A/N: Thank you guys for the feedback and for reading :3

…-…

So it turns out that the reason my side was hurting when the enemies were bearing down on us was actually because I'd been shot not once, but twice. But it's weird because I never felt the impact and I never realized that I was bleeding as badly as I was. I don't know; I guess I got caught up in all the action?

Well, when I came to, I was kind of upset to find that I was back in the Exodar. Like, I was thinking about all the weeks I'd have to spend going back to the Dark Portal and then through Hellfire and Zangarmarsh just to get back to New York, when Clara ninja attacked me from behind in this massive bear hug.

The woman may be a priest, but holy crap, her grip is strong. Well, she was all petting my hair and saying reassuring things about me not dying—didn't realize I apparently was dying so I ended up less comforted and more freaked out—and it took forever for her to ease up on me and explain what had happened.

So much.

First off, there is now a steady portal straight from the Exodar to my world. There is also a portal from Shattrath to New York. And. It gets better.

I guess the draenei back in Azeroth made contact with some people in Brazil through that second window. They're still going strong. And, a cool tidbit, but there have been refugees coming down from the north to the southern areas. Not like in that movie, Day After Tomorrow, or anything, but little bands of people are 'emerging' from the hell that is the northern half of my world. Like, the Brazilians have Canadians crashing on their couches. Well, it's only like three guys—hard core hiker guys—but still, it's reassuring, right? That people actually can make it from Canada to safety.

And I guess while I was out, Fizz was shipped off to Brazil. The Exodar is like a giant hub of activity now, which Clara seemed to find odd or ironic or something, but I never really asked for details. First off, it has the portal to New York, so Clara's guildmates and her friends and stuff have been marching off to battle. By the way, I was out for almost a full week, so I've, as usual, missed a lot. Second, there's the portal to Brazil. A lot of refugees are coming in and there are a lot of adventurers going to my world to help reinforce the lines of defense or something.

They're working on more portals, too. Like the one they just got working is to Egypt. They're working on ones for China and Australia, too.

Oh, um. You might be thinking, "How does this work? No one can communicate across worlds or half these countries for that…."

Well, that's why Fizz is in Brazil. From what I hear he's very reluctantly shared his translation spell and now he's leading a band of mages through my world, slapping the spell on everyone they meet. Which has serious potential to open up all sorts of doors once they make it to the countries that don't speak Spanish—Portuguese…? Crap, I don't remember Brazil's native language.

Anyway. My point stands. Once they're beyond those borders, it'll be like making the world smaller and more…more like Azeroth.

He'll be back in New York in a few days. Then he's going to the Exodar and then to Egypt to lead another band of mages in spell casting. He's promised to keep in touch with me though, so I'm happy.

If I could use magic, then I could help, but…meh.

Oh. That's another thing I wanted to address. Magic in my world. I'll get there in a minute, but seriously, it's…just wow.

So.

Clara finished filling me in on all the crazy stuff that's happened and on how there's now all these different battle fronts on my world and how apparently the Exodar is temporarily allowing Horde in it so that they can assist my world as well. The draenei really don't like blood elves, but they seem to tolerate them just fine so long as the elves are making bee lines for the portals. I don't think there's been a lot of them coming through, either.

Well, once I'd assured Clara that I was capable of moving and stuff, everything fell to business. I couldn't fathom why she was taking me back to the inn of all places—as I wasn't exactly welcome there after Fizz and Brath's fight—but when we got there, everything started to make sense.

There was this wicked tall guy there. Like, towering over us. Clara didn't even seem to register how we had to crane our necks back to look up into his glowing eyes and purple-blue skin. And long, long shock-white hair. Apparently he is a night elf.

Side note: His name is Kelveris and he's a hardcore raider. Like, he fights monsters with sharp objects and claws on a regular basis. What I don't get is how his freakin' long ears are still intact. It seems like a monster would have swiped at least one off by now—he said he was like ten thousand years old, too, so seriously. How does he still have those ears? Seems like an enemy rogue would take one off to throw off his balance or something.

Anyway.

So we exchanged pleasantries for a bit and the whole time he's eyeing my body and I'm thinking, "What's wrong with this guy?" But then out of the blue, he pulls out a measuring tape.

He's a leatherworker. Like, a really good one. I am once again sporting Azerothian gear. And this stuff is so much nicer than my last outfit. It's soft and snug and not super annoying and I can almost forget that I'm wearing dead animals.

That bothers me. Like, it didn't really register last time that the stuff they were handing me to wear was dried out animal skins, but they were. These people need to be introduced to polyester and that military grade stuff that's not animal.

I'm not some hippy or anything, but I don't want to run into Bambi in the woods and be like, "I'm sorry I'm wearing your mother."

…

Yeah.

So anyway. My clothes are pretty nice. Kelveris tried to get me to do a handspring to see if I thought my clothes were flexible enough, but I'm not that…athletic? When I tried to tell him that, he said I was the oddest rogue he'd ever met.

Whatever.

He's a nice guy though.

After my clothes were made—along with a back up set, which I thought was pretty nice—suddenly they were handing me all these heavy bags and shouldering their own.

I guess it was just expected that I'd be going back to my world with them? Which, I was planning on doing, but I wasn't expecting to be treated like a fellow raider. I mean, surely they have better trained people to go vanquishing evil with them.

I considered arguing that it was a colossally bad idea, but you know what. Maybe it's not. Maybe I won't be good in a fight, but I understand more of my world than I realized. So we'll see.

