Blizzard owns Warcraft.
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Siege Engine
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"No! Don't you do this to me!" Jane Moore screamed at her computer as it burped out a small cloud of fried plastic, trilled a tinny fanfare, and then abruptly imploded. The ashy crackle of electronic innards giving up the ghost inspired her next proclamation: "I'm holding aggro here!"
Approximately one nanosecond later, the Universe impressed upon her just how much it cared, as a black and purple tide of energy erupted outward, sending her chair – with Jane's stunned self onboard – barreling across the floor with noisy alacrity.
Even the bone-jarring collision with the opposite wall did not dislodge the young, twenty-something woman from her seat; and as Jane sat gripping her chair's cushion, staring at the twisting, shifting epicenter of whatever phenomenon was taking shape on the other side of the room, an errant thought occurred to her:
'Now this is what a real magical portal would look like.'
And that was when she heard the voice.
A wintry, reverberating voice.
"What the HELL now?! Damn you, Fordring!"
The owner of this masterful and strangely-familiar voice stepped out of the curtain of spiraling, spark-filled black smoke that was boiling all about the demolished computer. One impatient wave of a large, gauntleted hand, and the glittering cloud began to obediently fold back in upon itself, shortly blinking out of existence.
So there Jane was, questioning the warranty on the mute smoke alarm, debating on the possibility of exposure to hallucinogenic toxins, and wondering just exactly how Arthas Menethil, the Lich King, happened to be standing before her in the malevolent flesh, icy slush slowly oozing off his boots in a melting puddle.
He appeared to be asking himself the same question.
Jane's rattled brain, whirling as it was with 'whats', 'whys', and 'how-the-fucks', could scarcely wrap itself around the fact that the uber-villain of her all-time-favorite MMORPG, and quite literally the most heartless psychopath on all of Azeroth had just strolled out of the game she loved and (oh hep me, Jeebus!) right into her reality.
All fan-girling forgotten in that revelatory moment, Jane was petrified, gaping in wonderment at this menacing apparition. How many times had her valiant but inept guild, Epical Viscera, assailed the evil Dark Lord's mighty Citadel? There had been innumerable, failed attempts.
Had they ever once laid claim to a Lich King kill? Not even close.
Unhappily for the intrepid nerd-herd of avid gamers, on those rare occasions when they actually survived to reach the Frozen Throne, they were all summarily slaughtered – and by the very same personage presently casting a long, ominous shadow across her living room floor.
Jane's mind always boggled at the sight of him. Kind of like now.
'This,' she thought, 'cannot be good.'
It was at this time that Jane endeavored to stand. Now, while she might be Zhanzazoola, the skilled and daring troll rogue, in-game, that great ogre known as Real Life had spent many a long year cruelly bludgeoning the gangly gamer with its largest and most maladroit geek-stick. Consequently, her first mistake was in entertaining the empowering but unrealistic hope of slipping lithely from the room, undetected.
Fate had other plans for Jane – and in collusion with her chair evidently, considering how helpfully it tilted forward, unceremoniously pitching her face-first into the floor. Together with the sudden collapse of the metal chair and her own squawk of betrayed surprise, it was not at all the stealthy, graceful action she had envisioned.
And this was a spectacle that did not go unnoticed. Rather, it inspired the very response Jane most earnestly wished to avoid.
The Lich King – infinitely formidable, black-armored mountain of impending doom that he was – turned swiftly, unsheathing the soul-devouring Frostmourne; and with a cold, remorseless lack of hesitation that Jane found inexpressibly forbidding, he swept the blade around in a forceful, merciless arc, pointing the glowing weapon directly at her.
"You," he growled; and stealth be damned, Jane just screamed her lungs out. Arthas recoiled, "Silence!" he commanded, and she nearly bit off her tongue to accommodate him. "Come to me. Now."
Creeping awkwardly from underneath her fallen chair, and wobbling to her feet, Jane was almost certain she heard a snort of laughter from the shadowed interior of the Helm of Domination. Knees clattering wildly together, she sidled obsequiously closer.
Plumes of pale blue vapor drifted off the Lich King's narrowed eyes as he bent slightly to scrutinize the cowering gamer; and Jane had one sublime moment to wonder if her executive officers on the Itty-Bitty-Titty Committee might actually be the reason for his lengthy appraisal.
