Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 00:29:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: arin@mudnet.net
Subject: arin 10

The following story contains scenes of boys having sex with other boys
 and/or men, depending on what I decided on by the time I got around to
writing it. ;) It is science fiction and fantasy, and as such contains
things which simply don't happen in real life. If your imagination is
not good, you won't enjoy it very much. As for the sex thing, if this stuff
is against your personal moral codes, don't read it. If there's anything
you don't understand, ask your parents or friends or whoever you think will.
If you like the story, feel free to write me a letter at arin@mudnet.net.
You're allowed to do anything you like with my story with the following
exceptions:

1. You may not place it on a system which charges people to read it unless you
   request permission from me first. I have no problem giving you
   permission, but there will be a slight one-time fee. ;)

2. You may not post alterations to the story, or write sequels to it,
   without my permission.

Happy reading!

=====================================================================


   Chapter 46

   Dejana walked slowly, her face holding a deep and sharp contempt as her
feet squished in the ground behind a Pibincram wagon. "You know," she
said, not for the first time, "they really aren't very good at altering
plans. I fail to see how being chained to the back of a wagon is going to help
us stop them." She stopped as she finished her thought, which proved
detrimental to her hands as the shackles binding them were tugged forward
by the horses in the front of the wagon.

   The rider to our side grumbled something that resembled, "Shut up and
keep moving." He seemed somewhat perterbed by his new duty. Personally I'd
have thought suddenly having five prisoners was cause for excitement, but
then I guess something like that could become commonplace when your job
title is "Occupation Army Soldier".

   To the other side of us was the boy whom I'd accosted in the woods earlier.
Someone had actually thought to go back for him, once they realized where
I had gotten my clothes from. They were now back on their owner, and I was
wearing a small brown rag which barely served to cover my genitalia. Tarus,
Rath, and Tyrin were being held elsewhere along the line. Where our equipment
was was anybody's guess.

   "So," the boy said, from his position at my side, "I suppose your name
is my concern, now." There was a cold sarcasm in his voice, but it wasn't
entirely unfriendly. It was merely an acknowledgement that he'd been
wronged, and the truth of it made me twinge inwardly with guilt.

   I shrugged. "Arin," I said matter-of-factly, determined not to let
my guilt show through. I cocked my head to the side, and if I actually HAD
bangs in my hair they would have flipped up around the other side of my
head as I turned to look at him. I gave him a knowing, concentrated glare.

   He smiled sadly. "Toby," he said, and for a moment there was a feeling
between us... almost friendly. It's the feeling that comes from having shared
something as special as sex with someone, and feeling it from this total
stranger sent a small chill down my spine. Then it was gone, and he turned
to face front while I chose to look down at my feet. We had fallen back into
our roles as guard and prisoner.

   We marched on in silence for a while. The forest breeze was gentle on my
bare skin. An owl made a small "hoot" noise in one of the far trees. A
bush rustled along the path in a fashion that would normally make me tense
up... the massive army around me barely noticed it. They were largely
unconcerned with anything that could be lurking in this area, considering
themselves masters of the environment. Each step took them closer to that poor,
defenseless village. Each step my powerlessness frustrated me more and more.

   Suddenly, the back end of the patrol stopped. No explination was
offered, so we were left with nothing to do but wait. Slowly but surely
various patrol leaders made it further and further back along the lines.
One of them came forward and whispered in Toby's ear. He nodded and quickly
drew his sword, turning to face away from me. The horseman on the other
side drew a large Flail, designed by it's length to be wielded from the
horse's back.

   After that, the wait resumed. Everyone in the group around us was
tense, which made Dejana and I tense as well. There was a soft sound
coming from up ahead, but we couldn't discern what it was. Given the
length of the enormous legion we were marching with through such a
tight, short path, the entire front company could be on the verge of
being devoured by a large snake and none of us would know any better.
The cart suddenly jerked forward again as we started moving, and I found
myself hurled to the floor momentarily. I got up and started slowly
walking with the cart again, rubbing my temples in exhaustion. When I
opened my eyes, I discovered that, quite suddenly, I could no longer see
anything around me. It was as if someone had blotted out the moon and the
stars and left me in the black vacuum of empty space.

