CBvsLotU - Chapter 85: Coup D'Etat (Patreon)

Chapter Eighty-Five: Coup D’Etat

A blend of shock and rage trickled through Baroness as she looked across the handful of women Azula had brought to the roof with her. She’d been so careful arranging the coup. She’d not attempted to recruit any of the women aligned with Azula, so none of them could have spilled her secret. She shook her head. “How?” she couldn’t help asking. “How did you know what I was planning?”

Azula gave her a restrained smirk. “I’m a people person. Specifically, I don’t trust them. The other Bunker leaders met with some terrible luck towards the end, didn’t they? And since I knew I wasn’t responsible for their deaths, that didn’t leave me many options. When I discovered Dany had been infested with… whatever the hell it was that had started living inside her, I briefly thought it might have been her all along. But then I started to wonder, how did Dany get infected? Someone had to have let those worm things into the Bunker. Was it a mistake? Just some stupid accident? Or was it intentional? In the panic, I didn’t really have time to give it much thought, but afterwards, there was you. Suddenly not only eager to help, but conveniently the only person left – aside from myself – who had any connection to the Bunker leadership.  I couldn’t be sure until now, but I had no intention of becoming another victim.”

Baroness saw no reason to point out that she’d had nothing to do with the deaths of the other leaders. Azula seemed to enjoy talking, giving Baroness’s group time to ready themselves for a much bigger fight than they’d anticipated. It looked like it was going to get much messier than she’d hoped. Where the fuck is Meltdowner?

Azula’s smirk settled into a smug smile as she came to the end of her little speech. “Now I may be a monster, but I’m not completely heartless. So I’ll give you the chance to surrender peacefully. I know you got yourselves all worked up and excited, thinking you’d be in charge, but you should really take the offer. The creatures lurking in this city will certainly kill you, but I’m still mulling it over.” The smile became a frown. “But don’t take too long to decide.”

Baroness didn’t need long, thankfully. She’d spotted Meltdowner finally arrive on the roof, sneaking into position. It didn’t look like Azula or any of her group had seen the woman’s arrival. “If I may,” Baroness said, lifting her hand. “It may sound silly, but I’d really like to know what she thinks about this offer.” She aimed a finger towards Abigail Black, hoping that Meltdowner took the hint.

She did.

Abigail’s harsh features softened into a look of confusion. She glanced from Baroness to Azula. “I… wait, what?” Her body snapped tense, shrieking as an emerald beam of energy bored through the thick black latex of her bodysuit, scorching through her flesh and vaporizing her heart. Her eyes – framed by thick black eyeshadow – bulged, rifle falling away from her limp fingers as she dropped to her knees and faceplanted onto the rooftop.

Abigail’s sudden death sparked off the fight, immediately pushing the odds in Baroness’s favor. The spires that had provided convenient hiding spots now became essential cover as the women wielding projectile weaponry advanced on each other, trading shots. Caught off guard, Azula and her group focused on making it to that cover as Baroness and her people rode the high of the sudden shifting of the tide to press their attack. Perhaps this won’t get as messy as I feared, Baroness thought, firing off a round that nearly took off Balalaika’s ear but instead clipped the side of the spire the woman ducked behind. Well, not messy for our side, anyway.

Sonya closed the distance to Beatrix fast enough to avoid getting shot. She kept her thoughts – the ones not busy working to keep her alive – on Cassie. The rage and sorrow she felt from knowing she was gone and that it was Azula’s fault. Not directly, but close enough. The rest of the Bunker leaders were dead. Bathory had vanished. Someone needed to pay. She’d have preferred Azula herself, but Beatrix was closer. She’d sparred with the woman a handful of times, knew how skilled she was. With her katana in hand, Beatrix was even more dangerous. But Sonya had experience facing off against opponents better armed than she was. She ducked and dodged the slashes of the woman’s blade, staying close enough to use Beatrix as a shield from the others, forcing her to commit only to short, quick slashes with the weapon. Sonya focused on defensive posturing, keeping her life and limbs intact while Beatrix used up precious energy trying to bring the fight to a fast end.

Beatrix had plenty of her own anger, although none of it was focused on Sonya. The altercation was an unfortunate necessity. She doubted she’d have the chance to bring the woman down without killing her, but she hoped that the killing blow would be quick and painless. Sonya deserved that much at least. She understood the mother’s grief. If the roles were reversed, she’d have hoped for a similar treatment. The close quarters brawling was a tricky obstacle, but Sonya’s movements were beginning to develop a pattern. One that could be easily taken advantage of. Beatrix cocked her katana back and to the side, thrusting up and out, expecting the blade to meet Sonya’s face as she went through her dodging pattern.

