Breaking Dawn: Tales Of Cataclysm

Writer's Note: For newcomers, the context of this story's opening can be found in my other work, Cold Comfort Castle. I will warn you, reading this first will massively spoil its ending. Go peruse that if you wish; if not, and everyone else, read on.


The Beginning: Ruin-Nation

Pain

Thud-Thud. Thud-Thud.

Normally, Zackel Wintersoul would have been content to drift in the void between slumber and cognizance, listening to the Draenei's heart beat beneath his ear. For a few precious moments, he was.

Agony

Further awareness, however, would not be denied this time, and the world began to fully drift into reality. The world…

The world was shaking.

The last patch of consciousness came all at once, and Zackel jerked his head up.

"Zackel?" Rielle's voice said, a touch of sleep in her tone. "What's going on?"

"You feel that?"

"'Nother earthquake…?"

"Yes and…" Zackel said, listening. He heard no alarm bells to indicate that another fissure had opened up to spew out Elementals, an issue that Zackel and Rielle had been traveling the Eastern Kingdoms over the past few weeks to aid with. After the two years or so they'd spent settled down, it was good to get back into action again. Even IF Zackel still had no idea where the voids and the creature they spewed out were coming from; he'd heard something about a Cho'Gall being involved, but considering the only Cho'Gall Zackel knew had been a two-headed ogre who was said to have died during the Second War, Zackel really wasn't sure exactly how accurate the information was. He, and Rielle, had actually been heading back to Stormwind to see if there was anything new to find out (Zackel had also heard a thing or two about a cult causing trouble), having stopped for the night in Goldshire.

"Point, Zack…or I'll take this…opportunity to steal all the…pillows…" Rielle said, before trailing off. She'd sensed the exact same thing.

The earthquakes that had plagued the land these last several weeks tended towards one way: they shook briefly and then stopped. This tremor was not stopping. It was increasing.

My hatred burns through the cavernous deeps

"…we need light, Zackel."

"Way ahead of you." Zackel said, gesturing towards the lamp on the nearby table, arcane energies igniting a small fire on it. Having been putting on his pants, Zackel got up and moved over to the window in the inn he and Rielle were spending the night in, the Draenei starting to get dressed herself. Zackel opened the curtains to check, but only the semi-dark streets of Goldshire greeted him, the barest glimpse of the rising sun in the distance. The fact that several people were out in the streets, looking around in confusion, confirmed to Zackel that he wasn't the only one feeling the earthquake.

"So what are we doing?" Rielle said, having started to put on her under-armor leathers.

"Not going back to sleep, for one. There might be some new advance in these Elemental problems. Only reason I can think of why this earthquake's not dying down…geez…" Zackel said, balancing himself when the shuddering increased even more and threatened to make him lose his balance. "I guess we can check around Goldshire first, and then go to Stormwind."

"I swear…there better be someone we can collect payment from when this is done." Rielle said, sliding her plate armor down over her shoulders. At least with her freshly cut hair, nothing snagged in the process.

"There's always someone." Zackel said, closing the curtains. "Probably better work then this nonsense with the Horde. I had such high hopes too. Bloody Garrosh. What WAS Thrall thinking?"

"Maybe he finally got a clue. This is why I don't keep high anythings. Just further to fall." Rielle said, sliding her hooves into metal boots.

"Not ready to go there yet." Zackel said. His own 'war uniform' was easier to put on then Rielle's, and after putting on his own shirt and boots, Zackel began strapping the mage robe on. "You sharpened your axe?"

"Yesterday."

"You want a drink?"

"You mean a potion, right? No, I'm good."

"Have I mentioned how cute your snoring is?"

"You won't once I finally beat your head in enough."

"Promises, promises. It's been…" Zackel said, his voice trailing off.

He'd heard them outside. The cries of alarm. It was the only warning he got, as he turned towards the window, Rielle looking at it herself.

The roar of the violence came a second before the window shattered, and Zackel threw up his hands as the glass, dust, and force enveloped him, throwing him backwards onto the bed before tipping the bed over, Rielle's own yell lost in the general cacophony.

The world heaves with my torment!

"WHAT THE FEL WAS THAT? A BOMB?" Rielle yelled, flipping the bed back over. Zackel's only reply was a ragged cough, dirty dust stinging his eyes and lungs.

