(A/N) Well hey there, I had an unexpected stroke of inspiration for this next chapter much earlier than expected. So, I wrote it down as soon as had it. I figured that I would give Alria'nath and Kara more time in the story than just what I've been giving them. So, without delay. Here we go with the chapter.

Night had fallen over the Arathi Highlands after first crossing Thandol Span; a quick discussion among the group and everyone agreed that it was best they rest for the night. After helping to pitch the tents Aysa had felt rather tired; so, she dismissed herself while the others sat around the campfire.

Since they had only brought along three tents they had decided that all but one had to share space, after chatting about who went where, the tent role was decided. Dante and Aysa would share one tent, Kara and Alria'nath would share another (much to Alria'nath's chagrin, who quickly changed his tone after Dante told him of Jiawn's snoring.), and Jiawn would get his own. Especially after Dante and Aysa had to experience said snoring first hand.

After laying back in her bedroll, she began to go over and over just how exactly she was going to convince any of the horde, let alone their leaders to stop fighting.

The speeches had to be nothing short of legendary, that much she was sure of.

She had seen firsthand the damage that the sha could unleash; the carnage that its mere presence could cause.

She had seen the Alliance battalion take down the sha of anger, shortly after the gate of the Vale became open to Alliance and the Horde.

She could only watch as several squads of pure, loyal soldiers lose themselves to pure rage and just turn on their brothers in arms, just like that.

Now there are stories starting to circulate around Stormwind about the Horde troops that took down the Sha of Fear.

They say the results were quiet the same. Several battle-hardened veterans turning into weeping, shaking, shells of what they once were.

She had to think up her speeches and decide who would be the most difficult to convince. She stopped herself, of course Garrosh Hellscream would be the most difficult, with the Dark Lady coming in at a close second.

In fact, she would be surprised if Garrosh would even attempt to listen to her at all. But regardless, she had to try. Her ancestral home and the people who dwelled within were counting on her. With a heavy load on her mind, she fell asleep.

She woke up to find herself in a white room; if you could call it something as simple as that.

There was nothing but this unending void of whiteness. She began to look all around to find someone, anyone who could tell her just where she was.

"HELLO! IS THERE ANYBODY THERE?!" She began calling out, in hopes that it would fare better than simply looking, but to no avail. There was simply nothing. Not even a small breeze.

Until suddenly, she heard footsteps to her left, turning to see. She was surprised to see Dante standing several yards away; but there was an obvious difference. His hood and mask were gone, and he was staring at her, not moving. And not a single hint of emotion showed on his face.

It was one of the few time she had seen his actual face. His blue eyes seemed to shine brightly and were much more well defined then when her view wasn't obstructed by that mask of his.

She smiled and ran towards him. When she got close enough. The void began to change. The floor began to shift to orange colored dirt and the air started to grow hot. Soon, crude and intimidating buildings began to rise from the dirt. After everything had stopped she took one last look around, she was in Orgimmar.

But again, things were different; very different. The buildings all had chunks missing or entire homes were set aflame. Aysa turned to look around her, only to gasp in pure horror as she was greeted by a sea of orc corpses.

And in the center was Dante, head hung low and now covered in blood, starting to quietly chuckle. But it began increasing in volume quickly until he was full-out laughing manically and starting to change himself.

The color was starting fade from his body until only black and grey remained. His hands began to grow and mutate until a large pair of claws took their place, dripping with blood.

She started to panic, and ran towards Dante, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Dante, listen to me! You need to fight the sha, you can't let it control you!" She could hear a dark chuckle, far too deep to be Dante's voice, but it was coming from him regardless. She could recognize what it sounded like, he sounded just like a sha itself. He cocked his head to the side and smirked at her.

"All that you know, will die along with you." He raised one of his claws to show her something that shocked her to her very core.

He was carrying a severed head in his hand. But not just any head; held by the hair was that of her old friend, 'Ji Firepaw'. Blood dripping from his neck and his mouth open in horror.

With a flick, he tossed the severed head casually over his shoulder, brought the same claw back, and struck down, attempting to crush her head.

Before it made contact, Aysa snapped herself awake. She could see she was back in her bedroll and let out a relieved sigh at seeing it was only a nightmare. But, was it just some random night terror, or was it something she should be much more concerned about? Maybe once they reached Thunder Bluff she could talk to a shaman. She had heard that the tauren were very wise.

She could hear that everyone else was still awake and talking by the campfire. Seeing as how she could no longer get to sleep, she decided to join them. Opening up her tent, she saw that Jiawn and Alria'nath were sharing a joke and laughing. She could see that Jiawn had already tapped on of their ale kegs that Jiawn had insisted be brought along as well. Kara and Dante were keeping to themselves and finding something to occupy their time.

Dante was sharpening one of his daggers on a whetstone and Kara merely sat hunched on a log, staring out at the nearby river. Alria'nath turned to smile at Aysa.

"Ah, you're awake, good. We were just starting to share some stories to pass the time. Care to join us?" After Aysa toke her place by the fire and getting comfortable Dante cleared his throat.

"Well, I suppose I could start us off then." He turned toward the orc and blood elf. "Tell me, did you both hear about that little Defias resurgence in Westfall a few years ago?" Alria'nath scratched his chin with his plated fingers as he searched his memory.

"I think so. What about them?" Dante nodded his head at the paladin. Jiawn leaned forward and spoke up.

"I've never heard of them. Who are they?" Dante leaned back in his seat and ran the blade of his dagger across his fingers, testing its sharpness.

"They were terrorists; human terrorists. You see, after the orcs destroyed Stormwind during the First war, the remaining humans fled. When they returned to the ruined city after crushing the Horde at the end of the Second war; the city needed to be rebuilt.

