Don't Poke The Bear! (Warcraft/FurbolgSI)

Grommash 'Grom' Hellscream glowered at the oddly satisfied troll witch doctor after hearing him explain what the strange tauren shapeshifter shaman wanted from the Warsong—a male tauren who wasn't part of the tribe the Warchief had saved.

The bull had been crystal clear on the matter.

When this point was made, the orc warlord lost all interest. His hope turned to irritation, and only the witch doctor's insistence on discussion saved the non-Bloodhoof's fate from being immediately dismissed and mocked. He wasn't one to play diplomacy.

This irritation grew into anger after the troll's recounting. Grommash had been wise not to partake in the discussion beyond the fact that the language barrier was a substantial annoyance and his time would be used better elsewhere, or he would have executed this insolent bovine on the spot.

Gorehowl–a weapon of legend and blood spilled across hundreds of battlefields and thousands of lives–was tightly gripped, his knuckles paling. A tauren loyal to the tribe, his brother in all but blood, had come and desired the unthinkable. No, the Grimtotem ordered the impossible.

"He demands that we step away? Does he truly dare wish that I bend the knee under such weak threats? To demand of the Warsong to comply like honorless cowards for crimes of defending ourselves, bah madness! Damn this sacred forest, damn it all! It shall be the foundation of my brother's Horde! That I swore!" the Chieftain of the Warsong roared, smashing his chest with his fist, fury smoldering behind every word.

Thrall's wasteful and wrongful punishment of his clan to cut trees–elite warriors, greatest of the Horde lowered to lowly peons–was one to abide by no matter the disagreement. The Warchief's words were laws; defying them was treachery unless a Mak'gora was declared.

Something that never was to happen.

He obeyed the younger orc's command and would lay his life–his honor–for him, for his loyalty was deep, and respect ran deeper. Though using the Warsong for menial tasks was beyond foolish, its ultimate purpose was most noble—to build a new homeland for the Horde.

But it wasn't only a menial task from the past skirmishes, to his delight. This primeval forest wasn't void of inhabitants, and defenseless they were not. Those warrior women with their males' magicks commanding the tree and animals themselves…

They quenched a thirst–something visceral reawakened by the slaughter of those weak-blooded humans–a bloodlust that had been reignited and ready to be set ablaze once more. And none would temper this process.

"I didn't believe any other way, bossman. But dat be what de messenger said. Dat if we don' stop cuttin' de purple elves' trees, we be taken out by force, and dat his warnin' be our only chance out, mon." The old troll repeated with a scoff, the goldish metallic scale on the tip of his staff reflecting the bonfire's light with the same shine as his aged eyes.

"Then go Kul'narmu, inform this tauren that he is unwelcomed. Let them come. Let them test their words under my Gorehowl. I challenge them to try! I will crush them. Their petty tricks and frail pet plants are nothing to the Warsong clan's might." Grommash declared with a rumbling tone of finality.

A black eagle flew away into the shadowy crown of Ashenvale. Loud screeches from its beak spread across the Warsong camp and announced its departure in the now abruptly silent woods. The sound of the wild was absent, as was the ever-present now absent whistlings of the breeze against the branches and leaves of trees, plunging the world into an oppressive, unnatural silence.

"Who dares defile this ancient land and murder its eternal wardens? Who dares the wrath of Cenarius and the night elves? Who dares scorn my mercy?"

A deep, mighty voice echoed across the orcish camp, and a being resembling a centaur appeared, yet any comparison fell short as he came into view from the trees' shadow. His upper body was of a male night elf with majestic antlers and arms made of bark and the muscular lower half of a stag. All who gazed upon his form knew this was no normal being.

He advanced with slow, decisive steps, his hooves clopping on the grass; each tap sent fear through the hearts of his frozen audience until he stopped on a mound surrounded by ruins. His wrathful bright green eyes stared into the souls of all, judging them, and his verdict couldn't be more evident.

