User:BSigil/Twins

IT ALL STARTS...
It is a widely known and lamented fact that tragedy and strife can create villains from former heroes. These exalted ones of great strength and will are always at danger of falling from grace. Sometimes they fall quietly, and vanish into the shadows, perhaps to return as a hero again someday. Sometimes they fall with a resounding crash that resonates throughout the peoples of the world. Illidan. Arthas. Fandral. These people were not born evil, but now their names are spoken like a curse.

It is no wonder, then, that simple people can turn as well. The members of the Defias Brotherhood, Twilight's Hammer Cult, Cult of the Damned....these people were not born evil, and it's unlikely that they were raised to be evil, or that they wished for it. But again, tragedy and strife can impact a soul in the worst ways.

Such is the story of a set of twins from Stratholme. Daughters of a fisherman and a nurse, the two had simple upbringings. Early on, Juliann - the wiser of the two - held a fondness for the Holy Light, and wished to be a priestess one day. Marcela - the more playful one - delighted in science, and wished for nothing more than to be a tinkerer.

And it was Marcela's tinkering that set the destiny of the two on it's course. It wasn't the Orcish Horde's invasion, though that helped. Neither of the two were soldiers. Certainly, they supported the war effort in what ways they could. Juliann, easilly advancing in her studies, healed the sick and injured soldiers sent back from the front lines. Marcela was a lesser member of a research team, trying desperately to keep up with the intellects of her Gnome colleges. It wasn't that she wasn't intelligent as well, it was simply that the Gnomes were so much more advanced.

...WITH GOOD INTENTIONS
And in her desperation, she went too far too fast. Trying to come up with a new weapon that would win the war for the Alliance, she inadvertently set off an explosion that leveled a facility, killed dozens of people, and left her mindless. Juliann arrived quickly, having foreseen that something terrible was to happen to her sister, and prayed to the Light to save Marcela.

But the Light would not answer. It was Juliann's turn for desperation. She worked night and day, trying to win the Light's favor through good deeds so that it might grant her the power to save Marcela. She was known to pass out from exhaustion in the middle of a task, only to wake up when stirred, and resume that task. Her superiors could see madness taking a hold of her, and intended to lock her in her room, informing her that she would be released as soon as she slept for a full night.

Juliann would have none of it, though. With a tormented screech, she sent her would-be captors running in fear, and then ran herself. She hid herself deep within the libraries of a nearby cathedral, and studied, single minded in her search for a cure. It was in a dusty old tomb that she learned of the Shadow. She knew it was risky, but she was desperate enough to try, and she called out to it.

And the Shadow loves nothing more than to have someone who was once so devout to the Light. Already compromised, Juliann prayed to the Shadow, swearing her service, on the condition that she be granted the power to save Marcela. And the Shadow gleefully accepted the terms, and showed her the way. The next time anyone saw Juliann, she was hugging her recently awakened sister in loving embrace. No one knows exactly how it was done. All they knew was that Juliann was no longer a child of the Light.

THE FALL OF THE SELDANYA TWINS
Marcela was never the same either. Whether it was a side effect of her mind being wiped, or of the magic used to bring her back, the girl had a dark taint to her. She resumed her engineering studies, and began to surpass her former colleges easily. Her designs, however, were viscous and without any sense of compassion. They were designed not simply to kill, but to cause as much pain as one could imagine before the victim eventually died.

And her colleges were not immune to her new "charm", either. Initially, they suffered harmless pranks. A hand-buzzer here, a fire cracker there. But the shock of the hand-buzzer soon came dangerously close to stopping a heart, and the small fire cracker got big enough to blow the foot off of someone passing by. With that injury, Marcela was not simply dismissed from the lab, but jailed as well.

Julian's once soothing healing spells changed with her personality. They still mended, of course, but the mending caused pain in the soldiers, as if they were being sewn back together with a thread and needle. When complaints were given - and they always were - she would lecture the soldiers for being injured in the first place. "Remember the pain", she would say, "And maybe you won't return here so quickly."

It wouldn't take long for Juliann to discover that her sister was jailed, and move to rescue her again. The prisoners were the only available witnesses. From the entrance of the prison halfway to Marcela's cell, the guards coward in fear, reacting to images no one else could see. This was the work of Juliann, who stopped only because she met her sister here - the woman was covered in blood of guards that she'd slaughtered with a simple shiv. The two embraced, and then vanished into the shadows.

FOR THE HORDE AND THE ALLIANCE
Juliann and Marcela vanished from the public eye for years. It is believed that they were hiding under assumed names. It is known that from this point on they used their identical appearance and intimate knowledge of each other to pose as a single person. It is known that one of them had a daughter (they may have both gone through pregnancies in effort to keep up posing as one person, but only one child is known to have come of it), and that they either killed, or had killed their husband.

It's unknown how, but the twins and Aimia (the daughter) were able to pose as elves following the third war. Marcela, as the "active" twin, sought work as a rogue during this time. It is believed that Juliann kept herself hidden, but where or how is anyone's guess. Shortly after the invasion of Northrend, Marcela was injured, and unable to work. It is believed that at this point, Marcela then went into hiding, while Juliann posed as her sister, "turning over a new leaf" and becoming a priestess. The exact reasons for this are unclear, but the most likely reason was that Juliann was bored of hiding.

The events that followed are so complicated that conflicting reports exist. There are two known facts. The first is that Juliann and Marcela ceased posing as elves, and joined the Alliance forces as Humans. While SI:7 was almost instantly aware of this trickery (they keep tabs on all high-profile Horde agents), they were allowed to work as free agents under the Alliance, though appropriate field commanders were warned not to involve the two in any sensitive operations. It is of note, however, that SI:7 was not aware that there were two women, and as such, it's very likely that classified information was still leaked.

The second fact is that the two committed suicide in effort to join the Forsaken. They used stolen vials of plague from the Scourge's holdings in Northrend, and relied on their willpower, the distraction of the Lich King, and the distance from such to keep their free will. They then joined the Forsaken. SI:7 attempted to send a kill order to the assassin assigned to keep tabs on them, only to discover that the assassin had been compromised. (He was discovered in Elwynn Forest, believing firmly that he was a squirrel that could talk)

A DARK PLOT REVEALED
It wasn't until much later that anyone became aware of what Juliann and Marcela were up to. This came about when a Blood Elf rogue was paid by an anonymous person to spy on one of the twins. She followed Juliann to an island off the coast of Tirisfal Glades while Marcela - unaware of the plot - conducted business elsewhere. The rogue caught Juliann performing a ritual that seemed to involve brainwashing captives of every race on Azeroth, Horde, Alliance, or otherwise, no doubt to create sleeper agents.

While Juliann caught the rogue, other mercenaries on a similar mission rescued her. The rogue escaped, but the mercenaries were killed while escorting Juliann back to their employer. Although the rogue never surfaced, somehow the plot was revealed (It's thought that the Forsaken were attempting damage control), and Juliann (as Marcela) was tried and sentenced to have her powers removed. Marcela then took Juliann's place, having no power to speak of.

When this switch was brought to the public's attention, Juliann and Marcela were sought out, this time to be sentenced to destruction. The new Warchief had no patience for such trickery, especially from the Forsaken. The two were never found, however. Even the Forsaken - who are suspected to have backed Juliann and Marcela's activities since well before the invasion of Northrend - have put out bounties on them.

Juliann and Marcela have once again vanished into thin air, along with their plots. To this day, no one has discovered any of the unwilling ritual participants, or even how many there may have been. What this means for the kingdoms and tribes of Azeroth is uncertain, but there can be no doubt: Whatever it is, it is unlikely to be pleasant.