Chapter Text
“Go! You are the future of the Kirin Tor!”
“Rhonin, I -”
“GO!”
The rain poured. Drenching the scorched, broken ruins.
The woman in the crater did not care. Even as the water soaked into her robes. Washing away the blood staining the torn purple fabric.
“You wanted war, Varian! It has been declared! What are you WAITING for?”
“Jaina, we don’t know what else they might be capable of. Kalimdor is under blockade, we need to use our heads and be cautious! And most of all, we must not stoop to their level!”
The orb before her crackled and swirled. The rain hissing where it touched the artifact. The majestic blue like an ocean contained.
“The Horde must pay, Khadgar! If we move Dalaran, we can rain fire down upon Orgrimmar and -”
“Jaina, listen to yourself! This is not our way! The Kirin Tor must see a bigger picture!”
Slowly the woman stepped forward. Reaching out a hand towards the draconic tool before her.
“I’ll spit in your FACE when you beg for mercy, mage!”
“You spit on mercy? Then you will have NONE. You want carnage?! Garrosh will get more blood than EVER he bargained for!”
The ice slowly melted in the storm. The squadron of orcs surrounding her lie forgotten. Ugly death having torn them all apart with magical fury.
Jaina Proudmoore’s eyes closed, and she touched the focusing iris.
Then both vanished in a swirl of power. A moment later, the teleport released, and Jaina felt the heavy stone of her tower around her once more.
What was left of it.
“This will keep you hidden…” she muttered to herself. “Until I figure out what to do.”
The power at her fingertips…
Delicate arcs of lightning snapped out from the iris, playing over her fingers, and she gave a humourless smile. Of course. Like spoke to like.
This device, this toy that the Blue Dragons had thought to use to govern magic, this monstrous creation that had ended her home… it could sense how much of its power she’d absorbed when the bomb went off.
Her hair now scorched white by the shock of it.
She almost felt drunk. Drunk on pain, on regret, on sorrow… and on rage. So many emotions, too much for a human heart to withstand.
And she was alone.
They had all abandoned her.
Never mind the aid they had sent. Never mind that their own troops had been disintegrated alongside her people. Never mind all that had been said before.
Now…
Now it was up to her.
To take revenge for Pained. Kinndy. Rhonin. And all the hundreds of other people who she had sworn to care for and protect.
She felt the tears inside threatening to wash over her. The desire to wail and scream and cry, to break down and go mad, anything to escape from what had happened.
No.
If I let that happen…
I’ll never recover.
I must freeze my heart. Freeze it, then act. I shall become as ice, an icy spectre of vengeance. There were tomes, tomes Antonidas had… old, dangerous texts. Those will hold the knowledge I need.
Garrosh will pay.
So lost was she in her fight for control, her knuckles white upon her staff, that she did not sense the swelling darkness, and the rising stink of brimstone.
But then something, some one , spoke.
“Truly… what greater tragedy is there, than to lose everything you have built?”
Jaina stiffened. The cold, self-assured voice was one that she knew. Arcane power crackled to life, her eyes glowing with barely restrained magic as she turned. “Mal’ganis,” she spat. “Just because I cannot kill you permanently doesn’t mean that I will not ensure your death is excruciating. Test me at your peril, dreadlord. What do you want?”
Mal’ganis took a step back, raising his hands in surrender. “I only wish for the same thing that you do, Jaina Proudmoore,” he rumbled. “The Burning Legion has no love of the Horde - and I in particular have my grievances. They failed us repeatedly, cast us out… even their cast-off remnant Ner’zhul was a treacherous weakling.”
“My heart fucking bleeds,” Jaina growled.
The nathrezim gave her a twisted smile. “I’m giving you the respect of being honest, young one. Your rage burns hot, and your power… especially with this lovely draconic toy… they’re unmatched. What you lack is resources. I can offer you those. Obliterate the Horde, claim your rightful vengeance… all I want is a front-row seat.”
The swirling power in her eyes faded, the grip on the magic loosening. Her expression suspicious. “I’m sure that’s how it always starts,” she snarled. “What really happens? I remember what you did to Arthas. You took a foolish but idealistic boy and broke him, one inch at a time, until he was your toy.”
“You are anything but Arthas,” he chuckled. “Arthas was weak and stupid. He cared, and the easiest way to break someone who cares is to destroy all that they hold dear. He lost himself to revenge and allowed himself to be led by the nose, until there was only bloodlust and hate. You, though… you know the game. You understand the situation. You don’t need a runeblade or an army to find power, you have more than enough of your own. You are far too smart to be a pawn.”
