Again, and again.

'He'll adjust. How was your visit to old man Grommik?' the dark man said, his visage droughted by electronic boxes and hexagonally formed wall-blocks.


'Barely worthwhile.' he replied. The response was cut from a dryness duplicant of rubbish-bins toiled for not fortnight but perhaps several. 'Grommik's senile- talked a whole lot of garbage...'


'Schematics, survey maps... we should be able to determine the facility's exact coordinates.'


'Let's take out Leksande, first.' and his wrists were outlandishly decorated with stabilizers inset with lcd panels, readings showing statistics requisite for galactic travel.


'But... a lot of this territory is unexplored. Locals talk about the Dusted ones, communities of them, dragons the size of starships.'


'Well that's plainly ridiculous, and not worth even a single percent of mention.' came the stalwart reply. The conversation was diluted by the systematic rainfall dumping buckets of bleakness across the barren city streets. The two men parted ways just then, destined to assimilate this new-found knowledge, and impart with it a gesture of fortitude harkoning back to the ways of black-and-white investigators, whose intriguing cases were once painted graciously upon vacuum-tube televisions encased by imitation wood panelling. 

'Never again...' he said, 'Never again.'


And the streets themselves seemed to be alive. The buildings took on human characteristics. Every window and sculpted concrete wall, the obliqueness of it all, within which activity on a daily basis occurred; individuals mining computer screens for the purpose of data-processing. The rain never stopped then, either, but the people continued on their way down paths of destiny inscribed on the pavement; careless, indicative of mindlessness. 

And many years later they would be defined as being partially robotic, arcane subsystems whirring about with an intoxicating grace. The system of gears grinding solemnly one day after another in an endless sea of progress, never to be seen of or thought of again.

citydrowns

'There was a disreputable encounter no less than twelve nicks of a roundabout, but neither he nor I could make sense of the thing,' she said, words dangling soggily like poignant Victorian overcast. She balanced the silverware cautiously, almost to the extent of over-protection, but was unable to take into consideration the effect to which the glaring candlelight danced away like a fire-furnace. 'And nor does my patience permit any extra dollymopping, so perhaps we should mend the issue.'


And within several possessions of a Trinitron screen they did have a go of it, and his reclamation deemed necessary her apparent surprise. 'Well this is new,' she said in-between breaths. The windowsill held station over the presiding morning flood banked notoriously and sharply angled to the paired amalgam of Swedish homage and New York complexity, wherein personalities of sports, music, politics and popular culture flourished unabated, by willpower alone.


He started. 'No, it's not.' He paused. 'But I'm glad you noticed.' In that momentary glint of consideration he took time to examine the curiously ribbed window-boxes, their faded black branches sorted in a matchbox criss-cross pattern intersecting six times on the horizontal and three times on the vertical, evenly spaced.


'Well that was wonderful,' she said. 'I'm going to put on the tea, don't forget to remind me.'


'I never do, not even once.' he replied.


'Hogwash. Don't spoil my temperament with your nonsense.'


Were there to be a satchel rimmed with honey-dew, not even Ms. Brollixworth could pry it free, and the comfortable analogy suited quite well once the aftermath was recapitulated. Again, and again.

Duality Grid

But there was nothing to hide from. In actual fact, the sunset draped from one side of the room to the other. Her sublime expression was reflective of this, and no sooner had he crossed the line than she was administering skill-shots in the direction most conducive to wholesale massacre. ‘Never mind that,’ she said lazily. ‘Where are you coming from, seeing as the route’s off the grid?’ her words sounded unsure.

‘The Infiltrator’s Guild, the one apart for the Acadamy,’ he said. ‘All verses scrawled in barely-legible dactylic hexameter.’ And at that point in time, nothing seemed to matter.

‘That does seem pliable, and with regard to what was mentioned earlier about the blasted paperwork, you can ignore it completely.’ She fumbled blithely with the carriage-shaped transparencies before allowing them to spill to the ground completely, but the teal logistics forms were of little concern to her. ‘Now look what I’ve done,’ she said. ‘It’s your fault.’

‘I can’t help that my mind is geared for war,’ he said, disregarding the accusation altogether. ‘Despite the names, and apart from the blistering heat, waging warfare is not dissimilar to our current predicament.’ He felt the humid warmth pass between them, carried away by wisps of black-night residue provided by a buttressed gothic window, kept open most nights at her request.

‘That’s exactly the response I would have expected,’ she said hastily, moving from atop an obsidian sphere polished to a soft sheen. ‘And my commander would be wise to refuse the request altogether.’ She paused. ‘But you would have the benefit of the doubt in either case.’ The allusion to limited justice dampened the night air to the point that she could feel a noticeable change in the room’s temperature, causing her to shift expectantly.

‘I have hope,’ he said. ‘Just like before.’

Tofu Liver

‘Like so many times before,’ he mused, glaring incessantly at the frayed matrix, ‘there is never a dull moment.’ The clock on the counter, with its arms of burnished gold and yellow backplate, ticked in coordination with the beat of her index finger against the decaying windowsill, next to the wireframe ferns nestled in the far corner of the hotel room.


‘That makes complete sense, but..’ she said, her words muffled by the tinted glass less than two feet in front of her face,  ‘i’m still not buying it.’ The pits on the map, brimming with blistering agents tinged iridescent green and platforms suited for large-scale incineration, hummed and beeped with their usual modes of operation. One would often see skeleton gears plated with sheets of perforated steel in the terminal, but her form was far too distracting.


His thoughts lingered.


‘Whatever it is that keeps destabilizing the wave-resonance... It is likely to drain the life out of this place,’ he said.


‘Probably,’ she replied.


And when she brought her hand up to her face, her fingers acted as directions of thought balanced tediously close to the edge. ‘I wonder how much it could take?’


Her question was met with open air, but the cacophony of commerce floors below vibrated anonymously through the small room.


‘It would take a long time to tell,’ he said, ‘but that’s why I brought these.’ Before he could reach his hand into the front pocket of his jacket, the influx of wind through the window caught his attention. ‘They’re here, you know,’ she said.


