"Thalyssra, do you have any idea what sort of enemies we'll have to fight before Elisande?" Lyra asked, as while the other heroes were resting, and recovering from their fight with Tel'arn, she wanted to see if there was any information to be gleamed from their ally.
"If we had done this invasion before the Legion showed up, you'd be heading to Elisande next," Thalyssra replied, as she knew that someone was eager to get this invasion over with, especially since there was something special at the end for her, if she believed what Khadgar had told her, "but, since the Legion is here, there are two enemies for you to fight before you can access Elisande; a Dreadlord by the name of Tichondrius, and an abomination that goes by the name Krosus."
"Krosus... the demon that seemingly killed Tirion Fordring during our assault on the Broken Shore," one of the paladins commented, though his tone indicated that he and the other paladins disliked this particular demon, which was just fine in Lyra's eyes since she disliked all demons in general, save for those that were allied with the Illidari, "Finally, some payback for the greatest paladin to ever grace Azeroth."
"And Tichondrius, a Dreadlord that worked with the Scourge in the past," Trixie added, knowing that the group was facing some decent demons this time around, but at the same time she realized exactly who they were going to go for first, since the two demons stood between them and Elisande, "So, whose ready to take on one of the strongest Dreadlords to ever grace the Burning Legion?"
The heroes thought about the two demons that they would be fighting soon enough, recalling everything they knew about Tichondrius and Krosus, before they voiced their agreement to what Trixie was saying, telling Lyra that all of the heroes wanted to end Tichondrius for everything he had done to Azeroth over the years. Once they were all in agreement the heroes pulled themselves to their feet and headed towards the building on the right of the courtyard's entrance, where they engaged the Duskwatch that were guarding the entrance. Fortunately Lyra, Trixie, and the heroes had some experience in dealing with these enemies and pulled another group before they were even done with the first one, while at the same time seeing that there were two paths for them to choose from. As Lyra cut down one of the Duskwatch she noticed that the tanks were already moving forward, to which she followed after them as they entered the building itself and used the stairs to advance upwards.
Before they entered the room where Tichondrius was located, as it was rather easy to see the Dreadlord standing still while he waited for something to happen, the tanks pulled out every demon that was in the room before they entered it, allowing the group to kill dreadguards, beholders, and the Felsworn Nightborne that rested in the area. It didn't take them long to actually clear up their enemies, since they were using their experience to their advantage, before the only people in this area were them and their target.
"You think getting past a few power-addled elves means you can stand against a true son of the Legion?" Tichondrius asked, though that was followed by the demon chucking for a moment, indicating that he found their stance on this issue to be humorous, "Never trust a mortal to do a demon's work!"
Tichondrius charged at them the moment the heroes were ready, targeting the tanks immediately while the healers and ranged damage dealers pull away so they could do their tasks from a safe distance, while Lyra cut small gashes into the demon's skin. The first thing that Tichondrius did, after spending a few seconds simply swinging his clawed hands at whichever tank he happened to be targeting at the moment, was mark one of the heroes with some sort of mark that summoned three blood colored globs into the area, which moved towards the marked individual. Some of the ranged fighters turned towards the trio of blood globs and used their powers to defeat them, as they all suspected that if the globs touched their target the individual would be seriously harmed. Normally Lyra would have thought that people were acting a little crazy, but after hearing everything that this one demon was responsible for, long before she and Trixie had arrived in this world, she knew that they weren't exaggerating... and that only made her want to kill Tichondrius even more than she already did.
While they were doing that Tichondrius grinned and inflicted another curse on several more heroes, which was followed by a swarm of fly like creatures trying to hit the now inflicted targets, to which some of them suffered some damage because they were close to the Dreadlord while the others were safe from harm. Lyra could tell that he followed that up with more blood globs going another another hero, displaying how skilled the Dreadlord was at adapting to the situation, before the demon tore open a small opening to the void and four fel spikes erupted from the floor around them. Lyra, immediately understanding what was happening, ducked behind the closest fel spike as the other heroes did the same thing, to which the energy that Tichondrius sent at them shattered the fel spikes while not hurting any of them in the process... though Lyra knew that if they weren't careful they could be seriously hurt by that attack, something that everyone seemed to understand as they continued the fight.