“Laying out your plan does not make you clever, demon, nor does it make me more likely to fall for it,” Jaina said. Coiling wisps of arcane power swirling around her staff and free hand. “You think the parallels are lost on me? Arthas lost his kingdom, he pursued to Northrend…” Her hand clenched into a fist. “And the only thing keeping me going is the desire to kill Garrosh Hellscream and every fucking monster who follows him.”
“Then let us consider the situation,” Mal’ganis murmured, stepping closer. His looming bulk seeming to draw the shadows in closer. “What do you have left? Varian, for all his warmongering, lacks the spine to join you in your crusade. The Alliance left Theramore to die. The Kirin Tor still happily welcome blood elves in their ranks and would never do anything to threaten their precious neutrality. And you are not so lost that you can’t see that any rash action on your part will mark you as a monster. An enemy to them all.”
He raised a clawed hand, palm open. “Join us. You would hardly be the first talented, powerful being to not only work for us, but become one of us. Azeroth can be wiped clean of all the filth that infests it. All that you would see ended. You’ve seen the work of C’thun, of Yogg Saron. You know that our cause is right. Those on this world who have worth will be salvaged.”
Jaina… hesitated.
Then she turned. Stalking over to the window. Looking out, over the ruined structures. The blasted, ruined remnants of her home.
Didn’t they all deserve to die?
Her family disowned her. Her so-called friends had done nothing but doubt and undermine her. The Horde had showed their true colours and thrown their lot in with a murderous tyrant. One that her counterparts had supported and encouraged.
“It’s a cute little false dichotomy you present,” she said coldly. “Be helpless or take my vengeance with your help. But I don’t need you or your poisonous offers to see justice done.”
Mal’ganis chuckled again. “And what then? What after you, on your own, have the blood of the Horde on your hands? You speak of Garrosh, but really… when would you stop? He wouldn’t be nearly enough. And then, ‘poisonous offers’ or not, you would be an outcast. The Alliance and Kirin Tor alike would shun you. We… we offer a future. A new home. Power you couldn’t dream of to fix all that you see.”
Jaina’s mind bubbled. A thousand dark thoughts running through it.
Feeling the crackling touch of the Focusing Iris reaching out for her. Limitless power, if only she knew what to do with it.
And… an idea struck her. A grand, terrible, unthinkable idea.
She stood alone.
No doubt others would counsel her to restrain herself. To not sink to his level.
Perhaps… in another world… she would’ve listened.
But in this one…
There was only ice.
“Tell me, Mal’ganis,” she said. A cold smirk settling on her features. “Did you come of your own accord? Or on someone’s orders? Archimonde? Kil’jaeden?”
“Does it matter?” His voice was gloating. Sensing the shift. Thinking he’d won.
“I suppose not.” Her staff crashed to the ground, and lances of arcane power tore into Mal’ganis. The dreadlord gave a surprised cry, fighting as the spells solidified, turning into cruel chains and barbed hooks sunk into his flesh, forcing the nathrezim to his knees.
“I was just curious is all.” Jaina turned, eyes burning like stars of arcane fury, the Focusing Iris seeming to sing to her as she drew upon its power. “I have no use for trinkets, demon. I have the focusing iris. You spin pretty words about power and the future and think my head will turn. As though I’m Azshara, seeking nothing but my own ego. As though I’m Gul’dan, hunting for scraps falling from your table.”
Mal’ganis roared, muscles bulging as he tried to pull his arms free of the spikes through his wrists.
“But I am Jaina Fucking Proudmoore. And I am nobody’s tool. Still, there is something you can offer me, Mal’ganis. Something that I don’t think you even realised was on the table. Certainly not something you would give me willingly.”
In the centre of the tower, the focusing iris began to glow as she began drawing even more from it. Glyphs burned themselves into the floor and reality itself blurred, submerging the two into a sea of stars and magic.
“What… are you… doing?” the dreadlord groaned. Was that a hint of fear in his voice?
A dreadlord. Liars and deceivers, self-assured princes of the apocalypse. Scared.
Jaina’s features slowly split into a smirk.
Light that felt good.
“Separating you out. Rendering you into your basic elements.” Her hand blurred, carving glyphs in the air with dizzying speed. “I remember the Illidari, Mal’ganis. Their little tricks. Devour demons, gain their power. But it forever ruined them. Left them as something in between, with a monster forever whispering in the back of their head.”
