RP: Kohana [Kohana] War, is Hell. (WIP)

He ran.

Of course, under the circumstances, he really had no other choice. He knew that the odds were stacked against him the moment that he stepped foot in the Human Resistance headquarters. Looking back, he should have known that something was wrong when they immediately gave him the mission. Damn them all....Damn them all to hell.

Everything had been going fine. He had gotten into the Holy City easy enough, just another weary traveller seeking spiritual guidance. The monks had even allowed him into the temple, though the services had already started. Why hadn't they tried to stop him? Ask him a few simple questions? He had never meant for this to happen, not to them. But it had, and now, he knew his life was over.

As soon as the bomb had gone off, he had known it was all over. The Resistance would never want him back, and the Kohanians, the true Kohanians, would only want him dead. He had attacked a sanctuary, a holy place...

His only hope, in his mind, would be to make it back to the human city, beg for protection from the judgement that he knew was coming. But the city was on the other side of the forest, a forest that now was being cloaked in the veil of nightfall. Surely they couldn't follow him in the dark, could they? I mean, they were animals, but...But they were human too! He had made a mistake, that was all. A single mistake that he would do anything to make them forgive.

The branches lashed at his arms and face, and roots seemed to reach up to trip him. That was madness though, no one could control the forest like that, that is crazy talk! What? He wasn't crazy. He was just doing his duty to try and end the war. If the furry bastards didn't have somewhere to worship their gods, they would lose focus, lose direction. He was doing everyone a favor now...Wasn't he?

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Back in Anethronn, the Holy City, the people were still struggling to contain the fires, to find survivors, to do something to restore order. The citys entrances and exits were all sealed off, too late of course. The monks who had survived by being outside of the blasts radius were doing their best to get survivors away from the crumbling temple, and into the courtyards and infirmaries. But the tide of wounded was too much for them to handle, and many more died while waiting for aide.

All was not totally focused on that, however, as a small group of Kohanians, mostly Kee'awloo, Dy'Unnar, and Sha'Nai, darted through the shadows, towards a secret tunnel to the outside of the city. It had been built for just such an occasion, that the humans ever attacked the Holy City, the Kohanians and those humans still sympathetic to the gentler ways, could escape. Now, however, it would be used to track down a killer. A criminal so cowardly, he didn't even have the decency to die with his victims. And they knew he was not still inside the city walls.

The Dy'Unnar and one of the Sha'Nai began pushing the large stone from the top of what looked like a well, letting the stone disk fall to the dirt with a thud. Then they would leap to the edge, and hop inside, falling the six feet to the ground, and rolling forwards to their feet inside the tunnel. When it had been made sure the tunnel entrance was still in tact, they called for the last of the Sha'Nai, and the Kee'Awloo.

They all entered the tunnel, and most began sprinting through the darkness, relying on their innate animal senses to help them navigate by the light of only the slight torchlight. The last Sha'Nai just stood under the light filtering in from the false well, the violet cloth wrapped around her head even covering her eyes. A sinister grin came to her lips as she reached for the chain which held the lavender sarong with red accents around her waist like a belt. The metal jingled softly as she gave two sharp tugs to the longer end of it, which seemed to trail into the shadows behind her, and from those shadows stepped a hulking beast of a canine. It looked like a nightmarish cross of a bull and a spotted hyena. It lumbered forward not on two legs, but four, a rope of thick drool swaying beneath a cavernous maw lined with yellowing teeth.

"Tonight, My Darling, we hunt the furless prey. They say he will be taking the roads, looking for shelter in a shack abandoned by those fleeing Death's talons. But we know where he truely ran to, and where he is going, don't we, my Precious?" The mink hissed into the beast's left ear. All she got in response was a snarl and a toss of it's head that spattered the walls with it's saliva.

"Then you know what you must do, Lovely One. I can feel him, he is not far...Now GO! Bring him to me, so that he may pay for the crimes he has committed."

With a cackle, she tugged hard on the thin chain, and where it was connected to a black ring of metal around the beast's neck, it snapped. The monsterous creature turned slowly, as if about to evicerate it's handler, but the mink reached out with no fear and put a claw to it's forehead, tracing a symbol that was scarred into the beast's flesh. Without another sound, the creature roared in fury and turned down the tunnel, barrelling with single minded fury after the rest of the team, and the criminal they sought.

