I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.

Thanks to tmd126 for editing.

Chapter published 4/1/16.

Sara

Hillsbrad Foothills was extremely different from what she remembered.

Sara had been born in a small village, far from Southshore. When she was a baby the forsaken had started advancing on the area, but the small size of her town let them escape detection long enough to evacuate to Elwynn. She had few memories of Hillsbrad, but she did have them. Chilly autumn mornings, pastoral hills and fresh pine trees. Sea-touched air and fertile soil. Now however, with the forsaken having long ago sacked the area and taken control, the air was pallid and the grass was withered and dying. The trees grew branches at odd angles and a strange, slimy smell filled the air.

A big improvement, in her opinion.

That, of course, had been hours ago. After arriving in Southpoint Gate, Darnall led them through some checks in the former forsaken camp. Most of the undead were fighting in and around the Undercity, so the Alliance had, in their infinite kindness and generosity, reinforced Southpoint Gate as a base to launch attacks against the tide of demons sliding south.

The gate itself wasn't truly a gate. It was two towers with a road going in between, leading to Silverpine Forest. Tents and structures were covered in purple cloth, emblazoned with the rotting face that was the symbol of Sylvanas's people. But Southpoint and all its rotting, undead denizens were behind her now, and instead she was hiking through the mountains with the other four.

Darnall, the night elf, took point. The hills were covered in defiled trees, making it easy to stay relatively undetected, not that there were any demons nearby. They slunk from shadow to shadow, watching for any surprise attacks. Sara was protected firmly behind her dark shell, but the others... eh, she'd resurrect them.

She had no idea how close they were to their position. All Sara knew was that they hiked for three days, running fast with the draenei hunter around, sleeping on compact bedrolls and eating small, nutrition-packed meals. Her physical condition wasn't as good as theirs, but it was good enough now that she could keep up. And keep up she did for three days, until Darnall held his hand up in a signal for them to stop.

"We're here," he whispered. "I'll go scout in a moment. First, buff up. I'll go first." The night elf knelt and placed both his palms on the open soil. His eyes closed, and Sara eyed him in confusion. What was he... ?

Then he stood up and thrust his left hand into the air. A magical, orange pawprint flashed above him and the others, and presumably her own hea - oh wow he's definitely a druid, she thought suddenly as the nature magic brought her to her knees, dry heaving.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

It took Sara a moment to get control of her stomach, but she waved his concern off. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Nature magic just feels weird to me." And now that the initial nauseating shock was gone, she did feel much better than before. The dull ache in her legs was gone, her head was clear, it was the sensation of having the flu and then all at once not having the flu.

"Good," he said. "Sproz, you're up."

The priest? Oh no. Sara braced herself as the gnome brought her hands together and whispered a prayer for safety and fortitude. A blazing white light formed around the short woman's feet and shone upwards, accompanied by a circular blue symbol above her head. Then the Light ever so briefly engulfed Sara.

Where the nature spell felt like something rejecting her, something disgusting and nauseating on the most fundamental level, this was a flash of dragonfire on every inch of her skin. Her teeth ground together as the surge of heat washed over her, but as with the night elf's spell it faded quickly, and left her feeling tougher than before. Luckily the death knight seemed as pained by the Light, so nobody was paying attention to her as she stiffened under the pain.

"I have some spells too," she offered. "I need to do it one at a time, but it's very long lasting." More or less permanent, even. She approached Darnall and reached her powers into his mind. The process wasn't too complex, and she'd done it hundreds of times in Nethergarde. A little tweak there, deleting some obscure lines there, so on. Soon, she had successfully increased his reflexes and pain tolerance. Sara repeated the same for the others. Even the death knight wasn't too difficult. The necromatic magic around his thought lines seemed to buzz against her heart, but his actual mind was just as malleable as any other.

"Alright," Sara said after her work was done. "Should be quicker and tougher now. So, what's the plan?"

