Warcraft Non Evil Takeover:

Chapter Four:

Arthas was in a bad mood. Sure the Scourge had technically been defeated {even if it had cost the life one cock blocking Dwarf Prince, who deserved it by official document.} but the fact remained that there were still many, many, many different problems Lordaeron faced.

Not the least of which was the resurgence of paranoia regarding magic users amongst the peasantry. Case in point: the huge crowd of peasants currently swarming around the stage he stood upon, crying for someones blood. He's been just about to begin his journey to Storwind to help his friend Varian with a'Gnoll problem', when he had suddenly bee accosted by an army of yelling peasants.

"All of you shut up!" he yelled at last, bringing out Frostmourne and brandishing it for emphisis, and they thankfully shut up. "Alright then." he said, lowering his voice. "Now what has got you all so upset."

"We found a Mage!" cried one. "May we burn her!"

"No." said Arthas, to cries of disappointment. "Oh what? Like you were expecting anything else! I don't know what Kingdom you've been living in for the last six hundred years but, in Lordaeron we've been using magic for official positions in court for centuries!"

"…We have?" asked on of the peasants, obviously surprised.

"Yes." said Arthas with a sigh. "If you had evidence that she was a Demon Worshipper or something you might have a case, but even then I give her an official trial. Lynch mobs have been illegal before we evenknew about magic."

"Aww…" they said "Could we please burn just one!"

"No! No you can't!" he yelled, at his wits end "Now I am going to go down there personally, and ensure that whatever innocent person you tried to burn at the stake out of spite and set them free! And if any of you have a problem with that…" he motioned with Frostmourne, and they all shut up.

…...

Jaina Proudmoore was not in a good mood. When she had heard from a prophet of terribly vague power that Lordaeron was doomed, she had listened to him where no one else had.

While others had tried to fight the terrible plague, she had prepared for the inevitable, and refused to go to Northrend on what she knew to be a suicide mission. She would lead the people over the sea when the time came when humanity would listen. She acquired ships from Kul'tiras, and mentally prepare herself for the worst.

And then Arthas had won, and everything had gone to hell. Soon enough Jaina had been forced to explain to her father why she had taken half the fleet for an expedition that would not be happening.

After that humiliating explanation all sorts of other questions had been asked such as 'Where were you when Prince Arthas led his forces to glorious victory at the ends of the earth, and got a cool sword in the process.' And 'Weren't you supposed to be investigating the plague of undeath, why did Arthas end up doing all the work.' Or her personal favorite 'Why don't you wear less clothes, and put some makeup on. If you really must insist on being completely useless whenever it comes time to make the tough decisions, the least you could do is show some skin.'

Only one person had asked that question, primarily because she had set him on fire after he'd finished, before he was beheaded by her father a second later. But the point had been made nonetheless.

At some point between Arthas getting back from Northrend she had stopped being considered an independent, powerful, woman with her own goals and personality, and instead become the naïve Princess who gets rescued.

Which was rather unfair, since the current situation had only happened because she decided to make her own decisions, rather than blindly follow her Knight in Shining armor to Northrend.

The irony was not lost on her, and while she knew it wasn't quite fair to Arthas, she could not quite forgive him for not turning evil. She'd never want him dead of course, but if he had been corrupted over to the side of evil or something she would have at least been able to say 'I told you so.'

Though to his credit he hadn't said it to her yet, though that might have just been because they hadn't spoken since that day in Stratholme.

Still, just because trying to act for herself once hadn't really panned out didn't mean that she should stop trying. Which was why she had set out into southern Lordaeron in the hopes of finding her destiny.

…Right before she'd been jumped by a Lynch mob, before being left bound and gagged on the floor of a shed in her underwear, and left out to rot while they tried to get permission to burn her for being a Mage. Fuck her life.

It had happened so god damn quickly that she hadn't even had a chance to cast a spell.

She struggled in her binds, trying to ignoring the sensation of rough wood against her legs, and rough rope against her curvaceous body. The sad fact about being a Mage was that while you could technically use magic without being able to move, it was nigh impossible to direct it. Combined with her lack of sight, and the gag forced between her lips, it seemed that whoever had come up with this idea had done their research on mages in everything except that magic wasn't illegal.

