by Milton Garby
Crack! Zap! Snap! Ruby beams continued to extend from Kil'jaeden's hand, flashes of light in the darkness surrounding him. He fought valiantly, dealing more damage on his own than all four Aspects combined. He flapped his wings, trying to clear away the tornado of attacks, and blasted away the thrashing limbs that sought his blood.
But, just as with the Aspects, it was not to be. From all around Yogg-Saron's body, orbs of smoky magic arced through the air and crashed upon its own flesh. They burst open and spilled empowering shadows onto its form, reviving the dead tentacles with a sound not unlike that of a mana bomb. Each time Kil'jaeden repelled the attacks around him, they closed back in just a little faster. Each time, the physical attacks grew a little closer to him, and the finger of death's pulsating light grew just a little dimmer as he was literally smothered in magical attacks.
Then Yogg-Saron's tentacles got to him. Constrictor tentacles wound around his limbs and held them spread eagle, pulling hard enough to nearly rip them off. A trio of them wound around the eredar lord's neck and squeezed, while crusher tentacles wrapped around his torso and tightened until ribs broke. Even then, Kil'jaeden refused to relent. His muscles flexed, bringing his arms in. His talons scraped along Yogg-Saron's tentacles, drawing black blood that instantly thickened upon exposure to the air. The Deceiver growled and tried to pry the tentacles off his neck, but it was no use. Yogg-Saron replaced them just as fast as he dislodged them, continuing its magical onslaught.
It inspected him from all angles, inside and out, wondering what to do. It could keep Kil'jaeden around. It could farm endless torture and misery off of him and... and...
A'dal's words returned to it. I merely ask you... do as those you care about would wish you to do.
Ignoring what that meant for the Liberality Confederacy and the dragons, what would Mom, Dad, and Leira want it to do? Would they want it to keep him around as a toy? As a stress ball? No, no they wouldn't. They'd want it to kill him, to make sure he could never hurt anyone ever again. End the nightmare. Stop the madness. They would want it to show mercy by having none. And that was exactly what Yogg-Saron would do. And not just to Kil'jaeden, but to every leader of the Legion on the planet. Tichondrius, Mephistroph, all of them. It would shatter them all, break the back of the Legion and utterly destroy what so many believed was the greatest scourge to ever travel the stars.
Yogg-Saron extended its magic. At one point it felt its own corruption seething within a nathrezim. The same dreadlord it had, so long ago, corrupted and killed in Nethergarde. As a human it couldn't even notice it was there, but now Yogg-Saron called to the corruption and it boiled over, devouring the dreadlord's soul and erasing it from existence.
It found and summoned the other leaders of the Legion to it, every single one that dared come to its planet. They shrieked and were silenced instantly as its tentacles wrapped them up. Kil'jaeden's struggles, while still ongoing, were weakening. Yogg-Saron considered taunting them, saying something like 'Get off of my planet'. But instead it wordlessly reached its vast powers of death into their souls and erased every single one of them. The demons' bodies cracked like glass and shattered, fading away into smoke. Kil'jaeden was the last, exploding with the sound of chiming church bells.
It was done. The Burning Legion, as an entity, was no more. Just a few straggler demons that, if the mortals didn't clean up, it would. Yogg-Saron had accomplished its goal.
... now what?
Leira
She stared over the side of the Skybreaker. Far below, the ocean churned as it gravitated north. The wind howled through her helmet and rustled her hair, carrying with it the stench of death and the occasional mote of darkness. All around her soldiers ran, readying cannons and guns, all of the hundreds of weapons they'd managed to pack onto the Skybreaker at a moment's notice and smuggle out of besieged Ironforge. The sky was dark and blue, and it'd been like that for a while. Ever since she was nearly blown off her hooves by the shockwave, it'd been dark no matter what position the sun took.
"I can't believe she actually did it," she muttered, stealing a glance to the north. It was hard to see from so far off, but it was definitely there. A thick black line on the horizon, squirming and writhing in place. The Old God of Death. Hope's End. Yogg-Saron. And they were traveling there, full speed, to try and kill it.