Darnall pointed in a direction. After some glancing at the sun, she realized it was due east. "Forge Camp: Malice is right that way. However, before we head in spells blazing, we're going to do some scouting. Like this." Then a flash of green plasma, filled with verdant leaves, burst around the druid's hand. Heavy white smoke enshrouded his form. The space around him collapsed, and when the fog cleared the night elf was gone. In his place was a giant wildcat, with twilight-blue fur and silver moon marking around its face. It wielded claws as sharp as nails and sabreteeth like daggers. The feline shook its head and looked towards Sproz, who it was eye level with. "Sproz, mind vision me. I'll get you as close to the camp as I can."

"Got it," the priest said, her hands flashing with shadow magic. She closed her eyes, swaying in a trance, and then the cat that was Darnall lowered himself into the brush and stalked off, out of sight.

Mind vision. Sara had heard of that spell. She didn't know it, but she had developed something similar. It was more range dependent, but it worked by creating a link into a target's mind that she could activate whenever she wanted, regardless of whether she saw them. She couldn't learn the mind vision spell now though, learning new spells just by looking at them took days. And Sara had spent the time hiking developing a different spell.

After some time, Darnall returned in his cat form, but Sproz was still busy channeling her spell. Her eyes twitched under their lids like she was fast asleep. After roughly an hour more of this, the magic around her hands faded, and her eyes snapped open. "Alright, let me draw." She picked up a stick as tall as her. "Can someone clear me some dirt?" Sara summoned her Old God magic and blasted a nearby patch of grass with bright violet energy. The plants withered and died in seconds under her onslaught until she stopped. "Thanks a bunch."

The gnome began drawing little lines in it. Arcs, circles, and a few dots. Before long she was done and instead used the stick to point. "Alright. We're here." she said, pointing to the inside of the arc. "The Forge Camp is this collection of circles. These three," she said, putting crosses on them. ", are the portals. The rest are basic infrastructure they use to construct their other machines. THIS one, however, is a fel reaver. It seems to be inactive. If we want to get there, it's a pretty long run along open territory. They must've expected something like this, because there are a bunch of fel cannons covering their flanks and way too many demons close to the Dalaran crater to even consider going behind them."

"Do we have any option besides running across and dodging their fire?" the draenei among them asked.

She shook her head. "None that I can see. It seems like we'll have to brave it. I can keep you up though, I've got plenty of practice with fel cannon burns."

"How are we going to disable the portals?" Sara asked. "Go for the demons getting power from the crater, or the infrastructure?"

"Too many demons. Hundreds of them, and more every minute. The aerial teams will sort them out, but we need to go smash the reinforcements."

For a moment Sara considered offering to wipe out the demons. She certainly had the power. But until she could modify her dark shield to provide complete immunity? She'd be cursed and immolated and killed. Though she, in her training, did learn some things about demons on her own time. "There'd be control panels for the portals," she explained. "Smashing them wouldn't do it, but I can mind control a demon to overload them."

"So give you enough time to enslave one. How long should that take?"

Sara considered it. She'd only done the mind-wipe thrice so far, but there were some pointers in manipulation she'd taken from her past self that could make it easier. "A few seconds. The effect will be permanent too."

Darnall blinked at her. "Permanent?"

"Well, it won't go away on its own." She shrugged. "It'd take a lot for them to reverse it, but left to its own devices? Permanent."

The druid, still in his feline form, frowned. "When we get back, I expect a full write up pertaining to all your abilities, Miss Smithers."

"Fine. At any rate if I can get a gan'arg or mo'arg, I can use them to shut off the portals. Are there any, Sproz?" she asked, letting her Old God magic shiver along her upper arms.

They spent some more time outlining the specific formations of demons Sproz had seen while scouting. There were a lot of them, and there wouldn't be a lot of time once they were spotted to get in and get out. Luckily they did have hearthstones in case of emergency, but if they couldn't destroy the portals when the aerial squadron bombed them...

Eventually they decided on a specific route to go on, and with that done Jacob took the lead, smelling like freshly spilled blood. It sent an ecstatic shiver down her spine. They followed after him, and soon they arrived at the very edge of the mountainous forest, in sight of Forge Camp: Malice.