Oh, that was definitely terror in his features now.
“I don’t think any normal person could do this,” she mused as glyphs danced, forming coils and patterns around him, others lancing out into a circle and spinning until they blurred - and erupted into a hole in reality itself, one that screamed and writhed in its constraints. “But I’m using the focusing iris… I absorbed the backwash of the mana bomb… and most of all…”
She stepped forward, leaning forward to stare into his eyes. Suddenly still, as the massive arcane construct she’d created settled, ready and waiting. “I have ceased to give one single fuck. Either this succeeds… or I create a tear in the universe so large it’ll probably wipe Orgrimmar off the map even from here. Both seem like reasonable end results.”
Her smirk widened. “Any last words?”
Mal’ganis gave one final yank against his bindings. Staring into her eyes. “...mercy?” he whispered.
Jaina laughed. “You even remember that word? How… pathetic. ” Her hand reached out, clawlike, and pressed against his forehead. “This is for Arthas. For Lordaeron. For Azeroth. But right now, mostly… it’s for me.”
The dreadlord shrieked as the spell activated, and his physical form detonated in a spray of blood and felflame. But something still squirmed in the grip of the chains, a cloud of greenish energy that still writhed in agony. Something wriggled free, a frail, withered, skeletal figure that collapsed to the ground, shivering.
Jaina closed her eyes, spread her arms wide… and braced herself as the chains lunged at her, and the green swirling form sunk into her flesh.
The pathetic wretch that was all that remained of Mal’ganis cowered, staring up as Jaina screamed. Green flame jetting from her eyes and mouth, her flesh scorching and charring. Robes turned to drifting ash as the woman writhed. Her silhouette warping as the flames burned hotter and fiercer, consuming the chamber.
Horns rose from her skull. Spreading bat wings flared out. Her legs warping and twisting, feet turning into hooves. Ears twisting and stretching. Hair scorching black, her skin left ashen.
And then the flames were gone. The focusing iris quivering, green energy coruscating over the artefact.
Jaina slowly stood. Brushing away the remains of the arcane chains. Flexing clawed hands, green eyes glowing malevolently. Feeling the screaming, surging, burning fel magic cascading through her veins.
Cocked her head as she looked at Mal’ganis. “How do I look?” A snap of her fingers, and a mirror conjured itself in green flame. “Mmm. I think I wear this better than you.”
Armour settled onto her frame, and she twisted back and forth, admiring the new form.
“You… will not… escape… judgement…” Mal’ganis croaked.
Jaina raised a hoof. “I’ve said those words to so many. And so often, they’ve done just that. But you, deceiver? Your judgement has arrived. And believe me when I say this: nobody will mourn you.”
There was a splintering crunch as she crushed his skull.
For a moment, she wondered if maybe she’d been too bold. If she hadn’t made herself into a new Azshara after all. Thinking herself clever and yet ultimately doomed.
She’d just ripped the essence of a nathrezim away and absorbed it. The Focusing Iris, an artefact ancient beyond measure, had been forever tainted by channeling so much fel through it. She’d become a demon, a hybrid dreadlord, a being of the Twisting Nether. The Burning Legion now owned her.
She would never be trusted again. All Azeroth would be her enemy.
But the half-formed regret faded.
She had a Warchief to burn.
But…
Not alone.
“That stupid lizard will be searching for you,” she said, turning and running her claws over the Focusing Iris. “I think we need to find a better home for you. Hah. And they always said that the arcane and the fel were incompatible… what do they know?”
The Iris crackled, poisonous trails of green running through its blue depths - and then lightning snapped out over her hand. Jaina snatched it back with a hiss of pain, and then began giggling. “You bit me! Naughty naughty. You’ve got a temper, don’t you? Trust me, my beauty… we’re going to do incredible things together. But first… I’ve got a playmate to find…”
***
Vereesa’s sobbing echoed.
The Silver Covenant was empty. Her troops had fled her wrath, not wishing to test her fury, and with nothing else to vent it on… she had torn the place apart.
But once she’d shredded and broken everything within reach in her office… there was just desolation.
But it was not so complete that she did not hear footsteps behind her.
Her mother would probably have been proud at the accuracy with which she snatched a miraculously intact bottle of ink and hurled it over her shoulder at the intruder. “GET OUT! BEGONE!” she shrieked.
There was a crash as the bottle shattered, the target narrowly dodging. “Vereesa,” Jaina said softly.
