Chapter 3
The Spyder Lily
Cerra decided to observe her targets hideout one last time. What was one more day? She had spent a good bit of time tracking down the chymist recently, so she wanted to make sure her notes were still accurate. Sure enough, it was always the same five, and they still were as predictable as ever in their movements. Go out for a bit. Come back and get wasted. Pass out late. Sometimes they brought “friends” back to their lair for “fun”. And sometimes those “friends” were dragged out in bags. Only to be disposed of in a method Cerra was unfortunately all too familiar with. The incinerators. It was all disgusting. The man with one eye always appeared to be their leader, and each of the others were always hanging on his every word. Everything checked out.
It was time to head home.
She barely slept before the mission, as her mind raced. “Am I really about to kill those five men?” played over and over in her thoughts. But she forced herself to get at least some shuteye. The next day was a blur to Cerra and before she knew it, the night she had been planning for had finally arrived. She had freshly dyed her hair red, and crudely cut it so that grouped strands fell all around her head. Some were styled upwards using tightly wound wire she had found.
Looking at her reflection, Cerra had become the very Spider Lily that she reminded Lillianna of when they had first met. On her cheek, using some left over dye, she painted a swath of her skin red. The color of Lillianna’s blood. The blood that was left there by her friend’s dying hand. There would be no one that knew the red colors significance, save Cerra.
Her clothes were loose but not overly baggy. This was for mobility. She had a knife sheathed on her belt. The very knife that she had given to Lilly. Cerra had sharpened the blade and slightly notched it before spreading the Purple Blades poison carefully on it. It stunk. The toxin seeped into all the crevices. She let it dry as instructed before re-sheathing it. A specially designed holster was latched to her upper thigh, but was empty. This was for the needle pistol. Which was preloaded with the paralysis needles she would rely on, and placed in the duffel bag. She didn’t want to attract attention to herself on the way.
As she prepared to leave her home in the wall, she stopped and took stock of everything in the space. This was most likely the last time she would step foot inside here. This place that had been her home for so long, and became a safe haven for herself and Lilly. Cerra hoped some orphaned girl such as her would find this place after she was gone, and make it their home.
Cerra left without turning back. She did however stop just outside for one more moment of reflection.
Slowly shaking her head a couple of times, she walked away.
Cerra quietly made her way in the darkness. The route was memorized at this point. A small passage, perfect for a smaller person such as her, leading to a spot nearby their lair was her way in. She just had to be quiet and wait for the right time. Which was when they had partied too much and passed out. Sure enough, after hours of raucous noise, the sounds diminished. Cerra steeled herself and made a quiet entrance. When she arrived she found that all of the men were in the throes of an alcohol infused sleep. All according to plan.
The whole place was a disaster area and stunk, even by Hive standards. There was dried blood on the floor in various places. Presumably from some of the parties with their “friends”. Cerra made sure to take a tally of the men. As she didn’t want any surprises. Everyone was accounted for. Four lackeys, and the man that only possessed a single eye. This was the closest she had been to him. A faint ringing in her ears began, but dissipated as quick as it came.
Trying to be as quiet as possible, Cerra raised her needle pistol. As instructed, she fired two paralysis needles into the gut of each of the 5 slumbering men in quick succession from relatively close range. She had to be quick. Each gasped and awoke as she fired. The toxin quickly entered their systems, getting to work almost immediately. All five made strange guttural sounds as they were forced sober by the situation they were now in.
She had accomplished step one, and confidently dropped the gun on the floor. She did not notice, however, that one of the needles did not find its mark. Instead of piercing the flesh, it stuck into a belt under the slumping mans shirt. One Eye had only received a half dose.
‘This stuff is fast!’ She thought about the paralysis agent. Koril the chymist indeed knew her stuff.
Cerra propped up the man she had dubbed One Eye many months prior. This made it much easier for him to see the scene. His one good eye darted back and forth. The men, were now her captive audience.
Maybe it was the conversation she had with Koril and Imal, maybe it was the pressure that had been imposed on her over the past year, but Cerra began to speak in the most confident voice she ever had to this date. She had worked out what she wanted to say beforehand, and was definitely inspired by the boastful and strong looking Matriarch Imal. But her words were not what she had practiced. Her brain had switched gears.
“You punks do not know who I am. And you never will. What you will know is that you took something from me One. Year. Ago.” Cerra removed the knife from the sheath. “You no doubt have seen many knives in your useless lives. But I am sure at least one of you will recognize this blade.” Now walking towards One Eye. She waved the blade in front of his face. Tracing a path from his eye to ear. He started breathing hard as his eye met the gaze of the girl with bright red hair.
“Oh good, you do have a brain in there capable of remembering.”
