(This is something new I've been playing with for a while, and well, when I decided to do the starting run for the worgen again, and this time chose a male worgen, it just came to me. This is my first published story, tell me what you think and constructive criticisms, please. Any flames will be summarily eaten. This will turn into a full fledged story if enough people like it, instead of this array of snippets, so please favorite and comment. It gives me another reason to get off of my butt.)
Storyline: Magnus is a big, buff guy, almost 7' while others are somewhere along 6'-5'. He's intimidating as fuck, and with an abrasive personality, it doesn't get much better. What they don't know is that he's a warlock- one of the least physically impressive classes of all the races on Azeroth. (That's why he's so physically intimidating though, he didn't want to lose in a fistfight because he couldn't summon an imp to bail him out.) Just one problem though- Races on Azeroth blame Warlocks for everything just as much as Americans blame gays. And Gilneans are human, one of the least accommodating races on azeroth, so Magnus has to be sneaky about training with the Big Bad Darkness.
He summons his first imp during the attack on Gilneas,(and has his first taste of those demonic energies he had been training up for, yum) by the name of Zigpit. Zigpit isn't small for an imp- in fact, he's rather large compared to his brethren- but Magnus subtly frightens him. Magnus is big, for a human. Imposing. But Magnus brushes away all of Zigpit's fears when he volunteers to ask for mage training for Zigpit, and happily scoops him up on his left shoulder with his left hand. (Magnus is left-handed)
Shit goes down in Gilneas, and when Magnus is turned Zigpit doesn't know what to believe. He was desummoned when his friend turned, Magnus trying to save his only little friend's life, and so he thinks his master is dead. Magnus wakes up clear-headed, well, as clear headed as you can get with a monster raging in the back of your head, and has a horrid tasting concoction shoved down his throat, before he is released. His first instinct is to summon Zigpit, but he knows he can't because the people surrounding him are humans even if he looks not to be at the moment. (He's having an internal crisis, he is. But learning you are a mongrel monster of mortal nightmare is nothing to waking up in the morning learning you've killed your best friend, so he presses on.) As soon as he sets a foot out the village (What the hell is that guy d- wait, is that the fucking prince?!) to get some alchemy shit for keeran, he summons his little bud.
Of course, Zigpit is terrified. Magnus was imposing, muscled, and big when he was human, which mostly transitioned to him becoming a gigantic, ferocious, terrifying worgen. If he was big for a human, he is huge for a worgen. And Zigpit doesn't know what to do.
"Greetings, companion." Magnus greets calmly, his semi-baritone shifted with the rumbling growl of his new species. Without a care in the world, he lowers his left hand to scoop his friend onto his shoulder, and Zigpit is relieved. His friend is okay, his master is safe.
And then the fucking forsaken show up.
Magnus is too pissed to unsummon Zigpit- some idiots comment on it when he walks in, but he ignores their ignorance- and storms into the house where Keeran is.
"Here." He rumbles enthusiastically, setting the box of alchemical supplies to Keeran's left. (Is that even his name? Keeran?) A loud rumble shakes the ground below him, making him stumble a bit and his companion almost slips off his shoulder, but he quickly presses a hand to steady him and himself, curling his lips at the absurdity of it all.
He walks outside and- wait, is that fighting?
Walking forwards to investigate, he discovers that yes, that is indeed fighting, Specifically the prince trying to cave in a forsaken's rotted skull with a broken bottle.
Lovely.
Anyways, these forsaken are offending his retinas with their presence, and so he presses another shadow bolt into their caved in/rotting chests. By the gods, it smells of corpse in here.
Zigpit gets to practice his fireball, though, so that's good.
"Magnus! You ARE alive!" The prince begins, seeing Magnus's familiar shadowbolt arc into the forsaken whose brains and blood are currently painting the grass a lovely shade of red.
"I thought I had just dreamt of the olden days when I heard your voice…" the prince's eyes look crazed, slightly bloodshot, and red around the edges from tears. He looks sick, or like he's been fighting for a long time.
Magnus finds all of this incredibly creepy, and slightly pitying, so he takes the customary quests to kill a bunch of forsaken, thank you (as if I needed an excuse) and a bunch of godsforsaken rotting Abominations. Yay.
(Magnus smiles for the first time after his contamina-transformation when he sees an abomination blow up into assorted bodily parts and rotten flesh which then burn to ash in so much gunpowder. Explosions are awesome, he thinks with a childish glint in his eyes, and then goes off to create more.)
(A Pint of dalaran noir is exactly what I need to get through this, he thinks with a dark chuckle, downing all five pitifully small bottles in a few choice gulps. He doesn't even get anything past tipsy, to his disappointment.)
(Fucking crows, he thinks, firing off a shadowbolt and nailing one in the face, bringing it down with a hard smack on the tiled road. A feral smirk dots Magnus's face, as he has finally killed one of those annoying fucking crows.)