‘So why even bother?’ he asked.


‘For fun, I guess,’ she replied. Her words seemed to inspire the proper motive. The view of the sector below was far more visible at night than any other time of day. It was the fusion lamps, they said, retrofitted from repurposed ride-on lawn-mowers and possessed cathode-ray televisions, technologies long outdated, drifting on the fringes of obsolescence.

Magnetrons

‘The sleep will be there’ she stated curtly. Such was to be expected.

‘But the rooms, the open concept, and the sacred awning?’ he asked, not bothering to examine the tubes. And there, within the tubes themselves, there were waveguides. Everyone wanted and liked waveguides, except that one tenant down the hall.

‘Microwaves,’ he had once said, his expression relaying adamant concern, ‘are all over the place.’

‘And what of it?’ she asked. Her tone sunk and sprang into echoing waves, like so many times before. ‘It’s the unlock. Clearly you’re foreign.’ The lights struck at angles reflected by box-glass blending into lava-lamps, drawing upon her countenance a rip current of smoky red neon. ‘It’s open concept, obviously, and no matter how it’s connected, the waves never touch.’

‘Useless…’ he mused, eyes fixated on hers. The hallway dissolved, exposing bar codes and rescinded fragments of unsent waveguides. ‘Unless…?’ his query lingered, grew at once with spikes before atoning any mere sense of emotion. ‘The signal.’

‘Signals or channels? Make up your mind. Don’t have time for this,’ came her response, dull in comparison to what was seen in the faceless buildings, whose grim exteriors shed reticence in the presence of sunlight, anonymous rooms; piles of secondary paperwork and networking devices, all the implements of productivity at the disposal of the exigent. ‘It doesn’t matter, just take this,’ she said. She handed him a device, a tracker of some kind, or a weapon. It pulsed once, displayed chronographic readings, and seemed fit enough to be in the possession of a cartographer.

‘But what does it do?’ he asked. ‘I’ve never seen one like it.’

‘The maps are encrypted, second phase lithographic,’ she said. ‘You can solve it if you’d like, been trying for weeks. Some parts look like tails of propellant exhaust, others like heartbeats.’

4h6464564w5ywetghrdfgbdfb

Today at work, I visited a place called the Headend. I work for one of Canadia's most well known telecommunications companies, and the Headend is where all the magical shit happens. There are lots of cables and servers. Cables, everywhere, green ones, black ones, and twisted, infinite fiber optic ones that plugged into everything at once, and didn't make 1 per sense (%). There was a server-box with like 6.02x10^23 fiber-optics bristling out of it like a multiplexed Christmas tree, and I read about multiplexing today on Wikipedia, because we were in our last day of training and I wanted to remain as productive as possible by surfing random wikipedia articles on a closely monitored network. But digital signal processing multiplex is like multiple channel frequencies within carrier waves (sine waves?) transmitting physical information via electromagnetic spectrum, of which only a small segment comes through as visible light, and the rest is radio, tv, wifi, microwaves (not recommended for bacon), gamma rays, and I was reading something about plasma torches.
If we were able to develop a power supply capable of housing ridiculous amounts of energy, and we had retractable, perforated rods capable of supporting a super-heated concoction of ionized gas plasma, you've got yourself a fucking lightsaber. Because if lightsabers were made of light, the guy could come at you with a shield of mirrors, and you'd be fucked.
and .... QAM - quadrature amplitude management... there was a server box with this written on it, and it's about modulations for multiplexing frequencies. Because these frequencies frequent those frequencies with a high level of frequence, and the multi-frequence face fucks bandwidth across multiple bands.

STORY TIME 3

Snapshots of a League match. AND SEGMENTS.

And stuff.

You all suck.

‘Try dodging one more time, and see if you're so lucky again!’ cried Lux, her voice rapt with frustration. She was preparing in her silk-gloved hands another concentrated blast of light. Her mind became focused like a crystalline prism, dividing perfect streams of photons into a glowing latticework of florescent death.  'Let's see if you're ready for this...' she said, her eyes wincing as the infusion of magic bundled into fragments hotter than plasma.

Katarina ducked for cover as high-speed projectiles screamed overhead. It was difficult for her to get a grasp of the situation, but she knew that her assailant was hiding for cover within a patch of long grass no further than twelve feet in front of her. From within this place, Luxanna continued to unleash prismatic beams of focused energy that seared the tops of plants, leaving behind a blackened trail of charcoal bits. 

The brightness flew forward over the water in silence. Katarina was at first blinded by the encroaching wave of brilliant heat. From her position, she listened as the system of concentrated energy dissolved into crackling beams of haywire magnetics, decimating patches of nearby earth as it destabilized. 

With split-second timing, she dove into a forward front flip before executing a swift side-step maneuver that brought her within inches of Lux’s face. The mage was shocked, and did not react in time. With a smile, Katarina brought her daggers to bear on the exposed flesh of Lux's throat, thrusting downward with a striking force indicative of her title of The Sinister Blade. 

With little time to react, Lux flinched, and tried to side-step to avoid the vicious attack, but was too late. The blade were plunged deep, and she had no magic to summon to her defense. Katarina sighed as she ripped free the blood soaked weapons, leaving Lux to topple forward into a pool of her own blood. Lux tried to speak, but only incoherent gasps escaped her mouth.

'Such easy pray,' she said, 'your blood has slaked my blades far too often. Let's finish this.’ With a wicked grin, no, a bloodthirsty smile, Katarina pulled back her right arm as far as it would go, her blade glinting brilliantly in the water-reflected sunlight, before dealing the final killing blow.

---

Summoner Vandrik did not try and hide the fact that he was quite perplexed. His summoning abilities were unquestionable, and no one doubted the fact that he was capable of unleashing havoc against the enemy team. To his credit, the mage's prolific records of success on the Fields of Justice were no less an accomplishment than the many years he had dedicated to the exultation of the Institute of War. And today's match was just as important.

