I hate zombies. They were smelly, disgusting, and worst of all…surrounding me.

When I stepped into the large corporate office, I saw that the space had been broken up by countless cubicles. The very sight of the place made me feel bored, until zombies popped their heads up from each and every cubicle, almost like prairie dogs. Seconds later, the horde of zombie office workers came rushing at us.

“Oooh gross,” Teri cried out, though that didn’t keep her from fighting.

Teri’s new shield wasn’t very large. In fact, it was pretty small as far as shields went, not protecting a very large section of her body. However, the shield’s small size meant that she could use it to push the zombies back, while still being able to attack with her club, without the shield getting in the way.

While Teri was doing that, Matt slipped around behind the zombies without being seen. None of them had the awareness to see him when he was stealthed, so it was easy for him to get behind a zombie and stab it through the head with his knife, then leap back and do it again. He wasn’t bothering with his paintball gun because his usual steel ammo didn’t do much against these guys, and he wasn’t going to waste the special ammo that Maelyne had given him.

“This sucks,” Cassandra exclaimed in frustration.

Cassandra’s fighting style worked best from long distance and in open spaces where she’d have a clear shot. Unfortunately, being inside an office building was not working well with her usual tactics. Still, she was doing a lot of damage.

An arrow hit one zombie in the forehead and took him down, then the next. If we’d been in the open, she could have rained down a couple dozen arrows at once, taking out whole groups of zombies. It was too bad that she couldn’t do that here without the risk of hitting our allies.

Axe Guy and Marissa fought side by side, using a tactic that seemed to be working very well for them. She created a bunch of illusion copies of herself, then sent them running towards the zombies. While the zombies grabbed mindlessly at her illusions, not understanding why they couldn’t grab the pretty blonde snack, Axe Guy went at them with his axe, tearing them to pieces with little effort.

Randal and stood back and let the zombies come to them. He was wearing some kind of bone armor and wielding a sword and shield that also seemed to be made of bone. Alejandra just swung her massive hammer, destroying each zombie she hit with a single blow.

Becky stood back with me, using my shield wall as cover since the ceiling wasn’t high enough to let her levitate above the battle. She fired beams of light and sparkles from her staff, most of which seemed to either throw the zombies back or leave them completely dazed and confused. I still wasn’t sure about how her abilities worked.

As for me, I alternated between throwing shields on my companions and healing anyone who got hurt by the zombies, which wasn’t happening very often. Fortunately, these zombies weren’t like the traditional ones and didn’t seem capable of infecting their victims.

One group of zombies broke past my friends and allies and came straight for me. I created a new shield wall and pushed it at them as hard as I could. The wall smashed into four zombies and sent them flying back across the room. That was an impressive looking move, but it ate up too much mana to use very often.

“Nice,” Lauren said from beside me. She fired one of her force blasts, then looked around for someone she could heal.

“If you thought that was something,” I said with a grin.

I threw my spear and hit one zombie right in the chest. It exploded from the large damage buff I’d built up already. A moment later, I returned the spear to storage, and then called it back to my hand.

“And to think, you’re jealous of my blasts,” Lauren commented wryly.

“That was cool,” Becky told me with a grin, right before firing one of her own blasts at a zombie.

If this had been a normal competition, the way it had originally been intended, this would have been a bloodbath. We would have had to deal with not only the horde of unending zombies, but also each other. However, since all the champions were actually working together for once, we tore through the zombies in almost no time at all.

Once the room was clear and no new zombies appeared to rush in, Matt exclaimed, “For the Alliance!”

“For the Horde!” Randal called back a second later. The two of them stared at each other for a moment, flipped each other off, then grinned.

“What in the world is THAT about?” Lauren asked in confusion.

I just chuckled at that. “If you’re going to be hanging around me and Matt, we’re gonna have to introduce you to the wonders of Azeroth.”

“Damn,” Axe Guy exclaimed, looking around at all the destroyed zombies. “I’m not seeing any drops…”

Cassandra and I glanced at each other and shared a faint smile. Neither of us said a word about the fact that I’d ended up with all the bonus drops after the competition had been cancelled.

“Hey,” Marissa exclaimed. “I found a key.”

“Me too,” Teri added, holding a fancy looking key up as if it was a trophy. It actually resembled the one that Fraethe had given me.

“There was supposed to be some kind of vault at the end of this one,” I reminded everyone. “But I don’t know if it’s even still there since the contest was cancelled…”

Matt chuckled at that. “Well, it won’t hurt to keep the keys anyway…just in case.”

