Radiance

Chapter 106: Kicking the Hornets Nest.

The shouting was so loud they could hear it down in their cage as it echoed in the unlit basement like the people were standing all around them.

"What do throughout you mean they're fucking gone!!? What all of them!!?" the screamer who they instantly recognised as 'The Boss' yelled at the top of her lungs.

The Boss was a small woman only standing about 5'5 tall and skinny enough that it looked like a strong breeze would send her sailing off into the horizon, but when it came to raw temper she made males twice her size cower mainly because she had a habit of shooting first and screaming second.

"Yes boss whole fucking place was stripped bare, slaves were gone, our guys were dead and what crops they couldn't lift they fucking burned, whole place is toast," a male voice replied rather timidly as if he knew what was coming.

There was a loud bang followed by a thump and a scream, "Get that fucking waste of skin out of my fucking sight!! I swear to Christ I'm the only thing holding this place together, you lot couldn't even wipe your own arses if I didn't show you which fucking hand to use!!!" the boss screamed so loud it made the bars of their cage vibrate even down here.

"Think it was one of the other faction's boss?" another voice asked though this one sounded more confident they recognised this one as well, this one of the boss's Lieutenants a man called quite simply Torch because of his habit of lighting his victims on fire with his heavily modified flame unit.

"Well of course it is who the fuck else would have the balls to steal from me!?" the boss screamed before stomping across the floor towards where they knew her throne was, it was a metal chair where she'd glued the skulls of some of her previous victims as a kind of grim deceration and reminder of what happened if you crossed her.

"So what's the play boss?" Torch asked in his unerringly calm voice, despite being a grade-A psychopath the man always seemed to speak in a calm almost mild-mannered voice, it was one of the many disturbing qualities of him, his stare was worse.

There was a sound like drumming which they guessed was the sound of the boss drumming her fingers on one of the skulls that were mounted on the arms of her throne, "We can't move against any of the other factions without some kind of proof and we can't go to the Overboss either or we'll wind up looking like a bunch of whiney cry babies, no we need to sort this shit out ourselves and then we need to send a fucking message of what happens if you fuck with us, get the fucking bugs up here if anyone can sniff those fuckers back to their base it's them," the boss said and instantly their hearts sank in unison as they looked at one another, they both knew where this was going.

Then came the sound of thudding heavy footsteps across the boards before a door was flung open and a shaft of light burned into their dark little world.

A figure they both recognised stomped his way down the stairs before marching right up to their cage where they both sat on their shared blanket pile, "Come on freaks it's time to earn the right to keep on living for another day," Torch said rattling the large set of keys that he used to open the locks that held them prisoner.

Though to be fair it wasn't actually the cage that held them here, infact either of them could have easily snapped the bars off this flimsy fucking thing, no it was the accursed collars they had strapped around their necks that held them in this pit of misery and torment.

Both of them knew that if they ever fled they'd be blown to smithereens before they got halfway out of the compound, but such was their lot in life ever since these fuckers had destroyed their hive leaving all but them dead a day that both of them swore that if they ever got the chance to they'd make every single one of these human scum pay for in blood.

Both of them got wearily to their feet and stepped forwards both eyeing the glowing tip of Torch's trademark flame unit, both of them knew exactly what it could do as they both still heard the screaming of their hive sisters and brothers as they were burned alive thanks to this very unit.

The torch was larger than the pair of them by about a foot and a bit as neither of them was taller than 5'7 and Torch himself stood close to 7 feet tall, though despite being built like a bricks hit house with a very ugly and burn-scarred face either one of them could have easily overpowered him like he was nothing more than a grub.

Both of them ascended the stairs and into the grim scene that was the boss's throne room where she sat waiting for them atop her throne.

She wasn't much to look at really, a small black-skinned human woman covered in white ink tattoos with a shaved head, but it was her eyes that were genuinely scary, there was just a manic look in them no matter her mood so you had no idea when she was going to flip her shit and go full postal.

"Ahh if it isn't my favourite freaks of nature, I hope you are both well rested because I have a job for you both," the boss said jumping up from her throne and walking over to the closest of the pair which happened to be his sister Vizzy.

The boss circled her and looked up and down before making her way over to him and doing the same to him, the manic look in her narrow dark eyes never even flickered for a single second as she looked him over, it made it wonder whether she was going to strike him or stroke him you never could tell with her.

She chose the latter and ran her hand over the chest plate of his carpace letting her fingers trail over his surprisingly sensitive chitin, "Some stupid fuckers thinks its a good idea to fuck with me and my slaves, they think its funny to steal my propery and burn my crops, I am going to show them how supremly funny I think this is by sticking every single one of their heads up on poles around the settlement they hit but first I have to find them, my very unhelpful people told me they simply vanished into the night like a fucking group of phantoms, but I'm willing to bet you pair can follow these ghosting fuckers regardless, so you are going to go out there and lead my guys right to these thiveing fucks and then who knows I might even let you have a proper bed in your cage or even more light, either way find these fuckers for me or it'll be your heads on those pikes, you know if we can recover enough pieces of them," she said waving the remote to the bombs they both wore around their throats at them.

