Chapter 14: The Living Shield

As the sun rose on the nursery, the first person to wake up was surprised that they actually woke up at all. Autumn's guardian pinched her arm. No, she wasn't dreaming. She cautiously peeled back the bedsheet, intending to see how close she was to death. No wound was visible.

"Am I dead?" She wondered aloud. She tentatively left the bed taking great care with the side of her stomach, as if the skin was a fragile illusion that might shatter. She brushed the door open, and saw Lewis, Simon and another unfamiliar boy sleeping on the floor of the room.

Joe woke up at the sound of the medical room's door opening. He heard someone coming out, and rose from his blankets to see a confused woman looking out of the door. "Oh, you're awake! Autumn will be overjoyed. Oh, my name is Joe. Joe Raynor."

The guardian stepped out and sat down in front of Joe "How am I alive? I shouldn't have survived that… Goodness, how have the kids been without me? Are they both okay? Is Autumn okay?"

Joe smiled "Well, I only got here recently, but they're all unharmed. Autumn took a leader's role while you were injured, and she got them through everything okay. We have a really skilled healer with us, and we offered to heal you. Oh, I think I missed your name?"

"I'm Selena Mara. Though, the kids have grown up just calling me mom. I should go and thank your healer, I owe them everything. And if you're with them, you can stay here as long as you want too." Selena offered.

"Well, I appreciate the offer, but I'm on a quest to find all of the people like me, the descendants of the heroes. I was planning to leave once I was sure that you'd be alright and that you could handle everything without… Oh, I shouldn't tell you like this. You just woke up from the brink of death. Do you want me to get you some water? Maybe find a seat?" Joe said.

"Oh my, is Autumn… Is something wrong with her? Please, just tell me quickly." The carer said, looking worried.

"Well, I'm sure you know that she's the daughter of two heroes. I asked her if she would join us on our quest, and she said yes, if we could fully heal you and make sure that you and Lewis and Simon would be well-protected by teaching you magic. We've done both, but… don't worry, I'll make sure you get to talk to her before we go, and if you're worried about anything, then I'll do my best to fix it." Joe explained.

"I… see… Well, I… I'm going to need to talk to her about this. Although if you've really done all that for us, then I don't really think I can complain. Could you fetch her for me? I don't really want to search the house right now." Selena looked at the floor, as if it held the answers to every question she could ask.

"Of course! Do you want me to go and get our healer as well? He should probably take another look at you." Joe quickly got to his feet, trying his best not to disturb the still-sleeping boys. He first checked the kitchen, which was empty, and the room he'd taught magic in, which only had Cathori. Tom and Autumn were both in the first room he checked upstairs, and Autumn was already awake, despite the early time. Tom was sleeping face down on the desk, and it was clear that there was only a blanket over his shoulders because Autumn had placed it there. "Good Morning. Your mom is awake, and she wants to talk to you." Joe whispered.

Autumn jumped up and brushed past Joe at the words, with a quick but clear "Thanks". Joe turned to see her scramble down the stairs, still making no noise whatsoever.

Joe turned to Tom "Hey... Tom, the patient's up… Wake up…" He tapped tom on the shoulder, hoping that would be enough. It wasn't. "Tom. You gotta wake up. We shouldn't keep them waiting."

Tom rolled off the chair, and landed face-up on the floor with a thump. "…Mor…Ning." He yawned. A small diode that was left on the bench had been pressed into his face all night. He yawned again. "Night…"

Joe knelt "Tom, no. The patient needs you to look at them now, you can sleep while we travel."

Tom sat up, eyes barely open "Oh… 'kay. I'll go see her." He got to his feet incredibly slowly, and made for the door. "Can you get my armour?" He asked.

Joe picked it up from the corner of the room. "Done. Be careful on the stairs." He said.

They walked in on Autumn and Selena at what appeared to be the end of their conversation. Selena appeared to be at ease.

"The doctor is…"He yawned, interrupting himself. "In. And he just woke up." Tom said.

Selena smiled "Hello there! You must be the one responsible for saving me. I owe you my life. Autumn says you're leaving in half an hour, so could you just give my injury another look?"

"Sure. Could you just lift your shirt, on the left?" Selene obliged, showing off the scarring on the side of her stomach. Tom gently felt it. "Okay, you'll have that scar for life, but it shouldn't ever cause you problems. The healing has proceeded as expected, so you should be back to full power after three weeks, as long as you manage to have at least two meals a day. You can walk and perform other low-energy tasks, and I recommend exercise after the first week, but don't try running or fighting for two. If you injure yourself in any way, then I advise you stop and rest, then return here." He said.

