Erinyes: Hell Hath No fury
by Diamonde and Alicia McKenzie
DISCLAIMER: Natalie Dayspring is the creation of Alicia McKenzie, Eris belongs to Diamonde. Both are based, obviously, on the original Marvel characters, but we're fairly confident that even their daddies wouldn't recognize them now...;) Everyone else recognizable belongs to Marvel, assorted original characters belong to either Dia or Alicia.
AUTHORS' NOTE: This is an answer to the Genderswap Challenge--better late than never, and it's ALL Alicia's fault that it's late in the first place. Hopefully, this will also be the jumping-off point for lots more fun stuff. Rated PG-13 for some bad language and naughty implications...
Tetherblood hesitated for a moment at the door of the command tent, and then grimaced. *Well, flonq this. . .* It was the third watch; there was no one around except for a few sentries, and no reason to maintain the image of the dignified lieutenant.
Pulling the door aside, he stepped in and immediately stopped. He'd been right; there WAS a light on where there shouldn't be. Folding his arms across his chest, he raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't you be asleep?" he asked pointedly. "I distinctly remember you promising me you were going to get some sleep."
"Oh, save it." The warning was sincere, the edge to the soft words palpable. Ignoring it completely, he let the smile he'd been trying to repress out, only to have it grow into a grin. After all these years, he'd be a sorry son of a flonq indeed if he didn't know exactly how far he could push things. And he was perfectly willing to risk stirring up the Temper That Ate New Canaan if the end result would be worth it.
"You're not going to have much of a head for tactics tomorrow if you don't get some sleep," he said cheerfully, growing a little concerned as he noticed the details of the map being displayed by the holo-unit. "You still obsessing over our choice of ground?" he asked slowly.
"We didn't have much of a CHOICE, T. That was the problem." A heavy sigh. "I must be out of my mind. Tell me why we decided on this, again?"
"Stop worrying. We make the best of what we've got," he said reassuringly as he went over to stand behind the tall figure bent over the table. He reached out, laying his hands on shoulders whose muscles were so tense that he winced in reflexive sympathy. "Just like always."
"It must be nice to be so optimistic."
"You're in a foul mood."
"I don't like being outnumbered five to one," Natalie Dayspring said dryly as she straightened, a half-amused, half-concerned look in her gray eyes. Her hair was coming loose from its thick braid, and the silver streak shone in the light from the glow- globe. "Am I not entitled to stew just a little, under the circumstances? At least in private?"
Her words were joking, but her tone wasn't. So much like Natalie, to try and use humor as a coping mechanism. . .something they shared, and always had. "No, you're not. Your face will freeze that way, and that would be a crime," he said with a deadpan look, reaching out and pulling her towards him. She shifted, giving him a baleful look, which he ignored. She was precisely his height. He liked that, liked being able to look right into those stormcloud eyes. "Come on, Nat. Bed?"
Natalie blinked at him and then smiled, almost reluctantly. "T, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to proposition me. . ."
"Me? After the day we've had?" he scoffed, pulling her towards the blankets in the corner. "No, I think we'll save that for after we send Haight's pets running back to Canaanite lands with their tails between their legs. Then we can come back and flonq each other silly."
"Very funny," she grumbled, but laid down, relaxing into his light embrace with a sigh. "If I'm not awake at dawn, I'll kill you. We do have that clear, right?"
***
Tribune Haight didn't look at the people who scurried out of his way. Most of them were beneath his notice, the others currently unneeded. They were almost all intelligent enough to realise this, and kept what they no doubt considered urgent matters to themselves. The few who started the approach were stopped by hurried whispers from their colleagues.
The whispers tended to continue as he passed, and he made a mental note to make discipline a little stricter. It showed a lack of proper reverence, having people watch wide-eyed every time he tried to receive a report from one of his 'Strators. The one whose face they'd never seen, hidden as it was behind a metal mask. Haight knew exactly what was behind it and it amused him, especially when he heard the wilder rumours that filtered up from the lower ranks.
In actual fact, Eris' face was neither scarred nor otherwise disfigured but as attractive as the rest of her. Not classically beautiful perhaps, but certainly striking. And almost exactly identical to that of the Clan Chosen leader, the only differences being Eris' redder, unstreaked hair and unmarked face.
