Disclaimer: I don't own WoW, but I do own my OC's.

Atlanta's POV

The rhythmic clashes of our blades all but obscured my hearing, blocking out the noises of the other Scourge forces as they writhed and detoured around me and Hiarth to engage in other battles. The ugly screech of the vyrkul general's axe sounded as I blocked the blade with a swift diagonal block. Grimly, I disengaged and continued to fight.

It was a tempo, almost pendulum like rhythm. Hiarth swung, I blocked, I swung, he blocked. It was a oddly cold, emotionless battle, in sharp contrast to the initial, angry feel of the fight.

Not that I minded-it only made things better for me. Cold detachment from emotions just works sometimes, I thought dazedly, even as I blocked another strike with a single swipe of my runeblade. Then I brought it back down and stabbed at Hiarth's chest. He bared yellowed teeth and knocked the weapon away.

I gave him a surly glare. "Just stay still."

"No," Hiarth responded, his eyes narrowed maliciously. "Why do that, when it would be more worthwhile to skewer you?"

there were no words after that. Our blades met in lightning fast strikes, the sounds of the blade's clanging lost in the din of noise surrounding us.

Emala's POV

Have I mentioned how much Telsyn ticked me off?

Probably have.

Anyway, damn bastard didn't waste any time. He threw a spray of several shadow bolts at us, and I dived right while Skydive went instantly airborne. I ducked one bolt, then jumped, landed, and rolled. Coming back upright in one smooth movement, I notched and aimed a explosive arrow, letting it fly.

This time the necromancer wasn't fast enough. The projectile struck the ground by his feet, causing a eruption of steam and melted snow. Amid Telsyn's angry yells, I glanced about for Skydive. To my irritation I saw him swerving around the fading shadow bolts then yelp when one grazed his tail.

"Stop wasting time!" I shouted wildly. "Flame at him!"

Skydive shot me a brief look of reproach, then settled into a steady glide. His jaws cracked open, and a streak of neon blue fire shot at Telsyn. There was a cry of anger and pain as if made contact, then the faint green outline of the necromancer's hands glowing.

It didn't take long to figure out just what was happening. More undead erupted from the ground in showers of dirt and snow. Two had me pinned facedown before I could react, holding both my arms.

I snorted snow and dirt out of my nose, drew in a breath and let out a whistle. There were two heavy thuds as Pierceclaw sailed over my head, his hind feet ramming into the chests of my assailants. I scrambled to my feet and then scooped my bow up.

Pierceclaw had gutted the two undead with his hind claws. He bit another on the arm and used the undead's momentum to fling it onto it's back. I wasted no time shooting it, then spun in place, letting a spray of flaming arrows fly at the ring of newly raised undead. To my grim satisfaction, the attacks were wonderfully effective.

Even so, Telsyn didn't seem keen on letting us go. I felt skeletal hands claw and grasp my ankles. Even as I stomped and kicked to crush the fragile bones, I had to duck to avoid the necromancer's shadow bolt.

Why can't a damn thing ever go as planned? The seething thought had barely registered when I heard the last voice I had expected to hear.

"Need help, mon?"

I just barely got over my shock in time to lean out of the path of a shadow bolt. Astounded (in a bad way) I craned my neck and peered up in the direction of the mage's voice. He was hovering above me on his windrider, holding onto the creature's mane with one hand. The wide grin on his face seemed very elated, and also maniacal.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Ahhh, saving you guys?"

"And how, pray tell, are you accomplishing that?" my irritation could probably be felt, it was so strong. "As I recall, I told you to-"

My sentence wasn't finished. Before I cold react, the windrider had latched it's jaws onto the back of my leather vest and hauled me into the air. I yelped, flailing briefly, then stared daggers up at the beast's rider as it circled higher on the batlike wings, weaving past shadow bolts.

"I began thinking, mon," Zalleen had to shout to be heard. "Fire's a undead's worst enemy, right? So I send down a rain of pyroblasts, and wham! Distraction, while Lastraza nabs Atlanta, and we get away through a portal. Blam! No more camp."

"As insane as that sounds..." I paused, mentally seething at how Zalleen could have actually managed to formulate a plan that could work-if barely. "You're obviously crazy, but we don't have any other choice," I amended with a sigh.

Zalleen's sharp toothed grin made me sorry I had agreed. Wallowing in his obvious joy, he directed the windrider near Skydive. Then he tugged on his mount's mane, and dropped me square onto Skydive's back.

He choked briefly on his own fire as a result. "What-"

"New plan," I interrupted. I whistled, and Pierceclaw came running over. Skydive grabbed hold of my pet in his front paws."Follow Zalleen's lead."

"Zalleen's?"

"I know," I grumbled. "I can't believe I just said that either."

Atlanta's POV

The ring of steel sounded for the fourth time in the last few seconds. At the edge of my hearing I could hear a brief commotion from Emala's direction, but I didn't relize what it had been until a frostfire bolt flew at Hiarth from above.

The spell hit the side of his face, and the vyrkul staggered backward briefly, swearing. As he moved to wipe at his cheek and brow, I was snatched up by two powerful paws as the ground dropped away below me.