Tichondrius repeated the same attacks for the next few minutes, where he actually took some of the heroes out because they were distracted by one of the other attacks he had used, before he changed up his attack pattern... to which he faded out of existence and trapped the remaining heroes in a shadowy void like area. That was followed by some bats, those that appeared to be like an illusion instead of a real manifestation, started to appear in the area and charged at the heroes that were in front of them. While the heroes fought off the bats, and dropped what appeared to be globs of Nightwell energy or something similar, Tichondrius appeared as a fel colored spirit and loosed beams of energy at them for a few seconds, forcing them to dodge before his spirit disappeared. The majority of the heroes spent the next minute or two killing bats and collecting the globs of energy, though when they finally returned to the real world they noticed that the unfortunate hunter that hadn't gotten a glob grabbed his chest before collapsing on the floor... indicating that if this happened a second time they wanted to make sure that they all grabbed a glob to prevent themselves from dying.
When Tichondrius reappeared in front of them, and started attacking them with the same attacks he had been using earlier, he called for the 'pitiful' Nightborne to assist him, where the Felsworn Nightborne entered the chamber and rushed to his assistance. Lyra, seeing their enemies enter the area, broke off from the main fight with some of the heroes and engaged the reinforcements, taking out any of the Felsworn that were clearly healers before going after the fighters, since it was better to remove the healers before hand. Since only a few Felsworn entered the area it didn't take the small group long to take care of the enemies that Tichondrius had called upon, before they turned back towards their main target and continued their assault.
Eventually Tichondrius shifted back into the shadowy realm with them, forcing the heroes to repeat what they had done earlier, but this time around everyone was sure to grab one of the globs before they were pulled back to reality... where their opponent called some demons in to assist him. Fortunately at that point in time the surviving heroes knew what to do with each attack that Tichondrius used against them, to which they countered his attacks and his allies, before dealing enough damage to him where he staggered backwards and fell to one knee... where he breathed heavily and glared up at them with a look of rage in his eyes.
"Impossible!" Tichondrius exclaimed, though his tone told the heroes that he wasn't about to accept the outcome of this fight, especially when they took his prior ones into consideration, "You are... inferior..."
"You demons should really stop underestimating the power of Azeroth's champions," Lyra replied, though at the same time she stepped forward and grinned as she held her warglaives out, because this time around she wasn't going to let someone as powerful as Tichondrius return to his master's side, "too bad that this time around you'll lose more than the body you painstakingly created for this invasion."
Before Tichondrius could react, and before the other heroes could stop her, Lyra plunged the warglaives into the demon's heart and destroyed it, though that was followed by her smiling as the demon's body broke apart and his soul was sucked into the warglaives, damning him to an eternity of imprisonment in the one place he couldn't escape from. With the Dreadlord dead, and no longer having the opportunity to return to Sargeras, Lyra relaxed a little as the healers tended to the wounded and raised the defeated heroes from where they had died, allowing them a chance to know what had happened to their opponent before they were healed as well. Lyra knew that Lord Illidan had battled with Tichondrius in the past, during the Third War if she remembered the story correctly, and knew that he would be happy to see that she repeated what he had done... though this time around she trapped the demon's soul within the warglaives, strengthening it while also keeping it contained with all the other demons that had been killed over the years.
For a few seconds she actually wondered how many souls were trapped within the Twinblades of the Deceiver, since they had once belonged to the Legion, but she decided that she was better off not knowing that fact and faced her friends once more... to which they returned to the courtyard and started moving around the large circular building that was the Nightspire, where Elisande was waiting for them.
Since the Nightspire was still locked to them, revealing that the targets they had been taking out contained the keys to open the way to their target, the heroes moved to the right of the Nightspire's main entrance and followed the path to the back of the building. Along the way they had to contend with more members of the Duskwatch, along with some beholder and dreadguard demons, but for the most part it wasn't anything they hadn't encountered before and they already knew how to deal with these types of enemies, to which they carefully made their way towards their true destination. Despite the fact that it took them a few minutes, to clear out the enemies that were between them and the stairs they needed to walk down, they managed to reach the stairs and descended to the level below them... where they fought the remaining guards before reaching the ruined bridge that rested between them and the Broken Shore, where the Tomb of Sargeras was waiting for them.
