Special. You think you’re special. You do.

Stars cart wheeled above in a manner that was at once beautiful and mocking. Tumbling about like earthen, mud-kissed stones stolen from the mirthless laugh of a riverbank by the questing fingers of an inquisitive child, cheeks burnished a pale rose by joy and the wind alike in an electronic stone tumbler, they paused only long enough to expel broken laughter. Laughter as broken as the wolf beneath them, who yearned to be as clean and polished within the corridors of her mind as they were.

Once, she had gazed upon their unified, aloof glittering masses with wonder and simple contentment, drinking in their distant beauty even as they seemed to drown within the pale cerulean night fire of her own eyes, swallowed in those gentle inkwells of wonder and innocence. She no longer questioned what lay beyond those pale, silver faces as they concealed themselves behind gossamer veils. She knew now. There was nothing. A nothing called space. A nothing called her heart. As real and as vague, and yet as imaginary as her heart was.

The she-wolf was consumed by the irrational impulse to rail against the stars, to curse them, damn them, for the lies they whispered. A package wrapped in beauty, yet only a gift of infinite nothing. She was as black as the sky the hung in, the only whispers of color on her proved to be her eyes, and the silver cord around her neck that swung itself about her neck like the lazy companionship of an old friend. A cord from which the very thing she was named dangled-the shuriken. Better known, more commonly, as the ninja star. The earth was chill beneath her stomach, and colder still beneath her paw, where rested yet another shuriken.

The one that dangled from her neck, bound their as much by the cord as her guilt, was not hers, in truth. It belonged to her brother. Grievous. They were two halves of a whole. Two ends of a combined prophecy. It had been gravely misread. The balance within the pack they were to bring existed no longer. She reigned in the calm, the order, the peace. While Grievous, once sweet, once warm once her adored elder, reigned death, chaos, and destruction. And he reveled in it, and the sweet, dark pleasure it brought.

Her teeth gritted then in disgust, even as she felt the hot press of tears straining within her eyes, begging for release. “Stay in my memories,” she choked. “Where you belong.”

I can see it in your eyes. I can see it when you laugh at me, look down on me, you walk around on me.

“I will never,” came the voice from the dark, like the sudden thrill of a cold autumn gust, chill and unexpected, seeming to spring from the dark well very ground itself, “Be a memory.” Shuriken’s head snapped up and back sharply, as if tethered to a rope. It was a foolish gesture-she knew well enough that it was none other than Grievous who spoke from the shadows, even without looking. Her eyes drank in his form with as much greed as that of a lost soul stranded in the desert for months on end. One side of him was as black as the night itself, while the other was as pure of a white as fresh snowfall. One eye glittered a deep and savage purple, while the other was a mere slit of silver, half sealed from a long, livid scar that slashed from his forehead to the eye socket itself.

His legs were no longer flesh, but silver, hard metal. There were six. Six legs that were messengers of death. Two he used to dual wield twin, oversized katanas. Two he used to wield twin high-powered pistols. The final two concealed minute rocket launchers. Though he was canine in nature, he had come to love the violence man could bring, and so had been twisted within. It had not always been so. Years ago, he had been stolen from the pack by a group of supposed field scientist, although that had merely been a clever ruse. They stole him away…genetically engineered him into the monster that stood before her now. Had tampered with his nervous system, tuning it into a well honed weapon in and of itself, twisted it so that he may walk upright like a man to better utilize the weapons he bore with such ease within his legs. They had increased his intelligence far beyond the bounds of man or animal…but the final and third gift was this; they had taught him to hate. To loathe. To wish only pain. They planted within him a dark seed, a seed which took root and sprouted, feed by his own dark fears and doubts. Wings, too, he had. Great hawk-like wings, colored like rust.

