The waking world slammed into Sintharia with all the subtlety of a war maul. Sounds, smells, and tactile feeling blasted across her awareness. She was immediately aware that she was still held in the clutches of Dargonax, the disloyal creature uttered a grunt of surprise when it suddenly realized it was no longer siphoning power from his creator, quite the opposite. Liquid fire surged through Sintharia's veins as a portion of Zzeraku's might was torn from Dargonax, and directed into her body.

"I-Will-Not-Be-Defeated!" Sintharia roared, as the energy pooled in her chest, before being unleashed. A primal explosion of kinetic force blasted Dargonax away. Sintharia experienced a momentary freefall before her own wings snapped open, and she glided down towards the ground. She landed roughly upon the scorched earth, her claws sinking deeply into the blackened dirt.

Dargonax was much less graceful. He hit the ground hard on his left side, skidding dozens of meters before coming to a stop. For a moment, Sintharia dared to hope the fall had incapacitated him, but her hopes were dashed as the aberration slowly – painfully – got to his feet, and looked back over to her with eyes burning of murderous intent.

Despite herself Sintharia was feeling rather elated. The scars Deathwing had inflicted upon her had guttered out, quenched by Zzeraku's alien essence. They were now charred black rents, ugly and cauterized; Sintharia could already tell that the scars would never trouble her again.

As the power surged through her, Sintharia began to perceive something she had not felt in a very long time. It came from the rushing waterfalls, the wind gusting through the valley, from the roots of the mountains themselves. Azeroth was singing to her.

It was not a pretty composition. Beats were missing, notes ended sourly, and components were either not present or working incorrectly, and the conductor was absent. The entire composition was flawed, it was the music of a world that had long been bereft of it's custodian. In any other situation, the dragoness would be at a loss on how to begin reconnecting with her Titan given abilities, but Zzeraku's influence made for an excellent foil for her atrophied scope of knowledge.

Sintharia and her passenger reached for the primal energy, one thought clear in her mind; she needed healing.

Summoned by their conjoined will, ten tendrils of water rose up from the ground, drawn from the damp earth, a subterranean river, and the air. Each was thick around as the trunk of an aged oak, responding to her will they wrapped around her brutalized body. Had a shaman been present to witness this, they would have likened the conjuration to a variation of the 'Healing Surge' ramped up to a massive scale. The water, infused with restorative and cleansing energies cascaded across her hide; scales were washed clean, the body mended itself, scars old and new faded.


From his vantage point, Korialstrasz watched in amazement at Sintharia's renewal. Sintharia had been well known for her grotesque appearance, Deathwing's attack had seared lasting inflammatory scars into her flesh, and half her face had been melted off in that particular encounter. And more recently, the demon soul exploded literally in her face, marring everything the fallen Aspect had failed to ruin in his fit of deranged lust.

Korialstrasz only vaguely remembered what she looked like before then, and as her body restored itself under the haze of nether infused liquid, he was finally seeing it again. Her infamous scars knitted together, leaving only slightly visible marks in their passing. The gaping wound Dargonax had rent upon her belly also mended, and unlike her old scars it vanished completely. Her face was also restored, proud and graceful. But while Sintharia may have appeared whole now on the exterior, her golden eyes reflected the open wounds in her psyche, that despite her reclaimed beauty, made her appear utterly terrifying.


"Alright you little shit, come to mama!" Sintharia goaded, electrical arcs dancing across her body as she tapped further into her long unused natural powers. The elements recoiled at the encroaching touch of her deranged mind, but she cared not as she communed with powers she barely understood anymore. She didn't care that she was likely breaking at least a dozen rules of the old Black Dragonflight, she just wanted Dargonax to die.

'Sister! Don't do this!' Mytheria's spectral voice rang in her head. 'They aren't meant to be used like that!'

Dargonax answered her challenge with a throaty bellow as he charged her, his wings downbeating as he struggled to lift into the air and bear down on her.

"Rise!" Sintharia bellowed.

The earth split open at her call. A hand wreathed in fire, and made of molten stone erupted from the fissure, elongating and striking Dargonax in the chest. Sintharia watched with mounting glee as an immense lumpy form crawled out from the wound in the ground. Giant lava elementals were a singularly destructive breed, the only way to bind them was through the application of immense willpower. In the past, a black dragon with the proper amount of preparation could summon these beings safely; Sintharia wasn't that dragon. Sintharia had forced the elemental to come here, and used the power Zzeraku gifted her to bind it against it's will. Unfortunately it didn't stop there.

"Attack!" Sintharia commanded her new thrall. The lava giant did as it was bade, and lumbered toward Dargonax, a trail of burning devastation brewing in it's wake. Sintharia knew it wouldn't be enough, she needed to dig deeper.