That also meant that they had to contend with a rather large infernal that was waiting for them, but despite it's size and power Lyra, Trixie, and the others were able to deal some great damage to it before it collapsed on itself, allowing the group to continue forward. They then had to carefully climb down the ruined sections of the bridge, which must have been grand looking before it's destruction, before finding that there were three eredar pouring their fel energy into something, which had to be the sleeping demon they had come to destroy. The eredar, seeing that the heroes had arrived, stopped what they were doing and charged at them, using their spells and magic to fight the large group, but Lyra found that these eredar were weaker than the Nightborne, meaning that she and her friends could kill them rather easily... though once they all fell to the group, however, Krosus, the demonic monstrosity that had been sleeping in the water at the end of the ruined bridge, burst out of where he had been resting and stared down at the group.
Lyra quickly discovered that, due to the creature's immense size, that she and her friends would be fighting Krosus from his waist up, but she and the others were prepared as they held their weapons at the ready, before the tanks moved forward and started the battle.
"Come then!" Krosus growled, though at the same time he used his hands to attack whoever was in front of him, be that the tanks or the melee damage dealers that were assisting the tanks, "Meet your end!"
The instant the battle started Krosus pulled one of his hands back and gathered some Fel energy above his palm, though before he released it everyone moved to the opposite side of his body, allowing the beam of energy to hit the water behind them before continuing the fight. He was also a fan of marking individuals in some manner, as those affected by his 'brand' were forced to slowly burn over the course of the battle, meaning that the only way to remove the mark was to defeat Krosus. The demon also used the beam attack a few more times, though every odd count was with his right hand while every even count was with his left hand, something that the demon seemed to be keeping track of while they fought. At one point he slammed his fists into the structure of the bridge and started spewing blasts of molten lava from his fel infected shoulders, though some of the heroes sacrificed their own health to prevent the others from taking damage... or from allowing something even worse to happen if the blasts touched the bridge.
Eventually Krosus displayed two interesting abilities; the first being that he randomly picked someone to throw a massive orb of Fel energy at, causing them to fall back to the ruined part of the bridge to avoid making the rest of the group suffer once the attack hit it's target. The second one was where Krosus slammed his fists into the section of the bridge in front of him, causing everyone to fall back for a moment, before he shattered the part of the bridge they had been fighting on and marched towards them.
After that happened Krosus went back to using the same attacks he had been using previously, loosing beams of Fel energy from both his right and left hands in the same pattern as before, loosing molten globs that required someone to hurt themselves, threw orbs of Fel energy, and he continued marking individuals with his brand. Since they knew his attacks the group kept their eyes open for new ones that the demon might incorporate into his routine in order to surprise them, but, oddly enough, it was the same attacks and nothing changed. After some time he smashed through the spot where everyone had been standing, as they cleared out when they noticed that it was starting to crack as well, before they continued the fight near the end of this part of the bridge. That meant that if they didn't kill him soon he would drop them all into the sea and slaughter them before they had a chance to fight back, but fortune seemed to smile on them as Lyra empowered both of her warglaives with the Fel aura and the Dark Magic aura... where she hurled them towards her target and cut a gash into his chest that allowed the other heroes to deal the finishing blow, toppling the creature and causing him to collapse on the section of the bridge in front of them.
"That was for Tirion Fordring, monster!" the paladins exclaimed, though as they cheered for their victory over the creature, like everyone else was doing, Lyra made sure to imprison Krosus' soul inside the Twinblades as well, that way he could never come back to haunt the heroes of the Alliance and the Horde.
With Krosus defeated an image of Khadgar appeared behind them and offered them help in getting back up to the top of the ruined bridge, where everyone accepted and transformed into balls of arcane energy, which raced towards their destination before transforming back into who they had been. The only one not affected by that spell was Trixie, to which she simply sighed and reverted back to her dragon form, where she flew up to where her companions were waiting for her and landed behind them. From there she changed back into her hybrid state and caught up with Lyra, though at the same time the heroes retraced their steps towards one of the two towers that were connected to the sides of the Nightspire, where they walked up the stairs that were in front of them and accessed the teleporter that they discovered... which took them up to the level that connected to the chamber where Elisande was waiting for their arrival.