The demon encampment was situated in the middle of a valley. On the far side was another mountain range covered in somewhat-despoiled forestry. To the right there supposedly had once been 'Sludgeguard Tower' but now there was not even scrap to prove it had once existed. There was nothing except smooth, blackened stone. In the middle of the canyon was the Forge Camp.

It looked a lot like the one she'd seen in Dragonblight. The ground was dark and dead, and twisted metal structures clung to the land like boils. From so far, she could see the buzzing forms of hundreds of demons, and by reflex she checked to make sure her shadowy barrier was intact.

Further to the left, the Forge Camp extended and made a small arc around Dalaran crater. The crater itself was a gaping wound in the world, as if a Titan had come down with a scoop and dug out a vast section of the earth. Lavender arcane magic glowed dimly inside the crater, but even from so far away she could make out demon machines arranged over the crater like birds drinking water. They were absolutely enormous: no chance they could disable those.

"Triangle formation," Darnall suggested. "Jacob and I in front. Uztun behind me, Sara behind Jacob, fan out a bit. Sproz, you're in the middle." They shuffled around until they were in position. The front of the triangle was 'blunt', being two people wide, and Jacob was on the right side so Sara was the right corner. The gnome priest settled in the middle of them to be protected. "Any soul stones?"

"No," Sara said. "But I can resurrect."

"It'll have to do. Get ready to charge and remember the plan. Three. Two. One. Go!" And they burst from the forest, running down the slope.

Sara had to thank Leira's conditioning now, because this was a run she could handle now. They jogged across the grassy plain towards the Forge Camp, breathing heavily and preparing for the barrage of fel cannons. And they got halfway there before they had to do anything, too. Maybe the demons didn't see them until that point, or maybe the fel cannons didn't have the range. All the same, Sara saw flashes of acidic green light in the field of black and braced herself.

Jacob was the first to be hit, but he raised his runeblade into the fel-fireball's path and the sword soaked up the magic like a sponge.

Darnall jumped, twisting his feline body out of the way and letting the fireball set the ground ablaze with fire that smelled like rotten eggs.

Then a fireball hit Sara.

The inferno blossomed against her shield and wrapped around it like a hug, but then washed away and left nothing but smoke.

Fwoom! Fwoom! Fwoom! More and more fel cannons blasted them, but they kept pushing forward until they reached the Forge Camp. That was when Sara got a good look at the demon army.

Imps, observers, voidwalkers, shivarra, void terrors, felhounds, and every kind of 'guard' she could think of. There was a very good mix, and the only thing that seemed to be missing were eredar, pit lords, and dread lords. And instantly they were upon them. Jacob shrouded himself in ice and raised his runeblade. From it, arcs of necrotic power struck the defiled land and ghouls raised themselves from the earth before besetting the demons. Darnall launched himself at a succubus and began mutilating her face. Uztun hefted his crossbow and launched bolts, and Sproz began frantically weaving spells to heal the wounds the others were sustaining at a massive pace.

Sara grinned. It's time!

Shadow magic burned bright green in her palms. Her bones ached with the force of the magic she channeled through her body, but the staff affixed to her back relieved the strain so she wouldn't injure herself. Then a calamitous shadow nova burst forth from her.

The Stormwind Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences taught a valuable tool for area of effect spells, the Friend-Foe Identification Addendum. It was a simple sequence that, when attached to the spell, let it discriminate in its targets. And its use was always, always encouraged. It was used in every arcane explosion, every holy nova, every seed of corruption, every rain of fire. And her every shadow nova. So when the choking flash of Old God power burst outwards from Sara, the dark energies bent around her four allies and smashed into the Legion without causing any friendly fire.

Demons naturally had high amounts of resistance to shadow magic, but no amount of tolerance would protect them from the wrath of an Old God. They fell back from the onslaught, and the weaker demons instantly blew away like dust. She thrust her hands into the air and let loose another explosion, battering down all the surrounding demons save the infernals. A third wave of shadow destroyed them as well.

