The Guns of Northwatch

Take a look into the life of a not-so-ordninary servant of the light!

Topic/Postby Lilandris » 30 Mar 2012, 04:38

The Guns of Northwatch

I’ve had an idea in my head for some time that I finally decided to put to paper; Azeroth set quite a few years into the future. Being the world that it is now, it is inevitably one destined for great progress, both magically and technologically. And seeing as Draenei have an amazingly long lifespan, Lil would still fit in one way or another. So this is an experiment of sorts, meta-fiction, and it will involve a lot of speculation. I hope it turns out enjoyable, but at the moment I have no idea how it will turn out. At the bottom of the story I will provide with word explanations and rough equivalents where possible, anything marked with an asterisk will have an explanation.

Northwatch Hold, Southern Barrens, 0900 hrs.

The ground shook with each shot fired by the mortars and cannons of the enhanced-steel fort, the Horde soldiers were attempting another push across the shoal towards Northwatch Hold, hell-bent on pushing the Alliance out of this part of the Southern Barrens. Lil stood on the battlements of the old symbolic fortress, with the threat of the necromancers and their heresy stamped out some time ago, Lil had taken up being a soldier for the Alliance, though she had no belief that the necromancers were going to be gone forever, and as such she was still the Lightmancer. In the distance she could see the factory smoke from the now Horde-controlled Ratchet. The Horde had bought out the town from the goblins many years ago, The Merchant Coast had been renamed to The Bloodshed Coast around the same time, as the everlasting war between the Horde and the Alliance would place many bloody skirmishes here. From the east the sun cast it’s rays down onto the land and sea, boosting the morale of the Horde paladins, who favored the sun as a symbol. They formed the front of the Horde forces this day, their magics would keep them safe from a lot of the bombardment from the Alliance and would be the most likely force to punch through the bombardment lines.
“They have courage, I’ll give them that.” Lil swept a lock of hair away from her face.
“Th-they sure d-do, Sergeant Len*(2), ma’am.” The spotter next to Lil was trembling a little at the sight of the Horde paladins running over the battlefield, Tauren and Blood elf alike.
“Keep it together soldier, steady your hand and keep your cool, you’re our spotter, and we need you to feed us the intel we need to fire.” Lil looked at the soldier next to her, giving him a stern yet reassuring look.
“Yes, ma’am!” The soldier straightened up and saluted.
Lil was the leader of a sharpshooter team, years of training had made her quite proficient with firearms and armor. Her team was stationed on the western front battlement.
“No time to waste, get to work! Sharpshooters get ready, do not fire until their shields are down or the shot will be wasted, but don’t wait too long, they don’t take long until they come back up!” Lil got down on her knee and into firing position, she steadied her UPR*(1) and looked through the scope, at the moment the scope was hazy as the spotter hadn’t marked any targets yet, when he did, an arrow would appear on the edge of the crosshair to indicate what direction one would have to point the weapon to find one’s target and the haze would clear to allow for firing.
“Talk to me, spotter!”
“Targets sighted, Location: One, two, niner. Three targets!”
“One, two, niner, got it! The middle one is mine!” Lil moved the UPR until her target came into view, a male blood elf. She kept the crosshair centered on the elf’s torso, this sort of weapon did not need head shots, and it was therefore standard procedure to fire at a target’s torso, as to have greater chance of making a hit.
“Wait for it.. NOW!” Lil pulled the trigger as the shields of the three paladins came down, as did the other members of her team. <zzzzzz-KRAKK!>

The paladins fell backwards as the projectiles pierced their armor and bodies, all three of them dead before they hit the ground.
“Keep them coming, spotter!”
“More targets, location: Three, niner, seven, two targets!”
“Those are yours boys!” Lil motioned to the two men to her right.
“Yes, Sergeant!” The two soldiers answered in unison.
Two shots were fired, one dead paladin, the other one got his shield back up in time. Lil activated the radio on her helmet.
“Come in, Earthquake, this is Angel, you’ve got one coming through from three, niner, seven. Over!”
“Roger that, Angel, we’ll clean up. Over and out!”
Suddenly a loud bang from what Lil recognized as a horde weapon echoed through the air, next she could hear the spotter on her left falling to the ground, dead.
“By the light! Get down, down the chutes, now, move!” Lil shouted and the remaining soldiers in the team jumped down their escape chutes, located behind them. After jumping down her own chute, Lil fiddled with her helmet radio.
“Come in, Earthquake, this is Angel, I’ve lost my spotter, we’re blind up here, moving to ground level, Over!”
“Alright, Angel, we’ll be waiting, over and out!”

