A/N: So a long time ago, some people expressed interest in seeing more of Michel's story. It's taken me a long, long time, but I've finally gotten around to writing it. I've never written first person from a male point of view, which is mostly why it's taken me so long. I've always been worried I wouldn't represent him right. I'm also worried he'll come off as either too young or too old.

That said, I hope the following does Michel de Smedt the justice he deserves.

Also, as this is posted, so too is the first chapter of Burning Legion II: A Ripple In Time. If you're interested in Amy's continuing story, please hop on over.

Also also, as of recently, I am officially a published author. insert gleeful cackle here My book, Tales of Mysdrym: Ancients Stir is available on Amazon, and if you'd like more information, please check out my profile for the official website and all that.

To everyone who reads my fics: I cannot thank you enough. Without your support, I'd have probably given up on my writing a long time ago :)

Happy reading!

…-…

There are so many stories in our world, that it seems like no matter what happens, there is something you can relate to. I never watched a lot of TV, so I'm sure there are plenty of references I could make, but won't because I just don't know them.

But it's still nice to know that there are parallels out there, even if it's an imaginary character I've never heard of who knows what I'm going through.

I'd like to think that I'm standing shoulder to shoulder with some of the least likely heroes from stories. Ones they did not expect. Underdogs. Ones who are remembered for a long, long time because they saved the people they loved.

It would be a more fitting way to be remembered, I think. That is why, even though I am scared, I know I can do this. Pappa used to say that the mark of a grown up was being able to admit that you are terrified, and still stand tall.

I won't back down.

I will be as strong as Pappa, and Mamma, too.

They deserve that, for all they've given me.

I was a little spoiled. I know that. We weren't rich or anything, but my parents never argued over anything in front of me. In fact, the only way I knew that Mamma was angry was that she wouldn't say anything. She'd clean the table and go to bed early, and Pappa would just shrug and ask me if I'd like to go raiding with him.

We never did the current raids together, just old ones. I watched him play sometimes—he's very good with his rogue. I play an orc warrior, and I'm good, I think. But sometimes I get too excited when my numbers are high, and I pull aggro. Pappa let me into one of our guild's raids once, and I pulled the boss from the tank.

He dropped out of vent when they started cursing.

He didn't raid for almost a month after that, and at first I thought they were punishing him for my mistake. It wasn't until I heard him talking over vent later that I found out he was angry at them for being so hateful. They take their raids very seriously.

Our guild—I didn't raid, but I was a member, same as him—is from all across Europe. They are very serious about their raiding, and I understand why they did not invite me to go again. I always figured that in a few months I would get better and make up for my mistakes.

No one plays World of Warcraft anymore, though.

Even if we could, I don't think we would. Not with them wandering the streets.

But the reason I mention them—my guild, I mean—is because maybe this is my chance to make up for things.

They are serious. They are good with organization, and they are smart, so I know that they are alright. They will benefit from what I am doing. When Nicolas and Amy bring help, the heroes from Azeroth will find them. In burned out buildings and underground bunkers, maybe even in remote country homes.

I just wish I could be there to see it.

I've never really liked Americans. They're arrogant and loud—well, Amy isn't, but still.

That's actually working for me, here. The one leading them, Greg, is so sure that he knows everything. All I had to do was cheer him on, and he believed me when I said that I was helping the demons tie up loose ends.

It's funny, really.

Pappa was working so hard after our city fell, I've tried to model myself after him, the way he would talk to others. He kept people organized back home, even through the chaos. He said the secret was in the tone of your voice. If you sound important, people think you are and treat you like you are.

But, even though he didn't admit it, Pappa really was important. To a lot of people, not just Mamma and me.

He listened to the radio and bounced our internet's signal around a lot so that he could stay in touch with other survivors without the Legion finding us. We were still in touch with our guild leader and the guild's raid leader and his wife when I went to Azeroth.

Our guild leader is from Latvia, and he was hit before us. He warned the entire guild, using his webcam. Later, when we got in touch with him again, he said that a demon cleaved his right arm off just short of the elbow, but he managed to get away. His voice sounded very weak for a while, but he has been getting stronger. I think he said he raided a hospital some time ago, but he didn't want to talk about it.

No one ever wants to talk about what they have to do to survive.

Stealing isn't so bad, but…

There are bad people. Like Greg. One of them found us, following our internet signal, and Pappa had to keep him from telling the demons where we were.

I'd never seen him cry before, but after we'd moved and were safe again, he broke down. It was only for a little bit, and Mamma told me that I should never talk about it. I wouldn't have, but I think…she felt so helpless, too. I think she was telling herself as much as she was telling me.

Mamma thought we were crazy when we first reacted to our guild leader's warning, but Pappa let her think it, not wasting time. Instead, he had set up for us to go visit a guild mate in Portugal. Our plane tickets were just a few hours too late. If we'd gotten the earlier flight, we could have flown out before they shut down the airport.

But then we wouldn't have been around to get Amy's message, so I guess it worked out.

You may wonder about how there are so many people from so many different countries in my guild, when there are different servers with different languages and everything. Our guild is actually very friendly to those who do not speak or read French. Our raid leader's wife is a translator, and she loves getting to translate for people. That alone attracted some of our members. And then there was one member who had accidentally clicked the wrong language and didn't know how to fix it because her boyfriend thought it was funny that she couldn't understand anything.

For weeks, she'd occasionally come onto trade and speak in Portuguese, asking for help and trying out little French phrases. Septa—the raid leader's wife—found her one day, and a friendship was made. She is the top dps in the raid group now.

