A/N: I'm working a lot more at the moment (yay!), so that means my chapters may be a bit on the short side for a while, what with the cut into my writing time. This chapter is a few days late, but next week's should be posted on time! It's already written; I just have to type it up. And the story should pick up in the next chapter or so, just have to set everything up now.

Anyway, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

…-…

Alright, well. Here is where things get a little…difficult.

Neesera and I split up to look for this gnome, right? Dr. Hieronymus Blam. It would seem that with a name like that, he'd be pretty easy to find. Yet somehow, he was nowhere.

Really, worse than that, once you found someone who knew him, he could be anywhere.

Searing Gorge, Ashenvale, Badlands, Sili-something. The list went on and on. Everyone said that they thought he was researching something new somewhere new.

He was a bit of a mad scientist, it seemed.

And kind of well known, in the right circles. Though, I suppose everyone is, when you put it that way, huh?

Anyway, Neesera finally caught me as I was wandering the docks, excited. She'd gotten word that the good doctor was between experiments and research ventures, and had headed home to Ironforge for a while.

It was great news.

There was a tram that could take us there, but Neesera decided it would be better to find a mage instead. After all, we didn't know how long the doctor would be in town. The tram took about a week, and we didn't want to miss him.

We were looking for a mage, and that meant heading over to the Mage district again. I gotta say, it is nice having everything labeled so neatly. It makes it easy to get around. I was also trying to avoid Kelveris and his guild—which was hard because I didn't know what they all looked like—and I'm pretty sure Neesera thought I might be spiraling down into insanity.

Well, those blessed arches leading into that purple roofed area were yawning up to devour us when I heard my name being called.

I tried to ignore it, but in no time, there was a familiar Chihuahua nipping dutifully at the toes of my boots. I stopped and stared down at Tinkerbelle, who wagged her little tale up at me.

Even as I started to turn around, resigning to my fate, a hand thudded on my shoulder.

Elizabeth.

Neesera shot me a look that implied she didn't think I needed to forgo all pleasantries just because we had a dragon to save and then nodded to our friendly hunter.

"Amy! Imagine running into you here!" Elizabeth cried out, seemingly oblivious to the fact that I'd been trying to get away from her.

"Hey," I replied, trying to summon up some enthusiasm of my own. I mean, I was happy to see her, but I had more important things to do, you know? "I thought you were in Australia or something for a while."

"Oh, yeah. I was," Elizabeth's enthusiasm vanished. "They didn't give a fuck what I had to say, so I figured I could do more by coming here." At that, she inspected our surroundings with obvious distaste. "Undercity is cooler, but apparently I can't go there." She crossed her arms, pouting.

"Oh?"

"Doesn't matter that we're neutral," she muttered, walking with me as I began to edge my way forward. Neesera kept pace on her other side. "Humans are humans here, apparently."

"That's too bad. I know when I got ported to Orgrimmar, they threw me in a dungeon."

"You got to see Org?!" Elizabeth looked awed and then disappointed and then jealous and then hopeful. "Was it awesome? Do they have the spikes everywhere still? Did you see the Valley of Honor? What about Strength?"

"I was ported into a really dark place with a bunch of fel abusing warlocks," I replied, trying not to sound as annoyed as the memories made me. "And before I could get over the nausea of being summoned, I was having my arms wrenched behind me and shackled."

"Oh," Elizabeth said, clearly disappointed. "That sucks."

"No kidding."

"This is so dumb," Elizabeth continued, clearly not picking up on the vibes I was sending out that I was in a hurry. "It doesn't matter that we're neutral anymore. Here, humans are humans, regardless of world or magick resistance."

"It's too bad," I murmured, not really listening.

"It sucks!" Elizabeth cried. She stuck her tongue out at a passing guard, who merely rolled his eyes and kept on his patrol route. "I guess it's too hard for them to tell the difference between Alliance and neutral humans…lazy bastards. I wanted to meet the Banshee Queen…"

"Elizabeth," I finally interjected. "I don't mean to blow you off, but we're trying to get to Ironforge and—"

As if everything was conspiring against me, an explosion sounded off in the distance. We all instinctively ducked, as though it had been closer than it was. From the looks of the smoke, it had happened all the way in Old Town.

