Welcome all! This is an idea I've been toying with for a bit, and I figured now that chapter 2 is underway, I ought to get this out. It is set in an alternate universe, a sort of pseudo-apocalyptic future version of our world. Yes there is magic, yes there is modern(ish) technology, and yes I am taking some big (and small) liberties. If you're not into that, or if this just breaks it for you, I get it. No hard feelings. If you do like it, let me know how and why with a review.

While the central, focal character will be Illidan (duh!) I promise many more major and minor Warcraft characters and references will be packed into this story. Figuring out where and how some of these people fit into this little world of mine is half the fun. So without further adieu, please enjoy!

The sunset over the desert reached its climax, and the man in sunglasses laid back under its final warmth. Despite his leather coat, he did not sweat. The golden-amber rays extended beyond the horizon, to places far and away, that he would never go.

Well...he could go. If he wanted to. His past was centered in Los Angeles, and his present was rooted in El Quemado. What was it they called him? Lord of Outland? No, he would never leave. Above him, barely perceivable from behind the John Lennon frames over his eyes, a jet flew through the clouds. Bold of them, to come so far west, and a disturbing sign. Had they rekindled their interest, or just finally worked out the funding?

His thoughts strayed back to the darkness, and he reached out to the dirt around him. He found a stone a bit bigger than a pebble, and crushed it to dust between his fingers.

"Illidan!"

He was drawn back into the desert at the mention of his name. He rolled his weight onto his back and kicked, landing on his feet. His leathery wings stretched out from his back, flexing in a vampiric display.

"We found it."

His smile revealed fanged teeth, "Show me."

"Get BACK!"

The woman in white and blue wrappings shot fire through the doorway, and two Illidari fell onto their backs, screaming. The fire was redder than blood, and reeked of magic. The victims died quickly. She ran down the hall, past three men in combat armor who opened fire. The machine gun bullets ricocheted off the dusty metal walls, keeping the other Illidari at bay.

"GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!" The soldier in the middle shouted to the magi woman, slowly walking backwards with his subordinates, keeping constant pressure on the choke.

"Don't let them escape!" Kayn shouted, hiding his face behind his arms, "Find a back exit!"

Two of his followers nodded and sprinted back the way they had come. Kayn gathered the fel energy he had come to call his own in his hands, and the others did the same. Timing would be crucial. One misstep, one second of faltering in concentration would be enough to get them killed.

"Now!" Kayn signaled and brought the green magic to bare, hardening it with the other nearby, forming a shield. They sprinted, and the nature of their biology made them faster than the humans.

"Dammit! Run!" The lead soldier shouted, pulling a grenade and popping the pin out. He held onto it just long enough to make sure it would explode on impact. Kayn and the others infused a bit more fel magic into the shield; it cracked and shattered in front of one of them. She fell back dazed and bleeding out her mouth and nose, but otherwise okay. Kayn and the other three were fine, and pursued their prey.

The double circular knives called glaives were the primary blacksmithing product in Outland, and all the Illidari carried them. They had been refined over time, and as one of Illidan's chief lieutenants, Kayn had access to the newest models.

The soldiers rounded the corner and turned left up a stairwell. Kayn stopped and shifted his weight onto his right foot, twisting his upper body. His left glaive flew with a whirring sound, around the corner and glided upwards. Pained cries rang out, and a bloody soldier fell back down in front of the doorway, missing an arm. They passed him wordlessly.

Kayn found his knife embedded in the wall of the stairwell, and snatched it on the way up, falling behind two of his subordinates in the hunt. The other soldiers were slowing down, the leader unharmed but unwilling to leave his other brother behind, who was bleeding out of a large cut across his back.

"Bastards!" The commando shouted, tossing another grenade their way. One of the Illidari in front of Kayn unleashed his wings and flew to intercept. It was a kamikaze move, but he killed the other two soldiers as he planned.

Kayn and the rest of his forces made it to the top of the stairwell and burst through the door into the open air of what was once a US Military base in Arizona. The scorching sun blinded them a moment, but Kayn found the slim figure of the fleeing woman as she ran past the broken walls and down the empty streets of a destroyed city. The two Illidari Kayn had ordered find another path were lying burned and stiff just outside the base perimeter.

"After her!" He commanded, setting out once more in the lead, channeling his unnatural speed to make up for lost time. He inwardly saluted the fallen as he ran over their corpses.

The abandoned city was filled with half broken buildings and public structures slowly rotting away under the influence of war and time. There was no end to the possible surprises along the way. The faster they ended this the better.

The magi woman looked back and shot her arm out, as if to throw something at her chasers. Kayn saw it coming, but if the rest of the Illidari did, none of them were fast enough to react. A ring of frost snapped to life in a blue magic glyph beneath their feet, instantly encasing the rest of them in ice. His bat wings beating, Kayn glided down even closer to her than he was before.