The final call for the summoners to take their places was made. Vandrik rose from his chair within the ornately furnished waiting room. Prior to the final call, he had been sharing stories with a barely-visible group of mages representing a well-known school of elemental air magic that Janna had founded many years ago.

'And with these few simple principles,' one of the mages had said, 'we can appear invisible, as though we never existed!' Then, before Vandrik's eyes, the mages had vanished completely. The Institute was renowned for catering to peculiarities of spellcraft that were virtually known to the rest of Valoran, so the novice trick provided little amusement to him. But still, he was quite perplexed nonetheless.

The summoning circle upon which Vandrik and the other summoners stood was inscribed with words of protection and power glowing green and purple. The runes served a dual purpose; to both stabilize and strengthen the bond between Summoner and Champion. The Summoners stood evenly around the stone circle as the ritual took place. Elder Summoner Belsted initiated the ritual by calling forth an arcane torrent of magical energy accessible only to the most advanced Summoners. From this torrent he withdrew the raw magical energy needed to locate and open the necessary dimensional pathways. His fingertips sparked blue from the subtle manipulations that only an artificer or master summoner could make, and when he uttered the invocations of channelling, the other summoners became attuned to the flow that would soon link them to their respective champions. The natural world slipped away.

Within moments, Vandrik became absorbed by the invisible forces of binding flaring blue within the space of his mind, a willing procedure allowing the outer extensions of his consciousnesses to be projected into the essence of another. At the moment of binding, the surrounding environment blurred away with blinding motion, replaced by a vibrating warp tunnel of deviously curved ovals and rippling purple sheets of inter-spatial fabric. Novice summoners were delegated the task of enhancing these tunnels by empowering them with protective barriers, rune-shields, glowing fluorescent orange across an endless sea of magical energy. This was a place where time could move in either direction, depending on the tidal currents of the maelstrom that existed in the center of this extra-dimensional plane of magic, a curious place devoid of organic forms. At the final moment of connection, Vandrik happened upon the willing consciousness of Katarina, his thoughts melding with hers, in concert with her will, all actions inextricably linked to an instantaneous data-stream of malleable sentience. While in this state, the Summoner was unable to cast direct spells on his own accord, and could not speak. His being was all but entwined with Katarina’s, their thoughts a complex exchange of energy impossible to break. For Summoners and Champions alike, this all-too-familiar transaction initiated a dynamic process. Temporary linkages between thought and action were formed. Jaded as those familiar with the ritual may have been, every experience with it varied slightly, and part of it depended on the Champions’ prior affiliation with the Summoner he or she was connecting to. Summoners less acquainted with their target Champions experienced a slightly more turbulent interface affected by minor disturbances in the mental link, but once locked-on, the link could only be severed by a void rupture (willingly applied by the elder summoners at the end of a match), or death.

Katarina stood upon the summoning platform, her fingers flexed through her crimson hair. The wind on Summoner’s Rift picked up and carried with it the forgotten remnants of leaves from dead trees that hid within nearby encasements of artificial containment. She took two steps from the location from which she had entered the field, a place of countless battles and unlimited bloodshed, designed for the purposes of resolving all matters political, and, more recently, for the sake of pure entertainment. To register with priority a sense of progression upon the Fields of Justice, it was expected of a Summoner to be both deft of mind and spirit. The flexibility of one’s will was reliant on excessive mental agility, so nights spent in taverns prior to League matches were highly discouraged. Katarina eyed her Noxian teammates with a committed gaze. Her status within the High Command did not have the same technical jurisdiction here, but she was viewed as a leader all the same. Warwick was the first to meet her gaze, as the other three were still in a state of interfacing with their summoners.
‘Wonderful, miss. Where do you want me?’ said the Bloodhunter.
‘Alright Warwick, here’s what we’re going to do,' she said, breaking her descriptions down into simple explanations for him to more easily comprehend. Katarina withdrew her map. She made bright red markings with a quill upon the page. The plan she set in motion was absorbed by Warwick as he considered the plan of attack. Without time to waste, the Bloodhunter bounded off up the top lane, rushing forward with a ridiculous speed. Underneath his clawed limbs he pounded the earth relentlessly, seeking only to go to the location that Katarina had specified. Her words resonated with him, sat with him in earnest of their underlying importance, as if no other words could even match the same level of potency. She conveyed with her words a sense of unlimited aspiration, a motivational wall of importance that could not be interfered with. It was at times like these that beams of transcendence penetrated the visual sphere of the crystal screen projectors broadcasting in all the homes of Valorian spectators anxiously observing the actions taking place. In every home from the far eastern reaches of Ionia to the heart of Noxus and the hazardous waste dumps of Zaun. From school teachers to shop merchants, members of governance and of military, enthusiasm for Champion versus Champion combat taking place upon the Fields of Justice was tantamount to fanaticism. Most people chose a local Champion to support, but it was not support for foreign champions was not altogether unknown. However, it was known that the support of non-local champions was to be handled with a certain level of discreetness.

Warwick trampled over the piles of makeshift cover before him. Branches snapped underfoot. Rigid plants and bamboo sticks mixed with rocks were pushed away like weightless debris when subjected to the forceful strength of the Noxian werewolf. He neared the top tower and eyed solid concrete structure with contentment.

‘I don’t think this will be a wise spot to commit to an engagement,’ said Lux. In a moment of consideration, her countenance belied concern, as it was more often the case that she conveyed an indefatigable sense of joy regarded as being quite infectious. She eyed the mysterious reflections of bright sunlight coming from the forward tower, inching forward, quiet yet precise, the white fabric of her demur Demacian outfit comfortably ruffling from jungle gusts. Luminosity accompanied her articulate hand gesture, directed ahead swallowed by darkness. Trees parted, and bundles of mist wheezed from the foliage. Within the densest parts of dark, there could be seen the shimmering outline of a bipedal figure. Lux was taken aback by the sight. It might have been a stealthed Champion, and she was unsure of this. The form moved, light bending properties coiling the plants and root systems deflected modestly, but it was noticeable nonetheless. She knew someone was there. 