What made Lyra snap to attention was the fact that there weren't any guards protecting the Grand Magistrix, though she wasn't the only one that noticed this and all of the heroes carefully held their weapons at the ready as Elisande merely glanced at them... while at the same time continuing whatever spell she had been working on since they started their invasion of the Nighthold.
"I foresaw your coming, of course. The threads of fate that led you to this place. Your desperate attempt to stop the Legion." Elisande commented, revealing that not only did she have control over the Nightwell, enough to create a creature to keep the Time Lock spell in place on the bridge until said creature was destroyed, but that she also had the power to see into the possible futures that existed for her, "My people face a similar dilemma. I peered into all possible futures in search for an answer... and found only one. The Legion's victory is inevitable. Every time stream shows it to be so. Had we resisted, they would have taken the Nightwell by force and left us bereft of it. I could not allow my people starve, to waste away without its energy sustaining us. So a bargain was struck. Now I see a future where the Legion is victorious and my people endure. This is the thread that must be preserved. I will do everything in my power to make it so! Your deaths ensure the future of the Nightborne. Come forward, then. Let us speed you toward your fate."
The moment Elisande was done talking she teleported out of the Nightwell and appeared in front of the tanks, though as she started fighting she also summoned time elemental creatures that needed to be dealt with immediately, as Lyra feared that the Grand Magistrix might be able to make more of the Chronomatic Anomaly if they existed for a good period of time. As such several of the heroes diverged from their main target and took out the elemental before it could do too much damage, though in the process of it dying it created a zone where time was slower than what was around it, meaning that they wanted to stay away from that. While they were doing that Elisande also ripped several holes in time beneath the feet of several heroes, though it appeared that they weren't the portal type since no one fell through them, save for the fact that if they stayed on them Elisande inflicted massive damage on whoever remained standing on top of one of the holes... which one of the mages did, just to see if they were harmless or not, to which he confirmed that they were harmful and had a healer mend his wounds before he rejoined the battle.
Elisande also called a ring of arcane orbs into the area and pulled them towards the Nightwell, though since there was a place of slowed time the group moved close to the location and let the majority of the arcane orbs pass them by, before moving out and continuing their attack.
After some time Elisande summoned a pair of time elementals, one that was colored like the first one they took out while the second was a different color, so when the first one died a new location of slowed time formed around it's corpse, though when the new one died a place of fast moving time appeared. That was a location that the group used to their advantage, as they dipped into the location for a few seconds and then emerged from it, allowing their attacks and spells to hit their target much faster, thus allowing them to deal more damage over a shorter period of time. Even the arcane ring was affected, as the orbs that hit the faster moving area rushed into the Nightwell and disappeared, thus lowering the number of orbs that the group had to dodge when Elisande used that particular tactic on them. She repeated that sequence of attacks a few more times, still hurting several of the heroes in the process, before she snapped her fingers and everyone froze for a few seconds.
"You exist in but a single moment." Elisande said, though that was before the heroes returned to the positions they had been in before the battle started, while at the same time she returned to the Nightwell, "I am far less limited!"
Lyra and the others looked around in confusion, because it appeared that they had literally gone back in time to when the battle started, though at the same time it appeared that while their injuries remained Elisande was at full power once more as she exited the Nightwell, to resume her attack. This time around, in addition to the powers she had displayed against them in the first round of the battle, Elisande had some additional tricks up her sleeve, as while she summoned time elementals and threw balls of energy at her targets she also summoned larger spheres of volatile energy that needed to be juggled by a few heroes before they would disappear. Another new tactic she used was when she faced whoever she was targeting and loosed a beam of concentrated energy at them, to which they either avoided the attack or were struck by it, which severely hurt them in the process. She also had a power that forced people to move away from the rest of the pack to avoid hurting everyone else, which seemed to be another favorite ability of the people that ruled over the Nighthold... but the heroes rolled with the punches and did their best to avoid hurting the others, especially when Elisande added the arcane ring to the mix once more.
Elisande repeated the new and old sets of attacks a few more times, while Lyra, Trixie, and the others did their best to avoid taking damage, defeating all the time elementals when they showed up, prevented the orbs from hitting the ground, and everything else they had done so far... up until their foe snapped her fingers again and disappeared.
"Time shifts again, and your doom draws near!" Elisande declared, while at the same time the heroes reverted back to where they had been when the battle first started, which was starting to annoy some of them with how often she was resetting the battle between them.