"Holy shit!" Jacob shouted, pushing forward the moment the demons were cleared away. "Okay, move!" he shouted, pointing at the nearest portal.

The portals of the Burning Legion looked somewhat like hands sticking up from the ground, and the fingers cupped fel energy inside. The closest one was still quite distant though, and more demons were upon them.

Time to put it to the test, she thought, preparing the spell she'd been practicing on the hike.

The spell's premise was simple. Why bother driving the demons insane, when instead she could kill them? Kill them permanently.

Enormous amounts of death magic pooled in her left hand, and after three seconds of casting she thrust it out at an approaching felguard. The felguard's body, weapon and armor all at once burst into a purple mist and blew outwards. It left behind a shimmering green outline of the felguard, the representation of its demonic soul. Then the soul exploded into a million pieces, each of which scattered to the nether winds.

That demon was gone forever.

Bullets fired, claws tore, and swords swung. Sara kept casting her Soul Destruction spell over and over. Larger and more powerful demons, predictably, needed more magic to erase, but with her enchanted gear her mana pool was more than deep enough to handle it. Every single spell connected and, by its very design, it was always enough to instantly destroy the demon. They killed and killed and killed, and Sara was not so humble she wouldn't claim she killed more than the others combined.

Eventually, panting from lack of breath, they arrived next to the first portal just in time for Sara to erase an emerging shivarra. They backed up against its console, which Sara spared a glance at. It was a box of blackened metal, closed tight with no buttons, levers or anything manipulable in sight.

"Smithers!" the death knight shouted. "Present for you!" From his outstretched hand a lasso of necrotic power lashed out and gripped a diminutive creature, before tugging it back to the human. He got out of the way of the incoming demon, letting it continue to fly and hit the portal right next to Sara. "Do your thing!"

"On it!" she affirmed. She reformed her barrier and let loose another shadow nova to clear out the demons, making sure it left the demon alone, and approached it.

The gan'arg was a tiny little thing, no taller than a dwarf. Its scaly skin was the color of rain clouds, as were its clothes. A hood went over its head, concealing the eyes but letting her see a bulbous nose and two underbite teeth. Then she grabbed it, either hand on opposite sides of its hand, and began.

It struggled for a moment, but then went slack and dropped its wrench as her powers went to work. Vaguely, Sara heard her guildmates fending off the Burning Legion, hurting and getting hurt and healing. But that wasn't important. All that mattered to her was rearranging the lines in the gan'arg demon's brain, practically lobotomizing it in order to make it do the only thing she needed. And then...

"Done!" she shouted, releasing another shadow nova. Then she pointed at the demon. "You! Destroy all these portals, one at a time, using the most efficient means you have available to you!" He didn't nod or do anything to acknowledge her authority, but he did walk to the console and, with a touch, opened its top to reveal a vast array of buttons and sensors.

Sara had other problems. She turned back to the fight... just in time to get a face full of carrion insects. The insects passed over her barrier and her allies, crackling with death energy. Once the swarm passed and Sproz once again continued her frantic healing, Sara caught sight of the source of the swarm.

It was a dreadlord, but... not a normal one. All along his breastplate, skin, and even his abnormally tattered wings there were bright purple lines burnt into them. His breastplate was dark purple, like her magic, and instead of claws on his hands and talons on his wings the demon had fangs that slowly dripped saliva. This was the dreadlord she had corrupted and killed in Nethergarde, and apparently he recognized her because his eyes went wide in horror.

"It's you," he breathed.

Yes it is, she thought, pooling a tremendous amount of magic into her soul destruction spell. It'd take a tremendous amount of power to instantly kill a dreadlord, but that was magic she could afford to spend. This corrupted dreadlord had to go. Goodbye.

But just before she could finish casting her spell, he gestured with a hand and Sara was...

She was...

