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Barrens

Before all the madness in the world went down, Allari was sent by Illidan to Kalimdor a few hours before the whole operation began. She was instructed not to make contact with anyone and to maintain eyes on Ahn'Qiraj. From Maiev's information, the temple can only be reached on foot but with her demonic powers, she is able to freely fly over the ridgelines and valleys right into a good position to observe

'It indeed has begun.' Allari thought to herself, seeing the magic in the air being disrupted. As the weather grew more and more intense and the earthquakes began, the demon hunter had to be careful about her footing. She considered to use her wings to levitate off the ground but the wind was too strong that trying to maintain her balance in the air would prove to be more difficult. 'Agatha had mentioned before that when the elementals were defeated, a pocket dimension that was diveded into four parts was created to seal them away. By breaking the barriers between Azeroth and the elemental plane, it is possible to force something out. The problem is there is no guarantee that only Deepholm would be affected, or worse, it could rile up the other servants of the Old Gods.' the demon hunter recalled what was said and her reasoning for travelling here. 'If the Qiraji are riled up then I just have to lure them to the Night Elves and let them deal with them. Sounds simple enough.'

As the minutes passed by, the spell continued to grow stronger. From her vantage point, she could see a few elementals appear and began wreaking havoc on the local creatures or just the surroundings in general. She quickly looked over to the temple and saw nothing of suspicions. Allari even looked underground but found nothing which meant that she was free to be on guard if any elemental came her way. In the very far distance, she saw something in the air that normally wouldn't be possible in this kind of weather. 'Fire? In this weather?' she wondered in surprise. 'That can only mean that it is only a matter of time before it is complete. Damn it, these quakes are making it hard to concentrate.'

While she was still observing the area, five fire elementals suddenly appeared right below her. Allari tried to keep out of sight but when a stream of flames headed her way, she knew she was spotted. "Oh hell." she muttered ironically. Taking one last glance at the temple, Allari quickly jumped off the vantage point and engaged the fire elementals. Being outnumbered, this was not gonna be an easy battle

Bursts of flames erupted everywhere, igniting the very ground on fire before being immediately put out by the storm. At first, Allari thought that direct attacks was useless but upon further inspections, it was actually inflicting damage but unlike other creatures where a simple decapitation would work, it won't be that easy with the elementals. 'These creatures don't even care if they hit each other.' Allari thought to herself when one of them instantly shot a a jet of flames when it had an opportunity even though another one was directly behind the demon hunter. She carefully observed them while continuing to dodge their attacks. 'Are the elementals always like this?' she wondered to herself. If they are, then she might as well kill them, if not, then that can only mean one thing. Her thoughts were interrupted when one of them managed to hit her with a blast of flames, pushing her back

Another elemental quickly unleashed a huge inferno at her. Despite the flames actually hurting, Allari forced herself to jump up but part of her lower legs was still hit. Attempting to reduce the damage, she ignited herself with fel fire using an immolation spell. Going on the offensive, Allari shot a fel bolt at one of them. The elemental didn't even bother to dodge and was forced back. Rushing to the elemental she targetted, she gathered fel energy at the blade of her scythe and plunged it right into the elemental's head, cleaving it in two and overruning its body with fel energy, destroying it

The other elementals did not notice what the demon hunter did until one of their own was destroyed. Two of them recklessly attacked but she instinctively spun around whie unleashing her demon form upon noticing that they were only aiming at her general direction. Allari then quickly tried to engulf the area in fel smoke but she wasn't surprised that the wind was strong enough to blow it all away but it gave her the chance to rush behind another one. Another fire elemental shot a jet of flames but was tricked into killing one of its own when the demon hunter went behind one of them. Before the other elementals could respond, Allari fired an eye beam at the elemental she tricked and killed it. Levitating off the ground, she checked for where the other two were and found them gone

Reacting quickly, she instictively erected a shield of fel fire around her to block any unexpected attack but to her surprise, it never came. Since the abnormal weather have significantly weakened, Allari had more freedom to fly without that difficulty. She returned back to the vantage point. 'With Deathwing being attacked, you'd think that the Qiraji would at least do something.' Allari thought to herself. Her attention was soon diverted when a jet of flames headed straight into the sky not that far from her. Curious, Allari flew to a height where she can still observe the temple and see the battle