Vereesa stiffened, and turned to look. Her eyes bloodshot and her features tearstained as she focused on the figure of her friend and comrade. “Jaina…” she sniffled. Trying to pull herself together. “I’m… I’m sorry, I thought…”
Jaina shook her head. White hair neatly braided, her robes seeming to have finally been replaced after the battle as she leaned in the doorway. “It’s fine,” she hummed. “I understand. May I come in?”
The elf awkwardly wiped her eyes, sniffling again. “Of… of course. You’re… you’re looking better.”
Jaina stepped inside, bending oddly, as though needing to duck below the doorway, even though it was clearly tall enough for her. “I’ve had some time to think and make some plans,” she said calmly. “That, and… slaughtering a pack of orcs did wonders for my mood.”
Something penetrated into Vereesa’s skull through the layers of despair. Something just seemed… off. “Slaughtering a - Jaina, what have you been doing?”
Jaina smiled brightly. “I went back to Theramore. The Horde had sent some scavengers, so I killed them.” Something dark glittered in her eyes, and for a moment Vereesa could have sworn they looked green instead of blue. “It wasn’t even a contest. Do you know much I’ve held back over the years, Vereesa Windrunner? How much I’ve tried to restrain myself? Only killing as a last resort? I had so much strength, and I just neglected it. And now… now I have even more. They couldn’t even get near me.”
Alarm bells rang in Vereesa’s head, and she slowly got to her feet. “I… Jaina… are you ok?”
“I’ve never been better,” Jaina smirked.
Smirked.
No. Violent, maybe, light knew that Vereesa herself had turned violent when she got back. Angry, vengeful, destructive. All to be expected.
But amused? Gleeful?
Something was very wrong.
“You… you’ve changed,” Vereesa said warily. “Jaina, what happened to you?” She reached out, lightly touched Jaina’s shoulder, and then yanked it back like she’d been burned, staring. Feeling the burning, sulphurous sting of -
“What happened to me?” Jaina purred. “I chose a new path. No no!” she added, as the elf turned and tried to flee, snapping her fingers. The door slammed shut, green fire burning in the lock as it sealed itself. “No running away. You need to hear this.”
Vereesa scratched at the handle for a moment, and then spun, drawing a sword, heart pounding. “What the fuck happened? Fel magic? You?”
Jaina’s staff tapped on the ground, and green fire erupted, burning away her disguise. Wings and hooves resplendent, illuminated only by the burning green of the seal on the door. “Rather more than just using it,” she replied easily. “Theramore put some things in perspective. Must you?” she added, as Vereesa raised her weapon, and with another snap of her fingers, fiery chains lunged out of the walls to grapple the elf by the wrists. “Don’t be a baby,” she added as her friend gave a cry of pain, struggling against the tight bindings.
“Demon!” Vereesa screamed. By the light, no! JAINA! What HAPPENED to you? You think you can kill me just because I lost my husband? Think again! “Don’t talk like her! You’re not! Let me GO!”
Jaina frowned. “If you’re trying to imply that I replaced Jaina or some such nonsense… no.” She stepped forward, grasping Vereesa by the chin, burning green eyes meeting warm blue ones. “I am still Jaina Proudmoore. I just also realised that that wasn’t enough.”
Vereesa’s eyes watered from the pain of the burning chains searing into her flesh, but she refused to cry out again, wrenching out of Jaina’s grasp. “What are you talking about?”
The nathrezim’s expression turned thoughtful, and she turned, dismissing the chains with a wave of her hand. “They abandoned me, Vereesa. I watched my city die. Rhonin. Pained. Kinndy. All of them. Reduced to dust and ash. And when I turned to my so-called friends, to Varian Wrynn, the warmonger who ruined everything I worked for in the name of distrust and hate… he refused to join me in my revenge. Khadgar and the Kirin Tor wouldn’t even hear me out.”
Vereesa stumbled a little as she was released, stooping to grab her sword again, but… something made her hesitate rather than attack. Some poisonous little impulse to listen. “They all came for Theramore, though,” she countered warily. “They sent soldiers. Rhonin and I came to help you from Dalaran. They tried, we tried. Garrosh sent his armies but they couldn’t break you. Nobody could have predicted what he did.”
The dreadlord hybrid’s lip curled. “And yet. When it came to it, when I, we , lost everything… where is Varian now? They won. Those who said that the Horde deserves only destruction had their argument made for them, and now he and those like him shy away from it. I found the Focusing Iris in the ruins, and I tore apart the orcs trying to recover it. They gloated, Vereesa. They laughed at their victory.”
