Page 21 of Mated to the Monster God

SAGAX

T he world breaks loose at the shriek of impact—Baragon’s first seismic eruption beneath the colony setting off trumpeting bells of dread. Rumbles torque the ground, the fissure beneath our barricade biting earth and metal. Sweetwater cranks into a battlefield.

I launch into the fray: claws slicing the air, tail whistling, heat and rain slashing my scales. My senses flare—metallic gunfire, war-cries from colonists, the thunder-roar of Baragon lifting debris and collapsing fortifications.

They are terrifying—Baragon, the subterranean nightmare, erupting from below.

The air trembles with tremor, their scaled limbs snapping through the earth, the horned beasts tearing trenches into rubble as they emerge.

Their roars are seismic—red-engine roars that rattle bone and unmake hope.

They’re beings born in the molten guts of the world, hungry for ruin.

I pounce into the swarm like a furious blaze. My teeth rip into Baragon flesh—horn cracked, blood sparking, flesh shredding. Bones crack beneath my claws. The creature thrashes, earth-shaking, but I twist into primal resolve: it’s them or ours.

Colonists scream, scrambling in trenches brimming with churned mud. Some fire back at the advancing horror with improvised shards of laser cutters. I tear scrap metal from barricades and hurl them into Baragon ranks. Scorching fat and bone. I roar—my heart unborn for violence but reborn in purpose.

I feel Esme’s voice flicker in my mind, steadying me: We're counting on you. The voice is calm beneath chaos. Her scent laces through my blood, reminding me—this isn’t about death. It’s about giving them tomorrow.

I catch a Baragon leg crashing through a wall. I drive bone-blade claws deep, ripping through tendons and steel, ripping hope further into our ground. The beasts shriek—a wet, angry howl that echoes with primordial fury.

Above, drones flicker—scanning, streaming. I catch one in passing, ripping metallic wings before it can sound an alarm. Sparks spray. The rain sprays them away like dandelion seeds.

I barrel to the fuse block trap site. It's a finger-hold of hope—buried under rubble but alive. I clear debris with scale-armored arms, mud clinging, setting down explosives. The vibrations are violent, precise. I activate the block.

A wave of scorch erupts—fusion warmth consuming everything in its radius. Baragons incinerate in a fevered bloom; disintegration and scream all at once. The heat melts armor, bones vaporize. The smoke smells of ozone and burning rain.

Colonists stare—some drop to knees. I roar again—victory, wrath, protection fused in noise. I feel them behind me: Tara patching wounds, Esme moving with medigel and resin—her hands giving life even while death circles.

Her clear voice I feel again in my mind: You’re doing it. Not because she needs me—but because together, we move worlds.

I dive again. A Baragon lunges—horn aimed at colonists. I intercept it—body comet-fast. I crumble the creature’s spine with one crushing tackle; the horn explodes in jagged bone fragments. Blood rains down; earth sulks with rain and iron.

I don’t pause. I can’t. Another Baragon emerges from crumbled earth. I meet it with talons raised high. My growl shakes the air. We clash, scale teeth snapping. It’s thunder against living, electrified purpose.

A crash behind me—I’m shoved back through blood-slick trench. I rise to see Morty helping load a blade rifle, eyes wide with fear and fledgling courage. He looks at me, and no words pass—we’re both part of this broken bloom.

The world blurs, volts of rain, screams, fusion blasts, blood, bark, metal.

My rage devours fear.

Esme’s voice clasps my spine.

We're still here.

The storm crescendos. Rain hammers down, thundering overhead.

I turn toward Esme and Tara. They’re archangels of survival—Tara holding medigel wands, Esme bandaging bones with water shaking her hands. She looks up—meets my eyes. The world collapses and narrows down to her—life in flesh and promise.

A voice booms over comms—Krenshaw’s voice, venomous calm cracking the sky:

“Your time is up. Prepare for extinction.”

The words are radioactive. They tear through every wet sound in the field.

I clench my jaw. Baragons recoil and roar into the new threat. The rain hisses on heated rez tails.

I bare my teeth.

Esme reaches for my hand. The rain falls harder, tornado heartbeat in my chest.

She meets my eyes. We fight.

I nod.

Below the roar of war, the colony roars back in resistance.

We’re not done.

The air changes—electric kindness turns sharp, desperate intelligence.

Baragons shift tactics. They adapt. Their eyes swivel, heads swivel, as if deciphering the patterns of our defenses.

Trenches that once slowed them now funnel them straight, shields shimmer with spectral energy that eats bullets, and fusion traps fizzle beneath new metal plating.

I watch with mounting dread as the first barricade collapses, colonists thrown backward into powder and mud. Shields blink and disappear—Baragons learn, reroute, counter. Their mirrored helmets reflect our own horror.

I charge headlong into the breach, claws ready, roar tearing through the rain, only to be driven back by relentless force—armored flesh and sharpened blade.

A Baragon tackles me; I wrestle it off, scales spraying sparks on his plating.

He recovers like a storm-driven rock and tackles again.

We tumble. I taste blood. I taste iron. Rain drowns the scream.

A second wave crushes into us. Collapsing barricades, bones cracking on stone, colonists scrambling—fear thickens the air. One Baragon, growth twisted in the light, preps to swing rough horn against my skull. I duck—only to collapse under the weight of another.