When Elisande started the fight this time around she immediately marked several of the heroes with her own mark that inflicted heavy damage on them over the course of a few second, much to the dismay of the healers, while at the same time forcing multiple strands of time to converge on multiple targets for additional damage. Of course she still used all of her old abilities in addition to these new ones, to which the group faced their greatest challenge yet, because since Elisande had control over time she was infinitely stronger than they could hope to be. Instead of giving into despair and letting the end come for her, like others would have, Lyra allowed her innate energy to awaken once more, to which both the Fel energy and the Dark Magic energy wrapped around her being... while at the same time making her allies realize that they had a chance thanks to their most powerful weapon, even if it was taking on her body.
Lyra, who was always throwing caution to the wind these days, rushed forward and slammed a fist into Elisande's chest, knocking her backwards and caused her to cough as she realized something very important... something that she refused to believe, despite what was happening in front of her eyes.
"Time is... slipping away!" Elisande exclaimed, though at the same time she growled, indicating that she believed in preserving the future she had seen, even though it now appeared to be slipping away from her grasp, "How can it be so?"
Now that the heroes knew that all was not lost, even in the face of someone that had control over time itself, they renewed their attacks and continued cutting down the time elementals that Elisande tried to summon into the area, dropping more of the altered time areas onto the ground. Elisande growled as she continued to fight with the group, mostly Lyra since she was being a pest, and loosed every ability that she had demonstrated over the course of their battle, though this time around the heroes knew how to overcome the damage she was dealing and mended their wounds seconds after the damage was done. Trixie, deciding that Lyra shouldn't have all the fun, let her wings unfurl from her back and raced towards Elisande, where she and Lyra went on the assault, keeping Elisande focused on them and them alone... until she and Lyra nodded their heads and pulled away from their target.
Not seconds later the two Equestrians landed near each other and held a hand out, where they combined their different energies into a single attack and rushed forward, to which they slammed it right into Elisande's chest... and blasted her right into the side of the room they were fighting in, where she remained for a few seconds before managing to pull herself off the wall.
"It's... not possible!" Elisande shouted, though at the same time she snapped her fingers, but this time around the heroes smiled as they realized that she didn't have the energy to control time anymore, where despair finally grabbed hold of the Grand Magistrix, "I... I was destined to win..."
The heroes watched as Elisande staggered for a few seconds before finally collapsing on the ground in front of them, to which they all relaxed a little as Thalyssra and Khadgar warped into the chamber, ready to congratulate them on a job well done in dealing with their foe... though that was before the Nightwell pulsed for a moment and a spectral version of Elisande appeared before them all.
"In all possible futures I scryed, I did not foresee one in which you were victorious." Elisande's echo said, making the group wonder if she had recorded this or is this was simply another version of Elisande that was speaking to them, from a timeline that no longer existed, "I wonder... Will you defeat the Legion? Will you fail? Time eddies about you fits and starts. Nothing is certain! Perhaps you will win. And in saving your world, my people would be freed from the terrible bargain we were forced to make."
"Elisande, we may have been enemies, but I can tell you one thing," Lyra said, to which she and Trixie smiled, because they knew what they and the heroes were capable of, especially after everything they had been through so far, "We'll defeat the Legion and banish them from this world."
Lyra, Trixie, the rest of the heroes, Khadgar, and Thalyssra waited for a few seconds, as they all stared at the echo of Elisande as they waited to hear what she had to say on this matter, before the echo let out a sigh and waved a hand towards them, where those that had died were brought back to life and everyone's energy was restored to what it had been before they started the fight with Elisande.
"Fates be damned! I cast my lot in with yours, champions." the echo stated, surprising the group by the sudden declaration that it made, though at the same time it snapped it's fingers and a portal opened near where they were gathered together, "Go now, face Gul'dan. I will aid you as best I can, and perhaps together we can save us all."
Lyra, Trixie, and the rest of the heroes smiled, because now they had the way to their true target, though hopefully they could stop Gul'dan from completing whatever foul plan he was trying to complete... to which they all stepped through the portal and headed towards the top of the Nightspire. They were going to give Gul'dan the fight of their lives and do everything in their power to stop him, even if Lyra had to do what she did to Xavius to stop the insane orc warlock, but they knew that time would tell the outcome of their fight.