   I knew instantly what it was. No self-respecting magic user or experienced
warrior fails to recognize a Globe of Darkness when they "see" one. And I
had no doubts about what had created it. "DARK ELVES!" I cried, and
although I couldn't see, the shuffling of feet and hooves around me
told me that the soldiers around me took heed of my warning.

   Chapter 47

   I heard a fierce battle cry from the forests around me, and then the sounds
of clanging metal and screams of pain, the sounds I couldn't
identify earlier, got closer to us. There was definitely a healthy
amount of fear involved... I was almost naked, shackled, unable to see as a
battle between people who had captured me and people who wanted me dead raged
on around me. Because unless there was some /other/ rampant nest of Dark
Elves in the area, this was Cedra's fighting force. Dejana and the others
undoubtedly felt very helpless.

   But I wasn't. I closed my eyes, though it was no longer really necessary,
and I began to focus and concentrate. And slowly but surely, I felt coarse
grey fur sprout out along my prepubescent frame. My nose began to bulge out,
and already the advanced sense of smell I so strongly desired kicked in.

   Hostile intent, less than five feet away!! I could smell it through
my growing wolf nose. Still bonded to the wagon, I did the only thing I could
do - I followed along the chain and jumped onto it, feeling a steel object
graze over the small of my back. My hands and feet began to shrink, and I
quickly slipped my wolf paws out of my shackles.

   I landed on all fours. My eyes changed shape and texture, but the
magical darkness still held them binded. My ears slid up the top of my
head, and my hearing became much more acute and defined. But the most
powerful sensation was the smell - I had a nose that told me stories of
rabbits and skunks and deer that had travelled through the area. I knew
instantly that the person who swung at me was a Dark elf, and I knew that
he no longer smelled like a living creature.

   I had become a wolf. A blind wolf, because the Globe of Darkness was still
affecting the area that I was in, but I didn't need to see with my eyes to
defend myself. I quickly sniffed around for Dejana, but she was nowhere in
the area. That wasn't entirely bad news, because I didn't smell a corpse
either. Most likely her shackles were destroyed at some point and she
fled.

   All around me, the battle raged. I heard screams of agony and despair to
my right, savage sounds of triumph to my left. The chirping of the birds
above me, indifferent to the plight of those below, seemed oddly out
of place even in this, it's natural environment. My left front paw slipped
into a gooey substance on the ground around me -the blood of a fallen soldier.

   My wolf nose smelled another soul in danger, the fear easily readable from
his scent. It was my "friend", Toby. I leaped on his assailant, ripping
his throat straight out of his neck with my fierce wolf jaws. Toby got to
his feet, shaken but unharmed, and lept back into the fray.

   As the fight raged on, the caravan had continued moving, at an almost
faster speed. And as the Globe of Darkness finally began to dissipate, I
began to notice that we were standing on the outskirts of the village
itself. The bodies of two of the three children who had invited me to
play, the boys, were lying in the ditch on the side of the road. The remaining
child ha somehow found her way to safety in the woods beyond - she was out
of everyone's sight, but I could smell the fear on her. The head of the
caravan was now in the Village itself. One of the Pibincram soldiers
started to head towards the young girl's hiding place, but there was no
way I was going to  allow /that/ to happen. I bit the soldier's leg,
ripping a chunk of flesh  from the back. He might live, but he wasn't
going anywhere.

   I sniffed the air as it changed direction, and finally caught a sniff of
Tarus. He was somewhere further back in the caravan. I trotted over to him
briskly, as a member of the Pibincram army decided that he was a legitimate
target. Tarus dodged quickly out of the way of a quick swipe against him,
grabbing the weapon of a fallen soldier and quickly bringing it up to
block a second attack.

   I jumped on the soldier from behind, clawing into the back of his head
with my front paw. He wasn't dead, but screamed in agony but a moment
before the pain made him black out. Tarus looked at me quizzically, almost
fearfully. I waved my front paw at him in a very human gesture of
reassurance, and then scuttled on to find the others.

