"A Rule Of Fear"

"A Rule of Fear"

I really wanted to play around with the framing device in this story, as I liked imagining the air of mystery that Defiance cultivated while they existed. I don't know who the unnamed narrator in this story is, it can be you if you want.

However with this framing device, I do understand that some of the details may be a little hard to glean, so here's a quick summary of everything that happened with Defiance. Deepdark got chronic wasting disease by eating the crow that had eaten Wild Rose, and at the end of his life he asked Prowl to kill him so he wouldn't die from the disease. In doing so he also killed Prowl, and after their deaths Defiance collapsed into chaos and became destroyed. Spike and Fang left to their own devices, but occasionally visit Deepdark and Prowl's gravesite, and Ranger and Hacksaw left for a nearby town to terrorize housepets.

A couple cameo characters appear from Issue 28, which I've used here in the panel on Page 2. Please refer to Issue 28 for user credits.

Shoutout to Deepdark for being one of my favorite characters I've ever written. He really was a blast to create, and I love how many people responded to his brand of overdramatic evil. Fly high, my freak. I'm planning to create a short comic about his childhood at some point, but I don't know when it'll be. Just be on the lookout!

The title for this story comes from Theodore Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God": “So he instituted a rule of fear. The most trivial departure from what he chose to consider the right way of doing things resulted in instant death of half a tribe.”

Previous < > Next