The end of this Chapter might be a little rushed, but I wanted to finish it tonight, as I'm going to be pressed for time in the coming two weeks, with exams. This is the final chapter of the first part "The Gnomeregan Incident", hopefully I captured the feel I wanted. The pace will probably slow just a little down now, both in update-speed, because I will be studying, and in content, because this next bit is a little slow.

I wanted to start with some action, but this story unfortunately is not non-stop action. Although I'll try to keep it exciting.

Also, don't be afraid to offer criticism, I am doing this to get better, so any suggestions or anything will be taken happily. Thanks for reading, and enjoy.

Chapter Three: Exodus

Either everything was going in slow motion, or the troggs were advancing very slowly. Vimmi would take one step back, and the raw-red flesh of her foot would protest against the movement. The gentle pad of retreat would echo through the hangar, and back at her with the thud of twenty troggs taking one step forward. She was running out of room. Another step, now she could feel the cold metal of the wall pressed against her back, the door was just to her side.

But what was the point in running? There was nowhere else she could go, they needed to escape and this was the only way. If they went back now the rest of the troggs would kill them, the only chance was to fight.

"Vimmi!"

Vimmi snapped back to reality, a bone-club was rushing towards her. She adjusted her wrists and parried the blow, however the force jarred her arm, and she couldn't hold the wrench up, and it fell lazily down to the side. It was about to take its second blow, obviously not affected at all by Vimmi's block. Vimmi and Tozzle could both only stare, neither of them able to do anything.

"Yah!" there was a rush of movement next to Vimmi, and a small blue and white figure slammed into the trogg, sending it to the ground. It was the Peacekeeper. More movement, next to her another six peacekeepers streamed out of the maintenance stairs. So this was it then, the whole town of Vimmi's was evacuated or dead, they just had to get out now.

A few of the Peacekeepers had the whirligig shield and wrench that the first one had, but the others had large Gnomish guns in their hands. The ones with the shields would charge right into battle while the others blew apart the troggs from behind their better armored brothers.

One of the Gnomes pushed into the mess of troggs, swiftly followed by his brothers. They had to move together and quickly, smash open the trogg lines and have their allies with the guns bring down the disorganized monsters. The first Gnome ducked down under a swing, and brought his shield up in a vicious motion, knocking the offending trogg backwards. He followed through with a wild swing of his wrench, causing two other troggs to either be hit or stumble backwards.

The sound of gunfire ripped open the air and three troggs fell into pools of their own blood. The three Gnomes who had shot them, were already swiftly reloading for another barrage. The troggs were massive, and frenzied, and in a tow to tow fight Gnomes had a severe disadvantage. But the troggs were primitive, Gnomes were extremely advanced, they had to use their technology against them.

Vimmi growled, it was painful being so helpless. She could only clutch her arm as the peacekeepers destroyed the troggs, and she nearly cried out in pain when one of them fell. One of the gunmen had winged a trogg, which had flailed wildly and clipped one of the peacekeepers in the back of the head; he fell to the ground and was quickly bashed by the other troggs around him.

This sort of loss was devastating to the plan of the Gnomes, as if they were down a man or two, they could not distract and disorganize all the troggs at once. This was proved, as several troggs, no longer occupied by the fallen Gnome, sprinted off towards the gunmen. Vimmi's eyes widened and her mind screamed 'Do something!' but she was frozen to the spot.

The troggs swarmed one of the gunmen and he didn't even get a shot off, before he was smashed down into the ground. The others however, ripped open the troggs from point blank range. One of the Gnomes didn't even reload after the shot, he just flipped the gun and held it by the barrel, slamming it with a vengeance into the closest trogg, and following through with a kick to the troggs midsection.

Suddenly, Tozzle ran forward and fell near the body of the fallen Gnome. Vimmi cried out to come back, but he didn't. The Gnome took the gun from the fallen peacekeeper and pointed it at the closest trogg. The shot kicked his gun upwards and he had to take a step back to steady himself, anyone who had never fired a gun before would have been thrown off their feet. However Tozzle had often practiced with guns, in fact it was one of the main things he studied, so he was ready for it.

Vimmi clenched her teeth; she was not going to be the only one not helping. The Gnome took a deep breath and then moved forward, past Tozzle to the Gnome that had fallen first. "Yahh!" she shouted, lunging forward with her wrench to scatter the troggs around the body, just for a moment. Vimmi then ducked in, took the shield from the body and readjusted herself into something of a combat position.