“You took the only person I have ever cared for in my life, and for that I have come to put and end to you. All of you.” Cerra strode to the man farthest from One Eye, and made a very shallow cut along his upper arm. Nothing happened. It dawned on her that she never bothered to ask what the reaction to this poison would actually look like. The first tome assassin thought to panic, but then the man began to convulse and his mouth began to foam a purplish substance. His eyes rolled into the back of his head. He was gone, but his body continued to shudder a bit.
‘One down.’ She felt a bit sick, but moved on.
She repeated the process twice more, each time with only shallow cuts. She had never killed a man before tonight. Now she had killed three. The fourth man was in full sight of One Eye. Cerra cut his neck. This death was much quicker for some reason. The purple foam flowed from his mouth as his convulsions had knocked him over from his propped up position.
Time was standing still for Cerra, and as she moved from man to man, she neglected to notice that One Eye had recovered some mobility. The paralytic was wearing off from him for some reason, and when she approached to at last finish him he kicked out at her legs with a grunt. This caused Cerra to crash to the floor, and sent the knife falling. She struck her head on a broken crate when she fell and lost her bearings.
The one eyed man used this time to crawl over and grab the knife, then crawled to Cerra.
Straining heavily, he mounted her and brought an arm up to stab. However, as the effects of the paralytic were still slightly coursing through his body, he missed a fatal blow. Instead collapsing atop her. While he had missed a fatal stab, the knife did succeed in nicking her shoulder, only slightly.
Cerra went cold and panicked, realizing the poisoned blade had cut her. She managed to squirm free in a panic. This sent One Eye thumping to the floor. The small girl then collapsed in a heap about a meter away from him. Lifeless.
The man sluggishly rolled over, laughing. “Stupid trash. Yeah I remembered that knife. How could I not?! It took my eye!! That pincushion plaything we found a while back got me with it. But not before we all got her. A few times! Right boys?” He let out a sickly laugh, but then remembered that his boys were all dead. This caused his demeanor to change quickly, and he slowly began to crawl over to the lifeless body of Cerra. Grunting with every movement.
It was this moment when Cerra spun, wielding the needle pistol. In a stroke of luck she had collapsed within arms length to it. She was laying on her side and there was a green foam in the corners of her mouth. This was different from the purple foam seen around the room oozing from the other men. She was also shaking a bit.
“What?!”
His overconfidence was gone, as a shot rang out. A needle hit him near his collar bone. A split second later he collapsed face down, breaking his nose in the fall. One Eye was once again paralyzed. The knife that was still in his hand clanged on the floor. Cerra managed to stand and kicked him in the side as hard as she could before pushing the man over. Blood streaked from his busted nose.
“I have the antidote. Stupid trash” Cerra said, reusing his own words against him as she stood over his head and took three shots. Three projectiles pierced into his head. One of them went straight through his remaining eye. Two of the three needles ended up entering his brain. He was dead immediately. But that didn’t stop Cerra from discarding the pistol once again before retrieving the knife and stabbing him in the stomach. Just like Lilly had been stabbed. She let out a scream as she pierced his gut.
Her adrenaline fueled actions overpowered her grasp on reality. Yeah, the antidote had worked, but she was, in fact, very much in pain. The blood in her veins felt like fire. She felt like she was going to throw up and was shaking.
Was this all due to the fact she had just murdered 5 men? Or was it because she had just been poisoned?
Prior to this night Cerra was resolved that she would not be walking away alive. But at the last minute, as she left her home in the wall, she decided that she didn’t want to die if she could help it. She just wasn’t as ready as she had convinced herself she was. So Cerra prepared the antidote pill while she was hiding before the encounter. And sure enough, it was called upon. The pill was placed under her tongue just before she entered the hideout. But she almost lost it when One Eye had toppled her. The pill had worked loose as she gasped in shock, but thankfully stayed in her mouth.
Having been nicked by the poisoned blade, she located it in her mouth with her tongue and bit it. The hardened capsule broke with a crunch, releasing the chemical compound. For all intents and purposes she did collapse from the poison. And it was awful. She would later describe it as: “Feeling like my insides were being set on fire in a split second, as the poison spread quickly”.
Cerra, still shaking from everything that just happened, sat down in the middle of the room amongst the filth and the dead to collect herself. Her mind was racing. What had just happened? What did she just do? In truth, she didn’t quite know if she was alive or not. She felt lighter though, for some reason.
During this time dueling thoughts muscled their way into her mind.
‘Lilly would have been appalled by what happened here tonight. About what I did’
But on the other hand, ‘Lilly didn’t deserve to die. She wasn’t even supposed to land on this rock. These men deserved to die’. She was shaking as if she were chilled, but it definitely was not cold in this place.
