The Titans' Orb: Breaking Dawn

“Where are they…? WHERE ARE THEY!?”

The Defiler’s lifeless amethyst eyes became that of a glowing blood red as he used his staff’s magic to rip apart the mansion room by room, every furnishing and wall was completely obliterated until nothing remained of the building but splinters, torn fabric, shattered glass, and porcelain fragments.

“Uurrgh…” Nah’Lek grumbled, his violent tantrum eventually subsiding.

He had wasted almost a week in Ukraine only to discover a complete ghost town; the irradiated zombies which had once dwelled in Chernobyl had been wholly expunged by Hawnu Rey’eng, leaving absolutely nothing for both Nah’Lek and humans alike to uncover, as far as the outside world could ever know, people had simply died of radiation poisoning and rotted away; Elephant’s Tusk had reverted back into Elephant’s Foot, shrinking back to its original state and solidifying into corium, the multiple bodies of the scientists had simply burned away into nothing but dust and ash.

After tracing magical residue away from the site, leading him to a rotting bear corpse just across the border of Belarus, Nah’Lek realised he had been fooled by the guardian; the residue was already a month old and led to a remote location in Portugal. With no alternative, he pursued, and found himself stood amidst the blackened ruins of a stone compound, scorched away by a blaze of an unnaturally powerful fire.
The trail eventually ended at an abandoned mansion, with not a pony in sight; they had certainly been there however, for their tracks littered the entire building. There were hoofprints everywhere, and numerous brightly coloured mane hairs dwelled upon the pillows of each bedroom. He would have most certainly caught them if he hadn’t been duped by Hawnu Rey’eng; although with that said, while the ponies were naïve, the human would have known better to stick around too long.
That damn human.

“Callum… Horn… Castle…” He muttered, his mandibles clicking with irritation.

A boy of seventeen, immune to the Fel’s corruption and capable of withstanding demonism after exposure to concentrated Fel; it was impossible, even Stardust Moonshimmer was vulnerable to the substance.
What made this young creature so special? Surely his mental illness couldn’t have been the only thing sourcing such an immunity, his soul was vast and powerful, but what made it so?
If Nah’Lek had anticipated him to be a genuinely challenging opponent, he’d have delved deeper into the boy’s brain while infiltrated as a shade; instead, he’d grown too bold and chose to toy with Moonshimmer.

While frustration was common to the Defiler, (for his very own Fel-infused blood fed on rage and bloodlust), frustration at himself was exquisitely rare, Nah’Lek didn’t make mistakes. It became abundantly clear that this was no longer a simple hunt for pitiful sheep, for a wolf lurked amongst them, ceaselessly guarding over them.

“Loyalty… Courage… Honour… Selflessness… Love… Pathetic traits in which this wolf gains his strength, the only way to tear them asunder is to destroy his pack.”

Turning to the green skinned warrior that stood to his right, Nah’Lek placed a single claw onto the orc’s shoulder, its sharp tip faintly screeching against his metal pauldron.

“To hunt a wolf, Grommash, you need to isolate it and break its spirit.”

“What are you suggesting?” The orc asked.

“We no longer need to hunt down the human… We only need kill his friends…”

Baring his pointed teeth and exhaling loudly through them, Grom shrugged off his master’s claw.

“I am not here to kill halfling horses, I want the human.”

“You will kill whatever I command you to kill.” Nah’Lek replied coldly.

The second orc, the larger of the two, pushed Grommash out of the way and snarled at the Defiler.

“When you slaughtered Gul’dan and took his place, demon, we willingly followed you and your promises of war and bloodshed, and yet we still have neither! You pledged to us that we would become conquerors!”

Surprisingly, Nah’Lek didn’t lose his temper, his head merely tilted no more than an inch to the left, such a subtle movement sent a faint chill down the spines of both warriors.
Rather than replying to the larger orc, he continued conversing with Grommash.

“Remind me, who is the current warchief of the Horde?”

“My son, Garrosh.” Grom replied.

“And what is young Hellscream currently doing with the Horde?”

“Preparing them for war on Equus.”

“What were the Horde’s numbers before we left Draenor?”

“Nearly three million orc warriors, half that in direwolves, two thousand ogres, and nineteen ettins.”

Nodding, Nah’Lek faced the larger orc once again and leaned towards him menacingly, until their faces were merely a few centimetres apart.

“War is coming, bloodshed is coming, and the Horde will have it all, but only if the company of ponies on this world fail in retrieving the shards of the Titan’s Orb. By being here alongside me, you are ensuring my promise is kept. Your boldness impresses me, Blackhand, but do not test my patience again.”

Blackhand, while fearless and audacious, knew he was inferior to the demigod. He reluctantly stepped back and dipped his head, spitting on the ground with distaste as he did so.

Walking away from the orcs and out of the mansion, Nah’Lek withdrew his staff and aimed it at the trees, which began to groan as the very lifeforce was drawn out of them; the bark turned black and the evergreen leaves grew brown and grey. It wasn’t much sustenance at all, t’was barely enough to conjure a demonic spell, but Nah’Lek had grown hungry. Whilst he was unimaginably more powerful than his old self when he was a mere mortal on Azeroth, the Fel always had a price, a price paid in lives taken.

After all the trees in the area had withered and died, Nah’Lek was approached by Grommash.

“What is our next move, Nah’Lek?”

“We are to separate the group, and kill whichever members aren’t escorted by the human.”

“But how? We don’t even know how to find them!” Blackhand growled.

“No, but I may know of an individual who does.”

Looking beyond the orcs, Nah’Lek’s mandibles quivered and clicked with excitement.

“Twilight Sparkle told me much, the blubbering whelp gave me all of the knowledge she knew in order to prevent further agony, other than disclosing her location of course. As it happens, she revealed a very peculiar piece of information to me. Something that occured rather long ago, which was then remedied and hidden away by Celestia, leaving nothing but fragments of memories, shrouded in fog.”

The Defiler approached his green-skinned companions, and chuckled ever so quietly.

“Were you aware that one of the Equus-born has been to Earth before?”

With the question obviously being a rhetorical one, the orcs grunted as they waited for their master to finish, to which he gladly obliged.

“It’s time we pay a visit to Rainbow Dash’s human father…”