---

Talon’s stealth could have been more effective. Lux stood frozen before his concealed position, the gold outline of her modern Demacian attire glimmering with the same sheen as her fawn tresses. She seemed to take notice of his movements, but he was not quite sure. The Lady of Luminosity was known to be deceiving in her ways, and Talon knew that if he made a false move, she would be onto him. He stepped cautiously through a tangled mess of ferns and held his blade poised to strike. Lux was walking forward now, her head tilted. In her left hand a crystalline baton crackled with pent up magical energy. It rattled in her hand from the tension within, and it took no small amount of energy to keep it under containment. Lux eyed her potential victim with glee. ‘Not so fast, Noxian!’ she cried aloud. Talon felt familiar rush of fight-or-flight, sensory perceptions dominated by the apogee of an adrenaline rush.
 Lux darted ahead and took aim at the assassin with her baton, and conjured a prismatic shield for herself. From deep in the woodlands he saw her, and he didn’t even care that she had taken notice of him. The ripples on the water became bridges with the light emanating from her baton, and it was difficult to ignore. Talon looked up with a smirk, seeing that he could get an upper hand in the situation, he leapt forward with a dash that passed by so swiftly as to kick particles of dirt up around it. The mage crossed his path and, with a smile, unleashed a blast that caused the water in the surrounding lake to evaporate with a sizzle.
‘You’re mine!’ Talon said. He slashed forward with his right arm, attempting to slash with precision, but Lux was deft to avoid the attack, causing to Talon to fall forward and cut nothing but air. When he sprang forward once more, she was unable to dodge, and took a deep gash on her side. Talon retracted the weapon, looking, satisfied. The Demacian champion was wounded, but far from giving up. She fired back at him a prismatic burst that rocked the foundations of his footing. He slumped back to the ground, falling face first into a pool of running water filling his mouth as he delved into the muck. She grinned, and summoned from her fingertips a crackling vortex of concentrated photonic energy. With a blinding flash, a column of pure white drew forward like a train. The air surrounding the beam broke apart into blurry waves that screamed under the intense heat. Talon was stricken in his side, and the force of the attack knocked him the ground. He looked up at Lux, face winced in pain, and with but a moment before the darkness overtook him, noticed her smile. There were times when, without warning, a Champion would remain dead on the field for a duration of time before being re-summoned, or returned to their Summoner in a physical form for the process to begin all over again. It was not possible for the summoning to take place in a short amount of time, which is why Champion deaths were so taxing.
Lux took a bow as the Demacian supports erupted with praise. From all across Demacia, those in support of the events felt the sweep of jubilation. Children, parents, and citizens alike reacted to the events in either a form of dismay or excitements.
The scenery washed away in a haze of light. Talon fell to the ground, defeated, and his body returned to the Summoner’s platform in a cloud of electrified mist. As he lay there, the ritual to re-summon him was already taking place, as the magisters fought to re-establish a stable portal though which Talon would resume fighting. Summoner Rek met eyes with Talon in such a way as to convey a sense of disturbance, as though one had let down the other, and it was not a glance that any Champion liked to receive. In an instant Rek stepped forward and prepared once more the arcane ritual. Talon got to his feet, the residual pain from Lux’s overpowering attack still spiking through his system. He took deep breaths to shake of the weariness that accompanied League death, a residual pain that experienced Champions were all too familiar with. Between Summoner and champion there were few words exchanged. Each one knew what the other was capable of, and it was a bond strengthened only by familiarity. Novice as she was, Summoner Rek knew Talon’s mind well enough to execute fairly diverse actions without a conflict of interest. This was in spite of the fact that Talon was not known to be among the most receptive of Champions. It took a special mind to acclimate to a Champion, to device the inner workings of the thought process transmitted through invisible fields of inter-dimensional magic.

------

After a bite to eat and minimal conversation Talon and Katarina were crossing through the prestigious doorway to the Noxian High Command. It was a decedent and ancient building that in some ways resembled an obelisk. The black sheen of its exterior made it appear foreboding at any time of the day, and for the average citizen this was rightly so, as the building itself was shrouded in secrecy and was the source of many rumors. Only highly trained officials and diplomats were allowed to enter, and the secrets within were to be protected at all times by stealthed guards and sentry wards placed all around the perimeter, undetectable by conventional means. Talon had seldom entered here, as he was not yet an official member of the Crimson Elite. His presence was welcome only because of Katarina’s authorization, so he had to remain by her side at all times. Never before had he crossed through the obsidian doors of the High Command without out her, for to do so would be an act of treason.

The pair of assassins walked formally across the polished granite floor. Pillars of ivory decked the lobby. Paintings of Noxian heroism and intrigue lined the walls surrounding the lobby, adding a classic touch to the place. Braziers of plated gold were held aloft by chains near the ceiling, ventilation provided by air-ducts carved into horizontally barred skylights sequestered within double decker roofing. Katarina’s combat boots tapped loudly against the solid floor, and she was heading right to the front desk, staffed by a sullen, balding man who looked to be in his 40s. ‘I have the meeting room booked for the two of us,’ she said expectantly. The man nodded his shiny head and rose from his pleated leather chair with a creak. Talon examined the elaborate Kumungan jungle carvings hanging on the black slate wall behind the desk, shapes and forms stylized for abstraction. Talon glanced ahead at the reflective surfaces on the walls that lead to the main floor. After a quick written exchange, the guard gave Katarina a special bracelet, a simple security measure, and nodded his head. The briefing room was elegant and simplistic; gray carpet, black walls, and a large viewing window overlooking Noxus, where one could observe the day to day activities of the merchant district. Small vases filled with simple green vines were placed in clusters on the boardroom tables. Katarina was holding a large orange dossier filled with paperwork. She pointed to a seat and looked at Talon. ‘I’ll do the talking,’ she said. Her voice echoed off the high ceiling. The space was dark, drafty, and lacked the colourful Noxian art and vibrancy of the lobby. There were seats for at least 40 people here, so there was plenty of room to sink into, observe, and contemplate the silence. It was a comforting place to be for an assassin, thought Talon.