Shuriken recoiled at the raw truth of his words, recoiled even as she bared her fangs, though her eyes spoke of her shattering heart. She loved him. She loved him still, in spite of what he had done, what he had become. She loved him because he was her brother. But she also hated him, for the same reasons. “Now, now,” he chided, stepping closer still, rising now to hindmost legs, standing erect. Like a man. Too much like a man, she thought. “Is that any way to greet your dearest brother? Especially when I’ve gone through all the trouble of bringing you a fine present.”

“Don’t be so generous,” she snarled. “Generous?” He quirked a brow, a sly smile springing to his maw. “You flatter me.” With a causal, disgusted flick of his wrist, he hurled something at her. Something dull, and round, with sharply rising points at the crest. Instinct took over, and she leaped out of the way, muscles tensing and her ears pressing flat against her pate as the object rolled to a ponderous, moist halt. She did not suffer a glance towards the thing, however. No, she merely regarded her brother with dispassion. “What’s this? You don’t like it?”

Again the rakish grin. “Come, come. Don’t be so hasty to refuse it, sister. If you don’t like it, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do now to replace it.” And those words, at last, compelled her to tear her eyes from the twin stars of malice that had become her brother’s eyes, and to the shadowed object. Only to look away in horror and sorrow just as abruptly.

Just one more fight about your leadership, and I will straight up leave your shit.

Though she begged within the cobwebbed shadows of her heart for it not to be so, she knew it was. The fur, rich white peppered with black so that he seemed almost silver in the sunlight, was unmistakable. As was the face, frozen as it was in an expression of pain and surprise. “Adish.” The words were torture to speak as she gazed into the bloodstained and mangled face of her former lover. Again the press of tears threatened to overwhelm, again she denied them. Her gaze faltered once more to the once familiar face of her brother, only to shudder in revulsion as he calmly cleansed the blood of her beloved from the blade of his sword with casual swipes of his tongue. Catching her gaze, he flashed a wicked smile.

“You….you son of a bitch,” she growled, hackles raising. “Dear, dear. Such language. Quite unbecoming for my baby sister,” tsked Grievous. “And I won’t have you refer to mother that way,” he added with mock severity. “I had hoped, sister, that this gift would convince you to see the light and join us.” “Us?” She choked, hardly daring to believe her ears. “Yes, us. You see….we could be a family again. Couldn’t we, brothers?” As he spoke, multi-hued flashes of light broke the ether of the dark, as from within night’s cold, dispassionate gaze a multitude of wolves, altered much like Grievous, stepped forth.

“You’re insane,” she snapped, trying in vain to keep the quaver of fear and rage combined from her voice. “Am I?” Again the amused, lilting voice she knew so well, had cherished. “Dearest sister, we’re all mad. So what does that make you, hmmm?” “Go to hell.” The words were calm, measured. “Hell?” He snarled, dark fire dancing within his eyes. “Hell? My dear, you know nothing of hell.” He spun then, to address those gathered. His followers. “Brothers!” He cried, “Do you see this she-wolf? She is our sister. She is one half of myself. She is the missing link we need to make our glorious Time come to pass.” He turned then, maw twisted into a mask of craven ecstasy, to face Shuriken once more amidst the roar of his comrades. “Sister! Will you not join us?”

“I will never….” She snarled. A flicker of sorrow then passed his eyes, only to be swallowed. “Is that…your final answer?” “It is.” He sighed then, shook his head. “A pity. Goodbye, little sister.” He whirled to face his comrades once more. “Brothers. You have heard what I have heard. Sister does not wish to become one of us. She does not want to be apart of this family. And if sister is not one of us….then she must be destroyed. Let her be our first sacrifice! Let her blood be the blood that opens the gates of hell!”

‘Cause I have had enough of this, and now I’m pissed.

Amidst the frenzied snarls and yelps and roars of blood lust, Grievous smiled as he began to advance towards Shuriken. A devilish light danced within his eyes, even as the liquid whisper of his blades leaving their scabbards reached her ears. Shuriken gazed levelly into their dark furnaces, even as her heart beat a static rhythm within her ribcage, like a frantic, trapped bird. She cannot hope to outrun or outpace them all.

