Black Market Merchant

Water rained down on the two soaked women as the baby Hoard Mothers head wavered above them. There was nowhere for them to go. The dam was towering behind them, the collapsed cliff was to their left, and the fuming Hoard Mother blocked any route they might take to reach either of the river’s shores. It wouldn’t be long before the baby Hoard Mother would spot them floundering in the water and gulp them up like soup.

“Hanna?” Lisa whispered. “You can swim right?”

Hanna could feel the current tugging at her legs as she was still holding onto Lisa. She then nodded. “Yes. I can swim a little bit.”

Lisa let go of Hanna and swam around her to get in between her and the Twisted. “Stay behind me and swim as quiet as you can for the dam. It hasn’t seen us yet and looks confused.”

Hanna did as she was told, and doggy paddled with her arms under the water’s surface towards the dam. Meanwhile the baby Hoard Mother let out another roar and looked around itself to get its barring’s. Looking up it saw the cliff had collapsed and that was how it ended up down here. Also up there was the rest of the hoard peering over the edge to see what had become of their leader.

The baby Hoard Mother growled as it spotted something else dangling from just below the collapsed cliff’s edge, the Party Badger. Somehow, Tammy had managed to keep moving her Mech despite the damages it had already sustained and grabbed onto a bolder that now jutted out from the new cliff face. Seeing that Hunter Mech reminded the baby Hoard Mother of the other smaller Mech that ultimately knocked it into the river.

Looking back down around itself at the muddy, swirling river the baby Hoard Mother caught sight of the Mover Mech’s bucket arm and leg sticking out from under a pile of rocks. Swinging its allegator shaped head over to the crushed Mech, it latched onto the Mover Mechs arm and vengefully ripped it out of its socket. Feeling satisfied that it had gotten revenge on the Mover Mech, the baby Hoard Mother tossed the arm away into the river and that’s when it spotted the two swimming in the water.

The sounds of a low rumble echoed off from the dam and Lisa looked back to see the baby Hoard Mother was looking right at her. “Hurry Hanna! We have been seen!”

Hanna was tired already from the stress, running all day, and now swimming, however, she gave one last effort to reach the bottom edge of the dam. There was a small lip that ran along the bottom of the dam and when she tried to pull herself onto this ledge the slippery algae and moss wouldn’t let her. Then the sounds of heavy sloshing reached her ears and looking back she saw the baby Hoard Mother wadding their way.

Lisa caught up to the little girl and grabbed her under the arm to toss her out of the water and onto the ledge. Quickly following behind Hanna, Lisa too climbed out of the water before turning to face the Twisted. Pulling out her katana, that she barely managed to hold onto during the fall, Lisa flicked it out to its full length.

Without even slowing down the baby Hoard Mother wadded confidently through the river towards its quarry. Even with its body fully submerged in the river, its head still towered over Lisa. Lisa took a threatening swing at the baby Hoard Mothers eyes, who in turn, leaned its head back to avoid the swing. The baby Hoard Mother then reared its head back to let out a victorious rumble, for at last the pest it had been fighting was about to die.

Lisa gritted her teeth. “This sucks. I came all the way out here to the middle of nowhere after surviving so many battles and getting a second chance at a new life, only to be beaten by this monster. All my plans are screwed now, but I’ll at least save Hanna first before I leave this place.”

The baby Hoard Mother opened both mouths with an angry sounding hiss in preparation to strike. Lisa gripped her katana and let out a defiant shout of her own. Hanna folded herself up into a ball behind Lisa and started to cry thinking this was the end.

“Pffssss!”

The sound of a rocket launching from behind the baby Hoard Mother sounded out. The baby Hoard Mother turned and looked back just as an explosion struck it in the face! Greenish yellow smoke bloomed out from the explosion and enveloped the baby Hoard Mothers face.

Seeing this as her chance, Lisa grabbed Hanna and started running along the edge of the dam. Lisa thought it was the Party Badger that shot the rocket, or perhaps Dixon was finally being useful and was giving her some support. However, after getting further away from the baby Hoard Mother Lisa was surprised to see a river barged was coming upriver and had fired upon the Hoard Mother.

Even more surprising was the one that was holding the rocket launcher. A man being covered in what looked like mud and wearing a bison skull was standing on the bow was reloading to shoot again. Lisa was glad someone had shown up to distract the baby Hoard Mother, but there was no way a single rocket launcher could take down that monster. Lisa then took a glance at the baby Hoard Mother and stopped running right away because she couldn’t believe her eyes.

The greenish yellow smoke was still hanging thick around the Twisted’s head and even though there was no damage to the beasts body it was acting hurt. The baby Hoard Mother was shaking its head around and acting like someone that had been pepper sprayed in the eyes. A second rocket came flying from the barge to strike the baby Hoard Mothers neck. Again, the gas clung tightly around the Twisted head and the baby Hoard Mother began making what sounded like gagging noises!