(Obligatory quest bullshit, yay. What the Hel are kids doing outside in this crook of ass-crackery anyhow?! And in this weather?! He doesn't even really care about the forsaken running around, some shadowbolts to the face seem to make them fall over real quick, but in this weather? It's fuckin pouring out here!)
(The amount of sarcasm he feels at this moment is almost tangable. Yes, little girl. I understand that I am scary. Now go fuck off to the Allen's basement.)
(These forsaken are fucking trash, he thinks, disgusted, when all that it takes to make one fall over is to throw a shadow bolt down and then cast corruption.)
(Magnus hates heights. This is a fact. It is especially a fact when he has to launch himself out of a fucking cannon to get into what amounts to a giant rowboat. Fuck my life, he thinks, loading himself into the huge claw-thing.)
(I'm so glad that's over, he thinks, jumping off of the boat with only slight hesitation at the drop. And then he looks at his quest log. Fuck me, I have to do that again?)
(He does it again. The crewmembers are at least not ducking trash, he'll admit. It only takes two shadowbolts to make them fall over. What a fucking improvement.)
(A literal horde of dogs are summoned by his whistle, which sounds to his ears like nails, knives, and forks on ceramic surfaces, but somehow worse. He immedietly crushes the fucking thing that summoned that godsawful noise, and smirks in accomplishment.)
(Holy shit, he thinks, looking to where Zigpit is pointing over the water. That is a shitton of horde warships. Could I take them? A small voice in his head wonders, and he snarks back, If all the horde on those ships are like the fucking forsaken over here, I would just need to shadowbolt them and like five will fall over dead. So yes.)
(Magnus lets out a truly exemplary string of curses when the floor suddenly shakes out from under him, curling his furry upper body around his fallen bud to make sure any falling ceiling-matter won't crush the little guy. When it stops, he finds that he is the only one unfooted by the earthquake, and finds it all monumentally unfair.)
(Wow, the ocean is a lot closer than it used to be, he thinks, eyeing the truly large amount of water where the forsaken once were, barely feet away from the hideaway he was uprooted in. He's probably in shock, but holy shit that is a lot of water. Where did it come from? He doesn't even want to touch it, in an irrational fear that it will raise up and swallow him like it had so much land.)
(He has to, though, because there are humans down there to rescue, and shitty forsaken to kill. The abominations were all torn apart by the huge backwash, sadly, or else he'd blow up a few of those, too.)
(He kills a forsaken without even getting into the water, and that is a good thing in his book.)
(Apparently everything is going even more to shit, and everyone has to evacuate. Magnus has not even gotten a toe deep into the emotional cesspool that is his feelings, but he feels there will be a lot more in that pool by the end of the day, if what is going on is any sign.)
(A few more forsaken die due to their presence offending him, and also due to his entirely earned anger, before he reaches Gwen to tell her the news.)
(three people- that's all they need to get everyone out. Great. Good. Magnus rubs his eyes, a tightness in his chest not caused by his curse, and feels his eyes droop. He is truly tired.)
(He goes to the orchard first, because it is closer, and feels the first taste of riding a mount. He would normally extremely enjoy and love this, the adrenalin rush that it is, but he is so. Damned. Tired right now. He would like to curl up and take a nap but he can't trust that the floor won't slip out from under him, or that the water won't slip out over him and bury him like so many unlucky soldiers under the sand.)
(He skins his first pelt on one of the foxes on the orchard, and the leather is stretchy and light. I can't wait to make you into a bag, he eyes the leather happily.)
(There we go- Horses, check.)
(Grandma is next, and by god this is such tedious bullshit. Grandma, go and get your own shit, he complains internally, still not arguing and getting her shit for her. He never is so thankful for his not-running mouth when she turns into a worgen and beats the shit out of a forsaken to save her cat. Because, Titans fucking Light, Grandma is fucking terrifying. Go, Grandma, he thinks incredulously when he sees that she's beat the shit out of the forsaken with a fucking rolling pin.)
(Grandma- Check.)
(Boatmen are next, aaaaaand a shit ton more forsaken to kill, yay. Some tedious fetching occurs- haha dog puns- but altogether it is pretty much nothing. These forsaken seem to be especially weka, only going down after one shadowbolt, but at least they arent as fucking weak as the catapult drivers, dying only after a single corruption. Useless. Who dies from corruption?!)
(A tiny, eerily familiar puppy sniffs him from behind a patch of rubble, and Magnus almost cries at the onslaught of emotion, because everything has gone to shit but at least little baby Corgnelius is okay. He feeds him a tiny bit of his flash of water, and a tiny amount of his leftover jerky, before placing the little pupperdoggo against his chest, protected by heavily enchanted robes that surrounded his now-furry form. The tightening of his chest feels a little lighter now, with his little pupperdoggo to light the way.)
