Title: The Forsaken
Author: Link Worshiper
Pairings: 1=2, 3=4, maybe some others if I feel like it
Rating: PG-13
Stuff: Fantasy AU, fluff, sap, language, adventure, squick?, WoW nerdiness
Disclaimer: I own Gundam Wing action figures? Warcraft and its lore belongs to Blizzard Entertainment. Both things are being played with out of fangirl love.

Thanks to danse and Natea for the once over. Despite the fact this is part of Natea's birthday present, I still needed her to fill me in on the Alliance history they don't teach us on Horde, so thanks for that also =P

++++

Part III
City Underfoot

++++

Though he was being escorted by two of his enemies, Heero still couldn't get over how surreal it was to walk through Horde territory so freely. Since he was so used to creeping about wherever he went, striding down the open pathway was almost uncomfortable, even with the makeshift protection he had with him, and at almost every turn, he couldn't help but expect that something would leap out from the trees at him. Harder still was trying to curb that unease into a single, empty expression for the sake of keeping Trowa under the impression that he was Duo's mind slave. The very thought of such degradation was driving him mad.

Despite leaving the Sepulcher when the sky was still barely hinting at sunrise, it still took them a good portion of the day to travel north to Tirisfall. These haunted glades were a place Heero could definitely say he had never truly ventured himself, so it was almost forgivable that he could barely stifle a gasp when the ghostly spires of the Lordaeron ruins began to loom in the distance. The once proud walls of the decimated city, now crumbling and overgrown with weed and ivy, served as yet another monument to the corruption of Treize, who had once been the prince of this great kingdom. A chill ran down Heero's spine at the realization that he would soon be standing in the very place that had birthed so many of Azeroth's troubles.

"Are you sure this is really so wise? What if he remembers the way in and runs it back to his Alliance cronies?" Trowa commented from behind Heero as they began to draw nearer to Lordaeron. The crumbling pathway beneath their feet began to give way to stronger cobblestones, flanked on either side by gloomy banners that were emblazoned with the insignia of the Forsaken.

"He would be dead before he ever had the chance," Duo said, giving the side of Heero's face a rather sharp glare as they approached the outer curtain's rusted portcullis.

Truthfully, as they passed through the gatehouse, Heero couldn't say that the notion of using this guise as a chance to spy hadn't crossed his mind. It was common knowledge that the Forsaken had claimed the forgotten dungeons and crypts of Lordaeron as their capitol city, but the entrance was hidden somewhere amid the ruins and was a secret the Horde would carry to the grave. Besides, Heero reasoned further as they crossed the decrepit promenade, if he kept Lordaeron's secrets, perhaps Duo would, in turn, remain silent about the things he was sure to learn about Stormwind when they reached it.

The ruins were eerily quiet, though Heero couldn't shake the feeling that they were not alone. At the center of the bailey stood the remains of what was once a beautiful fountain, surrounded by uneven cobblestones and broken lumber. A series of makeshift bridges that were constructed of heavy planks spanned across places where the ground had caved in, the largest of which led right up to the castle keep. Still certain that they were being followed, Heero began to trail behind the others, who strode confidently towards the keep with the familiarity of ones who had walked the same route hundreds of times.

Daring to break his cover for a moment, Heero glanced back over his shoulder, sucking in a breath when he caught sight of a single ghost lingering on the edge of the fountain. It looked up at Heero and started at him with empty, sad eyes before fading away. Heero quickly whipped his head forward again, determined to forget what he'd just seen. Instead, he was gripped with an immobilizing fear when he realized that eight more ghostly shades had now materialized in front of him. He couldn't tell if they were yearning for him as their pale hands reached for him, or if they were trying to strike at him with malice. Still, he couldn't allow himself to fall too far behind, so he grit his teeth, closed his eyes and pressed onwards after Duo and Trowa.