Well, was. I hope the Legion hasn't gotten that far south yet.

And even if they have, she is smart, like the rest of them. She will be okay.

I hope Pappa can meet Nicolas someday. He has those daggers on his troll. I think he would like to see them in person. I hope Nicolas is nice to him. He is kind of mean to Amy, and I think the only reason he is nice to me is because he sees me as a little boy.

Everyone sees me that way.

The people here, the ones working with the Legion, do too, except for Greg. But he hasn't been around for a while, so the rest of them just kind of ignore me, and that lets me eavesdrop.

These people…these bad guys are just smart enough that they have cameras throughout the city. They watch for any movement and then hunt down any survivors and give them an option. Join the Legion or die horribly.

Some don't even get that option.

It depends on who finds them. Anyone from Greg's inner circle will just kill them or do worse. But there is a man here, Jonathan. I think he is a good man. I saw him whispering to some of the others about something, but he shut up when I came up. Like Greg, he realizes that I have ears.

It reminded me of my father.

When the demons first hit, many people tried to stay together in groups. Pappa wouldn't let us evacuate to the shelters. He didn't trust them. Mamma thought he was being strange, but…I don't know.

I don't know if he intercepted a message or if he just had very good instincts. The shelters were wiped out less than a week after they'd been formed. He kept in contact with others, but suddenly we would move. He made me wear a blindfold. When he first did it, I thought maybe he had gone paranoid, but then, when we hit the street, that awful smell hit me, and Mamma started crying.

I never saw the city streets at their worst. We always stayed in basements or in places with boarded up windows, and Pappa made me wear the blindfold whenever we moved. I was always afraid that I would trip or that we would move too slow because of it, but somehow we were always alright.

After the first month, he gave up on the blindfold. It was sickening to see all the bodies strewn about the streets—I threw up the first time—but they were not as much the people as they had been. If that makes sense? Their features were already rotting away, and I couldn't place anyone. Honestly, I don't know if we were even in a part of town I would have recognized, but I think it was easier to not have seen them as the people they were.

It was still horrible, but…Pappa spared me the worst of it. I wish he'd spared Mamma instead. She always has this blank expression now. A lot of the time, she spaces out and cuts herself while preparing food or weapons. The last time I saw her, her fingers were still covered in old band aids and strips of an old shirt.

She was so upset when she realized that we'd used all the band aids on her, because she'd wanted to send some with me, through the portal. Pappa had told her that they would have medicine and bandages where I was going, but I don't think she quite believed him.

Sometimes I wish that Pappa had sent her instead of me. She was so sad all the time, and she would have been better if she'd seen Azeroth. I'm little and good at hiding, so it would have been okay if I'd stayed behind.

But then, she wouldn't know how to do this. Everything seems to have happened as it was meant to, like there's someone watching over us and guiding us.

Even so…

I worry about them. Pappa said that after the generator powered the portal, they would slip out through a hole in the wall of the maintenance room on the south side. His plans are always good, but…that hole was so far away, and there was so much open space between there and the portal.

I wish there was a way to send them word that I made it through safely.

Or a way for them to send word to me that they are safe. We'd been slowly making our way south, to try to get past the Legion. I hope they didn't run into any trouble along the way.

Enough of this. I need to focus.

There's no one to help me, so I have to be the grown up here. It doesn't matter how scary the situation is, I have to stand tall.

Jonathan reminds me of Pappa. He's making plans, too. And he's careful. But he's not going to let his cover be blown. He thinks that the best way to help his people is to control the portal himself. He doesn't understand that for that portal's success, this base needs to be blind.

Even before the city fell, Pappa had been showing me how to code. I'm very good at it. Better at that than Warcraft. However, when the demons came, his lessons changed. Suddenly I didn't need to build programs anymore. He wanted me to be able to take them apart.

He said that if something happened to him, I would have to be able to hack his system and dismantle it so that the demons couldn't track down our friends through our network. I didn't like the way he talked, but he told me if something happened to him, I would have to look after Mamma, so I took the lessons as seriously as I could.

Now I wish I'd had more time. At best, I've been able to upload a small virus onto their system and glitch a few of the cameras, but the system itself can probably patch half of what I've done. And if Greg or any of the others are even a third as smart as they think they are, they will bring it back up.

So what I have to do is destroy as much of these computers as I can before they can stop me. The guards change in ten minutes, and they'll probably notice the door is blocked from the inside. They have guns and can shoot the lock. I don't know how long it will take them to get past the table and chair's I've used to barricade the door with, but they will.

If only I were a little stronger, I'd have been able to set that up and give myself more time. If I'd been Amy's age when this happened, this would have been a lot easier.

But I've got ten minutes until they notice and then however long until they break in. The one good thing about the demons' attack is that they've devastated so much; it will be hard to find replacements pieces. Hopefully that will give Amy and the Horde enough time to come through the portal unnoticed.

They took some of the group I was with to the basement, but I can't do anything for them.

I hope they understand. This is bigger than any of us.

They will hurt me and kill me once they get through that door, but I have to try not to think about it. I have to stand tall.

I know that Pappa gave Amy a letter telling her to take care of me because he stills thinks of me as a little kid, and I hope that he won't be too mad at her that she wasn't able to do more. With luck, what I do here will make them proud.

For Azeroth. For the Horde. For my guild.

For Pappa and Mamma.

For Earth.