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Blood now ran into his eyes.

Blood and sweat from all the exertion of sprinting through the now pitch dark woods. Running and falling, only to get up. They were coming for him, he could hear them, could hear their barks, and growls, and hisses. They would find him, and he would be put through every level of pain imaginable.

Pain? Pain like he felt when those heathens burst into his house in the middle of the morning, before his family had even finished breakfast. Before his children could even leave for school! They came in, and they took them, took them away from him saying they had been infected with the virus. What virus? The Kee'Awloo healers had been there just the last week and said they were fine! There was no sickness in his villiage, the monks made sure of it. Unless they were in on it! That's it, they had been checking the houses to find the children, that's what they were doing! They had made notes on who had children so they could be taken, and killed. Those clever bastards were killing off the humans by making sure there would never be another generation to rise up and end them! Oh yes, that had to be what it was they were doing, he had figured it all out now.

Another false step, and he tumbled down an embankment, landing in a small stream. The water was cold, it jarred him back to his rightful thinking. What was he doing? He just killed countless people, and now he was running like a coward, he should turn around and turn himself in, that would be the honorable thing to do. Because really, did he think he would get away? They would send soldiers after him, specially trained soldiers who would have his scent, and knew what he looked like. He wouldn't escape the Kohanian law...He would turn himself in, that's what he would do.

Just as he was standing though, the pain returned, the cool water hadn't taken it away, only dulled it. He saw the blood, just like the blood of all those innocent people who were being killed in their sick experiments. He wouldn't turn himself in, not without taking some of those freaks with him...

The skilled Kee’Awloo and Dy’Unnar rangers were hot on the bomber’s trail, all of them looking quite furious at the audacity of this maggot. The coward wouldn’t …couldn’t be forgiven for destroying a holy place like this, one of their valued and treasured sanctuaries; this criminal had to die. No quarter would be given in the minds of the force that was tracking him through the passage he’d used. Most of them except their leader had blood on their minds while their leader: a tall Kee’Awloo Painted dog type was thinking more logically. He wanted to know just why this person would bomb their place of worship.

The rangers ran down the passage on soft pads, making hardly a sound except for the light splashes of their paws in the centimeter of water. It wouldn’t be long before Kohanian justice would fall upon the man that’d done this. Oh yes, he’d pay for it…with his life’s blood! They'd come out of the tunnel into the forest of Kohana, the leader giving the signal to split up, surround the criminal, cut off all routes of escape.

The team would split up and take off to accomplish their mission, using their keen noses, they'd find him quickly. Silently, they'd surround their target and closed the ring around him out of his sight and with absolute silence. The ring of death was slowly closing around him..


The human resistance had given the mission to do such a thing despite a few people not truly liking the idea. But the hardliners dominated the opinions of the resistance currently and had given no thought to the possible reprocussions of their actions. If the Kohanians discovered the link, trouble would befall them like hellfire and brimstones; it wouldn’t be pretty. At all.

Dust was everywhere. The air was saturated with it, but it slowly thinned as the rubble settled. The main sanctuary was torn, its roof almost ready to collapse on the survivors of the initial blast. Several monks were already preparing supports for it, but it would be minutes before those supports would be able to make it safe to enter again. Dozens of other Kohanians were already going into the building, regardless of the danger of collapse, trying to find survivors and get them out.

Winter coughed. His ribs ached, and he couldn't feel his tail. But the rest of him seemed to be intact. He blinked, trying to clear his eyes before looking around at the devastation. The sanctuary had been nearly full. He remembered giving up his place to stand in a doorway. Of course, Echo had followed him...

Echo!

The puma pushed himself up, his left arm aching but not seriously injured. Underneath him lay a battered Siamese cat girl. The two of them had been protected from the falling walls by the arch of the doorway, a strong point in the building's architecture. Winter remembered seeing a human acting strangely. Then nothing. Maybe he had reacted out of instinct, shielding Echo from the initial force, which would be why his back ached so much, and the scorching on his cloak.

