X-23 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cutting_edgex23) wrote2012-04-02 10:16 pm
cutting_edgex23) wrote2012-04-02 10:16 pm
The enemy is here, and the enemy is within
The hounds of hell are always hungry.
X knows this well as she runs across the blasted plains, black dogs baying behind her in a veritable flood. She can run for a long time, but they can run forever.
Strategy demands she find a defensible place to make a stand, perhaps the dying copse of trees up ahead, or somewhere else -- somewhere far from here -- where she can take the high ground.
That is what strategy would demand. But this is hell. Logic has very little place here, and X --
X is tired of running.
The baying of the hounds grows closer, and X-23 -- the weapon, the warrior, the woman -- turns to meet them.
She's killed dogs before. These hounds are bigger, and they are smarter, but they have only claws and teeth with which to tear at her.
And X is very well-equipped to tear back.
It may take hours -- it may, in point of fact -- take days, but eventually the hounds retreat.
X falls to her knees, soaked in sweat and blood, both her own and the hounds', taking deep breath after deep breath, the viciously hot air of hell burning in her lungs.
But she does not have time to sit.
He is here, the thing that is not Wolverine. The demon that is no one and nothing to X-23.
Which is why, when he approaches her, teeth shining white and brilliantly sharp in his reptilian face, when he holds out his hand, saying , "Oh well done, my queen. Marvelously done, shining beacon of my kingdom, anointed in death and blood. Rise, and give yourself up to me, and become what you were always meant to be."
X looks at his hand, her own body limp with exhaustion, and then looks at his face. Her breath is loud in her ears, as is the sound of her heartbeat, too-quick but still steady.
"Okay," she says, just as she did before he first brought her here, this monster, this thing that she could, perhaps, have been. "I can do that."
And then she's on him, claws bared, the runes she traced into the adamantium long ago (traced to fight Them, those otherworldly demons that so plagued Jamie and Joris and Helen) flaring bright as she drives each and every one home into the demon's chest.
X could keep going. She could let rage cloud her vision until all she can do is hack at the demon's body until it's a fine red paste on the ground. She could cut off his head, or dismember him, or rip out his guts and leave them as a message for any who would seek to bring her back here.
She could do all these things, all these terrible things --
But she does not.
The kill is quick, if full of far too much blood to be called clean.
X leaves him where he falls, the king of this particular corner of hell.
The remnants of his hounds will feast well.
X does not care.
Parched and bloody and exhausted, she gives herself a moment to catch her breath and gather her strength.
And then X makes her way back across the vast, empty span of Hell, looking for a way home.
X knows this well as she runs across the blasted plains, black dogs baying behind her in a veritable flood. She can run for a long time, but they can run forever.
Strategy demands she find a defensible place to make a stand, perhaps the dying copse of trees up ahead, or somewhere else -- somewhere far from here -- where she can take the high ground.
That is what strategy would demand. But this is hell. Logic has very little place here, and X --
X is tired of running.
The baying of the hounds grows closer, and X-23 -- the weapon, the warrior, the woman -- turns to meet them.
She's killed dogs before. These hounds are bigger, and they are smarter, but they have only claws and teeth with which to tear at her.
And X is very well-equipped to tear back.
It may take hours -- it may, in point of fact -- take days, but eventually the hounds retreat.
X falls to her knees, soaked in sweat and blood, both her own and the hounds', taking deep breath after deep breath, the viciously hot air of hell burning in her lungs.
But she does not have time to sit.
He is here, the thing that is not Wolverine. The demon that is no one and nothing to X-23.
Which is why, when he approaches her, teeth shining white and brilliantly sharp in his reptilian face, when he holds out his hand, saying , "Oh well done, my queen. Marvelously done, shining beacon of my kingdom, anointed in death and blood. Rise, and give yourself up to me, and become what you were always meant to be."
X looks at his hand, her own body limp with exhaustion, and then looks at his face. Her breath is loud in her ears, as is the sound of her heartbeat, too-quick but still steady.
"Okay," she says, just as she did before he first brought her here, this monster, this thing that she could, perhaps, have been. "I can do that."
And then she's on him, claws bared, the runes she traced into the adamantium long ago (traced to fight Them, those otherworldly demons that so plagued Jamie and Joris and Helen) flaring bright as she drives each and every one home into the demon's chest.
X could keep going. She could let rage cloud her vision until all she can do is hack at the demon's body until it's a fine red paste on the ground. She could cut off his head, or dismember him, or rip out his guts and leave them as a message for any who would seek to bring her back here.
She could do all these things, all these terrible things --
But she does not.
The kill is quick, if full of far too much blood to be called clean.
X leaves him where he falls, the king of this particular corner of hell.
The remnants of his hounds will feast well.
X does not care.
Parched and bloody and exhausted, she gives herself a moment to catch her breath and gather her strength.
And then X makes her way back across the vast, empty span of Hell, looking for a way home.