Vereesa gritted her teeth. Her knuckles white on the hilt of her sword. Rage and sorrow fighting to rise in her, but her voice remained tightly controlled. By the sun… it’s her. It really is. “But… a demon? The Legion? Why, Jaina?” she begged. I can’t lose you too…
Jaina gave a laugh. A cold, slightly crazed sound, and the green energies lapping around her flared for a moment. “Oh no. No no no. I didn’t take any deals, Vereesa, I swore no oaths. I’m a free agent. This? This I took by force. Mal’ganis tried to tempt me, and I stripped him of everything he was and took it for my own. And Vereesa… you have no idea how good it feels. To be stripped of mortality. Of restraint. To feel fire in my veins, a storm of it that begs to be released… to be used…”
She turned, the click of her hooves on the floor seeming to carry. “Vereesa… I didn’t come to fight you, or to hurt you.” She held out a hand, delicately clawed fingers outstretched in offering. “I want you to join me. Garrosh does not deserve to live for what he did. What he will continue to do. I could have simply gone there myself, but… you are hurting too.”
Vereesa shivered. Staring as a swirling ball of green flame formed in Jaina’s hand. “He deserves to die…” she whispered.
No. No, I can’t… I mustn’t…
…I shouldn’t…
“Join me,” Jaina whispered. “Join me, and we will take our revenge. On him. On all who follow him. We can put the world to rights. As we see fit.”
The elf swallowed. “But…” she wavered.
Then her eyes closed. Imagining Rhonin disintegrating once more, his form torn apart by the magic shockwave as -
Vereesa Windrunner gritted her teeth, and as the rage poured through her, she knelt before her friend. “Do it. Give me my revenge. Free me!”
Jaina gently brushed her claws over Vereesa’s scalp - and then grasped her head firmly, and pushed the ball of flame into her skull.
The elf shrieked in agony as the Fel burned into her flesh. Green fire jetting out of her eyes and mouth as her body twisted and warped, trying to contain the magic.
When the Sunwell had been destroyed, and she and all of her race had been confronted with the pangs of magic addiction, she had been one of the lucky ones. Dalaran, after all, was one of the most magical places on Azeroth, so she’d had a steady supply to sate the craving. But others hadn’t been so lucky. She’d heard of what the sin’dorei, the blood elves, had been reduced to. The twisted energies they’d devoured in their need. She’d wondered if it had hurt.
But this was different. This was far, far worse.
This was no soothing water to quench her thirst, no healing balm for her affliction. This wasn’t even wine or whisky. This was more like that time when, as a girl, she’d tried a troll brew out of curiosity and been throwing up for the rest of the day. Her body rebelling, every part of her flesh wanting to reject this horrific poison - and yet some sick part of her craving more. But this wasn’t a sip - this was a flood, and even through the pain, through the revulsion, she felt her soul stirring in the same way.
Still the fire poured through her, scorching her from within. Changing her. She could feel even through the blind agony as her fingers shifted and sprouted claws, as her skin bubbled and hardened - and as horns tore through her scalp and grew out. And as the Fel claimed her, the pain and sickness began to fade. Instead… there was only the raw, surging, boundless energy.
“By the light…” she moaned softly, as Jaina’s grip loosened. Her eyes flickering open, the gentle blue replaced with burning green. The neat spiral horns rising from her skull were heavy, but easily matched by her bulkier, muscular form, her skin a spiderweb of glowing green veins and bony ridges. She could feel her fangs were longer and sharper now, all the better to bite and tear and -
Jaina smiled down at her. “Isn’t that so much better?” she hummed softly.
There was sudden pounding on the door, and Vereesa spun, lips drawn back in a feral snarl. Who DARED to approach, to interrupt? Their blood will -
“I think they heard your screaming,” Jaina said mildly. “And sensed the Fel being channelled. I’m going to have to work on how to cast more subtly, but…” She flexed her claws with a laugh. “With this much power, it’s just so difficult… come on, Vereesa. Never mind the closed minds of Dalaran. We have orc to hunt.”
Yes. Yes, never mind the petty offences of this place. Vengeance. VENGEANCE. “Garrosh,” Vereesa snarled, snatching up her weapons from where they had fallen. “I. Want. Garrosh.”
Jaina’s smirk widened, and then transformed into a snarl of her own. “Then let us find the so-called Warchief… and end him.”
Green fire roared, and the pair vanished.