Lil and her team made their way down to ground level, as they ran out into the square and towards the armory to rearm themselves, Lil looked around briefly, wounded were being tended to and there was much chaos around them. Seems like only yesterday we were still fighting with regular swords and armor, now we fight with power weapons and advanced firearms.
“Incoming!”
A blast from Horde ordnance knocked Lil off her hooves, she fell forwards onto the ground and passed out.

I see faces, faces of the past, old friends smiling and beckoning, am I-, Am I dead? No, not dead, I have some fight left in me!
“Battles rage like fire, the Lightmancer’s light can burn just as much!”

Lil woke as she was shook awake by one of her team members.
“Sergeant Len! Are you alright? Ma’am!”
“Huh, wha-? Yes, soldier, I am alright!”
The soldier helped her up.
“We can’t linger, we should get to the armory!”
“What about the others?”
“Caught in the blast!”
Lil nodded at the soldier as they started running towards the armory again. As they got inside, they rearmed themselves. Lil grabbed a semi-automatic combat rifle more designed for medium range fighting, she still had her sidearm with her. The building rumbled, through the door Lil could see alliance soldiers running up the hill to the upper levels of the hold. As she ran outside, she could see that the Horde had somehow broken through the gates and Horde soldiers poured through in rows, first forsaken, then orcs, and then the tauren, who due to their burliness were sporting heavy weapons of various sorts.
“Fall back! To the upper levels!”
Lil and the soldier ran up the path to the first tower, trying to pick off as many Horde soldiers as they could as they were falling back.
“Deploy the fire bombs!”
After the order was given, napalm bombs were fired into the lower part of the fortress, crude but effective.

Screams were heard, the sound was most unwelcome in Lil’s ears, any dying scream made her uncomfortable, they disgusted her, really. She grimaced.
“We have to keep moving, Sergeant!”
They moved on to the top level of the fortress, still the Horde shelling continued, the two remaining Anti-Air weapons at the top of the fortress were firing non-stop at incoming aircraft and weyvern-riders flying in from Orgrimmar. If they were to be disabled the battle would most likely be lost and heavy casualties would ensue. Lil dreaded at the thought. No sooner had the thought popped into her head than two artillery shells knocked the guns out of commission.
“Light save us. Get ready for incoming paratroopers!” Lil shouted for all to hear, if anyone would through all the noise, perhaps more of a shock reaction. She looked towards the sky and could see it was now full of paratroopers. She quickly ran for the nearest cover, Some debris created by an artillery shell that had hit the rear wall of the fortress and done quite some damage to it.
“Look sharp, soldier, this may be our final moments, remember your pride!”
“Yes, ma’am!”

The paratroopers were a fierce lot, infamous for being exceptionally brutal fighters, bearing their roots in old Horde values and the orc saying “Lok’tar Ogar”, “Victory or death”. They were hell bent on victory and would not accept defeat until they were all dead. As they landed, the fighting broke out in the top level of the fortress as well, casualties were heavy on both sides, but the Horde reinforcements from the air seemed endless, time was running out for the Alliance forces. A tauren paratrooper came to ground and kicked Lil over in the process, his axe at the ready, Lil could see the bloodlust in his eyes, he was only interrupted from swinging the axe at Lil by the last soldier in Lil’s squad firing at him, making the him shift his attention to the more immediate threat, a roar was heard before the soldier was killed by a well-placed axe chop that split his skull. Lil was given enough time by this to pull her sidearm and put a bullet between the eyes of the tauren as he turned his attention to Lil again. The battle raged on as Lil got back on her hooves and grabbed her rifle again.

The loudspeakers in the fortress gave the orders to fall back to the air-platforms, where the flying machines were located.
“...Air support is coming in, everyone fall back to the air-platforms for evacuation!”
Lil made her way to the air-platforms, through the battlefield, taking down a couple paratroopers on her way to ensure her own safety. Before long she reached the last grand flying machine about to take off and jumped in, she put her back against the wall and sat down, clutching her rifle with a blank and grim look on her face as she stared out at the broken ruins of the fortress gradually fading into the distance down on the ground, it would take a long time for her scars to heal, if they ever would. She did not cry or weep, she just carried a stone cold expression the whole way back to Theramore.


*Explanations*:
1: UltraProjectile Rifle, basically an equivalent to what we would call a Gauss rifle
2: “Len” is Lil’s real surname, she took to using it after she signed up with the Alliance forces out of formality reasons.


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Signatur defekt, techniker ist informiert
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Lilandris
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