He hurried down the abandoned passageways, not entirely sure if he was going the right way. The ghosts continued to drift after him until he reached a long, open-aired corridor that was lined with mossy statues and littered with dead flower petals. He stopped halfway down the hall to glance back once more, almost more uncomfortable with the fact that the ghosts had stopped following him. But the notion was soon forgotten, for he soon found himself entranced by the glow emanating from beyond the doorway at the end of the hallway. As he approached, he imagined he heard the faraway tones of the castle bells rejoicing in the towers.

It was as if an otherworldly force was beckoning Heero there, and upon entering, he realized that he had come across the place where Treize, possessed by the Lich King, had murdered his own father and betrayed his kingdom. The abandoned throne still stood at the back of the circular chamber, and it chilled Heero's very soul to note that the blood of the king still stained its cushions. Despite the mildewed curtains that hung around the walls of the drab chamber, the Alliance crest fixed into the floor stones still seemed to radiate with its own light. Heero dropped his head out of respect, deciding it appropriate to pay some kind of homage to the former King Terenas Kushrenada.

"My son...."

A whisper echoed through the room, jolting Heero from his solemnity. He glanced around the room fearfully, determined that his imagination was simply playing tricks on him.

"My son, what is this you are doing?"

He could still hear the aged words reverberating throughout the chamber. It was as if the spirit of Terenas had been chained to the very floor of the room, a realization that caused Heero to hastily back away from the glowing Alliance insignia beneath his feet. Surely these halls were a ghostly tomb, but Heero was suddenly fearful that he might be drawn in by some kind of corrupt power if he lingered much longer. He had never been one for stories, but he feared the memory of Treize and what he had become.

"I am... succeeding you... father...."

Unable to take much more of this haunting, Heero let out an uproarious scream that sent Duo and Trowa hurrying back from the hidden passages that laid beyond the throne room. They seemed to stumble out of nowhere, emerging from a hidden doorway tucked away behind the throne. "What in the name of the Sunwell is this?" Trowa groused as they approached Heero, who was frozen in one spot with shaking hands and glazed eyes. He turned to Duo and added icily, "I told you this was a bad idea."

"Shut up!" Duo snapped, not even bothering to turn around and grace Trowa with a look. He circled behind Heero and laid a hand on each of his shoulders in an effort to ground him back into tangible reality. "They cannot hurt you," Duo murmured into Heero's ear as his mismatched hands slid down the length of Heero's arms. "Nothing here will hurt you."

The sound of Duo's voice, raspy as it was, certainly did to calm Heero down. He alleviated himself with a series of even breaths, thankful that the voices of Treize and Terenas had faded away. Schooling his features once more, he hoped that he hadn't compromised his arrangement with Duo before it had even really begun.

"Stupid humans, always so terrified of that which they don't understand," Trowa muttered, turning on his heel to walk back the way they'd come. He hardly shared the same love of games that Duo did, finding the prospect of toying with a prisoner like Heero exceedingly dull. He would have much preferred a more direct course of action, and sometimes wondered why he put up with it.

Duo was following not far behind, propelling Heero forward with a tug of his wrist. "Maybe he is terrified of what he already knows too well," Duo commented glibly as he pulled Heero along, dragging him through a concealed archway and into a sloping passageway. "Treize was one of his own: perhaps he fears a weakness he understands all too well."

Heero had to bite the insides of his cheeks to remain silent, certainly not appreciative of having two people talk about him while he was still in their presence. At the same time, there was nothing to contest in Duo's statement, as he had rather astutely pointed out exactly the thing that had bothered Heero's conscience the most.

"The same might be said of you, then," Trowa rejoined sharply as he led the way further beneath the castle. He spoke as if he knew his comment would silence Duo: "After all, were you not the one who thirsted so readily for vengeance after your brother was lost?"

Duo said nothing, but Heero could tell that Trowa had stabbed at some kind of weakness by the way Duo's hand tightened fiercely around his wrist. They continued on in silence, guided by the flicker of the iron lanterns suspended on the walls. After what seemed like an endless journey, the pathway leveled out beneath their feet and came to an abrupt end in a tiny, round vestibule. There, they found Heavypaw waiting for them, his tail twitching across the floor in an impatient manner that so echoed his master's demeanor.

