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THE WHITE PRODIGY AND THE RED DISASTER

Mary-Anne ran as fast as she could. She was powerless and had to count on the Lakeshire guard. She tried to stop him, but he had went insane with vengeance. First his family and now him? This was too terrible to comprehend.
"Captain! CAPTAIN!" she yelled as she approached the officer as fast as she could.
"Mary-Anne... don't tell me that the orcs are coming again?" the Captain said worried. Mary-Anne shook her head.
"No, Captain! It's the Rockhill's son, Bradley. He came back and... stormed towards the orc keep, enraged by-"
"Say no more!" the Captain replied and shouted to a female guard nearby, "Gertrude, gather who you can to the stables, we're off to ride for a resque mission!"
Gertrude didn't need to hear more as she saluted and went to rally whoever she could. The Captain turned towards the stables to get ready.
"I'm sorry, Captain... I tried to stop him, I really tried..!" she said bitterly with tears in her eyes.
"I know you did, Mary-Anne..." the Captain replied.

In a few minutes, a squad of Lakeshire guards were riding as fast as possible, towards the orc keep. On the bridge still under repairs, Daros looked above his shoulder from his horse and shook his head.
"Poor townsfolk..." he said, "I think they rather liked the Rockhill boy."
"Yeah, I admit I feel for them." Nina said.
"Of course you do, you're not the cold case which you pretend to be..." Daros replied, smirking.
"Indeed not, that is my job." Sabrine said, getting a laugh from the rest of the Osprey, except for Saroni, who was actually shedding tears.
"Saroni, are you crying?" Meldrinn asked. Saroni wiped her eyes and ceased sobbing.
"I... just..." she stammered.
"It's not like you had the same kind of loss they did..." Nina told her.
"No, but... I still feel for them..." Saroni said, giving it a sniff. Nina tilted her head and rode closer to her elven friend and gave her as good a hug as she could from the back of her horse.
"Poor you... I'll buy you something real nice in Booty Bay, maybe that'll cheer you up." the sorceress said with an encouraging smile. Saroni gave a faint smile back from the middle of the tears. As empathic as she always was, she never brooded over one thing for long.
"Thank you, Nina..." she said.
"Bleh... Yer takin' this way tae seriously..." Arthur said in his usual cynical way, "Tha' was the lad's choice.
"Which wasn't an easy choice to make. Don't be so harsh on her." Daros told the dwarf, who scoffed in return.

After riding a while, the town was no longer in sight and the bridge was also a long way back. Nina looked to the right and pointed at a small light that came from behind a rock. It looked like a campfire light.
"Is that..?" Saroni asked, wiping her last tears.
"Should be." Daros nodded and motioned the rest to approach the campfire. They all took their horses to the camp, where a figure with a cloak and a hood was sitting by the fire. He shifted his look a bit as they approached.
"Who enters my humble camp?" he asked.
"Your new employer, showoff. Put down that fire and jump behind Saroni's back." Daros replied with a smirk.

I got up and lowered the hood, looking at the Osprey with a hint of a smile. This was a very spontaneous call, but in my weeks with these people, I had felt safe with them. Besides, with my family gone and my faith in the kingdom lost, I had no other place. I climbed on Saroni's horse and returned the smile she gave me.
"Need to give any last farewells to your home?" Nina asked.
"Already did. Let's go." I answered determinated. Daros waved his hand forward.
"Our tenth recruit in total has joined us, crew, and we have a long mission behind us. Let's head for home." he said, and we all rode back towards Stormwind... and I began my venture towards my new life... with the mercenaries of the Osprey...