"Damn it, if the Elementals want to screw with us, they picked a damn poor way to start!" Rielle said, immediately turning to pick up the scattered remains of her equipment. Her only pause was to shove a canteen of water in Zackel's grasping hand, the mage dumping it onto his face to blink sight back into his eyes. Once he could see, and breath, again, Zackel could only stare at the shattered window, its faded curtains having been reduced to a few ragged scraps.

"Careful Zackel!" Rielle said, as Zackel approached the wrecked frame. With a gesture, Zackel called his staff to him, in case it was needed in his defense. His attempt to see this time, though, proved fruitless, as the streets of Goldshire were filled with dirty brown clouds, a fog of choking miasma, formless cries emerging from its depths.

"Yeah, definitely. Need to be careful. Both of us." Zackel said, running over to where his bags were stored. As Rielle threw the last of the armor onto herself and hoisted her axe, Zackel dug through his magical haversacks until he uncovered two handkerchiefs and a small yellow vial. Zackel popped it open and emptied the contents onto the two pieces of wool cloth, handing one over to Zackel as Rielle walked over.

"Makeshift filter. Probably needed." Zackel said. Rielle nodded and stuffed it underneath her helmet's mouth-piece, Zackel himself having to hold it to his face. Getting through door exiting the room proved troublesome, the blow against the inn having apparently bent the frame. One swift kick from Rielle finally knocked it open, and Zackel and the draenei headed down the stairs. The common room was filling up with coughing, gasping townspeople, a pair of night elves and a human trying to get more inside while a dwarf priest tended to the wounded. Rielle and Zackel did a quick tour of the room before heading out into Goldshire proper.

Five minutes later, the air had cleared considerably, Zackel and Rielle had escorted seven more people into the inn, and Zackel still had no idea what had happened. Nothing had attacked him, no one had claimed anything had attacked THEM…

And in the distance, Zackel could swear he heard something. Low, constant, thunderous peals of noise, of a tone that never meant anything good. The fact that it was coming from Stormwind made it all the worse. The city of the humans had endured much over the past years; it was not easy to harm. The noises that occasionally reached his ears spoke of more then harm. It spoke of anguish.

Its wretched kingdoms quake beneath my rage!

"Unless you've gone deaf, I can't be the only one who's heard that." Rielle said, having appeared next to Zackel, removing her filter and stuffing it in one of her bags.

"And I can't be the only one who thinks we'd be better served over there." Zackel said, peering into the distance where Stormwind loomed, hidden by hills at Zackel's current vantage point.

"I'll get a horse." Rielle said, dashing off. Zackel briefly mused, in the chaos, just how Rielle was going to negotiate getting a proper steed, and then decided he didn't really care for sweating the details. When she turned up two minutes later with said horse, Zackel merely took her hand and swung up on the mount behind her, Rielle urging the horse out of Goldshire and towards the human capital.

"This whole experience is giving me a terrible sense of déjà vu." Zackel said.

"Well look on the bright side. You have me to protect your fragile ass this time." Rielle said.

"Oh really. Who was…"

Rielle and Zackel crested on the hill, and Zackel's words died the moment Stormwind came into view.

Or rather, what could be seen of Stormwind came into view. A massive cloud of dark, burning ash had swallowed most of the city, great forces crashing within and sending out the echoes that had drawn the pair. Whatever had hit Goldshire had clearly impacted on the capital first, a pulsing wave of force stirring up a 'dust wave' that had slammed into the distant town.

"…What the fel is going on?" Zackel said.

"Nothing good! Let's go!" Rielle said, spurring their reluctant horse onward.

"Uh, Rielle, it might not be a good idea to charge headlong into that!"

"I'm listening for any better ideas besides 'turn around and run', mage!"

"We need to establish some intelligence! First of all, what the fel is attacking? Is it the Legion?"

"Never seen the Legion do this! Maybe it's that Nergal fellow or whatever…!"

Zackel saw the form loom out of the midnight ash a moment before it fully emerged.

The horse drew up with a shriek as the dragon came from the blackness, its seething metallic body crashing down on the outer gates of Stormwind. Rielle and Zackel similarly recoiled, and as a result, the horse's balance was upset enough to send all three of the creatures tumbling to the ground. Zackel barely managed to call up an ice shield to keep the thrashing horse from rolling over and crushing the pair, the terrified equine scrambling back up and taking off the way it had come.

