This is a fanfiction work based on the Classic BattleTech game owned by WizKids LLC. All rights reserved. If you are interested in knowing the background of several characters in this story, please read my previous short stories Return of the Widow and Beast of Ishiyama located in this category. Enjoy (I hope)!
Black Widow: Devil's Night
By Triptych
By the help of devils
he has caused many of every nation
to speak blasphemies,
and to deny that God is the maker of the universe
and to assert that some other being greater than He
has done greater works.
-Justin Martyr
When the original colonizers of Erebor set out to settle the untamed lands north of the main continent of Durin many centuries ago, several advanced parties of prospectors never returned. As the seasons passed into years and later on into decades, legends arouse that evil spirits took those lost prospectors. This was due to the fact that a large percentage of the original settlers of Erebor were religious refugees with a strong sense of mysticism. Among the colonials were an obscure Christian sect calling themselves Albigensians. They were branded as heretics due to their belief that good and evil were balanced forces, that two Gods-not one- controlled the universe, that Satan was equivalent to, in conflict with, and as crafty as the Lord. The body-the flesh and therefore reality- was the devil's domain. Only the mind-the spirit- was the path to righteousness and salvation.
The Terran Hegemony at that time was attempting to unify the disparate human worlds but in order to reap the benefits of peace and stability; a number of extreme religious groups were exiled to the Periphery. And so it came that a large contingent of Albigensians settled unto the temperate world of Erebor. As the process of colonization was harsh, many of the population ultimately turned away from their intense religious beliefs and the majority of the people that descended from the original colonists ultimately acquired a secular society shortly before they were absorbed into the Rim Worlds Republic, a collection of holdings ruled by the Amaris family.
In order to preserve their past and culture, many settlers on different worlds began to practice their own forms of customs as well as holidays and the world of Erebor was no exception. On the day after Halloween, the natives of Erebor developed a night of feasting and prayer called "Devil's Night" in order to commemorate those settlers that lost their lives in the initial founding of the colony as well as to drive the evil spirits away. A few fanatical Albigensians branded this occasion as one of the devil's holidays and staged bloody riots across the major cities of the planet before their ringleaders were rounded up by units of the Rim Worlds military and then executed. The sect was destroyed as many of their members were imprisoned and the heresy was outlawed.
But there were rumors that the heresy survived, that a small group of hardcore fanatics took with them a priceless treasure and settled in the outlying regions in order to grow and one day set things right.
Over 700 years later, just days before Devil's Night on Erebor, two lovers were running for their lives.
Kyle Thayer had it all at one point; he was a six-year veteran for the Armed Forces of the Federated Commonwealth, a former officer in the elite 10th Lyran Guards. He was young, good-looking, experienced and lethal. All that came to a crashing end just a few hours before when he was discovered along with his lover Laura Sebastian by the wardens of the temple vaults. Kyle was an upcoming star in the hierarchy of the Covenant, destined to be a leader among the new breed of holy warriors that would bring back the light to drive away the darkness that was the Inner-Sphere. He had done everything right until he committed the most unpardonable sin: he fell in love with the wrong woman.
"Come on!" Kyle screamed at Laura as she stumbled after him. They were running for hours, stopping only to rest for a short while before Kyle urged them on again.
Laura did not reply, instead she sank to her knees while letting out short, hurried breaths.
Kyle was frantic now. "We must keep moving!"
"Oh Kyle, I can't." She pleaded.
"If we don't go now, we're both dead!" Kyle screamed.
That was a mistake. In the far corners of the woods, he heard a twig snap. Quickly drawing his laser pistol from his hip holster, Kyle scanned for targets as Laura opened her eyes in wide astonishment.
"Kyle!" Laura screamed and pointed to his left flank.
Kyle pivoted to bring his pistol to bear but it was too late. An expertly thrown knife sliced into his right arm and he dropped the laser. As he tried to scramble for the weapon on the forest floor his left ankle was shot out from under him and he fell to the ground, a few feet away from his pistol.
"Laura, honey; give me the gun." Kyle pleaded. It was apparent that he was in obvious pain.
"I-I can't!" Laura burst into tears as she slowly began to back off to the edge of the woods.
"Please! If you don't we're dead!" He gasped.
Laura could not take it anymore, her lover cut down in front of her, beseeching like a cornered, desperate animal. She did what her instincts told her. She ran the other way, into the woods.
As Kyle slowly crawled his way to reach for his pistol, they converged on him. He saw their shadows looming over him as he tried one last grab for his pistol, only to have his hand impaled to the dirt floor by another throwing knife. He cursed, but did not cry out in pain, as if not to let his tormentors have the final laugh.
But a gangly, spiked-haired youth laughed anyway until he was cut off by a grotesque, enormously overweight man dressed in velvet robes.
"Now, now Erik, you must not laugh at the poor sinner, if anything you should feel pity for him." The man in velvet twiddled his fat hands.
"I'm sorry, father." The youth said.
"Father?" The corpulent man yelled so hard that the men surrounding him fell silent.
"Deacon." Erik grimaced as he corrected himself. Soon he would not have to put up with this he thought.
"That's better. Now be a kind lad and go after your sister. She must not get away." The fat hands snapped fingers that could barely go in tandem.
As Erik scampered away to find his sister, a smaller man with sharp oriental features drew forward. He was dressed almost entirely in black; his wiry movements revealing that here was a man accustomed to dealing in death. Even the other men in the group, although more heavily armed than he was, drew back out of sheer respect and fear.
Kyle's bloodshot eyes looked up and narrowed in a final show of defiance as the small man in black tore off his throwing knife from Kyle's arm, cleaned it and stowed it back into the folds of his clothing.
"Damn you to hell Yao." Kyle tried to spit out his last words as the small man got on top of him and twisted his neck so hard it snapped in two. Kyle gurgled, then died.
"Well done Yao. You have proven tonight that you shall be my general leading our victorious armies back into the decadent Inner-Sphere." The Deacon said as a matter-of-fact.
Yao bowed. "You are too kind Deacon."
A short while later, Erik returned, carrying a scrap of cloth. The Deacon quickly turned to face his son.
"Well, is she dead?" The Deacon asked.
"I believe so Deacon." Erik smiled.
"What do you mean you believe so?" The Deacon's immensely fat figure bellowed like a beached whale.
"I-I shot her, and she fell off the cliff. I tried to grab onto her so that I could take the scarab away from her but it was too late. She fell." Erik's eyes were downcast. He hated to disappoint his father in front of the men.
The curse from the fat Deacon made everyone except Yao shudder. "No! Damn you! I want everyone to search the beaches, search the ocean if you have to! But I want that scarab! Even if you have to go deep into the depths of hell to find it!"
As the group split up, the majority spreading out to find what was so precious to the Deacon, Yao readjusted his clothes so that his bone-white death's head pin would show more prominently on his collar. After all, he wanted to know what his enemies were up against before they die.