Leira didn't feel guilty about it, even if that was Sara. She knew they were too late. She hadn't been fast enough. Even with the Kingslayers racing ahead, they clearly hadn't gotten there in time. She didn't feel guilty, because there was nothing they could do to hurt an unshackled Old God.
Azeroth had lost.
Her gut twisted uneasily at that thought. The planet had endured so, so much, but she supposed it was only a matter of time, wasn't it? So many catastrophes, one after another... throw enough darts and one of them's bound to be a bullseye. And this was it. This was the end of days. Everything hung now on Sara's kindness, but she was one of the cruelest people Leira knew.
The Skybreaker puttered on, flying as high as possible, its rotors furiously beating at the air. In its underbelly was every explosive device that could be scrounged, bound into a lump. The ideal scenario was to fly straight over Yogg-Saron, get to its head, and blow it to pieces. Leira already knew it was hopeless. Like the God of Death would let them get that far.
Fardol, also in his armor, clanked up to her and rested his hands on the railing. "Copper for yer thoughts?" he asked.
"I just can't believe she went through with it," Leira said. "This is the girl I grew up with. We went to sleepovers with each other, lied to cover each other's backs. We fought side by side in this war, she saved my life, I saved hers. We told each other every secret, she came to me when she found out about her origin, and now she... she... " Leira clenched her fists.
"Caused the apocalypse?" Fardol supplied.
She relaxed and touched the two handed sword strapped to her back. "Yeah," she whispered.
"It's moving!" someone shouted.
Commotion erupted along the Skybreaker. Everyone, Leira included, rushed to the helm, pushing and shoving for room. Sure enough Yogg-Saron, a little closer but still in the distance, raised one of its colossal tentacles. It was one far to the west, nowhere near close enough to strike them. Leira squinted, and saw it lifting something in its magic. Something radiant and golden, which pulsed with a song. Even from so far away she knew, in her heart of hearts, it was a naaru, hovering before the Old God.
The tip of the tentacle curled slightly, and the naaru was overcome. The shining light went out, replaced with dark blue. Then it was like a black hole had torn open in that space, a deity of the void itself stepping into the world... and then the void god too was obliterated.
Her jaw dropped open. "It, it just killed a naaru," she whispered, feeling unclean and violated even though the act had taken place hundreds, thousands of miles away.
"Alright everyone!" someone in the crowd shouted. "No gawking! Unless it moves to strike us we keep checkin' everything! MOVE OUT!"
That dispersed them. Leira walked back to her spot by the railing and inspected her weaponry again. Her axe, check. Her sword, check. Armor, all set. Empowerment spells, still active. Parachute on her back, check. The enchantments and glyphs Sara had given her were gone, replaced by ones the Old God wouldn't be able to use against her.
She'd already checked it what must've been a hundred times. She wasn't going to get any more ready than this, but Northrend was so far away and Yogg-Saron wasn't physically moving anywhere. Yet.
The Skybreaker putted along, growing closer to Yogg-Saron with each passing minute. Leira's heart felt heavy and her arms were like ice. This was never going to work. They were riding to their dooms. But she had to at least try, didn't she?
As they approached, Yogg-Saron's body became more and more detailed. They were flying high above it, but that didn't mean much. Water churned beneath its turquoise limbs, and from so much closer Leira could make out smaller tentacles on them, each the s
ize of a small mountain range. On the smaller tentacles were even smaller ones, the size of cities, and those ones were fuzzy. The fuzz was probably more tentacles. Bright green lights flashed along Yogg-Saron's body as it slowly undulated, the smaller tendrils lazily waving through the air and stirring up great currents. Leira felt as though it should've been cloudy, with crackling lightning to accompany the portrait of doom, but its emergence had blasted all the clouds to nothingness.
"By the Light," Fardol whispered from beside her. "How the blazes are we gonna fight that?" he asked, voicing everyone's thoughts.
"On a wing and a prayer," she said, looking around. People were kneeling in the center, praying to the Light for safety. "Come on, let's go." She walked over to the crowd and joined them in kneeling, as did Fardol.
Leira wasn't a paladin, nor a priest. She was a warrior, she walked the road of slicing up her foes, slamming into them with heavy armor, and letting her rage guide her blades. But she was still a draenei and she knew the Light was always, always there for her if she ever worked up the nerve to ask for its aid. This was certainly the time for it.