He lined up the shot. It was a perfect angle, all he had to do was account for the wind and prepare to do the same for his other side once he flung the first glaive out. Never take chances with a magic user.

He found what he was searching for, and launched the blade, then stopped and pivoted to throw the counterpart.

A monstrous sound filled the air and an armored truck sped in between them from the intersecting street, and took the glaive for the woman, who disappeared behind the camo menace. Multiple soldiers spilled out of the truck, weapons trained solely on Kayn. The Illidari raised his hands and stood straight.

So this was how it ended? What a pity. There was so much more to be done…

A green circle formed under the truck and the soldiers, and it lit up red even as they noticed it. A wall of fire rose up and incinerated them even faster than the magi woman's fire had done to Kayn's men in the complex. So hot and so fueled by magic was this fire that the truck exploded and Kayn's glaive flew out of the wreck, spiraling into the air. It landed in front of its master steaming.

Kael'Thas appeared from the same street the truck had come, "I found more pests. After the woman! Illidan will not be pleased if she escapes!"

"I appreciate the help," Kayn said, plucking up the glaive from the concrete and grimacing as it left an imprint of its handle on his skin. He smiled despite the pain. Pain fueled power after all.

Overhead, two military attack choppers flew into view. Kael'Thas lit up his fists with flames, "What are you waiting for!? Get her!"

He shot the fire like he was pitching baseballs, and he landed two strikes. The choppers exploded in flame and rocked up and down in tipsy circles, the pilots burning to death even before they lost control of the machines.

Kayn was already back on the hunt, following the magi woman as she ran to the left and turned onto a street filled with abandoned cars. She wove in and out of them lowly, trying to hide amidst the pack. Clever. Kayn took to the skies again and soon caught her crouched behind the tire of a hummer. She caught sight of him shortly after she was spotted. The woman readied fiery blasts of her own, but they were slower and smaller than the blasts Kael'Thas could produce.

Kayn tucked and weaved between them, and found his shot. It was thrown expertly, but once more the blade was left wanting, as a sniper shot broke it in two, the pieces falling aimlessly down into the traffic. He landed on top of a cab and stopped on one knee. Five red lines trained on the Illidari from the tall office buildings above them. The woman was already back to running. Despite the long chase, she was hardly slowing down.

He was just musing over how lucky one could possibly be to get saved twice in a day when one of the red lines vanished, and the gunman fell to the street below limply. He landed in a splatter of gore, and by then his fellows were joining him in their own descents. Only one of them got a shot off, and it was horribly misaligned.

The serpentine voice of a naga called out from on high, "After her, Illidari! Run!"

He didn't need to be told twice. Kayn gave it everything he had, already doing the mental math for his final shot. If history was to repeat itself it wouldn't be long before someone else ran interference for her. And he wasn't sure he would be lucky enough to get the same treatment a third time.

The magi woman looked back with the same eyes Kayn knew she saw in him. Eyes of fatigue and disbelief. One of them should have succeeded by now, and they'd both be damned if after all this they weren't the ones to triumph. But for all their mutual feelings on the matter, only one could claim victory.

Kayn dashed forward several times and launched the glaive, all the while she held out her arms to her sides, freezing the tall, leaning monuments to past civilization, corrupting what was left of their infrastructure, causing them to fall between them.

The Illidari shouted as he sprinted forward. It would be close. His glaive made it through the ever widening shadows of the falling buildings. He saw it make contact, barely heard her cry out. Was she incapacitated or not though? He couldn't tell, but he was past the point of no return anyways. He bit his lower lip and thought about all the comrades who died today. He ran even faster than he knew was possible.

He cleared one of the buildings, but its immense twin was less than twenty feet from landing. He saw her crawling forward on her hands and knees, saw the bloody trail she was leaving behind. It was just enough motivation to catapult him into one more dash.

The buildings crashed down and erupted into a storm of rubble and ice. Kayn was kicked along with the debris, bashing and bouncing out of the impact zone. He felt his wing snap, he knew his elbow had been broken, and he grimaced as the edge of a metal sheet tore a cut along his face that would leave a deep scar.

When he stopped rolling, he ended up on his back. Breathing was hard, his vision was blurred, and being distorted by his own blood falling into his eyes. His long ears were ringing with the fury of a thousand hangovers. He couldn't feel anything, but as he twisted his head, he saw her figure. She was holding the glaive that had impaled her - right through the stomach. She removed her hood to reveal white hair, and wiped her brow with her sleeve. She gave a brief pause and gathered an icy touch to her hands, freezing the piece of his glaive that struck out of her front side.

She snapped it off and let it fall. Moaning behind a clenched jaw, she then pulled the other side out from behind. Immediately going to work on her chest with the frost, she was bargaining a lot, but Kayn would not be able to pursue any further. They both knew it. He cursed at his inadequacies as she froze the wound, and hobbled back onto her feet, bent over and slowly walking away.