Cerra had taught Lilly about how the laws of normal worlds didn’t matter here. Hive justice was real. Tonight was her first time she enacted it though. She shook her head and took a deep breath. “What’s done is done. And I have to get out of here.” She collected what she entered with, including as many of the needles from the pistol as possible. Remembering Koril’s comment about Purple Blades “calling cards”.
Without looking back, she made for the door, but stopped and vomited inside a small barrel. Her vomit was a mixture of green foam, blood, and bile. The taste was awful.
She had to get out of here.
As she turned the corner, wiping her mouth, she came face to face with a towering woman. Well, face to bosom. It was Matriarch Imal. She was flanked by two other smaller women. “So, girl. Did you do what you intended?”
Her heart and mind were still racing, maybe more so seeing as she was not expecting to meet Imal… Not now at least. She had every intention of heeding Imal’s stipulation. “I did. I did what Had to be done.” Cerra replied. Her body still shaking, and stomach quite queasy.
“Good” Imal responded, “follow me.” The large woman pushed past Cerra and re-entered the room. The two sisters followed close behind the pair. Inside, Imal surveyed the scene. “You got them while they slept?”
“Yeah, I had tracked and observed them for some time, they get trashed and pass out a lot. Very predictable. That’s why I needed the paralysis needles. There were too many of them.” The young girl answered. Gone was the stuttering voice that she had used during her last conversation with Imal.
“You did your homework, it would seem. And this one? Things didn’t go as planned with this one, did they.” The astute matriarch noticed.
“The paralysis didn’t last long with him, and I took too much time. He kicked me and…” she showed her shoulder, where she was grazed by the poisoned blade. There was a green ooze mixed with the blood slowly coming out of the shallow wound. With a speed that was almost blinding, the Matriarch grabbed her arm to inspect the cut. Her strong hand gripped Cerra’s limb tightly. The grip probably would have hurt on any other day, but she couldn’t feel much right now.
“You had time to take the antidote? This stuff moves fast in the body, Cerra. You must be a mess right now” There was surprise in the Matriarchs voice. Also Cerra thought that this was the first time Imal used her name.
But before Cerra could respond, Imal deduced, “You were expecting this. You actually prepared the pill beforehand. Very clever.” Cerra had no response. “When we first met, I had expected you wanted to die.”
“Girls. Take care of this mess.” Imal ordered her underlings, and they sprang into action. Piling all of the dead men in the center of the room, along with anything that was combustible. Imal beckoned Cerra outside.
“Let’s take a walk. Are you okay?”
”I am… not feeling great. I am really thirsty. But I think I will be okay. This is the most physical pain I have ever felt.” Cerra replied.
“You were poisoned by one of the most powerful toxins Koril can make. You are quite lucky.” Imal said as she came to a stop. “But all around, you did well. Do you remember the stipulations of our deal? About you joining the Purple Blades?
“I do.”
“Good. This was all a test for you, Cerra. After hearing your story, I wanted to see if you had the resolve to see this through. Not only did you agree to the terms, you saw it through to the end. You are resourceful and have the smarts needed to survive in the Hive.” she paused. “The Purple Blades would welcome you. Though it will not be easy. Tonight was only a taste of our life.” She stopped once more, pondering something. “So I will offer you this chance, just once. You can walk away. The way I see it, you did us a service by ridding our turf of that vermin back there. I will give you until tomorrow night to decide, Cerra.”
The girl did not hesitate to respond. “I do not need a day to decide, Matriarch. I will join you.” She stopped for a moment looking back at the room they were previously in. “But not Cerra? No, she will not” The girl looked up into the Matriarch’s eyes, whom was silent with a stone face.
“Cerra is dead, Matriarch Imal. Her slow death began one year ago. And you are right, I was resolved that I would die today. But I changed my mind earlier tonight. I want to live. I want to continue to survive. But not as Cerra” She raised a still shaking hand and pointed at the room.
“In that room Cerra will burn along with One Eye and his rodents.” she trailed off. Imal still offered no comments.
“Today, a new life begins for me.” She pulled out a small trinket from her pocket, it was about the size of her palm.
“Today, with Cerra’s death, Lillianna is born.”
The Lycoris holo flashed into view with a push of a button, and slowly spun there quietly between Imal and the girl that would from today forward be known as Lillianna.
“Today is my birthday.”
Epilogue
Lilianna and the Lycoris Maidens
Lillianna, formerly Cerra, joined the Purple Blades on her birthday, following the successful killing of 5 men that had stolen something very important from her. She was recruited by Matriarch Imal directly, and began in the bottom rungs of the gang while learning the ins and outs of the House of Blades. She served for about 12 years as a foot soldier in the gang, working her way up ahead of many of the other girls. Lilianna earned a promotion to Matriarch when Imal ascended to Queen. This was following the passing of their long standing leader, Viviene. Lilianna would be the youngest Matriarch in Purple Blades history.
