The scene at the orcish base was one of utter chaos. Located in the savannah a mere fifty miles from fortifications Proudmoore's alliance had made across the entrance to the Stonetalon Mountains, the entire area was utterly swarming with fel- and doomguard by the time the flying city of Dalaran arrived on scene.
The demons seemed to be foregoing straightforward slaughter in favor of using their sheer weight of numbers, flying doom guard and no less that two dozen Annihilan Pit Lords to sow enough chaos and disorder to subdue and abduct the hundred thousand warriors for their ranks. The orcs themselves were putting up a good fight all told, given the direness of their situation. As Dalaran decelerated amidst a thunderous shock-wave of air, the emerald ants were already organizing defensive lines around isolated shaman. As the elemental casters were given room to breathe by their fellow green meat-shields, the demons began to find themselves the ones pressed and needing a change of tactics.
Under the influence of the elemental spirit talkers, the earth quickly became unstable beneath the flaming monsters. The ground beneath the orcs remained firm and rose somewhat to equalize the height advantage of the attacking fifteen food felguard foot soldiers, or became suddenly loose and fluid beneath their feet, leading them into spears and blades of their would-be thralls. In other cases, it would remain solid and move around in great waves akin to that of an earthquake, causing those demons who remained earthbound to be thrown around and have trouble moving. Cracks opened up to swallow twisted wolf-like creatures with tentacles and covered in spikes instead of fur. The pit lords, who were able to ignore most of this too found themselves besieged by spires of stone solid enough to be metal which tried to pierce their hide or bind their elephantine limbs with limited success.
The earth wasn't alone in rising to shaman's call, as wind picked up to swirl and buffet the monsters wildly, attempting to suffocate their magically flaming bodies. Dust and ash from the fires and disturbed ground swiftly joined the living eddies, working to blind the demons and scour the flesh from their bones. This unfortunately also limited the vision of the defenders where the shaman who called them were, making defense just as difficult as attack in many cases.
The sky too was filled with doomguard, Nathraziem and hovering Eredar warlocks as far as the eye could see. As the mages of Dalaran and Quel'thalas took to the skies atop carpets and gryphons, infernals began to rain from the sky like meteors, curving as they fell to avoid spell-fire and crash down atop fortifications, gathered clumps of troops and the rising elementals summoned by desperate shaman. The battlefield looked like little more than an ant hill someone had dropped a hornet's nest down atop of.
Spellfire flashed back and forth, filling the sky like a technicolor fireworks display or an acid dream. George watched from his own carpet as a large Axminster carpet flew by carrying half a dozen elven rangers and a single mage, holding a glowing golden-white orb which protected them from the magical barrage of the demons' attacks. This and similar mobile platforms were zipping in and out of the protective aura of the mage city and lashing out wherever the demons seemed to be organizing.
The demons weren't the only casualties unfortunately. Despite the missing demon lords Archimonde and Kiljaden, it was easily apparent that the Legion had pulled out all of the stops for this assault. Mortals and demons alike rained from the skies and the melee on the ground wasn't much better. Portals were opening and closing faster than the redhaired wizard could track as both sides did what they could to kill each other and snatch as many Orcs as they could.
"Accio child!" George snarled as a doomgaurd swept past with a pair of orcish six year olds in its arms. As he caught the screaming green brats, Sirius disappeared with a bang and appeared in the abductees place, tearing out the monsters throat. As they both began to fall, George caught sight of the soldiers weapons and had an idea. He was going to test out his light saber soon enough, but there may yet be another way he would work around his lack of magical power in regards to the denizens of this world and their enemies.
"Accio swords!" he called, bringing the blazing green weapons toward the air towards him. "Animus!" he barked out again as the pair of blades neared, causing them to freeze in the air and twitch before zooming off to plunge into the chests of a pair of succubi.
Sirius, who had by this point returned to the carpet twice, having taken down another burdened doomguard, laughed. "Good one, Mr. Fox!" With a gesture, a violet bolt of energy launched out of his hand to spear a nearby satyr through the chest, causing it to blacken and then explode. "It's a long standing Marauder tradition to use an enemies weapons against them! Have you thought of a name for yourself yet?"
"Raynart!" George replied, shifting to his animagus form and apparating with a leap and a twirl. As he reappeared in a cluster of hovering Eredar, still twirling, he unleashed and charged the light-saber. The ethereal blue cloud of energy turned his opponents' chests to so much superheated dust before they even knew he was there. The forces of the unleashed power caused his spin to accelerate and even push him up in the seconds before the dizzy wizard managed to release the magic flowing through the trio of crystals. Utilizing the remaining torque, he apparated again, returning to his carpet and grinned widely, showing a lot of teeth.
Before either of them could trade quips however, the air around them shuddered, rocked by the conflict between one of Azeroth's many battlefield-altering spells and a shield. Whipping around to face the source of the threat, Sirius and George were beset by a wall of swirling ebon and emerald flame which was being held at bay by a figure cloaked in dappled silver blue light. At first George didn't recognize the woman who's back was too them, due to the brilliantly shining wings that spread from her back, but the blue hair and familiar bow and armament quelled his surprise when the flier pivoted to reveal serious face of Tyrande Whisperwind.
"It's good to see you out and about again, Reynart." A small smile graced her lips before her expression turned dire again. "This attack is worse than I remember you telling me, and spreads all up and down the coast. I must go see to my people and hasten the arousal of the druids and my lady's pantheon. But I cannot leave in good conscious without knowing something will be done about the Orcs! Of all the important pieces in this war they are in the most danger! I'm trusting you with this, Raynart, save them and bring them to Hyjal!"
With that, the priestess gave a mighty flap of her wings and sped off towards the north, followed by dozens of similar figures.
The pair of them looked at each other for several seconds before Sirius laughed. "Well, better do what the pretty lady said! I'm off to find Jaina, I can rough, tumble and lead with the best of them, even here, but I've no idea how to manage a full-on battleground!"
"And what makes you think I know?" George asked as Sirius teleported away with a bang. He looked down at the orc kids they rescued so far, around at the aerial combat swirling around them, and then down at the raging forces on the ground.
That was when he remembered the elementals. Unbound by the cuffs that allowed them to stabilize in every other magical profession in Andrea's books, these creatures fed themselves off the apparently not insignificant powers of the orcish shaman and rampaged wildly across the field of battle, proving themselves to be almost as much a problem to the orcs warring there as they were to the demons they'd been summoned to fight! There were a few good things to this, however: With the elemental beasts of storm, earth and fire on the rampage, the tactics of the demons were dashed to scrambling around and just trying to survive, leaving the number of abductions to taper off greatly. There were also several dozen towering elementals keeping the attention of the Annihilan leaders of this particular invasion front.