She cannot hope to win victory against this demon her sibling has become. And yet. Her gaze drifts then to the all but forgotten shuriken at her paws. With an air of palpable desperation, she seized the chill metal in her maw. With a savage jerk of her head, she flings it, straight and true in its flight, a dying star, a flash of cold silver. A moist sound of blood vessels combusting reaches her ears, chased by a shriek of agony.

A wolf dances in madcap leaps, scoring his face with his own claws at the shuriken embedded within his eye, a dark sieve of blood blossoming like flower from his ruined eye. She pauses only long enough to withdraw it from his eye, drawing renewed shrieks as she does so. Then, she runs. The shuriken thumps like a twin heartbeat against her chest as she runs, which only compels her to race ever on.

The screams fade, swallowed by snarls as his minions give chase, never getting close enough to touch her, harm her, only impede her path. Dropping from a felled tree, jaws snapping so she must veer sharply left or risk a maiming, darting out suddenly from the shadows to turn her from the woods. It continues in this fashion, this dance, for quite some time, until, with a sinking feeling, she realizes with dull sort of horror that she is not so much being barred from fleeing as she is being herded like a mindless ewe.

It is this that enrages her more than anything that has transpired this night, and she comes to a faltering halt. The snarls turn now to excited bays and yelps. A dark circle of fur enfolds her, even as she spins to her right and left flank, snarling, fangs flashing.

Yeah, this time I’m gonna let it all come out. This time I’m gonna stand up and shout.

“That’s enough!” Thunders Grievous, even as, with a strangled whimper of surprise, a pale silver wolf collapses to the earth, gurgling incoherently as blood flows like a river from a gash in his throat, the shuriken shining like dead star within. “She is not to be touched. This fight is mine to finish.” The wolves bowed their heads in reverence, submission, and parted. A few murmured “Mi lord’s” could be heard, before all fell silent once more.

“Sister,” he said suddenly, tones nearly frantic and yet still baring a calm, unflappable undertone. “Tell me. What is it you cherish? Tell me. Give me the pleasure of taking it away.” Shuriken looked upon him, then, and a sneer curved onto her maw. “I’ve told you before,” she snapped. “You must be getting old. Forgetful.” You have already done that, brother, she thought bitterly. I cherished you. But the words she spoke instead were “There is nothing….that I don’t cherish!” She roared.

So saying, she leapt at him, jaws renting the air in a futile search for his throat, forepaws striking his muscular chest, even as his blade caressed her shoulder with a blow that rent sinew and muscle. Her roar trailed to a bitter yelp of agony, and she fell away from him. But all the same, she would not concede defeat. Her maw gaped to encase one of his legs. Perhaps if I apply enough pressure, I can shatter one of these accursed things.

Even as she thought this, however, she felt the chill barrel of a pistol settle with equal detachment onto her pate. “I’m afraid not, my dear,” Grievous chirped cheerfully, even as, with an ominous click, he drew back on the safety catch with a claw. “You….you don’t want to do this, Grievous,” Shuriken gasped, even as she surreptitiously, slyly, maneuvered the shuriken about one of her upper canines, the minute opening sliding easily down the length of her canine with a rasp concealed by her words.

“No? You’re sorely mistaken, sister. Yes, I do.” His claw tightened on the trigger. She drew her maw along the length of his leg, almost affectionately, as she cast about for some weakness within the armor she could exploit. He would be impervious to pain within his metal legs, this much she knew. It would be folly to attempt to wound him there. But if she could somehow damage or destroy the mechanisms within one or more of them, then he would be forced to face her tooth and claw alone.

“You don’t,” she insisted, speaking for the sake of it now, desperate to distract him, willing him to focus on her words, not her deeds. “The brother I love wouldn’t do this. I have faith it you, Grievous. You will come back to me. You can. Fight for me,” she pleaded, though even she was not prepared for how raw and true the last sentiment rang. “Fight for you?” He sneered. “Did you fight for me, dear sister? Did you fight for me when I was stolen from the den, when I cried for our mother, for you? When I begged, much like you are now, for you to save me? For you to spare me the agony I felt? And did you? Did you?” He thundered.