After we looked over the entire floor to make sure it was cleared of zombies, just so we didn’t get any coming at us from behind while we climbed the stairs to the next floor. There were only two zombies on the stairs, and they were taken out before most of us even had a chance to see them.

The second floor was much like the first, but there were no cubicles. Instead, there was a wide-open space which was filled with zombies.

“Let me,” Cassandra said, pulling out her bow and firing a glowing arrow. A couple dozen glowing arrows appeared beside it in mid-air and tore through the zombies, doing a lot of damage.

“My turn,” Becky exclaimed, running forward and swinging her staff. Suddenly, zombies began floating up into the air and settling up against the ceiling like helium balloons.

Teri had an evil grin on her face as she swung her club around and asked, “Anyone else feel like playing pinata?”

We tore through these zombies with the speed and ease of a well-practiced dungeon party, which filled my heart with warmth…literally. Whenever I threw a shield around one of my companions, or protected one of my allies, I felt a faint but pleasant warmth flow through me. I remembered feeling something similar when we’d been fighting Pfath, though I’d been a little too distracted to pay it much attention.

One zombie came out from a back office, wearing a rumpled suit and tie. He even paused and awkwardly adjusted his tie…badly…like it was some half-remembered mannerism from when he’d been alive. That is, if he’d ever been alive, which I seriously doubted. These weren’t real animated corpses, but something else, created specifically just for this contest. At least, that was my understanding of things, though I could be wrong.

Matt walked right up to this zombie, put his new paintball gun right up against the zombie’s temple and fired a steel ball right through his head, while exclaiming, “Say hello to my little boomstick.”

“I think you’re mixing your references,” Lauren said with a look of amusement.

“You’re trying too hard, nerd boy,” I teased him, getting flipped off in return.

On the third floor, we ran into yet more zombies, though these ones were quite a bit bigger than the previous ones we’d faced. These ones were more like zombie bodybuilders than zombie office workers, and most of them wore security guard uniforms. These guys were stronger and faster, but not really any more difficult to take out.

We went through the next couple floors without much difficulty. It turns out that when champions are working together instead of fighting each other, the competition challenges weren’t actually much of challenge.

While we did this, I held back from attacking any of the zombies myself. Sure, it would have been fun to live out a zombie flick and tear apart the horde of undead, but they weren’t the real enemy. If anything, they were just there to slow us down, so I didn’t want to waste my limited damage output on them. Instead, I was saving my damage buff for when it really counted.

“I found another key,” Becky announced, holding it up proudly.

So far, we’d recovered six of the seven keys that had been spread throughout the challenge, and we only needed three of them to open the vault. Not that the vault meant anything now, but there was still a certain excitement in finding the keys anyway.

Personally, I was a little more impressed by the fact that I ranked up my ‘protect companion’ ability. Since I was using it almost nonstop, that wasn’t really much of a surprise.

It didn’t take us long to finish off the remaining floors and to clear them of zombies. However, once that was done, we didn’t celebrate. After all, the real challenge was still ahead of us, or at least, above us. Since we hadn’t seen any signs of Arakthiel or Kr’aethar within the building, that left only one place they could be. The roof. I could feel them above us. I could sense their power.

“Right there,” Cassandra said, pointing to a specific spot. From the way she held her bow, it was clear that she was thinking about trying to shoot them from beneath, not that it would do much good. She knew that too, which was why she held off.

“Remember,” I told everyone, “those guys won’t hesitate to kill you…or worse. Don’t give them the chance. Try to keep them off balance so they can’t focus on any one of us.”

“And they blocked the Cleaner from opening portals too close to them,” Cassandra reminded everyone, “so he can’t pull us out again if things go bad.”

“It’s do or die,” Alejandra said, standing there with her massive hammer slung over her shoulder. “There may no longer be any competitions, but I am still Vr’iel’s champion and will make him proud.”

Cassandra leaned over and kissed me on my lips. “For luck,” she told me with a smirk. “And a buff.”

There was only one flight of stairs remaining, and with that, we all began walking up it. Of course, they were waiting for us. They’d chosen this place because they knew that sooner or later, someone would come for them again, and they wanted to make us jump through hoops before we could get an ‘audience’ with them. Either that, or they wanted to wear us down a bit before the confrontation. Since they were gods, and unbelievably arrogant ones at that, I was betting that it was more the former than the latter.

The roof of the building was wide open and clear, without any of the antennas, air conditioning units, or other things you’d expect to find in such a location. Instead, there were two gods in human bodies.