"Echo?" The young Kohanian knelt next to Echo and gave his classmate's shoulder a little shake. Then he winced. A large stone rested on her legs, pinning them. He slid across the floor on his knees and scratched some markings into the stone. Placing his hands on its side, he pushed, both physically and with his mind.

The stone didn't move from his strength, but it did move for his will. One edge of the rock formed a small projection on its bottom face, about the diameter of a soup can, that grew downward and acted like a jack to lift that side of the stone off the ground. When it was high enough, Winter grabbed the bottom of the stone and gave it a shove that forced it to roll off of Echo. The new stalagmite dissolved into dust when Winter's hands left the rock's surface.

"Is anybody there?!" Searchers were sifting through the rubble. The bomb had killed those nearest it immediately, but the damaged building left mostly injured under it, not dead. The blast victims were the lucky ones, thought Winter as the groans and whimpers of pain and cries for help filtered into his ears as his hearing recovered from the initial boom. Those who died from injuries caused by falling stones and wood were suffering before they went.

"Over here!" Winter called back to the searcher. "We're still alive over here!" He waved at a jackal Kohanian, who motioned to others to join her. "My classmate is injured, a rock crushed her legs. And she's unconscious, I haven't been able to wake her up."

"Alright. We'll get her out...how are you?"

Winter looked himself over. "Just bruises, I think," he answered, forgetting for a moment about his tail. "Anything I can do to help?"

The jackal looked at him. "Well, we could use all the help we can get finding people and getting them out. The ceiling of the sanctuary is about ready to fall, and we don't know if the monks can take care of that before--" She was cut off as a shout rose from outside of the walls and a deep rumble began. "Go-go-go!" she shouted, giving Winter a shove toward the nearest exit. A chunk of wall the size of three To'Yaree slammed into the floor where they had been standing moments before.

The ceiling fell, finishing off most of those left inside. Winter made sure Echo was alright before he joined the searchers in the ruins. The destruction of the sanctuary had made the rest of the temple unstable, but that was quickly evacuated and the Construction Talents were able to reinforce the structure to prevent further collapse. Winter aided as best he could with reinforcing the walls of the sanctuary, but there wasn't much a student like himself could do to help the more experienced adults, even if he was a very good student. So he settled for searching, doing the best he could to keep the sights, sounds, and smells from affecting him until it was done.

As he scratched symbols into the side of another section of wall in preparation to move it, he overheard some talk about the perpetrator. That he was still alive. And also that a small group of hunters were tracking him. Winter frowned, only glancing around at the carnage before returning to his task, his hand shaking in a mixture of trauma-induced shock and barely contained fury.

He is as good as dead. But even that may be too good for him.

Night had come, and it was a dark, deep night shrouded in fog. That woudl help him get away, he was sure of it. It couldn't be much further...

The human man looked behind him, stopping his running for the first time in hours. Oh sure, he had walked some, or even a light jog here or there, but this was the first time he had truely stopped. It was too late when he realized what a mistake that was. As he leaned his back against a tree, his hamstrings both siezed up in an excruciatingly painful charley horse. Before he could stop himself, he cried out in pain, slumping to the forest floor, where he rolled onto his back and tried to straighten his legs.

He couldn't do it, he couldn't go on any longer. He was tired, he was hungry, but most of all, he was parched. He needed a drink so bad that it brought tears to his eyes. He finally got his muscles to relax, but he didn't have the strength to rise and continue on. So he just sat there, at the base of the tree, and listened. Listened to the sound of his coming doom.

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"He is near, Master." The small assassin hissed, narrowing his eyes towards the interior of the forest. "I cannot see him, but I know he is there. he is near, and we will find him soon."

A tall, lithe figure landed in the branches of the trees just above the badger spy, and the leader of the search party. Without even looking up, the painted dog knew which of his scouts had returned, and it brought a smile to his lips.

"We've found him, Sir. He seems to have given up about two kilometers ahead. He was doing well at covering his scent, and making no sound as he moved, but fatigue set in, and he stopped, and that's when his weak body gave up on him, and he cried out in pain. He did not get up, and remains at the base of the tree he collapsed under. I have Full Autumn Moon watching him. He won't get away." The feline ranger spoke from where she crouched on the branch, her feature's hidden behind a black shroud.