But as we got to the portal, I nearly jumped for joy, even with all that crap weighing me down.

Because Maevlen was standing there, with a big grin on his face. He was hunkered down with stuff, too. And he still offered to carry some of my stuff. He's so nice.

Well. Maevlen knew to fill me in on all the other stuff I missed that Clara hadn't thought to point out and I have to say…

I missed some of the best moments of this adventure.

Like seeing the Horde and Alliance team up and tear into the base, their shields denting from bullets, but not breaking—apparently obsidium and titanium are really strong—as they did a frontal assault on the base, with Brath breathing fire and picking up anyone who tried to flee from the building.

Or like when the draenei paladins came through that portal after everyone had been evacuated.

Or when Maevlen came through that portal and relieved Fizz and Eric so that they could get their injuries treated.

I guess Eric carried me through the portal? I have to say he doesn't seem like he'd be strong enough to pick up someone else, even little me. But then, maybe he was a werewolf for that?

We were through the portal and heading up the stairs and out into the street before I finally thought about that last conversation I'd heard before passing out and asked about it. Clara tried to brush it off, and our newest traveling companion got this grim look, and Maevlen got this grave look. And it seemed like no one was gonna tell me anything.

But then!

The flapping of wings and a gleeful roar—Brath does not like me labeling anything he does as gleeful, but he can get over it—overwhelmed us and we stopped in our tracks, looking up.

Side note: Derres wasn't killed fighting Deathwing! He's here! In my world! With some of his friends or siblings or whatever. Basically, there's a bunch of dragons—a bunch being like twelve—who are like our aerial scouts or something. I don't know.

But when we looked up, we saw a few other dragons kind of hovering and looking down with surprised/blank expressions as Brath dive-bombed us.

He completely forgot about his rider and shifted back to his human form, leaving Mr. Blackheart to plummet about ten feet to the ground—of course it was that stupid sack of bones—and caught me in a suffocating hug. And then he glared at Clara and the others as though to make a point of showing that no, he was not happy to see them.

Brath's social graces were lacking as usual and his version of being a chivalrous knight was taking my heavy bags and tossing them to Mr. Blackheart. The Forsaken tossed one back at him and Brath grudgingly carried it. I figured that warlock would go off on him for doing it, but that was when I saw that he was actually happy. To see me.

I'm still not too sure on that. Like, I don't know what exactly I did to make him think I was worth keeping around. But yeah. Maybe it's like I'm his friend's girlfriend so he likes me by default or just to make Brath happy?

They're both sociopaths, so it's kinda hard to tell sometimes.

Oh, while Brath was taking my things, he'd just cleared one of my arms when suddenly Kelveris dropped one of his heavier bags onto my shoulder and I nearly fell over. Brath had it off my arm and was about to shoulder it himself when he sniffed the air and glared at the elf. And threw the bag back at him while Kelveris grinned.

Well, after introductions were tossed around and our evil duo guides insisted on leading us to the 'inn'—which was a legit hotel, and actually the very one Nicolas and I had spied on the human base from just before our infiltration—it occurred to me that no one had answered my question about that conversation, so I asked Brath, figuring he'd tell me.

Well. He didn't know anything about any problems with any portals and started his whole, "I think you would like to ask a mage," line when Mr. Blackheart spoke up, since he'd been there for the whole thing, tied up in the corner as everyone forgot to unbind the dead guy.

When they were trying to make the portal back to the Exodar, Fizz and Eric were too weak to use his robe as a focal point thing, so they had to improvise. Now, while they'd been striving in vain, Nicolas had let one of his beloved blades leave his hand. He gave it to one of the loyalists to help cut free the other prisoners so that they'd stand a fighting chance if the enemies came through the one tiny door separating them from us. And when the duo hadn't been able to make the portal, the guy with the dagger had put two and two together and realized they needed something from their world, so he handed them the legendary weapon to use.

Remember what happened to my goggles? Yeah. Nicolas' left dagger is now a pile of dust, scattered across the room by the constant traffic from the portal.

So…when I heard that…I didn't mean to, but I totally cackled.

Clara's kind of mad at me, but Kelveris thought it was funny that I can't stand Nicolas and would be pleased with his misfortune. His words, not mine. Though it's true enough…

Meh. I can feel bad for the guy and still think what happened was funny. And Brath and Mr. Blackheart were amused as well. Which, I suppose means I don't really stand in good company…hmm…

Everything was going so well that I didn't want to focus on the fact that I might be leaning a little toward the evil side—I can always blame it on the fel magic that was still in my system—and I started to really look around, because the people before us had picked up the place.

Well, while we were walking, it was so cool. There were humans and draenei and other creatures walking in small groups, with weapons. Some people were fixing up streetlights, others were teaching groups of draenei and Azerothians about our styles of guns. There was even a night elf duo who were trying—and somewhat succeeding—to restore a small garden in front of one of the buildings that had been previously covered by a thrown car.

As I looked at everyone and everything happening around us, it dawned on me.

The base, as you probably figured out, is ours.

More than that. We have almost six New York City blocks under our control. That might not seem like much, but that seems like a lot to have secured in a single week. And we're still expanding as we get more weathered veterans from Azeroth's wars.

Maybe things will change tomorrow, maybe something awful will happen, but right now, we're turning the tides and I think everyone can feel it.

We're going to get our world back.