The resemblance was more than a little ironic. At first he'd found it suspicious that the woman claiming with impressive proof to be Apocalypse's heir and the Daughter of the Askani could have passed for a single person, but those worries had easily slipped away. He still wasn't entirely sure where they went or why, but they had turned out to be unfounded, so it hardly mattered.
Eris appeared to be the ideal subordinate, and one with little opportunity for advancement. But Eris LIKED leading Canaanite forces against the Clan Chosen. Sometimes she liked it a little too much for his peace of mind. It showed her overwhelming hatred for the Dayspring woman of course, but personal grudges could easily cause more problems than they solved. And yet he always forgot that when he was sending Eris out to fight her.
He walked into one of the smaller conference rooms and opened the link. A holographic image of Eris appeared, looking impatient. Haight smiled. She was cute when she was irritable.
"You took your time."
"I like my privacy."
Eris nodded at the reassurance and took the mask off with a grimace, tossing it out of range of the imager. "I really dislike this, Parridian. Reporting like I'm some kind of pet. Everything is exactly the same as it was last time, except the battle is closer and I would prefer to be sleeping."
"Routine is important, Eris. I can't make exceptions for you without disrupting it, you know that."
Eris sighed with annoyance. "Fine."
"And I'm a little concerned." He was sure he had been. It seemed silly now, but he might as well say it. "Are you sure you aren't letting your natural desire to crush this filth get the better of you? You'll have to follow them into the mountains, and they will have the advantage of high ground." Not to mention that fighting in mountainous territory like that almost always resulted in huge numbers of casualties for both sides, sometimes to the point where the few remaining soldiers decided to call it a draw and limped home.
"Don't worry." Eris smiled, and Haight was instantly reassured. "There are many more of us than them, and if we win the pass we can beat them all the way back to the channel."
The hologram reached out as if to touch his face, and Haight felt all his concerns ease. "Of course. With our technical advantage and you commanding them, how can we lose?"
"Exactly," Eris purred. "And then I think I will have had enough campaigning for a little while. We can revel in the victory together."
Haight smiled. "I'll look forward to it."
"I'm sure you will." Eris reached out again with a wicked smirk, and he could almost feel her hand brush down his chest. "But I have a battle to win first."
Haight nodded and thought about the situation in that province for a few minutes, ignoring the faint flicker of disappointment and the way he couldn't quite remember who'd closed the connection or when. He felt good despite Eris' absence. Nowadays just talking to her relaxed him, made him feel warmly secure. And soon she'd be back again, then they'd really give the herd something to whisper about.
He smiled to himself. Their affair wasn't exactly a secret, but nobody dared mention it. That was half the fun, really. Other strong telepaths were rarely affected by Eris' favourite low-level projection of normality, watching Lital's face go stiff as Eris curled smoothly across his lap in a strategy session had been particularly entertaining. She'd pretended not to notice, knowing he'd ridicule any attempt to object and nobody else would support her. They all knew how much Lital and Eris hated each other. He half suspected that had been the only reason Eris had done it at all, but that also wasn't important...
Another thought slid into the void. Lost in the hazy glow of recollection, Haight ignored all the things he should be doing and wandered back to his private chambers instead. For some reason he felt very sleepy. . .
***
"That's ENOUGH!"
Natalie's jaw tightened in grim satisfaction as the entire squabbling table full of her lieutenants and allies fell silent at her shout. A few glared at her balefully; she ignored them completely. Soothing egos wasn't first on her list of priorities right now, even with how fragile some of the alliances were.
"Oath, could we focus, please?" she demanded, not bothering to keep the hostile edge out of her voice. "We all agreed to this plan. . ."
"That was before we knew you'd be leading the advance group!" one of her own lieutenants objected. Natalie glared at him. Vorren was a good twenty years older than her, and she knew he had. . .problems with taking orders from her sometimes.
"And?" she asked a little testily. "Are you under the impression that I'm not CAPABLE of leading the advance group, is that it?" She raked the entire table with a contemptuous look. "Because if that's the general consensus, maybe I should step down and hand the command over to someone else!"