Kr’aethar was sitting in a large throne made of crushed metal. That throne was the only thing on the roof besides us and our enemies. From the look of the throne, it had probably been made from the vault which had been placed there the competition.

“I guess those keys won’t be very useful,” Matt pointed out wryly. Then he called out to Kr’aethar, “You know, that thing would look way more impressive if it was made of swords, instead of just a big block of junk.”

About twenty feet away from Kr’aethar and his throne, Arakthiel stood with his arms crossed, radiating every bit as much arrogance and power as his ally. I felt a knot of terror in my gut, remembering what had happened the last time I’d seen Arakthiel. Out of the enemy gods that we’d been facing, he was the one who terrified me the most. Even more than Pfath had.

Both of the gods watched us, though neither of them said a word. At least not at first.

“Pfath spoke true,” Kr’aethar announced in Oraevian, clearly talking to Arakthiel, though his eyes were locked on me. “Maelyne’s champion yet survives and bears a shard of her power…”

“Impossible,” Arakthiel responded, also speaking in Oraevian. His attention locked on me as well. “I consigned Maelyne and her champion to oblivion myself. Yet here the champion stands, somehow still alive and reeking of Maelyne’s power…”

Kr’aethar stood up from his throne and warned, “Power enough to cast Pfath from his mortal host.”

“What the hell are they saying?” Axe Guy demanded.

“No idea,” I lied.

They were obviously speaking Oraevian because they didn’t want us to know what they were saying, so I had no intention of revealing that I understood the language. Fortunately, it seemed Pfath hadn’t warned them about that little detail, since at the moment, I needed every advantage I could get.

“Now,” I said, not wanting to give our enemies the chance to make the first move.

With that single word, everyone burst into action. Alejandra, Axe Guy, Marissa, and Randal all rushed forward, spreading out as they did so. Becky just floated up into the air while giving her staff a dramatic swirl. I almost expected her to pull some kind of magical girl transformation, in spite of the fact that she was already wearing her armor.

Cassandra actually did the opposite, moving back to the far side of the roof, getting as much distance between her and our enemies as she could. She had no place to hide or take cover, so they’d be able to see her. However, I knew that she hoped her bracelet would keep her presence hidden enough so that they wouldn’t pay much attention to her.

Lauren backed up, though remained close to me. As we’d discussed earlier, her primary job today was to play healer and keep everyone’s life topped off as much as possible. My job was to protect everyone as much as possible and heal when I could afford to, and of course, to take those bastards down once I had an opening.

Alejandra charged straight at Kr’aethar, swinging her hammer. He brought up his sword, which flashed with red energy, but before he could block, Randal struck him from the side. Randal slashed at him a couple times with his bone sword, not doing much damage. However, red tendrils began to wrap around Kr’aethar and entangle him.

Axe Guy nearly mirrored Alejandra’s move as he charged straight at Arakthiel. However, when Arakthiel dodged back to avoid him, Cassandra fired several arrows and hit him in the chest. The arrows crumbled away, but while he was dealing with that, Marissa got close enough to blast him in the eyes with a brilliant burst of light, and then she tried to impale him. He reacted fast enough to avoid getting impaled, though she still tore into his side.

I threw fresh shields on each of my companions, then created a new shield wall in front of me. But while I was doing that, I kept my attention firmly locked on our enemies, waiting for an opportunity.

Kr’aethar swung his massive sword at Randal, but Becky took the opportunity to blast the god with a beam of energy. Suddenly, Kr’aethar levitated up into the air where he flopped around without any leverage.

“What was it you said earlier?” Alejandra called out to Teri. “Ah yes. Time to break the piñata…”

Alejandra smashed her hammer into Kr’aethar as hard as she could, crushing a large section of the armor on his chest. Cassandra immediately fired several shots into that area and Randal threw in his own attacks. A couple seconds later, Kr’aethar dropped to the ground with a thud.

“There,” I said, seeing the opening in Kr’aethar’s armor. That was just what I was waiting for.

Using my bulldozer move, I charged straight at Kr’aethar. He saw me coming and raised his sword, only to get hit in the side by Alejandra.

“You truly think you can stand against the god of war?” Kr’aethar demanded with a loud roar. “Deluded arrogance…”

“Maybe,” Randal responded. “But it’s been working for us so far.”

I stood right in front of Kr’aethar, and I could feel his raw power pushing against me. My heart raced with fear and excitement. This was my chance. This was my opportunity.

Kr’aethar swung his sword at me, but I knew my shield wouldn’t hold. He’d torn through my shields before, and I had no reason to believe that this time would be different. Because of that, I threw up a second shield wall so that he’d have to break through two of them. His blade still tore through both my shields, but they slowed him down enough for me to act.