Sonya had been waiting for Beatrix to take the bait of her predictable movements. She jumped back instead of to the side, momentarily putting herself at risk of being blown away or set ablaze by Azula. The others were too busy with their own engagements to take advantage of her vulnerability. Her leg snapped up, kicking Beatrix’s overextended blade away, tearing it free from her grip. The katana was just clattering to the ground as Sonya darted back in close, unleashing a flurry of strikes. She didn’t give Beatrix the time to recover from the sudden loss of her weapon. The yellow-clad blonde attempted to defend herself, but Sonya’s furious speed was too much for her. Her nose crunched under the force of Sonya’s fist, squirting blood from her nostrils and bringing tears to her eyes. Sonya’s knee came up, smashing into Beatrix’s side, snapping several of her ribs. A quick palm jab mashed the flesh of Beatrix’s right tit against her breastbone, snapping the bone and making her heart stutter. Beatrix managed a poorly executed strike, only to have her arm snared and broken.

Sonya had no interest in mercy. Each strike she landed sent a rush of cathartic relief through her. But even that wasn’t enough to douse the anger inside her. Her lips pulled back into a bestial snarl as she clamped her palms against the sides of Beatrix’s face, yanking the stunned woman up against her. Sonya mashed her lips against her foe’s, shocking her with the sudden kiss. A purple spark of ethereal flame erupted within Sonya’s mouth. She tongued it forward past Beatrix’s lips before breaking the kiss and shoved the woman back. Beatrix’s hands came up to her throat as the scorching heat of the flame forced its way deeper into her body. She let loose a hoarse howl as her body exploded with blistering heat, consumed within the raging purple inferno. Her muscles grew taut from the devastating temperature, locking her in place as her flesh charred and slashed away from her superheated bones. The glowing embers of her hair drifted into the air as her eyes popped and oozed down her melting cheeks. The echo of her scream continued to radiate out of Beatrix as she was reduced to a blackened skeleton. Her bones cracked and collapsed, leaving her as a pile of scattered ash and charred chunks. The death had been quick, but for Beatrix, the agony had seemed to last an eternity.

Sonya hadn’t stuck around to watch, diving behind a nearby spire. She scooped up Beatrix’s fallen sword along the way. She wasn’t proficient with the weapon, but it seemed better to have it than risk Azula or one of her minions retrieving it. She’d worked too hard to keep from dying to the blade.

Lola and Nena, ever the wicked pair, had grouped up to take on Crimson Viper. Their weapons bucked in their hands as they fired off rounds at the woman, growing increasingly frustrated with her speed. Her jet boots afforded her the mobility to launch herself out of their line of fire or duck behind spires for cover. As C. Viper once again disappeared form their view, Nena motioned for Lola to move around one side while she went the opposite way, intending to catch their target between them. Nena had just gotten into position when C. Viper lunged out from behind the spire. Her jet boots shot her forward too fast for Nena to get her gun up. The lunging redhead brought her fist up, slamming her gloved knuckles into Nena’s gut and triggering an electrical shock. Nena let out a yelp as the tazer punch hit her, crumpling back to the ground, unconscious.

C. Viper spun around, rushing towards Lola. She snapped her leg high, intending to bring it down on the blonde’s head, removing her from the fight. Lola threw herself to the side, lifting her pair of machine pistols, avoiding the downward swipe of C. Viper’s leg as she fired. Bullets plunked through C. Viper’s jet boot and tore through her foot, causing an explosion of sparks and short misfires that threw the woman off balance. She hopped on one leg, turning in place as she tried to kick the boot from her bleeding foot. The damaged boot exploded, ripping C. Viper’s right leg apart from the knee downwards. She screamed, staring at the grisly stump in horror, somehow managing to maintain her balance, continuing to hop. Her scream became a stuttered series of grunts as Lola unloaded a half-dozen rounds through her chest, shredding her tits and turning her lungs into Swiss cheese. Lola adjusted the aim of her second machine pistol and fired again, destroying the woman’s face as she finally toppled over. She advanced on the fallen woman, leveling both of her weapons and emptying the remainder of her magazines into C. Viper’s head, leaving it a gooey pile of mush.

