Death Never Dies

by Milton Garby

  They cheered. Yogg-Saron wrenched its focus away.

  "Qiraji are back with us," it told Tsa'Thannon.

  "Wonderful!" it cheered. "I was just finishing up the mantid. They're pretty scattered though, and a little sore about Y'Shaarj…"

  They lapsed into silence, remembering Rage Unbound's fate.

  Yogg-Saron changed the subject. "I don't think I'll bring back the nerubians though," it said, thinking about the spiders it had killed erupting from Northrend. "They think they're too good to fall in line with the others, they can stay down."

  "Right, right," Tsa'Thannon said. "However, I think it bears mentioning we should go at least a little light on these mortals." It sent Yogg-Saron an image of what it was doing: Ironforge and Gnomeregan both erupted from the ground, surrounded by halos of darkness, and their people were shaken loose and held in the air. "Look at how slowly they reproduce! The quickest take eighteen years, ridiculous! If we just go about it normally we'll run out of them within a week!"

  "We could always boost their reproduction rates," Yogg-Saron offered. "Or conjure more of them if we run out."

  "That's always an option," it admitted. "Still, let's hold off on giving them everything until we figure it out. By the way, have you seen Neptulon?"

  "He should be squatting in…" It found a water elemental in the oceans and tore its mind apart for answers. "… the south east lower quadrant of the Abyssal Maw." Suddenly, souls appeared in its lesser mouths and Yogg-Saron started chewing. Its entire body shuddered, sending a tremor throughout Azeroth. Houses collapsed.

  Oooh, it hadn't had proper sacrifices in so long… it had a lot of catching up to do.

  So, there was Therazane working to uncover the bodies of the other Old Gods. Soggoth was having fun. The qiraji and mantid would start to recover their numbers and wash over the world. Tsa'Thannon had probably brought its own n'raqi back by now. Vezax…

  'General Vezax,' it told him. 'Start assembling my throne in Northrend. Coordinate with Therazane if you must. Leave the souls of any dragons you find intact, I've plans for them.'

  'It will be done, O' Great One!' it confirmed.

  … now Vezax was busy too. Yogg-Saron extended its magical sensors over the world. There were some mortals and immortals alike who, seeing what was happening, tried taking their own lives. Yeah… no. They weren't getting off that easily. It brought them back to life and trapped them in dark bubbles, devoting part of its focus to inventing tortures for them personally.

  Like one of the women among them with a fear of drowning. It threw stone weights on her limbs and tossed her to the bottom of the sea, but with a modified version of the Unending Breath spell to both let her resist pressure, and breathe underwater… while not feeling like she could. She could stay down there until she starved. Or was eaten, whichever came first. Either way, the terror and trauma of the would-be suicidals was a good snack.

  … there, in Tanaris! It found the bronze dragons there. They were charging for the Caverns of Time, the door of which was open. It wasn't just the Bronze Flight either. They were frantically ushering in members of all other Flights, including wagons full of eggs, into the caverns. Yogg-Saron was intrigued. What were they doing?

  A fraction of a second later it understood. They were evacuating.

  Not so fast!

  Yogg-Saron instantly summoned a shadow nova on their position outside the caverns, blowing the remaining dozens – and in its haste, their souls – to splinters. But by then the rest were inside the Caverns, and the spiral purple door slammed shut.

  It wasn't going to just let the dragons get away, though. It reached a tendril over there and ripped open the door to look inside… and found nothing but a regular cavern, dripping with increasingly sterile water.

  Alright, a second attempt. It shut the door and wove its vast magic around the complex, then opened again. There were the Caverns of Time, extending in vast geometric shapes with currents of time flowing across their walls. But scanning the inside, Yogg-Saron noted the complex was completely deserted, and all the paths that should've led to other times were dead ends.

  Fine then! They got away to some distant point in the past where it hadn't yet come back. Let them squat there. That still left thousands of dragons in the present for it to torment.

  Speaking of dragons, there was something else, near the northern half of Kalimdor. Yogg-Saron crawled that way, sending mile-high waves through the ocean. Dragons, emerging from a hidden cave system in the depths of Hyjal. They stood on a cliff overlooking Winterspring, shielding their eyes from the dim sun and looking around in awe. Dragonspawn, drakonids, drakes, and fully grown dragons. But that wasn't the interesting part. It was their scale color.

