7/1/2015 - Nemeses

A woman with the horns of a stag approaches the Sept of Falling Waters in the Penumbra. She does not enter the Bawn.

" Hey bitch, you want to go? I heard you want to go. Let's go. " She howls.

*Arrives.... and stares at the visitor.*

Might I help you?

!Arty smiles.

" Interesting question. "

"Such hostility. Many insults. Wow." Artemis runs up, nods her head to Miguel, and regards her doppelganger. "Those have gotten bigger since I saw you last."

"So, yeah, I think it's time that you and I parted ways. Permanently. It's not right for a Garou of my standing to have these deep-seated psychological problems. At least not ones that walk around independently. I'm glad you're here, Miguel, because I need you to hear this, too."

She squares her shoulders, "I'm challenging you for the right to be me."

*Raises an eyebrow and looks at the horned one and back at Artemis...*

She smiles, squaring off to her doppelganger.

" Be you? " She mock shivers, "With the things you've done, that would be terrible. I'm only here because you called. "

She pulls out her bow, " So how we doin' this, crazy fries? "

"Oh, well, if you don't *want* to be me, I guess there's no challenge." Artemis shrugs. "But you said yourself that you're going to keep making trouble for me until I'm dead. I don't want more trouble, and the sept really doesn't need any of my shot leaking out all over them. So either you go or I go. I'd rather it be you. If you wanna kumbaya it out and do some feeling-sharing, that's cool. But you're me. I know we don't do that shit."

She goes to Crinos.

J arrives some were in the Middle of the verbal sparing just prior to actual violence....

"So I don't suppose Arty and or Evil arty that we can do this in a civilized reasonable manner .... we did save you from sacrifice after all. "

Evil Arty shifts to Crinos as well, laughing merrily as she does,

" This is going to be pointless. We're just going to cancel each other out, but what the hell, why not? "

"Sacrifice?" Artemis laughs, "what sacrifice? Jesus, J. If you have another idea, I'm sure we'd like to hear it."

Evil Artemis laughs in unison, repeating the exact same words together with her twin.

we saved her from the sacrifice in zor valey

Striper Olympics? pole dancing, mud and/or jello wrestling.... no no that wont fly.

Look have you guys watched evil dead ? that Ends well for no one, look ether you are a spirit (points to evil arty) some how draged in to consciousness by the lovie and deranged mind next to me (points to arty) or you are her spirit self. or nonof the above bout thes are my running therioies. ether way that part is way over my pay grade.

if only we had a wise and venerable elder theager who's lawn we could go to an decuss this matter seeking his wisdom....

or you could fight it out and maby their will be some weird esoteric lesson leanrnd and then there will be one arty and one Sperit or just one arty after a weird sifi tv shoe lit show maby with a hart warming lesson tacked on. Fucked if i know

All I know is 2 of my favorite beings in existence, there are 2 of you 2 of the mot amazing black furies ragabas of all time...... do you know the things i would do with 2 of me ? the lesson that could be tought....... but you are standing a few feet from one and other trying to claw each other and or there own faces off.....

all im saying is i love you guys and it would be a wast to end up going from 2 Artys to 0 Artys

Incredulous, to Artie, " THIS is the guy who beat us out for Alpha? "

*Raises a hand.*

She smiles, broadly. "Best trick I ever played."

"It ain't us, bee tee dubs, oh vengeance and anger. It's me. He beat me for Alpha. He didn't do anything to you. You were unconcious in a cell when I made the decision to take the sept. There's a lot that's happened while you've been off with the faeries dancing in the woods. I've changed. There's a lot I've come to terms with." She rolls her head and cracks her neck, "I'm betting we're more separate than you think."

When Miguel raises a hand, she looks at him. "Master of Challenges?"

!Artie holds the back of her hand to her forehead, " Oh, to be rejected by my own other half. How will I deal with such a painful and utterly plausible rejection? "

"Your snark is strong, young padawan," Artie clasps her Crinos hands together like a Jedi, "but beware it not consume you. You must learn to control it."

*Nods*
Issue the first: I am not sure if we can consider this creature fully garou.... so issuing a challenge would be problematic.

Issue the second: You have said, on several occasions, that the death of this one by violent means might result in your own. If you feel the trade is worth it, so be it... but I suggest a different route.

Your doppelganger is the living embodiment of your shame, your mistakes, your guilt. Hinting at your errors and taking pleasure in your discomfiture, but never revealing them. Why? Could it be that revealing them, forcing them into the light would rob those acts of the power to hurt you... or their power to animate your nemesis? When I want to kill a shadow, I don't use a broadsword, I bring a candle. Only light can remove darkness, only truth can kill secrets, only admission and contrition can destroy Shame.

*shrugs after he speaks and crosses his arms patiently*

"Well, it's why I wanted to do it in the dead of night at the Charyss shrine, but this bitch has my sense of timing. Putting on a good show and all that..."

Surprisingly erudite, even in Crinos, (storytelling x2) Artie addresses the Cliath Philodox and !Artie. "Couple months ago, after the failed Lune mission and that time Syntos was going to get ganked by a bunch of guys in black suits, I had a speech prepared about all the times I fucked up, and fucked up big - I planned to get up on a stump and tear my shirt and beat my chest and make a huge scene and be the best, most pious Garou on the sept. And then I realized what a seriously stupid idea that was."

