With a disgusted snort, Akane threw the heavy body of the centaur to the dusty ground, where it twitched for a moment, then became limp.
"That's it?" the female death knight huffed as she let her gaze sweep across the destroyed centaur settlement. "That's all what those beasts are capable of? Pathetic... the Night Elves and Tauren at least put up some resistance..."
She walked past the destroyed huts and gave one or two lifeless centaur bodies a kick with her metal boots. "Feh, I wouldn't be surprised if I'd been able to beat those weaklings back when I was a normal mortal..."
Her great Frost Wyrm landed next to her, making the dusty ground of Desolace shake. During their attack on the unsuspecting centaur village, he had merely assisted his mistress by catching all centaurs that had tried to flee or inform or inform the other centaur tribes that were native to this wasteland. All the centaurs that had faced Akane in combat were slain by the deadly blade and dark powers of the death knight herself.
She was disappointed. "How boring..." she muttered.
"Mistress..." Cyan spoke up, trying to get her attention.
She ignored him. Angrily, she pulled the corpse of a female centaur druid up to her face and shook it furiously. "What good are you stinking mules if you don't even fight back? This fight was supposed to be FUN!"
"Mistress!" Cyan said again. This time, she threw him an angry glare. "WHAT?"
The frost wyrm winced. He could tell she was in a bad mood. "Beg your pardon, mistress... but I just received a message from the Plaguelands on the eastern continent..."
Akane narrowed her blue, glowing eyes. "Since when are you a telepath? Or are you telling me they sent you an SMS?"
Cyan looked at her in confusion. "No, I mean... it was a magical message, mistress. And it is urgent. The Scholomance... the Scourge's school of Necromancy in the Western Plaguelands... it is under attack! The necromancers can't deal with the problem by themselves, so they requested assistance..."
"So, did they?" Akane snorted. "Who are they fighting?"
"Apparently, there are two factions that have assigned troops to infiltrate the Scholomance. A small cadre of Alliance warriors, who are obviously trying to save the prisoners from within the school's dungeons, and... also a band of Forsaken."
"Oh, really? Arthas told me about them... they're those renegade undead that defied him and took the Undercity, that was supposed to be the capital of his dark realm, from him, right? Well, I just hope they will put up more of a fight than these horse-things."
"So that means..."
Akane grinned as she sat up on the undead dragon's back. "Yup, I'm gonna kick some Forsaken tail! To the skies, Cyan! Up, up and away!"
"Onward, brothers! Drive the invaders away! Go, undead minions! Rend their flesh from their bones!"
With those or similar battlecries, the teaching necromancers of Scholomance encouraged their acolytes and undead minions to charge into battle.
They were unprepared against the powers that faced them, though.
Cadavrine was formidable enough, an experienced warlock, even though she had not mastered her skills yet. Her spells and the attacks of her loyal Voidwalker reduced skeletons, ghouls and zombies to immobile corpses.
Azusa may not be as fearsome or dangerous on her own, but her imp familiar was more than ready to defend her. Also, her unusual way of using HAPPYNESS shards of all things to cast her spells befuddled more than one of the Scourge minions (at least those that still had enough of their minds intact to feel such a thing as astonishment).
Sylvanas was unstoppable. Her powers as a Dark Ranger were unmatched. Not one set of plagued claws or teeth managed to graze her dried up skin. Her arrows hit with deadly precision.
As for Ranma... well, the apathy he had felt during his stay in Undercity was gone. Even though he was in a dark, rotten place like the Scholomance, he had the chance to FIGHT, to freely unwind. These enemies felt no pain, were not really alive, and, most important: They were TOUGH! Ranma was able to use his most formidable techniques without the battle becoming boring and dull.
As much as this was possible in such a place and situation, Ranma was ENJOYING himself.
"Hey, Sylvanas!" he grinned. "Check this out!" He cupped his hand and focussed his ki. He then aimed at a charging group of necrofiends, undead nerubian troops that were stationed in the Scholomance.
"MOKO TAKABISHA!" he shouted, throwing the ball of focussed confidence at the spidery foes. They only had time to screech before the impact made them crumble to dust. Ranma then engaged a squad of skeleton guards in close combat. "KACHU TENSHIN AMAGURIKEN!" he shouted as he pummeled their skulls and ribs, reducing them to tiny bone splinters in seconds.
This display made even Sylvanas raise an eyebrow. She had never personally seen Ranma in combat before. 'How... is he able to do this?' she wondered. 'That is not magic... at least no magic I have seen before. What kind of force does he use to do his so-called 'martial arts'? He doesn't use any arcane arts, he isn't attuned to nature or the elements like a druid or shaman, he doesn't use demonic or other dark magics... is he... some kind of paladin?'
But Ranma had never seemed to be the religious type before... and she never had heard him talk about the light or any deity before. Was this some kind of magic that was unknown on Azeroth? Unknown to even the Night Elves and the former Highborne?
"We're doing it, girls!" Ranma grinned confidently. "We're driving them back!"
"We have no time to waste," Sylvanas shouted. "We have to find the prisoners before the Scourge sends in new reinforcements."
"I can hear the sounds of battle from the lower level," Cadavrine spoke up, pointing down a stairway. More ghouls just came running up the stairs.
