Diablo is © to Blizzard
Ola to all!
If you've read Time Blood before, you'll probably know this isn't the same first chapter as the original one I had – well the only reason would be that fanfiction.net gobbled up the first chapter for some bizarre reason so I went into hiatus for few months – but not…you can expect me to start writing again! Enjoy…
Time Blood
Prolouge
Kail gasped at the heat of the pentagram washed over him and he staggered backwards. Blood from the large wound on his forehead dripped through his white hair and down his chin. He gasped for air again and clutched the war sword in his hand.
"Moranah!" He shouted for the sorceress.
He felt the wave of electric heat again, this time shocking him all the way up to his bones. He crashed on the stone floor of the Chaos Sanctuary and cried out. He coughed violently, blood traveling up his throat.
"Diablo!" He heard a war cry somewhere in the smoke and crackling light. He saw Thorn, the barbarian, through his blackening vision as he ran up to the towering form of the youngest Brother.
Diablo. Lord of Terror.
"Thorn! NOO!!" He shouted, before falling into a rasping cough again. He felt someone take his head gently and tipped something cool into his mouth. He felt the wounds on his side close – slowly – but enough that his eyes stopped falling back into shadows and his head cleared.
"Come on," Ollan, the paladin pulled him up. His deeply tanned face and clear gray eyes were filled with panic, masked with seriousness. "It's not your time."
He took a staggering breath and leaned on the paladin. "Moranah – she's – "
"She'll be fine," Ollan whispered. "Come on. Before he casts another one of his electric fires. Nikan's Valkyrie is taking him."
He vaguely saw Ollan cast a portal spell and they stumbled into the Pandemonium Fortress, safe from the fire and Diablo. He hit the floor, pulling Ollan down with him and coughed up another wave of blood. He felt Ollan left him and someone else took his head. Small hands, but strong. Hands that he was familiar with.
"Kail."
He blinked and looked up at Moranah's face. Despite the blood and ash on her pale face, Moranah was still beautiful. Her soft dark brown eyes with flecks of gold were clouded over with anxiety, her dark hair matted down with dust and blood. The sorceress bent down and gently kissed him.
"He's not undefeatable, Kail," the sorceress said.
He tore away from. "You are not going back there!" He shouted, the blood pumping in his temples. "Diablo will kill you in an instance!"
She gritted her teeth and hissed at him. "It's my duty as sorceress and one of the Five to kill him, Kail! We couldn't come this far and turn back!" She looked down at the scars on her hands, the fresh blood welling up on the cuts on her arms. "I can't do it. Not even for your love."
He pulled his hands back to keep himself from hitting her. "Moranah…" he said.
"If you want to stop me, stop Nikan, Ollan, and Thorn first!" She shouted, savagely pointing at each of the heroes. Nikan, the Amazon, stepped up and took Moranah by the shoulder.
"He's just worried – "
"Damn his worries, damn everything," she pulled back, pointing her staff at him. "Cross me again Kail, and I'll kill myself." Her brown eyes sparkled in something between determination and madness. "I'm not going back again! I'm not starting over! Kail, I'm not starting over!"
Thorn's dark eyes suddenly opened wide, and before Kail could figure out what the barbarian was seeing in Moranah, he leapt out and tried to grab her. "WAIT!" He shouted.
Kail cried out. Moranah had jumped through the portal, back where Death was waiting them.
"Damn it!" He shouted and tore a cork stopper off a healing potion and drinking the contents. He leapt back through the hazy portal, sword ready in hand.
"Moranah! Don't!"
It was too late – even as the others appeared at his side. Nikan half shrieked, nearly dropping her javelin. She lunged out at Diablo, her shield and javelin poised ready.
"Don't – " Kail held her before she could join Moranah's dance of death.
He watched, horrified.
"Ho, little sorceress," Diablo's voice of a thousand hammers thundered through the sorceress. "I've beaten the lot of you Heroes once, watch me again!"
Moranah ran, a trail of fire sparking from her heels as Diablo followed her. She ran in circles and crosses, transforming the floor of the sanctuary into fire. Not being able to stand it anymore, Kail rushed in.