"Excellent. You and your friends can go and make yourselves something to eat. Autumn, we still have food, right?" Selena said.

"Yes ma'am. We have six cartons of apple juice, a loaf of bread, and assorted cans of food for emergencies. Scavenging has been restricted, as we needed to tend to you." Autumn said.

"If you want to, you can give these people one of our cans. They've earned it." Selena responded.

"Thank you, ma'am." Autumn said "Come on, the day's not getting any longer." She sad to the boys.

In the kitchen, Cathori was waiting "Oh, um, hey, Autumn! I was about to go and find you. Do you know if we're allowed to eat any of this stuff? I mean, I have some food in the Firebird if we're not…" She trailed off.

"I've been given permission to provide you and your allies with breakfast. I believe two cartons of the apple juice, from that shelf, and two slices of bread each should suffice. And as for you, Thomas…" Autumn began moving some tins aside.

"You can call me Tom. Thomas just sounds too formal." Tom said.

Autumn stood up, and offered Tom a small can with a green label. "Tinned peaches in syrup. Rare and possibly the most delicious item I've ever found. You've earned them."

"Wow, thanks. Guys, would you like to try this too?" Tom said. There was a course of yeses.

Twenty minutes later, and the group was ready to depart. Cathori was putting the finishing touches on the makeshift front door she'd constructed to replace the one she'd melted. It was only a door from one of the upstairs rooms reinforced with strips of metal, but it was better than nothing. Tom, Joe and Autumn were sitting on top of the Firebird, ready to leave. Tom was slowly falling asleep again, and Autumn was checking her gun was loaded and cleaned. Cathori finished the door, and climbed into the cockpit, as Lewis and Simon waved them off. The engine revved, and they drove off, in search of the next child.

They travelled carefully while Tom was resting, trying to avoid undue combat. However, after an hour and a half there was a patch of extremely dry and sunny land, with soil that was baked into hard, bumpy shapes. The blazing sunlight along with the jiggling was enough to break his rest, and he felt okay to stay awake afterwards. Halfway through the day, in a vale with walls of curved ice, Joe noticed Autumn writing something down in her laptop.

"Hey, what are you doing? You should check out this place, look at the way the light reflects off all this ice." Joe said, leaning to get a better look at the laptop.

Autumn smiled "I'm actually recording notes on the lands we pass through. I'm just taking a picture of each, and giving them a short name. This way, I can find particularly good places again. What should I call this one?"

Joe paused for a moment. It was very sunny here, and the light reflected in magnificent ways off the ice. And when he looked closer, he could see the ice was so clear, that the rock face below was visible. Almost like some kind of crystal… And some of these columns, either through natural phenomenon or otherwise, had very obvious sharp surfaces. "Diamond edge. I think that fits this place, with all these pillars. Though it sounds a bit dramatic…" he said.

"I like that name. It's nice and catchy, which is the most important thing if I want to remember here." Said Autumn, as the land changed again.

At the end of the third day, everyone was in good spirits over the fact the last thing they'd found was an abandoned inn. The roof and walls were overgrown, and the windows had fallen out of some of the top floor rooms, but downstairs was completely protected from the elements. Joe led the party inside, and offered to go and check the storage for anything they could eat or drink while the rest of the group made beds on the floor. He found the doorway to the room was ajar, and it swung open with a creak. Joe looked over the room. There was some fruit on a shelf, half eaten and past its best. Some dried meats were hanging in one corner, although of the four hooks there had been on the wall, two had been ripped out of the wall and were now on the floor, with the ends slightly corroded. Joe opened all the cupboards, finding nothing particularly noteworthy apart from a few strips of beef jerky in a wooden box. This stuff was weirdly common in all these places from Azeroth, he decided. He left it on the counter and went to check the pantry. He heard a scratching sound as he turned his back, and spun around to see if there was something behind him.

The lizard jumped, and fell off the counter in surprise, sending jerky everywhere. Joe walked up, trying to get a look at it. "This lizard again? Either they're really, really common, or you're following us."

The lizard scrambled for an exit, but the only way out of the room was the door, which needed to be pulled open. Joe looked at it, more closely. It had mainly black scales, and bright yellow eyes. It's wings clearly resembled those of a faerie dragon, but had less pronounced tips, and were covered in spikes along the front edges. It had some kind of natural armour covering its thighs and head, and upon closer inspection, antennae that were very thin, and flexible. Its tail was rather long, and had a few spikes along the top. It backed itself into the furthest corner away from Joe, and stared at him. Giving him a good look at the fact it had a pair of chunky, downwards-facing fangs. Joe stepped forwards. It made a sort of spitting sound, and its wings glowed a little. "St… Sta…" It coughed. Joe looked at it in confusion.