Thinking at first that some undead creature had snagged me, I started to struggle. Then I recognized the voice of my would be abductor. "Stop struggling! We need to get away from here."

"Lastraza?" My confusion was obviously prevalent. "Why did you.."

"We're following one of Zalleen's ideas."

"I get the feeling I shouldn't be very exited about that..."

I looked to my left when a flare of fiery light made itself known. A patch of snowy mush and burning undead was there, being circled by a ecstatic Zalleen on his windrider. "Damn right!" he boasted. "Who rules? Me!"

"Stop bragging!" Emala's sharp voice made itself known as I climbed up between Lastraza's wings and shoulders, and the red drake joined Skydive and Emala where they were circling with Zalleen. "Get about with the next phase of your idea!"

"Sure thing, mon," Zalleen rubbed his hands together with a cocky grin. "Portal to Dalaran, here we go."

The mage spoke a few choice words of magic, and a glowing oval of light appeared a few feet from us. The fuzzy image of Dalaran's spires could be seen through it. As Skydive flew toward it, however, a shadow bolt rocketed up from below.

Startled, Skydive wasn't readily prepared. He pitched into a steep barrel roll, just missing the portal, and Emala lost her grip on his neck. We were forty feet above the ground-too high for a good survival chance.

There wasn't much time for me to take action, and with his front paws full Skydive couldn't recover and reach Emala in time. I still don't remember exactly how I pulled off the rescue. I do have a faint memory of slipping from Lastraza's back, grabbing her foreleg in one hand and Emala's arm in the other.

With a curse, I felt my hand sliding on Lastraza's smoothly scaled foreleg. Then I felt both her front paws grasp my arm and tighten on it, while Emala secured a firm grip on my other arm.

Then Lastraza flapped powerfully, soaring though the portal. In the brief instant before it engulfed us, I stared into Emala's wide eyes. Their dark green depths were hard to read, but shock was fairly evident.

I smiled, as did she. Something mended itself-our friendship, or maybe our spirits. Perhaps both. The boom of the magical bomb going off barely registered in my hearing.

We accomplished the mission, I thought hazily, my mind to occupied by the events of the last few seconds for our success to cause any real feeling of elation.

Then the purple portal light came and passed. We all hit the marble ground of Dalaran in a heap. All of us had to take a moment to reorient our senses from the slight portal lag. Judging from the lack of activity, we seemed to be on the outskirts of the floating mage city. Both the drakes were on the bottom of the heap, Skydive lying atop Lastraza. Said red drake let out a prolonged groan.

"Get off, please?"

"I concur," Zalleen wheezed, vainly attempting to move Skydive's heavy head from his chest. Noticing his friend's struggles, Skydive let out a awkward chuckle and rose to all four feet. Zalleen looped a arm around his neck and hauled himself up, gasping with a hand thumping his chest. "I need more air," he said with a cough, while Lastraza peered at him worriedly, healer's instincts kicking in.

"Take all the time you need." Emala's tone was low and dull. "I want to talk with Atlanta alone, anyway."

I cocked an eyebrow and followed her some distance from the others. We stood facing one another.

For a few moments nothing but a awkward silence was present. We both had things to say, but couldn't seem to form the thoughts into real words. Emala was biting her lip, rubbing her scarred arm. I watched, arms crossed protectively over my chest. I tried not to let my confusion show, but I was fairly sure I didn't achieve that.

"I'm sorry."

Of all the things I had expected to hear, that wasn't one of them. Thunderstruck, I couldn't form a competent reply for a few seconds. I knew how proud Emala was-apologies took a lot of effort for her to vend out.

"Sorry?" I repeated in a kind of daze.

"Yes," Emala replied with a sad sigh, dropping her shoulders. "I messed up all that time ago, driving you away with that stupid fight. And then the way you fought beside us in the Scourge camp, and caught me when I was falling...basically I'm trying to say-"

"That you were a idiot?" I finished with a small smile. "The blame isn't entirely yours. I'm just as responsible."

Emala blinked back at me, for once completely without a response. Before she could stop me, I caught her in a tight hug. She hesitantly moved to hug back, and then allowed her arms to pull me into a full hug.

"I'd like you to come with us," she said bluntly. "There's no other way to put it. I've missed you, and we need more people in this merry little band anyway."

I chuckled quietly. Some things never changed, like how Emala chose blunt words rather than delicate ones. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Skydive and Zalleen laughing about something, with a exaspared Lastraza watching them. I couldn't hold back a faint smile, feeling a stirring of warmth for the first time in what felt like years.

"Of course I'll come. I wouldn't leave a old friend in the lurch."

And that's the last ch. Thx to everone who faved, alerted, and reviewed. I really appreciate it. Sry update took so long (damn you school!). I'll be doing another fic, titled Adventures Abound: Into the Mists,next. It's planned to be a fic where two chaps will make a kind of mini story on it's own, and so on so forth, rather than a fic with a singular plot. The story will chronicle the group's journeys in Pandaria. It should be updated faster because of this.

Since it happens after Adventures Abound, it will feature two characters that joined the group in the Cataclysm and during the course of the story. It isn't necessary to read Adventures abound to understand the sequel. But feel free to drop by it and leave a review :)

Read and review :D