It was a bit of a letdown when she realized her official Wrath of the Lich King T-shirt was the real object of his interest. This fine garment was highly prized, despite the fact that it had been a sarcastic parting gift from her ex-bf, who had snippily declared when presenting it:
"Since you spend more time with him than with me, you might as well wear the bastard."
Harsh.
Arthas tilted his head, still eyeing his own image unfurled across her meager chest, and Jane decided it was probably in her best interest that she was not wearing her cherished "For the Banshee Queen!" hoodie.
By this time, the quietly-gibbering woman had proven unequivocally that she was in no way an obstacle to world domination, and Arthas had sheathed the deeply-disappointed Frostmourne with a decisive thrust. He then reached up to remove his helmet, tossing his head, long snowy tresses spilling across his plated chest.
Jane stared up at his fierce... 'Oh, well now, here's a handsome face,' only to find those unmistakably homicidal eyes smoldering at her with scream-inducing intensity.
"Let us try again, shall we?" the Lord of the Dead and Damned quite pleasantly suggested, with a slight gesture of his armored hand. Possibly compelled by Jane's rigid posture, or by her fly-catching gape, he added: "Calm yourself, woman, I have no intentions of murdering you." Jane nearly collapsed with relief, but then he just had to add, and with a wicked smile: "At least not straightaway."
"Mur–der?" the gamer croaked, her eyes flying to Frostmourne, gleaming hungry and hopeful at his side.
"That is what I do," Arthas reminded her needlessly as he stepped closer, pondering her with a slightly skeptical cast to his pale, peaked brows. He frowned suddenly and Jane cringed in fear. "Is it hot in here?" he then inquired, "Or is it just me?"
These words shook the gamer from her 'Holy Shit This Can't Be Happening!' stupor. "Oh! Let me go turn up the AC," Jane blathered, "And, uh, maybe you could, umm," she waved an anxious hand, "take off your, uh, cloak?"
Arthas smiled faintly, "Ah, you would see me disrobe, would you?" he murmured, his terrifying eyes twinkling at her.
Now, under ordinary circumstances, Jane might have offered an eloquent and worldly riposte, such as: "Don't get ahead of yourself, stud!", or some suave equivalent; but as was abundantly clear, this was not your average, normal situation. It seemed a mite foolish, she concluded – nay, suicidal – to reply in any way that might be even slightly misconstrued as smart-assed. To say this particular individual had an insatiable appetite for extreme violence was actually a bit of an understatement.
In fact, Jane would have happily plunged to the floor and smooched his boots for some major groveling action, had her brain not already gone into full arrest. As it was, she scarcely had the presence of mind to do more than give him a deranged leer and a panicky whine, just before making a mad dash for the thermostat.
Again, Jane thought she heard him laugh; but she could not be certain of this, as she was loudly chanting, "Omg!Omg!Omg!" as she scurried across the room.
Her plan was a simple one: she fully intended to turn her comfortably habitable apartment into as much of a deepfreeze as her aged heat pump could possibly hope to churn out. She most certainly did not want him overheated, prickly, and irritable.
Unbeknownst to Jane, the Lich King – titillated by her frantic flight – did as predators were wont to do by prowling after her as she stampeded toward her objective. Stealthily approaching at an idle pace, he smiled as Jane gazed longingly at the nearby fire escape; it appeared she was debating upon the likelihood of a successful getaway.
There came a soft tsking sound from directly behind her, and Jane's immediate, not especially poised response to this was a hoarse bleat of alarm, followed by a reflexive lunge forward that promptly bounced her off the wall, concluding nicely with a clanging rebound off Arthas's breastplate.
He definitely laughed then – a low, malicious chuckle that absolutely curdled Jane's blood. His response, as well as being knocked quite breathless by the icy collision, left no doubt in Jane's mind that this was somehow very real. She had certainly never heard of anyone being bruised by a delusion.
The entire event, terrible in its inexorability, seemed to occur – and with all the embarrassing sound effects – in agonizing slow-motion. Presumably, Jane deduced, so she would not fail to fully appreciate what a complete asshat she had just made of herself.
Could it get any worse? Why, of course it could!