"I got tired. Real tired. Didn't make it out of bed some days and it gave me a lot of time to send my brain down into that deep, dark pit where the depression lives. She must have loved those days - no family, no pack, no boyfriend, no caern." She sings, mockingly, "Nobody likes you, everyone left you, they're all here without you, having fun." Artemis shrugs it off. "That's when I should have asked for help. That's when I should have just said, 'Guys, fuck it, I'm sick of people I love dying, I'm sick of fumbling around everyday not making progress, I'm sick of sitting on my ass when there's vampires and monsters running about.' I didn't. I was a good Beta. I was a good sept member, and I was an okay Ragabash."

"But, I wasn't a good me. I was tired of smiling, tired of making jokes, tired of giving advice I really didn't mean. And the failures, jesus, the failures. Every mission that came back that I wasn't on had consequences I could have avoided. Every time I heard about Dexy's Midnight Runners killing office workers or Iron Wave dumping another non-com over Niagara Falls, I thought, I should have been there to teach them better. This goes on for a couple months. I'm miserable, I'm hurting, and I want to fix what's wrong in the hopes that it would fix me."

"But it doesn't. They keep doing what they do. I play pranks and they don't work. I drop hints, and they fly over heads on black, glossy wings. Iron Wave gets annoyed and they fuck off to a sanctum in the woods. Dexy's Runners stop showing up and we still have problems. I didn't do my job. We're not functioning right and it's my fault. I'm not Ragabashing hard enough! So I tell. I go on a region-wide tattling spree. Gaia's Hand, Long Watch, Sept of the Green, Eagle's Talons. I tell all the sins. I get cries of, 'that's fucked up.' I get offers of help. But I get no satisfaction."

She shakes her head. She puts her thumb and forefinger out a couple inches apart. "Okay, I got a little satisfaction. It did help. And maybe it was finally washing my hands of the shit other people were doing that started the climb. I started to think, 'Maybe I don't have to be responsible for everybody else.' It colored everything since. I took it hard when the Neptune kid died on the Lune mission, but Garou die on missions, and I didn't hold an arrow on him and make him stay past the time he should run. I knew there were small children and babies in the Formori factory, and let Mitch put down charges, but the death of those kids means there are no more Formori in the area. None. They're all gone."

"I can forgive myself for Donny's death, because I talked to him the other day and he's all good. I didn't make him come back into the tunnel for me. I couldn't have stopped Abbot's blade from the other side of the room. But I did stop Abbot. I can forgive myself for Tish because I wasn't there, I couldn't tell her to come back or stop frenzying or not to climb up the outside of the building. And I did her a last solid by destroying the man that hurt her family. Now I'm working on the vampires that hurt her."

"There's a new story, one that's only about three-quarters told, about a Bone Gnawer so set on thwarting the Weaver that he scorched the earth around him just to spite order. He felt so responsible for what happened to his friends when they landed in a realm of the Weaver that he destroyed his own soul to avenge them. Unrepentant, litany-shattering destruction. All in the name of making things right. Pit Stop was his name, and though it's not for me to say what happened to him, I can say that the lesson I've learned from him is that it's not for me to tilt at windmills. It's not my job to save the world. It's not even my job to save the sept. It's our job. And if you fuck it up, it's not for me to fix it, it's for me to try to help you fix it.

"There's my kumbayayas, folks." She falls silent, listening to the roar of the Umbral Falls in the distance. "Oh, and I did plug Chris with a couple of arrows because a vampire told me to. Hinky mind shit. I was contrite and he's cool. Now..." she looks over to her counterpart, "still wanna go?"

Not Artie coughs into her hand,

" You called me here, remember? "

(Name the Spirit)

(not a spirit)

*Coughs*
Artemis-rhya... I hear many things you have done that you are ok with now. I dont hear the things that still haunt you, that you still feel guilt over. I hear where you have overcome, but not where you have erred and are still wracked with guilt.

If you are truly good with everything you have ever done and have come to terms with all your actions, where you have freed yourself from bearing the responsibility for certain results and actions.
I do not know the one called Pit Stop, but isn't this much the same tack he has taken, being good with the things he has done? He knows what he did was wrong, morally, but he justified his actions and accepted or refused responsibility as HE decided.

Madness can be excused, to a degree. Deciding to no longer feel guilt about one's deeds? That path can lead to dark places.

Perhaps, you are right though, maybe that is enough (looks over at !Artie who so far has refused to melt or fade away) or Perhaps I am wrong in my assumption about what powers your nemisis' being... or maybe are there still things you aren't sharing?

Artemis looks up at Miguel for a long moment, "Really? That's not enough for you? You're seriously telling me that because I absolved myself and didn't seek absolution, that I'm going to turn out like a Wyrm-scarred madman?"

She stands up, and she looks angry. "And who the hell are you to infer that I just emotionally bloodlet all over this clearing only to leave something out? I just admitted to you, her, your packmate, my sept alpha, this caern and Gaia that I struggled with depression, not madness, for nearly a year, wrecking me on the inside and that I finally came to forgive myself - and you don't think it's enough because what?"

She turns a fierce gaze to !Artie, "You still want my hide? Come get it. If not? Go in peace."