Katarina stood by the window as she prepared to deliver the mission. She turned back around and tossed the documents on the table, crossed her arms, and began to pace. Her perplexed look indicated intense concentration, but Talon knew that she would have been well prepared for this in advance, so there was something else on her mind, something tugging at her that she was not at liberty to discuss.

‘Alright,’ she said, ‘here’s the situation.’ She asserted her words with confidence, and Talon listened intently. ‘As you may know, there’s been suspicious activity in the graveyards. Stolen bodies. Graverobbers. That kind of thing,’ she said. ‘We’ve been made aware of these incidents from General Swain, and he’s not happy with it. We’ve got to find out what’s going on out there, because people are starting to talk. When people talk, they gossip, and that hurts us, Talon, as you may know.’ Talon nodded, sat back in his chair, and thought of what he’d heard in the past week to connect to this. Nothing about graveyards or suspicious activity. ‘We’re dealing with a necromancer, a dangerous one. Used to be a summoner in the League, now he’s gone mad. We need to put a stop to it.’ Talon stared blankly at her, as if she’d just slapped him. Necromancy? It was a myth as far as he was concerned. Nobody practiced that ancient art. Too risky. Too many failsafes preventing the success of the spells. It was one thing to suggest the use of black magic or other sinister arcane arts, but necromancy was a whole different kind of animal. It had been outlawed decades ago by the Institute of War, at least outside the Fields of Justice. Practiced necromancers were to unlearn their powers, revoke their oaths, and break all necromantic incantations under their spellbinding. ‘These are the affected locations,’ Katarina said. She unravelled a freshly pressed map of Noxus, and on it where several red markers. The first thing Talon noticed was that nearly all the markers centered over Noxian graveyards, crypts and other places where the dead resided. ‘We have reports of undead walking, the real deal, and people are dying,’ she said. Her words were mute, free of worry or concern. Talon had come to respect her ability to supress her weaker emotions.

‘So, one man is responsible for this?’ said Talon.

‘So-far that’s what we’ve been told,’ Katarina said. She scanned through the mission briefing papers for additional information, whatever was most relevant. There were several eye-witness accounts, vague reports of incidents of livestock being attacked, stolen, children going missing, yellow eyes glowing in the darkness, slow moving forms that groaned and howled. These incidents took place at the outer fringes of the city, near the forests, dividing lines between rural and urban. There were no day-time accounts. The connection was drawn by the nature of the assailants. The matching descriptions made it quite obvious that these were undead minions of some sort, arising from places unseen, seeming to shamble forward from the mists and then leave without a trace. The relative information suggested that a rogue Summoner, recent escapee from prison, was responsible for conjuring these beings into existence, though there was not a lot of detail here. The lack of information was unnerving to say the least, especially for as precise a detachment as the Crimson elite. They dealt with black and white, dead or alive situations when given a duty, a time, and an extraction point. Their business dealt with the art of killing for purpose, whether it be the protection of high profile individuals or the general safeguarding of Noxian citizenry. They were an advanced police-force given the jurisdiction to act independent of Noxian law, so long as the mission was completed. This fact made them both feared and revered, and it had also cut crime down to a level that rivalled Piltover.

‘So where do we come in?’ Talon said. Katarina balanced on the balls of her feet as she flipped through the pile of official paperwork. The candles in the room flickered steady in the draft that came from the open slits by the window. She walked over to them and cranked a latch that closed the openings in one swing.
'We provide the killing power, as usual,' she said, her pose conveying a sense of indifference that only a trained killer could exhibit.

STORY TIME 2, then I took a tow-cable to the knee

And Talon was uncomfortable here. He took several steps from the pathway, next to the corpses of the slain necromancers, their flesh freshly boiled off by Morgana’s spell of dark binding. It was overtly evident that they were disfigured beyond recognition. Without hesitation, the Noxian dug his hand into the overgrown pockets of the dead, and retrieved from them sacks of gold and other miscellaneous items of import- enhancement potions, scrolls inscribed with runes of unprecedented power, and even a polished apple or two. ‘Well, you won’t be needing these anymore,’ he said, fighting to contain a sinister laugh beneath his frost-bitten breath. He flipped over one of the dead bodies into a still-active pool of Morgana’s wicked spellcraft. The viscous purple goop boiled and splashed with a sizzle as the body fell within it, and no sooner had he done this than the body began to rapidly disintegrate, bits of flesh peeling away as an onion might.

‘And... should I choose not to yield?’ asked Morgana. Looking quite unimpressed, Katarina arched her eyebrows in puzzlement. The scene shifted by in the space of the mind like high wire acrobatics. High risk situations akin to nascent auras -some concern or doubt, she cycled  through various disaster scenarios, risk management like electromagnetic waves precariously spaced amid a sea of chemical discord. Angles of disillusion ricocheted off unseen window-frames, swallowed at once by darkness, only to be spat back from the void of visions, a place basking ominously beneath the neon forest. 

‘Organic species should not be allowed to do such deplorable things to each other,’ said Katarina, eyeing Morgana with a portentous gaze. The Fallen Angel appeared to disregard the comment altogether. Condemning enemies to an eternity of suffering was intrinsic to her nature, a notion often belied by the innocence of her joyful smile.

‘Take heed of your own words, Katarina, as your actions have resulted in travesties far more damning than this,’ said Morgana, a mild haze of dusk-ridden sunlight sweeping through her translucent wings. The pathway before the party cleared, and it became evident that the attackers had retreated. The outlines of specters and other curious observers could be seen in the surrounding forest, but they were not malignant. These beings belonged to a well-known order of Ironspine protectors entrusted to prevent outsiders from locating secret techmaturgical excavation sites. Talon took note of a frost-blue guardian comprised of ancient, gnarled tree trunks. The construct, called into existence by artisan Summoners, ploughed across the snow-laden landscape. If in full stride, the rumble of the construct’s footfalls could be felt for many miles around.