"Ooooh, more nasties come to play with Azusa," the pink-robed warlock-in-training giggled. "Time to have some fun... Happy Bolt!" And she shot a pink, spherical spell from her palms that struck the ghouls down. Cadavrine noticed that every single one of them seemed to have a happy grin on its face when they fell down to the floor.
She shook her head. What was she thinking? Ghouls were mindless creatures... they were not ABLE to feel happiness - or any other emotion, for that matter.
She still frowned at her young disciple. "Happy Bolt?"
"Well, it sounds much nicer than 'Shadowbolt', doesn't it?" Azusa giggled. She skipped over to the lifeless body of a Scourge necromancer and picked up his skull cap. "Antoine!" she shouted happily as she nuzzled its crooked horns.
Sylvanas decided to ignore the weirdness that the strange girl from Ranma's home dimension emitted. "Follow me!" she commanded as she went downstairs. Ranma and the other two followed her closely.
Meanwhile, Kasumi and her new friends had managed to fight their own way through the necromantic school, with the difference that they were searching for the exit.
"By the Light," grumbled Hartwig as he smashed skeleton skulls with his hammer. "These things just keep on coming."
"Quick!" Stabby shouted as she jumped on a Scholomance Necrolyte from behind, stabbing his neck with her daggers. "The exit's that way!" And she pointed to the stairway that was on the other side of the room.
"Oh my," Kasumi muttered as she waded through the bones and broken limbs of the undead her new allies had defeated. She held her nose. "Someone really need to clean this place up after this is over..."
"We made it!" Kairi shouted gleefully as they reached the stairs. "Sweet sunlight, here we come!"
"No, wait... I hear someone coming!" Hartwig grumbled, preparing a Judgement spell. "More undead will feel the wrath of the Light today..."
The others were on guard as well. Kasumi nervously stepped back, Stabby raised her daggers and Kairi shifted to her sleek cat form, baring her fangs.
They were unprepared for the happy, rosy face that appeared out of the darkness. A big smile appeared on the face of the girl that had just come down the stairs.
"Kitty!"
And only seconds later, Kairi found herself in a massive glomp, unable to escape the squeezing arms of Azusa Shiratori. "Eeee, you're just the CUTEST! I'll keep you and call you Madeleine and snuggle you and love you forever and ever..."
Cadavrine groaned as she appeared behind her. "Azusa... let her go. You don't know where that thing has been."
"More undead!" Hartwig growled. "Minions of the Scourge, now you are going to learn that a paladin never gives up!"
"Forsaken, actually!" Cadavrine frowned. "Really, why can people never tell the difference?"
"Makes no difference to me..." Hartwig grumbled. "You are all enemies to the Alliance..."
"You dwarves are as stubborn as the mountains you live in," came a cold voice out of the dark. A dark-cloaked figure slowly stepped forth. "And a paladin... tell me, dwarf, does your Light truly help you... when you are faced with true darkness?"
"A dark ranger!" Stabby gasped. Kairi would have gasped as well, only was she out of breath. It might have to do with the fact that a certain kleptomaniac was still squeezing her to death.
Hartwig, however, nearly dropped his hammer in surprise. He was the first one to truly recognize the dark figure. "Th-the... the Dark Lady herself... Sylvanas Windrunner!"
"You have two choices," Sylvanas whispered. "Either you follow me willingly to the surface, where you will tell me EVERYTHING about the leader of the Alliance group that attacked Andorhal some time ago. Or... I will take you by force and MAKE you tell me what I need to know."
"Gee, Sylvanas, d'ya need to have to do that? You're scaring the little guy," Ranma said as he stepped forth.
Hartwig was, again, surprised that a living human was apparently siding with the Forsaken, but the words of that young man sounded like an insult in his ears, and he was ready to give him a piece of his mind, when suddenly, the young woman he had been imprisoned with gasped and ran past him. "RANMA! Oh, Ranma-kun... you're here as well? Oh, I didn't... I didn't hope to meet anyone here I know. I thought I was the only one... are our families fine? Where's Akane? And our fathers, what about them?" She then sniffed. "Ranma-kun... you need a bath."
It was certainly a surprise for Ranma to finally meet someone else than Azusa who he knew from Nerima... but for now, his relief to see that Kasumi was fine was bigger than his surprise, and so he just smiled and said: "Nice to see ya too, Kasumi."
"You know this woman?" Cadavrine asked.
"Wait, I'm confused," Stabby said. "Is he a member of the Horde? Or the Alliance?"
"Neither," Kasumi smiled. "Everyone, this is Ranma Saotome, the fiance of my little sister, Akane..."
A loud roar made everyone in the room turn their heads and look at the large doorway that no one really had paid any attention to up to now. A colossal construct made of bones stepped into the room. And when the bone golem known as Rattlegore saw the living creatures in front of him, his primitive mind was filled with the only thing it could feel: Bloodlust!
"Save the introductions for later," Hartwig muttered. "We've got company!"
At the same time, an even bigger, undead creature was landing inside of Andorhal, directly in front of the entrance to the School of Necromancy.
The female Death Knight dismounted from her Frost Wyrm. Akane took a look at the scattered remains of the undead creatures that were lying around. "Well, well," she said. "Looks like someone was busy. And they even managed to get inside... they must have put up a good fight."
A satisfied grin appeared on her face as she took her glowing runeblade. "Well then... time to have some fun!"
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(Posted Sat, 30 May 2009 23:36)
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