I leapt to the side and slammed my spear right into Kr’aethar’s chest, directly into the weak spot in his armor. There was a flash of golden light from my spear as all my damage was released in a single burst.

“GOTCHA!” I exclaimed triumphantly.

Kr’aethar was thrown back from the attack, with his armor being torn apart and shredded. There was a gaping hole through the armor now, enough so that I could see his ruined flesh. There was blood, and gore, and bone, enough to make me want to empty my stomach in disgust.

“YES!” Teri cried out excitedly. “You got him…”

With Kr’aethar down, I turned my attention to Arakthiel, who was still being kept busy. He was leaping around, dodging attack after attack, and not being given the chance to launch his own. I saw an opening but couldn’t take it. I’d just used up every bit of damage that I’d stored up, and it would take awhile to build it up again.

Since attacking was out for the moment, I shifted back to a defensive position, throwing shields on my companions and creating a new shield wall between me and Arakthiel. Unfortunately, for me to build up more damage, I’d either have to get him to attack me…or my companions. I really didn’t like the idea of letting him intentionally attack them.

Teri rushed in, swinging her club and trying to catch Arakthiel from behind. He snapped around and raised his scythe to block the attack. As soon as he threw a ball or purple energy at her, I summoned her back to my side. I didn’t want to risk him getting through her shield.

Matt had just switched out the ammunition in his paintball gun and loaded it with the special ammo that Maelyne had provided. He fired one glowing ball, hitting Arakthiel on the shoulder where it exploded in a flash of light. Arakthiel howled in pain and leapt away…leaving his arm behind.

“Wow,” I exclaimed with my eyes going wide. “Impressive.”

Unfortunately, as with nearly every other attack, the damage was short lived. Arakthiel’s arm actually flew back to his shoulder where it slipped back into place and healed. In mere seconds, there was no indication that he’d been injured at all.

“Good way to slow him down,” I called out to Matt. “Especially if you kneecap him…”

Matt grinned at that. “Good idea.”

Matt fired a couple more shots at Arakthiel. Arakthiel easily dodged the first and then used his scythe to block the second. Hitting him was easier said than done.

Suddenly, the ground beneath me shook and I felt a surge of power…and not from Arakthiel. I turned to stare at Kr’aethar, who was getting back to his feet. Most of the armor on his chest had been destroyed, along with the chest itself, but that didn’t seem to be stopping him.

“CRAP!” I exclaimed, realizing that I should have expected something like this. I hadn’t received any popup about him being defeated.

Kr’aethar was severely injured, and to my relief, he didn’t seem to be healing the way the gods normally did. Unfortunately, he was still alive, which meant that he was still extremely dangerous.

“Fuck,” Cassandra exclaimed.

Kr’aethar stood there for a moment with red lightning shooting over his body, then he started to stagger over towards his metal throne. As soon as he touched it, the metal began to melt and flow up his arm.

“No,” I gasped, my eyes going wide as I realized what he was doing. “STOP HIM!”

Alejandra immediately leapt at Kr’aethar, but the god snapped around and backhanded her, sending her flying back. Then he stood up, now standing nine feet tall. The metal from his throne had spread over his entire body, forming another layer of armor, a layer much thicker and more massive than his old one. Now, he looked like a giant steel statue, similar to how his real body looked, only much smaller.

“These mortal insects are more vexing than I expected,” Kr’aethar exclaimed in Oraevian. “And Maelyne’s champion has actually hurt me…”

“Indeed,” Arakthiel responded in the same language. “For that, she will face the oblivion she somehow escaped…”

“It is time to crush them all,” Kr’aethar stated.

With that, Kr’aethar stomped his foot on the ground, which shook and shattered. A shockwave exploded out from his foot and spread out, throwing back anyone near him. Suddenly, I found myself flying back over the edge of the building.

“I’ve got you,” Becky called out, firing a blast of light at me.

One second, I was about to fall to my death, and the next, I suddenly stopped. I looked around in surprise, seeing that I was now floating in the air, just like Becky herself was. And when I looked down and saw the ground about seven floors beneath me, I gulped nervously.

“Thanks,” I said, feeling just a little shaken from that close call.

Before Becky could pull me back to safety, Arakthiel leapt at her, swinging his scythe. Becky screamed and dropped to the ground, just barely avoiding the scythe. In the same instant, the power that was holding me up in the air vanished, and I suddenly plunged towards the waiting ground.