Once they were all crowded in the small space, Heero again had to suppress a yelp of surprise when the floor suddenly plummeted beneath them. It took him a few moments to realize that they had been standing on an enchanted platform that was now carrying them even further underground. At least he now knew why Undercity remained so inaccessible to people who didn't know how to look for it, though at this rate, it was doubtful he would live to tell the tale.

The platform slowed at the bottom of the chasm, settling in an arrangement of mammoth tusks that somewhat resembled an open flower. A door magically released and slid back, jarring the silence of the ruins above with the hubbub of the bustling undead metropolis, Undercity. Almost too overwhelmed to move of his own accord, Heero allowed Duo to keep pulling him along as they stepped off the elevator and into the city proper.

Undercity was a vast labyrinth the Forsaken had engineered out of Lordaeron's catacombs and dungeons after they had seized it from the control of the Scourge, the Lich King's own undead army. The Forsaken themselves were only a small band of undead that had been wrested from the Lich King's control by the Lady Catalonia, who, herself, had been resurrected as a banshee slave to the Lich King until she had managed to regain her free will. Now allied with the Horde, she sought to cleanse Azeroth of all that would oppose her and her followers - beginning with the one who had woken her from the grave.

Passing through the cavernous tomb that served as Undercity's central hub, Heero knew he was being stared at from all sides. There were more undead gathered in this one place than Heero had ever seen in his entire life, all going about their daily business in a civilized fashion that was surreal to Heero. It was then that it truly struck him that there was no margin for error with this guise, and whether he liked it or not, he was safest at Duo's side.

As they crossed a footbridge that spanned a wide river of sewage, Trowa turned back to inform Duo that he was going to find someone to repair his damaged armour. "Then I have to report to Lady Catalonia and the Silvermoon ambassador in the royal quarters," he said, not bothering to mask his pride that he was allowed such an audience. "Do not send for me until you are ready to leave - and dare not try and steal away without me, either!" He glared at Heero suspiciously, eying him head to toe with disgust before abruptly marching on his way.

Duo was shaking his head hopelessly after his elfin friend, thoughtfully poking his tongue through the tear in his cheek. "By the time we're ready to depart, he will have had a day or two to get over himself," Duo muttered under his breath, partly for Heero's benefit as he dragged him onward.

The place Duo was taking Heero was a section of the city known as the Apothecarium. It was there that Duo and the other members of the Royal Apothecary Society lived and studied, and it was there that Duo intended to make his own preparations for the long journey ahead. Heero, for his part, continued to struggle with keeping his eyes from wandering as they strode by tables covered with alchemists' equipment and bookshelves crammed with tomes that were probably hundreds of years old.

They had managed to go quite some way without interruption until they were passing through a corridor lined with doorways to private studies and were stopped by a hunched Forsaken walking in the opposite direction. His face was heavily scarred and his white hair poofed out on all sides, sort of like a mushroom cap. "Ah, young Master Blackscythe, welcome back," he greeted Duo as amiably as his creaking voice would allow. "I take it you found the Sepulcher's library of use?"

"You could say that, Professor," Duo answered airily.

The elderly Forsaken cast an assessing glance at Heero, and it made Heero feel as if he was being peeled apart. "You haven't been neglecting your research, have you?" the professor said, shooting Duo a very particular glare.

Duo frowned, sounding very offended as he snapped, "Have I ever let you down before, G?"

"No, but...." The professor shot Heero another strange look and then said ambiguously, "You always were the sort to get... distracted...."

Duo's decrepit features stretched into a snide expression: "Thanks for your unyielding confidence, Professor," he said sarcastically. Marking that as the end of the conversation, he lifted a finger and snapped for Heero as he started to continue on his way. Heero dared not glance back at the old Forsaken professor as he quickly trotted after Duo, completely unsure of what to make of the exchange. He couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more that Duo had not yet told him.