(He tries out all three new specs for his class, happy in his strength, and thinks destruction just suits him better. Creating giant, fiery explosions with as much effort as rumbling the incantations and a bit of mana? Count him right the fuck in! Corgnilius barks happily at his master's joy, and Zigpit is happy he'll get to improve with his master over his fire spells, rather than with a stranger.)
(Boatguys- check. He's off to tell gwen the news. She sends him off on a horse for some fucking reason- and OW THE FUCKING GATES SOUND LIKE SQUEAKY SHIT OW AGAIN- oh, he's supposed to tell the queen the news. Oh, shit, he thinks, his doubts showing before he shoves them back into the pool of feelings he still hasnt touched where it belongs and takes a deep breath. He can do this.)
(The queen tells him to go tell the king, which is unexpected, but okay. He's pretty sure the king knows, but okay. He follows her orders because she's, y'know his queen. The monarch he's lived under the rule of for most of his life.)
(Yes. I know the ground is gone at duskhaven. I was there, he thinks bitterly. And oh wow the horde war machine over there has not moved at all, has it? That's kind of sad.)
(Him and Zigpip join the carriage with little fuss, emotions warring with the beast inside of him forcing him through a monstrous headache- puns intended- that leaves it hard to think past the roaring in his mental ears. When it crashes, and he is thrown, he has never, ever been as thankful for forceful unconsciousness as he has ever been in his life. Zigpip is okay, Corgnelius is in the hands of people who know not to hurt him, and Magnus is ready to show why they used to call him Magnus the Red. Life is good today.)
(There are fucking spiders, everywhere, and that is not okay. His face twists up in disgust at the sights of one of them, and an immolate leaves his fingers before he knows what he's doing. It is as they say, "Fight fire with fire. Fight everything with fire." And today, Magnus decides he is going to fight a lot of fire. With fire. Yeah, that was a horrible joke. But there are spiders everywhere and- euuurgggg)
(What the fuck is a night elf doing here? What- Just- No. Just no. Magnus cannot deal with this right now, he has a headache the size of the very pretty moon, there is fucking spider juice just all over his clothes, and he needs to kill all the spiders, Just burn them with fire a little. So he ignores the unimportant night elf.)
(the spiders are dead now, yey.)
(the elf is apparently more important than he thought. The Forsaken trapper is easy, almost oo easy really, but it doesn't matter. He wants answers, really, and he wants them now, when his mind isn't fogged by the filthy cesspool that is his mind.)
(Everything is too much, with the Beast raging in his head, the bunch of untouched feelings he's ignored, and just everything, he's so tired. So, very, tired. Corgnelius fits neatly in his front pocket, and his presence is a boon of light among this darkness, ironically. It's not a lot, but it's enough to keep the most of it at bay.)
(There's a tree surrounded by a pool of what looks like moonwell water, and Magnus barely gives it a second glance, he's so done with this shit. There are more worgen in the tree, and he's confused, but fuck it he wants to know what is going on. Crowley's okay, though, which is… fine, Magnus guesses, but doesn't care.)
(He wonders why the worgen apparently have a magical artifact that can spread the curse to the rest of humanity, but he really just wants a nap and some nice seafood so he doesn't question it.)
(My claws are uniquely suited to this, he thinks, skinning yet another fox in his hunt for banshees.)
(Holy shit. Magnus blinks in shock. The worgen have the Scythe of Elune?! There is about .2 seconds where he is blinking in shock, and then the fog sets back in and he just doesn't care anymore.)
(the fog is almost overwhelming at this point, turning him into a drooping zombie only half-awake and half-asleep, and when he is pushed gently by Crowley to touch the three moonwell pools, he does what he is told, only to find something happening. He doesn't quite know what, but it feels almost lightening. Not lightening as in enlightening, of lightening as in "I'm going to change my ways and turn to the light" but more, weightless. It isn't so foggy anymore, and he can think straight instead of having half-formed thoughts and twisted mental images from His Beast. His beast seems content, or at least weaker. He feels he could even switch back into his human form, if he really wanted to.)
(Godfrey is still a dick. That isn't new. But at least he gets to keep his king, and that's alright in his book.)
(Gwen needs talking to, again, and apparently these beast-like beings can't get off their asses and out of the tree to do it, so it's up to Magnus, again.)
(THEY'VE TAKEN THE KING. THEY WILL PAY. BY BLOOD AND BONE, THEY. WILL. PAY.)
(GODFREY.)
(A red haze rises up like an ocean over his mind, the beast integrated so intimately into the cracks of his mind that one cannot differentiate either from the other. Graymane is Packleader, and anyone daring to destroy or harm the pack will die. There is no escape. But rage is a powerful motivator, and it was time to truly show these human vermin why he was called Magnus the Red.)