It took them a few minutes and another two Gnomes to kill all the troggs. One of the shield-peacekeepers had glanced a blow off a trogg, and was punished severely for it with a blow to the back. One of the troggs had then broken out of the line again and brought down one of the ranged peacekeepers.

All that was left now was Vimmi, Tozzle, the Peacekeeper that had been with them since Nicky's lab, and one ranged peacekeeper. Vimmi fell to her knees... again. She struggled to control her breathing, while she had trained and learnt about combat, she had never experienced a real danger situation like this, and wasn't used to how exhausting it was. The peacekeepers were exhausted too, but they were better at hiding it.

There was a mechanical grinding; it started before anyone could even suggest they leave. All four remaining Gnomes turned to find the sound. It was the elevator; it was finally reaching the top floor of Gnomeregan. It was a very slow moving lift as you had to be careful with the equipment they were transporting usually. The grinding stopped as the platform leveled out and the large dome that stopped people falling down the lift when it wasn't on the top floor was lifted.

Vimmi's heart fell. Tozzle dropped his gun and started to shake. Standing on the platform, on top of the bodies of half of Vimmi's town, was another wave of troggs, more than last time. Vimmi let her wrench fall to the ground and her eyes watered.

"No..." the Peacekeeper from the lab breathed. The troggs didn't wait this time, they charged right for the group. He reached into his clothes and pulled out a silver chain, it had a locket on the bottom; he shoved it into Vimmi's hand. "When you get to Ironforge, find Nefti..." He released the locket and immediately turned back to the battle.

"Yahhhh!" he shouted, running forward, "Run!" he shouted back to the other three Gnomes.

The second peacekeeper turned to Vimmi and Tozzle, "Run, don't let our lives be a waste." He then blasted a hole through a trogg, shouting out insults at the top of his voice, he needed to give Vimmi and Tozzle a window to escape. "Come and get me ya big smelly brutes!" he threw his gun with the last words and took a wrench from his belt.

His communications device crackled, it was damaged in the fight. He took it from his belt and threw it to the side, it was useless now. Only small amounts of voice could be heard through the static, and he knew that it didn't matter whatever they said, this was the end.

'...vents...out...radiation...danger... get out...'

The two peacekeepers were saved the torment of dying of radiation or being twisted into lepers, the troggs had granted them this mercy. The first fell to a barrage of blows from all directions, the second was hit and fell to his knee. He glanced up at the trogg who was about to kill him, and in his eyes burned defiance, he would not die trembling...

Vimmi and Tozzle stumbled out of Gnomeregan, falling to their knees in the snow. The outside wind was silent and still for them. The snow beneath froze Vimmi's hands and brought her bones to pain, but she was too exhausted to get up. Her mind was still reeling, still refusing to believe that today had just happened.

"What is happening Tozzle?" she asked.

"I don't know..." he whispered back, squeezing his eyes shut to avoid breaking into tears.

Scattered around Gnomeregan were many survivors of the incident, most of them collapsed in the snow, some of them crying either in pain or in loss, and some were pacing, confused as to what to do. They poured out of any entrance they could find, but one thing was clear, there was very few of them.

"We have to get to Ironforge," Vimmi said strongly as she clutched the pendant in her hand. She would honour the Peacekeepers wish, he had sacrificed himself to save the two of them. "We have to tell the Dwarves." Vimmi stood, somehow through the pain and exhaustion she stood and helped Tozzle to his feet with her.

The two of them then began slowly walking, even limping in exhaustion, east, towards Ironforge. Those who saw the two of them, also forced themselves to stand and hobbled after them. "Does Ironforge even know what happened?" one of them asked, his face wide with worry.

"I don't know..." she answered.

"No..." answered another Gnome nearby, this one was clutching his hip, a large dry stain of blood marked where he must have been injured, "Even if a messenger had left just as this started, Ironforge would not have received word by now. It will take us the rest of the day to arrive, and that is if we don't all die of this dreadful cold."

"We can make it, we'll get to Ironforge and they'll send people out to help those who cannot come with us now." Vimmi wasn't so sure that what she was saying was true, but it helped a little, and the Gnome who had been panicking seemed to have relaxed a little.

The survivors of Gnomeregan made their way slowly through Dun Morogh towards Ironforge. The only sound was the sad shuffle of their feet, and the stifled cries of those who were injured. Luckily, even though injured, their large numbers prevented any wolves or bears from trying to take a snap at them, and they shuffled without interruption.