‘We need to hurry,’ Talon said. ‘The snowfall’s only going to get worse from no until night, and there’s not much time. Askand is the closest town, so I suggest we take cover there for the night, at least until the storm passes.’ The others nodded, not willing to take the matter to debate. Like a hunter tracking prey, Talon stuck his hand over his eyes gazing ahead through the shrouded mists, and began to trudge forward. All around the snowfall worsened. Thick clumps of ice pelted the ground with a force that threatened to cause injuries. It wasn’t a comfortable situation for the Champions, as they were far more comfortable in the dead winds and mild weather of Noxus, but it was at times like these that they realized the diversities of the land, and revelled in them. Katarina wished she’d dressed more suited to the occasion, as her often revealing outfits were no match for the frigid Ironspine weather. Talon was the only one wearing the appropriate apparel. His black and gold Noxian helmet shone with the reflected brightness of the obscured sun dipping rapidly below the horizon. Morgana was treading carefully on the white-capped patches of earth, and was careful not to slip.

‘How much longer must this torture continue?’ Morgana asked. With her arms held crossed up to her chest, she was practically shivering. Talon took pity on her, and offered her his cloak. She refused. ‘It’s best you keep that to yourself,’ she explained, ‘as my wings would tear holes through the backside.’ Talon nodded, and clipped the silver clasps of the heavy black cloak back to his uniform. Due to the natural heat of her pure Noxian blood, Katarina was faring far better than the violet-skinned spellcaster, but the need to retreat into shelter was becoming ever more important. Talon retrieved from his pocket a solid gold medallion that he’d looted from one of the mages earlier on the road. It was still glowing faintly with an unknown spellcraft, and he tried for a moment to decipher the runes on its surface. The shapes looked to be like trees mixed with cross symbols and round balls – possibly a sign of the coming eternal winter that was superstitiously feared throughout the city-states. As had been transcribed in Frejordian Lore, the season known as the Eternal Winter would bring forth harrowing destruction on all the northern lands of Valoran by first depriving them of sunlight, and then devouring them under miles of frigid ice.

The path became obscured by minions once more. Their wiry bodies were covered in a black, shifting substance that was in places was chipped and fragmented, coils of smoke were emitted like purple exhaust. The creatures howled with a scream that pierced the air. Talon held his arm above his forehead to dodge the assailing snow, but he soon realized that combat was about to begin. He dawned a pair of Stilettoes that were not dissimilar to the ones that the ever-jubilant Shaco was known to wield, and he crouched low, poised to strike the first of the minions once within stabbing distance. With a feral lunge, the lead minion tried to tackle Talon to the ground. Not even the full force of its forward assault could cause Talon to lose his composure, and the expert assassin soon found and exploited a weakness in the minion’s form. With a swift jab from both Stilettoes, Talon impaled the creature, and the weight of the thing was substantial enough to push him back a few steps. The darkness of its blood was disconcerting. No light would bother to reflect off of it, and it now covered Talon’s leather gauntlets. He tried to clean his blades of the residual filth, but the dark blood refused to be removed. Talon began to panic as tendrils of blackness traversed the length of his blades, and began to extend up his forearms. The beast itself was lying dead in a snow-bank, where a growing darkness could be seen beneath the corpse. Talon looked for the other two, and started to feel a pinch of panic.

Morgana kept several enemies at bay with a protective barrier summon from the void, producing a honeycomb patterned energy shield that deflected all incoming melee attacks, and it even provided a measurable enchantment of magic resistance.

‘Back, foul things!’ she commanded. The Fallen angel flung out gouts of blazing purple spell craft that fired in an outward plume as bright and energetic as a lightning cloud. Her long fabric skirt skidded across the ground, taking with it small mounds of snow that became built up into sizeable rolls. After a moment’s notice, the bolt soared across the glistening snow, purple reflections gleaming bright, and it struck the two minions with a resonating crack. Their bodies became consumed by violet flames, causing the outer layers of their skin to burn clean off. Their horrible screams were accompanied by the grotesque popping sound of sizzling flesh, and their eyes went from vibrant orange spheres to an empty black. She calculated the scenery and tried to observe for more movement. Spells cast in such quick succession caused her tendons to fill with tension, and her arms ached from the strain. When no other enemies could be seen, she dunked her forearms into a snow bank, where the cold frost brought instant relief. Talon approached her from up over the snow bank, wearing a grim expression on his visage.

‘Talon, are you injured?’ she asked, looking concerned. Talon was transfixed by the black mess growing on his arms, and he stared at it with worry.

‘I… I don’t know what they’ve done,’ he said. His words were shaky, expressionless, as if he had been possessed by entities unseen.

‘Stay still now,’ said Morgana, ‘this is an example of conjuration magic at work. I shall attempt to stymie the advance of it with my Aura of Perseverance. Stand there.’ She pointed to an area of space directly in front of her, and conjured once more the honeycomb shield. Talon felt a strange warmth fall over him, and he felt helpless for just a moment. The Aura was fast acting, and it cleansed him of the ailment in no time at all. The Aura then dissipated, and the blackness from his gauntlets fell languidly to the ground. Talon smiled, and Morgana gave a small bow.

‘Thank you, Fallen Angel,’ he said, the words escaping his lips carefully as the effects of the aura receded, leaving him with a residual feeling of contentment. Morgana smiled and placed her hands back into the snow. She wished that Summoner’s Rift offered such a relaxing convenience as this.