He found them unworthy, despicable pests to be freed from their mortal coils.

Then he lifted one hand, and the root-like fingers shined the purest of emerald light. The following words were lost, but their meaning was clear.

"Now, my warriors and servant of the wilds, cleanse these demon wretches of this grove so that I may mend its wound!"

Like thunder, Ashenvale rumbled as thousands of trees, ancients, and youngs creaked with life at once on the edge of the camp. And the forest moved to him. Thousands split open into cavernous maws, roaring with guttural shrieks as baleful eyes formed, giving the shapes of distorted wrathful visages.

The ground below the trees shook as their roots busted from the fertile soil, becoming bulky armored feet, the grass rolling off them in waves as craters were left behind. Their branches shifted into massive arms, ending in gnarly fingers capable of rendering any who entered their range to broken pieces.

The first to suffer this very same fate was an orc riding a giant silver-furred wolf.

"The forest is coming alive! We're under attack! We're und-!" The wolf rider–a raider–screamed, but a nearby walking tree grabbed his torso before unceremoniously ripping his head off. The loyal stead that was the dire wolf followed soon after by roots entrapping its paws as smaller spirits of nature drowned it under their mass for it to become fertilizer.

Many more followed as chaos exploded across the vast clearing. Orcs, whether they were peons or warriors, panicked as the trees they were chopping fought all of a sudden back with a vendetta. Any who didn't retreat were swiftly put to bloody pieces by the maddened spirits of nature.

No attacks proved worthwhile; the minute damage done seemingly knitted themselves in seconds. Blades barely chipped the living wood while spears bounced off uselessly or got stuck, and maces barely splintered the outer layers if they weren't caught mid-swing.

The realization was simple. Fighting was of no use. It spread fast and wide, but only a minority on the brunt of the frontline could disengage before roots and large hands strangled and crushed them. Not even the famed blade masters, with their supernatural grace, illusory swiftness, and immense strength, affected the roaring trees beyond cutting some branches and smaller ones before they healed.

While slow and clumsy, their foes were undying, stronger, larger, felt no pain, lacked vitals to pierce, heads to cut, and wooden armor no weaker than metal for skin that repaired itself through a verdant green magick. A magick seen in the past battles.

Magic was not any better than the elite warriors of the Horde in the face of the beldam. The magic casters were overwhelmed by the suddenness and sheer number of enemies. Their voodoos and elemental powers proved grievously inadequate to quell the evergreen tide.

Fires were extinguished before reaching their targets by mysterious currents, and the fraction that hit was healed swiftly, rendering any damage null. A similar fate befell lightning bolts as the arcs of deadly electricity were diverted to the ground.

The closer to the forest was the earth, the more it refused to be molded under their wills until it became an impossibility. Finally, water could only minimally assist the frontline through healing and blessing.

But this was only a fraction of what was happening.

The foundation of the outermost buildings had crumbled. The feet of watch towers splintered, and the ones within fell to their death, screaming be their killer the ground or the claws of the marching forest. Structures kept too far from the heart caved in, crushing the orcs and trolls inside, and if not, a similar fate to the firsts awaited them.

To be shredded to fleshy ribbons by limbs of bark.

It was as if the essence of the elements, nature, and the wild themselves made their wrath known, and what a terrifying manifestation it was.

"Steady your ground!" Grommash bellowed, forcing order and rationality into the men and women closer to him. Or tried to as the chaos of the battlefield grew far beyond any hope of control. Every second worsened an already precarious situation.

Around hundreds of these bizarre thin griffins with equine hindquarters flickered in the night sky; their numbers were few, and the Darkspear trolls could easily skewer them. But it wasn't to be. They were also small in number, giving the elven women riders ample freedom to rain death with their bows and arrows.

