Title: The Forsaken
 Author: Link Worshiper
Pairings: 1=2, maybe some others if I feel like it
Rating: PG-13
Stuff: Fantasy AU, fluff, sap, language, adventure, WoW nerdiness
Disclaimer: I own Gundam Wing action figures? Warcraft and its lore belongs to Blizzard Entertainment. Both things are being played with out of fangirl love.

Thanks to danse and Natea for the once over. Despite the fact this is part of Natea's birthday present, I still needed her to fill me in on the Alliance history they don't teach us on Horde, so thanks for that also =P

NOTE: SOOOOOOOO sorry this took me forever to write and post, but lately, my life has been a horrible, busy mess. I can't believe I'm actually finished with something new! I hope you enjoy it :)

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Part XVIX
Careless Talk

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Both Relena and Thrall had stressed the importance of finding that sigil and the human rogue that most likely had it on his person. There had been no mistaking the concern that the lady had in particular about the whole situation, though Wufei kind of resented the fact that she seemed a bit more concerned about the missing rogue than the misplaced artifact. Still, if Thrall had thought it was enough of a threat to not only confide in humans about the matter, but also to send his most trusted overlord out on a personal mission to find it, then it was fairly safe to assume that the matter was serious. He only wondered how this blood elf fit into the whole scheme of things and how he knew Heero Yuy. It bothered Wufei more to think that an ally of the Horde might have been commiserating with a member of the Alliance, and he only prayed that the explanation behind their connection was of a far more hostile nature. He would hate to brand the prince of Silvermoon a traitor: it might stir up more harm than good.

But even if Wufei had any doubts that Trowa knew where to find the human rogue, he was too bound by honour to question the elf's integrity. It was absolutely shameful that he had been incarcerated in such a way, and a part of him still might have preferred death to the embarrassment of being rescued. Still, it wasn't his place to question his fate if the ancestors had willed it this way, so he thought no more about the matter. And yet, part of him still wondered if the elf actually knew where he was going after all, since they were still wandering through the ashen mountains and had yet to really encounter new terrain. If it weren't for his damned honour, his pride might have taken the opportunity to vocalize the question of whether or not they were lost.

The instincts of the hardened orc warrior weren't entirely wrong, for Trowa had been wandering somewhat aimlessly to bide some time. He needed to think about where Heero and Duo might have gone after he'd left them, and then how to realign himself with them. With one hand buried deep into his hip pouch so that he might worry the owl charm, he trudged onwards, hoping he might soon be struck with some kind of epiphany. He'd seen nothing to settle it yet.

At length, Wufei found he could not keep himself silent much longer, his brash personality starting to boil away his patience. "Prince, what is it that you know of the rogue, Heero Yuy?" he asked, his formalities the only barrier between his flaring temper and keeping his honour intact.

The question caught Trowa somewhat off-guard, and he stumbled to a halt, his free hand reaching for Heavypaw so that he might take comfort in petting his thick mane. He wasn't sure that he should reveal every detail of what had happened thus far to Wufei, for then it was only a whisper away from Warchief Thrall - a fact that did not sit well with the blood elf at all. Quickly coming up with a vague summation of events, Trowa spoke casually over one shoulder: "Kidnapping," he explained briefly.

"Kidnapping?" Wufei repeated, sounding a bit dubious. His harsh features knit ponderously as he mulled over it, quickly deciding that it wasn't enough to be a satisfactory response. "You kidnapped an Ally and then let him go? Did you even realize what dangerous magic he had in his possession when you did this?" It was all Wufei could do to keep himself from leaping at Trowa in anger, unable to believe he was even asking such a question.

"Well, I didn't have anything to do with it. I just happened to be there," Trowa snapped, definitely offended by Wufei's accusatory manner. He turned around to face the orc overlord, a deep frown creasing his lips.

Wufei didn't know what Trowa meant by that, but he was pretty sure he didn't like the sound of it. "It is only honour and respect for your station that keeps me from slitting your throat," Wufei growled, grasping for the axe he had stolen off of one of the Dark Iron corpses. "What you have done betrays the Horde!"

At this, Trowa actually chuckled a little, his frown transforming into an ironic smirk. "It betrays the Horde to leave an Ally prisoner in the hands of a Forsaken warlock?" he wondered with a quirked eyebrow. "If you are to question anyone's motives, then, by the Sunwell, it is his." Though the smirk remained on his face, Trowa's hand tightened around a clump of Heavypaw's mane as he remembered Duo and his flippancy towards him for the sake of that infernal human.