Sintharia took to the skies with relish. As her connection to Azeroth deepened, more and more minions were made to answer her call. The skies darkened, the earth shook, water levels rose. Sintharia grinned wickedly as more elementals came to attack the grounded Dargonax, she would fly overhead and ensure that her 'son' would not be able to escape to the skies. Then, when the elementals wore him down enough, she would finish him off.


"What the hell is happening?!" Rhonin shouted over the din of howling wind and shifting rock. His mane of red hair tangled in his face as powerful gusts blasted through the valley. Kalec was nearby tending to Iridi's supine form, while Vereesa stood at his side, holding her hood down as the spastic wind tore into it. He did not know what to make of the current situation, Deathwing's prime bitch and her twisted creation had up and decided to ignore them and kill each other for a change, and the result was total chaos.

The land was teeming with berserk elementals of all types, and a few Rhonin had not seen before. All of them apparently summoned by the black consort to overwhelm Dargonax while she played it safe and rained molten destruction from on high.

"She's insane," Kalec said hoarsely, "There is no way anyone can control that many elementals at once!"

"You are welcome to go up and tell her that," Rhonin replied gruffly, "Either way, it is a win, win situation for us. If she kills Dargonax, she'll be weakened and we can put her down with little fuss... although her army of elementals might be a problem."

Deep thunderous beats that vibrated the air broke Rhonin from his train of thought as he gazed upward in time to see Korialstrasz drop from the sky, and land about a dozen yards away. The red leviathan folded his wings and swung his large head towards them.

"My friends, I must advise you to keep your distance," the red rumbled.

"You don't have to tell us twice!" Vereesa called to him.

"I don't understand, how is she doing any of this?!" Kalec demanded.

Korialstrasz was silent as he gazed at Sintharia for a long moment, "That is not the Sintharia we have been fighting, her very nature has changed."

Rhonin blinked in bewilderment, "What, are you saying she is one of the good guys now?" He asked skeptically.

"Titans, no. She is still a rotten bitch as you can plainly see. Her presence is... how can I put this, clean. The vibe of wrongness I felt in her has vanished, somehow Sintharia has been cleansed of the corruption that befouled her Flight thousands of years ago."

Kalec's eyes nearly bugged out at this statement, "How can you say that? Look at her, she has clearly lost her mind! If we don't stop her now, her folly will consume all of us!"

Korialstrasz fixed the currently transformed blue dragon with a hard stare, his slitted cerulean eyes reflecting only total seriousness, "She cannot be allowed to continue, that is true. But we cannot fight them both at the same time," the crimson giant replied in a tone that brokered no tolerance for debate. To his knowledge Sintharia is the first black dragon to ever be freed from corruption, he wasn't so arrogant to believe that it was his words alone that turned her from Deathwing's madness, something invoked this change in the former consort, and he needed to know what. Additionally there was his queen to think about.

Neltharion's betrayal had deeply hurt Alexstrasza, but had not managed to burn away her love for him. Never once in his memory had his queen ever desired to kill Deathwing for his transgressions, but rather she wanted to save him. No matter how far the Earth Warder fell, her new anger for his atrocities was not greater than her old fondness for her brother. The Lifebinder would have payed any price to get her brother back; but now that he was gone it had died down to saving his flight, and Sintharia could be the key to realizing his love's greatest desire.


Back with Sintharia and Dargonax, the battle had escalated into a war. Using the elementals as cannon fodder was working well for Sintharia at the moment, but Dargonax was quickly recovering from being robbed of so much energy. The balance of power was beginning to turn away from her however, Dargonax was mulching the elementals by the dozen and her lava giant had fallen as well.

Fortunately she was used to dealing with the abrupt turns of battle. Sintharia had gotten into countless battles with other dragons and internecine squabbles within her own Flight over the course of her long and damnable life. And dealing with a recovering adversary was something she had learned to live with. She was already formulating a new stratagem for getting rid of Dargonax.

One of the reasons why she kept Balacgos's Bane close at hand was in the expectation that her creations could turn on her, she not only used it to empower Dargonax, but also so she could put him down when the day came that he outlived his usefulness to her. But the artifact had been destroyed. Unfortunately, both the cube and the Demon Soul had been destroyed a short while ago. But in spite of the loss, she still had a card left to play. Or a piece. Or whatever you used to spectacularly defeat your enemy in grim turnaround.

Dargonax bellowed in triumph as he phased into his incorporeal form, Sintharia spat a curse in draconic and dived toward the rupture in the side of the mountain that led into the derelict dwarven fortress, the battles that had taken place within it's halls had brought it into a deeper state of ruin. Dargonax true to his obsessions, chased after her.

There would be only one chance. If she failed, she would not survive the consequences. Curse you Korialstrasz for ruining everything! She thought vehemently as she touched down into an eroded hall, her claws tearing up the marble as she trotted as fast as she could now that there was no more room to fly.