Slowly making his way down, summoning and animating weapons of the demon around him, George considered what to do. The various clans of orcs were still clumped together against the masses of demons while the shaman protected fought to control their summons and direct them to far more impressive slaughters of the encroaching demonic forces. From above Dalaran was providing mobile artillery support, with great bolts of lightning or curses that blanketed entire cubic miles of airspace in fire, blizzards or incredible gravity. They were also providing counter curses to the efforts of the Legion's warlocks who were trying to cause the resisting locals to wither, their blood to boil, or simply go mad and attack their fellows among other rather unimaginative magics such as skin flaying and corruption of the senses.
On the edge of the field as well, George could make out portals opening up and disgorging shining armor clad troops clad in blue and silver. Jaina and her alliance, he assumed. Even as they poured out of the breach however they were making lines and columns to spearhead their advance so he'd unlikely find much to do there.
The question remained, however, what to do? As he surveyed the teeming mass of bodies, ignoring the crying orc children on the carpet behind him, he took in the various fights in the scramble of bodies. He spotted a large red orc that howled as it cut its bloody way through demon after demon, but the creature hardly needed help. He saw a shaman clad in black armor wielding a hammer that he recognized from the peace summit not an hour before, but he too was doing well, causing earthquakes and directing more unbound elementals to slaughter wave after wave of monsters, a pair of translucent wolves by his side. No, nothing would be needed there.
The only thing he could think of was something Harry had once said to him about strength in numbers... That was it!
*Sirius!* he sent, casting out a diffused legillimancy probe in the direction he'd last seen the old Marauder.
*Got a plan?* a voice whispered back, visions of snapping jaws and gore trailing along the edge of his mental shields.
*Indubitably!* he sent back with a grin. *I'm going to pull the defending orcs together towards a single point so they can hold out till your girlfriend gets here! I could use your help!*
His answer was a howl that shook the battlefield. As the sound ended the orcs cheered and George landed his rug in the middle of one of the circles near a giant minotaur. Igniting his lighsaber again, he kicked the kids off, rolled up the carpet and saluted the figure. As the stunned faces of the defenders gawked at him, Sirius appeared with a bang, in full Grim mode, larger than any horse and muzzle covered in gore. With that the pair of them turned and charged towards the defensive ring. The orcs there parted for them almost subconsciously.
Hamuul Grimtotem looked up at his high chieftain and asked in a low, awed bellow "can it be? The spirits of Fox and Wolf? Sirius and Raynart?"
Cairne nodded grimly. "It would seem so." Lifting his runed totem pole to his back and grabbing his spear from where he'd planted it in the ground, the tauren chieftain bellowed in full voice. "THE SPIRITS ARE WITH US! FORWARD! FOR THE EARTH MOTHER!"
~! #$%^&*()_+
While the Tauren were worrying about when and even whether or not the third member of the heralds would appear a far more important battle was taking place within the shattered city of Zul'watha.
Hakkar didn't wait for Archimonde to attack, instead going immediately on the offensive. Great coils lashing out like a spring and wings pumping, the blood god launched himself at his rival, maw wide and fangs out. Archimonde stepped to the side of the charge and spun on his heel, grabbing the snake god's head and plowing the still moving bulk nose first into the side of a hill. Far from being stunned however, the wind serpent Loa recovered almost immediately and coiled it's length around the Eradar general. As Hakkar began to constrict and raised his bloody snout to come in for another bite Archimonde vanished from the Soulflayer's hold. Appearing again a mere mile away Hakkar spat a stream of enchanted poison at him and screamed, trying to shred his opponents mind and soul.
Thrusting his hands out to either side, Archimonde erected a shadowy dome around himself which repelled both attacks. The monolithic eredar frowned. The creature was stronger than it had been last time it had turned down his offer of a place among the Legion, but its' tactics had not improved much in the last ten thousand years.
Chanting in the guttural language of the Legion, the demon general began throwing bolts of void magic at the creature. Moving with incredible speed however, the great Loa curved sinuously around each of the strikes. This didn't bother Archimonde overmuch because unlike his brother, he preferred to fight with his hands.
As Hakkar approached he sneered, watching as the usurpers hands became wreathed in spells meant to corrupt the blood of those they struck. To think that the blood god himself could be taken down by such an attack. As he neared the crouching titan the monstrous snake spirit swerved to the left and looped back around, causing his wail to whip out and far greater speed than he had been traveling, to impact with the Eradar's shin. As the two magical entities collided the force of the impact, both magically and physically, exploded into the surrounding environment, causing stone and trees to ripple and shred apart under the shock-wave.
Archimonde fell forward, blown off balance by his opponents attack and into a handstand. As he flipped back to his feet, two great stone left the earth with him, clenched in his fists.
The pair of them stared at each other, one hissing, the other silent and dour. There was a ripple of magic and great bone scythes burst out of Hakkars wings, the action causing battle to be rejoined.
The pair of them danced around each other, trading and evading blows as the land scape was torn apart around them. Archimonde, after failing to do more with the house sized boulders than knock the troll god aside on occasion or parry the new bone claws charged both of the rocks with fel energy and hurled them at his slippery opponent. Both of the rocks missed, but the nether corrupted flame pouring from their bulks did not, scouring wide burn marks across Hakkars body. Even as the stones shifted, twisted and stood up to reveal themselves as newly formed infernal's Archimonde took advantage of the situation. Talons glowing a sickly vomitous whorl of green yellow and purple he cast a spell to cause the fel fires smoldering along the feathered serpent's side to burst once more into life and another to amplify the creatures pain.
Hakkar shrieked and thrashed as great clouds of mist flowed off the wounds, turning nearby stretches of broken forest and stone to bubbling acid from contact with his poison blood.
Not to be outdone, Hakkar took advantage of his tormentor's stationary channeling to spring forward and score a deep gash along the monsters side with one of his wing blades. Recovering on the other-side from his opponent, the blood god corrupted the ichor now flowing from the wound with his own divine power, causing it to burn and fester as the infection rode its way up Archimonde's body toward the opening.
The two enemies stared at each other as their roiling magic churned the skies, finally causing it to rain down upon them. The rain itself was charged with the deadly energies and corrupted matter the pair of gods had been throwing around that morning and fell as acid to score marks on the land and lesser mortal troops of the undead, the demons and the few remaining Amani trolls.