   The dark elves were pulling back from the battle. I jumped atop one of
the wagons, and it was easy to see from that vantage point that the
Village was already under Pibincram control. The citizens were trapped in
their houses by occupation soldiers, the town leaders had already been gathered
and locked in a single building. The building was apparently someone's home,
but they had made a fuss about being moved, so they were no longer around
to complain any further.

   Now, let me tell you, it's a very difficult thing to remain undetected in
an animal's senses. To even have a chance you have to make sure you're
not standing in the wind, because the wind carries your smell to the animal's
nose. And even then, you have to mask every sound you make, creeping with
the expert stealth of a master thief. I would have had trouble doing
it. So I had a great deal of respect for the Pibincram soldier as he managed
to throw a net around me, encircling me and restricting my motion.

   I let go of the spell and reversed the changes, slipping back into my
human body. I no longer had the cloth to conceal me, standing naked as a
Jaybird as Pibincram soldiers crowded in. I was "escorted" quickly into the
Village. The Pibincram had won.

   Chapter 48

   I was placed on my knees before General Lerina Barrenson, the woman whom
I had spied on. "Well," she declared in exuberance, "not only do I get to
play with my own village, I get a group of patriots to torture as
well." On her signal, her guards lifted me to my feet, pushing into the sides
of my shoulders to keep me bowing reverently. But I could still tilt my head
up to glare at her. I wasn't really very afraid, as I'd already accepted
that I was going to die. I was just angry. Angry that this woman thought she
had the right to just come here and slaughter or enslave all these people,
probably just because some stuffy old man on a throne a couple of
hundred miles away had decided he wanted more land.

   "You seem awfully quiet, mage," she said directly to me, in a tone that
could almost be affectionate and maternal, save for the rage that burned
behind those feminine eyes. "Submitting to your fate, or silently plotting
your revenge?" Actually, I was doing both. I slowly, deliberately turned away
from her gaze, contempt flowing with my motion.

   The general slapped me across the face. "Insolent child!" she cried,
dropping the mask of politeness. "Take him to the Village Hall, lock him up
with the other two magic-users." She stared straight at me. "We will drain the
powers right out of you, boy, and as the last bit of life leaves you, know
that your strength will be used to help conquer this sad nation."

   General Barrenson's gaze turned elsewhere, and mine unconsciously followed
her's. There, in heavy shackles, lay the barely conscious forms of Dejana
and Kurl Prachek. They were a strange contrast, one's purple skin against
the other's pale white, one's silver hair brushing against the other's
dark black. Both weary from a long, futile battle. As the general began to
taunt and rebuke them, Dejana gave me a tired glare that I couldn't
entirely read. Was she angry with me, now that she knew about the powers I
hid from her? I tried to tell myself it didn't matter, particularly with
death just a short way off for us. But I couldn't convince myself. This
one thing, her opinion of me, mattered to me for some reason. In many
ways, she'd become almost a surrogate mother to me during this trip. She
was everything I'd wanted my real mother to be - strong, confident in my
abilities, valuing my input and treating me like an equal. And I'd lied to
her, and now been caught in that lie.

   I didn't get long enough to look, because then the Pibincram guards
began to carry out their leader's orders. I was hauled away from the
courtyard, towards the buildings on the far end of the village. It was
horrifying to walk through the small community. Women and children peered
sadly out at me from within their home-prisons, Pibincram guards posted at
their doors. Occasionally, the wails of the less lucky of them being
tortured or raped by their oppressors escaped the wooden confines of their
dwellings. The burden, the responsibility for this lay with me. If only
I'd been honest about my magic-using power, I could have flown here and
warned the people in advance. Instead I chose to think foremost of
myself, even now, after I was sure that these were trusted friends.

  The guards could sense my disquiet and revelled in it. One leaned down
towards my ear and whispered, "You like those sounds, boy? I bet I could
help you make those sounds..." He squeezed my ass firmly, causing me to
squirm out of my thoughts. "Yeaaaaah," he said, voice containing obvious
lust, "I bet I could make you squeal like a baby pig."

  The other guard slapped the first one on the shoulder, looking at him
distastefully. "He's a /mage/, you idiot, you let his arms loose and he'll
turn you into a newt with a word."

  The first guard simply laughed. "Well then, I'll have to make sure his
/mouth/ is full, then, won't I?!?" With his free hand, he groped the bulge
in his armor and jiggled in my direction.