To her surprise, she found a night elf fighting the two elementals that were missing after dispatching three of them. 'A Night Elf? Out here? Why, out of all times? What reasons could he have for being all the way out here and more importantly, why is he alone?' so many questions ran through her mind, most ouf them out of curiosity. 'Based on what Kor'vas and Altruis' said, Night Elves don't usually bother to get out of their forests unless something is going on. With what Illidan is doing, it isn't unreasonable however, there is the fact that he's alone. Nothing of significant has happened in this area ever since the war against the insects ended. Does this mean that he's on his own?' she analyzed the situation carefully. "Whatever." she muttered to herself and gathered fel energy on her scythe. She then threw her scythe at one of them and quickly fired an eye beam at the other. One of the elementals was hit and destroyed by the eye beam. When the other turned, it was hit by the scythe and was destroyed as well. Allari flew down to the night elf. "What do you think you're doing here?" she asked

"You..." the night elf trailed off when he saw the powers she wielded. "You're with Illidan Stormrage, aren't you?"

"I asked you a question first." Allari countered sharply. She expected the night elf to take offense at her presence but she was slightly surprised that he seemed relieved

"My name is Vandel Nightshade." he introduced himself and she merely raised an eyebrow as she did not particularly care who he was. He got the message. "Ever since the Burning Legion was defeated, I wanted to join his cause however, Maiev recklessly chased after Illidan. This resulted in any ports and ships be heavily guarded to ensure that he won't be provoked."

"That makes sense." Allari said thoughtfully before suddenly grabbing a dagger and slashed him. Vandel noticed this and was able to dodge

"What are you doing?" Vandel asked as he continued to try and dodge. What he didn't realize is that Allari was purposefully missing him, with the dagger at least, as she was still overwhelming him with punches or kicks but she did hold back. Vandel was then forced on the ground and just when he was ready to die, Allari stabbed the ground right beside his face, barely missing it

"Get up." Allari ordered and hesitantly, he obeyed. "If you really want to join us, you will experience far worse than what I just did and if you're not willing to give up on everything you once believed in, you are not welcome with us." she warned. 'It doesn't matter what he says now. I'll have to get him to say his story when Kel'thuzad is around. If he refuses to listen, it isn't hard to kill him.'

"I understand. After what the Legion did-" Vandel said but was cut off

"Don't finish that sentence. You can say your story when Lord Illidan is around. Now, if you want to ever be able to see him, you're coming with me." Allari said

"Where to exactly?" Vandel asked but instead of answering, Allari remained silent as she picked up her scythe and walked back to him. He was about to ask again when Allari suddenly picked him up and flew back towards the vantage point from earlier. Vandel became slightly flustered at being in close proximity to a stranger

Allari noticed this when she landed them and couldn't help herself. "What's the matter? Never been intimate with a woman before?" she teased and he blushed. 'How I wish I still had my regular sight.' she thought to herself

"W-what? It-it.." Vandel stuttered before taking a few deep breaths. "I never got your name."

"Allari." she simply replied and decided to cut him off when he opened his mouth to speak. "I'm observing the temple." she said and he looked at said location. "And I'm not gonna tell you the details."

"How did you know what I was going to say?" Vandel asked

"What else would you want to talk about? It's not uncommon to change the subject that abruptly after being teased like that." Allari pointed out

"That's true." Vandel said and sat down. Allari still kept her guard up around him but nonetheless looked at the surroundings for any living creature leaving the temple

"Why are you even out here in the first place?" Allari asked curiously

"Well, as I said earlier, all ports and ships are always monitored. Not just in Ashenvale but also the ones that belonged to the Alliance and Horde. It is next to impossible for anyone who isn't a high ranking officer to leave Kalimdor. Even building your own ship, which is already troublesome as it is, would not work since it isn't just ports that are monitored but also the coastline itself." Vandel explained. "However, this place, Ahn'Qiraj, nobody ever comes here, not even the Night Elves. I don't know why that is but I thought it would be my only chance to travel to wherever Illidan is. Building a small ship would prove to be trouble but I don't really have anything else left."

Allari listened to him intently and could not sense any sign of deception whatsoever. "You will have to repeat this to Lord Illidan you know. Whether you join us or not us up to him." she reminded him. "But something is off. Why did you only choose to come here now?" she asked

"Ashenvale is really hard to get out of these days. Again, thanks to Maiev. In fact, a lot of Night Elves have been dreading an attack by Illidan after what Maiev did and it wasn't until he let go some of the Humans where we finally calmed down. I imagine you can figure out the rest." Vandel answered

Allari merely snorted. 'This guy got balls, I'll give him that. He talks as if he knows me already and he should be aware that I can easily just rip him apart.' she thought in amusement. "The Night Elves kept a close eye on who leaves the forest."

"Yes, and it was fairly difficult for me to escape." Vandel said. "In truth, I've actually been in this area for a few days now but have found nothing that could help me. I was planning to try and learn how to build a ship when those things attacked."