Further west in Ashenvale, the scenery was terribly grim, if even that was enough to describe it. The worst kind of imagery that war of mortal races can cause, was that the Crimson Raven kept leaving in his wake. It's the same as anywhere before, and the sick monster never grew tired of it. On the contrary... the fiend loved it all. He had a sick sadistic smile on his face as he stepped on every bodypart and organ in the gigantic sea of purple blood and flesh. Nothing caused him more joy than knowing he had accomplished practically by himself. So overjoyed he was securing this new destroyed village, that he didn't notice the woman walking behind him.
"Having fun, Kelmith?" said a chilling, yet a gentle voice from behind him. The Crimson Raven turned around to see Leanna Hailstorm, a high elf forsaken woman wearing a black magus coat that reached her ankles and mail armour beneath it. Leanna had a pale-white skin and a hair even whiter. With her glowing ice-blue eyes to complete the image, she was almost like the very definition of cold, and such was the gaze she had on the Raven.
"Lea!" he exclaimed with newfound joy, spreading his arms to meet who he considered a worthwhile person... or something a sociopath like him would consider a friend of sorts. Not that he really remembered what friendship was.
"What do I owe this pleasure to the dead eye?" he asked.
"Your stupidity, 'Raven'." she replied coldly, "your stupidity alone." she continued. Raven lifted his brow.
"You're not here to take me back to Orgrimmar prisons, are you?" he asked.
"I wish I was..." Leanna replied, "I'm just here to tell you to calm down. Someone will have you assassinated soon..."
"I'm scared..." the Raven said with strong sarcasm, waving his hands around, turning away from her to snicker by himself. The fair warnings that Leanna was giving him were hitting brick walls. She gave an irritated look.
"I would not care one bit, if your insane charade wouldn't be a danger to us all!" she shouted. Before the Crimson Raven could reply, she approached him and snapped:
"Our strategy of advance relies on the kaldorei attention being fixed on the Warsong orcs! Now your desperate craving for attention is turning their gazes on the forsaken front! We're all at stake here... try to stick that in your rotten brain, or we're all risking to get killed in this wretched forest, and none of us consider it a worthy way to perish! Think about that, before someone takes you out first!"
"With that said, Leanna turned around and left back towards the forsaken positions. The Crimson Raven snickered and waved the middle-finger after the woman. He was far from done. He looked at the nearby signpost which showed where the roads away from the village led to. Of course he didn't understand the Darnassian runes, but one thing was clear: There were villages left to burn.