It is time to end this, Archimonde growled to himself. The serpent god had shown his hand too many times with his charging strikes and simplistic view of combat against those it could not dominate magically. He roared in pain as the corruption of his opponent's last spell began to sear its way within his body and said opponent took advantage of his weakness.
Or so it thought.
As Hakkar rushed in to sink his fangs into Archimonde's side and seal his eventual victory, the titanic eredar miraculously recovered. It grabbed Hakkar's head in its clawed hands and wrenched the serpent around in a wrestler's choke hold. A poor choice to use against a serpent normally and one for which Archimnonde paid with another scythe blade in his leg, and Hakkar succeeding in wrapping his body around the monster. By then, it was already too late for the wind serpent. Mystically enhanced claws, burning with fel flame, bit deep into the exposed underbelly of the god where head met sinuous feathered coils and Hakkar's head was torn from his body.
Defeated, his body torn asunder, Hakkar had one last laugh as poisonous, acidic blood gushed and sprayed from the massive wound, covering the nearby land and demon lord in their corrupted holy magics. As the foul dark divinity of his blood caused the soul flayer enemy to scream the great serpent left his poor beautiful body and retreated once more into the emerald dream to await his next resurrection. He did not get away scott-free however, as Archimonde was bound and determined to devour his soul this time. As Hakkars spectral form left his battered, short lived husk the eradar general tried furiously to grab onto the soul of the fleeing god, to little avail. One spectral wing was all he managed to cleave from the Loa, but it was a wound Hakkar would feel and remember for thousands of years to come.
~! #$%^&*()_+
Arthas leered as the cliffs of Kalimdor came into view through the rain. It was a close as he got to smiling these days. The chill Frostmorne put in his blood made his body stiff and fine motor control was slowly slipping away as the years passed on. If he could still feel as such potent emotions he would have been amazed at how he was still alive despite all of the depredation and predication laid upon his person. As was he simply regarded it as a mild curiosity smothered by the rage of the vengeful master who sung to him through his weapon.
With a mental command his mount, a proto-drake skeleton, Arthas surged upwards and back, bringing into clear view for the first time the full weight of his swarm. Just a little over fifty thousand draconic corpses with a myriad of scale colors among those who weren't entirely bone. Each beast was easily twice the size of a horse and carried dozens of skeletal warriors and ghouls atop their backs and within their rib cages. Many held the bulbous siege units, the abominations, beneath them in their claws. It was an army of nearly six million that flew with him and they were only the beginning. Trailing behind them were the great citadels of the Nerubians, the Necropoli which ferried his more specialized troops. The lich, the apothecaries, genuine old fashion seige weapons, the insectiod tunnel borers and the carrion swarms of the Lich kings army.
Most importantly however, they carried the insidious legions of the cult of the damned. They were all that remained of the indigenous populations of Northrends humanity and the scourge plagued cities of Lorderan like strathholme and hearthglen. They wouldn't be quite as useful in this campaign as they had been in his homeland, but with the newness of humanity to these... dark... elves... there should still be plenty of time for them to infiltrate the besieged lines of their resistance and create beachheads within enemy lines. Standard scourge battle tactics. Swarm with reusable troops, add the casualties to your swarm and plague any successful resistance from within.
They would need a new set of tactics in Lorderan now though, he mused. They'd been loosing more than they'd gained fighting the troll gods and the new paladin fortresses of Lights Hope, Dawns Landing, Lightbringer's Charge, The Silver Monastery, Stormguard, Thandul's keep a joint crusade dwarven fortress keeping the scourge from spreading easily south, Fenris Ilse, the castle at Shadowpine Crag and finally the great Gilnean wall. Four of the fortresses left over from the flight of Dalaran had fallen, but the others had learned from each of their losses and picked up their members, becoming singularly impossible to destroy. Worse, they had been screening the reinforcements from Stormwind and and Kul'tiras, briefly infusing anyone and anything coming in with holy light meaning that none of their infiltrators had been able to survive. Some even literally exploding!
He smirked at that thought. He felt he could have still found satisfaction in being able to watch a Nathreziem detonate.
'To the task at hand, though' he thought as the frenzied whispering in his head picked up.
In front of them were the norther cliffs of the continent Kalimdor. Arthas knew nothing about the place other than legends he had learnt during his political lessons on the elves. The place was their origin, their homeland, the crumbling remains of an empire that had died some eight or more thousand years ago, disappearing in a single day and night beneath the waves of the great sea. According to their Legion handlers, the elves who remained were based in the mountains to the north, starting at the peak ahead and then spreading out among the crags, caves and valleys that surrounded it. The remnants of his own kingdoms refuges had recently entrenched themselves the mountains further south while the orcs, light and void both damn them, had found themselves friends among the plains area just outside said fortifications.
Arthas and his master had been of the opinion that they should start there, to the south, and work their way up towards the elves. As the only natives of respectable power, he was judging on his experiences with their cousins, their own assignment was not only entrenched but had a home-field advantage and an unknown number of troops whose abilities were a total mystery. The elves he had fought on the way to resurrect Kel'thusald had fought well and the campaign had only succeeded because his master had been working on the greed and ego of a powerful traitor for months beforehand.
As he watched the first of his forces land in the deep banked snow of this new land he instructed his deathknights to begin opening deathgates to icecrown. As much as they could reinforce their numbers with the dead of the area, swarm tactics worked best when numbers meant nothing to you.
CHOOM!
The air just to the left of the Lich King's champion shuddered in a massive explosion as a shaft of silvery blue starlight lanced down from the heavens to carve through a proto drake not fifty feet from him.
Arthas felt a spike of static go through his body from top to bottom and immediately threw himself from his mount. The act saved him from becoming just another soul bound to Ner'zhul, but the pressure shock of the suddenly ionized and microwaved air blasted him away and toward the side of the valley in a ballistic arc. As he landed, side first against a tree, the former paladin felt his ribs give way.
What was going on? Was it some sort of ancient protection? Or had the natives been ready for them? It was some sort of magic obviously, and that was the only reason he was still alive. ...so to speak. The enchantments that bound his body and soul to the dead orc shaman protected him from nearly any and all magic, but its secondary effects could still rend one to scraps, something he had learnt at cost against Antonidas. The death knight watched closely as shapes began to appear along the ridge line of their valley with each shaft of starlight. Large, rotund and shaped like bears, the creatures silhouetted by the attacks had antlers and long ears. They weren't anything the Nathreziem handlers had mentioned in their orders, and they certainly weren't elves, but that didn't apparently stop them from being dangerous.
Or useful.
