Jump City, four pm
Two Weeks After First Contact
"Here they come again!" Nightwing cried, pointing into the sky. Four black blots darted through the sky, their short wings beating hard. The stony-skinned creatures darted back and forth, looking for their targets. Purple-black hands stretched from the sky, grabbing one and pulling it to the ground. The other three gave chase to their stolen compatriot, locking on to the Death Knight. A burst of arrows caught the last in the formation square in the face, causing it to plummet, deader than dead.
The other was torn apart by the magical energies of demon and the arcane. The third, panicked, tried to fly away. Short wings made for good maneuverability, but the creature was slow in the air. A beam of pure moonlight ensconced the beast, burning it's skin. Green starbolts crashed into it's hide, shattering the stony exterior. Vanquished, it too fell to the ground.
"Dudes," Beast Boy said, shifting from a humming bird to his normal form. "This is seriously getting old."
"I don't get it," Rom'lath said, standing beside the changeling. "What does the Lich King hope to accomplish by this? Sending small groups against us has never worked in the past."
"No doubt just trying to distract us, or toy with us." Bloodsoul said.
"Frostwyrm incoming!" Tela'zin shouted. They all heard an echoing roar in the distance. A tiny spec appeared on the horizon, quickly growing in size.
"Good spot, Tela'zin," Bloodsoul called up to her. "Rangers, off the buildings, get under cover, I'll get it into position." Everyone on the roof tops quickly made their way down, none of them having any desire to be caught out in the open when the undead dragon grew close. Bloodsoul took position in the center of a wide street, making himself clearly visible, and an apparently easy target.
He brought his blade to the ready as the flying skeleton, barely held together by ligaments and rotten flesh, roared again. It locked onto him, banking towards the ground. It's jaws opened, the blue energy within its maw flexing and shifting. Magical breath of freezing winds and ice shot forth, enveloping the Death Knight. He quickly brought up his anti-magic shell, the two green half-domes with their spinning runes appearing atop his head and beneath his feet.
He was burned a little by the first second of the frost breath, but his defenses diverted the rest of it around him, harmlessly. Listening for the flapping of wings, Bloodsoul used his Death Grip to force the frostwyrm to the ground, and drawing its ire. Jaws lined with sharp teeth snapped through the veil of blue left from the wyrm's breath attack. He quickly jumped back, narrowly avoiding the beast's bite.
Bloodsoul countered by slashing the beast across its long muzzle. Using his unique talents, he siphoned the stolen essence of life (or perhaps existence was more appropriate) into himself, healing his burns. Several arrows shot past him, their fletching grazing Bloodsoul's helmet as they past. One of the arrows exploded in the wyrm's face, enraging it. Believing Bloodsoul to be the perpetrator of the sudden assault, it redoubled its efforts, slashing at the Death Knight with its large claws.
"Now!" Bloodsoul shouted. His gathered allies unleashed their full might against the frostwyrm. Bumble Bee, Starfire, and Raven crisscrossed over head, bombarding the frostwyrm from above. Rom'lath, Bladetusk, Robin, and Narletha all attacked from the sides and underbelly of the creature, striking at anything they thought would damage it. Mage and Warlock lashed at the enthralled creature with fire and shadow, while Aqua Lad struck it with bolts of water, flash frozen by Cyborg.
The creature, only slightly larger than a drake, much smaller than a mature dragon, and nowhere near the size of Sapphirion and Sindragosa, was quickly beaten down by the assault. Its legs failed, its bone shattered. The creature let out a number of pathetic, mewling, whimpers. Decayed eyes looked to Bloodsoul, seeming to plead for release from all of this. He walked up to the creature, raised his blade, and quickly sunk it into the back of the creature's neck. With a final spasm, the frostwyrm returned to death, free from its torture and prison.
"We just killed a dragon," Speedy said, sounding impressed. "I'd say that was a pretty big win."
"I'm glad you're pleased with yourself." Bloodsoul said, running his hand over the creature's skull. "Don't be. This frostwyrm was little more than a child, probably rotting in the frozen grounds of Northrend since days of the Night Elves war against the Burning Legion."
"What I think the Knight-Commander is trying to say is that you should feel gladdened that we freed a tortured soul from the iron-grip of the Lich King." Salya added.
"Sure," Bloodsoul knelt down by the creature's head, looking into its soulless eyes. The look was still there; the look of pain, of misery, hopelessness, despair, longing, and surrender.
"What is it, exactly?" Nightwing asked.
"A frostwyrm," Rom'lath told him. "When the Lich King was building his army in Northrend, he discovered the graveyard of the Blue Dragon Flight. The vast majority of the Flight died there when Neltharion, or Death Wing as we know him, betrayed the alliance created by the Night Elves during the War of the Ancients. The Lich King must have raised hundreds of them for use in the Third War, the assaults on Stormwind and Orgrimmar, and for use when we assaulted Northrend.
"This one looks like it was adolescent when it died. Frankly, I can't imagine a worse kind of hell. To die in fear and confusion when your most trusted ally turns against you, then to be awoken what must have been only a moment later in rage and pain and slavery by a force of pure evil; it's just not something I can conceive of. No living creature should have to suffer through that."
"Ten thousand years ago, this creature would have flown high and free. Now it finds an end on another world, alone and frightened. What a waste." Whitefur said. Bloodsoul stared into the eyes of the lost creature, a reflection of everything that was forced to fight for the Scourge. He should have felt...something. Pragmatism in the face of reality, and a heart frozen by, rage kept him grounded.
"Waste or not, these are just bones and rotting meat now." The Death Knight said, raising. "I doubt we'll be seeing anymore activity from the Scourge today, and the municipal authorities can clean this up."