Before we'd even straightened up, shouts were coming from all around us.

Shop keepers ushered civilians inside and slammed their doors. Heroes rode through the streets and flew overhead, heading toward the curling smoke.

Another explosion went off from somewhere beyond the Cathedral Square—I couldn't remember the full layout of the city. Even as I watched some of the flying mounts swerve toward the new attack place, and some fly back toward the other districts, their riders peering down to try to see if anything was ready to attack again, another one went off in the Mage District.

Of course.

That sounds so terribly self-centered, but…

Bleh.

Neesera swore quietly under her breath as she readied her totems, and Tinkerbelle ducked closer to Elizabeth's shoes, growling. I drew my daggers and Elizabeth her bow.

It was hard to tell where to go. There was Chaos in the air, though most of the flyers had gone to the districts yet to be hit, hoping to stop whatever terrorist acts these were. They left the guards to fight their way through crowds of panicking citizens fleeing from the devastation.

I swung my daggers so that they rested against the leather of my gloves, not wanting to skewer any clumsy civilian running past me, as we made our way deeper into the district. At least for a little bit, I forgot about Brath and his returning insanity, instead focused on keeping pace with Neesera and Elizabeth and warning people to get back inside.

Another explosion sounded in the distance, but we were too far in the winding paths, with the purple thatched roofs blocking out most of the sky to see where had been hit. It had sounded like it was on the other side of town, though.

Neesera was telling people to stay indoors. After all, it didn't make sense for them to get trampled or hit by falling debris if another explosion went off nearby.

The wings from the mounts overhead were beating the smoke back down on us and making breathing in general horrible. On the plus side, it seemed to encourage people to get inside, and in no time we were the only ones wandering the streets, our eyes tearing up and all.

I could barely hear anything through the smoke—no calls, no cries, no flames crackling. It reminded me, in a way, of my home town, when it'd gone under military law. The streets had been so quiet and empty, as if people were just waiting for all the scary stuff to go away.

That alone made me want to end this. I wouldn't let the Legion take another world.

Assuming this was the Legion at all.

My mind raced through the stories I'd heard of other enemies. Surely the Horde wouldn't attack the Alliance now, after everything that happened with Mr. Hellscream….

Then I thought of the new orcs attacking. Supposedly there was a front there already to block them from getting this far north, though.

Even as I wondered what we might be up against, we reached the area where the central tower had been. In its place was a smoking mound of brick and stone. Bodies were scattered about and the whole area was still eerily silent. I could make out the soft whispers of flames now, but even they seemed muted, somehow. It was like we'd entered into some pocket where time and sound couldn't get in.

The three of us, along with a few guards who had managed their way through the smoke to the site, fanned out, picking our way carefully through the ruins. I felt like I'd throw up. Most of the victims here looked like they hadn't died from the explosion or even falling.

Most of the ones I was coming across…their necks had been…snapped was too delicate a word.

They'd been crushed.

Even as I steeled myself—the demons could be this brutal on occasion, so I'd learned to take in more gore than I used to be able to—I saw the flash of a spell reflecting through the smoke and then heard a deep, guttural rumbling.

I darted toward it, only to drop low to the ground as some of the smoke swirled out of the way to give me a fleeting, clear view.

There, just a few yards from me, was an orc. His skin wasn't like the ones I had seen before. Instead of green, he was brown…and bigger.

Even as he lumbered toward his next victim, the gangly mage saw me. The orc paused, beginning to turn his head in my direction just as the wind separated us with another curtain of smoke.

I took advantage of it, carefully moving to the side, not wanting to be in the same place when the creature got another good look.

Even as I tried to circle around, though, there was a sudden rattling of loose stone that seemed to come from all around me.

And then, the figure of that orc burst through the smoke, right in front of me.