“No,” he snorted, contempt dripping from his words. “You did not. You cowered in the den as I was taken, stolen. You cowered even as they beat me into unconsciousness. You did nothing. Nothing!” he snarled. “I tried! Shuriken cried. “I ran after them, after they stole you. One of the men. I bit him. On the arm. He carries the crescent shaped scar to this day!” A flicker of tenderness, of recognition, of bewildered knowledge that she spoke of the truth flickered behind his eyes. And then, just as the moon is swallowed by the clouds, it was gone once more.

I’ma do things my way, it’s my way, or the highway.

“Lies,” he hissed, easing back the trigger still further. “No, Grievous.” The desperation had left her voice, transcended into sorrow. “No lies. No games. I…love you.” He snorted. “Then you are a fool, Shuriken. Where was your love when they were snapping the bones of my legs, to better saw them off and replace them? Where was your love when I became their slave? Where was your love when they slashed my face, just so that I might know pain? Love me? Then let me tell you a secret, baby sister. I. Hate. You.”

With that, her fang baring the shuriken sliced into the minute opening of his hindmost leg, slicing through synthetic nerves made of wire, in a brilliant blossom of gold and crimson sparks. With an ominous hiss of air, what transpired next was beyond even her imagining. With a sudden violence of motion, the rocket launcher released twin rockets from within in a shower of flame and sound. Within a blink, the horde that so faithful named themselves her brother’s followers was halved.

“Very clever, Shruiken,” he hissed, hauling her into the air, drawing her level to his face, before casting her forcefully away from him. “But your wit won’t save you.” He roared after her, even as she struck her spine along the length of a rock, and slumped mute, as if she were a capering puppet whose strings had suddenly been severed. She could not answer, even if she desired to. Excruciating pain made him gasp, breathless, as dart after dart of poisoned ice assaulted his very marrow, while poisoned iron flooded through his ribs. Black thunderclouds and blue-and-red forked lighting bolts roiled through his mind. Shuriken saw the darkness of unconsciousness rise on feet as light as hunting cats, ready to drag her down.

With a wry lament, she thought, almost listlessly, I’m running out of tricks. And out of time. Her eye became an inkwell of darkness. Within it’s depths, a single, virgin tear formed, expanding into a multi-faceted gem of light, until, with a sigh of blessed release, it sparked once, and fell within the depths of her eye with a ponderous drip. Renewed strength coursed through her, and she staggered to her feet, despite of, or perhaps even because of, the pain.

Just one more fight about a lot of things, and I will give up everything to be on my own again. Free again….

“You surprise me, sister,” Grievous conceded with the same casual, conversational tone. “I didn’t expect you to give up easily, true. But this…well. It’s a bit foolish, isn’t it? How long do you really think you can continue to go on?” He smirked. “How long do you think I’ll let you?” “I long ago stopped needing or wanting your approval…brother,” Shuriken gasped, swaying slightly on her feet. A brow raised in open amusement. “Really? And to think. I fancied myself to be something of your hero,” he mocked. “Hero’s,” she said grimly, “Die.”

“So they do,” he said coldly, leveling once more the barrel of his .45 towards her. Yes. Hero’s die. As will I. But not today. Not today. With that that, she began to run once more, severing this way and that, until her paws struck the vertical surface of the cliff face. Without slowing, without so much as allowing herself the heartbeat fraction of time to think, she flew up it, paws sliding ever now and again, threatening to send her reeling towards her death to the earth below, should she have even a single errant footfall.

Bullets devoured the earth beneath her feet, causing the stones to crumble in uncertainty beneath her, falling away to the ground below with the idle chatter of bone on bone. Grievous watched her for a moment, shoulders lifting and falling in an elegant manner, as he, too, gave chase. Even as he ran up the length of the cliff face, he once more compressed the trigger. For the second time that night, there came an explosion of white light and burning flame, and Shuriken stumbled, spiraling from the cliff face like a crushed dream, blinded by the sudden influx of blood that danced into her eyes, the frozen flames of agony roiling within her core itself as the bullet struck home within the center of her temple.