All defenses crack; we tumble into chaos.

Suddenly, everything shifts. A shriek tears through the battlefield—neither Baragon nor human but mechanical, fierce and deliberate. A beam of stolen plasma fire explodes from the ridge above, cutting a furnace path through Baragon ranks.

I stagger upright, radiant with startled hope. The beam arcs again—timing, aim, dazzling brilliance. It consumes armor, swallows weapon, pulses like unleashed glory.

Rick—and Jimmy—stand atop a makeshift artillery platform cobbled from a mining rig. Rick cranks a lever; plasma cannons roar. Jimmy yells: “Fire in the hole!”

The beam burns a swath through Baragon forces. Flesh melts off armor. Limbs writhe in sizzling agony. The shockwave slams me backward, rootbones rattling, but nothing matters but that split-second lifeline.

I stagger toward them, heart thundering, fury amplified by gratitude. They are warriors—colonists turned heroes—hued in mud and determination.

Rick locks eyes with me. Cigarette glowing in the rain, he gives a crooked nod. Jimmy grins, adrenaline burning his cheeks.

I fight back tears.

Baragon second wave falters—resolute faces harnessed in cords of pain catching fire.

I roar for the colony—your line holds! Reinforcements surge, trench collapses reverse as barricades are re-manned, fusion blocks spark again behind us.

The stolen plasma rig shrieks on reload. Blue-white scorches the sky at intervals. Rick and Jimmy keep firing.

I charge back into the fray with renewed ferocity. Every scale hums with reverence—those two, their courage, the plasma light that cracked the world open for us.

I body slam a Baragon sending shards of metal and horn skittering across scarred ground. I pivot to shield an older colonist, arm snapping up as the beast rakes for blood. My claws slash. The beast topples.

I manage a glance at Rick and Jimmy. They’re unstoppable: rig patched up on the fly, ammo feed only strained, not broken. Steam, rain, and gunpowder coalesce into hope.

We drive through the broken lines. Baragons falter, stumble, retreat in hissing, in animal fury turned human defiance.

Rain washes through the sunken trenches; cries of the wounded are potent in the air.

I snarl primal and guttural. “They won’t break us,” I roar—earth-shaking, scale-rattling. “Because we don’t break.”

Behind me, Esme lifts the medigel, Tara tends to the wounded. I see flashes—Colonists gripping rifles again, windows lighting up with makeshift flares, the colony’s morale reigniting.

I turn back to the field—my body shimmering, claws dripping with victory’s iron. The sound of plasma cannon is a mantra now—Rick and Jimmy heroes in the storm.

I catch an armored Baragon leg cresting the trench. I bolt forward and leap—wings folding to help me—swoop through narrow air cracks. I drop onto its back, teeth flashing, and bite down into unprotected flesh. The creature crashes, chest flaring red-hot.

Rain hisses on metal and flesh. I stand on the broken beast’s spine.

Rick’s beam sears a path behind me. I roar again, victory in my lungs.

Colonists rally. Shields hold. Trenches fill with rebels renewed.

I close my eyes, taste copper victory and sacrifice and belonging. Rick and Jimmy, meld into the blood and possibilities of tomorrow’s dawn.

I won’t fear again—not while they’re here, while she’s here.

In the plasma flame’s glow, victory is ours—claimed by fire, scale and pulse.

The ground quakes again—Baragons brutally smashing into the outer wall. Earth splits, logs burst, and the trembling skies rain dust and desperation. My roar cuts through the chaos like a blade, but for a moment, it feels as though their tide is uncontainable.

I leap onto the parapet, claws scraping against charcoal-burned wood. My wings flare, fists tight around the hilts of bone-blade claws. The Baragons press in, unstoppable—horn-skinned warriors forged for annihilation. I don’t fear for myself. I fear for Sweetwater. For her.

Screams echo inside the trench. I twist, breath ragged, seeing Esme and Tara—still standing, fear blocked behind determination—pressing medigel into injured arms, pulling colonists upright, breathing life back into them.

Their strength steadies me.

Silence rips the sky.

A distant transmission—the crackle of cold, calm inevitability.

Krenshaw’s voice, hollow and synthetic, booms through every speaker, every comm link:

“The resin will be mine. And your precious Esme will be my prototype.”

A plug of fury detonates in my chest. My vision floods red—blood, flame, and raw weight of promise.

I twist around the battlement, heart twin-thrust by red-hot rage and savage protection. The Baragons hesitate—metallic heads twitching, instinct stiffening.

I roar back, low and lethal: “He will not touch what is mine.”

The night bursts.

I spring into battle anew. With ruthless grace, I launch through that breach, tearing Baragons from one another with claws slicing in arcs of vengeance and love. Every strike hammers my pledge to her into flesh and bone.

They retreat—not in terror, but calculation. Baragons adapt fast… but not fast enough for rage unbound.

I drive them back, pushing them from wall to earth, show them who owns this ground. Each time they pivot in armor, I meet them with steel, rain-soaked fury, and abandon fear for purpose.

Rain streaks my scales. Echoes of Krenshaw’s phrase haunt the air, but his words have become fuel.

I bellow again: “This is ours!”

The world bends to that roar.

And buried beneath the roar, sand, and fire—I think I taste dawn.

They will never touch her. Not on my watch.