  Finally, I couldn't keep quiet. "Why don't you just wait 'til I'm
dead? I bet you'll get a /real/ kick out of humping my corpse, you foul
hoo.." I didn't get to finish the word, because I'd enraged him enough
that he slapped he across the face, causing another small trickle of blood
to droop from my lip. Despite the pain, I smiled cruelly at him, enjoying
that I could manipulate him so.

  The second guard was no idiot, though. He hit his comrade again, a
little more forcefully this time. "/Careful/, if you kill him the General
will have your head."

  The walk progressed much like that for the next few minutes, until
finally I was led to a larger shack  positioned on the far end of the
village. It's decoration was simple, but elaborate by comparison to the
other homes we passed. This was clearly the Village Hall. The guard
reached for the door, and I expected Rath and Tyrin would be the other
people chained to the wall. Tyrin was undoubtedly in touch with his deity,
after all, and these godless people could easily associate his powers with
magic. Poor suckers.

  But it was not Tyrin whom I saw chained to Rath's right side when I
walked in. No, there stood the familiar form of a young boy with dirty
blonde hair, dark grey-blue eyes almost growling past a once beautifully
freckled face; a face now twisted in rage. The body once owned by my
lover, Cedra, but it was Rynth who looked through those eyes now, and
greeted me with a sarcastic smile. "Well," Cedra's voice said, "it looks
like we're fated to die together after all."

  I snorted as they chained my hands to the wall, chains that I could see
were woven to keep away the strands of magic around them. Spells would not
be a viable means of escape. "We have to stop meeting like this," I
mumbled, barely audible over the click of the chains.


   Chapter 49

  We stayed chained like that for almost two hours, not a one of us saying
a word. Rath drifted in and out of consciousness, and I was worried about
his health. Apparently he'd taken a blow to the head during the battle,
and was suffering some sort of concussion. I feared that if he didn't get
to Tyrin soon, he'd... well, he'd die like he was about to die anyway.
As for Cedra and I, we spent a long time glaring at each other. It was
hard not to think of the /real/ Cedra, the one trapped in that tiny corner
of his own brain. Couldn't help but wonder how much of the glare I was
receiving was Rynth, and how much of it was him.

  "I know you're in there," I said softly, barely aware that I'd spoken
aloud. "I know you can still hear me. And I'm sorry."

  Rynth laughed a horrible, evil laugh. It sounded even moreso coming
from Cedra's throat. "You really were a match made for each other, weren't
you... you sound just the way Cedra did the first time he killed."

  Instantly my angry glare returned, but my voice betrayed my
confusion. "Cedra's been in battles before. He..."

  "No," the demon interrupted, "I don't mean killing in battle. I mean the
first time he took an innocent life."

  My blood pressure rose. "/He/ did no such thing. /You/ took the life."

  "Not the way he sees it, Arin," he said, enjoying the fact that he was
tormenting me. "It was a young woman, a priestess in Tyrin's employ. She
was unwilling to tell me what you and Tyrin had talked about."

  "No one knows what we talked about," I replied, though I was unsure
about whether that was true.

  "Oh, she did," Rynth assured me. "She didn't know the specifics, of
course, but she knew it involved the Amulet of Wonders. After the first
hour, she was ready to tell me all she knew and then some. I heard two
sets of pleading, two sets of screams. Her's, and this pathetic child in
my head." The shackle on his wrist jingled as he tapped his skull. "They
harmonized quite well. When he finally delivered the killing blow, it was
like a crescendo to me."

  "When /you/ did," I corrected harshly.

  But the demon boy just smiled that painfully familiar smile at me,
his lips once more tainted by the evil intent of their new master. "No,
the killing blow was Cedra's. I started it, of course. But then I released
my hold on his body, for just a minute. He was the one who failed to stop
the swing of the axe in time. He tried to heal her, of course, but his
deity would not grant him the power. Not after he'd taken an innocent."

  I struggled against my shackles, enraged. "You /bastard/," I screamed,
"I'll /kill/ you for what you've done to him!"

  "No," Rynth smiled, "you won't. You didn't last time." I cast a quick
look to Rath as soon as he said it, to make sure that the elf was still
unconscious. Thankfully, he was, although he was just starting to stir
again.