Soon, Duo stopped in front of one of the doors and conjured a large key from the depths of his robes. Opening the heavy door, he ushered Heero inside before closing it and hastily locking it behind them. "No need to work so hard at appearances while we're in here," Duo said as he moved to sit at the large, oaken desk pushed into one corner of the room. "This place is where I can be alone."

Heero let out a grunt of acknowledgement as he took in his new surroundings. The room was obviously once a private burial chamber that had been refurnished to suit the purposes of a study. The wall by the door was lined with bookshelves, with stacks of extra tomes half hidden by a heavy curtain that hung decoratively in the corner. A niche in the stone that had once lodged a corpse was now home to more alchemy equipment. Heero also noted that despite all the personal flourishes in the room, there was no bed, and it occurred to him that the undead probably never had to rest. "Who was that man?" he asked as he sought a place to sit down.

"My mentor," Duo answered simply as he fished through one of his desk drawers. "I've known him forever - even when I was alive. He was... my father's friend." Slamming the drawer shut and yanking out another, Duo chuckled a bit and added, "I suppose he meant to imply something about you. Perhaps you are luckier that it is only now that we are meeting one another." He paused long enough to cast his lamp-like eyes at Heero, their emptiness somehow more piercing than any other gaze Heero had ever endured, and said, "Had this encounter befallen us while I was still lived, you might have found yourself lashed to the headboard instead of that chair." The subsequent chuckle that followed was nothing short of lecherous and maniacal.

Heero had a multitude of things he wanted to say to that comment, but he settled for another grunt, acknowledging to himself how it was sometimes hard to remember that the undead weren't always so. Vaguely, he wondered where Duo had grown up before he had become Forsaken. He had to surpress the urge to ask about it, though, for he had a feeling that Duo was incredibly touchy about the life he lead before he'd died and how different his existence was now. Admittedly, he supposed he would feel the same if he had befallen the same fate, so he said nothing.

Meanwhile, Duo seemed to have found what he was looking for in the depths of his desk. He laid a leather bound journal on the desktop and started flipping through the yellowed pages. "I know I made notes about that sigil you idiots forged," he was muttering under his breath, mostly to himself as he skimmed through the journal. Asahi, the cockroach, had scuttled down Duo's arm and was running in circles on the desktop as if he meant to help Duo find what he was looking for, and with a twitter of his antennae, he called Duo's attention to a particular page in the notebook. Pausing to read more carefully, Duo muttered a thanks at the insect and then started making notations on a nearby scroll of parchment. "An enchanted thorium blade?" he said to himself; "If we pass through Searing Gorge to collect the metal, we'd have to find someone to forge it for us... and someone versed in holy magic...."

"I know a priest of Elune," Heero spoke up, immediately thinking of Quatre.

But Duo waved him off, already far more entrenched in his own plans. He had unearthed a map of Azeroth's Eastern Kingdoms and was bent over it intently, already trying to decide the best route to take. Asahi was trying to help by running up and down the map in a straight line between Lordaeron and Stormwind in the south. Absently, Duo said to Heero, "Why don't you make yourself useful and start gathering the things we'll want to bring with us." He tossed a careless hand in the general direction of a coffin that was being used as a chest instead of its traditional purpose.

Though Heero would have liked to oversee whatever plans Duo was hatching, he didn't protest. He found a leather pack inside the coffin and pulled it out, hoping that the things he thought to fill it with were the same sorts of things Duo would consider useful. He wasn't sure he wanted to experience Duo's wrath firsthand; his intimidating personality was trial enough.

++++

The haste with which they prepared for the journey might have been overlooked as careless in any other situation, but Duo was insistent that they had very little time to waste with the sigil's demon on the loose. By nightfall, Heero and Duo were already getting ready to meet up with Trowa before heading out on their way.

"It will be suspicious if I give you a new weapon while we remain here," Duo said as he shouldered his favourite staff, a magic rod topped with a purple crystal that glowed. "I will find you something else when we are further from this place."

