Rakash dug his heels into the ground. Throat raw, quadriceps burning, heart pounding, he spat in the ground. He meant no disrespect; on the contrary, his feelings about his interlocutor were more positive than those he bore for many of his so-called "comrades." He only needed to clear his mouth of excess saliva as he huffed and puffed. Seconds dragged on as he and his opponent leapt for each other's throats. In another world, the man in front of him would have been his closest friend. In another world.
The saberon growled, but didn't roar. Both of them were winded, both of them from the handful of survivors at the end of the siege of Fangri'la. The furred man was cornered, desperate, enraged, and exhausted. He was defending his home, he was facing the most important duel of his life, and he wanted his opponent's blood. Rakash wanted the saberon's blood just as much.
As his sumptuous fur-clad boots left the ground, Rakash clenched his fist. The sharp ram horns strapped to his bracer were the only weapons he'd ever need, but his padded fists were the weapons he loved the most. The saberon extended its claws, swiping at him in the same direction as they both soared toward each other in what fell like slow motion. With hide as thick as the saberon's, Rakash didn't even attempt to defend himself; absorbing the blows provided him with the rage he needed to spurn himself on. And when he regretted his actions even in midair, even as he and his opponent collided with each other, he needed that spurning in order to finish the quest he'd been sent on.
His fist and the ram horns connected low, thundering into the jungle air as his swing slammed with full force into the saberon's rib cage. This time the furred, feline man did roar; the sound was deep and sonorous, beautiful in its baritone power as the remaining axebeaks that hadn't flown away finally did flee screeching into the midday air. The tips of the horns punctured the saberon's abdomen, leading to a combination of cracking and sloshing sounds following the blood curdling roar. It was the most beautiful punch of his life, landing on the most challenging opponent he'd ever faced.
The saberon gave back as good as it got, but for whatever reason, the loa of Draenor had already chosen their victor of the night. Both paws aimed high rather than low, aiming for the forest troll's neck. It was a desperation move intended to end the duel quickly, trading high risk for high potential payoff that remained unrealized. The pauldrons which Rakash wore on his shoulders covered his neck entirely when he ducked his head low to punch, causing the saberon's razor sharp claws to skitter over their surface and jut out ineffectively into the empty air just behind the troll's back. With both of his opponent's hands stretched too far forward and legs overextended, Rakash swung with his other arm. The second punch connected beneath the saberon's rib cage this time, hitting the softest and most unprotected part of the felinoid's torso. The duel had ended before it had really ended.
Metal and leather clashed in a cacophony all around them. Allies he would much rather be killing poured into the saberon city like vermin, proverbially hitting Rakash where it counts as he realized that he was one of them. Tabards mostly bearing the insignia of the Horde, as well as a smaller number bearing the marks of the Alliance, Kirin Tor and Steamwheedle Cartel, flowed into the stone city that was all too familiar. Modern technology quickly overwhelmed the defenses of the cat people, and soon all of Fangri'la was infested with the likes of Rakash and his comrades of convenience.
His opponent latched onto his pauldrons, pulling and tearing back at him despite suffering what must have been horrendous internal ruptures. Rakash and the Blackfang alpha male were physical equals, matched in power, though the felinoid would have normally had a slight advantage in terms of reflexes. And although both of them were worn out from battering seas of enemies, both stood in front of trails of dead bodies behind them, both were covered in gashes and abrasions from the other challengers they'd felled that day, the one-two combination to the saberon's body tipped the balance. Heaving one last time, he threw the hemorrhaging saberon to the dusty ground, allowing himself to collapse to one knee in the process.
Time, cursed, blasted time, maintained its snail's pace as if to rub the forest troll's hook nose in the dirt a little bit more. As he and his interlocutor crashed to the ground, the world around him reeled and he forgot whether he was in the tropics of Tanaan or the temperate Hinterlands. Everywhere he looked he saw home, he saw his people, he even saw his family. The loa taunted him with the failure of his victory as he saw their mark everywhere, heard their mocking laughter in the Fangri'la breeze.
Wind chimes made of bones clinked in the gusts of wind kicked up by orc shamans and night elf druids, reminding him of the wards his neighbors used to set up in his hometown. Saberon holy men clutched the skulls they wore as masks like security blankets as blademasters and vindicators cut them down, the masks reminding him of the witch doctors he held in such high esteem. Hovels dug into the rock of the mountains themselves provided the same insulation against extremes that he remembered back in Lordaeron, along with their rudimentary furnishings of animal products and wood. Enchanted fetishes rattled, shadow magic crackled and booby traps were sprung, giving no indication to the listener as to whether one was in the saberon capital or Raventusk Village.