"Are you… trying to talk? No, that can't be possible… right? I guess I could just cast my own translation charm… Though it seems a waste. If the target isn't sentient then I wouldn't be able to have much of a conversation. But… Maybe I can calm you down enough to open the door without getting attacked? Here goes…"

But before Joe could begin the spell, the reptile spat something onto the floor, and said "Stay back!" in a voice that sounded awfully like it hadn't been used… ever. It was very throaty, and somewhat deep but still not particularly so. Joe stopped. The object on the floor fizzed, for some reason.

"So you can talk." Joe said. "Look, are you following us? I don't really have a problem with that or anything, but it would be nice to know." The lizard was still looking around for an exit.

"…No. I… thought you were following me." It said.

"Oh… well, we haven't. It seems really unlikely that we'd see each other three times out of pure luck, though. What's your name? You're obviously intelligent." Joe said.

"…I do not have a name. I do not know the name of my… type… of… being." It shook its head. "Words are… hard."

"Oh… sorry. I guess languages are pretty difficult to learn. Still, you don't have a name? That must be strange, I can't imagine having no name. And if you mean you don't know what species you are, then I'm afraid I can't help you there either." Joe said.

"Why are you… not like others?" it asked.

"Not like others? Who are they? What do you mean?" Joe sat on the counter.

"You do not attack me. You do not sound like them. They… I do not know how to talk about them. They look like you. But they have less… self. They are also made of different… things." It said.

"Oh, those bodies that appear everywhere. Yeah, they're pretty nasty. I think they were modelled after my species, humans, but we're mostly different to them. They attack us, too." Joe said.

Tom opened the door to the room "Hey, Joe? Are you in here?" And at that moment, the lizard bolted, slipping through the small gap in the door, past a very surprised Tom, and then out of a window. "Was that the lizard again?!" he said.

"Yeah. Turns out it's intelligent and can talk. But I don't think it's ever actually seen a person before. I wonder where it learned to speak… Anyway, I found a bit of food. Come on, Cathori will be interested to know." Joe replied.

The night passed uneventfully aside from Autumn discovering a Hearthstone board under one of the counters. Unfortunately, it only had two decks with it, so it was a little repetitive. Cathori and Autumn didn't doubt the lizard had been around, they'd overheard Tom's surprise.

The predicted time of the journey had been five days, yet it was only the end of the fourth day when the party came across their destination. Joe was completely confused over this, but he hoped it was more than just an error in the map causing him to reach destinations faster than expected. The house in his view was plated in a golden metal, although Joe doubted it was actual gold, since it had clearly withstood the years without much damage. The Firebird parked just outside the house's front garden, and the four took a moment to get ready. Joe went over his plan with everyone. "Okay, so we don't know how these people have fared over the years, and whether or not they'll trust us. Fighting is absolutely not allowed. If they attack, we're just going to back off. I they let us in, then we should all be helpful, and try to make sure that if there's anybody else in there, they'll be okay without their heroic child. I'll go in as the spokesperson, but if you need to say something, just say it. Now, before I go in… Can you see any traps, Autumn?"

Autumn activated her invisibility and darted around the garden, light on her feet. After a few moments, she returned to Joe. "No, sir. The area is safe. However, I'm not familiar with all forms of technology. Please be aware of potential magic traps."

"Thanks. You don't have to call me sir, though. Let's go, guys." And Joe walked up to the door, followed by the group. He gave it a quick knock, and waited for a moment. "Hello? Is anybody inside?" He called.

A new voice belonging to a grown man called from the window "Yeah, there are two people in here! That door won't open, we've barricaded it with a fridge! You'll have to warp inside. Wait a moment…" The group turned to see one of the stones in the garden pathway flip over and reveal a very unusual golden pad. "Stand on that, and we can bring you in!"

Autumn spoke to the group. "I will go first, in case it's a trap. I'll signal from the window if it's safe for you to enter." And she hopped onto the pad, disappearing.

A minute passed, before Autumn called from the window. "It's safe. You may enter."

The remaining three teens entered the house. It was absolutely not what they'd been expecting, given the exterior. It resembled a normal house more than anything, with white walls, carpet and normal doors. They were met by Autumn and two new people. One was a human apparently in his forties, but had arms that rivalled Orcs for muscle. His short hair and white tank top, along with the fact he was currently a little sweaty gave the clear impression he was into sports. The other person was a boy who appeared to be the youngest of any of the heroic children. He had somewhat messy dark brown hair, which seemed to naturally bunch up into tufts. Joe could have sworn it was also slightly thicker than normal hair. He had a short stature, but still had impressive muscles visible against his shirt. More interestingly, he had pieces of golden armour that only seemed to protect his shoulders, waist, knees, feet, and forearms. The armour looked more suited to guarding against falling off a skateboard than battle against armed opponents. The only part of his body that truly seemed protected by the armour was his hands. Joe stepped forwards, offering his normal handshake. The guardian returned it, with a surprisingly soft grip.

