A/N: I'm sorry if there's more typos in here than usual. I'm sick, but didn't want to miss my update day, so I went ahead and tossed this up. The story has maybe five-ish more chapters and an epilogue, then it will be done.

Thank you all for reading :) And for reviews!

…-…

He's avoiding me. I know it. You know how you'll bump into someone and they'll avoid eye contact and then mumble some lame excuse to run off? Only for you to find them a little bit later totally not doing what they said they had to do?

I'm at least decent at the whole evasion thing. Let's just say I've been hanging out with the Horde a lot these past few days. Clara has tried to talk to me like a million times—and even Nicolas tried twice, but he gave up early on—but I was able to just point to Miksa or Senta'ri or Fluffy and tell her that I didn't want to keep my group waiting.

Truthfully, it's not just Horde. I've been hanging out with that Russian mage and Isaiah, too. And Neesera and Maevlen. And Cisty and… Okay. Honestly? I'm just giving three people the cold shoulder: Nicolas, Clara, and Derres. The conniving trio.

But I have set my meetings/patrols out—luckily—so that whenever Clara's trying to talk to me, I'm finding myself going to some Horde group, so that it looks almost like I've said, 'Screw the Alliance' because of them.

Like, I understand that they were trying to help or whatever, but it really wasn't their business and to screw with all sorts of people just to 'protect' one person, that's messed up.

I'd totally hang out with Eric, by the way, but he's made himself scarce. I think he might have left New York. Like, seriously. Have not so much as seen the back of his head since the day he ran off in the hall.

And of course I'd love to be seeing more of Brath, but he is also nowhere to be found. Do you think he thought Eric was a threat even though I said he wasn't, and flew him off to some remote place—not hard to find with my world's population decimated as it's been—and even now they're locked in a werewolf-dragon battle to the death?

…

I know, my mind is running away with me. Besides, Brath would win. I'd be really, really mad that he ate my friend, but he would win.

The reason I was ranting earlier about avoidance is because I did see him a couple of times like a day or two after we had sex. He's missing now, though.

It makes me so angry. If he wasn't interested, he should have said so. He shouldn't have strung me along and he shouldn't have slept with me. The last thing he said to me, though, has me worried. As he'd been making some excuse to leave, he'd stopped mid sentence, turned back to me, and said, "We'll talk later. I…you know."

And then he left. Super fast.

I mean, seriously. What the heck?

At this point, I'm thinking he'd better be hurt. Otherwise, I'm going to kick his ass. Hard. And…I don't know. Find those reins and slap them back on. He'll learn to screw around with the wrong person…

Hmmm…I remember not wanting to turn out like Brath, forever ago, but now it seems like I'm slowly slipping toward some of his less than admirable traits. Like plotting against others…

Have I finally been corrupted? Or maybe I'm just not as naïve as I used to be… Meh.

Anyway, I was hanging out with some friends—it was an odd group, really. Miksa, Neesera, Cisty, and, for some reason, Hendric. We were actually talking about guys. Hendric was just offering the occasional belch or manly grunt—whether it was approval or disapproval was beyond the rest of us. I think he might be gay, and I'm totally cool with that, but he's not much of a talker, so it's hard to tell if he was there to eventually talk about guys with us, or just to…I don't know…avoid some of the people who are demanding he brew some more beer for them.

So I was right about Miksa and Rip, by the way. They have a thing going. I guess they met at a literal Crossroads? Some Alliance were being douchebags and raiding the area and Rip was getting beaten to a pulp when Miksa just happened to be passing through and saved him.

I got the distinct impression that the story would have been told with a bit more detail and relish had Alliance members not been there. I also got the impression that she was more of a badass than she let on. When she was telling this one part, she was like, "There were three raiders surrounding Rip, but I managed to distract them and get him to safety."

If you take it at word value, it's still pretty epic. And completely within her skill set. But I've been out fighting with her, remember? Yeah, she can do that stuff, but she can also be pretty vicious. And she and Rip were telling me about orcish bloodlust, so…

I think part of it is that she doesn't want the Alliance to know how strong she really is. Whether it's so they don't figure out the things she's done or the things she could do, I don't know. But she's my friend, so I acted like I believed her story regardless. Maybe I'll ask her about it sometime when we're alone. Maybe not.

Part of being a rogue is being able to tell the truth without it being told, according to Miksa, so I think that if I actually asked her, it might be a step back from what I'm trying to do. But then, maybe it'll help prove whether my 'intuition' or whatever is right. Who knows?

Our little gathering wasn't just about Miksa's love life, of course. Over a few drinks, we learned that Cisty has a thing for Fizz. When I told her that he had a lady back in Booty Bay, she asked if I knew for a fact that they were a couple. When I said I wasn't sure, she just cackled and declared, "Challenge accepted."

Whatever that means.

At this point everyone already knew about me and Brath and there's some pretty mixed feelingsabout it, but the girls—plus Hendric—have agreed to help me kill a dragon, should he have just been using me to some end. Not literally of course—well, maybe literally on Cisty's part…She's an odd little creature.

Anyway, my business was old news—as it'd been three weeks, that's right, three frikkin' weeks—since I'd last seen Brath, so we were trying to get Neesera to tell us about any romance in her life.

She was being all sorts of shy about it, too. It was adorable. We'd finally convinced her to talk and she was just starting with, "Well, there is this one engineer I write to…we are penpals, you see…" When the door to the room burst open and Clara rushed in.

