Heart of the Phoenix

They should have been here by now.

Illidan scowled, taking his frustration out on an unfortunate ghoul that lunged toward him. Without looking back or even flinching, he slammed his fist into the thing's skull, backhanding it into the nearby cliffside effortlessly with his preternatural strength. His senses, honed to a deadly degree by his Demon Hunter's training as well as from his mundane eyes being burned from the sockets, were far beyond those of an ordinary Night Elf. All around him was the stench of death, but Illidan could distinguish a thousand variations on that theme. He heard the tell-tale hissing and sensed the dark energy of two more minor Scourge coming at him. Leaping, spinning a graceful arc in the air, Illidan whirled his warglaives like some mad dervish until the undead creatures were little more than a spray of rotting flesh and unholy black ichor. It was too easy for words.

The wretched fools who dared tempt his wrath were the last thing on his mind at the moment, however. Again, his unnatural eyes scanned the horizon for any sign of that familiar energy signature, and still there was nothing. Where the bloody hell were the Sin'dorei? Illidan had sent for them it seemed an eternity ago, and it simply wasn't like Kael to be so undependable. There were many reasons the self-proclaimed Lord of Outland had chosen him as his right hand, but above all Kael was tremendously loyal and reliable. Something wasn't right here, and it concerned Illidan deeply.

No matter. He had no doubt that Kael would arrive and join the battle any moment now. In the meantime, Illidan would show these curs his true power; it was not as if he could not hold this ground himself. He pressed on, beating back the Scourge forces through sheer force of his own power and indomitable will. They fell like chaff under his blades and before the power of his fel magic.

Some moments later, as he wrenched a warglaive free from the lacerated corpse of a human cultist, Illidan's highly sensitive ears heard the roar of the frost wyrm, followed by cries of dragonhawks in the distance, and battle oaths shouted in Thalassian.

Ah, he's here, Illidan thought. Fortuitous timing, that. Even Illidan was not willing to tempt fate by his lonesome against a re-animated servant of Malygos the Spellweaver.

Whatever lingering irritation Illidan felt at Kael's tardiness was gone when he witnessed that golden streak of fire charging into the fray. The Prince of the Sin'dorei was proving Illidan's faith in him to be wholly justified. Even as Illidan was annihilating the undead that stood against him, he watched the twisting coils of arcane energy burning across the sky with a certain amount of pride in his prized lieutenant. Indeed, Kael was truly magnificent to behold in battle, all precision and savage beauty, his magic as elegant as it was brutal. He cut the undead down as though it were child's play; it all looked so effortless the way he dispatched them with flame and blade. This was the power of a true Highborne, Illidan thought proudly, his heart racing from the excitement of it all. There were few who bore that legacy with as much grace and finesse as the last son of House Sunstrider. That fate conspired to bring them together was something Illidan was tremendously grateful for.

A banshee attempted to take him by surprise, shooting bolts of spectral lightning at him, and Illidan just smirked. He quickly pivoted and crossed his warglaives before him to create a shield, easily deflecting the energy before engulfing the spirit in demonic fire. Turning back toward Kael's men, it appeared that some of them were joining his naga at the blockade. Excellent. Just as he was about to fall back to their position, Illidan felt a tremendous rush of magical energy released in the distance, a cresting wave of scorching heat that left shimmering ripples on the horizon. He laughed at that, a sinister sound filled with dark anticipation and, oddly enough, a slight undercurrent of relief.

Kael was full of such wonderful tricks.

The Demon Hunter turned his back to the emergent phoenix, his attention fully engrossed by the human necromancer raising a pack of axe-wielding skeletons headed his way. How utterly foolish. Contemptuously, he beheaded three of them in a sweeping gesture of a single warglaive, then tucked and rolled to gut their summoner. Several sprung from the ground in their place, and again Illidan destroyed them. They were just wasting his time, now.

And then he understood why, what twisted logic Arthas had employed. Illidan understood why he was lured here. And he understood it when the faintest of cries pierced his ears.

...Master...

It was unmistakably Kael. Illidan looked back sharply, his unnatural eyes widening in horror as he saw the Sun Prince's bright, solar fire flaring out in a blaze of glory, as though he was a literal sun that exploded into nothingness. Sapphiron was mortally wounded and retreating, but that was not what Illidan cared about. Kael was falling away from the fleeing wyrm, the mighty phoenix vanished, and he was--no. No.

Not my thero'shan.