Diablo hit him with full force of his arm before he could even attempt to slash him. He cried out as he skidded back five or six feet before catching himself and spitting out blood. He hissed, casting a curse of amplify damage on the demon. Thorn leapt, bringing down his axe on the brute's head, slashing a horn. Thorn fell on his knees and rolled, up again, weapon poised and ready. Nikan rushed in, sending her javelin flying into the air as a bolt of lightning. It grazed Diablo's hurt head and he turned to her, roaring flame from his mouth.
"NO!" Kail shouted.
Moran leapt in front of him and shoved the spiked end of her staff up Diablo's throat.
It didn't go in deep enough – not deep enough to be of any enough damage to him. But instead of pulling back, she held on, continuing to shove. With a cry, she jerked the spiked end back, ripping sinew and muscles from Diablo's throat.
Diablo gave a roar of outrageous wrath and whipped his spike tail.
"AAAAAHHHHHH!" Kail screamed.
The tail fell on Moranah, and with a sickening sound of flesh and muscle separating from bone; Kail felt his mind explode into nothing but white, mental pain. Most of Moranah's entire left side was gone, save for her arm that was still supporting the staff embedded in Diablo's throat, and her leg, but he could see her inner organs. He screamed again, unaware of Ollan holding him down to keep him from rushing in and killing himself along with Moran.
Diablo cried out and fell on his side. Moranah had let go of the staff and had fallen on the other. Tearing himself away from Ollan, he rushed over to her and fell on his knees, cradling her head.
"We did it," she whispered, hoarsely, coughing.
Nikan covered her mouth, tears running down her face. "Oh Moranah…"
"Potion! Give me your healing potions!" Kail shouted, his hands shaking as he searched in his pack. Ollan placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Kail, listen to me. They're open wounds. You can't heal her," he whispered.
"I know," Moranah grinned. "Kail…"
He bent down and kissed her. Kissed her until the breath had left her lungs. Kissed her until she had no life left.
Thorn took him by the shoulders and gently pulled him away. "Let's go."
As he turned to leave, his mind blank, they heard a crunching sound behind them.
"Think you can escape?"
Diablo stood over Moranah's lifeless body, grinning. Blood dripped down his chin from the gaping wound at his throat and his eyes were a milky red. He was near death, but had summoned enough energy to try and prevent them from killing him.
"We can't fight him like this!" Nikan shouted. "No mana, no life blood left – "
"Kail," Ollan said.
"No," he whispered. "I can't do that. Let Nikan summon her Valkyrie!"
"Kail, you must. Moranah will have it no other way."
With a sob, he turned and summoned a Skeleton from Moranah's corpse.
The Skeleton rose without a word, ready to kill. Unlike the other skeletons he had summoned from corpse of animals and demons, this one had eyes that shown a bright blue, indicating its power of being something more than just a lifeless Skeleton.
It turned to him, the flashes inside its eyes quivering, asking him for directions.
"KILL IT!" He screamed, pointing his sword at Diablo.
The Skeleton rose, pulling it arms upwards and drawing what looked like a spider web of blue energy above its ivory head. He clutched onto the Paladin, burying his face into the chest plate, fighting the urge to watch. Heat and energy washed over him, Diablo's blood submerging him, burrowing him. He screamed his rage, his loss. His pain.
He screamed for Diablo's death, knowing that it had taken another life to bring him down.
He screamed.
A few days later, Kail sat on his rough bed of boiled bamboo and looked outside the thin wooden wall, watching the rain fall outside. They had defeated the Lord of Terror, broken his soulstone, and everyone was suppose to be rejoicing.
Everyone except him.
They had taken resident in Kurast after the final battle, and he spent it all inside the small shack he and Ollan were sharing. His companions had turned silent – but it wasn't the silence of grief and loss he had. He knew they all loved Moranah as a friend and a Sorceress of the Five, but their pain was only brief. His was for an eternity.
And he hated how they avoided his eyes. Hated Nikan's worried words as she asked him if he was all right. Hated how Thorn tried to cheer him up even though he knew it was impossible.
He sat up on the bed and rubbed his eyes. Six years of being a full-fledge Necromancer was starting to wear him down. The other sixteen years he considered as his childhood seemed so far away he could only remember bits of pieces of it.