For it was then she realized – to her utter dismay – that the back of her beloved T-shirt was now stuck to some part of Arthas's icy, metal surface. Jane imagined she looked something like a refrigerator magnet. That is, if they could run in place, which she actually appeared to be doing.
Until the Lich King's finger lightly tapped the top of her head. "Desist," he instructed, and Jane froze, meek as the lowliest of ghouls. "I really must insist–" Arthas added, as he set aside his helm, "–get your wits about you." Then, rather than tearing her limb from limb, as one might expect for her assault upon his person, he began carefully peeling her off his armor. Considering the ease with which he did this, and the high probability that he often found randomly punted gnomes similarly decorating his greaves, Jane could only suppose such sticky matters were not wholly unfamiliar to him.
Striving to recover some hint of equanimity, poor Jane lost it altogether. Attempting to pivot gracefully around to face him – with what she hoped was a composed, yet sensual smile – she either slipped in the slushy residue shed by his boots, or she tripped over the metaphorical, but ever-present geek-stick, and her traitorous feet flew right out from under her. For one hideously elongated moment, she windmilled wildly about in hopeless defiance of gravity, frantically clutching the very first thing her hands encountered.
And this was when Jane had yet another epiphany: she had just grabbed the Prince of Darkness, Master and Supreme Overlord of the Scourge by his fucking loincloth.
'Oh, well done, Dipshit!' was her sole self-critique in that illuminating moment.
With a husky chuckle, Arthas deftly caught her as she headed for the floor, the loincloth stretching insanely, as Jane had it in her own Death Grip. He then, in a most gallant manner, gently set her on her feet again.
Having, by this time, and justifiably so, taken total leave of her senses, as well as evidently losing all control over her own wayward hands, Jane watched in horror as they managed to make matters even worse by trying to smooth the skewed and crumpled garment back into place.
Arthas laughed outright, finding humor where there was none. Something else he was notorious for. "That will do, I think," he said. "Not that I am complaining."
The air conditioner creaked to life, and the vent directly above them billowed cool air down upon Jane's uncomfortably warm cheeks, tossing a few shining strands of Arthas's frosty hair. Curious, he glanced up at the vent.
"Very nice," he murmured, inclining his head as the glowing focus of his smoking eyes shifted to fix upon her once again. "Surely you would not run away and just leave me here all alone," he said with a crafty look of mock despair, indicating the rickety little balcony, and the fire escape beyond.
Zhanzazoola had hoped to not be quite so desperately obvious.
"No!" Jane very nearly shouted, lying devoutly and casting about for some reasonable explanation to placate him. "No, no! I'm just, uhm, going to make sure the door's locked!" She gestured hastily, "Bad neighborhood, you see."
"Yes," Arthas said, leaning closer still, and with a thoroughly roguish smile that suggested he perhaps considered her less than sincere, "I know how that is. When the Argent Crusade moved into Northrend, everything just went to shit. Always some disgruntled someone breaking down a gate, ruining my ghouls, murdering my wyrms, looting my things," he tutted softly, with amused disdain. "Adventurers, raiding parties. Guilds. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, now would you?"
Jane shook her head wildly, "No! Uh-uh, Your Majesty!"
Arthas sighed, turning slowly to consider his surroundings. "No need for formalities," he said nonchalantly. "And you do know," he added, looking at Jane again, "I could be of great assistance to you in the area of unwanted visitors." He smiled as his hand moved to rest upon Frostmourne's pommel. "It would be my pleasure, in fact."
Of this, of course, there was no doubt.
It was as she mulled over the various legalities and other, rather negative aspects of this generous offer that Jane – not widely hailed for her subtle discretion – took a long moment to gaze admiringly at the shapely curve of Arthas's muscular, chain-mailed ass.
She tilted her head for a better angle. Outstanding.
Shortly, realizing the length of her appreciative perusal, she peeped up at him, finding he was watching her with a singularly predacious look on his face.
"Like a beer?" she blurted.
"Love one," he answered amiably.
Arthas smiled inscrutably, and then turned away; Jane watched him stroll over to a nearby window, and gaze down into the swarming, late afternoon traffic. There was a soft, but sinister laugh. "Busy, busy," he whispered, mayhem clearly on his mind.
'If he's looking for recruits,' Jane thought, 'he's certainly come to the right place.'