"I can't imagine what you mean," Wufei deadpanned, still tensed like he meant to attack Trowa at any moment. Once again, his pride warred with his honour as he tried to decide whether or not he should call attention to the obvious gaps in Trowa's story. Surely the ancestors were testing him with this predicament.

Still seething at the reminder of Duo, Trowa couldn't help but vent a little bit of his annoyance towards his former friend. "It was the warlock who wanted to keep him alive, and it was the warlock who struck such a taboo bargain with the human in the first place," Trowa said, frustrated that the memory still remained so fresh and bitter. "He knew what the human had from the moment they first met - even knew who the human was! - and then swore to free him from his curse in exchange for some treasure from the vaults of...." He trailed off, slowly drawing in a breath as he saw a revelation. "Stormwind," he uttered as if it were the solution to all that had gone wrong so far. "They will make haste to Stormwind!"

All of Wufei's anger drained almost immediately as he blinked at Trowa. "Stormwind?" he iterated incredulously.

"Stormwind?" spoke a third voice that caused both Wufei and Trowa to startle. The elf and the orc glanced wildly about in search of the new speaker: when Wufei caught sight of him, he slapped his battleaxe into his hands, while Trowa simply let out a sigh of relief when he found it was only the ghostly image of Quatre. Holding the owl charm was such a comforting thing, he'd almost forgotten he had been doing so.

"What new sorcery is this? Who are you?" Wufei demanded to know, slowly approaching the translucent image of Quatre that hung in the air before him. The bluish glow of the communication portal contrasted starkly with the smoldering landscape around them, cutting moonlit shapes into the harsh ember light that illuminated their faces.

Quatre chuckled, clearly amused. "It's good to see you again, Lord Hellscream. Do you not remember speaking with me at Theramore with Lady Relena?" Quatre said, unable to mask his reaction to Wufei's confusion. He glanced briefly at Trowa, like he meant to detail something of their relationship, but tooled back the urge by saying instead, "I appear before you because it seemed you had some need for me. I wonder if it is anything more than announcing your theories of Heero and Stormwind?"

Wufei's face contorted at the mention of Heero's name, verily displeased that everyone seemed to know more about what was going on that he did - not to mention that he also seemed to be the last one to know about it. He managed to reign in his temper, benefiting both Trowa and Quatre each with their own, individualized glowers of malice. He was too annoyed to speak his mind, so he did not, and instead stood back, leaning on his axe as he waited for one of them to expound on the scenario further.

Trowa, for his part, was not about to admit to Quatre that he had been taking solace in the handling of the enchanted trinket that linked them together. It would have been painfully embarrassing to tell the priest that he felt twice as wise when he touched it, especially within earshot of Wufei. Hastily, he instead tried to come up with a believable reason to excuse his accidental summoning of the telecommunication portal, thanking the gods above that he had a sharp wit honed for just such an occasion. His face a blank stare of indifference, he said, "I need you to tell me of how best to approach the city so that we might impede Duo and his human pet before they breach the castle vault."

Quatre arched his eyebrows, though a thin line of mirth still traced his lips. "Dare I ask what will happen if they are allowed to do this?"

The question caught Trowa completely off guard, who immediately recognized that the answer was complicated and somewhat loaded. Honestly, he really didn't care if Duo wanted to be alive, dead or out of body, so whether or not Heero managed to steal that elixir didn't make much of a difference to him. Come to it, he wasn't even really sure he cared if Heero was completely consumed by that demon, despite how horrible Duo kept insisting such a thing would be. It was right then, in a moment of clarity, that Trowa came to the terrifying realization that the main thing that was driving him to accomplish this quest was the prospect of meeting Quatre face-to-face. He made a point to frown as these thoughts ran through his head, somehow paranoid that Wufei would be able to pick up on such traitorous inclinations.

He didn't want to think about it.

Instead, he directed a pointed stare at Wufei, who was shifting from one foot to the other with riled annoyance at the ignorance of what he thought was a fairly obvious consequence. Unable to quell himself, the orc interrupted the conversation by gruffly inserting, "There is no chance that they will be able to just wander into Stormwind without that infernal King Milliardo knowing of it. And his lust for the sigil is the entire reason half of Azeroth is out hunting for that reckless, sneak-thieving rogue!" He crossed his arms and glowered at a nearby boulder, hoping to incinerate it with his eyes.