Despite only really wanting Azula dead, Baroness found herself engaged with Balalaika, exchanging shots from around the spires they’d chosen for cover. The blonde was a good shot, maybe even better than she was, but the firefight had dragged on long enough that it was beginning to feel like a stalemate. She glanced around, checking on the others on her side. Sonya was unharmed, but didn’t seem keen on throwing herself into the line of Balalaika’s fire. Good, Baroness decided. It would be a waste of talent. Lola and Nena had put an end to C. Viper, but Nena was down and Lola was dragging her inert form to relative safety. Meltdowner was keeping Azula distracted. There was no one available to lend her any assistance. With that knowledge in mind, Baroness convinced herself she didn’t need any.

The gunfight had gone on long enough that Baroness had subconsciously detected a rhythm to it. Thunderous explosions as they exchanged fire slackening slightly as Balalaika’s shots ceased. I have more rounds in my magazine than she does, she realized suddenly. She went through the cycle once more, this time listening carefully, counting up the number of times her enemy’s weapon fired before Balalaika ducked back behind the spire to reload. She took the opportunity to slap a fresh magazine into her own weapon and waited. If Balalaika noticed Baroness wasn’t firing nearly as often through the next loop, she didn’t seem to show it. Baroness counted off the rounds in her head. The moment she got to the end of her countdown, she darted out from behind her spire and charged the woman as she slipped back behind her cover. She still had plenty of bullets in her own gun, enough to bring the stalemate to an end.

Balalaika heard the rapid steps approaching and figured out what Baroness was up to just in time to drop her empty gun and defend herself. She was ready for the woman as she came around the spire, smacking Baroness’s weapon from her hands and drawing a combat knife. The wide-eyed look of shock was priceless, but Balalaika didn’t let it distract her as she lunged and slashed. Baroness pushed herself back, bringing an arm up to block the knife and hissing as the sharp blade sliced a deep gouge through her forearm. She gave Balalaika some distance, the pair circling one another, trading strikes and slashes. Balalaika managed to land a few more hits, cutting a few more gashes across Baroness’s arms and jabbing the tip of the knife into her hip. Her confidence swelled, encouraging her to dart in closer and shove the blade into Baroness’s belly. Baroness hopped back, bringing her hands together and deflecting the angle of the knife lower. She gripped Balalaika’s wrist and twisted, not hard enough to break the bone but still enough to send the bloody knife clattering to the ground.

Balalaika rolled with the loss of her weapon, moving in closer and snaring Baroness in an iron-grip. The pair grappled, Baroness slamming one fist into Balalaika’s firm gut while Balalaika worked a leg around behind Baroness’s knees and brought her to the ground. The wrestling match intensified, each woman struggling for a dominant position. The zipper of Baroness’s bodysuit tugged downwards, allowing one breast to spill free. The buttons on Balalaika’s red suit jacket went flying, the garment falling open to leave her chest fully exposed. The nudity meant nothing to either woman, although Baroness did take advantage of it, snaring one of Balalaika’s nipples between her fingers and giving it a vicious twist. The blonde yelped, muttering out a curse in Russian as she slammed her elbow into Baroness’s ribs, freeing her aching nipple. Baroness gasped and winced, feeling her cracked rib shifting painfully, loosening her grip enough that Balalaika managed to slither behind her and yanking her forearm up against her throat.

Baroness gagged as her windpipe was crushed under the strength of Balalaika’s grip. She didn’t allow herself to panic. It wasn’t the first time someone had attempted to choke her out. She’d certainly performed similar moves on enough others to know that it had been their panic that had ultimately doomed them. She struggled wildly, but with intent, shifting her hips and twisting her body to keep Balalaika from slipping into a convenient position to snap her neck. Her arms stretched outwards, seeking out some means of getting the woman literally off her back. Her fingers dragged across the blade of the combat knife, gurgling out a yelp of pain as she cut herself. The wounds were minimal, especially compared to the value of the discovery. She moved her hand lower, finding the knife’s grip and pulling it up. Baroness angled the blade inwards, sinking it into Balalaika’s forearm, deep enough to slide between her radius and ulna bones. She gave the knife a twist, satisfied with the scream of pain it drew from the blonde but even happier to feel the tension of the arm around her throat slip away.

