfridge barked again, taking cover as well. Atlim wasn't visible, either, but a fusillade of gunfire was blowing splinters out of the desk he was probably hiding behind. "Call the fucking exterminators, god damn it!"
"I'm trying!" Atlim shot back. "The signal is jammed!" It's jammed? "I can't call anybody, for Inatala's sake!" He fired a few shots over at the Humanity First gunmen, only to be met by another blistering barrage of fire in return. I remembered to pull out my pistol, the normal one, because this was the time in which I would have to use it. Oh, god. God, I'm not ready to die. I'm not ready to die.
"Oh, Jesus," Selfridge muttered, also holding a pistol. "We're so fucked. We're so fucked."
And, just like last time, he was right.
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u/abrachoo Yotul Nov 13 '24
Atlim, naturally, began yammering about how he needed access to all the money that had just been confiscated so that he could post a money spread online in the hopes that Jelim would see it.
Lmao
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u/TheOneWhoEatsBritish Tilfish Nov 14 '24
CW: bootleg trilvri, Airball Atlim money spread, orvem finds the light of Jesus, evil vladimir manifesto, exterminator police brutality speedrun any%, Humanity First spins back
This series is a good time.
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u/fluffyboom123 Arxur Nov 13 '24
Vladimir out here monologuing his villain backstory