But if she had hoped that, in falling, she would at last find her blessed release, she was to be bitterly mistaken. Even as she plummeted past her sibling, he extended his muzzle, and ensnared her scruff in a brutal fashion, flinging her skyward once more, as he raced for the zenith of the cliff. Again, she braced for the impact of the earth, and the blinding, final flash of agony with it. Again, and again, and yet again it did not come, as her brother seized her in his grip time and time again. Until at last she lay at his feet, eyes unseeing, spine peppered with minute fractures. “What…do you want?” She asked thickly. “Oh, nothing much, never fear. Domination of the world, a couple of blueprints to weapons of mass destruction…oh, and pony.” He flashed the wicked smile once more. “But most of all, Shuriken. I want you, on your knees, to beg for your life.”

“Someone once said you can never get everything you want.”

Yeah---this time I’m gonna let it all come out, this time I’m gonna stand up and shout.

Time held its breath then as she seem to climb the clouds themselves, even as Grievous took to wing with a single, ponderous beat of his oversized, moth-eaten wings. He could have be considered beautiful, framed in the tears of the stars, bullets raining from his twin pistols like weeping stars falling to kiss her face, if it were not for the shine of contempt within his eyes.

He grasped his sister then, as she struck his chest with such force that it vibrated through even her teeth, tenderly, almost lovingly, he enfolded her as the broke through the silver veil of the clouds, even as the pistols withdrew within themselves, in favor once more of his twin katanas. He released her then with a single paw, drawing the blade through her stomach with a moist rip of sinew, all with the same, tender motion as before. Even as his eyes spoke of his hate.

She yelped, writhing, attempting in vain to dislodge the blade from her stomach, even as torrents of her blood fell from her, falling on upturned faces like crimson rain. Her maw closed about his chest, renting fur and flesh alike, until, with a dull splintering sound, a rib gave way beneath her assault with a brittle snap, a sound she ruthlessly exploited with a vicious double kick of her hind legs, so that it was Grievous who cried in agony.

Coldly, without passion, she entwined the shuriken together-their silvered teeth pressing together in a soulless laughter of metal. With a flare of silver, they fused, becoming two halves of a sword. A sword that she, in turn, assembled into one. The two forms pirouetted round the other, two ebon spires of flame. There are some people who are not truly people at all, not in spirit, leastwise, but pillars of flame, who burn everything they touch. And there are some people who are not truly people at all, but pillars of ash, that crumble when you touch them. Shruiken was a child of ash...and flame. Shuriken’s blade flashed once, the most lethal quicksilver, only to be met with an answering parry.

The tempered blades of the two siblings seemed to the unkeen eye to be two languid hoary serpents, elongated necks wrapped in an ardently lethal embrace as they partook of the fallow gold bars of life that flowed from the heavens. However, now and again the serpents would part, silver tongues a fathomless clamor of foreign dreams. Then, rearing back tapered hoary heads, they struck ceaselessly at each other, railing at the other with steel and iron ensorcelled dreams held fast in quicksilver maws, before once again locking in that restless stillness, as brother and sister set their blades to chasing each other about the night skies.

I’ma do things my way, it’s my way, my way, or the highway.

When they could no longer sustain their aerial battle, they returned to the earth. In a single devious mood, Grievous seized her tail, swung her forcefully by it, casting her airborne once more. “Fly!” he snarled, sliding the katana into his scabbard and withdrawing a pistol in it’s stead, firing round after round into her convulsing form, those round alone keeping her aloft. When at last she landed, she lay quite still.

The light was beginning to fade from her eyes, fading starlight. Even as the world began to furl in upon itself like the edges of a burning photograph, fading to the same grayish white, colors vanishing as if swirling down a drain from a nameless artist’s paintbrush, that she was dying. With a whisper of a sigh of regret, she released herself into the void, eyes shuddering closed.