Miksa has picked up on my anger toward Miss Hypocritical-Control-Freak and I'm pretty sure she's had a laugh over it with her Horde buddies. However, the plus side to her observation is that she has sort of been helping me avoid Clara. So she must have heard her coming down the hall, because she started asking me about something—I can't even remember what, how sad is that?—right before the door swung open, so that I was in mid explanation when Clara showed up. And basically could ignore her, if I so chose, so that I could finish explaining.

On a side note, I know we're all different species, but we really are all the same inside. We all fall in love and have feelings and enjoy stooping to petty levels to help our friends get revenge from time to time.

And with Miksa being an opposing faction, it was easy for her to pretend that Clara wasn't there.

I, however, couldn't. As mad as I was, I could kind of see where she'd been coming from. Assuming she was actually trying to protect me. I don't want to think she was just being mean for no reason, you know? So, even though I was still super mad, I guess I figured that three weeks of a cold shoulder was long enough.

So even as I let out a tired sigh and turned toward Clara—side note again: it's been so…normal lately, with gossip and hanging out and all…maybe I'm just adapting or whatever, since we do still go out and kill demons too, but still, it's nice—she grabbed my arm and jerked me to my feet, dragging me toward the door as she commanded the rest, "We need to go. There's news on the warfront."

Well.

Soon I was dragging her. And the others were right behind us.

Okay, so. I haven't really mentioned it before, since I'm almost never included, but there's a conference room of sorts that our base uses for coordination. It's in the hotel, on the ground floor, but the druids did some stuff with the walls so that it's like super reinforced and all.

Also, I should point out people have been working on finding ways to have secure communications links technologically wise that the demons can't hack into. Still no luck with that, so we've been using Azerothian communications means, which involve crystals and magic.

Anyway, so this conference-war strategizing room thing has connections to all the other 'quest-hubs' of my world.

I knew exactly where this was because I always get left behind or out, right? Sometimes, I would wait outside it for info, but it's pretty boring staring at a wall, so a lot of the time I'd just wander off. I never mentioned it before because I guess I didn't want to admit how often I got left out of the deliberating and whatnot.

But anyway, I knew where it was. And it took a lot of self control to slow down and walk through that door. After all, I didn't want to look too eager or anything or unprofessional to all the important people.

When I got in there, though, it dawned on me that I'm pretty much hanging out with all the important people, at least at my base. Maevlen was giving a few people orders as we came up. Something about a possible portal blackout coming, but he dropped the subject and dismissed them as we came up. He was a few shades of blue paler than usual, but when I asked what was wrong, he just whispered, "It can wait."

In the room, it seemed like all my traveling buddies were assembled. Miksa went over and joined the Horde crew—they still separated themselves more often then not, when off duty, but what's that saying? Old habits die hard?

Anyway, Cisty darted over to where Nicolas was standing and kicked him in the shins. It was pretty epic and the way that steel toe hit his leg, I'm pretty sure it hurt more than he let on. He did grimace though.

Eric was there, to one side, leaning against the wall. His arms were crossed and he was frowning, but he did nod to me once when I waved, before looking toward the ground as though to imply he didn't want to talk to anyone.

Zaercia and a few other dragons were there as well. It took me a moment to recognize Brath among them. He'd cut his hair so that it came down to about his mid ear and for once he was clean shaven. I tried to head over to him, but Fizz caught my hand and had me sit with him at a table in the center of the room. I guess he didn't want my drama delaying the super important meeting.

The leader of the vindicators was also there and after a few more people filed in and took their places either at the table or against, the walls, he cleared his throat. I have to say, I was disappointed that none of the crystals were working, as I'd hoped to maybe see or hear someone from another part of my world give a few updates. However, it seemed that our meeting dealt solely with our area's problems. Or so I'd thought at first.

The draenei's brilliant gaze swept around the room for a moment, daring anyone to talk, and then nodded, mostly to himself. "Our scouting expedition was a success…"

As he pointed at maps and documents, I realized where Eric and Brath—and Nicolas and Derres—had been. I guess I hadn't been as good at avoiding those last two as I'd thought. They'd been gone on some super secret mission.

The vindicator's finger thumped hard on one point on the map—it looked like it was a big island, though it could have been Australia for all I knew. I really need to learn geography.

"The leader of the Legion's forces is here, in the Arctic Circle…" he paused to glance toward someone from my world as though to make sure he was labeling the place correctly and then went on. "Because it is harder to get to, it is also where they've been manufacturing their infernals and their main portals for reinforcements."

He paused and looked around the room, his face drawn. His gaze wandered over the different people from my world in the room and then came to rest on me. "Understand this: Shutting down those portals, destroying the factory, and killing the eredar in charge will not cause the assault on your world to cease, but it will cripple their attacks and make them think twice about continuing their assault on this world. It will also give this world time to recuperate and prepare for another attack, though their next one will be likely to be even more vicious than the last."

I didn't like the way he spoke of my world as though he and the other heroes wouldn't be there. Had something happened?

He went on to detail the mission. Pretty much everyone in the room was considred worthy of going—or at least keeping order in the others' absence, should they choose to stay—and we were expected to leave within the hour. Supplies were already being packed for us—including some gear that would enable us to survive in the freezing temperatures up north—and we just needed to gather any personal effects we might need to bring with us. The whole trip, assuming we were successful, was to take two weeks. We were taking a portal there, but would need to fly back. For anyone without a flying mount or with a noisier one, dragons would be aiding us.

I could barely believe what I was hearing as I sat there, my gaze never leaving that vindicator's face. This was really happening.

The real battle to save my world was finally going to begin.

And I was going to be part of it.