‘What does the snow do?’ asked Talon. She laughed at his curiosity, regarding the question with coy indignation. The Champions trudged through the deepening snow looking for Katarina. She was nowhere seen nor heard, and the minions had all but retreated. Talon wondered where the guard had gone. It seemed plausible that a larger scale attack was taking place elsewhere. Morgana stayed near Talon for warmth, and even conjured her Aura of Perseverance with a slight modification that allowed for better insulation. Snowflakes falling near the bubble were evaporated. The snow at their feet turned to liquid as they walked. Talon could see that she was using a great deal of restraint by utilizing this spell, and she appeared drained, so he withdrew from his pack a large elixir of mana replenishment. She took the mixture, de-corked it, and began to gulp it down, free of proper etiquette. Streams of bright blue fluid infused with a crystalline substance streamed down her cheeks and throat as she drank. She felt invigorated. The renewed strength caused the aura’s power to intensify to the point of indestructibility. Upon noticing the bolstering effect, the remaining minions turned tail to run. Whether or not their intent was to return in greater numbers did not matter. They were approaching Askand, a quaint trading village boasting a full regiment of guardsmen capable of slaughtering whatever force the unseen summoner was capable or rising.

‘We need to find Katarina, she’s got to be nearby,’ he said. ‘Last I saw, she was fighting the scumbags over that ridge where the road forks, perhaps we should check it out.’ Morgana nodded, and the pair of Champions made haste to the fork. As they did so, the sunlight became even scarcer, and the snowfall intensified. They needed to find shelter as soon as possible, and the nearby trading town was the best option.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And there was Katarina, locked in a chamber of tortuous implements, being observed by one of Vandrik’s right hand men, and also medical advisor.

‘Well, hello little Noxian, you’re going to tell me everything I need to know, aren’t you?’ he said with a cruel smile. The disfigured doctor was clad in a floor length lab coat of patchwork stains and various other blemishes upon his person could be observed. The spheres of his yellowing eyes were shielded behind circular fragments of polished silver, and plugs of gray hair escaped his head in a disk formation above his ears and around the back of his head. An old medical stand of stainless Piltover steel was cranked up to the same height as Katarina on the examination table, and the cruel doctor waltzed ever so casually over to it. He grinned widely, and withdrew from the table a bone saw at first, but this seemed not to be the proper weapon to use. ‘No, oh my no, far too messy!’ he exclaimed.

‘You’ll not get a single word of Noxian intelligence from me,’ proclaimed Katarina, remaining as strong as ever under the threat of torture.

‘We’ll, we’ll just have to see about that, won’t we!’ said the Scientist. He didn’t have a name, or at least not to Katarina’s knowledge did he have one. For all she knew, he was simply some medically-crazed citizen obsessed with bone saws and bizarre concoctions of drugs. ‘Let’s see now,’ he said, fingers dancing together with delight, ‘how about this one!’ He eyed a vial of bubbling green liquid, and unscrewed the cap. Katarina did not look impressed, so she spat in the doctor’s face. Without so much as a casual chuckle, he doctor gripped her chin firmly between his thumb and index finger, and proceeded to unscrew the cap of the mixture. Katarina pressed her lips together and tried to spit again, but this time fell short. ‘Nice try, Ms. Noxus!’ said the doctor. The dull, freezing wind from outside was seeping into the shoddy lab slowly, and even the pelting snow was starting to find its way through the rusted iron bars up above. Katarina tried to talk through the tight grip of the doctor, be she found that her words only came out as mumbles of non-sound. Then, without warning, the doctor took the mixture, and shoved it into her mouth. She resisted the atrocious taste, and hated the smell of the stuff. It burned inside her, and her stomach began to erupt violently, sending shockwaves through her whole body – a tingling sensation that ruptured her sense of concentration effortlessly, rendering her senseless, unable to form coherent thought, as if her mind had been pegged by an electrical overload. 

And the mixture coursed through Katarina’s veins more quickly than the doctor anticipated. She cringed, and her eyes grew red, irises dilated, and sweat developed across the arch of her brow. The curious chemical affect reminded her of a time when she had been affected by Kalamanda jungle poison on the Fields of Justice, courtesy of Captain Teemo’s mushroom trap. However, the effect of this poison was far worse, and she literally could tolerate no more. ‘What… do you want… with me,’ she barely managed to say. The sweat was growing thicker upon her tense face, and it began to stream down the sides of her face. The doctor stood several feet away, twiddling his thumbs, clearly enjoying pain she was experienced. For one as sick-minded as the doctor, this was free entertainment.

‘Well now, being more cooperative are we? Good choice, Ms. Noxus, and I’ll have you know that the remedy is right here!’ he said. Then, he pulled from his lab coat a flask of sunlight yellow liquid, marked ‘ANTIDOTE: SERUM K.’

‘Serum… K? Katarina said. The mixture was outlawed throughout Valoran after its affects were recognized in a failed lab experiment near Piltover.

spill caused the nearby citizens to go completely mad, and in fits of hysteria they began to attack on another. Bodies of Piltoverian citizens filled the streets for days to come, and the Institute of War had even been called in to assist with the outbreak.

‘Why yes! How splendid of you to notice. Perhaps your more familiar with the effects than I myself, as you were responsible for requisitioning the use of it against Ionia,’ he said, followed by a wicked grin. Katarina looked shocked. ‘Luckily I managed to keep a batch for myself! And now, a willing test subject. It’s so exciting, it really is!’ The doctor clapped his hands together and approached Katarina with his teeth bared, looking like sinister splinters of tree bark. ‘All you have to tell me,’ he whispered, ‘is where your father is…’ The expression in Katarina’s face turned from shock to pure terror.

‘He… is gone! I don’t… know!’ she said, struggling more and more with each word.

‘But you must know, he’s your father! I smelled a cover-up from the first day he was reported to have ‘disappeared,’ and unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do to convince me otherwise.’ Katarina tightened her lips, and her face was twisted with rage. There were times when she was a lot more inclined to kill another, and this was definitely one of those times. The drugs affecting her system caused her to think of things she might not have thought of otherwise. The doctor was scowling now, and it was true that he wanted to dispatch her quickly rather than drag her along through this ridiculous interrogation, but he knew that she was hiding something. Katarina tried to reply, but her jaw felt wired shut, paralyzed, unable to respond to simple muscle movements. ‘What’s wrong, cat got your tounge?’ the doctor chuckled with glee.

Just then, there was a loud smash coming from the laboratory window. Talon kicked out the sharp jagged bits remaining in the window-frame, and ducked his way inside. His feet hit the ground with a metallic thud, and the crisp sound of breaking glass accompanied his every footfall.

