Spare the Rod

Beckyann was still fuming. It had been two days now, and the rage she felt kept bubbling up inside. It would come and go, her mood going from quiet and contemplative to murderous outbursts and hissy fits the likes of which a child would be truly impressed with.

She lay on her bed, barefoot and in a long black dress with silver stitch-work. Crumpled in a heap like some discarded doll, she stared at the open page of a necromancy book, not really bothering to read it. Around her the normally messy state with which she kept her quarters was further degraded than normal by her constant tantrums.

A knock sounded on the door.

Beckyann's eyebrows shot up so quickly they could have launched from her face. She rolled over on her back and glared at the wooden barrier, “Go. Away!”

From behind the door, the voice of Cheree drifted through the thick oak, “Becky, we need to talk. Everyone's getting kind of tired of hearing you in here and it's time to get this out in the open.”

Rage pumped through Beckyann, malicious hate making her hands tremble with rage. She scooped up the book on her bed and hurled it across the room. It struck the door with a loud 'thunk' as she screamed at the door, “I SAID GO AWAY RIGHT NOW!”

From behind the door there was a muttered, “Yeah that'll be about enough of that...” before the wooden barrier shuddered once from a blow. As Beckyann stared at it with wide eyes, it trembled again and then burst inward, Cheree stepping into the room. She was in full armor, her runeblades on her back and goggles still covering her eyes; clearly she'd just returned from some mission or another.

“Becky...we need to talk about th-” Cheree began. She didn't get a chance to finish as the blonde death knight roared into a full fledged tantrum. Beckyann leaned over, scooping up more tomes from the nightstand next to her bed and hurling them across the room. The first bounced off of Cheree's armor, the second sailing over her shoulder to land in the corridor behind her.

The third hit her goggles, making a small cracking sound as some internal component was damaged by the impact.

“I SAID GO AWAY! HOW DARE YOU COME IN MY ROOM YOU LITTLE BITCH!” Beckyann raged. It was more than enough as far as Cheree was concerned.

In a swift motion she advanced on the screaming shrew sitting on the bed, her hands reaching out to draw her runeblades. With a snarl she brought one of the blades down, intent on ending the little tirade before it had gone any further. The blade arced down and would have struck Beckyann in the leg had she not dodged out of the way. Instead it simply sliced into the bedding, lodging there for a moment.

Beckyann snarled, running lightly on her bare feet to avoid the next blow. She was not quite fast enough though as Cheree took her blade and lashed out. She didn't use the edge of the weapon, instead taking the flat of the sword and swatting it across Beckyann's rear as if she were paddling a misbehaving child. The look of indignant rage on Beckyann's face as she was smacked on the butt almost made Cheree laugh, and she followed up the first blow with a second well placed swat to the blonde's rear.

“Act like a child and get punished like one...” Cheree said in amusement.

For her part, Beckyann quickly increased her speed, moving away from Cheree and dodging across her quarters. Cheree attempted to follow her in order to continue the lesson, but was held up when the blonde woman lithely jumped over a hamper that was randomly sitting in the middle of the room. Cheree blundered into it, almost waist deep in clothing that Beckyann had thrown at the hamper and missed with. As Cheree's legs became entangled, Beckyann dashed to the far side of her quarters and reached out with her hand. Dark magics flickered in the air and wrapped around the handle of Beckyann's runeblade, launching it into the air and into her hands. She snarled, turning and holding the weapon ready as she glared at Cheree.

“Come here you little bitch. This will be just like it was in that tower, only now no one will stop me from correcting your little running mouth the way it needs to be,” Beckyann growled.

Cheree finally managed to push her way through the pile of clothes littering the floor, bringing her blades up in preparation for a real fight. Almost as soon as she began moving Beckyann muttered words of necromancy, and howling cold magic flashed across the room at her. She brought her runeblades up, covering the center of her chest and letting the blast flow around the metal. Behind her pictures on the wall shattered and a mirror cracked. Pages fluttered up in the air from the tomes littering the floor and flapped around the room.

Without another word Cheree advanced, her armored form bulkier and somewhat taller than the barefoot Beckyann, whose dress would provide little protection in such a conflict. She brought her blades down sharply, intending to teach her colleague a lesson. Metal rang against metal as Beckyann parried the blows, her dress making her somewhat more agile even though she normally preferred magic over blades. With a grunt she brought her own runeblade up, intent on slashing Cheree's face.

For her part, Cheree was equally focused on the melee, her blades coming up before her and crossing into an 'X' to catch Beckyann's blade as it came down. Metal rang on metal again and with a grin Cheree was able to twist her blades, ripping Beckyann's runeblade from her hand. The weapon flew end over end and clattered on the floor some distance behind the two, leaving the blonde unarmed.