'So that's what happened. Building a ship on your own is not easy. He must be really patient if that is true.' Allari thought, satisfied, She didn't respond to that and merely continued with her mission before someone contacted her mentally

Stormwind

In the area of the Eastern Kingdoms where Stormwind once stood, King Ymiron and his vrykul had created another base of operations for the scourge. It was nowhere near as defended as Silvermoon or Dalaran but Illidan needed eyes and ears in this area. The scourge was stretched very thin with needing to leave enough forces to defend their strongholds while having enough to defend the summoning circles from any potential intervention. Illidan took the undead demons and fel orcs with him to Northrend, deeming them the most expendable while the rest of the scourge were on defense

The vrykul had a very specific task, to gather any clues to the whereabouts of the Twilight's Hammer clan. This search was the single most difficult thing the scourge had to do as nobody had any clue about the cult. All that was known is there was a clan of orcs that renamed themselves as Twilight's Hammer and that they had been acquainted with Gul'dan but even the traitorous warlock had no idea of there whereabouts in the final days of the war

"King Ymiron." a vrykul called out. "We have sent shades and kept the rest of our forces within the base. However, even with the spell to force out to Deathwing, nothing of significance has happened."

"This is problematic. We have been searching for months now yet we have found no clue." another vrykul said

"How does Lord Illidan even know about them anyway?" a third vrykul asked

"Lord Illidan possesses the memories of Gul'dan, an agent of the Burning Legion. From the memories, he knows about how the Twilight's Hammer and their belief on the apocalypse along with Gul'dan's apprentice, Cho'gall, being one of them." Ymiron explained before thinking about it. "Up until this point, we have never expected to find any clues as their whereabouts and even with the abnormalities from the spells, nothing is happening."

"Could it be possible that this Twilight's Hammer is not here?" a vrykul warrior pointed up

"It is possible however, we have maintained eyes on the Alliance and Horde. While we are limited to what information we could get from within their walls, at least we can observe what happens outside thanks to the shades that Kor'vas sent with them."

"That also was a dead end. From those shades, there was nothing of any significance that has happened."

"Allari is in Kalimdor now. Perhaps we should ask her."

"Very well." Ymiron said and opened a mental link. 'Allari, have you found anything unusual?'

'None whatsoever. It is surprising despite everything that's been happening, the temple is as quiet as ever. If we were never told that an Old God was in Ahn'Qiraj, I would have believed it's a ghost town.' Allari responded

"This is bad. Who knows what could the Old Gods be up to. There is no way they aren't aware of what's going on." Ymiron said

Northrend

"Uther?" Arthas muttered in disbelief, struck to his core and was left completely stunned

"Look out, lad." Uther yelled and tackled his student right as a black dragon whelp was dropped near them. "Now's not the time to be surprised, lad. You need to focus or the Faceless Ones will kill you." he reprimanded

Arthas couldn't believe what he was hearing. His mentor was standing before him as a death knight, on the opposite of where he once stood yet, he still cared about the prince. Aside from the slight echo of death in his voice, Uther still gave out the aura, albeit it was the complete opposite of what he had in life, that he was still that same paladin only this time, he is wielding a different set of powers

"Listen, Arthas. There is something I want to talk with you about but first, we need to protect the altar otherwise Deathwing wins." Uther warned and despite his surprise, Arthas nodded. The two of them quickly returned back to the main battle some distance away from the summoning altar

The faceless ones managed to breach one of the defensive lines the scourge created in Sholazar Basin. The Old Gods' minions made a bee line straight towards the altar but they ran right into an undead army. Arthas and Uther rejoined the battle, fighting side by side against the creatures while dragons, both living and dead, fought off other dragons and some insectoid creatures

"What are these things? I've never seen something so corrupt. Even the Legion looks normal compared to them." Arthas said after bashing a few of faceless ones

"They're called the Faceless Ones. I cannot tell you where they came from at the moment but you are right, lad. They are the servants of creatures that are even more corrupt than the demons." Uther replied before he and Arthas dodged a falling dragon. "From what I can tell, Deathwing is merely a servant but was not yet ready to attack the world. I am no expert but if I had to guess, they want to pull the fallen aspect back to the abyss he hid himself in."

"It really is true then..." Arthas said but he was separated from Uther for a bit. A faceless one came his way and nearly broke his entire body with its mace, which was far heavier than anything the Alliance had. Fortunately for him, he instinctively managed to erect a divine shield and minimized most of the damage. The faceless one tried to run over to him but was stopped by a death coil. To the prince's surprise, a death knight sliced off the weapon arm of the creature before it got its head sliced off by Uther

"Arthas, are you alright?" Uther said and helped his former student up

"Uther, we're winning this battle." the death knight said before looking at the elevation where the dark rangers were. "For now, catch up with the prince. We'll force them back to the borders."