Stumbling as fast as he could towards the landing zone, he began directing ghouls and other skeletons towards their enemy. They fell from the sky in a rain, leaping from their dragon mounts without second thought into the wooded ridge around their targets. As each drake was cleared of its burden they became immensely more maneuverable and were themselves directed to begin firing upon the attacking forces.
As the ghouls and zombies came within leaping distance of the beasts the forest came alive. Branches bent and swing like arms, roots unearthed themselves and lashed out at his forces more akin to whips or tentacles than tough bark and even the grass turned menacing, hardening into short razor edged blades. The Melee was explosive, both in its suddenness and its violence, but neither side was without loss. As the plants tore apart the evil dead their plagued and corrupted fluids began to cover the attacking flora, causing it to wither and burn as if touched by acid or virulent disease. While their defenses crumbled at rotted under the magical and unnatural decay of demonic corruption and undeath, the unburdened protodrakes were left free to unleash bolts of blue white fire that froze the body and seared the soul of anything they touched.
It almost seemed as if the natives would be forced to choose between holding their violent defense on the ground or against the sky when a wave of movement made itself known from the treeline behind them. Shafts of starlight like flaming arrows leapt from figures cloaked in shadow and riding a-steed, not horses, but snow-furred feline profiles appeared.
Arthas smiled however. For all that these new reinforcements were making havoc on his troops, the deathgates were open. Lifting his runeblade he sent an order to the rest of the burdened dragons, to drop their personel far and wide. Any single deathknight uncaught meant another portal from which he could call in more troops. Any defiled cultist or Lich meant the reassembly of fallen soldiers enmasse and the addition of new bodies to the meat grinder. He would show these new peoples why the elves of Quel'thalas lost so quickly after the betrayal. One didn't bring a forest to a zombie fight.
~! #$%^&*()_+
Kael'thas Sunstrider couldn't help but gape in disgust as the scene he saw before him. Unbound elemental spirits. Those green skinned behemoths truly knew no restraint, did they? he mused as he crafted another firestorm and launched the spell to detonate in the middle of a swarm of unassailed demons. Oh, how he wished he could just let these spells loose upon the orcs themselves, but no... Not only was the valuable Mr Weasley there in the thick of it, with yet another beautiful creation to add to his peoples' arsenal as soon as he got the time, but Jaina, dear, stupid Jaina, had insisted that they somehow needed the brutes. She had been quite clear in the subject during the summit and a majority of the council had agreed, despite his own protests.
He could see their point though. The Horde's own sacking of his beautiful Quel'Thalas during the second war and this display of power here meant that if nothing else the orcs would make a good bulwark for his people against the Legion. It was after all, in his mind, the least they could do in reparation for their past crimes.
As the battle progressed he watched his student and one time love interest coordinate with her generals even as she fired off spells and summoned elemental beings of her own to aid in the war effort, sending her power forward with the force and precision of a lance to aid wherever the lines grew weak. Instead of allowing her troops to rush forward into a glorious one-on-one melee on a massive scale as the humans had become famous for during the second war or the mobile artillery approach of the elves Jaina was keeping her forces together and moving in a wave of destruction akin to the inexorable tide. The entire army moved forward as one, shield to shield at the front, with lancers making up the second row. Apprentice mages were tasked to keep an eye out for any who fell so as to teleport them back to the nearest priest for healing. Interspersed along the line were paladins, many of them newly trained, whose orders were not to join in the fighting itself unless their lines were breached, but to support their units with the enduring strength and fury of the light. Finally archers were set up in a ring around each set of mages, and priests to provide covering fire against airborne enemies and on demand spot support for the line.
All of this was built around the support and protection of the magisters who had followed her to this Light-forsaken continent, because therein lay the power of Queen Proudmore's army. They were the artillery. A soldier could end a life every minute if they were on the front line, less if things devolved into a melee where they themselves could easily be cut down. A mage could kill thousands in the same time frame, those figures only being hindered by the presence and quality of the other sides casters.
Jaina called the formation the emerald turtle strategy. Something she'd picked up from her father, no doubt.
Far more interesting, though, was that the orcs seemed to be doing the same thing. Before their visiting wizard had transformed into some sort of upright fox creature and landed among them, the orcs had been following their usual tactic of flailing about and attacking anything that came near them, with some small deference to gathering around strong leaders such as the shaman and clan leaders. Now however they were following the pattern of the cow people he'd been introduced to at the summit. These... Tauren. Instead of standing relatively still in a melee as they protected their leaders, they were now joining what appeared to be a group charge. With the bulls and Mr. Weasley at the head of the herd, one large group of green skins was scooping up each of the others in turn, and trampling under foot and weapon any demons that got in their way. Normally this would have been rather suicidal as such a tactic would have left their rear open to attack, but the .(..jungle trolls was it?) were taking up a curiously defensive retreat at the tail end of the group.
The trolls themselves were interesting to watch as well. Dancing around like elves with a highly mobile hit and run strategy, they fired bows, threw javelins, axes and bottles of poison or explosive potions and cast curses with wild abandon. The blue skinned creatures had also taken up the job of robbing fallen demons of their weaponry as a means of resupply and finishing off those who did not succumb to the feet of tens of thousands of burly orcs and a small few thousand Tauren.
What interested Kael most about this was that many of the spells the trolls used seemed to depend on the strength of the spirits they tore out of the nearby dead and dying. Constantly on the lookout for new sources of magic the elven prince, or really king now, since his father Anistarian had died during Arthas attack mere months ago, the trolls apparent ability to feed off the souls of their enemies was indeed something to consider. A mere century, nay decade, ago, he would have, and had, considered such vulgar magics beneath him and his race as a whole, but now? They were at least worthy of consideration. The trolls magic came without an accompanying addiction, was wickedly powerful, allowing them to enhance their bodies permanently to a degree both the arcane and light could only manage for minutes or hours at a time, could lay down long term curses with little to no preparation and allowed for the creation of gods they called Loa.
Literally. Gods.
Enslavement and a form of remote control that did not rely on possession they called Voodoo were also within their abilities if he remembered his military history correctly.
The only reason he wasn't putting them to the torch on simple principle was that their skin was blue instead of the forest green he was familiar with. These trolls were not Amani.
"It seems time that the student has become the teacher, Lady Proudmoore, so do remind me: Why aren't we simply killing the lot of them and being done with it?"