Her leader did not speak, but instead just nodded and looked back the way they had come, where he could hear gutteral growls and heavy breathing coming in their direction. He swore under his breath and then looked between his two spies.

"Well, should we let Summoner Miststalker take care of our prey, or should we try and save him from her dark mysticism? He killed his people as well as our own, does he really deserve to be used in her voodoo rituals?" He asked, ear flickering backwards as was his habit when he was nervous.

The feline looked first in the direction of the oncoming beast, then towards where the human lay resting. She looked back to her commander, and shrugged without a word, letting her indifference show what she really thought. When Painted Dog looked to the other, a badger Sha'Nai, he too wasn't looking up, rather studying the ground his flexing claws churned up.

And so, it was decided. Tilting his head back, and cupping his paws around his muzzle, Painted Dog barkhowled to the heavens, the order to fall back.

They would let the Voodoo Queen finish this business.

Re: [Kohana] War, is Hell. (Gorey ending)

The human slowly got back to his feet, hearing the heavy breathing and branches snapping as something large came to claim his life. He would face his demise right here, no more running. Whatever they had thought to punish him with, he knew that he deserved it. He faced the origins of the sounds, squaring his shoulders, taking a deep breath, and then narrowing his eyes. No more running...

As he turned though, and the large hulking creature lumbered it's way out of the brush, he did not expect to hear the soft, lilting voice of a female purring into his ear.

"I have found you my Prey. You t'ought you could outsmart the Miststalker, did ya? I am sorry, but you did somet'ing really bad, and that means that no matter where you go, whatever you would have done, I would have found you and had to punish you. Even death couldn't have saved you from the Voodoo Queen."

He tried to turn to face the owner of the voice, but as he faced the direction it had come from, a strange dust smelling of almonds was blown into his face, he felt as if he had been set on fire, and then blacked out. The last sensation he had, was his skull slamming down against a tree root. Then he embraced the darkness, thinking his punishment much lighter than he had been prepared for.

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The next day, in the swamptown home of the Mistress of Summoning, Miststalker was milling around her apothocary, smashing some herbs and plants with a mortar and pestle. She hummed softly to herself, as she worked, overseeing the work of the others as her mind wandered to the male she had caught last night. Very few knew of her dual natures. Most thought of her as the big momma of the Swamps, protecting them from outside forces, keeping the Mokoi in check, and speaking to the Loa for guidance. None other than her second in command, Total Eclipse, knew that she was part of a much greater, and far more powerful group, protecting all of Neo Kohana from those who would seek to harm it.

Satisfied that those she supervised would not get into trouble, she set her herbs on the edge of a wash basin, stirring the contents of the tub with a large stick. Smiling to herself, she took the small bowl of crushed spices, and dumped it into the steaming hot water. After a few more revolutions, the stirstick was removed and the female took up the basin and walked to the back door of her shop. Taking a ring of keys off her belt, the leopardess unlocked the door, slid the basin through, and then followed it, closing the door behind her.

She stood for a moment in the silence, just listening. The usual sounds surrounded her, water dripping along the wood of the tree her shop was built into, the scrabbling of rodents and bugs could be heard as well. But it wasn't these sounds she was listening for.

It started out soft, a small creak that couldn't be attributed to the settling of the tree, a rustle that was not of leaves. A smile crossed the femme's face, hidden by the shadows. She reached above her head and clapped her hands once. Instantly the staircase she stood upon was bathed in light as each of the sconces lining the walls were spurned to life by supernatural fire.

Very slowly, Miststalker bent down and took up the basin again. Resting it atop her head, and holding it with her left paw, she began to decend the stairs. Now the easiest sound to hear was the shuffling of her pads as they brushed the stone steps as she decended to her lair inside the base of the tree.

When she reached the bottom of the steps, she stood in a rather large open area, about twenty feet in diameter, with a stone table in the center. Standing with it's back to her, a figure in a long leather coat stared down at the table. Looking up, and straight ahead, the figure pushed yellow lensed goggles to the top of his head with paws black as a new moon's night.

"You're late, Mistress. I had to give him another dose of the sleeping agent. I hope everything is ready to make him pay for his crimes?" The figure spoke over his shoulder.