Baroness ripped the knife free from Balalaika’s arm, rolling away and jumping to her feet. Adrenaline and endorphins fueled her, lunging forward and snaring a fistful of the woman’s blonde hair. She yanked Balalaika’s head up and back, slashing the knife across her throat and opening her jugular. A wave of blood sprayed from the wound, flowing over the woman’s exposed breasts. Baroness released her grip and let her foe drop back to the ground, watching as she rapidly bled out at her feet. Balalaika choked and gurgled on the hot blood flooding into her severed esophagus, staring up at her murderer. An eerie smile filled her pale face as her strength faded away, managing to gurgle out a wet, “Well done,” in her native Russian tongue before the light in her eyes faded away.

Baroness’s jaw firmed, looking down at the corpse with a stern expression. “Same to you, bitch,” she muttered back, tucking her exposed breast away as she zipped her bodysuit back up. Her body ached from the fight, the cuts covering her arms would need patching, but the coup wasn’t finished yet. Azula’s forces had been dealt with. It was time to put an end to the altercation.

Identifying Meltdowner as the biggest threat and leaving Baroness and the others to the capable hands of the women she’d enlisted to keep her safe, Azula focused her attention on trying to bring the woman down. With only one good hand, her fire bending took more effort than she would have liked. The blasts from Meltdowner’s options kept her constantly on the move, unable to find effective cover even behind the spires. Meltdowner had made a quick, careful retreat back to the door leading into the church, the wall providing her protection from the blasts of flame Azula sent her way. It took every ounce of concentration she had to even stay alive, unable to see one of the options, only spotting the energy blasts as they pierced the wall Meltdowner was using for her defense.

With the church structure proving to be surprisingly resilient to fire, Azula knew she would have to change things up if she hoped to win. Jumping to avoid another blast from Meltdowner’s hidden option, Azula tucked into a roll, drawing on the force of electricity and bending it to her will. She came up, twisted towards the doorway and unleashed the crackling flash of power. Both of Meltdowner’s options fired back, converging to meet the electricity before it could reach her. The convergence of energy met and reflected one another, sending Azula’s bolt uselessly into the air while the green beams curved downwards and sizzled against the rooftop.

You can’t keep getting lucky forever, you cunt, Azula thought, preparing to conjure another strike. Her eyes shifted away from her target, only for a scant moment, hoping to see one or more of her group available to lend some assistance. She spotted the pile of Beatrix first, unable to recognize who the body belonged to, but a glimpse of Sonya gave her a pretty good idea. Abigail had been dead from the start, no help at all. C. Viper’s bullet-riddled carcass was easy enough to identify, sparking Azula’s frustrated anger. The quick scan of the rooftop ended on Balalaika, lying limp, blood still leaking from her gashed open throat. “Useless,” she hissed angrily. “Good riddance.”

Her frustration flared as she spotted Baroness darting out from behind a spire. She turned towards the woman, momentarily forgetting about Meltdowner as her emotions took over. Baroness – gun retrieved – unleashed a spray of bullets. The hot lead punched into Azula’s thigh, one managing to blast through the side of her knee. Azula shrieked as the leg gave out, fighting to conjure up a fiery blast that would leave Baroness as another pile of smoking ash. Before she could unleash the attack, the beam from Meltdowner’s hidden option carving through her wrist, leaving behind a sizzle stump and stealing away any ability she had to bend the elements. Azula’s eyes flicked from Baroness down to her missing hand, eyes shooting wide with shocked rage. She screamed – less from the pain and more from the anger she felt at having been beaten. She sucked in a deep breath and kept on screaming, spittle dripping from her bared teeth as she glared up at Baroness. The woman’s cocky, victorious swagger only infuriated Azula further. She attempted to lunge towards the woman, determined to beat her face in with the stinging stump where her hand had been, only to let out a howl of pain as she attempted to put weight on her shot up leg.

Baroness stopped in front of Azula, lifting her leg and smashing the heel of her boot into the woman’s temple, bringing her pathetic temper tantrum to an end. Azula was knocked back, landing flat on her back, unconscious. Baroness looked down at the woman with a grin as the rest of her group made their way over. Considering the unexpected ambush, things had gone about as perfectly as she could have hoped for. Nena had even managed to shake off the effects of C. Viper’s taser. “Looks like we’re just about through here,” she remarked, lightly kicking at Azula with the toe of her boot. “Of course, I’ll be taking the honor of ending her properly. It’s simply a question of how I’d most enjoy doing it.”