She breathed deeply through her nose, forcing herself to become calm.

"Okay Jaina." she thought. "You can't rely on anyone else to save you in this situation, but you don't need their help. Your one of the most promising magic users of your generation, you can do this."

Yeah, she could. She would escape from this thing without help from anyone.

Working herself backwards with her bare legs, though it was hampered by the fact that they were tied together. Still, she reached the wall. To her disappointment whoever had set this up had been smart enough to remove any tools from said shed, but she managed to find a jagged edge, which she began to work the hemp rope binding her hands against. It would take a while to work it off, or break it, but she could probably-

And then the sound of voice approaching the she reached her ears. She began to work quicker. If her captors were returning she would have to at least weaken the-

"-But why are you releasing her?!" her, came the voice of one of the peasants. "She's a mage!"

"Okay, keep working at it!" she said to herselfas she worked harder at it. "You don't have to get out fully, just break enough of the knots to make it clear you'd have escaped on your own eventually."

Evidently she had missed the response in her haste, because she heard the peasant speak again. "But my Prince, we-"

"No." she thought.

"I don't give a damn about why you decided to do this! You can't just go around setting people on fire for no reason!" came a heroic, dashing, and entirely too familiar voice just near the door.

"No! No! No!" she thought desperately, as she tried to wear down the ropes. She heard a hand reaching for the door lock.

"Nononononononono!" she thought, yet the door didn't open. The sound of the handle banging was heard.

"Where is the key to this door!"

"We don't have it here, milord. It's back at the town hall."

"Good, that will buy me some extra time to get out of here and-"

And then someone kicked in the door with one foot.

"Where is- JAINA?!"

If it weren't for the fact that it would prove them right, Jaina would have been crying. Why the hell did she have all the bad luck?!

"Still…" she thought to herself as she felt him untying her. "At least things can't get any worse."

And then her blind fold came off and Arthas decided to say it. "I suppose that now isn't a good time to say I told you so in regards to Northrend." His smile was slightly embarrassed, and something within her snapped.

She loved Arthas, she really did. But no one in their right mind could blame her for trying to murder everyone that she could see right then and there.

"RRRAAAAGGGHHHH!" she screamed, bringing magical flames to bear upon the surrounding area.

Soon enough she started laughing maniacally as she sent torrents of mage fire flying down upon those who dared act at such, burning their miserable houses to the ground, and freezing their bones to the marrow. "Yes!" she cried, hurling fireballs down upon the villagers that she could see. "Burn you miserable cretins! BURN! BURNE! AHAHAHAHAHA!"

And then someone whacked her on the back of the head.

…...

Arthas stared across the utter ruin of the town before him. Where once there had been green, and colors of life there was now only charred wasteland after a few seconds.

"…So are you sure we can't burn her-" began one of the surviving peasants.

"You had it coming. Now shut up."

…...

Authors Note: Well, I'm back. This Chapter was inspired by two concepts. Firstly, the obvious source is of course Monty Python. But Lordaeron is of course completely different in many ways from Medieval England, and I also wanted to include Jaina.

And then you have the second inspiration for this chapter. Which is examining what makes Jaina's character so interesting. Imagine a Warcraft III where Arthas Menethil remained a steadfast, heroic Paladin the whole thing, with Jaina as his love interest. Chances are that Jaina would have been regarded with indifference by the fan base, or at best would have almost no one who supports HerxArthas.

And the reason is ironically because they are so compatible. One can see from the very beginning of the story that she's going to be a love interest, and what makes the pairing interesting is Arthas turning evil. This in turn forces Jaina to the forefront, to lead the people because no one else is available to do it.

In this universe though, Arthas goes off the Nortrend and kicks the crap out of the bad guys before just kind of shrugging off their xanatos gambit, so Jaina's entire sub plot has turned out to be entirely pointless.

My concept was that she figures out that this was the case. And don't worry, this scene does have a point beyond fan service, though it may take a bit to get across.

If there is one problem I have with this chapter, it's the fact that the actual skit section is cut rather short.