Pao the Facestealer

Pao the Facestealer

Spoiler:

Grunt Krug had served Hellscream loyally since the beginning. Even now, when the prison he was supposed to guard had been taken over by hostile forces, he stood tall, shackled to the wall he was supposed to be shackling humans to. Yes, he continued to serve loyally, not giving away any secrets under torture. Death over dishonor. Only…He was not being tortured. Not really. He was imprisoned, yes, and kept against his wull – but he was well fed and even washed daily. But for an orc, this kind of indignity might sting even deeper than a direct slight to one’s honor. He had been defeated without being harmed – without being bested in battle. By a pandaren.

The pandaren’s objective was completely opaque to Krug. At first he assumed that the dark pandaren with the crimson mask must have been an Alliance spy, send to infiltrate the prison and liberate the Alliance prisoner. But much to Krug - and the Alliance’s - amazement, the footmen were still being kept in the cells next to Krug. In fact, the inhabitants of this prison had only increased with one, without decreasing – the pandaren had just plainly taken over his prison without changing anything. The complete strangeness of this pandaren was unnerving. What was his game?

Krug couldn’t accurately keep track of time now that he was imprisoned, but he was quite sure some weeks must have passed since the pandaren had taken over. How come no routine patrols had come to check on the prison to eliminate this puny furball and liberate Krug? What exactly was going on out there? Had the Fortress fallen to the Alliance – or worse – the Rebel traitors? Krug did not know. The pandaren intercepted any and all communication with the outside world.

The pandaren didn’t say much, and when he talked, he only seemed to address Krug. He never spoke to the human prisoners. And the conversations he had with Krug were…strange. Krug did not know what to make of them. For starters, the pandaren forced Krug to wear a very strange mask. The mask was made out of a kind of wood Krug had never seen before, and , at least in the beginning, was left completely blank. Krug would have sooner thought it had been a kind of very shallow bowl, if not for the fact that he was forced to wear it over his face while he was being questioned. There were no eyelids or a hole for the nose or mouth. Maybe the pandaren did not want Krug to see him while he questioned him?

And then there were the questions. Krug was prepared to bite his tongue before he would reveal any strategic Intel, but the pandaren only asked him about unimportant stuff, such as “Where were you born?”, “What’s your favorite dish?” and “Do you have any children?”. Sometimes, after Krug had answered one of these questions truthfully – as he saw no reason to hide his true warrior self from the enemy – he could feel the pandaren bending over to paint something on the mask.  And, indeed, throughout the days of questioning, the pandaren  had nearly painted the once blank mask to capture Krug’s likeness with eerie accuracy. But did this soft-brained pandaren truly think that his fellow warriors would fall for such an obvious disguise?! Hah! A true Orcish warrior like Krug did not have a fat belly like this lazy bear had. Good luck hiding that.

The pandaren came around and opened Krug’s cell. The fat lazy bear looked exactly the same as he had looked all this time – wearing black armor with a red scarf and a strange helmet to cover his features. Krug noticed he was hungry when he smelled the bowl of noodle soup the pandaren brought in. Pandaren may be fat, lazy and useless, but at least they knew how to cook, and the food was the only good thing to come from his imprisonment.

The pandaren handed over the food and sat down on his stool to watch Krug eat. Krug dug in eagerly, not caring at all about the pandaren. Let him watch. The pandaren always watched, after all – when Krug would wake up in the middle of the night from the pain in his wrists, the pandaren would be there, looking at him with his tiny jade eyes. It spooked Krug, but Krug would not show it. A Warrior of the True Horde does not show fear.

When Krug had finished his meal, the pandaren stood up and walked towards Krug, showing him the mask. Krug looked at his own face; it was like looking into a mirror. An eerie sensation hid in his heart as he felt his own face being pulled over his eyes. Such ridiculousness – he had a double skin, now. What good was wearing a mask of your own face? Krug was blinded, now, and had no choice but to answer the Pandaren’s stupid questions. Krug would get this over with quickly, so the pandaren would leave him alone again.

“Krug Bonegrinder” said the pandaren. For some reason, he always insisted in addressing Krug by his full name. “You know why I am here.”

“Yes.” Said Krug. “Puny pandaren is going to ask Krug stupid questions again. Get on with it, then. Krug’s time is precious.”

“That’s right, Krug Bonegrinder.” Said the pandaren, his voice a steady monotone. Krug never heard any emotion in the pandaren’s voice – it was as if the pandaren treated everything with the same distant air, almost as if he were watching a play in which he took no part himself. “What is your favorite color, Krug Bonegrinder?”

Krug snarled in anger. Favorite color! What a stupid question! There was only one right answer, of course.

“Red.”

“And how old were you when you killed your first human,  Krug Bonegrinder?”

“Pah!” said Krug, “I was a mere welp – eight years old I was. Killed a human twice my size with a rock. To the head. Soft pinkskin skulls break easily.”

“And how did killing the human make you feel, Krug?”

Krug hesitated for a moment. This question, too, had a proper answer – but in this case, the true answer did not agree with this proper answer. And this question wasn’t about something as silly as colors, but about something important. About honor. Krug’s jaw clenched and he could feel the muscles around his temples tightening as he struggled to find the right thing to say.
“Thank you.” The pandaren said. “That’ll do.”

This pandaren would do this sometimes, and it would spook Krug more than anything else, because it was so mysterious and alien. What did the pandaren mean with that’ll do? Krug hadn’t even answered the question! Unless…His lack of an answer was an answer in itself?!

“Blood and Thunder! I felt only pride when I struck down the lowly pinkskin!” Krug blurted out.

“We shall see.” The pandaren said with the same voice he said anything. “Real soon.”