Heero accepted this logic, supposing it would make no sense for someone's brainwashed servant to carry his own dagger, but it still made him nervous to think that his safety would generally be in the hands of Duo and that disagreeable blood elf. Things seemed to be going according to their arrangement so far, but Heero was never one to assume that smooth sailing meant there was no chance for stormy weather. If anything, the ease with which things were proceeding just put him more on guard. They are still Horde, and the Horde is still my enemy, Heero kept thinking.

"We will keep Trowa under the predisposed impression, even when we are traveling," Duo went on, holding out the leather pack, which had since been stocked with rations, potions and coin, for Heero to carry. "The Sin'dorei have even less use for your kind than we do. It will serve you better in the long run if he thinks you are mine, believe me."

Taking the pack and strapping it to his back, Heero responded drolly, "Your consideration for my well-being is astounding."

"Not as astounding as the consideration I have for my own," Duo retorted as he moved to open the door. "Now shut up and do as I say, and you might actually survive this strange circumstance."

Uncaring if Duo had always been so cynical, Heero gnashed his teeth with displeasure at such treatment and kept the scowl on his face even as he followed Duo back into Undercity's twisting thoroughfares. He thought that Duo's survival would be just as impressive as his own if this kept up all the way to Stormwind. He idly thumbed the belt pouch he had stashed the cursed sigil in, reminding himself for what seemed to be the hundredth time that this ordeal was for the good of all Azeroth.

Aboveground, Trowa and Heavypaw were waiting for Heero and Duo in the gatehouse of old Lordaeron with no shortness in impatience, which Trowa was sure to demonstrate with a glare as they approached. Heero wondered how much of it had to do with the blood elves' insatiable appetite for magic and how much was just leftover baggage that Trowa was toting around. Then again, Heero supposed if he had been alive for hundreds of years and endured some of the things Trowa was sure to have, he couldn't say that he wouldn't have turned out the same way.

"We shall backtrack through Silverpine and head towards the Alterac Mountains," Duo announced, immediately taking the lead. Trowa and Heavypaw immediately fell in step after him, and Heero brought up the rear, not about to let that elf anywhere behind him.

Things were relatively quiet as they made their way back towards the Silverpine Forest. A few warg pups ran across their path once or twice, but that hardly yielded much excitement. Duo idly mentioned that he'd like to make it back to the Sepulcher by nightfall, and at the rate they were going, it seemed like they would most certainly meet that goal. But listening to the itinerary Duo had mapped out, Heero figured that they should enjoy this calm while it lasted, for some of the regions they would have to cross would not make for leisurely passing even on a good day.

As the path they were following rounded Lordamere Lake and started to wind its way into the wood, Trowa started rummaging through his hip pouch, fishing around for a small bit of jerky. Pulling it out, he started chewing on it and asked Duo around mouthfuls, "Do you ever have to feed your human?"

Duo didn't even stop to cast Trowa a glare. "I suppose the wisdom of the ages takes more than three hundred and forty years to settle in," he answered sarcastically. After pausing for a few beats, he suddenly exclaimed, "Of course I do! Share some of that dried pig of yours." He made shooing motions at Trowa with his bony hand.

"What, you didn't pack your own pet food?" Trowa sneered back, clearly not keen on this suggestion. He was eying Heero in a way that made Heero wish he could just pull his fist back and launch it right between the elf's green eyes.

"No one asked you to come along on this journey," Duo retorted with flashing eyes. "If you're not going to contribute, you can turn around and march right back to Silvermoon City."

Trowa's reaction was schooled, making it hard to tell exactly what he thought of Duo's comment as he dug into his pouch for more jerky. He shoved a piece in Heero's direction that seemed purposefully smaller than the piece he'd taken for himself, but Heero wasn't about to complain. Still trying to act as soulless as possible, he took the jerky from Trowa and mechanically began to chew on it, all the while wondering if the undead ever had to eat.

Returning to the Sepulcher and parading across the graveyard as plain as day was another surreal experience for Heero, and he found it difficult to keep his bland expression in check while his instincts were screaming at him to cut and run for the cover of the forest. He wasn't sure why he was having such a hard time shaking that restless notion, which somehow seemed to grow beyond the simple explanation of being unused to the company of his enemies. In the end, he supposed he might just be tired.