"Doncha be worryin' about that, Eclipse. Big Momma's got ever't'ing ready to teach the furless one his lesson real good!" She stepped up to the black leopard's side and set the basin down between them. Then she joined him in looking down at the stone before them.

Held securely to the top of the table, tied spread eagle on the stone, was the male human that they had caught the night before. He had been stripped naked and all hair had been shaved from his body. To the male Kohanian, the human looked pathetic. To Mistress Miststalker, he looked like the perfect vessel to make an example of.

Reaching into the warm water, the Voodoo Queen pulled out a long strip of leather. No, it wasn't leather, it was wet rawhide. Eclipse shook his head slightly, feeling that this may be going a step too far to make their message to the fighting humans, clear.

Miststalker had no such qualms, and began to wrap the man's knees in the wet hide. She worked slowly, deliberately. When she finished wrapping a strip of it, she would tie it in place, before moving to wrap around the man's elbows. Next came a two inch wide strip around his chest, then a strip around his ankles, his wrists, hands, feet.

It was as she was wrapping a small strand around his throat, that the man began to stir, blinking his eyes to try to make them focus in the low light, he saw the two felines. After shaking his head to clear the cobwebs, he looked down at his body, wondering why he felt wet and cold. When he saw the leather wrapping him, he knew just what they had planned for him, and it was far worse than what he thought the night before. A little poison, and he would slip into death painlessly. Now, it seemed that these two were going to squeeze the life, quite literally, right out of him.

He fought against the ties that bound him, but it was no use, Total Eclipse had done a very good job of binding him. He tried to speak, to beg for mercy from his captors, but with the band around his throat, it took all his mind to just breathe correctly. Once the final band had been tied, Miststalker nodded. The execution was ready.

Eclipse nodded as well, untying the straps that had held the man's arms out straight from the posts at the corners of the tables, and wrapped them around the man, tying them like a straitjacket behind his back, it was difficult, with the man fighting to keep himself free, but the Kohanian used superior strength to finally achieve his goals.

Once he had been secured this way, Eclipse nodded to his superior, who gave the man his final dose of sleeping powder, and just before the man lost consciousness again, he heard the two speak of taking him back to the gates of the Human city of Xio.

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The afternoon sun was reaching it's highest point when the deed was done. No one could remember ever seeing the Sha'Nai assasssin's coming into the city. No one would ever remember seeing them going up into the guard towers at the main gate to the city. What they would remember, however, was what came next.

Just as the sun reached it's highest point, there came a loud crack from the gates, and as the people turned to see what had caused it, they saw the man hanging there, bound in rawhide in the position of a deadman.

He had been stripped naked, his arms crossed over his chests, palms resting against the fronts of his shoulders. He had been castrated, the wound being only partially dressed and stitched. A noose held the man directly over the highest point of the arch, and everyone knew they would never be able to reach him before the torturous death would be fulfilled. Some couldn't bear to watch, so they went back into their houses, or shoppes, but some couldn't turn away, and just watched as slowly the rawhide began to constrict around the man's body.

It started in his legs, the first things to be wrapped, bones could be heard grinding together, then breaking with wet sounds like someone biting into a juicy fruit. Tendons tore and rolled up beneath his skin as much as the bindings allowed. Then came the arms, popping out of their sockets and hanging at grotesque angles, some bones following those of the legs and breaking and being crushed into fine pieces.

Through it all, the man remained alive, able to feel the pain of his body being broken, yet he could not cry out. The mixture in the bindings had permeated his skin, acting to keep the man alive all the way through his tortuous execution. The last thing he would feel though, was the simultaneous crushing of his ribs, puncturing lung and heart, and the snapping of his spine. Those who watched, knew he had died, when crimson rain fell from the man's ears, eye sockets, nose, and mouth. That was when the town's magistrate ordered the archers to shoot the noose, letting the man's corpse fall to the dust, staining it with the man's life fluids.

Your message has been recieved and heard loud and clear, Furred Ones. We shall not break the Sacred Oath again. Now we see what fools we were to think that our war permitted such acts. The magistrate thought to himself as he walked back into his office, head shaking slowly.