Kneeling, they prayed. They prayed for the strength to challenge their foe, they prayed for sight in this darkness. They prayed for the constitution to endure anything it could throw at them. They prayed for hope. They prayed for luck. They prayed for safety. The Horde's military was both shattered and wouldn't know about Yogg-Saron. If the dragons hadn't won yet, they wouldn't ever. The only hope left for Azeroth was on their vessel. As they grew closer and closer, the stench of death and despair grew thicker and practically tangible, but they continued to pray and call for help. For anything.
Glowing lights surrounded the Skybreaker. Leira glanced upwards with glowing eyes to see a shining sphere of the Holy Light, made of interlocking golden hexagons, formed around the airship. The sounds of churning flesh from beyond quieted, and the stench of hopelessness faded, replaced by golden meadows and spring breezes. Warmth and safety replaced looming night. They all stood, and hope blossomed in her heart. They could do this. The Light was all powerful. It would carry them through this final hour, the last light in the darkness.
She glanced to the side and saw one of Yogg-Saron's tentacles, the secondary ones as large as mountain ranges, rearing back. Leira paled, and dove to the side as it came crashing towards them. It wasn't even that tentacle which hit them. It was one of the city sized ones sprouting off of it, covered in purple light, which came crashing upon the Skybreaker. There was no impact, even as everyone hit the deck. The barrier of Light distended and smoked, forcing the tentacle back, but then it came crashing back for a second round and tore through the shield like wet parchment, then scythed straight through the Skybreaker, bisecting it in a shower of metal and wood.
Leira was jolted by the impact so hard she literally flew off, thrown to the side as the rear half of the airship began to dip. Her stomach tried to clamber out of her mouth as she spun around in the air, dark sky and darker tentacles tumbling in and out of her vision. At one point she saw a brilliant plume of orange and red, but any noise was swallowed by the whistling air.
I have a parachute, she remembered.
With that in mind, Leira concentrated on trying to stabilize her descent. It was hard work, but she had a long way to fall. Slowly but surely, she evened out and, while she couldn't stop spinning entirely, she was now face down as she approached the edge of Yogg-Saron's body. Her weapons were still in place, but even as she resolved to give Sara a piece of her mind she knew it was useless.
Leira passed in between the mountain sized tendrils, then slipped through a gap between two city-sized ones. They were monoliths around her, mountains of flesh and teeth that covered the world. She activated her parachute, grunting as she suddenly slowed down. As she parachuted onto the Old God, she looked around and gulped. It was enormous. There was open flesh, some sort of cross between brown and turquoise. There were pustules of some vibrant emerald sludge, as well as black plates of armor. Scattered across Yogg-Saron's body were mouths the size of a horse, ringed with fangs and leading into the depths of the Old God's body.
And then there were the tentacles. Some were larger than fully grown dragons, sea green and muscular with spiked clubs on their ends. Others were short and squat and occasionally dripped shadow magic, and still others were long whips. They appeared thin and frail compared to the others, but even those smaller ones were thicker than a tauren bull and could probably strangle the life out of her with ease. Then she readied her weapons and, once she was close enough, cut off her parachute and dropped the remaining distance.
The first thing she noticed was that Yogg-Saron's flesh, even beneath her greaves, was colder than ice. So was the air all around it, up to her horns. She drove her axe and sword straight down, and stumbled back shaking when they bounced off something as unyielding as saronite. She glanced down and saw she'd landed - and subsequently tried to strike - one of Yogg-Saron's armor plates. She ran off the house-sized plate, weaving between lazily swaying tentacles until she found a patch of softer flesh. There, she drove her weapons down.
She barely scratched it, and had to put in great effort to reclaim her weapons. But sure enough, she'd left a tiny scar. But it wasn't even thick enough to draw blood. She had to try harder.
Leira turned around in the forest of tentacles and charged the nearest one, a squat tentacle filled with vile magic. She stepped around a mouth on the ground and steadied her balance as the living ground beneath her bucked and swayed, and swung at the tendril. Her weapons bit shallowly into it, and black sludge poured from the twin cuts. She pulled away and spun around, slicing again. She hacked and sawed even as the quaking land forced her to change targets.