"Are we breaking here for the night?" Trowa asked, wrinkling his nose as he followed Duo towards the familiar, old inn.

"I am told the ground is also comfortable," Duo said sarcastically from the doorway of the inn, obviously not pleased that Trowa seemed to enjoy questioning his authority over their trip. "Or we can just keep walking, if you'd rather. I'm not one for sleep anymore."

Heero was surprised to hear Trowa let out a rather good-natured grunt at this rejoinder, and even more so to see the blood elf amiably pat Duo on the shoulder as he also entered the inn. The apparent complexity of their friendship struck Heero for its similarities to his own friendship with Quatre, though it was something he wasn't quite sure he could take solace in. He was still having a hard time seeing the Forsaken, the blood elves and the rest of the Horde as a body of people instead of an adversary that needed to be quashed.

While negotiating with the undead innkeeper for nightly lodgings, Duo beckoned for Heero to come stand near him. There was a pretense that Duo had simply needed to fish a few gold pieces out of the pack that Heero carried, but there was something in Duo's behaviour that Heero couldn't help but call protective. Either Duo still possessed some notion of responsibility from when he was alive, or he was just that fixated on having that Stormwind elixir. That, or he simply doesn't trust me alone, Heero thought with further pessimism.

With a room secured for the night, Heero, Duo, Trowa and Heavypaw retired for the night. Trowa cast aside his bow and quiver and collapsed onto one side of the large double bed almost immediately, careless of the fact that the mattress was old and the linens moth eaten. Heero had a bit more reservation climbing into such a bed, but he had roughed it outside enough times to know that he should be thankful to sleep in one whenever he could. He sat down on the edge of the mattress, all the while casting an uneasy eye at the comatose blood elf as he tried to decide if it was safe to act a little more like himself.

"When he sleeps, he sleeps," said Duo from a chair by the window, nodding at Trowa. He was absently petting Heavypaw's mane, apparently not bothered by the fact that Trowa's pet would witness the truth about Heero's state of mind. "Even the proud Sin'dorei need rest, I suppose," he went on conversationally as Heero went about removing his boots. "Though I couldn't tell you if it was because they get tired like humans do, or if it is the poisoned Sunwell that causes such fatigue."

"The Sunwell?" Heero dared to wonder aloud, his voice scratchy from a day of disuse.

"After they were exiled from Kalimdor by your night elves, the high elves created a pool of arcane energy with a vial of water drawn from the Well of Eternity from which to draw their power," Duo explained as briefly as he could. "But since Treize attempted to use the magic of the Sunwell for his own purposes, it was weakened and poisoned, and after generations of relying on its power to feed their arcane addiction, the elves of Quel'thalas cannot survive without it."

Heero had a brief understanding of elfin history thanks to Quatre, who had daily association with the few remaining high elves that had found refuge in Lady Relena's court. He had known that there had been some rift that had differentiated the last of the high elves from those who now called themselves blood elves instead, but he hadn't realized that the name alluded to yet another tragedy left in the wake of Treize's conquests. He supposed it would stand that the elves that had abandoned Silvermoon might present a biased account of things, but it was amazing what a difference it made. Heero cast another glance at Trowa, this time feeling a little more empathy towards him. He had always written off the blood elf lust for magic as some kind of insatiable addiction, never before knowing that it was actually a matter of survival for their kind.

"Is that why the blood elves hate the Alliance so?" Heero then wanted to know. "Because they harbour some notion of betrayal?"

Now gazing out the window, Duo simply answered, "Go to sleep, Heero." The warlock seemed to have suddenly taken a heavy thought to mind, and it showed even in his deformed face. Heero knew when a line had been drawn and said no more as he laid back against the mattress, this time less hesitant to let his guard down around Trowa. For some reason, he trusted that Duo would keep a watchful eye out in case harm found its way to their door.

++++

TBC!!

++++