  "Well look at this!" it told Tsa'Thannon. "Remember the Twilight Dragons I told you about? N'Zoth's business? Looks like they've been busy digging a hole and hiding in it."

  Yogg-Saron felt the other Old God turn its attention to the dragons. "Well wouldn't you know. How do you want to go about this?"

  "I'd say disguises." Its voice turned gleeful. "After all, we wouldn't want to overwhelm the poor things, would we?" it said in a sickening sweet voice.

  The emerging thirteen hundred seventy two Twilight dragons – not counting the sixty three eggs they had hidden in the caverns – stood on the cliff, marveling at the dark blue sky, and at the presence of Yogg-Saron in the distance.

  Then it created its Sara avatar. Not the human self it'd been inhabiting for nearly three decades, but the vrykul it had used to try and deceive the Liberality Confederacy a literal lifetime ago. That Sara had the same straight brown hair and glowing eyes, but was tan and muscular as well as twice the size of a human.

  She had a brown skirt over brown pants and shoes, fingerless gloves with colossal orange crystals, a very immodest brown top with a fur collar, a short cape, a headband, and vrykul tattoos on her shoulders. She appeared floating in the air higher than the fully grown dragons, gazing down at them.

  Tsa'Thannon's avatar appeared beside her. It had decided to take on a mantid's body, flying in the air with still wings and folded forelegs. 'His' armor was elaborate and jagged, a sharp contrast to Sara's caster robes.

  "Kneel," she commanded with the volume of something ten thousand times her size. Some additional force went to the sides, deliberately blasting away the snow around them and leaving naught but jagged rocks.

  The dragons knelt, collapsing to their forelegs and trembling.

  "Who among you dares speak for all of you?" Tsa'Thannon's avatar asked with similar volume.

  The dragons hesitated. Sara didn't mind waiting, most of her focus was on watching Therazane and Neptulon unearthing C'Thun and N'Zoth. Eventually one of them came forth, a male dragon with all six of his tusks – a feature unique to their Flight – sheathed. "I do, great ones." He remained on bowed forelegs. "I am Revalion," he said, eyes on the ground. She had to give him credit for keeping his voice steady, though. "Long have we awaited the day of your glorious return, though I lament that we could not do more to assist –"

  While he rambled pointless platitudes, Sara went through their minds. Their dispositions, histories, every corner of their souls opened to her. It was about what she'd expected. N'Zoth's influence had been quiet during the Cataclysm; it could only just manage physical corruption and settled for brainwashing to ensure loyalty. Then the Deathwing plan went belly-up and the Twilight dragons, led by the drake Goriona, hid under Hyjal.

  Then came the naga war, with N'Zoth's doomed bid for freedom. When that happened its corruption had boiled forth, reaching the dragons' minds and twisting them to fit their physical corruption. They were loyal. They'd serve well if allowed to.

  Sara and Tsa'Thannon exchanged a few thoughts. His mantid avatar flicked a foreleg and sent a few spikes out. They grew dramatically mid-flight, forming stone spires that crashed around Revalion. He gasped in fright and shut up.

  "You'll serve," Tsa'Thannon said. 'So, I'm thinking the one in the back, th
at Oediona, she'd make a good replacement for the Dragonqueen.'

  'I was thinking of Revalion,' Yogg-Saron replied. 'He was the only one with the nerve. Plus, initial analysis suggests he's a lot more cruel than Oediona.'

  'Let's have them fight it out,' Tsa'Thannon explained.

  'Make a game of it too. Let's empower them to above Aspect levels and go to death.'

  'Above the ocean too. Electric storm cloud barriers?'

  'Who's the new Windlord? El'Jedinu? Get him to do it.'

  'On it,' the other Old God responded.

  Sara turned to Revalion and snapped her finger, dragging a surprised Oediona forward. She nearly lost bladder control as she was pulled beside him. "You two will fight to the death. Whoever wins will be the monarch of dragons and ruler of your Flight." She turned her burning gaze on the others. "As for the rest of you?" She clapped once and they were frozen in place, silently screaming as raw agony assaulted their every nerve. "We'll get some mileage out of you until then." Revalion and Oediona had turned around to see their fellow dragons be petrified and turned to each other in shock.