"It will be done," Varrel growled and she laughed.

"Thats the spirit, now off you go oh and take that bunch of useless cunts with you and don't come back until you find these fuckers or you won't come back at all, well alive anyway," she said laughing as she returned to her throne and waved her hand at the pair of them dismissively.

As they stepped out into the sunlight they found a group of twenty heavily armed human raiders waiting for them, "What I wouldn't give to jam my stinger right through her fucking throat," Vizzy said in their own language.

"Patience sister our day will come, fist we must rid ourselves of these fucking shackles and then we will bring our vengeance to these humans on swift wings," Varrel said glancing at his sister, she was a perfect blend of human and Cazador giving her a very unique shape.

Her body itself was humanoid in its shape but while she only had two legs she like he had a set of four dextrous arms that they could control independently of one another allowing them to complete multiple tasks at once.

Their bodies were covered in a natural armour made from chitin that had grown over their softer flesh when they had pupated from their larval stage into full-grown adults, now as the sunlight stuck them both it shone like freshly waxed and polished plastic making the blood red stripes really pop out against the black.

Their bodies while humanoid was still easily distinguishable from their human counterparts thanks primarily due to their secondary abdomens which contained their poison glands and their reinforced stingers that sat above their rear ends like large oval-shaped armoured grubs.

Also obvious were the twin sets of gossamer wings that they both had flushed to their back that ran from their shoulders to their knees and were easily powerful enough to lift them into the air and to propel them along at incredible speed, oh how Varrel longed to feel the wing rushing between his wings again, it had been so long since they had flown together collecting food for their hive but those days were long gone, now all that remained of their hive was nothing but an ash-filled nightmare.

"Hey speak fucking English bug," Torch said he pushed between the pair and headed down the steps to join the other human raiders waiting for them and there were a few chuckles from them as they eyes them nervously, it was obvious that they hated their mere existence well that was fine with Varrel, the feeling was mutual.

Varrel could see Vizzy glare at Torch's back though to a non-Cazador hybrid it would have been hard to spot thanks to their large compound eyes which were not easily read by humans even if the remainder of their facial features were essentially human, though they both lacked noses and had little mandibles either side of their mouths, oh and their tounges were actually a proboscis.

But it wasn't their multitude of talents that the boss wanted to employ it was just the one which was afforded to them thanks to the massive set of feathery antennae that sprouted off the top of their heads which afforded them a sense of smell far greater than that of any mammalian species.

The pair of them had four of them, two that ran down the centre of their heads to the back of their skulls and then a large set that stood erect above them that looked like a pair of feathers waving in the air above them.

Even now the pair of them could identify each and every member of this rag-tag bunch of thugs by nothing but their scent alone, which was unpleasant, to say the least not a single one of them appeared to know of the existence of soap which given that it was a human invention was really saying something.

"Come on insects and assorted bugs let's get a fucking move on we got work to do," Torch growled before turning and throwing each of the twins a pair of packs which they deftly caught in one of their four arms before glancing into them, though Varrel knew instantly what was in them before he even opened his pack, it was a ration pack to feed them during the trip.

Normally his kind would exist on a liquid diet created within the hive but thankfully both Cazadors and humans were omnivores capable of eating both plant and animal life so both their mandibles and little teeth were more than capable of allowing them to eat just about anything, which was lucky because the off cuts they'd been given along with the dry bread didn't look all that appetizing, to say the least.

As they walked Varrel was aware of the looks they kept getting from the raiders around them, he'd be lying if he said it didn't put him on edge but at the same time he was used to it by now, humans had this real habit of being both afraid and actively repulsed by anyone who didn't look like them, which was ironic really considering both he and his sister were as much human as they were Cazador even if it didn't fully show outwardly.

The worst part of this for him was that his queen had always preached that their hive should always try to make peace with their neighbours, she had made every effort she could to try and get along with their neighbours but no matter her efforts the best reaction she'd received was being ignored and if the humans hadn't been shit scared of them he was under no illusions that they would have attacked them a lot earlier than they did, but that day was still burned into both of their minds like a scar that refused to close fully.

He could still remember the screams, smell the smoke, and feel the heat of the flames washing through the tunnels of the hive as if it had only happened yesterday, Varrel had been an egg chamber guard one of the most important jobs in the hive as it was his job to protect the future generations but what the hell could he do against armoured humans equipped with weapons that burned everything they touched to ash?

The rage that he'd felt on that day as he'd been forced to witness his charges burned alive in their chambers not even given the chance to live the lives that were rightfully theirs, not given a chance to grow up or to see the beauty of the world that they'd been born into, he could still hear their desperate cries for help echoing throughout his mindscape.

Varrel clicked his mandibles together and buzzed his wings gently as the memory flashed through his mind until he felt something on his arm that always managed to calm him, it was his sister's hand and as he glanced to his left he saw the sympathy in her large black eyes, she was the only one on this earth that knew his pain and his rage, as her job had been a royal nurse, she too had been in that chamber that day, it was the only reason that the two of them were still alive because they'd been able to use the ventilation tunnels to crawl to safety atop of the hive as it burned.