They hired a large group of engineers and artisans to rebuild Stormwind; they called themselves the 'Stonemasons Guild'.

Once the city was rebuilt, each and every one of them walked right to the gates of Stormwind Keep to procure their payment."

Aysa was listening intently to this little history lesson. The books in Stormwind's library only referred to the Defias Brotherhood as renegade terrorists. The nobles of the city only echoed the books that she had read. And the adventurers she had spoken with only mentioned that they were poorly trained assassins, thieves, pirates, as well as engineers; though skilled in the arts of guerrilla warfare.

She was really having a hard time trying to see them as the ones that had built a city as majestic as Stormwind.

One human she had spoken with told her that she had obtained her automatic crossbow from a Defias member she had slain.

"But with the city so recently dug up from the grave, they simply didn't have the coin to give to them. That and the idiotic nobles assumed that they were just going to rebuild the city out of kindness of their hearts. Stupid bastards." He mumbled that last part under his breath.

"Some of the city's nobility had tried to offer payment in the form of jobs in the city. But they weren't having any of it; they promptly started multiple riots in the city. In response, the nobles attempted to solve the problem by exiling them from Stormwind, for all the good that did." Dante held his head down in reverence.

"In one of the ensuing riots, a stray rock thrown from the crowd killed King Varian's wife 'Tiffin'. Ironically, she was the strongest supporter for paying the Stonemasons guild their demanded sum." Aysa gasped in shock. She had once asked Varian who Anduin's mother was, only for the King to turn away proclaiming that he did not want to speak of it.

She had visited her memorial in the cemetery and prayed left offerings at one point. But no matter what she did, she could not find out exactly how she passed. Everyone else she asked had simply dodged the question, or simply didn't know the answer. But in her experience with the Human king, she knew that the last thing he wanted was pity.

Dante broke the moment of silence by slapping his hands against his knees. "Alright, enough with history lessons, let's get on with story shall we?" Each of them, but Kara (who didn't really seem to be paying attention.) leaned forward in their seats.

"What would you say if I told you that the Horde took care of that problem for us?" Alria'nath arched a very long eyebrow.

"Well, I would be very interested in hearing about this little predicament. As hard to believe as it is." Dante returned his dagger to its scabbard.

"We had been receiving reports from loyalist Westfall citizens that they had spotted the Horde near the city of Moonbrook. So, naturally, I was sent to validate these claims.

Sure enough, I had spotted a small secluded Horde camp near the coast. There was about a squad of five there. I noticed two orcs, a blood elf, a forsaken, and a tauren. They all seemed to be the type to not be pushovers, so I found a good hiding spot and started to watch them."

Alria'nath had his hand on his chin, trying to piece together the whole story. He was trying to see if Dante was actually telling the truth, and if he was: why would the Horde move in so closely to Alliance territory. At that point, they were at most a day's march away from Stormwind.

"In the early morning, they had broken camp and slipped into an old barn on the edge of the city. As I followed them, they had wandered into something that the Alliance had thought was buried for years. They had uncovered the Deadmines.

When they had snuck into the entrance, I found that they were actually being supported by the amateur Shattered Hand clan and the small task force that they had smuggled inside.

Now at that point, I figured that I could just start picking them off one by one and be done with it. But two thoughts crossed my mind.

The first: What interest could the Horde possibly have with the Defias? I figured if anything, they would be helping them. They both wanted to see the Alliance burn, so why not?

The second: Why should I kill them now when they were doing Stormwind a huge favor? I figured that either the Defias in the mines would kill them, or I could just pick them off when they so generously cleaned up one of the largest thorns in our side for some time now."

Aysa strangely found herself fascinated by the story. But she also wished that all of his ranges of story topics weren't all focused on Horde killing.

"I had been following them for the past half hour and they had managed to carve a path through not just the guards, but Vanessa Vancleef's top lieutenants as well.

They had managed to break out into a massive open room which had been housing the real reason the Horde had been there in the first place: A massive Ogre Juggernaut. With that, the reason for them being here became clear immediately; they wanted the ship for the Horde usage.

Naturally, I couldn't allow that. The amount of damage they could cause with that ship could be astronomical." Jiawn raised his paw like a child in school. "Yes Jiawn, do you have a question?"

"Yes, I didn't realize that those ogres were smart enough to build ships." Dante nodded in understanding.

"Well yes, at first that's all it really was, an enormous ship. But, with the armor and weapons that the Defias had added to it, it was pretty much a ship powerful enough to level Stormwind." Jiawn seemed to look like he understood what Dante had told him.

"So anyway, on with the story. While they had fought their way up to the upper levels, I had found my way to the armory on the ship. Sure enough, it was filled to the brim with cannonballs, rifles, and gunpowder.

So, I grabbed the largest barrel of the explosive powder that I could find and I made a trail from the armory to the end of the ship.

I managed to hear the Horde giving their victory cries as they reveled in what they thought was a victory. As soon as I reached the end of the trail, I grabbed a torch and lit the end of the trail.

You know, it was kind of fun to watch sparks move closer towards the armory, I thought of it like a little clock, counting down to their doom. After seeing it reach the end, and after I had moved to a much safer, but still visible distance, I saw the ship explode into a billion pieces. So, I chalked that up as a successful mission and caught a gryphon back to Stormwind."

And like that, the whole camp has gone silent. Jiawn is smiling softly in approval, Aysa and Alria'nath have their mouths agape in shock and Kara is silently smirking. "Hmmm, elaborate. Interesting plan human."

(A/N) Yep, that's right. I'm NOT DEAD, just really, really, REALLY lazy. That, and I've been preparing myself for the upcoming expansion very eagerly. I can't wait. I apologize for making you all wait for so long. Either way, leave a review and tell me what you thought. PEACE!