"Joe Raynor. Pleased to find you two alive." He said.

"Joe Calzaghe. Pleased to meet you." The athlete replied. "You all look a bit tired. Come downstairs, I'll find you somewhere to sit. Junior, I think you should introduce yourself."

"Hi! I'm Jack 'Junior' Oxton. What do you think of my armour? Look how shiny it is!" He held out an arm, displaying the heavy-looking gold gauntlet.

"I like the colour. But, well…" Joe fumbled, not wanting to point out the flaws within his first minute of knowing Jack.

"It doesn't look protective enough, am I right?" Jack beamed "Don't worry, this has more to it than meets the eye! These things all create shields for me. I could walk right into an attack and be fine!"

Tom walked up "Oh, man these all generate shields? What else can you do?"

"Don't worry about that right now, how cool do you think Mr. Calzaghe is? Oh, you've got to see him throw a punch, this one time he managed to hit his target fast enough to just knock the head clean off, it was so cool!" Jack seemed to just get perpetually more excited.

His guardian interjected "Don't go too crazy, Junior. Calm down a bit and tell them what you can do."

Jack took a deep breath "Okay, so Joe Calzaghe is and always will be the best boxer there ever was, and ever will be. And he taught me how to fight every single day for as long as I can remember, so I can punch like him, but even if I'm not as good as him at boxing for fun, I have some really cool stuff I inherited from my parents. I can teleport!" He zipped a short distance, to the end of the corridor. "And if I try really hard, I can give people shields, and I can actually absorb my shields to make myself really powerful! Plus I can slow down my own time a bit. But… That's boring."

Joe had a shocked expression "Woah, I knew you would be something special, like us, but you're practically a superhero. That is really cool. I bet you don't have much trouble with those bodies that attack everything"

"Well… yeah, they suck. Although sometimes I find these ones made of tougher stuff. They're really annoying." Jack said.

They reached the living room, and sat in various locations. Autumn sat next to Joe and whispered "He's really annoying. Can I disappear for a bit?"

Joe raised an eyebrow. "I like him. We could always use some extra cheer. But if you want to go somewhere nearby, then okay."

He barely noticed Autumn leave, as the older boxer came in carrying a jug of water and a few disposable plastic cups that apparently had been washed. "We've only got water right now. Help yourselves, and don't break the cups, we still need to find some more of those."

"Okay Jack, I'll tell you about myself now." Joe said, draining his cup. "I'm Joseph Raynor, son of the heroes Jaina Proudmoore and James Raynor. I've made it my mission to find all the people like me: the children of the missing heroes." Joe stopped, as Jack wanted to speak.

"Count me in. I am so ready for an adventure. This is going to be awesome." He said.

"Wow, that's all it took to convince you to join us? Well, thanks. Is this okay with you, Mr. Calzaghe?" Joe asked.

"…Yes. I'm not quite sure how old you are, Jack, but I know I can trust you to stay safe out there. But listen, Raynor."

"You can just call me Joe"

"No, that's my name, it feels weird. Raynor, I want to make sure that I can trust your strength and judgement. Come with me. You too, Jack. I'll need your help setting up the course." Calzaghe said.

Jack froze "Wait you're putting him through that one?" he smiled though, and looked at Joe "No, you can do it. I'm sure you can!"

The party followed the boxer to the other side of the house, where a large garden could be seen, full of equipment, wooden planks nailed into obstacles, and a few practice mannequins, most of which were held together by tape, wood, and possibly divine intervention. Calzaghe picked up the armchair blocking the door, and moved it to one side. They walked into the garden.

"Okay, welcome to my obstacle combat course. The rules are pretty simple. Just make it to the end, without skipping anything. Raynor, you're the leader of your group. I want you to make it through this course in less than three minutes as a goal. Make it, and I'll decide if you're capable of keeping people safe. Follow Jack, he'll show you which obstacle comes next. Are you ready?"

"Yes." Joe said.

"Okay. GO!" Calzaghe shouted.