"Kael..." Jaina replied in a long suffering voice. "We went over this during the summit: The group leading the charge are local allies, the trolls are from a species we've never fought with and the prophet who got us this far, likely saving all of our lives, insisted that the orcs could be redeemed, and serve as the tipping point in defeating the legion entirely. He's been right the last several times he's come to me, with visions, I have no reason to doubt him on this. On top of it all, Thrall, their new leader, was peaceable in his dealings with us. That alone is so uncharacteristic of the orcs that it demands study if little else." There was a pause as she took a long draw on some conjured water and resumed casting, spears of ice and small water elementals flowing out from her position along with the occasional spray of arcane missiles. "On a more personal note, Lord Black and his friend Weasley are out there. One is quite important to me, and the other, as I understand it, to you as well. Though perhaps for different reasons."
"Ah, yes, Lord Black. I thought he used to be your hound... A lab experiment run loose, or so you told me back when you were still my pupil."
Jaina blushed. "That was what I'd thought. He's been a good companion none the less."
She was about to say more when all hell broke loose. They'd reached the swarming mass of demons only minutes before, and had been steadily chopping their way through the outer edges towards the orcs, but had become bogged down as the twelve foot abominations that appeared to be the basic foot-soldier of the Legions forces. Holding large, burning scimitars and wearing spiked armor, they were deadly at all angles, but almost ludicrous in how much, or rather little, their armor actually covered. They'd been making good progress until now, the front row holding shield against the boot mounted knee spikes and cleats, the second row holding spears and pole blades and the third row shielding against the giants swords, but now that they had shown themselves to be a threat the Leaders had come to play.
Large as dragons and just as vicious, the heavily armored Annihilan had spent most of the battle trampling around the battlefield and going hand to hand with the mountainous elementals the orcish shaman had, perhaps not so foolishly, conjured. Trampling over a small clump of Orcs and dozens of his own troops the monolithic drakinoid centaur tore into the lines of alliance soldiers. It was rebuffed slightly by a hail of spell-fire and arrows from the inner ranks, but the quick-cast attacks and unenchanted arrows of the alliance defenders were little more effective than a rain of small arms fire against the side of a tank. That was the problem with the arcane arts after all... In two minutes, maybe three, several magisters will have built their spells from memory, chanted their mantra's and inscribed quick and dirty rituals known as words of power into the air and unleashed a storm of power against the Pit Lord that could literally wipe the greater demon from existence...
But an entire minute was a very long time, especially in battle against such an imposing and physically inclined foe. Never mind if it took longer.
"PALADINS!" Jaina's voice thundered, high yet strong, beside him "DEFEND YOUR COMPANIES! FOR LORDERAN!"
~! #$%^&*()_+
Doomlords Kazzak, Yor'gol and Zhaha'dun flew slowly over the sparse forests and jagged cliffs of Azshara towards Ashenvale. As part of personal guard of Kil'Jaden the Deciever each of the three enormous doomgaurd was a force of nature in their own right. Doomlord Kazzak had once single-handedly led the slaughter and subjugation of an entire planet on his own, the heat of his magic causing firestorms to spawn beneath his wings incinerating armies while his lesser brothers took the populace to the portal for corruption and conscription into the ranks of the Burning Legion. Yor'gol too had taken entire worlds, his fel magics bringing forth an unnatural winter from which all plants and herd animals had died allowing the Legion an easy run of said worlds. Zhaha'dun the darkener did not hold such an impressive record of having taken entire worlds on his lonesome, but was Kil'Jaden's personal assassin. Favored of using a shadowy magic that set the souls of the victims aflame while leaving their bodies intact and obscuring what is real Zhaha'dun was used by the deceiver to take down Naru and their personally blessed priests when worlds foul creature still deigned to help gave them trouble.
It was in fact these three that had seen earth so much trouble. Ten thousand years ago, Kazzak and Yor'gol had inspired the Ragnaroc and led to the creation of the grasping elements attacks which had driven the pair from the world. Four thousand five hundred years later Kil'jaden had inspired the Jewish wizards and muggles of the existence of Lucifer and seventeen hundred years ago Zhaha'dun himself had silenced the many and varied gods of earth.
Now, all four of them soared the skies above Kalimdor.
This was the scene, along with hundreds of thousands of other winged abominations that Tyrande Whisperwind came across in her flight north. Where in the previous timeline the priestess had shot Kil'Jaden in the shoulder and then used the power of her goddess Elune to fade into the divinely enchanted shadows and escape the ravaging of the overconfident demons this time she went immediately on the attack.
"Avianna, goddess of winds, grant me speed of the summer winds!" A thrill of power rushed through her and the bird goddesses wings which adorned her shoulders flashed with a silvery white radiance. Immediately Tyrande and the priestesses of her entourage shot forward like shells from a cannon. Sheathing her bow on her back Tyrande and seven of the two dozen priestesses drew the twin short-blades of the sentinel army and slammed into their targets. Kil'Jaden, whom was Tyrande's target, was the only one who had enough time to turn to face the swarm of enraged women, an act that rather than help him, simply meant he took both flying strikes to the chest instead of the side.
As the eight warrior priestesses slammed into their targets, there was a flash and a small explosion of silvery blue-white light that screamed against the twisted fel energy of the demons, the resulting battle of holy versus fel magic blackening their skin and sending searing lances of pain through the bodies of all four monsters. Sixteen blessed blades sunk in causing further damage and pain, but not much as the eight of them were forced to disengage. Fire and ice exploded from the wings and bodies of Kazzak and Yor'gol and Kil'Jaden moved to seize Tyrande.
"So nice of you to make an appearance, priestess." the monolithic eredar intoned, his voice velvety. "Were you so eager to repeat our last encounter that you would leave your entire army behind to seek me out? Don't worry, the festivities have only just begun..."
"Last time, monster," the blue haired elf snarled, dodging a clawed fist wreathed in emerald flame "I was a neophyte priestess who had just gained the attention of her goddess!" The wings on her back flapped heavily and he soared back wary from the grasping claws. "My faith in Elune and the power of my spirit held off your best efforts then, and I've had ten thousand years and dozens of wars in which to practice!" She unslung her bow and fired in one smooth motion. The arrow, formed of the quills of the boar god Agamagan who had died in the war of the ancients, thundered forward like a bolt of lightning, striking with the Fury of the moon goddess whose priestess had fired it.
As if that was a signal the rest of the priestesses who had yet to engage their foe let loose with a hail of similar arrows, peppering the demons hides with blessed bolts of Azeroth's divine wrath.
Sadly, this alone was not enough to kill the immortal beings. Nearly gods in their own right the titanic Eradar and his personal guard were harmed and pained by the attacks, but not enough to halt their own reprisal. Yor'gol remained where he was, but the out pouring of icy power he was giving off shot skyward and earthward drawing in great downdrafts of air and turning the arrows of the priestesses away even as the rolling hills and forests beneath him began to freeze in an expanding tidal wave of poison snow. Doomlord Kazzak took to flying around his his compatriot in circles of even increasing speed, feeding the downdraft of cold air and tightening the flow and speed of the icy air as a firestorm began to form around it creating further turbulence and driving off the defending elves, the sheer power of the two supporting demonic attacks showing the ability to wear on even their goddess given auroral protection.