She would not need to walk far. Three more choppers were homing in on them from the distance. He failed.

One of them let down a rope ladder, and she grabbed onto it with one hand, keeping the other applying a cool mist to her wound. It began to lift off and Kayn, despite his will, could do little more than raise his head and chest a few inches off the concrete. It was over.

Then a familiar sound echoed through the old city, a sound that filled Kayn with hope. A green glaive, larger than any other that existed, infused with precise fel magic and the finest metal you could scavenge in Outland came soaring. If Kayn's blades sounded like a hawk when they soared, this one sounded like a whisper in winter. It went right through the cabins of all three choppers, like they didn't even exist.

The women let go of the ladder and fell onto her backside, raising one arm above her to create a pink shield of magic as the choppers crashed down all around her. She let the shield go and worked her way back onto one knee before a shadow fell on her.

"You fought well," Illidan told her, "but you are finished now."

She tried to speak but ended up only spitting blood at him. It landed on his exposed chest, and he frowned. She made a mistake, Kayn thought.

Illidan grabbed her by the throat, but did not choke her, only lifted her up to his level. Her feet dangled below her and the hand she wasn't keeping over her wound went instinctively to his wrist. He barely felt her tugging grasp.

"I'll take the mirror now."

She shook her head as best she could. Illidan brought her closer, so she could smell his breath and see his pointed teeth up close.

"Did Maiev send you? Perhaps her masters? Or do you work for an unseen hand in the affairs of this world? No matter, give it me. Now."

The woman stared daggers into him, "I will give you nothing, Betrayer!" She sneered in a low voice.

Illidan tilted his head, inviting her to speak more. What did she really know of the Well? What had her eyes seen at the end of those ten long years?

She obliged him, "My superiors surpass Maiev. I saw all the reports. The carnage. The destruction. The unforgivable sins you committed. I'd sooner die than help you!"

Illidan exhaled his annoyance, and finally began to squeeze, the spiteful satisfaction on the magi woman's face falling away at once as she brought her other hand to his wrist.

"The mirror. I won't ask again," He warned.

The woman shook her head one more time, and Illidan stripped the cloak off of her, still choking her. Many things fell to the ground, tracking devices, orders with high end military seals of approval, magic tomes, and even a thousand dollar note. None of which he was looking for. He moved his hands towards her shirt, he saw her instinctively tense. Most importantly, he saw through the ruse.

"Very well. You wish to die? I will grant you your death," Illidan said, sending surges of fel magic into the woman, who between choking and this new attack, looked like she was having a stroke. She struggled a moment more and then a pink glyph opened beside her, and out of it fell a golden locket, slightly tarnished by age.

Illidan let her go and seized the prize in the blink of an eye. He pocketed the locket and left the magi behind him. On the ground she struggled and shook, unable to help herself as her body succumbed to her wounds and the fel powers unleashed on her body. She began to glow and evaporate. Her end was silent and painful.

Kayn watched Illidan step forward, and look down at him. He did not frown or smirk but bent down to pick up his fallen subordinate.

"You did well, Kayn. I am pleased."

The return trip to El Quemado passed as a black void, and Kayn could recall little. When he woke up he was bandaged and lying alone on a barely sizable cot somewhere in the dark. The distant sounds of voices were the only indication he had that he was still alive. His voice was weak, and he was very thirsty. He found more success in trying to move now, but pain shot through him as he rolled off the makeshift bed. Pain was good though. It gave him power, and told him he had life in him that was worth fighting for.

Illidan brought the locket to his private quarters, eager to at last finish the puzzle that had so long eluded him. He went to the very end of the room, where the wall was bare except for a large mirror that was missing only a single fragment in the center.

He opened the locket and tore the glass shard that was passed a small mirror out of it, the placed it perfectly in the hole of his larger mirror. A short burst of magic fused them, and the entire thing grew warm and glowed a dull purple and neon green.

He laughed and for the first time in a long time, smiled.

The mirror, which previously had only reflected Illidan's form back into his eyes, now swirled like silver chocolate, churning and flowing into what he desired most to see. Or so he thought. As the swirling ceased, he removed his glasses to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was.

And his eyes did not deceive him. He bared his teeth. That was impossible. He refused to accept this! He looked down at his fist, curling his long black nails into the palm of his hands, letting his own blood flow.

He looked back at the mirror, still mocking him. Enough was enough. He took his curled up fist and brought it to bear, and the shards flew like his satisfaction. More green blood dripped from his hand, falling onto the broken glass and the floor beneath it.

He hung his head in a private moment of resentment of his place. Why was it that no matter how hard he tried or how much he gave, he seemed somehow to always lose in the end?