Operation: Pacifica, Dark Dreamings by Windigo the Feral (NYAR!) DAY 10--SOMEWHERE IN SPONGE CITY Windigo the Feral (NYAR!) was not exactly a happy camper. For one, Chosen or no, she had never particularly liked battle- armour. Sheridan had insisted she wear it, though--prolly a good thing too with all the damn spongies about with guns--but it still was stifling to one used to fighting with naught but Big-Ass Claws (tm) and a bad attitude. (The guns weren't half-bad though, admittedly...) That, plus the fact damn near every spongie with a gun (as well as B'harn-bots to boot--was it Spongin Mecha Field Day?) was deciding to take pot-shots...as soon as they'd entered the city in earnest, things had been heating up--they'd be lucky to catch sleep at all at this rate. And the weird-ass dreams when she *did* sleep helped even less. The dreams started shortly after the ship was attacked; odd ones, stuff about psycho orks from hell, trapping stones of pain, positively weird shit with Hanover...shit with the B'Harne-slayer going to Claws (tm)... And in all this a voice going "Watch J-Rock's arse"...(why shouldn't she watch *anyone's* arse, especially *here*? Jeez...)...she hadn't exactly had time to puzzle those out... When it wasn't that, it was nightmares. Those really fragging got to her at times...bad ones, more flashbacks than nightmares, really...she'd dream of when the pack that took her in was killed by the dark things. She didn't think too much on that...tried not to, anyways. Of course, this fragging island and some of the stuff what had to be fought didn't help one bit. Shortly upon coming on-shore, they were met by what appeared, for the life of them, to be giant striped flying millipedes from Hell--Saethrians, she'd heard 'em called--tough sneckers to kill, too. Things hadn't exactly gotten easier, that was for certain... ... "CLEANSE AND PURIFY!" Distaste for battle armour or no, there was a job to be done. Windigo shot at the legs of a BJ-Bot, vapourising one leg and sending the whole thing down on its side...bit easier to avoid the sharp end of it then. Windigo sauntered up to the cockpit (well, not really sauntered...more like sprinted--damn gunfire) and promptly smashed in the cockpit's glass windows. She sniffed, and noticed blood and more than a bit of human bodily waste--yeah, this one would need a change of 'is Depends for sure... [Ah, sneck it,] she thought. [Yeah, be having fun with this one, I will...] "AAAAAAAAAAAAIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! It's a MAAAAAAENAAAAAAD!" shouted Kristy, a young sponge-minion (who had been relegated to the driving of bots when she became too old to even be a token spongie on the show). "Observant in that, you are," Windigo stated. "But observant you weren't in dressing..." "How's that?" "Why, untied be yer shoelaces." As the young sponge-minion (as expected) fell for one of the oldest dirty tricks in the book, Windigo proceeded to haul off and belt said spongie in the solar plexus. "AOOOOWWWW! That was *groan* meeean *groan pant*!" said Kristy the sponge. "Yes, mean, it was...but not sportin'...Giving you something to make you feel better, I will," stated Windigo. "Really *grunt*?" said the sponge? "Sure. Right here, be sticking your mouth, and giving you medicine, I'll be," stated Windigo, pointing to the storm-bolter with a not exactly innocent grin on her face. The spongie, who was too busy trying to recover her breath and discovering exactly what it feels like when one's spleen has been pulverised, consented gladly. "Now open yer mouth and close yer eyes and you will get a big surprise..." The spongie did so. The cockpit of the BJ-Bot was soon decorated with blood and something which resembled rancid, purple tapioca pudding. Windigo grinned. She was feeling better already, and maybe at times there was something to be said for this stuff with guns... ... Alas, not all of this was so easy. In fact, that was probably the easiest kill of the day. And in any case, the gits were getting harder to kill in any case. Even worse, the law of the land seemed to be that of Murphy. It seemed that the guns would jam at the worst possible times (maybe there WASN'T something to be said for guns after all), and the damn shadow-things they'd run into weren't helping. The shadows and dark things--smudges--they'd skitter right at the edge of vision...and they brought back too many memories. Memories of the bad dreams. Windigo paid a bit more attention to dreams than most. The wolf- folk had taken great stock in dreams--often spirit-stuff would talk to you there. And in this light, the nightmares were particularly disturbing... She'd have the dream between, sometimes before, the ones with the ork and all. Sometimes they seemed almost to be part of the same dream...in it, she was fourteen again, the last time the dark ones came. The dark ones that killed her entire family that she'd known, and were part of why she had started in the war men called the Jihad. The wolf-folk had their boogymen, as did humans. There were dark werewolves, that had turned to what they called the Dark Devourer. Not just werewolves either; they'd also change other folk too, twist them into perversions, imitations of life really. Sometimes, she'd remember, the wolf-folk would threaten the puppy- kids that were being particularly naughty with these boogeymen..."Be good, or the Thanatinyu will get you!" Only, it turned out, the darklings weren't exactly fictional like the human boogeyman... In her dream, she was the age when one band of darklings hit the camp. Only this time they brought others. Others with robes that brought dark magicks, that seemed to give the darklings even darker powers...the whole tribe was attacked, they didn't stand a chance...the old wolf what had raised her as one of his pups died in her arms... Only in nightmares, the wolf-folk turned to Jihaddi and the Hellwyrm was there with the Mage of the Darkest Star and they were laughing and feasting upon the bodies and taking prisoners to do horrid things to them, warp them into twisted things...the term she'd heard about such things, the Thanatinyu, "the lost ones"... Windigo tried to put thoughts of the nightmares out of her mind. Not now--this is the last thing she needed to think of right now, kill the enemy, kill them all--she concentrated as the Chosen fired upon the bots and what they called "smudges"... Windigo would have really liked to have seen a fraggin' gastank or flamethrower about...and there J-Rock was doing some damn crucifix pose thang...[gods that kid is gonna get himself *killed*, an' *I* got to watch him? Grimace on a pogo stick...] Suddenly something growled close behind. "guys...turn about...NOW!" Windigo was in some amount of shock-- the Saethrian had snuck behind them, along with what looked to be a Lyran neophyte. "I do believe we've got the litle Khornates trapped, no? And methinks Master Charn'El will like the female's head mounted over his throne, no?" Suddenly something more primal took over. Something decidedly more feral. Windigo stripped off her helmet, took off the armoured gloves (even though they'd been specially crafted to allow Big-Ass Claws (tm) slashing- room), and let the first waves of what every Maenad knew as Holy Warpspasm take over...flesh changing to something more primal, fangs growing, becoming as a thing posessed... "*NYAAAAAAAAHHHRRRRRRR!*" Windigo leapt upon the Lyran in near- instinctive motion as Claws sank into flesh, flaying bits of alien sorceror flesh in a good circle before the young mage knew what hit him. The Saethrian attacked suddenly from behind, being met with a Claw to the innards. There was a sickening *krunch* as Claws and teeth went through chitin, bug-innards flying about like the world's biggest splat on God's own windshield. It was soon over, the beast being dispatched as surely as the Lyran, though putting up a bit more of a fight. Windigo panted, then promptly sicked up what was left of the Saethrian upon the remains of a spongie corpse. "Gah...those bug things, using them for Sponge-Minion Cake [tm], you should *not*," stated the white atshen, "not unless liking heaving up half yer guts, you are...eurrrrrrrgh..." Suddenly, from behind around the fountain, over by the milk-bar, there was screaming... (To be continued conjunctively in Operation Pacifica: Keerklauw and J-Rock's bits :) -Windigo The Feral (NYAR!)