As this happened, Zhaha'dun vanished and Kil'Jaden began casting foul spells to scrape away at the lesser priestesses, seeking to corrupt or kill them horribly while the veritable swarm of lesser demons crowded in to snatch at their part in the glory.
"Sisters!" Tyrande cried. "We have to stop the Doomlords quickly, before their attack can become self sustaining! There cannot be another maelstrom born over out home! I shall deal with the Deceiver myself!"
The flock of airborne women nodded and went to work. Their glaives became disks of light, weaving in and out of the thick swarm of adversaries and cutting the enemy fliers down by the hundreds. Given the Legions swarm rush tactics this was not difficult as it was literally impossible for them to maneuver anywhere without hitting something. Prayers went out to he wolf god Goldrin to lead them in teamwork and Tortolla the tortoise immortal to reinforce their armor should their wills falter and their mana pools fall far enough that their faith in Elunes protection could not sustain them in the middle of this onslaught.
Tyrande's prayers went out not to Goldrin or Tortolla, but Avianna the bird goddess for speed and agility in flight, keenness of sight and protection from the turbulence which was now beginning to toss around the demons who were at home being material creatures in the chaotic insanity of the energy universe that was the twisting nether. As her prayers to the avian eternal finished Tyrande began firing again, peppering her adversary with shafts of light moving so quickly they broke the sound barrier and left a crack of thunder in their wake as they streaked towards the target.
Kil'jaden, more at home being a caster and general than facing the brunt of an actual battle waved his hands through the air, commanding the fel powers at his fingertips to counter the steady stream of holy attacks and send forth his own attacks. Lines of dark energy and emerald fire flowed out to pervert reality and seek avenues to attack their target.
Tyrande was startled, not by the attacks which she was dodging around or being shielded against by her goddess, but rather by an explosion of air-pressure behind her back.
It was Zhaha'dun, the devil she had forgotten about due to his disappearance and misdirection that made it appear as if he had fled. The creature was likely to have been positioning for an attack on the priestesses back when it had been slammed into by a shadowy figure with glistening blue black wings.
"Illidan!" Tyrande called, a smile breaking through her snarling attitude at having met her age old tormentor. "Didn't I send you off to rouse the Shen'dalar to action?"
There was a pause as the two winged assassins hacked and slashed at each other before Illidan replied with a grin and a fireball. "Browbeat a bunch of ancient librarians into doing their part in the war, or keep an eye on your pretty ass... What had you thought I would do?" He caught one of Zhaha'dun's attacks between his clawed hands and compressed it into a ball of endless darkness before shoving it in the beasts roaring mouth. "Besides, I couldn't let you have all the fun!"
Tyrande shook her head and dodged another beam of power that sought to catch her while she was off guard. Drawing her bow again and offering prayers to each member of her goddesses pantheon the priestesses watched grimly as the shaft of light radiating from the boar quill in her hand got more and more intense. Finally she took aim, and released it.
Unfortunately, as it struck Kil'jaden in the shoulder, the demon was no longer there. The shaft of power continued it arc until it slammed into the side of a enormous tree which was being torn apart by the firestorm of Kazzak and Yor'gol and detonated.
~! #$%^&*()_+
As George jogged along at the head of the massive group of orcs, waving his light saber more like a club or a whip than the sword it was meant to have been, and firing off tripping jinxes by the dozen every second. Over everything else though, he couldn't help but feel bemused. Here he was, prankster, tinkerer, wizard and father, dragged off on a journey meant for his best friend to rescue the mans uncle and godfather, and yet somehow he found himself at the head of an army. If that in of itself weren't absurd enough he was leading said army in what amounted to a medieval muggle cavalry charge while on foot when the race's normal mode of battle was to spread out within the enemies own ranks and engage in a suicidal and 'glorious' melee.
Worse, he didn't even quite understand how it had happened or more importantly, how to stop it.
The tactic seemed to be pretty simple at least. For those demons his own spells or the shamans earthquakes were not sending to the ground, the natives in the front row would knock the demons down either with some sort of blunt weapon, shoulder tackle or by simply jumping on them and the rest of the mass of humanity, er, well, orcs, behind them would trample the creatures till they died. Some of the orcs occasionally struck their downed opponents further with pilfered or makeshift weapons as they passed. Under normal circumstances this would be fairly stupid as the monsters would have just gotten back up with bruises, a few broken bones and even grater tempers as soon as the horde passed.
Theses were not normal circumstances. The Horde following him had started out at five thousand people and swiftly grew as they swept up other similarly sized groups of orcs in their mad charge. George wasn't entirely sure how many were following him now, but at the summit Jaina had told him that the camp numbered nearly a hundred thousand men ,women and children, at least half of whom now ran behind him.
Orcs were also quite large, although they appeared no more than a couple inches taller than most humans, nearly the entire race moved with their backs hunched and knees perpetually bent, much like the trolls seemed too. This added, on average, an entire foot to their height if not two with some specimens. On top of that more than half of them were heavily muscled and appeared to be a cross between apes and bodybuilders in stature. Including the females. At seven to eight feet tall, rippling with beefy muscle built for endurance and covered in armor, the average orc cut an imposing figure and even more imposing weight. A stomp from their armor cleated feet was plenty enough to crack bones and tear flesh. The trampling weight of tens of thousands of those feet moving at speed meant that any demon unfortunate enough to be caught under the charge was not merely dead by the time the horde had passed, but quite literally squashed flat.
Armor and all.
By far the most annoying part of the entire matter however was the winged doom guard and succubus, floating eradar and... eye covered jellyfish. He wasn't quite sure what to make of those ones, but they went down fairly easily to the fernunculous hex. These creatures were not content to stay on the ground and be trampled however and were taking rather violent offense to the entire situation. The winged ones swooped down and snatched up orcs to drop into the fore of the charge while the succubus took to lashing out at the shoulders of the charging orcs with whips and the... eye creatures and eradar rained down spells and arrows upon them.
The orcs weren't simply taking this either, raising shields and returning fire with arrows and elemental spells creating a fierce turbulence to keep they physical attacks and attackers at bay.
George and Sirius had their own way of dealing with such annoyances. Summoning charms on the creatures armor brought many a demonic alien crashing to earth to be stomped upon by the charging horde and George couldn't help but cackle as once again, the simplest of charms proved to be the most effective.