For the briefest of moments, Illidan was detached, looking with frozen bemusement at the sudden rush of emotion that was beginning to overtake him. It was a strange moment of pure lucidity where he wondered why the hell he was feeling this way, and where the hell this sense of...regret came from. Yes, it was regret, and a great sorrow. Illidan was aware of his impulsive nature, that he was a man of great passions. But this startled and even frightened him a bit, the sheer power of this...grief. The moment passed as quickly as he acknowledged it.

Then the dam broke.

It was as though all the pain, all the bitterness of ten-thousand years of unjust confinement, the betrayal and scorn of his people and the woman he loved, every terrible emotion that Illidan had ever felt came crashing down on him at once, as quickly as his golden prince was careening from the sky. But it didn't stop there. Illidan Stormrage would for once in his wretched life know justice, he would know vengeance, and all would finally know what it meant to wrong him.

It grew within him, the fel power of the Skull of Gul'dan which infused his veins, building to a dark crescendo until he threatened to burst. With an utterly inhuman, wordless roar of anger and grief, Illidan gave himself wholly over to the demonic monster within, leaving any physical trace of the Kaldorei demon hunter that remained to wither in the face of that primordial taint awakening within him. His skin brightened and hardened, its pale, ash-violet turning to a dark, rich purple. The ever-present warglaives faded, the essence of their power absorbed into his claws. Shrouded in a shadowy nimbus, he was fully the demon now, in every sense of the word and filled with absolute, unholy rage.

His great, leathery wings flared when he raised his massive claws into fists, engulfing himself in an aura of demonic fire. A single word echoed from his lips in a voice that only in the loosest sense resembled his own, a cry of loss as heart-wrenching as it was utterly terrifying:

"Kael'thas!"

Illidan did not run so much as glide across the broken battlefield; time seemed to slow down. He was only tangentially aware of his claws sweeping upward to violently tear off the abomination's head in a single fluid motion, and the sickening smell of its melting flesh against his burning nimbus. A sweeping gesture of his arm and fire rained from the sky, a jerking gesture of his head and something impaled itself on his horns--he was not even certain what it was. Everything was as a blur of shadow and fire and abject fury. The sheer destruction he left in his wake was incalculable, as he made his way to where Kael lay. And then he came upon the theatre where it all happened.

The remaining Blood Elves were outnumbered, set upon by yet another regiment of undead, and unable to reach their fallen prince. A trio of necromancers swooped in on Kael's body like vultures, already beginning their unholy rites. However, even in Illidan's battle haze, he recognized that incantation. He'd heard it performed by the Nathrezim in their experiments so long ago, amongst the rubble of Zin-Azshari.

The human mongrels intended to make Kael a lich.

However, as incensed as Illidan was at the thought, he was suddenly shaken out of his demonic rage and gained some kind of lucidity back. Lesser sorcerers were ignorant to the fact that the kind of magic involved in such an act had to be worked while the candidate was still alive. Surely Arthas' lackeys knew that. Which meant Kael was still, in fact, alive.

Illidan immediately set to work, fighting his way through the lesser Scourge that were swarming to protect their masters, and reached the cultists just as they were attempting to finish the preparation spell and load Kael into one of their ghastly wagons made of human flesh.

"I believe that belongs to me," Illidan snarled. With quick, successive gestures of his claws, he set the black-cowled trio alight, then snatched up Kael's weakened body and fled.

Half-running, half-gliding across the smoking snowfield, he clutched Kael tightly against him in a vice grip. Illidan could sense that the Elf had been drained entirely of his magic. For ones such as they, deep in the grip of arcane addiction, it would have been a better fate to have been drained of one's life blood. If Illidan did not get him energy, and soon, Kael would be forever lost to him. A plan formulated in his mind, but first he needed to find a place of concentrated power.

Fortunately, this region seemed to be filled with such points of power. Were it not for the pressing urgency of Kil'jaeden's mission, Illidan would have been eager to remain and study them. Of course, saving his own hide was a bit more important at the moment. He let his magic-attuned eyes and senses guide him across the snowfield, drawn across a hidden ley line.

"Master?" Kael shuddered weakly, clearly disoriented. Illidan remembered that Kael had never seen him in pure demonic form before, wielding the full powers of the Skull's energies.

"Yes, it's me," Illidan reassured him softly, but Kael had already slipped back into unconsciousness. Swearing to himself, Illidan pressed on, until the ground became colder, more solidified, and the snowbank opened out into a ravine. It appeared the earth itself had split apart at some point in the distant past, and the resulting trench was composed entirely of softly glowing, crystalline ice. Illidan leapt down into it, his massive wings acting as a sort of parachute to break his fall. Moving quickly from ledge to ledge, he at last reached a cave entrance on the floor. Still clinging to Kael, he raced inside to find the ley line's terminus.

Illidan only hoped that he was not too late.