#That's taking something of a risk.# The voice in her mind was soft, ever-so-slightly amused. #They might take you up on it.#
Natalie tried very hard not to smirk. #What a loss that would be,# she said, determinedly not looking at Aliya as her friend and teacher moved from the tent door and took her seat at the table. As always, those in Aliya's immediate vicinity fell silent, having suddenly rediscovered the virtue of manners. #I wish I could do that.#
#You have your own methods, Nat, don't worry. . .#
Natalie smiled faintly, and turned her attention back to the group. "I'm not hearing anyone volunteering," she said silkily. Most of them were staring rather sullenly at the table, now. "No? Then let's get back to work, shall we?"
A quarter-hour later, with the conference over and everyone off to see to their assigned responsibilities, Natalie sank down into the chair at the head of the table with a deep sigh. "I hate mornings," she muttered, rubbing her eyes.
"Oh, don't complain," Aliya said from where she was still seated at the table. "You handled them well."
Natalie raised her head and met those level green eyes with a level look. "Compared to WHAT?"
Aliya laughed. "I'm serious," the Askani said. "I surface-scanned them all on the way out. Our allies may not like you, but they're all harboring a reluctant sort of respect for you. And our people. . .well, even Vorren was terribly impressed."
Natalie grumbled. "Sanctimonious old son of a flonq. . ."
"You really are in a dreadful mood. Did you and Tetherblood stay up too late last night discussing the battle plan?" Aliya asked innocently, her green eyes dancing.
"Very funny," Natalie muttered, trying not to smile. "We need to find you a nice man, so you'll stop casting longing looks at mine. Someone to keep your bedroll warm at night."
Aliya grinned. "Oh, there's the sense of humor. I was wondering where it had gotten to. . ."
The tent door was pulled aside and Tetherblood stepped in, carrying hers and Aliya's psimitar. He looked around, feigning mock surprise. "No blood on the floor?"
"Shut up, T," Natalie said irritably, getting up and taking her psimitar from him. "Where were you, anyway?"
"Checking up on a few last things," he said, handing Aliya's psimitar to her as she got up. "Everything seems to be in order."
"Good," Aliya said quietly, running a hand along the blade of her psimitar almost measuringly. "Because this all depends on timing, T."
"It'll work," Natalie said determinedly. It would, because she wasn't going to let it turn out any other way.
***
Eris looked back and grimaced. "Commander Orath, would you like to join the rest of us?" The Cannaanite battle language was particularly good for soft menace. Not that Eris needed the help.
There was a faint cough over the command channel. //Uh, I'm a Group Leader. . .//
"You WERE. If you don't get your men back in position within twenty minutes you'll find out what it's like to be a sergeant again."
The man on Eris' left sighed faintly. "Nothing like a field-demotion to raise morale."
Eris glared at her second-in-command. She was already composing his funeral speech in her head, in case he was 'accidentally' killed in the upcoming confrontation. "He's incompetent. Put him in command of more men than he can count on his fingers and he gets confused."
"Of course he deserved it, I only worry about your careful balance of fear and loyalty that works so well. Perhaps you could send someone upwards for once?" He looked subservient.
Eris gritted her teeth. "Fine. I promote... me. From now on you may address me as 'God'."
"Eris..."
"If not God, then 'Strator! I may be young and female, Perrsin, but I outrank you and if you cannot speak in a manner appropriate to your position I will have your tongue cut out, Second or not. Am I making myself clear?" The other officers were pretending not to notice, but to Eris' telepathy the sound of intense listening was obvious.
The older soldier flushed and looked down. "Yes 'Strator. My apologies."
*So they think I need watching, do they? Fools. As if I could miss the lack of respect, the constant insolence... If I cannot get the Clan Chosen to kill him for me I will do it myself and blame them anyway.* But she changed the subject, feigning benevolence by 'forgetting' the incident. "The ground's rising again, we must be almost on top of them by now."
Perrsin nodded, a little relieved but determined not to show it. "I'm not sure I like it. We don't know this territory very well, and mountains like these can be very unpredictable."
Eris shook her head firmly. "The pass is just ahead, and by all reports it's wide enough for at least two Battle Groups to pass through at once. They do not have anywhere near enough fighters to even make a dent in us."
