[center][h1][color=lightblue]Donnie and Vivi[/color][/h1] Word Count: 2,215 EXP: (13/50) + 3 (word count) + 20 (Halloween story EXP reward) = [b]36/50[/b] [/center] Donnie didn’t usually need much sleep. But he hadn’t slept for 24 hours now. He managed to stay awake long enough for the conversation with Tora, but now that he was actually walking to the Great Ton Pu Inn with the intent to [i]actually sleep,[/i] the exhaustion had finally hit his body like a ton of bricks. He could barely stand up. But, if he was going to go to sleep, he could at least stand to do an “evening” routine. He had cleaned himself in the Argent Tower, but he hadn’t brushed his teeth since leaving Peach’s Castle! Medieval though it seemed, Azeroth was a deceptively-advanced world once you got past the plate armor, stone castles, and thatched orc huts.. Proper hygiene and sanitation was critical. As such, Donnie made [i]damn sure[/i] his teeth no longer smelled like the Undercity’s sewage rivers (seriously, he knew the Forsaken were undead and all, but would it kill them to make the place sanitary enough that it couldn’t qualify as a hazardous waste zone to anyone who wasn’t literally rotting? It’s not like they [i]used[/i] the sewers they called home!). He visited the local bath for good measure, even though he knew it was unnecessary, and in general did everything he needed for his normal evening routine, even though it was in the morning. [i]Gods, I’m going to have portal lag for a while, aren’t I?[/i] the relatively young grandmaster thought to himself as he finally crawled into bed. [i]Going to bed in the morning and it’s barely been three days since I joined this whole crusade. If I keep staying up all night and getting teleported across the world like that, who [i]knows[/i] what my sleep cycle’s going to look like by next week?[/i] After about fifteen minutes, he drifted off to sleep, only to wake up with a shout. The clock was noon. He looked at his hands, trembling in not just fear, but a slight tinge of anger. That dream...the plague. Stormwind’s fall. The appearance of N’Zoth, it all felt [i]so vivid.[/i] But he knew better. Galeem was trying to play tricks on him somehow. Invading his mind to try and make him give in, trying to make him like Din. N’Zoth had made that obvious enough. N’Zoth was too chaotic, too corruptive. Galeem would allow villains to prosper, but they were always...smaller. The Qliphoth was dangerous, but its roots did not yet leave Redgracoon City. He liked to see things fenced off in their own little areas, unable to wreak havoc. MegaDragonBowser wouldn’t leave World 1-1, but N’Zoth wouldn’t play like that. No, N’Zoth, even in the absence of the other Old Gods, would try to create a subterranean version of the Black Empire, and would make the oceans impassable. All life under the sea would be twisted into insanity-inducing monstrosities, all sailors who visited would either become his cultists, die, or go stark raving mad. Eventually, his armies would move onto land, surrounding the World of Light from all angles and moving inwards until the surface became the same kind of hell as the depths. The Old Gods were proud, clever, insidious, and were willing to wait millennia while they plotted, corrupted, and gathered strength. It was how they remained a threat even after being locked miles below Azeroth’s surface by the Titans. N’Zoth would never accept the control of a being so orderly as Galeem. Eventually, he would move against the great big ball in the sky, and would not stop until he was brought back under control (at which point the world would already be damaged beyond repair), or Galeem was killed. And that was assuming that N’Zoth didn’t just play the long game and whisper things that should not be known into Galeem’s ear from his place in the sea for centuries upon eons, waiting until he could drive the deity insane and turn him into his pawn. Just like how the Old Gods as a whole turned the leader of the Black Dragonflight and Aspect of Earth, Neltharion, into the all-destroying psychotic killing machine known as Deathwing. Galeem would not stand for this. N’Zoth was likely dead. No, to call N’Zoth “dead” would be an insult to everyone who had ever died. N’Zoth was so far [i]beyond[/i] dead that he never existed outside of Donovan’s memories, and never [i]would[/i] exist, except perhaps as a boogeyman for parents in this world to scare their children with should they misbehave. And that brought the grandmaster to the reality of the situation: The mission was still four hours out. He needed to go back to sleep. He turned over onto his side, and slowly drifted into unconsciousness once again. Donnie woke up at 3:30 on the dot. This left him more than enough time to get ready for the mission, and once again he was out in Lumbridge, and after he looked over hs Nopon friend’s handiwork and thanked Tora for the upgrades to the Dwarven Flying Machine, piling into the giant monster truck as he prepared for a bumpy ride. Donnie was many things, underneath his punching-obsessed exterior, but he was not a patient man. A Huojin monk by his very nature, he valued quick and decisive action over inner philosophical debates, yet the act of waiting for a mission to start rattled his nerves every time. He knew, going into every big dungeon and raid, that there was a significant chance that he wasn’t coming back. That the mission would fail spectacularly, and the world outside the target’s walls would be ruined as a result. He just wished that the mission would come, hit him, and be [i]over[/i] already. Whether he was to die or succeed, why couldn’t fate just [i]let it be so[/i] and save him the agonizing, nerve-wracking [i]waiting?[/i] He was gripping the edge of the truck bed so hard that his knuckles were white. He watched as the land gradually started to turn more barren, twisted and infested with monsters the further they traveled, until, eventually, he saw it. That all-consuming blackish-purple void. It reminded him of so many things from his own world, but it wasn’t anything he directly recognized. It was a blight on the landscape, something that simply [i]should not be there.[/i] Donnie started to break out in a cold sweat. What the hell was inside of that thing? The truck jumped the gap, then, while Donnie was distracted with his thoughts. When it landed, he was thrown twenty feet clear of the impact, traveling in a parabolic arc, but he managed to mitigate most of the impact by tucking and rolling. He sprung to his feet, seeing the forces emerging from the bubble ahead. Strange, bulbous soldiers in uniform formed from strange globs of purple energy. Weird monsters that resembled giant armored heads that flew into battle wielding twin swords. And of course, the eyeball-fish. [i]Eyeball-fish.[/i] This place was only going to get weirder, wasn’t it? He was interrupted by an energy beam impacting close to his position. He was already on the move as he caught sight of who had fired it: A Beam Primid, from its cover behind a nearby boulder. By the time the Primid was ready to fire the next shot, Donnie was already parkouring his way up the rock. Its desperate shot went wide as Donnie slammed into its fragile body like a ton of bricks, smashing what passed for its ribs with a devastating palm strike and taking it out in one hit. It flew backwards about ten feet, rolled twice, and lay still, before dissolving back into that strange purple goop it was born from. “Well, that was easy--OH SHIT!” Donnie yelled as five laser blasts narrowly missed him, a whole host of Beam Primids firing upon him where that one came from. He took cover behind the boulder he’d slain the first one at, only for a Sword Primid to come charging at him to try and flush him out. The Sword Primid was a mighty-inspired little beast, but what it had in valor it seriously lacked in every other department. Donnie easily grabbed its sword arm before he could make contact, forcing its noodle-like arm beyond normal rotation and breaking it, forcing it to drop the beam sword. He then grabbed the beam sword while tossing the Primid over the boulder. While the Beam Primids were distracted by their marshmallow-like comrade hurtling towards them, he dashed around the boulder and was soon upon the host of Beam Primids, making short work of them with the Fists of the Heavens, leaving the corpses to dissolve into more of that shadow-stuff. He [i]sincerely[/i] hoped that the purple globs didn’t function like Shadow or Void from his