The door creaked open and a flash of lightning filled the room, forming a silhouette around Ollan's tall form.
He didn't bother to look up. He tilted his head down so that the long silver hair covered his face from view.
"Since when did a Paladin like you care so much about an evil being like me?" He hissed angrily. "Always in the light, always so good, so – " his voice broke. "So – holy…so – damn it!"
"Kail!"
"Shut up!" He stood up, flinging his arm out against the wall and rattled the slit bamboo dangerously. "Shut up, Ollan! Nothing you say can bring her back – nothing!"
Ollan looked at him through clear gray eyes. "Nothing?"
He stopped his savage breathing. "What do you mean?"
Ollan took a deep breath. "Tyrael wants to see you. Get dressed."
The Archangel, he thought. He shook his head and pulled on a simple linen shirt over his pants and tied the strings tight at the throat. He followed Ollan out to the rain and vainly tried to prevent the cold drops from sliding down his neck from the roof by pure reflex. His mind didn't care, and after a moment, his entire body submitted and he walked into the cold rain, allowing his entire body to soak up the rain.
Ollan led him outside of the city and into an abandoned building, shutting the door behind him. Inside, Tyrael floated silently between Thorn and Nikan. It was comical – a great Archangel inside a crumbling building with the tips of his enigmatic wings touching the ceiling.
Without a single greeting, Tyrael spoke, "Kail. Ollan told me you tried to slit your wrists yesterday."
"I was merely running the blade against my skin," he hissed, looking at Ollan.
"Kail, you can't do this," Nikan said, tears shimmering in her eyes. He gave her a look of surprise – Nikan was from a clan of very powerful Amazon women and he had never seen her cry even as Moranah died. "We've lost Moran already – we couldn't lose you as well."
"You know I can't live without her," Kail said. "Just let me go in peace. We weren't planning to stay together anyway."
"Kail," Tyrael said, his voice silencing the others. "Before you say anything more, I have to tell you this: there is a way to bring Moranah back, but at a great cost."
He blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Parallel universes," Tyrael said. "As there is a Moranah in our world, so there is another Moranah in another world. It's a very difficult concept to grasp for humans. As Angels, we can travel between different worlds…and bring whatever we want back with us."
"No…" Kail whispered.
"You understand that I'm placing myself at a very dangerous position here," Tyrael continued to talk in his strange voice. "Brining humans from another world into our own is very dangerous and forbidden – but as a token of defeating Diablo, I am willing to do it for you. But I have to warn you; this Moranah will not be the same person you know.. She will look like the Sorceress you once love, but she will think differently, work differently. She is a great sorceress and has all the potentials to become the great sorceress Moranah once was because she is Moranah. But she will not realize it. She will have memories of her life here, in this world, but there is no guarantee that she will remember."
"But the price – "
Thorn looked away from him.
"The price is that everything will have to start over," Tyrael said solemnly. "You will start from the very beginning of this battle."
"No…" Kail whispered again, remembering Moranah's words.
"Everyone here will have memories," Tyrael said. "Some of the people you meet will also have previous memories of what happened, but to most, it will just be just life."
"All over?!" Kail gasped. "I can't do this – I can't do this – "
"We're willing," Thorn said, clamping his fist to his heart. "For Moranah."
"You can't do this!" Kail shouted. "My life isn't worth it!"
"Any human's life is worth more than Diablo!" Ollan said, clamping a hand on his shoulder. "I'm willing to do this."
Kail shook his head. "No…I can't…do…this to all of you."
"I'm willing," Nikan said. "And who knows? Maybe something better will come out of this fight. Maybe so many will not have to die. Maybe Atma can save her son and her husband."
Kail shook his head. "No…"
"Please, Kail," Nikan said. "Do it for yourself for once. You've given up so much."
Hesitating…he silently nodded.
Tyrael moved up to him without a word and touched his forehead.
Light exploded in his eyes and a thousand stars swept across his mind.
"Kail…" someone was shaking him. "Kail – "
He looked up at Thorn's face. "What is it?"
"We're back. It's the wagon taking us to the Rogue Encampment. We're back again."