A normal opponent would admit defeat at this point, but a rage-maddened death knight could not be considered an ordinary opponent by any means. With a snarl Beckyann launched herself at Cheree, her knee coming up and colliding abruptly with Cheree's codpiece. The blow was so powerful that Cheree immediately was glad that she 1) was wearing the codpiece in the first place, 2) was not a male, and 3) was undead and could only vaguely feel the blow through the metal. Where Beckyann had learned such a trick was beyond her, but it was time to put an end to the battle.

With a grin on her face, Cheree punched out with the hilt of her sword. It struck Beckyann in the mouth, rocking her head back. Brackish black blood oozed from her split lip as she shook her head in a daze. Cheree's feelings of victory were quickly dashed as Beckyann brought her hand up and jammed it into Cheree's face. At this point Cheree learned an interesting and valuable lesson about Beckyann.

When she did her own manicures, she sharpened her nails into razor sharp points.

The black lacquered nails dug deeply into Cheree's cheek and when Beckyann's hand retracted it was dripping with blood. With a snarl the blonde attempted to gouge her opponent's face again, forcing Cheree to drop her runeblades in order to catch Beckyann's wrist in her steel grip.

With another cry of rage Beckyann's free hand came up, snatching a hairpin from her hair and jamming the seven inches of saronite into the back of Cheree's gauntlet. Cheree howled, releasing her grip on Beckyann's wrist and backhanding the blonde with her gauntlet. Beckyann reeled back, and Cheree gave her another blow across the face, followed by still a third.

Dazed now and trailing black, oozing fluids from her face, Beckyann launched herself at Cheree one more time, her unarmored form colliding with Cheree's chest as she pressed herself against her enemy in an attempt to avoid more blows. Her fingers scrambled against Cheree's armor, attempting to find points to scratch and gouge, while the entire time she shrieked like a banshee.

As Cheree was about to throw Beckyann to the floor, Beckyann's hand came up before her. Confused and dazed, she noticed with distant curiosity that she suddenly had four new rings on her fingers. There was the sound of metal falling to the floor with a delightful 'clinking' sound and she looked down to vaguely notice four round orbs that had fallen from Cheree's armor. Holding her hand up between the two, Beckyann spoke through split lips, “Are those grenad-”

Cheree didn't given Beckyann time to finish. With a clipped, “Yep!” she hurled herself at the other death knight, tackling her onto the nearby bed. As Beckyann bounced beneath her, Cheree's free hand grabbed the edge of the feather mattress and pulled it up, forcing both death knights to roll into the space between the bed and wall and covering them with the upturned bedding.

No sooner had the two fallen beneath the mattress than the room was filled with a loud 'CRUMP' as the four grenades that Beckyann had dislodged from Cheree's armor detonated. Flames and debris filled the room as the explosion wreaked havoc in the confined space. The pressure wave threw pieces of furniture around the room and tore the bedding over the death knights to pieces.

In less than a second it was over, and the sound of debris raining down combined with the small crackle of flames were the only sounds to be heard. In a confused daze Beckyann sat up, looking over at Cheree as feathers from the torn mattress and clothing drifted down on them. A dark black blouse landed on Beckyann's face and blocked her view for a moment. She reached up to snatch it from her eyes only to find that a thigh-high, lacy stocking had descended and draped itself over Cheree's head like some sort of silly hat.

Beyond the shattered bed and room, a four foot hole had been torn in the wall. Standing in the outline of the hole was a motionless death knight initiate that had been patrolling the corridor. His armor was pitted and burned from the blast, and he swayed slightly before falling into a crumpled heap with a clatter of metal.

The two death knights looked at each other for a minute and then a smile began to creep across Beckyann's rather abused face. She began to giggle, and although Cheree was still glaring at her, the giggling was somewhat infectious. When Beckyann reached out and snatched the stocking from Cheree's head, showing it to her former adversary, Cheree began to roar with laughter.

Laughing hysterically now, the two women embraced each other from their seats on the floor. Minutes later, one of Acherus's watch commanders stormed down the hallway to find what had become of his initiate. After finding the initiate in a less than satisfactory state on the corridor's floor, he peeked his head into the room through the hole in the wall to see two extremely beat up looking death knights hugging each other and laughing, even as little fires burned up several books laying amongst the debris. The entire place looked like a grenade...or maybe more than one grenade...had gone off in it.

“There is something seriously wrong with the 1113^th,” the watch captain muttered as he bent down to grab the initiate by his ankles and drag him off to the medical officer on duty. “Does anyone even watch these loons? Whatever poor sap has that job has my condolences.” He sighed, dragging his initiate away as the insane laughter drifted down the hall behind him.

Sometimes the best cure for a bad mood was just a little fun after all.