Unfortunately for them what was waiting for them had left both of them almost wishing that they had burned to death with their brothers and sisters.

A raider party had been stood waiting to pick any escaping survivors and had used some kind of paralysing energy weapon on them which had left them immobile and unable to fly to safety, the last thing either of them had seen as they'd laid paralyzed and helpless on the floor was a group of grinning and laughing humans standing over them.

When they had awoken they had been caged like feral beasts, infact for a week or two they had been held alongside said beasts but it wasn't the cages or the snarling dogs that had led them to despair, it was the collars that had been fastened around their throats.

Torch had been positively gleeful as he'd given the pair a demonstration of exactly what the collars would do to them if they tried to run or if they disobeyed their new master or rather mistress.

They had sent a ragged old looking human captive running across a patch of open ground by shooting at his ruined and calloused feet, but after he got so far Torch had pressed a switch on a remote he held and the man's head simply vanished in a cloud of pink mist that was followed by a sharp crack that tore through the air like a peal of thunder.

It made both of them flinch and buzz their wings in alarm which only caused Torch to demonstrate the other joyful little function of their new fashion accessories, at the flip of a switch hundreds of thousands of volts coursed through their bodies like they'd stuck their stingers into a live wire leaving them twitching on the floor in a heap while all of their tormentors laughed heartily at their pain and distress.

But over the weeks and months, the raiders actually figured out that the hybrid pair had some rather useful talents, like the one they were currently being employed for right at this very moment, tracking.

Their antennae were thousands of times more sensitive than even the noses of the best bloodhounds, capable of detecting a single scent molecule among millions of parts of air allowing them to easily track and trace individuals across miles of open terrain and even to pick them out of a huge crowd if necessary.

These were traits useful when you lived in an underground hive in near-perfect darkness made up of hundreds of individuals and was growing all the time, it allowed them to not only navigate the tunnels of the hive with perfect accuracy but to identify each other at a distance as each individual had unique scent markers.

They were even more pronounced in Varrel and his sister Vizzy because as nurses and broodguard they had to not be able to detect the most subtle differences in the state of the offspring but also detect the merest hint of an intruder in that sacred place.

But here they were being used as nothing more than glorified bloodhounds, tracking down stolen slaves, people who like them had been taken against their will and forced to work for these vile people, human or not Varrel couldn't help but feel some form of sympathy for them.

It would be too easy to hate all humans for the way they had been treated since their queen had decided to make their presence known in the area in the hopes of establishing peaceful relations with the various human hives around the area, but despite the varied but overwhelmingly negative reactions she had held out hope that one day they would meet a friendly human hive that they might trade and co-operate with.

It was she had told him and all her guards in a quiet moment, "We cannot judge all humans for the actions of a few they are not like us, where we all live, breathe and fight for the hive they are individulistic, they roam and they explore off their own whims, but with that individulism comes a vast array of opinions and we only have to sway but a few to start making friends out there and with them and time others will come to see that we are not the vile monsters they belive us to be and nor are we aggressive single minded insect like our cousins, their blood forged us as much did those of our Cazador cousins, we have the best of both worlds and it is up to us to show them who we are and that we can help one another all it's going to take is to find that one individual who will have a mind open enough to see us as we truly are for the word to spread because if there is one thing humans are good at its spreading tales," she'd said.

It felt like a stinger in his heart as he walked along trying to hold onto the image of his smiling beautiful and ever-hopeful queen in his mind's eye, she had never given up her hope and even in his darkest days Varrel too tried his hardest to hold onto that positive notion that somewhere out there would be kind humans, ones who didn't treat others like this but it was a view that faded slightly with each day that passed.

Finally, they reached the slave camp that had housed the workers that had been responsible for producing some of the food that the boss had used to keep her prominent position within the raider hierarchy around this place.

During his time in captivity Varrel had learned quite a lot about the structure of the human society here, the place was split into a series of five regions, four outer and a central one that was kinda like their primary hive.

The four outer regions were controlled by bosses who each ran their region very differently but the net result was the same, they held all of the small settlements and towns which were the equivalent of human hives hostage and they used the resident as slave labour to produce things like food or ammo for their vile weapons which they then used to levy their position under their central or overboss, who was kinda like their hive queen, or in this case king.

No sooner had they entered the now deserted compound Varrel's sense of smell was assaulted with very unfamiliar scents that made him instantly curious and by the look on his sister's face he could see she smelled it too.

Under the scent of burnt wood and metal was the scent of fear and death, "Search the place and see if you can find any sign of who did this, you two with me we're gonna take a walk around and let's see if those fucking noses of yours are worth the boss keeping you alive and buzzing shall we?' Torch said gesturing to the buildings including the now burnt slave quarters.

Honestly, the twins didn't need to cast about the scents were as plain as day to the pair of them but whatever, if anything this would give them the chance to analyze what they were smelling here because to call it odd was an understatement.