Joe ran to first obstacle, a rope suspended from a tree. "Get up to the top!" He jumped as high as possible, grabbed the rope and used his momentum to pull himself even higher. He shuffled up as fast as he could, then prepared to jump down, before seeing Jack directly below him. He instead swung to the main body of the tree, and shimmied down that. "Okay, get through the tires!" there were about a dozen tires laid out on the floor in front of him. Joe sprinted for them, and dashed through; ignoring the fact they were full of very muddy water. He looked forwards, seeing a training dummy. "Retrieve the flag!" He ran forwards, and saw a dirty blue flag nailed to the dummy's back. He, reached for it, but his hand was topped by a shield. He drew his rifle, and angled it so the bullet wouldn't risk hitting the dummy itself or the spectators, and fired twice to break the shield. He somewhat carefully pulled the nail and flag out and ran to the next area. There was another dummy, with an arm painted red. "Okay, put the dummy's arm in a sling. As if it were broken". Joe was a little surprised at the sudden medical test, but folded the flag diagonally, and used it to create a makeshift sling. He tied it behind the dummy's neck, and ran onwards. "Right, last thing! Don't get hit!" Jack threw a frisbee, and Joe swerved to the side to avoid it. Both he and Calzaghe pulled out a stack of a few Frisbees, and threw them towards Joe. Joe hit the ground as fast as possible, causing the first two to miss by a long shot, then rolled to his feet to reflexively duck, jump and lunge his way past the little plastic disks. Only ten were thrown in total, but it felt like a hundred for Joe. However, Calzaghe reached his last shot, and Joe was untouched. Joe readied himself for the throw…

And Calzaghe threw it at the bench, where everyone else was sitting. Joe lunged like a cat for a mouse. He had no doubt they were off-guard, and that this was Calzaghe's last way of testing him. As he lunged, he grabbed his rifle by the barrel, and thrust its stock forwards, extending his reach just enough to swat the Frisbee to the floor before it hit a very shocked Cathori in the face. Calzaghe grinned.

"That was pretty much perfect, Raynor. Do you want me to go over everything you did right?" Calzaghe said.

"Phew, yes, please." Said Joe.

"Okay, so first I had the tree. Aside from checking your upper body strength, and of course determination to do this, it was to check if you were aware of your surroundings. You noticed Jack, and didn't land on him, so you passed. Next, the tires. There to wear you down and to check you could stay focused even when muddy and damp. Then the Flag. I was hoping to see you guess there was some kind of catch, and you came up carefully enough that I'm okay with that. The bubble would have gone down to punching, but you used your gun responsibly so I'm okay with that, too. The sling was to see if you could take something unexpected in your stride, and you did indeed, and lastly, the Frisbees. I meant to use them as a distraction, to see how good your friends were at this, but you actually did too well and managed to block the last shot. So overall, you passed with flying colours, and I'm happy for Jack to go with you." He explained.

"Yes! Oh, thank you. Is it okay if we stay the night, though? We've been travelling all day." Joe said, inwardly hoping for a chance to clean the mud off his jacket.

"Of course. Come on, we've got a few hours before the ground men rise. You can get all your stuff dried." Calzaghe offered.

The fight against the bodies was unexpectedly difficult for the night. The majority were grass, but there were a lot of stone foes and even three of the steel ones, which were all obliterated by Tom and his removal cannon. But most interestingly of all was a body made fully of water, that was healing the other bodies. However, Jack punched through their defences and made short work of it, and before they knew it, the invasion was over.

The heroes turned in for the night, and slept well.

Author's notes: So, next chapter there will be a double recruitment. Also, Joe Calzaghe is a real boxer, from my country. Although he's retired now, he was very famous.

Skully: No problem! Have you worked it out yet? And I think Stealth dynamo is fairly different to Ghost protocol, since your invisibility can be broken and you need to channel it without taking damage.

Lucario: Maybe, but you're using a lot of ultimates and other things. If the attack failed your team would be in a horrible position. Also, you will not need to hold in the scream much longer. Just try not to spill it over into other stories when it happens.

Jack's moveset (Warrior, age 15)

Low HP for a warrior

Q: Gauntlet swing, knock all foes in a small arc back and briefly stun them, dealing light damage. Short cooldown.

W: Shield dispersal, give all allied units in the target area a small shield, lasting a medium time. Long cooldown.

E: Psionic blink, warp forwards a medium distance (about twice as far as a Tracer blink, but no extra charges). Medium cooldown.

R1: Danger rush, Activate to consume your shields equal to up to 75% of your maximum HP, and gain 1% Attack speed and attack damage for each 1% consumed. Lasts about as long as Illidan's metamorphosis. Long cooldown.

R2: (Passive) Time field, All damage you take is now delayed by five seconds.

Trait: Shield of the Templar, passively generate shields equal to 8% of your max health every X seconds, equal to up to 40% of your maximum health.