He looked at the steep slopes to either side of the column uneasily. "I hope so."
***
They were passing through the narrowest point before the pass proper when the Clan Chosen attacked. A small group, even less than Eris had been expecting, but at the worst possible moment.
"Fifth, hold your positions! Third, back up! Now!" Eris gave up on organised transport and flew ahead, cursing as her soldiers were pushed further back into each other without any room to move the heavier weaponry into position. "Can we get the guns on the left flank to-" Even before she'd finished speaking there was a series of explosions from said left flank, but not the kind she'd been expecting. The huge plasma cannons had been blown to bits, killing the crews and showering the surrounding troops with shrapnel. "Commander Artes! How are they doing that?!"
//Artes here. It was some kind of weird electromagnetic mine. Must have fried the control circuits so the whole thing overloaded when the gunners tried to charge up,// a voice crackled back. //There's a electro-sensitive here who felt it just before the first one went.//
"How far did it cover?"
//Back to the tail end of the Third at worst.//
"Are any of the small arms affected?"
//No, 'Strator. Not complex enough. Some problems with communications, but we're still operational.//
Eris closed her eyes for a moment, seething. But she didn't have much of a choice. "I want all gun platforms forward of the Fifth shut down. Bring more up from behind."
However, the Canaanite troops were fighting well despite being unable to maneuver and without support. Even as Eris came within clear sight of the front line the Clan Chosen fighters were retreating back the way they'd come without doing as much damage as they would have hoped. *It won't take long to reform and continue movi-* Eris blinked. In the rear of the enemy group was a familiar telepathic gleam. *Natalie. She's LEADING them!* "Perrsin! We're going after them right now!"
//'Strator, the first two Groups are still hopelessly entangled, and the wrecks of the gun platforms are still in the way. It will take at least several hours to. . .//
"I said move! Move the working GPs through the middle instead, the infantry can walk around anything that gets in their way and we'll leave the front behind! They can reorganize and follow once we're past."
//If we leave them behind we'll lose most of our margin for error.//
"Then do not make any mistakes! That little Askani peasant is leading them, if we take her then they're crippled." She chose not to mention that she could almost see revenge dangling in her grasp, and didn't care how many fighters she lost getting it. Natalie was almost within reach, but Eris needed her little army to get through the Clan Chosen cannon-fodder first. . .
//As ordered, 'Strator.//
He didn't like it. Oh well, he didn't have to like it. What he did have to do was die a 'heroic' death. . .
It didn't take long to force all the injured and disorganized units out of the way and move the rest of the column up, but Eris fumed at even that small delay. With fewer people to move Natalie was much faster, especially in cramped conditions. *If I lose her. . .*
Eris flew regardless of the power she was wasting, too tightly wound to come down. This gave her a perfect view of how skillfully she'd been out- manauvered.
After the narrow place that the Clan Chosen had taken advantage of before was the highest point of the pass. It was much narrower than it had been, with fresh piles of tumbled rock and a haze of dust in the air emphasizing the point. The rumble and screams as the first gap was collapsed on the rear was an unnecessary and macabre exclamation mark.
*Trapped!* Eris looked around frantically, thrown off balance by the sudden reversal of fortune. Then she had to duck as a hidden gun emplacement high on the slopes above them took a potshot at her head. Their aim was better at the lower ranks, with so many of them in such a limited space it would take a concerted effort to miss. Each shot burnt several soldiers to ash, seriously injuring at least ten more. Unable to escape the barrage, many units broke and ran aimlessly, searching for any escape.
*Where did they get anything that BIG?* Eris couldn't see the plasma cannons themselves, but she could scan for the minds of the gunners. They were suprisingly well psi-shielded, but desperation sharpened her concentration and she managed to break through one which showed a weak spot. Forcing herself brutally into the gunner's mind, Eris saw through his eyes. Right down to the chipped insignia of New Canaan on the control panel in front of him.
A vague trace of an old saying about insult and injury flittered across her mind as she snuffed out the one she was holding, turning the man into an animated corpse. Straining with the effort of protecting her own body and controlling someone else's, Eris managed to damage one of the opposite emplacements and destroy another. That left at least four out of her range. The way they'd come, however. . .