Overcome with exhaustion. She didn't fall, but her upper body slouched over and her magic slurped back into her body. Her eyelids slammed shut and she swayed back and forth, her head buzzing with tiredness and -

Someone slapped her. She screamed and straightened up immediately, looking at the offender. He was blue and tall and a hunter, and it took a moment for her brain to connect the dots and realize it was Uztun. "What happened?" she mumbled, rubbing at an eye.

"That dreadlord put you to sleep. We killed him off, then I woke you up." He pointed up ahead, to where the gan'arg was already running to the next portal. "Come on, this one is deactivated," he said, before sprinting off the catch up with the others.

Sara joined him, sparing a glance at the teleporter. It seemed charred, and the fel light inside had extinguished. So that was one down, and two to go.

As it turned out, getting the other two portals destroyed was a relatively simple endeavor. They'd already killed most of the demons getting to the first one, and from there their various weapons and spells could easily keep the enemy at bay. The gan'arg raced ahead and sabotaged the next one. This time, Sara actually got to see the process in action. The demon pushed a few buttons, and then the blazing fel-light inside the portal's frame grew many times brighter... before fizzling out and leaving a burnt, inactive structure in its place. It must have been redirecting more of the magic to the one portal, causing it to overload. Maybe it also deactivated safety features. All that mattered was that the three portals were irrevocably damaged, and with that accomplished they ran.

The fel cannons were easily corroded and smashed, and Sara erased any demon foolish enough to chase them, even an eredar. Of course, destroying his soul cost so much magic that Sara's mouth instantly dried. So she simply dug out a mana potion and chugged it.

And then, they were in the forest. And then, they were safe. Still, they kept running until Darnall was absolutely certain they weren't being followed anymore.

"Alright, halt," he said, shifting back into his night elf form. "Everyone take a rest." She, the draenei, and the gnome, all collapsed onto various rocks, breathing heavily. The death knight of course had no problems with exhaustion, but Sara's head swam and little dots flickered in and out of her vision. That was probably the most running she had ever done in her entire life. But she did it. She was alive, and she hadn't needed to resurrect anyone thanks to Sproz's powerful healing magic. The portals were shut down. And she had permanently killed dozens of demons.

"Holy shit," she breathed, one hand on her stomach as she took deep breaths. "Holy shit I can't believe that worked!" Sara cracked a smile at Uztun. "We actually did it."

He grinned back at her, his chin tentacles shifting a bit as he did. "Indeed we did. This was your first mission yes? What do you think?"

What did she think? She thought this was amazing. The mortals had actually helped her get in there and... and she destroyed the portals. No more Legion reinforcements. Hundreds of them sent back to the nether and dozens wiped from existence by her powers over death. She hadn't died. And with the death knight there to look big and bad and intimidating, the most harm she had suffered was a sleeping spell. Anything that had tried to get close to her was blown away. They'd actually done it. They were shutting off the Legion's access into Azeroth. They were winning. How could she feel anything but ecstatic?! She said as much to him.

"I'm glad you're so pleased," Darnall interrupted. "However, we should begin moving once again. Southpoint Gate is quite a ways away."

Right, right. The return trip.

Three days there and probably four days back, now that they weren't in a hurry. Sara didn't hear the aerial teams bomb the Legion, but that was to be expected given the distance. The trip back was spent in high spirits and high altitudes, with Sara humming to herself gaily. The dirt and grime of roughing it in the woods couldn't matter less to her because she'd actually done well against the demons. She didn't even feel the urge to control and torture woodland animals, such was her joy.

They walked and walked, and eventually the third day came to an end with the sun setting and the twin moons rising. They set up camp and ate their meal. The other four made small talk with each other, but Sara turned in early, having no real desire to talk with the mortals.

That night, like all other nights since touching her old body, she dreamed of the days as an Old God. She dreamed of being chained beneath miles of dirt and unyielding stone, of sickening weakness and chains grasping her tentacles. When morning came she awoke with a start and took a few minutes to make sure she was above ground and could move her limbs.