"Fair enough," said Quatre, his demeanor a bit graver now. He returned his attention to Trowa, who he found was still watching him through the portal, and continued, "Well, it seems from your surroundings that you are not far. If you have the gumption, you might find some old mineshafts the Ironforge dwarves abandoned when the Dark Irons consumed the Redrock Mountains. They will take you to Elwynn faster than navigating the pass - albeit, certainly far more treacherous."

Wufei snorted at the warning, though he still pretended to be ignoring the words of the priest. Orcs were made to die: if anything, the promise of danger gave this entire escapade more purpose. As it stood, he felt like he had been sent out to look for a petulant child that had run astray.

"Is that so?" Trowa was musing aloud to Quatre, completely incognizant of Wufei's sour mood. He curled a finger around his chin and thought about the suggestion, unable to resist his natural suspicion: "And how can I trust that you are not leading my companion and I to certain doom?" he asked, narrowing his eyes into what he hoped was an intimidating expression.

Clearly, there was something about Trowa's attitude that amused Quatre immensely, for he chuckled again at Trowa's question. Settling down a little, he gave Trowa his assurance: "Fear not, fair prince," he said with a rather ambiguous smile; "That you carry my owl trinket with you should be proof enough to any lingering magics that you mean the Alliance no harm."

Trowa's hand tightened around the owl charm even as he mentally tried to spite such a notion. Even though the Alliance and its confounded king had left Trowa and his people to rot, he couldn't help but place some kind of inexplicable faith in Quatre and his guarantee that things would work out for the best. He opened his mouth to say something about it - to expound on something that had been nagging him for quite some time as of late -- but he never got the chance.

Just then, along the horizon line, a sudden explosion of magical energy surged into the sky so powerfully that it painted the brackish clouds a hideous shade of green and momentarily blasted away the fiery tint that coloured Trowa and Wufei even so far away. Quatre's voice was staggered as he tried to find out what was happening in the burning wasteland as his communication portal began to flicker and fade with the magical disruption, but Trowa and Wufei could only stare into the distance, transfixed by the brilliant lightshow that the magic continued to splay across the heavens.

Moving to stand next to Trowa, Wufei commented gruffly, "Time is running out."

Trowa could only nod dumbly.

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Meanwhile, at the source of the spell's origin, deep at the bottom of the Dark Iron slave pit, there was nothing but blind chaos as Heero charged through the throngs of dwarves, cutting through their ranks as if they were mere rag dolls. The first swell of power had come when Heero had taken out the Epyon Sigil and channeled its dark energies, fusing once more with the demon that dwelled within. His bond with the black energy had intensified with each summoning, corrupting his soul and twisting his body more violently than ever: his body had become bulkier, and a pair of devilish horns curled from his forehead, his flesh an ashen hue. Two leathery and torn wings extended from his back, between which Duo clung as Heero fought his way towards the scaffolding that marked their escape. Despite the darkness that coursed through his veins, Heero displayed an unyielding protectiveness towards Duo, almost more driven to attack the Dark Irons because they were threatening Duo than that had been their jailors.

Duo, for his part, pretended like there was absolutely nothing out of joint with Heero's twisted self, his arms around Heero's neck as if his life depended on it. He told himself that there was nothing to fear there - that despite the corrupt magic that had seized Heero's person, beneath its pulsating evil, the young man he loved was still in there, hiding. Sometimes evil is a necessity, Duo persisted, even as he watched Heero mercilessly shred through dwarven flesh as if it were mere butter; if there was no evil, we would never know when we were doing right. He told himself these things even as he supported Heero with his enchanted fires and summoned to their aid the hellish demons of the Burning Legion he had learned to tame through his own black studies. He would have been a hypocrite not to.

As he had before, Heero made straight for the scaffolding that rose up to the lip of the slave pit and freedom above. Fires raged all around them, some burning at Duo's behest, most at the dictation of chaos, as he plowed forward, his madness ruled only by the singular objective of getting Duo and himself out of there as quickly as possible. In this state, he wasn't quite sure of the hows or whys of that parameter, but only that it had to be met at any cost. With the aid of the Epyon demon's sight, he saw a future hewn only of blackness should he fail, and Heero was far from ready to die just yet.

When Heero finally alighted upon the scaffolding and started to charge upwards, Duo barely had time to assess what made him so uncomfortable about the ease with which it happened. It wasn't until they had gotten about a third of the way up that Duo notice the thickly rising smoke. Snapping his attention back down towards the base of the wooden structure, his decrepit face twisted in horror when he realized that the Dark Irons had rallied around the bottom of the scaffolding with torches to set it alight the second they'd started up it. Fearful they were already getting to high to make a safe fall, Duo tried desperately to call Heero's attention to this new threat, though his pleas fell upon deaf ears.