A few years after Imal took the reins of the Purple Blades, there would be an uprising by some Juves in their system. They began to spread a dissension that festered in the lower ranks. The Matriarchs and Sisters eventually lost control of these unruly brats, who were doing many things to cause unrest. Many of the loyal members suspected that this was all caused by agents from rival gangs that had infiltrated the ranks to spread a plague of lies. Some of which included falsities about Imal embezzling funds from the upper house.
The shockwaves of all of this resulted in Queen Imal being murdered by a splinter group of Purple Blades one evening. Matriarch Lillianna took her death the hardest of all the loyal sisters. Following joining the gang, Imal had taken Lilianna under her wing, even though she was a nobody. It was Imal that had dubbed her the Spyder Lily on the day she joined the gang. A name that stuck with her.
The loss of Queen Imal at the hands of girls from within the gang enraged Lilianna and she personally hunted down as many of the murderers as she could.
Hearing of this large scale mutiny, the upper echelons of the House of Blades stepped in and held an inquisition that lasted quite a while. During this time all of the gangs business dealings were put on hold. This caused some members to further splinter and start doing their own back alley dealings. In short, the gang was in shambles. As many of the dissenters that could be caught would be rounded up and executed in a public forum amongst the loyal. Which caused any remaining mutineers to scatter into the Hive’s shadows.
With no leadership, and the gang in tatters, the Purple Blades were officially dissolved by the leadership above. Word of this spread fast, and in its wake, the Purple Blades turf was almost immediately swallowed up by rival factions.
Lillianna, unwilling to accept all of this, petitioned the Upper House to let her take the loyal remaining Purple Blades members and start her own gang. She vowed to retake what was theirs, and restore the House of Blades image in this ward.
The higher-ups had reservations given Lillianna’s young age(approximately 31 at the time) however. But her prior service to the house, and the fact that Imal herself had recommended Lillianna for ascension to Queen should she die, something Lillianna was not aware of, led the Upper House to agree with her request. With the stipulation that the name ‘Purple Blades’ name be gone forever however. It was tainted. Lilianna was also given a period of one year to accomplish all of this, or she would be dealt with.
Lillianna agreed to the terms and quickly selected a name. One that had personal meaning to her.
Their official title was the Lycoris Maidens. But in the alley’s and deep recesses of the Hive, they would be known as the Spyder Lilies. In the appointed 1 year’s time, under Queen Lillianna’s direction, they regained the Purple Blades turf, and actually expanded by another 20%. It was a bloody conquest.
The upper house was so thrilled with Lillianna and her girl’s work and they were rewarded well.
Lillianna was obsessed with beautiful things, and learning about life on other worlds, or old cultures. She regularly frequented the markets looking for trinkets from off world. When asked about how she developed such interests, Lillianna said she had learned a lot from an old friend. She credited this person with making her who she was today, in a roundabout way. But no one quite understood what she meant by that.
The only people that knew about the trader Lilianna were Imal and the chymist Koril. And both were now dead. Koril having died 7 years ago when her lab had exploded.
Lilianna was also known for setting up patrols at the docks looking for, and eliminating, traffickers. Which drew the ire of rival factions and entities. Rumors also swirled that she was personally financing an orphanage in the sector. Though this could never be confirmed, there is an orphanage bearing a Spider Lily image.
Queen Lillianna died in her sleep at a relatively old age. Though no one quite knew exactly how old she was. By her deathbeds side was a small holo-projector with the gang’s namesake flower spinning slowly.
There was also an old sealed ammo box there as well. The letters C and L were painted on the side in long since faded red paint. It is said that this old metal box contained the remains of the two people that Queen Lilianna ever called friends. But it has never been opened.
The holo and ammo box are now considered sacred, and are held deep in the gangs secured stores.
The namesake, ‘Lilianna’ continues on to this day, with all ascending Lycoris Maiden Matriarchs adopting the name upon taking control of the gang. This was not decreed in doctrine. It was done as a sign of respect.
The End
If you made it this far, thank you very much. There is some more to come, in terms of background for the Spyder Lilies, but the story of Cerra and Lilianna was where I had the most fun in this whole endeavor. Thanks again for reading!
This story is a work of fiction that is loosely set in the Warhammer 40K/Necromunda universes. Any likenesses to any other works is completely unintentional.
Robert
All of these are true except for one:
Robert is: a Hobbyist, a Music Lover, an RPG Gamer, a Mustard Lover, Chaotic Neutral, a Japanese Speaker, a Veteran, an Otaku, a Table Tennis Player, an Anime Fan, an Aviation Professional, a New York Rangers Fan, a Chaos Lover With Loyalist Tendencies.