The even fewer shamans fared no better; the flying riders were weaving at the edge of the verdant army too far for their spells to reach, and when close by, they were protected by the moving forest crown. And the orcish spell casters' focus couldn't exclusively be on them. This new variable added to the rising difficulty of manipulating the primordial forces of nature, amplifying an already present vicious cycle.

The less said for the troll witch doctors, the better, as they numbered smaller than the fingers of an orc's hand. Try as they might, their efforts were invisible, a destiny that was shared among all.

It was a deadly choreography, and the Horde could not respond to paying for this inadequacy in the toll of their blood.

Then, the situation worsened.

Among the rampaging grove, nimble figures danced between branches and roots. Female kaldorei on foot and riding large saber-toothed felines made their presence known by their crescent-shaped blades and precise arrows, killing with the silent swiftness of the winds. Among them were some of their masculine counterparts who healed and shielded friends and entangled foes.

A dramatic opposite to the ways of the taurens of dark and grey fur painted in carmine warpaint marching on the ground. The hulking warriors maneuvered with speed and deftness, betraying their size as they hacked at the invading force, simultaneously weaving behind the walking trees, using them as moving shields.

Horns, mouths, and hoofed feet were used in equal measure to conventional weapons. They fought to kill. And kill they did with any means available.

Their ferocity and viciousness were of an intensity that surprised even the Warsong Chieftain. This trait was shared with their shamans–little may be their population–when their focus wasn't on interrupting the Warsong's own magic users. Water flowed in orcs' every orifice before either turning to ice or drowning their host while hands of stone ripped them apart limb from limb, leaving them bleeding to death or being stampeded.

"The Grimtotem…" Grommash realized, his eyes an eerie glow of rage and rationality. Then his gaze caught on a familiar color–a striking ocean blue–and the only one who had it was this tauren diplomat.

The tauren stared right back, the distance making his smile almost imperceptible yet enough for the blademaster to see as the Grimtotem druid lifted his staff, a green glow shining from the tip, putting the upward lips in evidence. At once, thin blue, thorny vines slowly slithered across the camps.

At first, no one paid attention to the strange occurrence until a grunt stepped on a blue vine, then a troll, followed by a kodo, and then hundreds more of the above—orcs the main victims. Footwear offered no protection against the thorns who dug into their flesh regardless.

Almost without fault, screams of unfiltered agony came out of their throat. The stabbed areas lost all sensation outside of pain–amplifying it–and the sensation and boiling electrified acid coursed through their flesh. They became easy prey or were stepped on by rampaging kodos from the agony coursing through the beasts' soles.

Grom would relish fighting a force of such power at any other time, but it wasn't such time. Victory became an impossibility the moment the first line of defense was shattered from the start, and every moment of retreat hammered itself as an obligation.

With frustration, shame, and humiliation in his heart, he sounded the war horn, the signal for the Warsong to retreat—an antithesis to the clan itself and the highest dishonor, but an honorless death was equally unacceptable.

From the shadow, the cunning eyes of a dreadlord put his plan in motion after witnessing this pathetic display. A plan that was most simple and executed by a simple demand to a compeer.

It wouldn't take long for the Warsong to 'randomly' stumble upon a pond of sickly green water thrumming with energy and otherworldly power. With the demonic temptation and recent loss winning over the Warsong clan, the orcs drink the poisoned gift in liquid form with gusto.

Forsaking their mind to a familiar rage and bloodlust for power. They grew taller, bulkier–better, faster, and stronger–their muscles obscenely bulging with pulsing veins as their taut green skins turned bloody, their new Fel-infused bodies almost rivaling in strength the taurens that had participated in forcing them to flee.

The orc shamans had heard the whispered warnings and chose to ignore them, for their allegiance wasn't to the spirits, and death was coming. It was for the best. This affront cost them much, forcing them to partake in the wretched water, for they had become powerless.

Yet master warlocks they didn't become from this act. Still, the accursed blessing in their veins compensated generously. A fire remained a fire, be it of the elements or chaos, be it orange or sickly green. Their power was limited and straightforward, but it was potent.