Despite the destruction that reigned across the burning Cauldron pit, all eyes were trained upon the scaffolding as the fire began to weaken it. It was only due to instincts that Heero finally ground to a halt, almost accidentally flinging the panicked Duo from his back as his feet skidded across the rough planks. He let out a growl of discontent between his sharpened teeth as he glowered down at the Black Irons, who were gathered smugly around the bottom of the scaffolding to watch their handiwork manifest itself.

"Heero!" Duo rasped as the scaffolding's struts began to lose their integrity, causing the entire thing to sway dangerously as Heero fought to keep himself balanced. He barely had time to use the scaffolding's last remaining support to leap into the air before it started to crumble into itself, feebly flapping his devilish wings without success for a few terrifying seconds before he managed to get the hang of it. Duo sucked in a breath as they plummeted: he really had no reason to fear death, and it had been an eternity since he had felt an emotion such as fear, but he was pretty sure there was no other way to describe what overwhelmed him as they rocketed back towards the ground.

It was the most alive he'd felt since the day he died.

Heero faceplanted into the rocky earth with a crunch that didn't sound very pleasant to Duo's ears, though the gusto with which he was on the move again made it unclear as to whether or not he had actually injured himself upon impact. It was all Duo could do to just hold on as Heero started speeding back in the direction they had come, half running, half exploiting his newfound flying skill to glide above the heads of any dwarves he couldn't immediately fell with one swoop of his talons. Duo had no idea if Heero knew where he was going, but he supposed it really didn't matter much. Maybe if Heero managed to murder everyone there, they could then just leave at their own leisure.

Back into the twisting caverns that deviated from the main expanse of the slave pit, Heero ran like a hound on the scent. Despite Duo's doubts as to how aware Heero was of their direction, every turn Heero took seemed to be the right one, and though they were still being pursued, they remained constantly on the move. With the help of some of Duo's minions and a few more well-cast spells, they managed to outrun most of the Dark Irons, leaving them behind a collapsed wall of rubble as they made their way into tunnels that seemed less burnt and sooty, with air that was easier to breathe and didn't stink so much of blood and gunpowder. Though Heero still moved with the urgency of someone being chased, Duo managed to wilt a bit more comfortably between his wings, letting out a much needed sigh of relief.

"Hey, Heero," he finally managed to call out as Heero carried him onwards. "Maybe we ought to stop and figure out where the hell we are."

But Heero kept on as if he hadn't even heard him, and it made Duo's insides feel leaden. It was actually rather concerning that there seemed to be more of a demon's presence than Heero's there, despite what Duo had tried to assure himself about Heero's buried conscience. This was the threshold of his skillset and he knew it: should Heero fall any more victim to the sigil's magic, even the most powerful relic in all of Azeroth wouldn't be able to save his soul - and Duo's, for that matter.

"Heero, stop!" Duo ordered in a firmer tone, pulling at Heero's matted hair. The aggression seemed to do the trick, and Heero slowed much like a horse whose sides had been stung with the spurs of its rider. Duo unhooked his spindly legs from around Heero's waist and slid off his back, setting down upon surprisingly smooth masonry. "Almost makes you think that they used to be sane dwarves when they burrowed through here," he hummed, tapping a tattered shoe against the granite underfoot. Truly, it was almost as if other hands had hewn the corridor they now stood in, which boasted square angles and dwarven detailing that seemed to have been lost to the Dark Irons when their clan went mad.

The words seemed meaningless to Heero, who loitered obediently next to Duo, though still poised like he meant to move or strike at the drop of a pin. His demon wings were bent by the confines of the tunnel, which even Duo had to stoop a little to stand in, and he seemed like an absolute giant in such a space with the intimidating features the sigil's magic had bestowed upon him. He understood that there was no longer any immediate danger, but not much more than that, his mind too clouded by the demon's dark thoughts to think entirely for himself. The snatches of clarity he found were ridden only with panic that he was in such a state and unable to calm himself with the ease he had in times past: it felt almost like sinking to the bottom of the ocean and reaching up towards the surface as you drowned.

"It's a wonder you managed to find this place, though," Duo was saying, rapping his bony knuckles against a carved wall and listening carefully to see if they were within the heart of the mountains. His knocks found only solid rock. Glancing back at Heero, he added with a wry smile, "How lucky."

Heero could only growl with discomfort as he tried to adjust his position in the tiny space.