She heard Dargonax crashing after her, his guttural snarls signaling his rapid approach as they grew steadily louder. Yes, my child. Follow me into your tomb. Sintharia knew that she would never be able to best Dargonax in a direct confrontation, without the shard she used to control him, she was outclassed. But one thing that Dargonax lacked was guile, he was all power and no creativity behind it. This would be his undoing.

Sintharia's clawed feet skidded on the smooth floor as she rounded a turn sharply, she was close to her final objective. She closed quickly to a white marble building set into the far end of a large atrium, she was already changing by the time she reached it. In seconds she transformed into her human guise, and was working the crude bipedal anatomy overtime to carry her through the small doorway.

Moments later, Dargonax crashed into the atrium. Rubble and detritus was spilled in his wake as he forced his immense form through the narrow archway that connected it to the corridor behind him. At this moment, the gargantuan amethyst fiend was possessed of a single desire: to devour all that was Sinestra.

"You cannot hide! I will find you – feast on your drained corpse!" He screeched, searching for the damnable dragoness that for too long had been allowed control over his destiny. He had already surpassed her, and now it was time to take her head.

He charged for the building at the other end of the atrium, not bothering to slow down or turn ethereal, instead opting to smash his massive skull against the mortal-made structure's fastness, smashing through quarried rock, mortar, and iron with little effort as he tore into the building's vast entry hall. Gilded columns, and bronze statues dedicated to revere heroes of the Wildhammer dwarves lined the walls, at the end of the chamber was a large collection of arcane machinery and various forms of magical lab equipment. Sinestra stood before it in her weak mortal form.

"I never had any intention of hiding from you my foolish child!" She cackled with glee, "You will never be able to surpass me!"

Rage flooded Dargonax's profane soul, anger so profound black tears of pure fury leaked out from his reddened eyes. "I will be free of you!" He screamed as he plowed towards her with reckless abandon.

Sintharia merely smiled, and raised a gray cube shaped object in front of her, green markings of draconic nature swirled upon all six faces. With a gesture, the cube launched away from Sintharia and towards the rapidly closing Dargonax. The small object struck the Twilight in the chest, and it's effects were immediate and profound.

From the moment it first came into her possession, Balacgos's Bane had fascinated Sintharia, it's ability to gather the unharnessed latent magical energy of the world was nothing short of amazing. The power one could wield with such a device was simply sublime. But Sintharia ever hungered for more power, and had tried to reverse engineer the artifact. The result was disappointing. Her attempt to copy Balacgos's creation had ended in failure, the device worked, but it was far too dangerous for her to wield without possibly killing herself.

The moment Sintharia's artifice made contact with Dargonax, it immediately fused to his flesh and pulsed erratically. Dargonax screamed in agony as his life force was rapidly pulled from his body and forced back in, twisted and misshapen by the flawed arcane mechanisms imbued into the cube.

"AAARRRRGHHH! KILL YOU! AUUUUGHHHH!" The tormented twilight dragon roared, Sintharia threw off her mortal shell like muddied shoes, and charged her twisted son, maw wide as she blasted a gout of lava onto him. Evidently, the Faux Bane caused Dargonax so much pain, it made him unable to turn ethereal. Which suited Sintharia just fine.

Her claws raked against his corrupted hide, scales and flesh were torn asunder as she savagely assaulted the weakened Dargonax. The tortured behemoth flailed out in pain fueled desperation, one blow caught Sintharia by the shoulder, making her wince in pain as she was thrown aside by his superior strength. But she also managed to get past him.

Sintharia gathered her borrowed power and reached even deeper into the fabric of Azeroth, forcing it to bend to her will in ways that without Zzeraku were impossible. The world rebelled at her mishandling of it's bounty, but she strove on regardless. She would come to forever regret what would follow.

The region around Grim Batol was suddenly struck by an earthquake of unheard of magnitude. The entire mountain shook as if struck by the hammer of a wrathful god, Sintharia cast one last gloating look at Dargonax's flailing form before taking off as the burning mount crashed down around her. She did not know what providence protected her from being crushed by the deluge of falling rubble, but at this point she did not care. She retraced her path to the breach as the halls of Grim Batol bent and sagged deeper into the earth.

As the breach came into view, Sintharia lurched into the air, narrowly avoiding a tumbling block of masonry as it crashed down from the overburdened ceiling. As she cleared the mountain, she twisted about to witness it collapsing inexorably into it's foundations. It was reaching the breaking point.

Suddenly there was an explosion, an explosion so loud that everyone within miles of Grim Batol was instantly deafened. Including Sintharia. The black consort wailed and lost altitude as her ear drums felt like they had imploded, she landed roughly on the ground just as the dust cloud thrown up by the collapsing mountain rolled over her and blocked out the sun. The earth twisted and churned beneath her, the unnatural earth tremors echoing the fury she had bestowed upon the elements.