Rush hour was just teeming with mindless zombies.
Fleeing to the refrigerator, Jane threw open its door, bending to tunnel through its labyrinth of rather embarrassing disarray.
'Crap,' she thought, aghast, 'I don't even have a whole six-pack!' Discreetly, she jettisoned a bag of furry, forgotten grapes, followed by a limp pizza box and the unidentifiable remnants of its moldy cargo.
Engrossed in her foraging efforts, Jane didn't hear the Lich King's approach, no; but suddenly she felt him. Like an aggressive, advancing wall of ice.
"Chaos," Arthas murmured, his cold breath caressing the side of Jane's neck as effectively as freezing, teasing fingers, "I see you have embraced it." An oddly complimentary tone, she observed, just before his chin came to rest upon her shoulder, and she was suddenly cocooned in a cool, blue mist.
Her wary eyes rolled around to look at him sideways. 'So big, so buff,' Jane thought with a crooked smile, "Oh, well thanks?" She held up a beer.
Arthas brightened, whisking it away. "Think nothing of it," he whispered in her ear, giving its overheated lobe a light, thrilling, icy kiss. Straightening to his full and imposing height, he looming over her for a long, tense moment, before he turned and sauntered back into the living room. Jane trailed after him, a quaking wad of fascinated fear.
How anyone could actually saunter in full plate armor was quite beyond her stunned comprehension, but he did it, and he did it well. Yes, it was true, he wore the Plate of the Damned with authority.
As he walked, Arthas removed his cloak with an easy, graceful flourish, tossing it aside. It floated down onto a chair, raining sleet and other assorted, frozen particles onto the floor. He then sat down, squarely in the middle of Jane's elderly couch, causing it to sag exhaustedly. Stretching out long, extremely fine, muscular legs, his armored boots furrowing the hardwood floor, he gave the coffee table a careless shove. It skittered away, crab-like, spewing its haphazardly stacked contents across the floor.
Arthas relaxed, leaning back; and with an inviting smile, he patted the cushion beside him. Jane gaped, as he gestured cordially to her. "Come along now," he coaxed softly, seething eyes dancing with insane mirth, "Don't be shy. I'm harmless, really."
It was at that moment, with those spectacularly-unlikely words floating in the steadily chilling air, that stress, well, it just pretty much got the better of Jane.
She cackled shrilly.
This strained yowl of hysterical laughter bounced quickly to the very peak of the scales, wavering there for a long, toe-curling moment. It was when Jane suddenly realized her possibly fatal blunder that the maniacal racket ended abruptly with a whimper.
"Impressive," Arthas informed her, with an approving nod. "I do believe you just outclassed Sylvanas, back in the good old days, when she was a banshee," he paused thoughtfully, "Or is she still one? I forget."
Chuckling, he flipped the cap off his beer, with one of the metal spikes on the back of his left hand, and lifted the bottle to his lips, tilting back his head as he did so. Jane watched his long, pale, muscular throat flex as he killed the bottle in efficient, but leisurely fashion. Not a single foamy drop escaped him.
That done, he sighed contentedly, his eyes sliding back to consider her. He smiled. His teeth were icy white and oh shit, did they look dangerous. Like he could bite a chunk out of a steel war hammer, if he chose. And maybe he had.
"Like another?" Jane squeaked.
"I would, indeed," Arthas replied, "and perhaps you could join me? You seem a bit distraught." He said this as if he could not possibly imagine why, and then, he gave her another gleaming, ferocious smile.
Jane all but ran to the refrigerator, peering into its recesses. Only two left! (crap, crap, crap) She clawed open the freezer compartment. There, deliverance awaited, in the shape of her ex's vodka stash. Three glowing, arctic bottles.
"Oh, do I have a treat for you," she called out, peering around the edge of the door.
"I certainly hope so," Arthas murmured, with a tempter's smile. He had draped his arms across the back of the couch, the empty beer bottle dangling from his fingertips, his tall, lethal body comfortably sprawled.
'God, is he big...'
Jane whined, and owning a mighty blush, she quickly ducked behind the door, shoving her burning face into the frigid freezer compartment. As many times as she had actually wondered what glorious treasures must surely be lurking and loot-able underneath all that armor.