I didn't feel like Corporal Rockhill anymore. I had to be a new person now. I needed a new life... And that life was "Blake". As I wondered how my new life would be like, I was looking over weaponry at a pricey blacksmith store. The soldier uniform had to go, so I was now wearing ordinary brown and white peasant clothing.. I looked up for a new shield first. Many of these were of unique design, so the prices were steep. Luckily the new employer was paying. The rest were reassembling themselves as well, but needed only minor upgrades to their arsenals. Arthur on the other hand was visiting the workship nearby, getting his new shotgun. Soon I found a shield... It reminded me of the basic military shield, but had a more triangle-like shape and less weight. I wore it on my arm, lifting it up and down, getting a feel for it.
"Hey, Blake... Come show me that." Daros called out. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that the name was mine. I quickly turned around and walked to Daros. He grabbed the shield and took it off my arm, replacing it with a rather neat and light sword in my hand. I didn't get a lot of time to relish its good look though...
"Think fast..." Daros said and walked past me.
"Huh..?" was all I managed to say, before something struck the sword in my hand. I turned my head at an instant, pulling away. I realized that Saroni had attacked me with her daggers, and she wasn't stopping. Lacking an expression of any sorts, she approached again with repeating, rapid but still totally controlled strikes. Lacking a shield, I was forced to try and parry all of it with the sword in my hand. I didn't know the reason for Saroni's sudden behaviour, and I had next to no time to wonder about it either. With precision, luck and intuition I somehow managed to parry every rapid strike coming at me until Daros yelled: "Enough!"
At that point, Saroni sheathed her daggers at an instant. She whispered a quick apology and returned to do her browsing. I looked around in confusion as the rest of the Osprey nor the shopkeepers seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary. Then Daros approached me.
"As I thought..." he said, holding out a gauntlet of sorts. This gauntlet was one of the proper ones you dream about as a kid. Tough steel all the way from fingertips to shoulder. The custom design was easy to spot from the elegant shaping of the silveru-coloured plates. Even the inner side was cleverly plated still avoiding from making movement more difficult. The plating itself was light, but tough, apparently some kind of material I did not recognize, thus I knew it would cost like hell. I just knew it.
"The shield is only a nuisance. Your greatest potential in combat is mobility. A shield gives you more limitations than worth and makes you slower." Daros said.
"It protects me... and I've been trained to use it." I said with a slight frown as Daros started to plant the gauntlet on my left arm.
"You can forget most of that." Daros replied, much to my dismay. "With us you forget about protocol where you can replace it with efficiency. What you may lack with your shield gone, you compensate with your newfound mobility. As for your training, I'll do a little update on that with the folks. Each kind of opponent is to be fought differently, so we'll all train you. How does it fit?" he finished by asking me. I moved my arm, doing motions, especially blocking motions. It felt sturdy, but not too heavy. It felt safe, but I was not convinced.
"What about projectiles?" I asked.
"We're getting you an armour made of that same stuff. Basic projectiles won't pierce it." he replied. What of enchanted or cursed projectiles?" I asked.
"What do you do to those if you had your shield?" he asked in return.
"Not get hit..." I sighed in submission and nodded.
"Don't worry, you'll be a killing machine." Nina said patting me in the shoulder as she walked past my back. I looked after her and smiled, feeling slightly more assured for some reason.
"She's right." Daros said, nodding, "You'll be a great asset to the team." Before I could reply, the door of the store slammed open.
"Lookee 'ere a' this babe!" said Arthur with a new custom-crafted street sweeper in his hands. I had never seen the grympy old dwarf so happy. It made me smile more, although we weren't the best of friends. The rest of the crew moved in to marvel at the new weapon. I was on the way as well, but before that, the shopkeeper dropped a set of plate armour on the counter. Same material as the gauntlet I had.
"I believe this was fer ya..." the black-haired dwarf said, "Try it on, son. I want te see how I di'."
I gave the dwarf a nod and strapped the armour un myself. The feeling was miraculous. It was lighter than my old armour, but if Daros spoke the truth, it could take a lot more punishment. Moving around, I noticed that the mobility as well was incredible. I nodded to the dwarf and looked at the crew as they now approached me.
"We've got a proper hatchling in the making..." Sabrine said, nodding in approval.
"I am certain, that you will perform well." Meldrinn declared. Arthur as usual said nothing. Daros looked pleased and paid the storekeeper a crazy amount of money.
"Great doin' business with ye again!" the storekeeper said, "'ey pleasure as alwees!"
"Expensive as always." Daros grunted, getting the dwarf's laughter as a reply. Daros gave it a grin and turned back to us.
"I think we're all settled. Let's head out!" he said and walked out with the rest of us after him.

As we reached the harbour and the familiar looking boat, I finally realized to ask something.
"Say, boss. Where are we headed actually?" I said carefully. I expected laughter to be heard, but luckily there was none.
"We've got an estate in Booty Bay that we use as a place to rest and recover at." Daros said, "Brace yourself now. Unless you're using this last chance to chicken out. Booty Bay is run by a cartel, so it's tough justice whenever there is any. Better stay close to us 'til you get used to it."
At that point I really did realize, that I was leaving the kingdom. I got up on deck and took a gaze at our glorious city. Were my chances of much dreamed heroism and glory done for? Would I ever see people cheering at me, looking up to me or revere me in any way? All I could think was... "maybe".
I shrugged it off and said a quiet goodbye to my homeland, as the Osprey kicked off the pier, leaving Stormwind City and the kingdom behind. And with that kingdom, as well disappeared the memory of the late Bradley Rockhill.