Beckyann Short Number 21

Beckyann's boots pounded on the soft soil as she charged, her armor clanking loudly and her runeblade extended in front of her. Ahead of the charging death knight several black robed figures jumped up in panic as their camp was assaulted. Beneath their cowls Beckyann caught glimpses of pale faces tattooed with dark runes in the manner of the Cult of the Damned.

The camp was small, only a few tents with cages beside them and a portable wagon with a table set on it. Within the cages, and strapped to the table, were several recruits from Hearthglen that had been captured during a training exercise. Although the Cult's power was greatly diminished, a few pockets remained here and there and were intent on returning the power of undeath to the lands. Beckyann was there to ensure that none of them lived to walk away from their bold assault on the Argents of the Hearthglen garrison.

The first two figures perished almost instantly, impaled and slashed by Beckyann's runeblade. The third proved to be better trained, bringing up a sword of his own and parrying her first blow. As the death knight drew her weapon back to strike again, she saw a female cultist chanting and pointing at her. Before she had a chance to react, a spell hurtled towards her.

"Oh sh-" Beckyann began before the magic slammed into her.

The spell was not a combat spell in the ordinary sense, and it didn't trigger any of the anti-magic wards that Beckyann placed on her person. Instead it struck at her mind, and her vision began to blur. In a second, everything faded from sight and a figure stood before her. She blinked, her sword coming down and a hand rubbing at one eye to try and focus. After a moment, the blurry outline of the figure became more clear.

It was her!

Or rather, a version of her. Wearing a powder blue dress and with a healthier complexion, the doppelganger stepped towards her, becoming more real. It was Beckyann to the most minute detail, with the exception that its eyes were a pleasant shade of green rather than glowing blue. For a moment, the two figures stood silent, staring at each other.

"And what is it that you think you're accomplishing here?" the copy said in a soft tone. "Are you the champion, come to save the prisoners from some foul fate? A fate that we already experienced perhaps?"

Beckyann's mouth opened and closed in surprise. She was not sure how to respond to the creature. After a moment, she merely grunted, "Something like that."

"But why?" the copy asked, tilting its head in curiosity. "What purpose does it serve? Will it make them appreciate you? Accept you? Will it cure you of the curse on your flesh? No. It will do none of these things, and will only sate the lust for blood that you have raging within you by a small fraction."

Beckyann frowned, saying nothing. The copy smiled at her, stepping closer, a hand running through her hair, "We were beautiful once. Alive and well. We were the hero then, weren't we? But then we fell into darkness and became something else. Something that has its own nature, its own needs. Remember when you were a thrall of the Lich King? Although you had no will of your own, you needed none, for he understood your needs, your desires. He knew that you had to be fed the blood of the innocent in order to truly thrive. He understood the nature of the creatures he had wrought."

Beckyann bit her lip, looking at the copy in frustration. She could feel the pounding in the back of her head where her bloodlust waited, always wanting more, always needing to inflict more agony, more suffering. It was always with her, just as the creature had implied.

The copy stepped closer, wrapping an arm around Beckyann in a friendly manner, gesturing out before them towards the camp. "And look now, you are here as the hero to rescue these fools. Look at how weak they were, to be caught by pathetic cultists. Look at the suffering they already endure, knowing they will be killed or perhaps indoctrinated in time into the ranks of their enemies. You could inflict so much more suffering. You could command all of the wretches here, as your King designed you to do. You are more than this, and you are not the shining champion here to save the day. You know full well that there is never a happy ending. Their belief in it is like a slap to your face."

Beckyann paused for a moment, her desires battling against her consciousness. The doppelganger stepped in front of her, smiling pleasantly and nodding encouragingly, an image of the young girl she had been before everything had come crashing down around her.

And yet, she is the opposite of me, because she is trying to convince me.

The thought bubbled through Beckyann's mind, and deep within her she felt her spirit stir. The one piece of herself that remained, the part that, although chained, still controlled who and what she was. She shivered once, her runeblade coming up, it's point resting against the hollow of the doppelganger's throat. Beckyann grinned wickedly.

For a moment, they faced off against each other, and Beckyann felt an odd rush wash through her. For a brief second, the doppelganger on the other end of her sword looked at her through glowing blue eyes, and she gazed back with the natural green ones she had been born with so many years before. For a second, she remembered exactly who she was.

"All tales have an ending, and sometimes it is not what you think," Beckyann said, her voice heavy with restrained fury. "You are not the past, not the person I was. These cultists are not weaklings, but instead deluded. Their prisoners are not toys to play with, but people who deserve a chance to live a life that I myself didn't get a chance to live."

She paused before plunging the point of the blade into the doppelganger's throat, "And I am not the villain, even if my armor does not shine as brightly. Begone."

The creature popped as if it had never existed, and the shroud of magic lifted from Beckyann's eyes. Her runeblade had impaled the cultist she'd been fighting in front of her, but during the visions the spellcaster had stepped closer, so close that she was almost intimately embracing the death knight. She grinned, her hands plunging a dagger into Beckyann's side, slipping it between two plates.

"You're dead!" the cultist cried triumphantly, her voice echoing across the camp and sending the prisoners into despair.

Beckyann looked down at the knife protruding from her and then back up at the cultist and spat out a sarcastic response, "No shit, really?"

The cultist's eyes widened as the death knight reached for her, completely ignoring the blade sticking from her chest and slicing through organs that likely would have been vital to a living person. With unnatural strength Beckyann reached out and slammed her fist into the woman's windpipe, collapsing it. She watched with some degree of enjoyment as the cultist crumpled to the ground, gasping and choking as she tried to draw in a breath. The death knight withdrew the dagger that had pierced her, rolling her eyes and tossing it away before giving the dying woman a few kicks.

She walked past her victim, kicking another dead cultist out of spite before heading towards the caged Argents. As she unlocked their cages and freed them, an errant thought passed through her mind.

Sometimes a hero is not what one thinks it is I suppose. Had a death knight rescued me from that ziggurat, I would have been eternally grateful. I guess it is not what you are, but what you do that matters. As I've said before, evil is a conscious choice. One's nature is not. There is a world of difference.