I hid in the bushes that would make me invisible to the enemy team, awaiting the Stitches that I had seen coming my way before disappearing, apparently having opted to hide until I took the first step, as I did with him. I waited, still, as I saw Chen and Tyrael fight off Sergeant Hammer close by and Nova and Brightwing the enemy Tychus, Arthas and LiLi in the lane furthest from mine. I was alone, acutely aware that, if Stitches had mastered his talents, I would have a hard time fighting him off without falling to my death before the blue gates that protected our side of the battlefield. I considered going to help my team mates in most need of it as time stretched on, but then two things happened: Chen's Flying Kick hit Sergeant Hammer and killed him as he hopelessly tried to retreat, while the Stitches I had lost track of for the past few moments appeared from the bushes at last as he tried to go to his friends.
Seeing my chance, I used my Ravage ability to jump on him and pinned him down with my spikes, attacking him with my wings. However, as I had feared, Stitches wouldn't go down without a fight, and I saw my health decline very steadily. Nearby, I saw one of ours, Tyrael, fall, not quite having succeeding in killing the Lich King before he retreated to safety, helped by a last-minute heal LiLi. I decided that I wasn't strong enough to take Stitches down yet without my Maelstrom and made for our own gate as well.
However, I didn't quite manage to avoid the hook he threw in my direction and felt myself being pulled back to him. Slashing him in his face with my wings, I managed to escape nonetheless, running through the gate just in time. Using my Hearthstone to go regain health and mana at our base, I saw Tyrael, already resurrected, use his Smite to kill him, avenging my near-murder before going back to Chen's side.
That was basically how the fight continued to go on: as a game of killing and dying, then pushing and retreating, quite evenly, gaining skulls while in mines to enforce respective golems. Both teams were very evenly matched, I thought, between murder and death. I only began to fear the worst as one of our last three gates fell and the enemy golem, supported by the entire enemy team, advanced into our base and attacked all that was within reach. Our golem, supported by Nova and Tyrael, hadn't pushed that far on the enemy's base.
Cuts and bruises littered my body from the many times I had fallen in battle, but I wouldn't go down just like that. My Omegastorm killed both the enemy golem and LiLi, as Brightwing's attack power matched then overpowered Tychus', killing him as well. The enemy team had taken quite the risk, all pushing with their big sixty-seven-skull golem and leaving their entire base unattended, but it wasn't uncalculated. Both Brightwing and I were below half-health, while Arthas, Stitches and Sergeant Hammer attacked our fast-weakening core. There was nothing that we could do now, it felt. When Chen came to life once more, the fight would without doubt be over already.
We tried to take Hammer down, but he was far stronger than Brightwing and I, especially since we were very low on mana both. Our own core got to forty percent, the enemy's' health nearly the double still, and then, in seconds, seemed to split apart in our defeat. No matter how hard we had fought, gathered skulls, defended, pushed, we hadn't been strong enough to take this team down. Twice, the enemies managed to kill most of us in mines and take nearly every single skull. We fought a good fight still, though. We had done all that we could.
As Arthas bent down and picked up a shred of gray stone that had once been the face of our core, to take back to his own base as a symbol of their victory, and as he and his friends retreated, I rolled over to look at my beloved Brightwing, delicate wings broken and dirty after the battle. Pushing myself up to my feet, I bent down to gather the faerie dragon up in my arms. In the misty distance, I saw Nova and Tyrael return in defeat, both hurt but alive still. "We should have taken the knights before going to the mines," I said.
Brightwing didn't answer me but just clamped onto my arm. She wasn't certain that that would have really made the difference, and maybe, it wouldn't have either. However, as I returned home with Brightwing in my arms, I considered the fight we had put up and concluded that this didn't necessarily determine the next fight. We were Heroes of the Storm, and we both lost and won in the Nexus, sometimes more of one than the other. The next fight could be totally different. Maybe it wouldn't be, but we were Heroes, and Heroes don't give up.