She thought over the options, tempted to open up the decision to the others. Catching movement out of the corner of her eye, Baroness’s head snapped up, prepared to lift her weapon and annihilate whoever the late arrival was. Her muscles froze as she spotted Azura stepping out onto the rooftop. Fuck, she thought. Why can’t anything ever just go according to plan?

Unable to shake the bad feeling in her gut, Azura had followed Baroness and the others up to the rooftop. She’d struggled with the decision. As she took in the aftermath of the fight, spotting the corpses, Azula’s defeated body lying at their feet, she wasn’t sure she’d made the right one. Tears stung her eyes as she moved towards Baroness and the others. “Why?” she gasped. “What… what happened? You said you were just going to ask her to step down!”

Killing Azura would be easy, perhaps even smart, but Baroness still saw value in keeping her alive and on her side. Even with this new, unfortunate complication, she would be useful in keeping the other survivors in line. “And that’s all I intended to do,” she assured the dancer. “But, as you can see, Azula had other plans.” It was a stroke of good luck that none of Azula’s cohorts had been allowed to live. None of them could offer an alternative series of events. “I brought the others with me as a show of force. I’d hoped it would be enough to convince Azula to give up without a struggle. It’s my fault, really. I should have expected she’d organize her own death squad to keep her safe and in power. They attacked us without provocation, and we were forced to defend ourselves.”  She took an appraisal of the corpses, even managing to look a little sad. “It’s unfortunate. I valued these women. I’d hoped we could all work together to get out of the city safely. But they chose their side, and they gave us no choice.” She settled her eyes on Azula’s unconscious form. “And now she’s proven that she’s too dangerous to be allowed to live. If we showed her mercy, I do not doubt that she would continue to cause us trouble, seek some form of revenge. We can’t afford to let that happen.”

“But you promised,” Azura pressed. “You said we wouldn’t kill her.”

Baroness frowned. “I said we’d do everything we could to not kill her. Azula has made this choice for us. If we don’t act now, decisively, we risk everything getting much worse. None of us want to endure another incident like the lynching that took place back in the Bunker.” She motioned to the bodies. “Azula was able to recruit these women to her selfish cause without any of us knowing. What do you think she’d be able to do if we brought her with us? How long before she tried to reclaim her power? And I assure you, she will not be as merciful as we’re trying to be. She’ll tear this group apart, sacrifice everyone, only to regain and secure her power, even if it gets herself killed in the process.”

Azura’s bottom lip quivered. She didn’t like it. She hated that with all the threats pressing down on them from the Necropolis, that the greatest threat seemed to be the internal strife amongst them. The only way she saw through it was to continue to trust Baroness. She desperately wanted to believe that the woman had wanted to resolve things peacefully. If they kept Azula alive, brought her along, and what Baroness warned of came to pass, Azura knew she would pay dearly for the side she’d chosen. But even that didn’t seem so important. She valued the fate of the group at large more. And with the information she’d been given, she could see only one, terrible way to ensure their safety, at least from internal threats.

Azura’s silence told Baroness that she’d managed to convince her that Azula was too dangerous to be kept around. “That being said, we do still have options,” she pressed on, moving on to the only conversation that mattered. “We could simply banish her from the group. Send her off into the city on her own with the guarantee that if we see her again, things will not go well for her. It would keep all of our hands clean. And who knows? Maybe she’ll even find some way to survive on her own, find her own way out of the city.”

“Wouldn’t that be the moral thing to do?” Azura asked. “Give her a fighting chance?”

Baroness shrugged. “It could also be seen as the more wicked option. In some ways, it wouldn’t be much different than what Azula herself had done to Minako. We’ve seen how efficient this place is when it comes to death, and also how much apparent glee it gets from making those deaths slow, painful, humiliating. But, yes, in a way, we could simply ignore that reality. If we don’t see it happen, who’s to say it happened at all?  However, if we control her death, give her a quick, relatively painless execution here and now, we bear the guilt of doing the deed ourselves, but we guarantee that her suffering is minimized.”

Baroness could see the struggle on Azura’s face. She had to admit, playing with the woman’s emotions and moral compass was a fun game, but she kept her enjoyment well hidden. “So you see, we do have options, but neither is truly clean or simple.” She took a breath, let it out slowly. “But, I did make you a promise that I am unable to fully keep. So I’ll let you make the ultimate decision. Whatever happens, I want you to be okay with it.”