This had been going on for nearly four hours when the demon generals finally caught up with the tactics of the Horde and Alliance. The flame wreathed draconic centaurs he had recently learned were called pit lords had spent the last several hours wrestling with towering, vaguely humanoid, amalgams of wind, earth and fire or being doused by similar entities made of water. They had been held at bay, though only barely since the Alliance had arrived on the scene but while George had been running around, gathering the scattered groups of orcs one of them had beaten and dispersed their opponent and moved to help their fellows. Now the lot of them were loose and in a strange bit of irony had decided that copying the charge of George and his Horde was a simply brilliant plan.
Trampling over their own troops with gusto, the fifty foot tall demons plowed into the ranks of both the Horde and the Alliance in several places, causing instant and massive casualties. Before George even had time to think what to do over a hundred orcs had died under the onslaught and Sirius had disappeared from his side. It didn't take long for George to figure out where the canine shapeshifter had gone as the nearest of the four Pit lords immediately began howling and flailing around, trying desperately to swat at something on his back. As the monster turned around, trampling yet more orcs and demons, Sirius was revealed, his great jaws sunk into one of the batlike wings where it met the beasts back at the joint. In true lupine fashion Sirius was twisting and shaking as he tried to rip the limb off and his paws were all moving furiously as he scratched long luminescent green furrows across the two planes of the creatures back. Quickly overcoming his shock George teleported onto the distracted beasts shoulders and lit into the creatures head with his light saber Reynart's tail. Where in other timelines the concentrated jet of plasma hot enough to turn through stone and tough metals like butter would have slowly cooked the fiery behemoths head and caused it to pop like a marshmallow in a microwave, the shifting flows of probability which caused Tyrande to bless the weapon with the power of her goddess made the blade a proper antithesis to the monsters magics and Mar'sara's head swiftly became so much consecrated ash.
Up and down the group similar battles were taking place. Another Pit Lord George would never learn the name of was being held in place by the combined efforts of the blind shaman Drek'thar while Grom Hellscream charged up its back to bury a giant axe in the creatures skull, sending a column of flame into the air where it skittered across the holy dome that protected Dalaran. A third had the misfortune to face off against the island trolls under Voljin. The massive creature stood frozen near the back of Georges group and looked to have a translucent green afterimage of itself being torn out of itself by streamers of blood red and ebon light emanating from the nearby mages.
Or at least George thought they were mages, what with their elaborate clothing, masks and canes, but who knew with as many different races here he knew so little about.
On the Alliance lines too George could see further mammoth generals being taken down from where he stood. One was currently being ripped apart by half a dozen blazing golden white figures while a second was literally being swarmed by furious men at arms. Further still a third lay flat on the ground, it's six limbs spread eagle while what looked like an enormous steaming armored figure stood on its head and fired down upon its back with arms made of muggle rifles.
The other six Pit Lords had wisely hung back to direct their troops in forming a massive dome wall around the gathered forces of the Horde, Jaina's Alliance and the flying kingdom of Dalaran.
The the Legion having pulled back somewhat and, perhaps unwittingly, giving them some breathing room, the rest of the orc clans surged together to join the main swarm.
As the Legion began to bear down on them again, advancing in a manner similar now to Jaina's Alliance forces, the queens forces reached the Orcish herd and pulled out their final strategy. The lines came to a halt just feet from the first orcs and opened up to offer a narrow corridor through which a group of mages rushed out and began opening portals between the Horde and a staging area Jaina had barely had enough time to had set aside in their rush aid the Orcish people. As the portals solidified and cleared to show the destination, the enclosed valley where they had fought the Harpies only weeks earlier, the Legion forces roared in anger and began charging in in hopes of denying their preys escape.
Battle was rejoined with a renewed fury as the surviving orcs and battered human forces retreated through the holes they had torn in the universe. As the two groups shrank into the portals the fighting became more intense in relation to the demons fury. Only twelve thousand Orcs had been taken captive by the demons and most of those had been useless children as many of the adults had fought their abductors to the death, including those who had fallen from the sky after they achieved victory. Once the last members of each force made it through their respective escapes, along with a few dozen demons per portal, the holes closed and Dalaran rose into the sky.
As the great city soared away from the attacking swarm, their own members recalled into the protective golden field, they left behind one last gesture of contempt. Like so many other sorcerers in the city who had been avidly following the actions and arcane artistry of George Weasley, the Council of Six had been watching as well, dissecting and analyzing many of the foreign wizard's spells. This particular spell was one they called Ragefire. Based off the work commissioned by Antonidas to combat the scourge and Fiendfyre George had introduced the plum waves of plasma specifically sought fel energy, and consumed it as fuel.
The blast was enormous.
Unlike George's work, the old familiar Fiendfyre that was thousands of years old, the new spell, Ragefire, rather than follow and feed upon what magics may be present, drew nearby power toward and into itself at an incredible rate. Seventy-five thousand monsters, all within a three mile radius, were drawn in towards the hungry little spell by the magic within their bodies and the spells they had released before the heat generated at the heart of the matrix reached critical mass and detonated with the force of a high yield thermonuclear bomb.
Of those within the blast radius, there were no survivors.
~! #$%^&*()_+
In the far north of Winterspring, the battle was not going well for the natives. Even after having killed tens of thousands of skeletons and zombies, thousands of proto-wyrms, hundreds from the cult of the damned, dozens of death knights and a handful of Lich... the invading force was still growing larger. Seven thousand year old Thalia Snowfeather cursed fluently as she and her sisters provided covering fire for the retreat of the druids of the moon, or as they were affectionately called, the Brothers of Elune. They had been in the process of waking them from the dens as per THE High Priestesses orders when the dead has landed. Their foul tortured presence was nothing like the ghosts the elves tended in the ancient cities of Kel'theril, Mazthoril, Frostwhipser Grove and Starfall. While those ancient specters held a distinct presence of sadness and a wisdom in both their teachings and the folly that had caused their deaths, these... abominations grated against the priestesses senses like claws over slate.
What had begun as a mustering of forces an joyous reunion of families had turned into a pitched battle and full scale retreat.
The sentinel general ran her fingers through vivid teal hair as she fielded the storm of owls the war-bands used as impromptu messengers. Enchanted creatures, given to them by the grace of the goddess Avianna, the birds chirped, hooted and barked with an undercurrent of magic to their voices that rang with the voice of magic in her head. She listened to each of the birds as they repeated their handlers words about the ebb and flow of conflict and swore. Everlook ridge was completely lost and the abominations were making a large push towards Starfall city. The Frostsaber ranch was completely cut off from the other elven cities and was making their retreat up the cliffs towards Moonglade.