  They gulped nervously and unsheathed their tusks for battle. Oediona pounced on him with a roar, but Sara forced them apart. Ambitious, she had to admit she was impressed. But still…

  "Not. Yet," she growled, setting the very stone around them ablaze with black flame. She turned to the mantid avatar. "Is it ready?"

  He held up a pincer. "It's ready… now."

  They shattered their avatars and teleported their contestants to above the ocean. El'Jenidu the Windlord, appearing identical to Al'Akir save for the bright purple glow of Tsa'Thannon's empowerment, floated in the distance. He channeled a colossal storm, shaped like a squat cylinder. Its dark gray clouds crackled with lightning and were thick enough to be nearly solid. In there, Oediona and Revalion appeared on opposite sides, still held in place with shadow chains.

  Then Yogg-Saron and Tsa'Thannon's power flowed into them. Rivers of darkness surrounded the dragons and infused the pair. They couldn't move to roar, but Yogg-Saron drank their creamy pain in anyway, adding it to the pain of the other Twilight dragons, the mortals who had tried to kill themselves, and the souls offered to it from Darnassus and Exodar. The rumbling in its stomachs quieted down… for the moment.

  Once it was done, both Oediona and Revalion had grown to thrice their size, imbued with as much power as the Old Gods could give before causing mutations. Twilight lightning crackled between their horns and their scales were stronger than titanium. They could each take on a lesser Titan and prevail… this would be interesting.

  "Fight," it commanded them, and they let loose. Yogg-Saron turned its attention to Tsa'Thannon, who was closely inspecting the mortals it had shaken into the air from Ironforge. "Revalion's going to win, you know."

  "You wish!" it replied. Oediona ducked underneath Revalion and barreled into him, biting his underbelly and drawing purple blood. He twisted away and raked his claws down her face, nearly gouging out an eye. "She's as good as won. Oh, by the way, looks like Therazane's almost done."

  They both turned their attention to Silithus. Therezane had cleared out a sizable part of Silithus, taking care to avoid the swarming qiraji. It wasn't large enough to fully expose C'Thun's body, but it didn't need to be. Yogg-Saron could do the rest. Besides, it was impatient.

  Tsa'Thannon shared its thought. While Yogg-Saron tore C'Thun's bulbous body up from lower Kalimdor and the southern sea, the other deity ripped up the ocean floor and brought up N'Zoth, whose body resembled a sprawling carnivorous plant, with the mouth in the middle. They also grabbed Y'Shaarj's one remaining heart, all that had survived its encounter with the Pantheon.

  Hovering above the seas, they positioned themselves on either side of where the Maelstom had been, the corpses of all three gods hovering between them.

  They were both silent as they reflected. Yogg-Saron had not, in this life, known them. But in its past life it did, and the memories now were vivid enough to taste. When the Old Gods were young and had not yet grown into their power, had not given the void lords the idea to try and replicate them, they'd been only five of many in a world of eat-or-be-eaten.

  C'Thun, the All-Seeing, God of Havoc, had been the one to go against that order. It saved Yogg-Saron and spared it. Without that act of convenient kindness, none of this would have happened. Azeroth would have never been theirs. Sara would never have existed and gone through her twenty five years of life. Yogg-Saron would never have created and killed billions. And when C'Thun needed them most, they weren't there. They couldn't be there.

  N'Zoth, the Corruptor, God of Defilement, had been closest to it. The Old Gods couldn't exactly call each other 'friends'. Not the way lesser beings could. It wasn't to say they weren't close. They'd gone through so much together, but there simply wasn't a word for it. Not parts of the whole. Not soulmates or love. It was more an understanding, comradery, a solidarity that the five of them were unique. But N'Zoth, in its past life, was the one that came closest to that word. All the endless war games they played with each other, the puzzles and scenarios they dreamt up together… and it was all for naught now.

  And finally Y'Shaarj. Rage Unbound, God of Cruelty. It started off as, by far, the weakest of them and tried so hard to impress, devising new spells and tentacles. Always so eager to spar, always so eager to grow strong and show it was useful, that it could defend itself and them. It had been the one who started everything. Who decided that, if they were the ones with the power, then they were the ones who made the rules, who decided who lived and died, who decided what was right and what was wrong. If it hadn't been for it, they might never have crafted their shifting empires.

