Operation Phoenix: A Game Of Me by Windigo the Feral (NYAR!), edmcdo01@starbase.spd.louisville.edu Windigo faced the doppelganger-Windigo and snarled. The doppelganger stated, "You Jihaddi baddy! B'Harne is sooper-de-dooper but you just won't admit it!" As if Windigo exactly needed any encouragement with but a muttered "Go to hell" she lit into the doppelganger. The two were soon furiously at it, snarling and biting and clawing, Owsenite Big-Ass Claws [tm] clashing against B'harnite equivalents, both warpspasming in their own ways (Windigo's as per usual, the doppelganger's in a sick parody which made it to appear to gain characteristics of a Loved One). As Windigo would slash, the doppelganger would feint and vice versa; enough hits came home true, though, that soon the two and the floor were crimson-coloured. It would have resembled a catfight to an observer. A very nasty, very vicious catfight... ****************************************************************************** In the realm where the spirits of gods live, someone was NOT happy. The High Empress of the X'Hirrjq, the Lord of the Fries, and the Hellwyrm heard it, sure enough; Grimace felt it too, as he'd been trying to hold this particular one back. Powers only knew what would happen if he were to get loose yet... "Let-me-KILL-that-snecking-bastard!" the voice growled, the voice of a youth literally snarling under his breath. The Empress stepped partly into the realm of god-spirits, as did Grimace, and met upon an somewhat punkish-looking albino youth who was presently shifting into a form resembling a mutant werewolf from hell. [*You will not interfere with this.*] The Empress commanded. The youth who was the Holy Albino looked up, still growling. [*Your time to avenge the one you call the Hellwyrm will come. But for now, the champions must fight unaided. I have forbade the ones known as Grimace and B'harne to interfere; I also forbid yourself.*] The Holy Albino, now starting to come back to normalcy, looked at Grimace as to say "Surely she's telling a porky," but Grimace nodded. Finally, the Albino spoke. "As much as I loathe doing this, I will consent for the purpose of this battle--but nothing more. Once the battle is over, the Hellwyrm is fair game in the Hunt as always..." ****************************************************************************** -Fates Warning, "Anarchy Divine" The two Windigos fought on, heedless of this minor disturbance and of the "return" of the two. All was war; the two continued to slash and bite at each other furiously, even though their skin was tattered and both had some fairly bad wounds, and both were starting to lose consciousness from shock. "By the Albino, how can you [slash]...DEGRADE yourself by [thud] consorting with that THING?!?" Windigo shouted. "You don't KNOW B'Harne! He loves us! You just want to *hurt* people!" the Doppelganger-Windigo shouted. "'Love', my arse! B'Harne's 'love' is about as real as Olestra!" Windigo shouted back. And so it went till both were near the point of unconsciousness. As the room turned black, Windigo snarled, "This *will* be settled, if we both have to die trying..." The Doppelganger sneered back, "That it shall." ****************************************************************************** B'Harne frowned. "This is NOT stuuuuuuuupendous! I didn't say it was time for a nap!" the Hellwyrm stated in its annoying, clown-on-acid voice. The Empress shot him a gaze that would have caused gods of war to stop in their tracks. [*They take their battle elsewhere, into the dream world.*] The Hellwyrm sulked and sat down, in a gesture that reminded the Empress of a very spoilt young hatchling. That mewling fool was starting to get on her nerves... ****************************************************************************** It is a little-known fact among mundanes that the Dream-realms in fact do exist as a real place. Gaiman and _The Neverending Story_ were right in that the Dreaming--the dream-world--is mostly created by human Dreamers. And in the Dreaming, each person creates a place consciously or unconsciously where all the events of life--what have literally made them, them--are recorded till their death--a personal part of the Dreaming, so to speak; hence it is literally true when one speaks of leaving something behind in the past. It is slightly better-known that atshens can cross from one part of the Dreaming to another at will. To some, it appears as if they can jump realms in sleep, and this is true to some extent, though it is not jumping multiple Dreamings but being able to travel to other people's personal bits of the Dreaming. And this is where the battle had landed...in the past. And painful memories... The Doppelganger-Windigo was the first to reveal her past in Dreaming. Both had been abandoned in the forests as younglings--thrown away by their parents in their respective realms, marked as beasts, as monsters, and left to die... In the Doppelganger's past, Loved Ones had found the little one, took her to the Hellwyrm itself, and she was raised