Only the trolls abstained from this folly. They warned of the danger but were swiftly ignored and could only passively watch in muted horror and disgusted awe–only one with a metallic scale on his staff was pleased–their brother and sister-in-arms mutated into beasts thirsting for blood and destruction. Words of fleeing to inform Warchief Thrall spread and convinced many.

But this decision was for later, as Grommash Hellscream had chosen, and it wasn't for them to be ambushed this time.

The demonic blood of Mannoroth pumping through the orcs' veins guided them to Cenarius and the force under him. And the frenzied Warsong Fel orcs led by Grommash Hellscream brought death to the unprepared and still recovering army of elves, taurens, and treants.

The trolls witnessed it all, and their desertion came soon after under the command of the leading witch doctor Kul'narmu, but it had no ripple effect on the massacre that followed.

Weapons now hungering for life broke l through the spirits' bark, cutting the walking trees into agonizing pieces of wood. The once fearsome Grimtotem braves, able to hold three orcs per tauren and win, were eviscerated with little effort in the same conditions, for the orcs feared no pain and death, only seeking to inflict both.

Arrows were less than insignificant inconveniences to the demonically fueled orcs. Eyes were pierced and skull perforated, but what were such injuries to one blinded by maddening fury? Only death could stop them, and die they did, in great numbers, as was the price for their recklessness.

The heart of the land had stopped beating.

A decapitated antlered head was held high before all upon a limp body hybrid of man and beast. Upon it was the Grommash, Gorehowl held low in the hand of a wounded arm, he roared to the heavens.

"The demi-god has fallen! The Warsong is supreme!"

At once, the defenders of Ashenvale's resistance shattered, the pillar that was the Lord of the Forest crumbling and forcing an immediate retreat of kaldorei and tauren one from stupefaction evolving into despair as their will collapsed and the other from the rationality of being faced with unwinnable odds.

But the time of celebration for the Warsong clan was short-lived. The triumphant cries of victory came to a halt as the slimy yet dry gurgling laughter of their benefactor from which they so readily drank the blood rang across the battleground.

He was a monstrous creature of sheer power, green flame, horns, teeth, and claws walking on four legs of fate and muscles, as was his entire grotesque form. Two massive yet far two small, leathery wings jutted from his upper humanoid body while a double-bladed polearm with jagged blades larger and longer than the tallest of orcs was lazily hoisted on one shoulder.

"Hello again, Grommash." Mannoroth, the Destructor of worlds, the Flayer of civilizations, and leader of all the pit lords, rumbled with cruel glee.

The Fel orc blademaster in question stared in disbelief, the haze of rage quieting for but one moment, and he spoke with an almost imperceptible quiver in his voice, "Mannoroth it… can't be."

"I've come to bring you and your brethren back into the fold. Though you orcs failed the Burning Legion before, you will serve us once!" The pit lord boomed, a sadistic light shining behind his eyes at the horrified expression of his recovered favored pet.

"No! We are… free!"

And the demon lord laughed.

"Stupid pitiful creature. I'm the rage-hmm?" Mannoroth suddenly stopped, his eyes narrowing at a large flying creature in the sky—a bat that could easily be mistaken for a small, if mature, dragon.

One of those 'Ancients,' perhaps? It certainly radiated a power no inferior to the weaker variety of those overgrown varmints millennia back.

However, it was more the sheer life force it oozed–a lot to the point it was an oddity–that led to his assumptions than the amount of energy, which was, while potent and worth noting, nothing of the like of Cenarius.

The pit lord hummed pensively, briefly considering letting Grommash prove his loyalty to his true masters, but the idea held no sway for another took root. This flying beast would prove a filling and entertaining meal. Strong enough to growl back but unable to do more than scratches.

And killing another of the night elves' magical pets could only be beneficial.

"Yes… I was growing bored of watching." He muttered, though his slaves needed to be ordered first.

*

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