The baby Hoard Mother began to blindly wade through the river to escape the gas, however, the effects seemed to still be hurting the beast. Then it tried to dunk its head under the water and wash out its eyes and mouth. This seemed to help and as soon as its head popped out from the water it let out a tremendous roar!

“Everyone, fire together!” The bison skull man yelled.

From behind him came several others dressed similarly in muddy clothes and joined him along with people who Lisa summed were Skull, based on the tattoos covering their shirtless torso’s. They all were holding rocket launchers and together loosened a simultaneous volley at the baby Hoard Mother. Almost all the rockets struck the giant creature’s head and neck causing a huge plum of gas to almost swallow all signs of the creature. One rocket missed and flew towards the dam in the two ladies general direction. Lisa saw it coming and threw herself over Hanna just as the blast went off. The explosion didn’t have as much effect as Lisa expected and the two of them were fine, however, the gas engulfed them.

Lisa held her breath thinking that it might be poisonous gas or chemicals and tried to run away with Hanna. Yet her nose noticed that this gas smelled sweat, and it didn’t hurt her at all. Still, she ran further down to the dams middle and jumped atop of the big rusting pipes to get a better view of the situation.

The baby Hoard Mother was thrashing about violently now as the gas was surrounding it on all sides. It wailed and roared in protest, splashing water everywhere, and even tried dunking its head back in the river, but it was all in vain. Whatever that gas was its affects were recking havoc to its senses.

From the cliffside above the Twisted were running back and forth helpless to do anything to assist their leader. They were to high up and with the only way down being hundreds of meters away going back would take to long. All they could do was brey and howl in protest.

“Fire again!” The bison skull man shouted.

Another equally large number of rockets blasted all over the devastated Twisted and this drove the baby Hoard Mother insane. Without seeing where it was going the baby Hoard Mother appeared on the eastern side of the gas cloud and crashed its entire body into the small cliffside embankment that flanked both sides of the river. Then with all eight legs scrambling blindly to find a foot hold the baby Hoard Mother tried to flee!

“Shoot the grapples! We need to catch it!” The bison skull man ordered.

From the sides and back of the barge four grapple guns opened fire at the Twisted. With its body being so big, they couldn’t miss. All four grapples attached to chains rapped around the neck, body, and two of the baby Hoard Mothers legs. The baby Hoard Mother was not going to be stopped by this, however.

Finding a foothold, the baby Hoard Mother pulled itself out of the river and onto the flat scrubland that was between the eastern part of town and the cliff. Along with its escape, the barge was pulled through the river to crash into the bank.

“Zap it! Throw the engines to full speed!” The bison skull man ordered as he clung to the railing to avoid being tossed over.

A few people on the deck ran up to these chains and hooked a bunch of car batteries to the chains with jumper cables. The baby Hoard Mother let out a wail as the electricity coursed through it, but it still wasn’t enough. The giant Twisted gave a mighty surge as it started to run and, in the process, the entire barge was dragged out from the river!

Everyone abord the vessel shouted fearfully as they clung onto anything to keep from falling off the barge. There was nothing Lisa could do for them, and she could only watch in awe as the mighty beast fled with its boat chariot in tow. Then a figure jumped off the barge and caught her attention.

The brown-haired man had Skull identifying tattoos all over his torso and he was carrying a large fireman’s axe with both hands. When he jumped off the boat, he didn’t run away but instead ran after the baby Hoard Mother. Lisa then watched curiously as he managed to catch up to the Twisted and then go from grapple to grapple and chop the chains to free the barge.

Feeling the burden from the boat lessen, the baby Hoard Mother ventured to turn around and attack once more. However, this was short lived when someone from the barge shot another gas rocket at the beasts head. The return of the noxious gas was the last straw for the baby Hoard Mother.

Tossing its head around in disgust, the baby Hoard Mother let out the loudest rumbling roar it had ever made so far. Everyone that was watching this scene covered their ears as the mind-numbing sound went on for several, long seconds. As soon as the noise stopped it was immediately repeated by all the Twisted in the entire town!

Twisted from on top of the cliff roared, the Twisted attacking the defenders on the dam roared, those by the Mad Dogs compound stopped their assault to roar, and even as far away as the downtown area the sound of Twisted roaring could be heard. Then all at once, they chased after the baby Hoard Mother who was now running at a full galop to the east. The Twisted that were on the westside of the river jumped in mass into the river to swim across and catch up. It didn’t matter if there was a human in the way or not, they fully ignored them and ran. Twisted crossed in droves at numbers than no one could ever hope to count!

All the Twisted were finally leaving town. They had survived!