"What-have-you-done?" She heard Mytheria's sobbing cries in her mind. "How could you?"

Sintharia ignored the voice, all that mattered was that she was victorious. Dargonax was now crushed under thousands of tons of rock. Now all that was left to do was wait for her hearing to return, then fulfill the terms of her contract.

The whining pitch in her ears gradually died down, and her ear plates popped as her hearing returned to her. She could now hear and feel the earth moaning beneath her claws, and knew she had inflicted terrible injury upon the land. A heavy sour sensation settled in her gut, making her feel distinctly unwell. Is this what guilt feels like? She wondered, the emotion felt so foreign to her.

She gazed through the thin films of her secondary eyelids as the heavy winds gradually dispersed the dust cloud. And as she perceived her surroundings, she saw that she was now on the opposite side of a cliff edge. Confusion wracked through her, she remembered no such feature being in Grim Batol's vicinity. But as the dust cleared further, her eyes widened in horrified understanding.

Where Grim Batol once stood, there was now a gaping chasm, nearly four hundred meters across and, and nearly six times that in length. The other ledge rose nearly a hundred meters overhead, steeped at an angle.

Sintharia blinked rapidly, she absolutely could not believe she had created this with her own will. Something had happened, something terrible. A violent wind gusted forth from the chasm, carrying the unmistakable stench of pure unadulterated rage. The fury of the planet itself, it's already tainted song twisted into a menacing cacophony, calling out to her like a choir of the damned.

This was not right, she had only meant to destroy the mountain, not... not this.

Sintharia quickly tried to block out the enraged choler the song had taken to. This was not her problem, everything she had done today was validated by the outcome. And woe betide any who would suggest differently.


Korialstrasz lifted his wings away from the group that they had previously encircled. He had made sure they were unharmed by Sintharia's reckless stunt. As his eyes surveyed the mind boggling devastation, all he could feel was loss. He wasn't sure if she was trying to crack Azeroth in half, but she sure as Fel came close. He had not witnessed such devastation since the Sundering.

He transformed into Krasus to properly join his companions as they all gawked at what Sintharia's actions had wrought. All struck speechless at the enormity of it. Rhonin was the first to regain his voice. "H-how?!"

How indeed? Sintharia was a potent force to be reckoned with, surely; but this was beyond the ken of normal dragonkind, only the Earth Warder himself could have pulled something like this off... and he was dead.

"I do not know my friend," Krasus said turning to him, "She should not have been able to do this."

"She... is coming," Iridi gasped weakly. Before any could wonder what the dying draenei meant, the blustering reports of leathery wings provided them the obvious answer.

Sintharia landed before them, head held high like a conquering goddess. The renegade consort looked truly pleased with herself, in spite of the fact that all of her plans had been thoroughly brought to ruin.

"So you survived after all," she remarked idly, her golden topaz eyes resting upon them.

All present glared daggers at her, but the infamous dragoness did not seem to care.

"You've lost Sintharia, your Twilight dragons are no more," Krasus said, glowering at the creature that had caused him no end of grief since her fall to darkness.

"Hmm, so they are," she affirmed, her sharp matronly voice betrayed no particular displeasure at the fact, on the contrary it only conveyed contentment. "My time is short so I will be brief, I shall now fulfill my part of the bargain."

Sintharia raised her forefoot and pointed a claw directly at Iridi, her body shimmered as a greenish cloak of mist flowed from her scales, and channeled through her extended appendage. It flowed down upon Iridi who arched as it seeped into her skin.

"Release her, now!" Kalec thundered as he assumed his true form, unconcerned by how weak he currently felt, and the fact that Sintharia was far larger, and stronger than he was.

"It was a fair deal!" Sintharia snapped angrily at him, "Zzeraku helped me destroy Dargonax, just as I wanted. And he gets to throw his existence away to save her just as he wanted." She waved her claw away as the last of Zzeraku's essence flowed into the now evenly breathing draenei priestess. "And now, with this power he has given me, it is my turn to sit the throne of my deranged shell of a former mate, nobody is making an exile of me ever again!"

The moment her rant ended, the silence was broken by a loud explosion, and an anger filled roar. Everyone turned to see a familiar purple form erupting from the broken ground. His hide was bloody, and broken. The Faux Bane was still burried in his chest, still pulsing malevolently as it pumped his essence in and out. But it appeared that Dargonax had finally decided to move beyond silly inconvenient things like pain, as he took to the dust choked skies, and blocked out the sun with his girth. Dargonax looked down at the assembly of dragons and mortals, his eyes burning with infinite madness and insanity.

"I WILL NOT BE UNDONE! THIS WORLD IS MINE!"