writing_shadows

((OOC - please note that there is a lot of artistic license taken with this. I do not really think that Sheena is quite this hardcore, but I was also assuming that she had new tricks up her sleeves to use. But this does form one basis for why I would never, ever have volunteered to be a PC one, it would not end well...))

Most of her pack had died first in an orgy of violence and bloodlust that left all who witnessed the aftermath of it sick to their stomach. The body of her daughter had been found too where Sam had tried to protect her and failed, they had died more or less together. Jala’s body had been found in her van, both of which had been torn up almost beyond recognition. No sign had been found of Alasdair and no one knew whether or not he was even still alive.

The other Uratha of Edinburgh had thought that to be the end of it. They had done funeral rituals for the Shifting Scales pack and moved on, trying not to think on how they had come to that end. Then a few weeks later Feisal, Nathan and Darren had also been found torn apart, the Protectorate coming too late to answer a call for aid. They looked like they had put up a decent fight, all of them capable warriors, but they were no match for her years of experience and she had scythed them down mercilessly.

It seemed that the mood in the city darkened then, there was a prevailing fear of which pack would be next. Loud arguments occurred about what they should do about her and whether or not they should try and kill her. Angry and tired of the arguments, Max had taken his stealth pack and gone to do what no one else seemed to be willing. Too late he found that the fetish made for her by Xenophon to protect her from silver bullets in Dartmoor worked just fine against his as well. His pack died to a man, torn apart when her new learned gifts made them frenzy and tore all their careful plans to ribbons.

Beginning to get desperate now, the survivors of the Edinburgh Protectorate contacted Brimstone, the Pure leader to the north hoping that the strength of his packs could assist them. He was reluctant to agree until they had found what must have once been Blade Taker, a Pure sniper, crucified on a tree with silver nails. It seemed then that she didn’t care who she killed, so long as every Uratha in the area died a painful and bloody death.

And so it was that a gathering of Pure and Forsaken came together in the Glade just outside of the city to the west, an event not seen since the rise of the Harvester some years before. The truce was an uneasy one, but both sides were too aware of the dangers to let the more extreme members of either side off their leash.

The arguing had continued, even in desperate straits until suddenly the call of one of them silenced the room. Iain, the cahalith of the Bone Orchard Paladins reported losing the pack link to Robin. Before the report of the loss could even have time to properly sink in, a large dire wolf broke through into the Glade. She stood there, her mouth dripping red blood onto the sacred ground, a scarred monster and veteran of hundreds of battles. Her gaze bored into them with primal anger and her howl awoke fear in those present. She had been a terrifying sight enough in battle as a Garmir, as a paragon of the Blood Talons. Now she was something far worse and far more dangerous, a Balehound sworn to the service of Wrath.

She waded through the packs present like they were made of paper. Plenty fell to their deaths beneath her claws; others turned on each other in induced frenzies and wiped each other out. Chaos followed in her wake, but she didn’t stay to wipe them all out, only to sow some death and destruction before the dire wolf form bounded back out at great speed, leaving most of the wounded to lick their scars. All but one.

Another dire wolf form pounded after hers, anger shone in its eyes and it howled out a challenge. The one it followed didn’t even pause, but kept running at incredible speeds for a while longer. A second challenging howl followed and then a third. The last one finally stopping the monster in her tracks and she turned to face her pursuer, a vicious grin spreading across her bloody muzzle.

“Somehow I thought it would be you Harmony. Come to kill me? Shall we see if you have learned enough, to see if you have the courage to kill another uratha?” The dire wolf taunted, the younger she-wolf who followed growled and said nothing in response, instead her form shifted and flowed into an even larger one, the primal wolf form in all its terrible glory.

With a howl that sounded half like a chuckle, she followed her. Her scarred body shifting up into the primal form, her reddish brown body growing even larger than before. The two wolves circled each other briefly before they sprang to attack. They rolled and bit, struggled and tried to pin each other with their powerful jaws. The betrayer’s claws biting deep into Harmony’s fur, driving her towards frenzy, but failing to achieve that goal.

Blow followed terrible blow and the two of them were quickly covered in open, gaping wounds, their fur growing slick from the blood. Harmony started to falter for a moment as her wounds slowed her down before fighting back with renewed vigour. Even so by that point her wounds were awful to behold and for anyone watching it would have seemed that she could not possibly last much longer.

Still she fought on though, tearing at her opponent while her wounds seemed not to get any worse, as though the damage just glanced off. Her older opponent also seemed to be the same, to continue to stand and fight long past when most would have fallen unconscious or dead. It was a clash of two warriors without peer, a breathtaking display from uratha who were well versed in fighting in wolf forms.

Finally one of them stumbled, their opponent’s blow knocking her knees from under her and exposing her body to a vicious swipe. Bloodied and injured the unconscious uratha shifted back to a human form to reveal a woman with long hair caked with blood. Her opponent shifted back down herself and stood over her, shaking a little from the pain and exertion.

Suddenly a figure stepped from nothing beside her, also looking down at the woman on the ground, “We have to end this, she cannot be allowed to live.” Alasdair turned to Harmony, his expression one of stone, there was no hint that this was his former packmate that he was speaking of killing.

Harmony shook her head, “No, she’s still uratha. The People do not Murder the People.”

Alasdair smiled sadly and swung his rifle from his shoulder. Before she could react or have time to protest the gun fired silently, unloading its silver ammunition into the unconscious woman on the floor. “You might hold to that, but I don’t, not when it’s necessary.”

She frowned but said nothing in response, too tired to even work up much of a protest.

They stood for a moment in silence and Harmony had started to bend down to pick up the body of her former mentor when there was a horrible flash of sickly green light accompanied by a high pitch insectoid screaming. Neither of them had time to register what was going when the explosive force of the emerging being annihilated them.

Sheena was dead and the Harvester was free.