Her good mood, however, had diminished somewhat on the last day. The hills sloped down, so Sara felt like she was constantly about to trip and fall and break her neck. She just wanted to get back to Ironforge and rest, maybe even use her hearthstone, but Darnall was insistent that they do this by the book, and that meant going to inform the guards and whatnot in Southpoint about their accomplishments. Oh well. She could handle one more day of light hiking.

They didn't speak much as they descended the mountains, back to the vaguely necrotic fields of Hillsbrand. It took the entire fourth day, but eventually the trees began to thin away. But as they grew closer something seemed wrong. Southpoint Gate had been decorated in dark colors, as was typical of the forsaken. Everything was kept relatively dim. So why, even in the twilight hours, was there so much light from up ahead?

Darnall seemed to share her concerns, because he held up a hand. "Hold up," he said, and they obeyed. "Stay low and quiet," he said as they crawled forward towards the sound of crackling wood, the smell of smoke, and a brilliant flourish of both green and red light. They approached and, still hidden in the growth, peeked at the scene.

Southpoint Gate was demolished. Infernal meteors rained down from the heavens as emerald streaks too fast to track with her eyes. Wherever they impacted , a shockwave of air pushed everything away, and then the boulders pulled themselves back together and the infernal went off to destroy everything in sight. The gate was smashed to pieces, the tents and wyvern roosts were reduced to burning planks, and there was absolutely no resistance. The dwarves, the humans, the forsaken, everyone had been smashed to a pulp or burnt to a crisp. And sure, Sara could resurrect them, but... there were so many infernals. The damage was already done.

All the same, she couldn't let these infernals survive. Sara started to move forward, but Darnall gripped her shoulder and held her back. "Don't," he whispered.

"You saw what I could do in the Forge Camp," she hissed at him. "Do you really think they are going to give me difficulty?"

"Deployed infernals burn out on their own after enough time has elapsed," he said calmly, reminding her of what she already knew. "These infernals have already trashed everything of value here, they're already dead. We need to get back to Ironforge and warn the generals of what has transpired here."

She stared back at him. There were any number of arguments she could have made. She could resurrect the fallen and lessen the impact. She could work off her frustrations. She could make certain they wouldn't do more damage elsewhere, such as cause a forest fire. She could let them go back with their hearthstones and stay behind to clean up. Hell, she could kill these four and do it herself, then resurrect them later on if she felt like it. But... she was trying to make herself a better person. And she was already in enough hot water with the Alliance army. No need to dig herself deeper with some bullshit insubordination charges or something. Guilds tended to be lighter on discipline and obedience, but she didn't want to chance it, her anger burning like acid in her gut. Sara relented.

"Alright."

"Glad to have you listening to reason." He turned to the other three. With one arm he dug into his pack, and with the other the night elf gestured at them. "Hearthstone back to Ironforge, go go go." The others were already fishing out their rocks, and a moment later Darnall joined them. They teleported away one by one, and as he began to rub the stone he looked at her. "Coming?"

"Hmmph." She pulled out her own and began to trace the blue spiral. The hearthstone thrummed to life, and nature magic began to swirl around it, plasma leaves appearing and disappearing. The sensation sent ripples of nausea through her, but she held on. Darnall vanished in a series of blue spheres, leaving Sara alone.

She considered dropping her hearthstone and going at the infernals, but she didn't. Besides, already wind was whistling in her ears and her body was weightless. The magic in the little palm-sized rock flared to life and grabbed her body. With a yank she was tossed into the air. All of Azeroth spiraled away from her as she was tossed into the Great Dark Beyond. Azeroth spun a bit, and then she was falling, falling so much faster than she should have been able to, and then she crashed through layers of air and snow and rock and metal and landed in Ironforge with the wind knocked out of her.

So, that was it then. Her first mission had been a resounding success. With her aid, the Chimes of A'dal had smashed the Legion's portals and eradicated a large portion of their army. She had done everything exactly as she was supposed to with far greater success than had been expected. Sara had done everything right.

And still, they lost.

Please do leave a review, let me know what you think.