(A flash- this name has a history. An angry, wounded, emotionally scarred brother weeping over a dead, horribly raped mother while the roads ran red with blood. This isn't the first battle Magnus has been in. This will not be the last. But each will leave more and more red painting the lilies and blades of grass than the last, and Magnus will make sure that the red will never touch his precious people. Corgnelius stays with the kneeling Keeran, while Daddy goes out to cause some murder.)
(Keeran wishes for stealth, and Magnus understands this. The patriarch must not be harmed, and if reckless murder was set upon these filthy fucking mongrels- ironic, considering how dog-like he looked right now- they might flee or kill his King. That would not be allowed.)
(Graymane seems unharmed, good. But Magnus still has fucking idiots to kill, and even an unharmed king will not stop his vengeance.)
(A Chaos Bolt slams into Lord Walden from the sheep-herds and, as he topples, this revenge is done. The only mercy he will give the last one is a swift, simple death instead of the drawn out bloodfest he wishes for.)
(Godfrey is a dick, unsurprisingly.)
(Magnus's off to see the wizard, or more like a bunch of little shits he has little to no attachment to and gathering supplies in order to appease his king.)
(Maybe it's just his worgen-heightened senses, but Magnus really just wants to rip into a deer with his teeth. Just eat it raw. He knows he can't, though, so he hopes this last meal is as tasty as she's boasting.)
(More dead forsaken, yay. He got to explode an Abomination, though, so it's cool. He saw his Warlock teacher outside of the fragile fort the rebels had concocted, though, and, forcefully reminded that Warlocks are usually ostracised, he found that it was not so cool.)
(There were forsaken in his territory. I say were because now they acted as a nice decoration on the ground of splattered body parts.)
(It was time to take back the city. Magnus knew that not all forsaken would be as fucking weak as those that attacked Duskhaven, in fact they would probably much harder, but Magnus also knew that he was a lot stronger, too. Besides, he reasoned, nothing drops the undead faster than a Chaos bolt to the face. Ego appeased, Magnus set off to fight, secure in his knowledge that chaos Bolts could one-shot anyone that required more effort than an incineration.)
(They were weaker, he thought in despair. A single incinerate incinerated them. There was no hope for this fucking amount of trash. Liam was kicking ass, though, which is nice. Explosive abominations for the win. Crowley fucked right off, faster than anyone had ever seen a man wove.)
("Gorerot crush puny human!" The gigantic abomination yelled, enraging Magnus further. "Gorerot will fucking die!" Magnus shouted, shooting another glob of whatever the fuck out of the catapult onto gorerot.)
(Doombolts dont really affect sylvanus, Magnus learns when he shoots one onto her face with only a small mark to show for it.)
(Magnus is crying. The fat, watery globs sinking into his fur are tears. He admits this, but only to himself, as he watches what he considered to be one of his few friends die. A new, different kind of hate boiled in his heart, one for Sylvanas and her bullshit.
"That's right, Liam. We took back our city." He kneels next to the prince's body, letting the tears roll onto the ground in a veil of sadness for the fallen prince. He still remembered Liam's slightly bloodshot face when he was trying to kill forsaken with just a broken bottle.)
(He's ready to kill that bitch, but he didn't expect it to be there. He has so many broken emotions regarding this place, he doesn't know what to do. He follows Tobias, even though it hurts to be in the same place that turned him and his king into monsters.)
(Magnus doesn't like water. But to kill the Banshee Queen, He would wade through an ocean.)
(Sylvanas is a dick. That one is new.)
(He walks in to come face to face with what emotions he's been trying to avoid, and it takes a lot out of him not to start crying again. But he has a job to do, and he can rest after that.)
(Magnus approves any order that involves fucking over more of the forsaken. It makes him happy his king has decided to give him the honour.)
(Great. So much shit trying to kill everyone, and now we add our own ancestors, as well?! Magnus thought, blasting one quickly in the face with an incinerate, reducing it to spiritual dust.)
(There are so many bones... Magnus thought, staring into the calcium induced flame of bones.)
(Magnus is about to cry. This is the first funeral he's seen since his father's, and he knows he needs to be strong. The second this is over with, though, Magnus is going to sit on an inn bed and have a good cry.)
(It's almost over. Magnus can feel it. He's just going to go kill some more things, and then he'll rest. Just one more thing, and then he'll rest.)
(Okay, maybe more than one thing, but honestly just blowing something up is just what Magnus needs right now. That, and some rest. And maybe some nice fish.)
(The horde warships still haven't moved. This is really really fucking retarded.)
(The weird ass huge orc was weird, but it fell over real fast when you hit it with a doom bolt to the face.)
(Corgnelius, check, Zigpit, check, everything is good, then. It's time for Magnus to take a nap, and maybe have a good bath. He needs to figure out how fur works, anyways, and maybe he needs a good cry.)