The spilled life stream of Shuriken flowed around the paws of Grievous, chill and humming with the fiery soul she had once been. In silence, he turned, and began to walk from her cooling corpse. It was finished.

“Did no one tell you?” Came a voice, weak, rife with agony, and defiance. “One should never turn their back on their foes.” Impossible, he thought in mute disbelief, even as he wheeled to face the source of the voice.

Someday you’ll see things my way. ‘Cause you never know, where you never know, where you’re gonna go.

Ah, but it was so. Shuriken yet lived. But only just. “I will never be a memory,” she whispered, parroting back to him the very scathing words he had spoken to her. Her eyes drifted then to the sword that rested now between his ribs. The sword born of crossed Shuriken’s. Shuriken’s that were one half of two souls. A sword that called souls back from the edge of death’s shadow, even from the gates of death themselves. A sword that, should one sibling ever attempt to slay the other, would avenge itself on the perpetrator.

Just one more fight, and I’ll be history. Yes I will straight up leave your shit.

“So what now, sister? Do we fight each other, locked in both the embrace of life and the embrace of death in an epic battle that has no outcome, no winner? Do we fight each other until the world itself ends?”

“What crime is it to say that I don’t know?” She answered softly. These words were swallowed by the maw of her sibling even as she spoke them, as his jaws closed about her throat. Even as he compressed breath and life alike from her throat, he reveled in the minute drops of blood that graced his tongue. He drank of them greedily, consuming them until, with a clatter, the sword fell from his chest with a hollow ring as it struck the earth.

In swallowing those few drops of blood, he also obtained enough of her essence to fool the sword into relinquishing the blood and life debt it demanded. He shook her savagely, on all fours now, instincts alone now his sole weapon for a time. With a cuff of her paw, she railed against him. It was a useless gesture-she lacked the truth strength required to prevent him from killing her a second time.

The sword was useless now, but neither could she speak the safe word to render it into twin shurikens.

And you’ll be the one who’s left, missing me.

She knew this. She knew that she was, in truth, truly beaten now. She slumped in his maw, a calm acceptance washing over her like a soothing wave. She would give her life to him. Freely. But not to the Grievous he had become. To the Grievous he once was. To the cub she had once frolicked with. To the cub who, once upon a time, she would have given anything to be like him. She would have given anything to keep him from hurting. She would have died for him, come to that.

So with what was to be her final breath, she opened herself to him. Allowed her memories to flood his mind, his heart. Allowed her unconditional love, the love both had sworn on as children, to whisper across his heart one last time. And said goodbye to the one being she had cherished above all else.

To say she was taken aback when she struck the earth would be phrasing it mildly. She gazed upward, uncomprehending. Within her brother’s eyes blazed a dead moon. No hatred. But no love. No sorrow. But no joy. Instead, he began a shambling, graceless dance. She started at him in bewilderment, thinking him mad, until she realized with an anguished wrench of her heart what he was doing. The dance of the star cubs. Something their mother had taught them, a ritual they had done every night before slumber.

Then, he turned from her abruptly and walked away, soon swallowed by the gray anonymity of the mist. She stared after him. She would have to let him go knowing that the brother she loved still remained within, buried within the darker shadows of his heart. She would have to let him go.

AN:::Wipes brow.:: Two days and fourteen hours later, it’s finished. Some people who have read this remark that it’s sort of similar to Star Wars meets Final Fantasy, and they’re right. I was slightly influenced by Advent Children when writing the confrontation between Shruiken and her brother, so the “sister” reference is sort of like the “brother” reference in Final Fantasy. And yes, Grievous is a nod to General Grievous, although he is a creation that is entirely my own.

Some people have asked me if I’m going to make this into a longer chapter story. It depends. If enough people like it enough for it to become a chapter story, I’ll consider it.

“My Way” is © Limp Bizkit. (Those are the song lyrics in italics, by the by.)