  I looked back to my lover and his tormentor. "I will," I said, with deep
resolve.

  "You won't," he repeated. "You'd kill your lover, too."

  "And with his dying breath," Rath wheezed, "he'd thank his friend for
it."

  Rynth rolled Cedra's eyes in contempt. "I grow bored of such talk. It's
counterproductive, anyway, as we are allies now."

  Rath spat on the ground. "I'm no ally of yours."

  The demon shook his head. "Suit yourself. But we're not going to escape
if we don't help each other."

  I motioned with one hand. "Does it look like we're going to escape
anyway?"

  He smiled, a smile I was coming rapidly to hate. "Dear boy, you think I
lived hundreds of years simply to be overtaken by some mere mortal army?"

  I hesitated just a moment, pretending to think about it. And then I said
"Yup," as contemptuously as I possibly could. "If you /had/ a plan, you'd
have executed it by now."

  The demon's smile turned into a derisive laugh. "Oh, it's not /my/
plan." I was about to ask for an explination when, suddenly, there was the
sound of a scuffle at our door. Moments later, Tarus and a dark elf
female barged into the room, keys dangling gingerly from the elf's hand.

  I looked at Rynth in suprise. "How did you know? You have some kind of
clairvoyance that works even when your hands are shackled with
anti-magic?"

  Tarus laughed somewhat sadly. "No, he has eyes. He saw me and Iryana
here making plans even as they started to drag him away." To her credit,
the dark elf unshackled me first, to show the strength of our uneasy
alliance. Then she unchained her dark master, and finally, poor dazed
Rath.

  "Okay," I said, moving to Cedra/Rynth's side and sighing, shaking my
head. "Allies for now, but let's get one thing straight - when this is
over, I'll see to it that Cedra is freed. Count on it."

   Chapter 50

   Cedra's eyes glew an auburn red, a look of pure evil on his face as he
stepped behind the General. He placed his hand gently on her shoulder as
she spun around to face him. "General Barrenson, perhaps you should take a
break." With that he wordlessly jumped forward and, with delicate ease,
sliced the General's head clear from her shoulders.

   Simultaneously, Iryana, Tarus and I struck the guards on the right
flank, me getting in a decent stab to one of their backs while Tarus and
Iryana, being taller, simply reached in front of their victims and cut
their throats open. On the left flank, a now-free Dejana, Tyrin and Kurl
Prachek did roughly the same to the guards there. And all over the battle
were hundreds of images of giant, two-headed penguins stomping to and
fro. Evidently Rath's injuries brought back a certain subconscious memory
from his past, displayed on cue for all of us. It still brought enough
disarray in the enemy forces for us to press our advantage. Soon villagers
swarmed from their homes, eager to participate in their own
liberation. They fought side by side with both our team and Rynth's,
pushing the Pibincram forces back until the retreat signal was called.

   Cedra moved further up the front of the line, and soon I was by his
side. As we fought, I noticed a bit of Cedra's own fighting style was
present in Rynth, the demon making use of his memories to further enhance
himself. "Down!" I cried, swiping my sword toward the demon's head. It
sliced clean off the head of the soldier who'd been ready to pounce
Cedra. Satisfied that the demon owed me one, I took another step forward
and allowed two soldiers to approach me. I deflected their blows as best I
could, but soon a sword was on it's way to make deadly impace with my
forehead. Rynth jumped atop me and the blade slipped over our heads.

   "We're even now," he said as we stood up and I straightened out his
tunic and pouch.

   I smirked coyly, giving a slight nod. "That we are," I said, bringing
my sword through the flesh of yet another soldier. I wielded my sword
around madly with one hand, keeping the other tightly clenched and to
my side. The Pibincram were many in number, but the element of suprise and
the ferocity with which we and the dark elves fought made the enemy
reconsider, and surely enough they began to flee back toward Pibincra.

   One of the dark elves was leering menacingly over Toby, sword poised
and ready to strike the boy down. It was at that moment that I considered
the alliance over, striking into the elf's back and bringing the corpse
down hard on top of the scared warrior child. I lingered there but a
moment, acknowledging the look of gratitude he gave me, before turning to
the side and noting Rynth's angry glare.