A few well-placed shots removed part of the rubble, probably killing a large section of her wounded at the same time. That didn't matter.
Returning to her own body not a moment too soon, Eris resigned herself to retreat and headed towards the rear. The Clan Chosen, having lost some of the advantage of firepower, were taking the battle in close. Attacking demoralised troops from higher ground wasn't entirely sporting, but it seemed to be working.
She wanted to be at the front. She wanted to find Natalie and rip her to pieces for this insult. But if she did none of them would ever get out alive, not with so many more to fight than they'd thought. Ignoring the fatigue that was creeping up on her already, Eris went to work on the blockage. If she could clear at least half of it, then if she was lucky she'd be able to salvage one or two groups. The rest were dead already, even if they didn't realise it.
***
Natalie braced herself against one of her own soldiers, a hulking young man who grinned at her, not seeming to mind being used for support. She returned his grin tightly, brushing dust and bits of stone off her armor as she watched the Canaanites in panicked retreat.
Almost perfect, she thought, willing her knees to stop trembling and hold her. Terribly undignified, it would be, for the victorious commander to fall on her face before the enemy was even finished running from the battlefield. But the plan had proceeded almost perfectly. If it hadn't been for Eris taking over the mind of that gunner. . .
Eris. Her grin turned into a snarl. Killing her own wounded--the bitch didn't have the right to call herself any kind of commander. *If we're lucky, maybe her own troops will decide on a leadership change.*
Natalie felt the snarl turn back into a broad, nasty grin as a thoroughly petty and almost overwhelmingly attractive thought occurred to her. "Comops!" she shouted, and the nearest soldier carrying a portable transmitter looked over, blinked, and then scrambled across the slope to her side. "Can you get me onto the Canaanite tactical net?" she asked him intently as he knelt down, swiftly setting the transmitter up to broadcast.
He blinked at her. "Yes, but their transmissions will be in battle language--we won't be able to listen in."
"I know that," Natalie said, more impatiently than she'd intended. "I don't want to listen in, I just want to broadcast."
The comofficer blinked again at her, and then smiled slowly. "Not a problem, commander."
"I was hoping you'd say that," she said with a fierce laugh. "And scramble our signal, just to make sure they can't triangulate." They didn't need that complication.
It took him a few minutes only to make the adjustments, by which time the Canaanites had made a truly impressive amount of progress in straggling back down the mountain. *Look at them run. Beautiful flonqing sight,* Natalie thought happily as the comofficer looked up from his transmitter.
"I've got the Canaanite command channel," he said. "Audio only. We don't have the equipment here for a holo-link."
She grinned, and slapped him on the shoulder appreciatively. "I don't ask you to work miracles. That'll be more than sufficient."
"Okay--linking up, now--" He handed her the headset, and she took a moment to make sure it was on and working before she began.
"Bright the morning, Eris," she said sweetly. "I know you can hear me." The gibberish that she'd been able to hear when she'd first put the headset on - conversation in Canaanite battle language - stopped abruptly, replaced by a vast silence. "Now that I've got your attention," Natalie continued in that same saccharine voice, "I just wanted to thank you for falling into our trap like the pitiful excuse for a military leader you are. It's made this morning so much more pleasant, I'm really indebted to you."
Still nothing. Natalie was peripherally aware of the tired Clan soldiers crowding around, most grinning, a few looking bemused or surprised or even concerned. "I have to wonder what your bedmate Haight will say about all of this, though," she went on, letting a trace of absolutely false sympathy creep into her voice. "Are you THAT good in bed that he'll forgive you for losing four battlegroups out of sheer stupidity?"
Laughter, now, in the crowd around her, and an enduring, icy silence on the channel. All she could hear was static. "Oath, Eris, don't tell me you're getting discouraged. I'm sure you can talk Haight out of stripping you of your rank and assigning you to latrine duty. And if sweet reason don't work on him, I'm sure you can think of something else to do with your mouth. . ."
The static crackled. "I'd tell you how you're going to pay for this, Dayspring," Eris's voice said, tightly controlled but full of cold rage, "but I think I'd rather let you worry about exactly what I'm going to do to you."
"Worrying?" Natalie said innocently. "Who's worrying?"