Krug felt defeated without even knowing what kind of battle he had lost. He could feel the pandaren reaching for his face again as his furry paws peeled his second skin off. The creature’s beady eyes studied the mask for a moment, before looking Krug straight in the eyes.

“It is done.” Said the Pandaren. The creature exited the cell without saying another word and promptly returned wielding Krug’s battleaxe in one paw and something else Krug couldn’t see clearly in the other. Krug struggled against his shackles and roared in indignant fury as the pandaren swung his family heirloom idly.

“You are not worthy of wielding the Bonegrinder!” roared Krug, spitting saliva all over his bared chest, “Why don’t you come and give me that axe so I can show you how it is properly swung, you coward!”

The pandaren, as always, seemed completely unphased by Krug’s taunts. It was almost as if this pandaren existed in a different world, one Krug could only see by accident, but could not share in. Perhaps the pandaren saw Krug in the same way he saw him. Still remaining silent, the pandaren put on the krug- mask. The pandaren’s body shook with spastic convulsions as his muscle mass suddenly expanded explosively and his belly flattened into a flawless sixpack. His fur grew back into his now green skin and his crimson scarf and dark helmet evaporated to expose…Krug’s head.

The pandaren, now looking like a second Krug, swung the battleaxe exactly like Krug would have done. The way his muscles moved, the guttural way the Second Krug grunted when the axe came crashing down, the way his head tilted slightly backwards so that his tail flicked sideways…It was like Krug was watching himself practice in front of the mirror; only he wasn’t moving, himself. His mirror image was practicing on its own. While the first Krug was left speechless, the second Krug seemed satisfied and produced another mask – one with pink skin and scheming, human eyes.

Finally realizing what was going on, Krug started screaming in a decidedly unorcish way. The terror of the fate that now hung above his head like an executioner’s blade was too unreal for him to fathom. Death over dishonor –he could not think of a greater dishonor than being turned into a pinkskin! The second Krug approached Krug slowly, flipping the human mask around so that the blank end faced Krug’s own face. Krug struggled, fought, swore, cursed, screamed – but to no avail. The mask locked on to his face, and he could feel his muscles shrink, the bones in his face re-arrange themselves, his fangs withdrawing and teeth flattening… Everything burned. The pain was unreal. Everything was unreal.

For one infinitely brief moment of clarity, Krug was Grunt Krug and Captain Joel Anderson both, standing side by side, two lives, existing simultaneously. He was both an Orc loyal to Hellscream, born in an internment camp and sworn to wreak vengeance upon the lowly humans who, in their weakness, took his people’s honor instead of their lives – and he was a simple Westfall farmer who had been drafted in the Stormwind military who was forced to sustain his family in the most dire of ways after a particularly poor harvest. If he were to die in this Light-forsaken barren wasteland of a continent, his widow would be compensated for richly…Everybody knew widows lived rich lives of comfort. His only regret was not being able to see little John and Mary again…Or…Wasn’t he ever to see them again? Had he resigned to his death already?

Captain Joel Anderson looked at the foul Orc that had captured him and his squad and spat in his face.

“Just kill us already, you damn dirty Orc!” he grunted, “you’ll never get me to squeal, you hear?”

Grunt Krug calmly wiped the spit off his cheek in a decidedly unorcish fashion. His eyes did not burn with the rage of indignation – but rather looked cold and calculating. And when he swung down his axe, he did so without passion, his face showing no emotion. It was a calculated kill that had been carefully planned weeks ago. Captain Joel Anderson perished in a gory fountain of blood; blood that Krug was very keen to have splattered on his face and chest. Krug released the dead human from his chains and dragged him to the centre of the prison for the other human prisoners to see; all prisoners, including Captain Joel Anderson.

“What… -“ said the other Joel, “What the fuck is this voodoo shit?! Is this supposed to scare me, you sick fuck?! What did you do to the pandaren?!”

Krug calmly walked up to the Captain’s cell and opened it. The captain, foolishly seizing this thin opportunity with reckless abandon, charged at the Orc and was easily cut down. After having slain the captain, the Orc opened the cells one by one, cutting the humans down by ones and twos. He littered the prison with human bodies and bathed his green skin with blood, all with the cool calculating air of one who is merely executing simple steps in an intricate plan, instead of massacring a prison full of unarmed soldiers.  When he was the only living thing alive in the prison aside from the rats, he maimed one of the captains so that he would no longer be recognizable. The Orcs were not going to notice that there was one more human here than before – but they would probably notice something fishy of two of the corpses were exactly alike.

Krug placed himself in the center of the bloodbath and assumed a full lotus position rarely seen in an Orc. He had not send any word from the prison in quite a few days – a patrol would come soon and find an exhausted Krug who was just now forced to brutally quell a prison break. Seeing as most Orcs would rather see these humans dead than imprisoned, Krug would be lauded for his miraculous victory against a whole squad of humans and be rewarded accordingly.  Perhaps he would even be allowed a few days respite from his vigil to visit his family and tell them of his heroics…

Krug waited to be taken to Ogrimmar.

But Krug was not Krug. Behind the mask, two beady jade eyes peered at the hulking green body. The puppeteer was inside the puppet, pulling the strings. Krug was Krug – his body was indistinguishable from Krug’s, and his movements and mannerisms were an exact copy. They were in every sense the same – with the only difference being that this Krug had a void were his soul was supposed to be. And within this void, the mind of Mu; Mask of the Monkey King; Paozi Wulong watched and waited.

Absolutely epic.

Naughty monkey! stealing my shadowy tricks!

Brilliant story though!

I don't normally read WoW related fan stories anymore, my eyes tend to glaze over before I get past the first paragraph but this was an exception and is actually pretty good.