   "You honorless cur!" he cried, waving his axe defiantly. I stepped
forward, my sword still dripping with the blood ichor of the fallen elf as
I wordlessly swung it around to make contact with Cedra's head. At the
last second, the demon brought Cedra's arms across his body, the axe's
hilt coming up to deflect my blow. And now he knew - now he knew that I
meant to kill him, despite the hostage he held.

   He brought the axe down again, but I found it easy to nimbly dodge back
out of the way and it struck ground. With that, the demon decided that his
team had had enough for the moment. "Fall back!" he yelled, his voice
speaking with a command, a confidence, that Cedra hadn't had. Looking back
to me, he declared "Your time is almost over, Arin. I wouldn't leave the
village if I were you." With that, he and the drow departed off of a
seperate trail, almost back towards Tyrin's village. I knew they wouldn't
stray far from us, the race for the second piece of the amulet still in
full swing. But for the moment, anyway, the sound of battle had faded.

   Exhaustion reached me finally, and I dropped down to my knees. Rath was
unconsious or nearing it, evident from the way the penguins were becoming
transparent and decreasing in number. Tyrin went to tend to him as one of
the villagers came up to us and gave us a nod of appreciation. "Thank
you... thank you very much." I smiled in return.

   Dejana and Tarus joined us, cleaning their weapons and watching the
last image of Cedra and the drow departing. "Damn it," Tarus said,
watching them depart. "He got away."

   I chuckled, a reaction which caused three heads to turn towards me as
if I'd just farted at the King's banquet. I looked at them innocently and
released my grip on my sword, bringing my hands up to my chest. "What?" I
asked, smiling. "Something wrong?" I didn't wait for them to respond,
nudging out towards Cedra. "Oh, is it him? Yeah, shame he took off so
fast..."

   "Yes, shame," Tarus agreed. "You do realize he's gonna want to kill
you more then ever now, right?" I couldn't help but laugh out loud at
that. Tarus didn't know the half of it.

   "Mmm. Oh, by the way..." With a sly grin, I held out the hand that
hadn't been holding my sword and opened it wide. Within sat the first
fragment of the Amulet of Wonders, the one that was sitting in Cedra's
pouch. Three jaws dropped.

   I winked. "You don't think he'll miss this, do you?"

--------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, so, I'm sure the burning question on everyone's mind is, "Why the
year and a half wait on this?"

The answer is very simple: Shame.

Granted, this is not for profit, it's for fun. So there's no real way to be
"plaigaristic" on something that's just for entertainment purposes.  And I
did put a warning, in part 5, that I would be borrowing a bit from another
source. But still, in my own judgement, I was overly plaigaristic.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of the ideas in this story are my own. The names
and personalities of the characters are me. The amulet quest is me. The
majority of the descriptions and dialogue are me. But there are parts of
the story that lean heavily on contemporary mainstream counterparts, so
heavily that I got disgusted with myself and stopped writing. Foolish of
me, really, because I stopped just as I was getting good enough so that I
wouldn't /need/ to be so plaigaristic anymore.

Now, in an effort to set things right, credit is given where due:

Arin's morphing abilities, seen in Part 4 as well as here in this part,
are taken straight textbook from the Animorphs book series, one of my
favorites.

The interaction that occured between Cedra and Arin after Cedra turned
is borrowed very heavily (read: sometimes word-for-word) from the second
season of Joss Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

Now, in the unlikely event that Ms. Applegate or Mr. Whedon themselves
should find themselves reading this, I give this personal message to them:
"I don't know how you feel about an idea you originated being used in
a story that is partially gay-slowly-developing-into-pedophilic porn, but
for what it's worth, they were included by a developing writer who has
enjoyed your work so much, and been so inspired by it, and wanted so badly
to be even half as good at it, that he got carried away. Please see the
beginning of this story for what it is, a tribute to the fine
contributions you've made in my life as well as all who read your work,
and look to this story's future to see what your literary offspring is
capable of."

Special special SPECIAL thanks to a young net citizen named Dragonist, who
finally made me realize that I shouldn't give up on this project just
because of it's past.

To the future...