"May I help?" Arthas asked, and Jane looked around to find him leaning casually in the doorway. It was almost as if he had teleported there from the couch. At this point, Jane guessed just about anything was a reasonable assumption.
"Vodka!" she shrieked, grabbing and waving a bottle.
"Looks chilly," Arthas said, "and how kind that you wish to make me feel at home," he tilted his head, adding: "So you will not mind terribly if I take off my armor, will you?"
Jane felt her jaws begin to unhinge. Arthas chuckled, slowly removing his gauntlets, and giving her the very sort of sly, suggestive smile that could turn the most unflappable woman's knees into gummy worms.
"You are quite welcome to help, if you like," he offered, strolling away. "Or, you can just watch, if that is your preference."
Jane squelched the urge to squee maniacally, as he turned his attention to the straps of the spiked cuisses on his long, powerful thighs, slipping the buckles loose with quick proficiency.
It was no surprise those strong, nimble fingers were very adept at undoing things. There was the bell-like ring of plate as it was set aside, the rustle of chain mail being dropped to the floor, and the slow, seductive reveal of stunningly-beautiful, snow-white flesh. Jane's eyes widened. Pupils flared.
Whatever doorway he had stepped through, in coming here, he had brought his own world's heroic corporeality with him, and it was, well muscular.
Jane dimly recalled her previous exasperation with the skimpily-clad, mega-boobed women and the irritatingly over-dressed men in the gaming world, but all past discontent just fell fast into deepest irrelevance, considering the sheer bodaciousness of this eye-candy.
Arthas gave her a lazy smile, his eyes hooded and glittering as he slowly licking his lips; and Jane could not help thinking that was precisely the sort of look a tiger might wear, as it contemplated a slow and witless monkey that was admiring its stripes.
She was struggling so very diligently to remind herself that this luscious, forbidden fruit was, in fact, a ruthless, soulless, savage-minded killer; but this was to no avail. For with a faint, throaty groan, Arthas slowly stretched that powerful, limber body, flexing his eye-poppingly chiseled abs, and her thoughts just fluttered away from all such minor trifles as his possibly (but not necessarily!) malicious intentions.
Jane's eyes roamed wantonly over his bounty. Gorgeous shoulders and arms, their taut muscles rolled, sinuous and supple, beneath his perfect marble skin. She marveled over the swell of chest muscles; alert, come-hither nipples stiffened to tantalize her.
That this sumptuous abundance of hard, bared flesh smoked like dry ice, with tendrils of frosty mist, and had an iridescent, slightly bluish sheen, mattered not at all to Jane. She was willing to brave any amount of hypothermia, for a taste of that daiquiri ice.
The fine, silvery hair that dusted his chest and belly seemed to have more the character of frost – as if he might be made of ice – and this had the intriguing effect of causing little sparkling rainbow whorls of light to dance across his snowy skin, in a polar aurora. Jane stared, enthralled and amazed. It was beautiful.
Or, quite conceivably, she was simply hyperventilating and about to pass out.
Jane gazed covetously at these incredible contours. Could she dare tickle his navel with her tongue, or would it stick to that icy surface? And how embarrassing would that overture be?
Was frostbite an issue?
Observing her close scrutiny with a rather diabolical smile, Arthas casually dismissed the rumpled loincloth from duty.
And there wasn't just a rocket in his pocket! It was the whole freaking arsenal!
'Oh, yes! YES! ICBM me, baby! Surface-to-surface missile me, hard!'
Jane's hands twitched, commanding that she seize this gleaming iceberg of manly. There was more testosterone here than in a block of biker bars, more than in a twenty-four hour, professional wrestling grudge match, more even, than what had flowed, rampant, in the primordial days of pre-GPS!
"I would not object to a bit of help," Arthas urged, his long fingers idly loosening the lacings at the most impressively bulging crotch Jane had ever laid eyes on, and oh, yowsa, did she want to be helpful!
He inclined his head, long, pearly-white hair caressing taut, glowing skin, his fingers slipping between leather and cold, cold flesh, easing his breeches down over his hipbones, and then further...
He chuckled softly,
and further,
and...
OH! GOD!
'Tanking time!' Jane thought, advancing purposefully, 'Breach And Storm!'
And with that, Zhanzazoola launched her very first successful assault on Icecrown Citadel.
...