"You think you can beat me, you piece of Askani trash?" Eris's voice crackled across the headset, her chilly tone gone utterly, replaced by pure, fiery hate. "You and your ragged little band of terrorists?"
"I think I just did, Canaanite whore," Natalie said softly.
Silence. Not just on the headset, but all around Natlie, as well. It was a long, long moment before Eris spoke again.
"I have this dream," Eris said in a voice just as soft as Natalie's had been a moment before. "I catch you, strip your shields, and give you to my troops. And they DON'T kill you. Wouldn't that be delightful, Natalie?"
Natalie laughed, softly and mockingly. "Dream all you want, Eris," she answered. "But it'll be my camp celebrating tonight. The day is ours--and as the battle, so the war." She drew her finger across her throat, and the comofficer nodded, severing the link.
She looked up at the soldiers around her, and smiled. "Let's pick up our wounded and go home," she said.
***
Natalie let out her breath on a long sigh and leaned back against Tetherblood, smiling at the impromptu dance going around the fire at the center of the camp. A fire--archaic, certainly, considering the much more sophisticated methods they had, even in the 'rough' like this, to heat their tents and cook their meals, but there was something about it that just fit, somehow, with the dancing and the singing and the general mood of exultation.
Tetherblood wrapped his arms around her, and she felt a chuckle rumble through his chest. "Aren't you glad you came out here after all?"
"I always sit with the wounded afterwards," she said, concentrating on relaxing, muscle by muscle. "You know that."
"Yes, but you're missing a flonqing great party."
"I'm too tired to celebrate," she said with a weary grin, waving a hand at the dancers. "At least that kind of celebrating." She shivered slightly, her grin growing, as he leaned down and kissed her neck.
"Maybe we can find an alternative method," he whispered irrepressibly in her ear. She giggled - giggled, flonq it! - as he shifted his arms into a much less casual position.
"Where you get all this flonqing energy after we've just spent the afternoon fighting is beyond me, T," she said, trying for a severe tone and failing miserably.
"Flonqing energy," he ruminated, his hands roaming where they really shouldn't roam in public. She jumped, shivered, and giggled again, helplessly, as she craned her head up and around to meet his eyes. He was grinning widely. "You do have a way with words, Nat."
"Would you stop groping me?" she demanded, mock-scowling at him.
He got that terribly sincere look that never failed to disarm her. "I was actually hoping to tempt you into some mutual groping."
#The two of you do have a tent, you realize,# Aliya sent dryly from somewhere out of sight. #And unless you REALLY want to make a public spectacle of yourselves--#
#Oh, and what are you up to, sister dear?# Natalie sent back sweetly.
Aliya's answer was a laugh. #Foreplay,# she finally said.
Natalie nearly ruptured something laughing. She doubled over, Tetherblood helpfully patting her on the back as she snickered helplessly. When she'd finally gotten herself under some semblance of control, she sat up straight, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes and trying very hard not to start laughing again at Tetherblood's expression.
"I don't want to know, do I?" he asked, flashing her an entirely different sort of grin.
"Not--likely," she managed, and would have dissolved into laughter again if Tetherblood hadn't gotten up, lifting her to her feet as well.
"I won't hold it against you," he promised, pulling her closer.
"It wasn't about you!" she protested, still snickering.
"I don't believe you," he grinned, and then let the subject drop. "Come on, Nat," he continued coaxingly. "Let's do some celebrating of our own."
Natalie hesitated, instinctively, thinking of the wounded, of all the things that needed doing in the aftermath of battle. . .
"It can wait, whatever you're scowling at," Tetherblood pointed out. "The wounded are comfortable, the poor souls on perimeter duty are probably sound asleep from the boredom of it all." He reached up and undid her braid from its tight battle-knot. "We WON, Nat," he said softly, persuasively. "Let's enjoy it--just for the night, all right?"
Natalie looked around at her Clan, pride overcoming weariness and everything else as she thought of what they'd accomplished today. Just a battle, yes--just one step, but a worthy one.
Then she looked up at Tetherblood, and smiled. "Tent," she said firmly.
"Tent," he agreed, and they withdrew for a private celebration of their own, listening all the while to the singing outside, songs that accompanied the moon as it moved across the sky and faded away only in the hush of dawn.