"So, that's it?" Beast Boy said. "After all this, we're just going to head home?"
"Pretty much, yeah." Bloodsoul said, not bothering to look back. "If you have a problem with that, then feel free to stay, I'm sure they could use a hand cleaning the mess up." And a mess there was; dozens of corpses now free to rot, bones and viscera everywhere, and now the pile that was a dragon carcass clogging the streets.
"Uh, no thanks." Beast Boy said.
Titan's Tower, six pm
"Could that guy be any more of an ass?" Beast Boy said as the Titan's gathered in the common room. "I mean, he has us fighting off these Scourge incursions, gathers us together for training whenever he feels like, then once we're done; he's gone, and he takes his Horde cronies with him."
"What are you looking for?" Raven asked him. "A cookie for doing what you're supposed to do?"
"That'd be pretty sweet. Hah! I see what I did there." Beast Boy fired back.
"Well, I get the feeling that's never going to happen. Bloodsoul seems way too much like the hard-ass type." Cyborg said. "Besides, Raven's right, why do you need to be thanked or congratulated by someone from another planet for defending your own. If anything, we should be thanking them for fighting with us."
"Why? This is their war, it's just spilled over here."
"I have to agree with Beast Boy," Nightwing said. "They're as equally responsible for everyone who's killed at the Scourge's hands as the Scourge is."
"The greatest act of treachery is to do nothing while your people die." Bloodsoul said. Beast Boy and Nightwing both looked dejected as the Death Knight stepped out of a portal, the other end opening to some forest.
"What are you doing here?" Nightwing asked.
"Consolidating our forces." The Death Knight answered. "Something...isn't right about all of this. It's like the Scourge was toying with us." The Death Knight paced around the room, stopping occasionally to examine things. "What in the world is this?" He asked, holding up the Titan's leftovers.
"It's called pizza," Beast Boy said. "We eat it. Don't tell me you don't have pizza on your world."
"Of course, we do, I just wanted to see if you knew what it was." The Death Knight growled with a dismissive roll of his eye and shake of his head.
"The Lich King is either attempting to get us to drop our guard, or trying to gather us all in one spot for a massive assault." Rom'lath added.
"So, naturally, you thought the best thing to do was to go ahead and gather in one place to make option 'B' a little more convenient for the Lich King?" Beast Boy said.
"There's a third option," Cyborg spoke up.
"Gather us all in one spot, and hope we aren't expecting an attack." Raven finished the thought, quickly catching on.
"Good catch, Cyborg, was it?" Bloodsoul asked. Cyborg nodded. "And Raven?" Raven nodded, too. "It makes the most sense to gather all your enemies in one spot, and disarm them. Turns what would have been a protracted engagement into a bloodbath."
"I say bring 'em on," Beast Boy bellowed, mustering all of his machismo and bravado. "We can take them."
"You're eager for battle," Bladetusk said. "Good, that will serve you well when battle is upon us; but you're still a fool for desiring to charge head long into the fray when the waters are still."
"Look the sooner we beat the Scourge, the sooner you can all go back to your world, and everything can return to business as usual. " Beast Boy said. The changeling tried, and failed, to meet the orc eye for eye.
"Chill, Bee, there's nothing we can do until the Scourge show themselves anyways."
"I'll watch from da roof." Tela'zin said, making her way up. The others spread out, milling about or choosing to laze around.
"Look," Cyborg said to Bloodsoul, pulling him aside. "I know you're keeping something from us, and I don't like it. They aren't your play things, and their lives aren't yours to throw away when it amuses you." Bloodsoul pulled his arm away from Cyborg.
"You're right, I am hiding things from you. I don't think your team is taking the threat seriously. Most of you might be adults physically, but you're still children at heart. This is war, Cyborg, and there exists no room on the front line for children. Two weeks ago, Aqua Lad learned that his king and people are all dead, and now look at him," he pointed over to the Atlantian in blue. "Playing that- that- whatever it is."
"Two weeks ago he learned that he could very well be the last of his kind," Cyborg said, leaning in towards the dark warrior. "Maybe it hasn't hit home, maybe he's hiding, maybe he's just putting on a front. Can you blame him? What if someone told you that your people were massacred?" For the second time in her life, Raven saw, and felt, rage in its purest form. The look on the Death Knight's face was truly indescribable, but the scariest thing about it to her was that it looked almost serene.
The next three words out of the Death Knight's face left her shaken to the core, the pain, the rage, the fear, the sheer horror of it left her cold. "I lived it." Bloodsoul hissed before storming off. Three words, that was all. Three simple words. Yet, on those three words, dripped the blood of still-fresh wounds. Each drop a piece of the story, and with every letter uttered, Raven pieced more and more of it together. She saw the smoke and the fire and the bodies. She heard the bells tolling and the criers, and the screams of men and women and children. She heard the ripping and tearing of flesh as it was rent.
She smelled the bodies as their bowels released and the putrid decay of them. In the smoke and the fire, through ruined houses and panicked people fleeing for their lives, she saw the worst thing of all. The traitor, proud and evil in grey. The Prince returned. A name echoed through her head, a name that hit her like a blade of the coldest steel. Arthas.
Raven knew what she saw, for what she saw was a glimpse of what the Death Knight saw, and the name of this place now made an event? It was a name to last the ages on his world. Lordaeron.
"Raven?" Beast Boy's concerned voice pulled her back from the horror. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." She said, sniffling and turning away.
"You're crying." He said.
"It's- I need to be alone." She raised her hood, and hurried to her room.