world. He’d had enough of that insanity for a lifetime. He then heard a sinister laugh above him and the telltale sound of a sword swing. He rolled out of the way as an Armight came down from the sky, leaving a deep gash in the ground where he once stood. It swung at him without tiring, aiming for his neck, arms, legs, anywhere it could land a hit. It fought like a fish possessed. Donnie jumped backwards, attempting to avoid the sword swings, though a few of them managed to get through and hit his armor. The Armight was strong enough that they still stung through blunt force trauma alone. Having enough of this, he spotted a hole in the Armight’s guard and smashed it straight in the face with a straight that could shatter bone. The Armight reared back, stunned, before he grabbed its arms, yet more limp noodle-like things, and spun the Armight around, culminating in a slam straight into a nearby boulder, causing its bones to give way and its helmet to crack. Donnie then raised up his boot 180 degrees, ending its life by smashing his heel into its skull with a chi-enhanced kick. It, too, dissolved back into those shadowy globs. That fight had taken a lot out of him. And that had just been one enemy! He was never going to be able to deal with all of these guys with his fists alone--”BREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE--” And then Donnie had to cover his ears as a [i]trumpet-headed man[/i] started to roar at him with the full force of, well, a [i]giant trumpet[/i]. The man wasn’t too far away, Donnie could easily get over there and attack--if only he could get through the damn wind this trumpet-headed bastard was pouring out from his mouth! The Primids nearby saw his weakness and capitalized on it, charging all at once, tackling him to the ground, and attacking him relentlessly. For the first time in a long while, Donnie was being beaten into the ground by a bunch of minions. He really shouldn’t have underestimated them: If he took his hands off his ears to fight back, he’d feel immense pain and probably [i]go deaf[/i] at this rate, but if he covered his ears, the Primids would go back to whaling on him. What was he going to do? Then, the Borboras stopped, for some reason. As Donnie now could get the Primids off of him with impunity, shattering spines and snapping necks, he got to his feet, his ears ringing and his body bloodied and bruised from a hundred punches and kicks, he saw Vivi, having just cast a paralysis spell of some kind on the Borboras. “Thanks, Vivi!” Donnie said, as the Black Mage finished casting another spell: Thunder. The Borboras’ paralysis ended, but instead it fell to the ground, spasming and convulsing as its metal head did an [i]excellent[/i] job conducting the electricity that Vivi’s spell put out. While that happened, Donnie cast Vivify on himself a few times as he got himself back up to 100%. “Thanks, again,” the monk said, taking a moment to catch his breath as the enemies around them began to dissolve, “I owe you one.” “No you don’t,” Vivi replied. “If it weren’t for you, I’d still be a Spirit. I’m just doing my best to contribute, like everyone else.” “Well…” Donnie looked at him slyly. “Want to keep contributing?” “Sure?” --- “WHY DOES THIS THING NOT HAVE A SEAT BELT?!” “BECAUSE TORA FORGOT TO PUT ONE IN!” “THAT SEEMS LIKE A SERIOUS DESIGN FLAW!” “WELL, IT’S BETTER THAN IT WAS WHEN IT CAME OFF THE IRONFORGE ASSEMBLY LINE AT LEAST!” “WHAT DO DWARVES SMOKE WHERE YOU’RE FROM!?” “THEY DON’T! THEY JUST GET REALLY, REALLY DRUNK!” That was Vivi and Donnie yelling over the din of the Dwarven Flying Machine’s engines as the pair unleashed hell on the Subspace soldiers below. The Boom Biters, true to form, exploded gloriously, taking dozens of enemies back where they came from with every blast. Vivi, with nowhere else to sit, sat on Donnie’s lap (the Black Mage was only three feet tall, so it wasn’t as bizarre an idea as one might think in the absence of another seat), casting Stop on enemies below to send their careful formations and ambushes into disarray, and Thunder on any enemies that got too close for comfort. “DID I REALLY HAVE TO SIT ON YOUR LAP THOUGH?” “HEY, WHATEVER WORKS, WORKS! I’LL ASK TORA TO ADD ANOTHER SEAT WHEN WE GET OUT OF THIS, ALRIGHT?”