The cliffs were actually proving to be a severe limiting factor on the pursuit of her disparate forces in the area and, according to the latest birds, even allowing the cat riders to push back against the swarming hordes beneath them. The problem however came in that they needed to keep at distance from their enemies, something the cats were ill trained to do. Used to biting and clawing at their foes even as they carried riders on their backs, the felines had to be forcibly directed towards leaping away from their prey as such attacks spread the plague to the panthers, getting into their mouths and killing them either during the act of biting or afterwords from the act of cleaning themselves. The insidious potency of the contagion had forced them to destroy over a hundred mounts already and such able mounts were already in short supply, not being lesser immortals like their riders.
The trees, strangely enough, had been suffering much similar problems. Both the living ancients that made up large parts of modern towns and cities and the animated foliage the druids commanded as their primary weapons quickly became corrupted and bloated with fungus or puss of unknown origin upon contact with the scourge forces. Many of them splintered and crumbled under the effects of the polluting alchemical magics, but several had become warped and twisted horrors that turned around on their former allies and began to attack the druid and sentinel forces along side their old foes.
These were the few that weren't simply torn apart by axes, swords and unnaturally hardened bone weapons.
The ranger general shook her head in frustration, giving out more orders to the flock of birds before turning to her husband who was coordinating the local druids. Vaethil was normally fifth in command of the druid elders in the area, but of his four superiors two were dead, one was organizing the southern resistance near Mazthoril and Frostwhisper while the other, the original first in command and head of their order was currently slung over the back of a frost saber by his wife when he'd taken a plagued wound defending the Frostsaber breeding grounds. He was still alive and stubbornly muttering battle prayers to Elune and the local nature spirits, but his wounds weren't healing with any appreciable speed. An indication of just how virulent the enemies magics were.
"Lover, I need you to work with your brothers, see if you can get in tough with the spirits of the earth. The cliffs and the goddess's blessings seem to be our only advantages in this fight."
The transformed elf nodded, briefly transforming his head out of Moonkin form and back to his usual green haired humanoid features. "The members of my order were beginning to have the same idea." He replied, voice sounding somewhat absentminded. "We're currently meeting in the dream right now to discuss how to harden the stone against tunneling. The enemy's brought some sort of insect creature similar to the Quraji in addition to their fliers and ground troops."
Thalia swore. "Right, tell me when you're ready. We're under a time crunch here and I need your order for fire support as soon as you're able. The skeletal fliers are pulling back as if preparing for something. I don't like it."
Vaethil's eyes focused and he looked at her for several seconds before nodding. "And they must not reach the summit." Immediately he transformed back fully and his body began to glow with the silvery blue light of the priests and priestesses of Elune, cut through with the brilliant jade of druidic magics.
"Or the goddess's Moonglade" Thalia murmured in return.
Over the next several minutes the line of mounted warrior priestesses was pushed back into easy view of the pair and Thalia unslung her on bow. Breathing as evenly as she could the general slowly took measured potshots at any corpse that seemed to be presenting any sort of leadership to the others, all the while listening to and barking out orders for the owls fluttering around her position.
Then there was an almighty crunch and the earth in front of her personal warband fell away nearly two hundred feet. Thalia gasped in awe, abandoning her duties to rush to the edge of the new cliff and gape at the entire shelf of mountainside that had just sunk under the command of her husband and his fellows.
She was quickly shaken out of her stupor however as the ghouls began to make their way up the 80 degree incline of rough, almost torn looking, stone and soil.
"Don't blink," her husbands amused voice sounded in her ear, exhaused. "We're only just getting started."
Priestess Snowfeather offered him a raised brow, glowing silver eyes wide. "We're going to consecrate the slope." The heavily breathing elf finished with a grin. "Or at least the top twenty feet of it. The more the better though,.. tunnelers you know."
As Vaethil slumped to the forest floor Thalia whiped around glaring at her 'sisters'. "Well? Start praying! I want half of you working on channeling the goddesses blessings into the earth, the other half standing on the edge firing. Prayers to Avianna for accuracy and protection from the same girls! Get to it!"
~! #$%^&*()_+
As High Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind's attack overshot the illusion and landed with the blessings of the Pantheon against the remains of a frozen ancient the Eternal spirits of Elune and her children turned their gazes upon this battle in particular. After nearly three thousand years since the last major war, that against the Old God C'thun and his mantis legions. Roused from their sleep among the Emerald Dream by the dramatic and fevered increase in the number and urgency of the prayers for their aid, the ancient beings turned from their constant punishment of N'zoth and C'thun to take note.
They were not happy with what they saw.
The curse of Azshara comes again muttered one.
As was foretold... growled another.
A third entity gave a barking laugh. Late to the party as always, the pair of you... it said in amusement.
Not all of us are so active in the mortal world anymore as to notice these things a fourth purred. Though I notice prayers to me have been in somewhat short supply. The entity shrugged.
You are the patron of stealth and silence barked the fourth you expected different?
Enough, children... murmured another and all the other beings drew back in respect. This presence was light, mischevious, and somehow both harsh and comforting at the same time. Elune floated into the center of the gathering of gods, Malanore at her side, the brilliantly white furred stag stoic as ever. We seem to have a situation of particular interest in this war on our hands. We knew it would come again, but my personal champions blessing has given us a rare opportunity.
Yeah, snorted the second voice, now revealed to be the Bear god Ursol this is the first time since we met George Weasley that we've all worked together on the same attack.
Agreed. Intoned the Ponderous voice of Tortolla. Through I do wonder about the child asking me to BREAK armor rather than grant it... the tortoise god chipped in ponderously.
Regardless, chirped Avianna we've a chance to strike at four of the Legions primary generals.
Two Elune corrected, her voice radiating a soothing warmth that took the sting out of her contradiction. My other champion has the darkener well in hand and the deceiver has withdrawn from my vision, something I do not believe possible were he still in the field of battle. It is the other two that concern us however. Separately they have killed entire worlds. Working together... Her smile was sad, but her brilliantly shining eyes were determined and conveyed something words could not. Together they all nodded and took control of the High Priestesses attack, supercharging it, splitting it, and redirecting the two forks to spear through the heads of Doom Lords Kazzak and Zhaha'dun, Ending their existences.
Elune smiled dreamily. Come, friends. It is time to awaken and take this war in hand. The age of champions has begun, and I am less than pleased with what I have seen in the Titans and the 'Old Relics' designs for our future.