A/N: big thanks to Coincidenceless, whose stories and fascinating PM conversations have provided much inspiration for this stort story, though I don't think he realized it. This is partially based on logical theorizing combined with Blizzard's sometimes contradictory lore. This story here isn't leading in to some sort of epic battle so much as it's simply meant to be a thought provoking beginning.
Some characters, such as Melas and Decarabia, as well as the entire opening scene, are snippets from other stories in my continuum. You do NOT need to read anything else of mine for this one to make sense, though; all that matters is contained in the narrative here. Enjoy!
Diabolkos groaned as Melas' claw gauntlets slipped into the gap between his hauberk and backplate, the dreadlord's chest being skewered in the process. The blades of the bear druid's gauntlet sliced Diabolikos' pectoral muscle horizontally, severing it and causing his elbow to drop to his side. For the first time in the omega ranking dreadlord's tens of thousands of years of existence, something worked its way into his vastly intelligent mind - something that his pride has blinded his intelligence to.
As he felt himself knocked back yet again, this time by Melas' elven form, he felt fear. He, one of the nathrezim, a being who lived to terrorize others, was afraid.
The night elf grunted, shoving Diabolikos backward even further across the clearing. Hot, searing pain ate into all the cuts on the dreadlord's body, bleeding his fel blood even faster than his vampiric aura could heal them. Torn to shreds, his tattered wings proved useless as he sought a path of escape, cursing his own arrogant foray into melee combat. If only the violet skinned mortal hadn't destroyedboth summoned infernals; if only the man's mutt of a son hadn't realized that his own nightmares, caused by Diabolikos, weren't natural; if only the beholders providing ranged support hadn't teleported away in terror; if only, if only if only.
Clutching each other and watching their protector dismantle the devastated dreadlord, Melas' tusked mate and son were taken by none of the fear that Diabolikos had initially managed to weave into their minds. How had that failure of a druid learned to shift into bear form? After all those millennia of stagnation?
That half a second of hesitation was all his opponent needed. Via his peripheral vision, Diabolikos saw the second claw gauntlet sailing right for his face. He tried to raise his arm to defend, flexing his deltoid to bring his hand up but forgetting that he couldn't move it sideways to defend his front due to the scrunching up of the two separate halves of his left pectoral. That excruciating pain in his chest was joined by one even worse in his entire face as Melas' hand connected with the dreadlord's jaw.
"Aaaaaarrrrrgggghhh!" Diabolikos yelled - for the first time. Never before had he yelled. Period. He'd lost minor battles, but never this badly. Never this sorely. Never this painfully.
His jawbone dislocated at the left joint, snapping and tearing the ligaments in his temple along with it. The three blades of the gauntlet skewered his cheeks, lips and tongue, sending blood and teeth splattering in the air as Diabolikos felt a sudden rush of coldness on the left side of his neck. His tongue slapped against his Adam's apple in a way that felt entirely alien just at the same time that his jawbone dislocated on the other side, and his whole head rocked in that direction. The fact that his demonic constitution prevented him from being rendered unconscious outright only increased his suffering as his entire bottom jaw wasknocked right off of his head.
His tongue hanging over his exposed wind pipe, Diabolikos felt his entire head sagging forward as he realized how much a lower jaw actually supported cranial stability. His lower jaw slammed into the freshly rejuvenated grass in the clearing, the very background mocking him as his domain in southern Felwood was returned to health by the bear druid's cursed magic. Diabolikos hit the ground, the slashes on his legs from when Melas had mauled him in bear form finally preventing him from getting back up this time. He dug his talons into the disgustingly springy, fresh grass that he'd once helped to corrupt, trying to drag his battered form away to regroup.
That's what he had to do...regroup. Plan. Devise. He was a nathrezim...this Kaldorei was nothing more than a mere mortal now, the blessing of their accursed dragon aspect lost to them. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen; he was supposed to retake such a small region. The mission he'd requested provided the perfect cover for indulging in his nine millennia long feud with Melas, and with more resources than he'd been granted previously. Every precaution had been taken, every advantage held within his talons...
...how did this happen?
The sound of fur boots against the grass caught up to him. "You can threaten me..." Melas growled in that irritating, flitty language also used by the satyrs. Before Diabolikos could react, the night elf punched him in the tricep, the blades causing his arm to give out.
He tried to speak, to tell the mortal that his efforts were in vain, but a lethargy entirely separate from Diabolikos' throat injury caused him to refrain from even trying.
"...but you can not threaten my family!" The second growl was punctuated by another blow to the back of Diabolikos' skull. He felt the blades penetrate, finally ending his embarrassing loss and causing his incarnation to dissipate into a swarm of bats, leaving only a copy of his plate armor behind.
Slowly, he felt his consciousness sink away from that plane of existence. It wasn't the first time he'd been bested; indeed, even the cunning dreadlords knew what it felt like to lose their manifestations upon the mortal plane and then rematerialized in the Twisting Nether. In a matter of seconds, his soul was soaring on its own accord, granting him a view of the greenish yellow swirls that comprised the bands of energy connecting the various physical plains of existence.
Once his wits had returned to him in enough force for his essence to recognize the gasses and nebulae of the Great Dark Beyond, Diabolikos felt his anger seethe. His body reformed, moving almost without effort as the arcane currents propelled him toward Argus to regroup. Options flowed through his now lucid mind.
Returning to the nathrezim home world to recouperate was out of the question. As one of the bottom ranked among his kind, another loss to a mortal would ruin his reputation among his brothers; few were as conniving as a community of demon commanders whose very lifeblood was subterfuge. No, the Burning Legion's base of operations on Argus would provide him the opportunity he needed. There, he could make an entrance in the presence of lesser demons, more easily concocting a story about how he'd willingly teleported to recruit minions for his operation of retaking a small but strategic portion of the most dangerous world the Legion had encountered yet. Once the word had spread, he'd more easily be able to convince the other bottom rung dreadlords of his story; from there, he'd simply stop talking about it or drawing attention to it, leaving his higher ranking peers to appear to be the fools when they were found to be unaware of what was common knowledge.
Yes...this was the perfect plan. For even when dealing with his own kind, there always needed to be a plan.
As he felt his body exit the Nether and enter a normal teleportation state, he calmed his expression, prepared to wreak shock and awe upon throngs of easily impressed gan'arg and imps itching for a chance to follow a proper commander to their army's most detested enemies. But when he exited onto the surface of Argus and found he'd been expected, he realized that there were others in the Legion's ranks seeking to better their own positions.