"Alright, thank you." Uther said gratefully and looked at his former pupil. Arthas just eyed the exchange with wide eyes. The prince thought for sure that the undead would despise his presence or maybe even blame him that he got to live while they suffered at the hands of the Legion but none of those things happened. "What's wrong?"

"It- it's just." Arthas stuttered, unable to form a proper sentence. "I always thought that I would be hated by the ones that are now in the Scourge's service."

"Don't worry about it, lad. None of us hold it against you. If we survive this battle, I will talk to you about something as promised." Uther said before walking off. "Now, let's go." and Arthas looked at the sky, observing the battle between the dragon aspects. "Leave Deathwing to the dragon aspects, Arthas. We cannot do anything to assist them directly."

At the same time, Sylvanas ran to a slightly higher elevation. She shot a few arrows at nearby faceless ones. She was torn about what she would do. Part of her wanted to see who the undead rangers were but she was also afraid she would merely get scorned or even worse. What she did know is that she needed another vantage point as most of the faceless ones were too far away and she was not too sure how to get to the nearest one. Her train of thoughts were interrupted when she heard a roar behind her

A blue dragon had forced a black dragon whelp into the ground before clawing on it and killing it. "Get on." the dragon said to the high elf. Sylvanas was surprised that the dragon knew what she was thinking but nonetheless obeyed. The dragon quickly took off and landed her near where the other dark rangers were. "This vantage point will give you a good view of the area. Go with the rest of the dark rangers and don't be afraid. If you are, suck it up and save it for if we survive this."

"I understand. Thank you." Sylvanas said gratefully and went towards the rest of her former subordinates

One of them turned around and saw who was approaching. "Ranger General?" the dark ranger said in complete surprise

Sylvanas instantly recognized who she was, one of the most skilled ranger captains of the Farstriders and one of her closest friends. "Anya Everwind? Is that really you?" she asked in surprise

The other dark rangers looked at the newcomer and like with Anya, they were surprised that it was their former superior. "It's good to see you again, Ranger General." one of them said. Sylvanas was rendered speechless at this reaction. Like with Arthas, she expected the complete opposite to what she got

Focusing herself, Sylvanas nocked an arrow on her bow and shot it at an insectoid creature. "If it's alright with you, let's catch up later. We need this to end before we all get killed."

"Yes, Ranger General." all of the dark rangers said in unison and fired their own arrows. Some insectoid creatures landed near them and the dark rangers were quick to toss their bows to some of their own and drew their blades. A few of the dark rangers were dropped from the vantage point. They were quickly attacked by a few insects but the other rangers were able to buy them time to recover themselves

"What are these things? There are so many of them?" Sylvanas wondered aloud while trying her best to aim at such fast moving targets, faster than anything she had ever encountered

"Not exactly sure. All we know is that they're minions of someone worse than the Legion." Anya replied

'Worse than the Legion? What in the hell is Illidan's goal?' Sylvanas wondered to herself. 'He obviously intends to fight whatever they are and he played his cards perfectly to put us in a position where we wouldn't have a choice but to help him, or maybe he intended to fight them without anyone's help all this time.'

"They're already being pushed back." a dark ranger said, noticing that the other ground forces were starting to push forward

"We'll need to find another vantage point if we are to provide further cover for them. The gargoyles will have to keep the insects at bay." Anya muttered

"Let's get moving." Sylvanas ordered and the other dark rangers followed her. "You have anymore arrows? We're gonna run out of them soon."

Southern Borean Tundra

While near the north, the faceless ones and their insectoid minions tried to stop the summoning but failed, as soon as the abnormal weather weakened, giant snake like creatures suddenly came out of the sea. The scourge left this flank without much defense, figuring that no one will be able to come from this side because there was only the sea not to mention they would be stretched thinner than they already were

Because of this, the snake like creatures slowly traversed the Borean Tundra's landscape near unhindered. The area where the spell was cast was in their sights. It was not that far

"Keep moving forward. Our masters wants us to undo the effects of this madness." a giant octopus like creature ordered before casting a spell which would hide them from the flyers in the air. "Do not assault any of the undead. Our goal is only to get to the ritual area."