Duo noticed Heero's clear distress and decided it was time to try and cull back the sigil's influence. He remembered that he had managed to talk the demon out of Heero's mind one way or another in times past, and he could only hope that his power was still enough to bring Heero back. It bothered him that the possibility of that was a bit on the grim side. Figuring that the best plan of attack was probably intimidation, he opened up Heero's hip pouch, which he had been carrying for the human during their escape, and fished around for the Epyon relic. "I think we can take it from here," he announced as he laid the sigil on the ground and started rummaging through his robes for the magical chisel. He muttered under his breath a hope that all this trouble for the damned thing proved worthwhile.

Pulling out the faintly glowing chisel, he touched its tip to the sigil's runed surface and met the demon's red eyes, which were watching him ever so carefully, with a defiant stare. "You will return to your prison and leave the human as he was," Duo commanded sharply; "Obey me, or I shall destroy the only thing that ties you to this world."

The response Duo got was far from what he had expected or wanted: Heero's lips curled into a dangerous smirk that clearly did not belong to him, and an evil voice that definitely was not his own emerged when he opened them. "Do thisssss," the voice hissed; "Do thisssssss as I resssside here in thissss human vessssel, and I shall take him ssssstraight to hell with me...."

When the gravity of what the demon was saying finally sunk in, Duo was horrorstruck. Of course with the two of them fused as much as they were now, destroying the Epyon demon would only kill Heero right along with it, and the realization that there wasn't much of a way around it left Duo incredibly frustrated. Angrily, he flung the chisel to the floor and knocked both it and the sigil against the wall with one swipe of his arm. He glowered dangerously at Heero's twisted face and cursed vehemently. This was all his own damned fault....

The demon clearly wasn't finished, though, ready to go for the kill as Duo dejectedly went about collecting the relics he'd thrown aside in anger. "I let you run out of that ssssslave pit - that wassss fun, all that killing," he continued, still speaking through Heero's mouth. "I thought I'd let you run along once we got away, warlock, but I guessssssss it'sssss not to be...." As he spoke, he started to raise a taloned hand to Duo, flexing his fingers menacingly as he started to creep towards the undead sorcerer with mal intent.

Despite the guilt Duo was berating himself with, he was still able to react to the demon's threats with ease. Just as the demon was about to command Heero's clawed hand to violently slash across Duo's middle, Duo suddenly leapt to his feet, head bent down as he stampeded forward, focusing a ball of magical energy in the center of his outstretched palm. The synergy of power at the helm of Duo's charge connected with the demon's chest before any harm befell him, its sheer strength actually managing to send the demon careening backwards down the tunnel as Duo continued to press on forward. "I'll teach you to toy with the things I care about!" he roared despite the energy it cost him to do so.

The sheer force of Duo's anger coupled with his enraged magic actually caused Heero's demonized body to shatter straight through the rock wall at the end of the tunnel, which turned out to simply be a barrier between the place where they had been standing and another tunnel that cross-sectioned it. The pair careened into the opposite wall of the new passageway, which halted Duo's onslaught at last and sent them crumpling down into a tangled pile of tattered robe and devil wing on the ground. A tiny shower of rubble trickled down from the indentation they had left in the rock face above as Duo blearily tried to reassess his surroundings, while Heero lay unconscious and bloody beneath him. Duo could have sworn he heard someone calling his name, but his head was pounding too hard to be able to tell for sure. He wished he could just close his eyes....

"I'm sorry, Heero," Duo murmured, looking down at Heero's face, which somehow still managed to look appealing to Duo despite the demonic features that marred his dirtied complexion. "Maybe I really am just a terrible liar, making promises I couldn't keep after all," he whispered, leaning down so that only Heero's deaf ears might listen.

The disappointment overpowering him was the closest thing Duo had gotten to sadness in a very long time, but there was no other way to describe his current state. It made him wish that he could actually feel Heero when he laid his hands upon him or taste his lips should he try to kiss him. He bent himself over Heero, sorry and frustrated that even if he should do so, it would be no more than a gesture. Not that Heero would reciprocate should he have been awake to, Duo thought as he leaned in to touch his withered lips to Heero's, if merely for masochism's sake. "Only fit for a monster, huh," Duo said against Heero's still mouth before wilting back to the ground, fatigued and defeated.

He lay motionless next to Heero, the embers of times they'd shared dancing in his empty eye sockets as he stared blankly at the surrounding passageway. Maybe, if there was anything to feel, it was pain. What a fool he was.

Maybe if he closed his eyes just this once, he wouldn't have to open them anymore.

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