This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/SomeOtherTroper on 2024-12-03 00:17:41+00:00.
[Author's Note]: Sorry, I've recently been dealing with some medical stuff that's kept me out of the writing mood, and I've seen the ending for this arc, and I don't like it, but it has to be this way. While I usually don't do trigger warnings, the next couple of chapter are going to include sexual abuse, sexual slavery, human/alien trafficking, physical abuse, and ...look, if that's going to be a problem for you, you don't need to read them because I'll give a sanitized summary after we're through all that. I won't be overstepping the subreddit rules, but I will be doing some very uncomfortable things, and I just wanted to let you all know, because the next few chapters are gonna be rough in a way that may trigger people.
If you don't want to look in the basement, you don't have to.
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[Sam]
There was only one way to the basement: through the titanic atrium in front of the building's entrance. I was angry enough to do anything, and had a live grenade clenched in my left fist.
...fuck me, that was going to be a long drop. I pitched the grenade at the central figure there and counted off a few seconds before I jumped. I'd begun to get a feel for this planet's gravity, and I was pretty sure that grenade would blow while I was safe from it. Pretty sure, I told myself before vaulting the railing.
I'd made the right call. There was an explosion of shrapnel and gore as I reached terminal velocity, and I managed to roll onto my feet in its wake. No injuries. Well, nothing serious, I thought as I got my feet under me.
"YOU!" a voice roared, echoing off the walls and ceiling of the atrium. I looked ahead straight at a ...bipedal shark? His species had evidently lost their gills in favor of being full air-breathers. Guess they beat us primates on their planet. "YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE!" he yelled at me, drawing a bead on me faster than I could get my gun on him. Well, if this was how it had to end, getting ventilated by a man-shark wasn't the worst thing to put on my tombstone.
Then Santiago slammed into him from above, dropping The People's Elbow from three stories up like this was the fight he'd been born for. With a human woman cradled in his arms, "Take her!" Santiago yelled at me, shoving our luckless kidnappee toward me ...and putting those wide-open jaws to good use. She stumbled a bit before I grabbed her by the ziptie handcuffs and shoved the muzzle of my gun into her back.
"Alright, sugar," I said, once I had her in a hold I liked, "where's the basement access?"
[Santiago]
I felt his cartilage bend and crack under my weight. Sharks never grew proper bones, even if they had scary teeth, and I offloaded my burden to Sam fast enough to start a real fight. I couldn't let the shark get up again. My jaws clenched around his throat, but that wasn't enough - I had to control his hands, especially the one that had pulled a knife out of its sheath ...and this bastard thought he could stab me in the neck with it? I grabbed that wrist and he roared something as my own teeth ground through his scales and the taste of blood told me I'd managed to get through to an artery. So I started thrashing, an ancient combat technique passed down to me from my non-sentient ancestors. Jaws locked on my opponent's neck, I twisted my entire body back and forth, my tail assisting...
By the time I'd come out of my blood rage, I was looking down at a nearly decapitated shark. And still holding the wrist of his knife hand, the life flowing out of it. I took the knife as a trophy and held it aloft, yelling "who else wants some of this?"
I got no takers.
Mostly because there wasn't anybody to take my challenge. Sam had blown most of them to pieces, or, at best, shrapnel-studded pieces of what my teachers had called 'modern art'. One of them began pulling out a pistol, and I plugged him twice through the head with the same pistol that had shot the Don.
I yelled again "who else wants some of this?", brandishing their leader's knife in one hand and the pistol in the other.
This time I really got no takers.
Sam and the human woman were going somewhere behind the receptionist's desk, and I followed, covered in blood, high on combat, and ready for anything.
...or so I thought. I wasn't ready for what was behind that vault door they were unlocking.