"As you ordered, my queen." another snake like creature said and they continued to sneak their way

While she was flying around to kill the insect creatures after she had a word with the ones on the alliance ship, Kor'vas suddenly saw some creatures trying to make their way from the south. To the normal eyes, they would not be seen but with her spectral sight, she saw it very clearly. She knew that she wouldn't be able to take them all on herself. 'Kel'thuzad, Drak'thul, there is an army of unknown creatures coming from the south and they're hidden in plain sight. We're gonna need some help.'

'Understood.' Drak'thul said in response. 'Maiev, we're gonna need some more troops to hold them off or Deathwing will destroy us all.' he said before closing that link and opening a different one. 'Kor'vas, you have the magical stones, right?'

'I do. Is Maiev ready?' Kor'vas asked

'Do it.' Drak'thul responded and Kor'vas put down a magical stone similar to the ones Illidan made for them when they first allied with the scourge

'It's ready.' Kor'vas replied and from Coldarra, Drak'thul channeled energy through the ground right into the stone, opening a portal

A few seconds later, Maiev and a small undead army came out of the portal. As Kor'vas expected, they didn't see anything so she decided to fly up and fire an eye beam at the nearest one. The attack completely dispelled the invisibility spell

"We've been spotted. Destroy the surface dwellers." one of the snake like creatures yelled and from multiple directions, blasts of water were headed the way of the undead army but Maiev reacted quickly by erecting a shield of frost

"Engage them." Maiev ordered and another battle soon begun. It was made more complicated when they were overwhelmed by their magic

The undead suffered a lot of losses when compared to the creatures they were fighting. Unlike the undead army that held the line in Sholazar Basin, they were not undead demons nor fel orcs but mostly just the regular forces of flesh golems, abominations or ghouls, vrykuls and even nerubians. The creatures they were fighting were more than a match for the flesh golems and vrykuls and overwhelmed the lesser undead. It got even tougher for them when some more snake creatures casted spells that if something dies, a smaller amphibious creature would spawn from its body. It was similar to the dark ranger's spell but more specific

What really made it difficult was the octopus like creature that was casting powerful magics, even turning a vrykul into a random critter. That creature would also fire some powerful arcane bolts from her trident, far more powerful than anyone else the undead have ever seen

"This is bad. We're gonna get overwhelmed at this rate." Maiev said after killing a few snake creatures

'That creature's power is almost similar to Illidan's. If that's the case...' Kor'vas thought to herself before looking up at the massive dragons fighting each other. 'Illidan, this is Kor'vas. There is a problem to the south of the ritual circle. We need your help, now.'

At the same time, Illidan was engaging the black dragon whelps and insect creatures in the sky a good distance away from the altar. When the other aspects arrived, Illidan left the fight against Deathwing to Malygos, Galakrond, and the others and instead decided to stop as many enemies from interfering with them. He was on the back of a black dragon whelp when Kor'vas contacted him. 'Alright.' he replied before slicing the whelp in two

The lich king made haste towards the southern area of the Borean Tundra when he found some snake creatures, which he assumed was the problem. He rushed to the ground and quickly slaughted seven of them immediately upon landing before they could even react. 'Who are these creatures? It's almost like I've met them before.' Illidan thought to himself after dispatching three more. There was no time to ponder on this and decided to find their leader

Eventually, Illidan arrived near the octopus creature and the answer to why they seemed familiar lay before his eyes and for all his efforts, he did not expect to see her again. "Azshara?"

Nope. You're not gonna get the Deathwing fight this chapter. Don't worry, you'll get it in the next one. Just to clear stuff up, the Barrens part with Allari was in the early stages of the spell, basically the few minutes before it was cast and immediately afterwards. I decided to take this chance to introduce Vandel although it is nowhere near as detailed as in the Illidan novel. His background will not be touched on but it will mostly be the same. The only difference is how he came to meet with Illidan

I am not entirely sure about the Twilight's Hammer part. When I did some research, wowpedia mentioned that Gul'dan knew them and since Illidan has Gul'dan memories, only makes sense that he knows about them as well

Also, along with Thrall, I decided to give Arthas and Sylvanas a bigger role in the story just because I always thought Arthas, Sylvanas and Illidan were the main characters of TFT and I wanted to pay respects to it. Again, nowhere near as big as Illidan or Illysanna's but it is something. I had different plans for the story but I ended up digging myself a grave. However, I will not promise you that any of them would make it to the end. In fact, I won't mention what will happen to them in the notes just to keep it a surprise

Finally, yes, those creatures at the end are the Naga although just for the sake of consistency, they won't be referred to as such in the story until they themselves mention what they are called. And yes, surprise, Illidan finally meets Azshara again. Well, I'll leave this to your imagination what comes next