"I can already tell this is going to be one fel of a day." Zackel said. By the time the mage started getting up, Rielle already was, her axe clutched tightly between her hands.

"…that is not an Elemental." Rielle said.

"Really…what was…your first…clue…" Zackel said.

It wasn't the way Zackel's words trailed off: Rielle had heard that before. It was the way his voice dipped down to a quiet squeak that made Rielle turn around. She did so just in time to see Zackel's staff clatter to the ground, having slipped from between now-lifeless fingers.

The look on Zackel's face struck the Draenei to the core. She'd been through enough with the mage, and fought through enough as well, to know the man intimately, and in more than the fun ways. The look on Zackel Wintersoul's face was one she'd seen two times before now; this was the third. His eyes had gone as wide as the moon, the pupils shrinking to near-nonexistence, his usually pale features blanching almost pure white. Zackel had shown fear plenty of times, but this was only the third time she'd seen him complete, utterly, and absolutely terrified. In a small part of the back of her mind, she was mildly surprised she didn't smell feces.

"…can't be…" Zackel whispered.

"What? WHAT?" Rielle said, jerking her head back to face the gigantic dragon that was ravaging Stormwind before looking back at her lover. Such a massive beast, with such clear power, was bad enough, but there was something in Zackel's recognition that indicated this was even WORSE.

"…The Destroyer…" Zackel said. It had been the dragon's flanks that had brought on the identification. He hadn't fought many of the beasts, but all of them tended towards having the same outer covering; layered scales of different patterns, thickness, and strength. This dragon, even from the distance they were at, had something else entirely; pulsing masses of smoldering metal, the interlocked plates seeming to strain at keeping the violent fiery energies beneath them. A body of glowing armor.

In that, Zackel knew who had attacked Stormwind.

Legends of the past, of the forces in old wars. Long forgotten and thought destroyed, the attention of the world turned to other threats.

A lapse of remembrance that would shake Azeroth to its foundations. One, however, that had not come to Zackel. Apparently, all the reading he liked to do when it was peaceful had its uses.

"The Destroyer? WHAT DESTROYER! YOU HUMANS NEVER MENTIONED A DESTROYER!" Rielle said.

"It's…he's…" Zackel said. "Dragon…"

"Yeah, I noticed!" Rielle said, before smacking Zackel across the face. "SNAP OUT OF IT! WHAT DO WE DO?"

"We…" Zackel said, before his face went pale again. Rielle blinked, and then spun around to look at Stormwind again.

The dragon had turned back towards the forest beyond Stormwind, having perched itself anew on the stone walls surrounding the city. Rielle recognized the body language, the positioning, and the surging ripples of power that began running up the dragon's chest. It was going to breath.

Part of Rielle could swear she saw the dragon's cruel eye looking right at them.

"Oh sweet Light." Rielle said.

The roar of the dragon burned into Zackel and Rielle's ears as it fired, an all-consuming torrent of lava spewing forth from the dragon's gullet and out onto Elwynn Forest. Zackel felt the heat of the blaze long before it reached him, the sweat on his skin drying almost instantly, even as Rielle turned and ran into Zackel's arms.

"I SWEAR IF YOU GET US KILLED MAGE I WILL HAUNT YOUR GHOST!" Rielle yelled, even as Zackel tried to summon a shield of ice.

The blazing destruction tore across the forest, whole swaths of trees bursting into flame.. A moment later, even as the lava burned against the ground, one last shuddering spasm ran through the earth, the ground cracking open and swallowing anything unfortunate to be above it. The world almost seemed to scream, the voiceless cry merging with the dragon's own soul-searing roar.

But at last, the whole of Azeroth will break!

Wings of scorched flesh sent one last wave of flames against the wreckage of Stormwind, and Deathwing rose up before streaking off into the sky, vengeance sated. The world knew he had returned.

Now it would learn its pain was just beginning.

Now it would learn…

And all will burnbeneath the shadow of my wings!

And yet…

Despite all the noise…

Zackel could only hear one thing.

Thud-Thud.

Thud-thud.

thud-thud

thud

I have defied gods and demons.

I am your shield

I am your sword

I know youyour pastyour future

This is how the world ends.

but not our world

THUD-THUD.


"…Rielle?"

"…all right…dragon…Destroyer…you took your best shot. OUR TURN."


"Our world's about to break

Tormented and upset

The loss from when we wake

With no way to go back

I'm standing on my own...

...But I am not alone..."