with the show-kids. With a shock Windigo realised the doppelganger honestly did not KNOW of anything besides the Hellwyrm...this is literally all the other knew...it honestly did not KNOW the dark side. Windigo now knew why Sheridan so often compared B'Harne to Slaanesh, the dark lord of pleasure and depravity among the chaos entities; there was pleasure to be had, but it was also corrupted thoroughly. Sheridan had also told her of Slaaneshi cults devoted to exccesses of pleasure, of orgy churches and gourmand's societies that people joined willingly unaware of the risk of becoming "chaos spawn", nonsentient, a literal slave to pleasure for eternity... Windigo then showed the doppelganger her history... There are strange things in the hills of Kentucky. Windigo was soon found by wolves, or what appeared to be wolves...wolves, though, that walked on two legs on occasion, and had paw-like hands, and spoke. They took her in, suckled and raised her among the wild things--Windigo remembered having a young bear and a number of puppy-kids as playmates. Then, when she was fourteen, all that ended in an instant. Some of the wolf-people reported strange goings-on in the man-towns. Dark things that must be watched for...one night, a number of strange, pinkish-purple creatures that looked like obscenity personified and dark, humanoid things that came with them with bolts of lightning that burned... Those things killed most of the pack before retreating to the man-place. Windigo just barely escaped with her life, as did her wolf-grandfather, but the rest of her family was utterly annihilated... some of the young puppy-kids were taken too. The doppelganger seemed to gasp. "Those....those were..." "Loved Ones and Lyrans. They killed the only ones I knew as family..." Windigo tracked them down to the man-place. She had to learn the strange customs of man, their uneasy speech, and then she found the hideout. What they had done to the puppy-kids was horrid; she witnessed several skins on the walls--skins of wolf-people--and even as she watched one was sacrificed to a plush doll, which became a giggling demon...and the kids who had survived were no less ravaged; they moved as a hive-mind under the Hellwyrm, incapable of thought. The doppelganger gasped again, looking as if she were going to be sick. "This all happened?" "Yes. This is what I and the Jihad are trying to warn about. About the dark side that kills and hurts." The doppelganger looked at Windigo with tears in her eyes. "My whole life-- my world--is nothing but a lie..." "It's okay." "I'm not worthy to live...don't wish to, really. My world, the Hellwyrm has taken control and I can never go back knowing what I know. Nor can I stay here--this is your rightful place. I ask you to do me two favours-- first, please, end it for me, so I might have the hope of a better chance next time around in life..." "This I will grant. I'd rather be dead than have to live in a B'Harne-world myself." "Second, hold onto your rage--for that is what makes you strong. B'Harne stole that from me, stole what all I am from me. You still have what you are. "Never lose that." And with that, the Doppelganger turned towards the sky, as if greeting fate. ****************************************************************************** Windigo and the doppelganger stirred from unconsciousness, and the doppelganger bared her chest. Windigo then ripped out the doppelganger's heart, a heart of ice as is the heart of all of the atshen, and the doppelganger turned at that moment to dust and a skeleton of ice. Windigo howled. Howled for the memory of her lost pack, for the memory of how the doppelganger had been snowed under, for all those who have been lost, that it might never happen again... ****************************************************************************** In the Dreaming, the past of the doppelganger turned slowly to sand, the sands of Morpheus and dream-stuff, and blew away as if an unpleasant nightmare. ****************************************************************************** B'Harne, to put it lightly, went off. "WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?!?! THIS IS *NOT* SOOPER-DEE-DOOPER!!!!" The Empress said in her own ineffable way, [*You were defeated.*] "WHAT?!?!?" [*You were defeated in the Dream-realms. It is a valid victory, and you should accept it in a graceful manner instead of shouting like a hatchling.*] As if to underscore this, for just the briefest of moments a pale, punkish youth appeared--appeared with an upraised middle finger and a smile that would have put Cegorach, the Laughing God of the Eldar, to shame. As if to say "I've won, snecker." -- -Windigo The Feral (NYAR!) |bleu| Jihaddi, AHWW Cyberpack Member, Spam-Hunter and unrepentant fan of | () | 2000AD, Poison Elves and Lizzy Borden. ;) PGP Key upon request. | /\ | Tie on a Blue Ribbon for Net.freedom--learn more at http://www.eff.org. *Notice: Unsolicited commercial email is subject to archival fee of $200 US per message--mailing denotes acceptance of these terms.* Rip the system.