The Green Hell Beergarden

[The Banger Grim]

Matthew Grim powers down his craft and disembarks onto the primary Islay bay.

He wordlessly pays his parking fee to the dockmaster while a pair of workers unload the Claymores cargo hold, consisting of only four escape pods.

Five minutes later, he enters Murphy Central. Hells primary cavern, sixty-six levels underneath the stations primary operations.

He walks through the main alleyway to the middle area that serves as a small approximation of a public park, leading four hooded men: bound, gagged and daisy-chained together at the necks as if they were dogs.

Silently, he stands and watches patiently as curious onlookers line the perimeter of the circular park until the normal hum of Hells daily activity is replaced with the dull roar of hushed murmurs of curiosity seekers.

He reaches into the pocket of his duster and tosses a small sphere into the air and it positions itself, hovering close by.

In an instant, the twenty four massive monitors spaced and bolted across the span of the rocky ceiling switch from the regular outside feed of the Islay ice cloud, changing to broadcast the face of the Banger Grim across them all.

With a showman's' flair, his deep, amplified Voice booms across the cavern:

"Gaians! All of you! Ladies and Gentlemen! Children and Peers! Natives and pirates, poseurs and pilots! Direct your attention to the center ring and open your goddamned ears!"

"It was over thirty years ago that we began to build this niche! Over thirty long years to make this place a home! Over thirty years of Union blood and sacrifice to turn this once inert hole into a truly, living Hell!"

"Since then, one by one, willingly or otherwise, each of you have come here to take your opportunities for drink and pleasure!"

"In Hell you have fought and eaten, screwed and screamed, rejoiced and hated and hurt!"

"Now, I must openly admit with specific regret that the perpetual atrophy in the roots of the Gaian cause has now crystallized issues that have been slowly growing like a tumor over the decades!"

"...However today will be different! Today Gaia begins to push the so-called forces of Nature back into a natural balance by way of the snarling jaws of the Beasts of Nature!...Today I offer a small reminder of the many things it takes to truly own the privilege of calling yourselves Gaians!!"

In line, one by one, Matthew tears the hoods off the heads of the four men and only separates the chains that connect three of them.

Starting on the far left, Matt locks his eyes onto the one in front of him and simultaneously adressess both captive and crowd without wavering his gaze from the Maltan.

"Outcast! Your very existence is a perverted abomination of natural evolution! You and yours are nothing but a nation of junkies and an active participant in spreading an orange cancer to all that you touch!"

"Choke on the poison that enslaves you."

The old Gaian pulls a stalky bushel of fresh cardimine from another pocket, rips away the prisoners gag, and violently shoves it down the Spaniard's throat until the mans neck turns a disturbing black and blue from severe subcutaneous damage that forces the man to drown in his own blood.

Stepping over the collapsed body, He moves to the next in line.

"Bretonian Mineral Miner! Your choice of employment is the epitome of the banality of evil! Your mundane existence through life in the simplistic pursuit of a paycheck has blinded you to the damage you regularly inflict upon the very universe that saw fit to gift you with sentience.

"You choose not to see, therefore, sight is wasted on you."

The old man flanks his hands around the sides of the BMM employees head and digs his thumbs into the mans eye sockets, twisting the optic nerves around his opposable digits and yanking out what remains by the root.

"Orbital Spa and Cruiseman! You cater to the whims of the rich and powerful as they holiday carefree above the daily rape of Gaia below them. Her screams of pain drowned out by the deafeningly shallow sounds of the revelous distractions you provide for them!

"Nature only knows how to give what it gets and it will have its revenge."

The Banger Grim removes the gun from its holster under his coat, stalks behind the terrified man, sticks the barrel into cheeks of the Cruiseman's backside, and fires.

Matthew now turns to the last man in line.

Planetformer! You hold a very special place in my heart because everything about you and yours does nothing but break it time and again.

You I condemn to to remain pristine and unmarred. Doomed to lifelong imprisonment in perfect health here in Hell.

...Very much unlike the synthetically accelerated metamorphosis you force upon the many cells of the Living Universe in the name of shortsighted, ignorant Human 'progress' and profit.

Nature evolves on her own time line, but never on ours.

You will experience the rest of your long days perpetually agonizing alone in a cage, becoming intimate with the acute suffering of a very slow and lonely death.

Yanking the chain still connected to the Planetformers neck, the old man drags the gagged and protesting animal to his jail, his muffled fearful screams of protest and anger echoing through the otherwise now remarkably silent cavern.

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