As Rakash set his knee down onto the saberon's groin, pinning it down, the furred man snarled and double kicked him in the thighs. The saberons were like buzzsaws when grounded, and the cuts that the claws of the man's feet opened up reminded the forest troll that his opponent still demanded - still deserved - a healthy dose of respect.
Ignoring the frantic chants of the cat people that reminded him so much of his tribe's medicine women, Rakash swung straight downward, landing a haymaker over the saberon's chest, right where its heart would be. Its brave heart, its warrior's heart, a heart that Rakash knew he hadn't yet attained himself.
Drops of blood dripped from both of their bodies, mixing with the blood of Horde and saberon alike that had stained the paths that the two of them had fought toward each other. Even if Rakash lacked the saberon's heart, his own proved able to continue pumping blood into his wounds as they attempted to seal themselves shut. His Blackfang opponent, however, was finished; smashed between the forest troll's padded fist and the ground, its beat turned irregular and the two clawed feet stopped kicking.
Screams finally rang out, and Rakash ignored the sounds of both humans and goblins taking the saberon women and children as captives. With his opponent beaten and reduced to weakly scratching his forearm as he held down the furred man by the throat, he could tune out the gratuitous images of tauren and worgen unnecessarily setting fire to the homes of the cat people, but he couldn't tune out the painful familiarity in his head.
The Raventusk tribe were the only group of forest trolls in the Horde. Pushed to the edge of Lordaeron by their brethren, isolated and pressured by harassment from the high elves and sworn enemies of the dwarves, their elders had seen no option but to accept membership offered by the orcs and undead humans. The elders weren't naïve: they knew that the Horde detested their race, that the Darkspear tribe of jungle trolls absolutely hated them, and that the entire faction merely needed a link in order to block the Alliance from opening any functional ports on the east coast of the Eastern Kingdoms. The elders also knew that the Raventusk had no choice: faced with the onslaught of the foul elves and their cheating magic, abandoned by all other forest trolls, the Raventusk were left with the offer of the new Horde or nothing.
So why, then, was Rakash inflicting what his people had suffered? The backward nature of the forest trolls had allowed the high elves and humans to obliterate them. Exploiting the superior technology of the orcs, he was now fighting under the banner of the Horde in order to wipe out the saberons, a people similarly adhering to black magic, hunting and gathering for food, and living at a Stone Age level of technology.
The saberon were not beasts any more than the forest trolls were beasts. And yet they'd refused to back down to the best of Azeroth's forces.
Just when Rakash raised his free hand for the killing blow, he stopped himself. Looking down at his opponent, he saw what could have been himself. Beneath the different colored hide, the different facial structure, he could feel himself pinned to the rocky ground. Two eyes shined up at him, radiating ferocity without hatred in a symphonic contradiction that he could only wish to master. A primitive intelligence broke through the ferocity as the saberon stared back into his eyes, slaying him even as he crouched over the felinoid in ostensible victory.
Given no options, the alpha male had led his people in battle against foreign invaders to the bitter end. And Rakash, with his fist raised, had ended the cat man's last stand. He'd torn down the banner, severed the head of an entire nation of people, broken open the flood gates for his accursed self and his accursed allies to cleanse a land of its native people. No amount of reluctance in his clenched fist would wipe away that sin.
The tide had turned and grown into a tsunami as the Azerothian forces, led by the Sabrestalkers, rallied for a final charge. Their ranks of mostly smaller beings overwhelmed the saberons like the puny high elves had overwhelmed the might forest trolls, stinging Rakash with a form of embarrassment even as he crouched under the banner of the victors. His grip on the alpha male's throat weakened ever so slightly as he found himself unable to execute so noble a man.
The saberon was someone he could have fought alongside. Someone he could have drank mead with. Someone he'd have been proud to have date his sister. Someone he would have defended in any other situation. And now he was supposed to end him.
However they'd connected, Rakash felt it later than the saberon did. The felinoid must have sensed it first, because the respectfully defiant squeeze of the cat man's claws into the forest troll's forearm again brought time back to its normal speed. The saberon looked up into his eyes, all that primal ferocity, savage intelligence, and noble backwardness coalescing into a silent solidarity as the two of them both realized they'd been thinking the same thing. Neither of them wanted this fight, but neither of them were willing to walk away. Broken and laying on the ground, the saberon - whose people lacked articulate speech - bridged the communication gap.
The saberon nodded.
Rakash could question whether he'd have been ready had the roles been reversed, but on another day. The downhill battle was reaching its end all around them, leaving them both with no recourse from their respective fates. Clenching his fist and bracing his punch-weapon one last time, Rakash delivered the most perfect execution he'd ever performed. In doing so, he killed a part of himself alongside his opponent, leaving what survived mired in loss.