To Hell and Back (Hellworlder pirates)

Ch37 The Nature of Deathworlders

The Nature of Deathworlders

Alwen leaned on the railing on the ships left side and stared across the Lucifer at the Asmodeus. The drinks had helped her forget about that whole mess of a reunion, but now that she was sober all those worries where coming back to her. It had been a fun night from what she could remember, though most of it was a blur and the pounding headache that followed her throughout the rest of the day made her seriously consider a life of sobriety.

Last night she had received a message from Kalwen that said the appointment was all set up, but he wanted to meet with her first. She had no idea what he wanted to talk with her about, but her gut told her it wouldn't be fun. So now she was procrastinating, well not really. She still had an hour before he asked her to come over, but she wanted to procrastinate and arrive late just to make him wait. In a sense she was just early to arriving late, if that made any sense.

A massive dark shadow appeared at her side and the dark form of Gato leaned against the rail next to her, his posture an almost exact copy of her own. "What'chyu staring at?" he rumbled softly.

"My brother's ship, apparently." She grumbled in response.

He grunted "I heard about that, Modius is your brother, must be hard to find out like you did."

"Why do you all call him that, his name is Kalwen"

"It was Kalwen, the captains of Archdevil ships take on the name of their ships. He is the captain of the Asmodeus now, so we call him Modius.

"All of them?"

"Yup, Astarte is an old name for the devil Astaroth. Lucile isn't far off from Lucifer, and Captain Bell is in charge of the Beelzebub."

"Why?"

His ears twitched "You know, I never thought to ask. I know Bell's old name was Elizabeth, but I've never heard the Captain's old name, or her mom's."

"Her mom's?"

"Yeah, Captain Lucile is our captain's biological mother, but everyone knows there's bad blood between them. According to the rumors, when Astarte saw her mother for the first since she was four, she went berserk and jumped her. Broke her nose in two places and bashed her face in pretty hard, Lucile's old crew tried to pull the Captain off but none of them were deathworlders and weren't a match for the captain."

Alwen could almost detect a hint of deep-set respect in his voice. "Why would she do that?"

"None of us know for sure, but we think the Captain might have been pissed at her mom for not being there for most of her life."

"That's insane!"

"Crazier part is Lucile just sat there and took it. She's not a passive woman, out of all of the captains she is easily the most ruthless and violent among them. But when it came to Aster she didn't do anything, just let her daughter work out her anger. And then after that they made up and left their old pirate crews to form their own crew. Couple years later they come out with the Lucifer and Astaroth and started the Hellworlder fleet."

Alwen shook her head "You people are insane"

Gato grinned "We're Deathworlders Vi. There ain't a problem in life that humans can't solve by hitting it really hard, or by pouring enough lighter fluid on it. Sometimes all you need to repair a fraught relationship and abandonment issues is a good curb stomp" he was grinning like an idiot at that last part.

Alwen glared at the large man "and do you fall into the same category? Last I checked you weren't human."

His smile faded "Human enough, my DNA might be different, and I might be furrier than them, but my brain is human enough to count. That's how they made us you know? The real genetic alterations weren't made to our bodies to just make us walk and talk, the real modification was in our brains. Millenia old instincts wiped away and changed, they didn't just replace our brains with human ones, they warped them so horrifically that they were virtually the same. Me and Alice might be a little more solitary than most humans, and Kavic is just a little too loyal to his mate, but those things are more like social quirks than species defining behavior. And don't think you're so different, as far as I'm concerned Torweni are just purple space orcs."