  And now all three of them were gone. Forever. The shivering wind was devoid of their whispers. The fly-blown corpse of the Titans' world would be beyond them. They'd never know of their triumph. They'd never taste vengeance. And, in this life, Yogg-Saron would never, ever meet them.

  Meanwhile, Revalion grabbed Oediona and shoved her against the stormwall. She roared and spasmed as electricity coursed through her body, trying to throw her opponent off.

  Yogg-Saron and Tsa'Thannon mourned. They let the n'raqi, the mantid and the qiraji expand and wash over the world, their vile powers giving them the strength to make up for their lack of numbers. They let their minions construct their thrones, and let the elementals start to reshape the continents. It hardly mattered, at the moment, to them.

  Once their moment of silence was done, they joined their power and lifted the three fallen gods. The bodies hovered out of Azeroth's atmosphere, and shot into the sun.

  It needed to take its mind off of them. There was no room in this world for them to be miserable. While Revalion and Oediona continued to fight to the death and light up the sky with their power, Soggoth had been busy in Darnassus. The mortals within were lined up, black metal cuffing them together while the n'raqi tore souls out of their bodies. The shells were left to drag, but they kept the spirits shackled to their tendrils and indulged in tasting them.

  Yogg-Saron reached its power to the denizens of Gnomeregan, still floating in the air after Tsa'Thannon had uprooted them. It called forth arcane magic and tainted life powers, and created duplicates of the mortals' souls. It consumed some, offered others to Tsa'Thannon, and sent the remaining three thousand to General Vezax; he deserved a treat for enabling all this to happen.

  The originals, it enfeebled and teleported around Silithus, right in the path of the emerging qiraji.

  "Ground," Tsa'Thannon said suddenly.

  "Ground?"

  "For the dragons. Let's give them some ground!" it said, sounding positively inspired and eager to forget their mourning. From the ocean floor, soaking platforms of stone rose and entered the coliseum where the would-be monarchs continued to battle. Plates of rock hovered at various heights, letting the dragons settle and attack from a grounded position.

  Revalion spat a twilight fireball at Oediona, who spun and smacked it a
side with her glowing tail-club. It smashed into Revalion, who sailed back and broke a platform into hovering boulders. They were both bloody sights; deep wounds crisscrossed their bodies, burning with anti-healing enchantments. Revalion was missing a few talons and Oediona's left legs were limp.

  "He's still going to win," Yogg-Saron said even as Oediona grabbed him and drove him into the electrified 'floor'.

  "We'll see. In the meantime, want to follow their example?" Tsa'Thannon asked.

  Sparring. They'd sparred in the good old days. Crawled over each other and fought, slinging fractions of their power at each other for the fun of it. Nothing serious, nothing permanent. Nothing was.

  Yogg-Saron considered it and, on an impulse – because it could finally follow its impulses now, it didn't have to deliberate!- agreed. It teleported on top of Tsa'Thannon's smaller body and began unleashing a rain of attacks, even while Tsa'Thannon retaliated in kind and impaled the God of Death with its poisoned spines. The world shook, but they made sure to go light enough to not cause any permanent damage.

  Copalypse, Lady of Flame and replacement to Ragnaros, marched upon Tanaris and glassed the desert.

  Therazane raised the mountains on the south pole for Tsa'Thannon's minions to construct its throne.

  El'Jenidu, replacement for Al'Akir, oversaw the spar that would determine the superficial leader of the dragons.

  Neptulon boiled and salted the oceans, accelerating the currents and erosion alike to carve sharp cliffs and valleys.

  In the north, Vezax organized the n'raqi to build black metal and sulfurous crystals into a throne capable of supporting a living continent. In the south, Tsa'Thannon's 'Chief Irvkik' did the same.

  The dragons and mortals who'd tried to fight Yogg-Saron, and even the ones that hadn't, lay on the shattered slabs of what was once Northrend. Those that weren't dead crawled to loved ones to try and offer words of comfort. The Aspects twitched in agony, impaled on electrified spires.

  Revalion, to Yogg-Saron's delight, finally delivered the killing blow and earned his right as King of Dragons. The vast power of the Old Gods drained from Oediona – Tsa'Thannon sighed in disappointment as they sparred – and she plummeted into the seas. Maybe it would resurrect her. Maybe it wouldn't. It would see what impulse took hold of it.