"Fuck you!" she shouted, fearing her voice would be lost to the wind, hoping that Hope's End would hear her. "I trusted you! I trusted you and you go and do THIS!" she roared, seeing red.
She stumbled towards one of the larger tentacles, thicker and taller than a tree and stabbed it. "We had everything under control! You could've done anything else to help us! You could've done LITERALLY anything else but you did this!" Leira leaped away and ducked when a thin tentacle tried to grab her. She nearly stepped into a maw, but pulled back at the last second. She assaulted the constrictor.
"Then you killed them! YOU KILLED ALL OF THEM! It wasn't even self-defense!" She ducked underneath a spiked club's lazy arc. "You didn't have to do anything! You killed them because it was easy, because it was fun, because you wanted to!" Two of the tentacles spun around her. The one on the left tried to distract her in time for the other to move in and grab her around the waist, but she avoided both and struck them each with one of her weapons. "I HATE YOU!"
A third tentacle, one she hadn't seen, grabbed her from behind. She thrashed as it lifted her into the air, striking at it with her weapons. But each of her strikes was deflected by a magical green barrier, and darkness flooded the area. When she could see again, all the damage Leira had inflicted was gone. Not even the spilled blood remained. "Damn you!" she shouted, struggling. "Monster! I'll- !"
The tentacle reared back and, instead of squeezing hard enough to bisect her, it tossed her. She flailed for a moment, gripping her weapons. Then she noticed where she was going and tried to stop herself, but it was too late.
The mouth embedded in Yogg-Saron's flesh opened wide, and she plummeted into the tunnel within. It smelled like phlegm and shadow, and Leira spun around to look up into the sky. The fanged mouth slammed shut, bathing her in darkness.
"Oof!"
Suddenly there was light again, and she'd fallen onto… a wooden floor? She pressed her palms against it and pushed herself up.
Leira's weapons were gone, and so was her armor, leaving her in a shirt and pants. She gasped and stumbled in a circle, looking around. Had it all been a dream? No, no. This was the dream.
She was in a library. The floor was polished and incredibly detailed wood, as was the ceiling. A chandelier hung from it, providing ample
light. The room was large and hexagonal, with bookshelves lining the gray brick walls. Leira stumbled away from the center to the nearest bookshelf, trying to figure out what was going on.
"What are you doing here?" demanded a voice behind her. There floated Sara, in blood red warlock robes. The whites of her eyes were burning orange, and her pupils and irises had melted together into a smooth muddy brown. She levitated a yard off the ground in the middle of the room, staring at Leira with something between anger and surprise. "I thought I left you in Outland."
Leira didn't answer. Instead she charged Sara and brought her fist up to swing at – thin air.
She was back near the corner of the library, and Sara was still in the center. She relaxed her hand and instead growled. "You did leave me in Outland," she spat. "Turns out having me in a city guarded over by the naaru undid your work pretty quickly."
Sara nodded grimly, not even deigning to look surprised. "It would, I suppose." She drifted lower, but didn't touch the floor. "Listen Leira, I understand you are upset," she said, holding out a hand.
"Upset? Upset?! I am way beyond upset! You just destroyed the world!"
"I destroyed Northrend, and not even entirely," Sara said, pointing a finger at her. "The only thing I've done to anywhere else is grab the demon leaders from there and kill them, and you're here getting all bent out of shape over what is absolutely a positive outcome. So I killed a few million people erupting from Northrend. No big deal!"
"Yes, yes very big deal!" Leira shouted.
Sara tossed her arms into the air. "Fine, big deal! I'll put them back together in a moment. But the Burning Legion? The eternal foe of Azeroth? The immortal enemy of your people?!" She snapped her fingers, and a burst of inky shadow accompanied it. "Gone. Just like that! Just like I promised! And I did it while not even at full power, that comes in twelve hours. Don't you think that's worth giving up a little real estate?"
"The problem isn't you getting rid of the Legion! It's what you replaced it with! So what happens now? Huh? You just gonna sit up there and let everyone else do their thing?" Sara didn't respond. "Well? ARE YOU?!"