A/N: please be advised before reading this. I used to counsel inmates in prison, and heard both inspiring stories of redemption as well as the shocking reality of those who liked the way they were. This story is an attempt to explore some of what I witnessed (through the medium of Warcraft) as well as come to terms with some things I saw.
Please understand, readers: I do not enjoy the characters here. I am not getting some sort of excitement out of writing what evil people do; this is only an attempt to cope with some of the worse stuff I learned of. Nothing more.
This warning will be repeated at the beginning of each of the four chapters. This is a lead in to the much, much lighter 'Before Summer's End.' If this story is difficult to read, then you will learn its resolution in that story and I won't be offended if anybody reads that without reading this.
You've been warned...continue at your own peril.
The sun had risen by the time Mei Guo had led the survivors to a safe haven. For hours on end, they had run, speaking only that which was necessary. Dodging rocks,novo idling crunchy patches of leaves and staying far away from the riverside that would give them away were the topics of what little conversation there was. Other than that, there was no need for words.
He had mixed the poison perfectly. Everything should have gone according to plan. The fleabag fell, pure and simple, and took quite a thump when the two late Orc mercenaries pushed him chest first onto a rock. Yet somehow, some way, he'd managed to get back up. The Hulk got to the worgen husband first, trying to shove the warrior down again for a killing blow only to have his arm broken in three places. One Ear Guy rushed to slash at him only to back away when the worgen grabbed the Hulk's sword. And when he decapitated the dim witted mercenary with it in under one and a half seconds, Mei Guo and his associate ran off.
The mutt man had left them alone, though. Upon beheading the first mercenary, he made a bee line for the second, cutting Wrecking Ball's hand off and then, as if he took some sort of sadistic glee, cut the guy's entire body in half. What an awful person!
Earl had born the brunt of the assault among the three survivors. The female fleabag had almost castrated him after their little tryst and although the human had used his basic healing skills the best he could, the way he walked indicated that his groin hadn't been saved completely. The stench from when Earl had shat in his own pants hung in the air around them for a long time after he had cleaned up, as if to remind them of their failure.
Bruised, battered and bloodied, they marched on. They had no food, no water aside from the river and nowhere to sleep other than the ground. They had even forgotten their stash of stolen gold far back up the road, and none of them dared to follow the road back toward a potential second confrontation with the worgen warrior, not even three against one. The trio was stranded, and by the time they saw signs of life on road under the late morning sun, none of them were quite in the mood to swindle yet.
Searching out a secluded clearing between the trees outside some rat hole called Exarch's Refuge, the three nearly passed out in the dirt. For the longest time, they sat there panting, unable to move. Mei Guo himself had only been shaken and One Ear Guy just lightly traumatized when he had tried to actually fight the warrior head on, but that was enough - coupled with the hours and hours of running - to leave them both winded. Earl, who had the poorest fitness of the three and also had part of his manhood torn out and then improperly healed, looked to be near exhaustion. Lying in the dirt with his eyes closed and his pot belly sticking up in the air, he could have been awake or asleep - it was difficult to tell either way.
The commotion of all the sickeningly happy families at the Refuge irritated Mei Guo, though at least all the attention inside the little makeshift podunk town kept wandering eyes far away from their hiding spot. After what seemed like an eternity, he sat up.
"Fuck mild poisons," he grumbled. "I swear to all that is holy and unholy, I will coat my blades in the nastiest stuff I can make and run that furball through." The gears of evil began turning in his head as the boss thought of another plan. "His armor and sword can fetch a fair price. A place full of immigrants like this will have replacement mercs. Whatever we can plunder from that worgen's corpse will be theirs; that's our sales pitch. As long as we put that guy's head on a pike, our weekend will be complete and we can move on to all the marks hanging around this shitstain of a town."
Earl listened with his eyes closed as he grimaced, more in the horror of how he had been so unfairly violated than at any residual pain. One Ear Guy crawled to his knees and was peering through the bushes, his eyes nearly bugging out of his head.
"Boss, come see this," the orc said with a motion of his hand.
Knowing One Ear Guy never to be one to waste time, Mei Guo crouched low and peered through the leaves, expecting to see an easy target that could get them enough gold to eat and rest. Perhaps a child who had been given an allowance, or an old lady wearing a ring.
What he saw then couldn't have filled him with a stronger second wind, and his enraged growl even prompted Earl to waddle up and see.
Through the trees, they had a clear view of the main wooden gates of the Refuge. A few of the Azerothian races were milling about there with locals, but one group stood noticeably taller than everyone else.
A towering Amazonian woman chatted lightly, her light purple skin, dark blue hair and long ears signalling night elven heritage. Her eyes didn't glow the way those of her kind normally did and she was covered in more tattoos than a Booty Bay side street was covered in graffiti, and Earl became so perturbed that his really good looking combover fell to the side.
Holding her hand like some sappy dipshit was a towering jungle troll with glowing eyes and clipped tusks, implying time served in prison. The volume of his voice and his hand movements weren't exactly socially appropriate for the situation, as though he didn't quite know how to interact with others, and One Ear Guy began cussing under his breath.
And facing the two was a gigantic furry couple, almost as tall and just as pathetic, chatting away like friends. The worgen wife appeared emotionally stable again, somehow having moved on from the obviously deserved humiliation Earl had gifted to her. The husband didn't appear sick at all, as though his system had simply fought off the extremely effective, very complicated poison he had ingested. The four of them joined a pink-haired draenei bouncing around like an idiot and waltzed right in to the Refuge as though nothing happened.
Rage burned all the way up into Mei Guo's throat as his plan of finding any saps to take the front lines in the coming fight with the promise of plunder became more urgent. One Ear Guy tightened his totally awesome headband like a boss and even Earl stood up without strain from his manly beer belly and fixed his excellent combover. The three of them waited for their new vendetta to disappear from sight with a few old vendettas before moving out, intent on searching for new marks (read: desperate mercenaries) to fight their old marks. Mei Guo led the way, flexing his perfect abs as he rose.
"I just found the biggest fucking vendetta I've ever had...the whole bloody lot of them will be DEAD before the night is through!"
A/N: The end...of this sick trip through the mind of three disgusting pieces of shit. For the resolution of this conflict, you'll have to check out the upcoming three chapter "Before Summer's End," which I promise is much more light hearted than this. I'll be going on vacation soon, but I'll have Internet access; so unfortunately, we'll all have to wait a few weeks (not a whole month, just a few weeks) before the first chapter is posted.
For anyone that found this particularly unpleasant or hard to read, I am sorry. This was both an exploration of the depths of evil in a *realistic* way (stuff like supervillains and Illidan and Hellscream are too over the top to be realistic at all) as well as scratching an itch I'd had from some things which had made me very uncomfortable. Hopefully, though, the sacrifice and end of my three pure evil OCs will give some sort of closure in their twisted side-continuum, and exorcise some old demons.