"Who are you, what do you want?"
The Ancient One's voice was steady, but beneath her calm tone a tremor lingered, faint and almost imperceptible. She tried to disguise it, yet fear pressed against her ribs like a hand trying to crush her chest.
As Sorcerer Supreme, she had faced gods and demons alike. She had looked into Dormammu's endless abyss without flinching. She had even mastered the trick of severing her emotions from her body, turning her serenity into a weapon. And yet, here, on the rooftop of the London Sanctum, that hard-earned composure wavered.
Because this enemy was different.
It wasn't simply strength or power that shook her, it was the corruption seeping through her very veins.
She raised a trembling hand to her eyes. The once smooth white skin was shifting before her very sight. Green veins crawled across her arm like living cracks in marble, twisting and branching until the flesh itself began to glow with a faint, sickly light.
Her heart sank.
This was not fear of an opponent stronger than herself. This was fear of losing herself entirely.
At that moment, Gul'dan finally spoke. His voice was guttural, gravel ground against stone, yet unnervingly clear. It was pure English, though each syllable seemed dipped in shadow. Whether he had learned from humans here or stolen the language from stray echoes of players whispering in the game world, no one could not tell.
What mattered was that she understood him perfectly.
A grin spread across the warlock's scarred face, stretching too wide and baring his yellow, animal-like teeth. "My servant," he rasped, his eyes gleaming with malicious delight, "I came to you after receiving your call."
The words struck her like a slap.
"Servant?" she muttered, her calm mask beginning to crack. She stepped back, retreating slowly, but the London Sanctum's rooftop was small, its stone edges pressing close. Soon, there was nowhere left to retreat.
Gul'dan advanced at a measured pace, leaning on his twisted staff as if savoring every step. His presence was suffocating, as though the air thickened wherever he walked.
The Ancient One's lips curled into something uncharacteristic, an expression caught between a snarl and desperation. She didn't even realize it herself. If it had been a day earlier, no force in the universe could have broken her mask of composure.
But the fel energy gnawing inside her twisted more than her body. It warped her mind.
With a snap of her wrists, she conjured a Tao mandala. Normally, its light was golden, radiant and steady, a symbol of the mystic arts she had perfected across centuries. But this time, her breath hitched.
The golden sigil was laced with pulsing green streaks. The corruption had reached her very magic.
Her eyes widened in horror. The integration was complete.
Gul'dan halted a mere few steps away. Slowly and theatrically, he raised his skeletal staff. With a guttural chant, he spread his arms wide.
The Ancient One gasped as a stream of luminous green energy burst from her body, drawn into the warlock like iron filings to a magnet. Her vitality, the essence that had carried her across centuries, was being wrenched out.
Wrinkles formed across her skin in an instant. Her face sagged, color drained from her lips. She tried to move her hands, to resist, to summon even a shred of power, but her body was frozen. The glowing mandala flickered and died.
For the first time in centuries, she felt utterly helpless.
Gul'dan's expression, however, was one of ecstasy. He inhaled the stolen energy like a starving man savoring a feast. His body straightened, his posture filled with vigor, and his face shed years in mere moments.
When at last the siphoning ceased, Gul'dan looked reborn, almost youthful, strong, radiant in a grotesque parody of life. The Ancient One, by contrast, seemed two decades older, her once smooth features now lined with age.
"You… what did you do?" she whispered, her voice raw with horror. Her gaze fell to her hands, and the sight of her withered skin twisted her stomach.
Gul'dan sighed as though sated, then let out a low chuckle. "Exquisite. I never imagined such a reservoir of life force could exist on a backwater plane such as this." His fingers flexed, admiring the renewed vitality that coursed through them. "A rare vintage indeed."
The Ancient One staggered back, clutching her chest, but there was no time to recover. Gul'dan lifted his skeletal staff again, the green glow at its tip blazing brighter.
"And since you have been so generous," he sneered, "let me bestow a gift in return. Let this fel energy be your reward."
With a violent surge, a torrent of green energy erupted from the staff, slamming into her body like a tidal wave.
The Ancient One screamed, yet it was not pain that filled her cry, but a strange, twisted exultation. She dropped to her knees, arms outstretched, her face warped by an eerie smile. Her eyes fluttered shut as she surrendered to the overwhelming flood.
A minute passed. Then another.
And finally, Gul'dan lowered the staff with a satisfied smirk.
The Ancient One opened her eyes once more. This time, her pupils glowed with two sharp beams of green light. The tint that had plagued her skin was gone; the corruption was no longer something imposed on her, it was a part of her now.
Her body remained her own, her thoughts almost intact… but her will was bound. With a single flex of Gul'dan's command, she would obey, no matter her resistance.
"Who are you?" she asked again, though her tone was slower, dulled, as though part of her mind resisted while another yielded.
'That resistance will fade,' Gul'dan thought smugly. With time, the fel would seep deeper, eroding what little of her independence remained until nothing of the Sorcerer Supreme was left.
The warlock lifted his gaze toward the sky. There, the helicarrier floated in silent vigil. His cracked lips curled into a smile.
"I," he declared, raising his staff high, "am the hand that shapes this world. Under the great Luke, leader of the Fel Legion, I am Gul'dan!"
The Ancient One followed his gaze upward. Her glowing green eyes locked briefly onto Luke's figure peering down from the helicarrier. For a fleeting moment, a strange thread of connection flickered between them, like two opposing currents colliding.
Luke stiffened, noticing the shift.
The Ancient One quickly looked away, as if afraid to linger.
Gul'dan's voice cut the silence again, commanding and absolute. "Go back. And when I return, I expect to see this planet forged into a true Fel Legion."
He gestured dismissively, yet his power rippled through her veins like chains tightening.
The Ancient One hesitated, a shadow of defiance flickering in her eyes. But her body moved of its own accord. Slowly, with solemn steps, she descended from the Sanctum rooftop.
She hated that she obeyed. And yet… deep within her, like a seed buried in soil, the thought had already taken root.
Form a Fel Legion…?
Her aged lips twitched into the faintest smile.
It might not be such a bad idea.
…