‘What are you doing here?’ implored the doctor.

‘I’m here for the girl, let her go you brainless sack!’ said Talon. The doctor scurried around behind his workbench, looking for something to subdue the assassin, but could find only miscellaneous medical implements and empty flasks. Talon most certainly had the upper hand in the confrontation, as the Doctor was a shrewed man with few fighting capabilities. His mind was structured around the business of laboratory work and medical experimentation, and had little much else in mind. Talon dispatched with man with a swift slice to the throat, and he didn’t even put up a fight. His body fell limp to the ground, pools of blood cascading out of the open wound like a miniature waterfall. The blood was not of human origin, as it was neon green and seemed to possess a much higher viscosity than human blood, which led Talon to believe that he was a failed medical experiment from one of Zaun’s underground laboratories. It didn’t matter, and he disregarded the thought altogether. He looked over to see Katarina struggling against the debilitating toxin on the workbench several feet away, and he ran over to her. She was perspiring continuously, and her pupils were heavily dilated. She looked at the assassin with an expression of pure concern, as it to convey a sense of hopelessness. Talon rushed to find a damp towel to rest on her forehead but could only find sharp things and other useless objects. It pained him to see her in this position and he wanted to find the quickest way possible to get her out of it. He searched and searched. He tried talking to Katarina but she seemed unresponsive. Her eyes were starting to roll back in her head, and she made a choking sound. Talon panicked, his palms went clammy, and the adrenaline began to flow within him. Something was seriously wrong. He stared helplessly at Katarina, and saw one clear sign that she was trying to point somewhere in the corner of the room. Talon looked over and saw a large vial with the antidote, and strode over to grab it. He popped the cork as he walked back to Katarina, and was careful not to spill any drops on the ground. He held the large flask up to her lips, and made her drink it. She gulped it down like a parched racehorse. It spilled over her cheeks, down her chin, and gathered in a little orange pool at the base of her neck. Her eyes returned to their original locations and her face took on a normal expression. Her body ceased from quivering. She could speak again. She could feel warmth, and breath. She looked at the assassin as if he were a guardian saint.

'What... did he want?' she said, the words barely escaping her cracked lips.

‘I haven’t the faintest idea, lady Katarina,’ he replied, trying his best not to lose his sense of militaristic dignity that accompanied his moral obligations to the Noxian high command. He relied on his sharpened daggers to the same extent that he depended on trusted companions, including Riven Desterrada. The wayward champion had placed herself into a self-imposed exile after the tragedies that had befallen Ionia all those years ago, where the skies were blotted out by countless waves of chemical death capable of eradicating entire populations-a scientific breakthrough made possible by Singed, the Mad Chemist, working in the bowels of an abandoned experimental laboratory in the forbidden, Shimmer-ridden slums of Zaun. The blueprints for the chemicals were kept under safe watch, and were expected to remain hidden, never to be used again, but it was not that simple. 

The travesties unleashed at the behest of the Noxian High Command were something that Riven could never forgive herself for. She watched as families and citizens alike became consumed by the green fluorescent clouds of choking gas, watched as their skin bubbled clean off. The screams that haunted her dreams were of children, old people, the weak and the infirm, and the night that it happened swirled together like the black maelstrom with the same depth as an industrial complex located in Zaun, the hextech building glimmering with ancient techmaturgy. The shimmer addicts would tell you that there was no problem, and that the streets would burn with volatile substances regardless of acid content, not even wanting to show you the true meaning of hell, but that wasn’t the case.

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The sunrise was red, darkened bands of orange rippling through the Valoran stratosphere, and Talon was there, taking in the view from the upper balcony of the Sinful Succulence. The sun was shining over the horizon lazily, casting full-bodied shadows down upon the hazy streets. The weary assassin regarded the sight with a comfortable nostalgia, looking ahead with eyes filled with the reflections of stern, black Noxian buildings twisting ominously skyward. Aside from the occasional straggler heading home from a long day of work, the streets were barren, empty, completely devoid of sentient activity. The pubs were expected to be packed on this day, as the League day events were to be celebrated to the full extent, but Talon decided to withdraw for the evening and not allow himself to get caught up in the drunken chaos that was likely to ensure. For now, he preferred to sit comfortably on the squeaky wicker chair, sipping a large gray cup of steeped tea that Morgana had just brewed. ‘TEA TIME,’ she yelled aloud, and Katarina came running downstairs, her red bushel of hair frolicking sillily abound, in a matter of care not and she stepped footfalls forward ahead to meet the Fallen Angel, who was standing most precariously on a floorboard grid beneath her heeled feet, black heels laced calf-length sheen beneath candlelight. And the scent of Chai Spiced tea tinged the air, comfortable aromatics drifting listlessly. Luxanna was impressed by the quality of the goods, and she regarded Morgana with a casual wink, the faint curl of her lips into a friendly smile, and the firelight echoed in her beautiful blue eyes like tiny oceans reflecting sullen beams of flickering sunlight.

‘It’s nice to see you here, Luxanna, and I am pleased that you find my goods to be of an above average quality,’ Morgana said as she prepared another baking sheet for the freshly lit oven, where Srillex stood and held carefully a long wooden match. The cautious servant shook the burning tinder free of flame to create tendrils of deadsmoke, whereupon he eyed the uprising of the furnace with an undying curiosity. Since birth, Srillex was drawn to the majestic chaos of an open fire. There was something about the outbursts of raw energy, a process that could be harnessed through magic, occurring within a natural system. He imagined the chemical bonds breaking beneath the assault of energized ions, something that few humans were even aware of, but he needn’t burden them with his randomness. The humans cared not for that which they could not manipulate. The deviousness of his facial expression belied his systematic brashness, but the situation was still considered socially acceptable. Little did Talon know, there wasn’t a single thought in Morgana’s mind that even related to the infernalness of the thought. And so what if it happened? There were other options unbounded, and an entire world out there to touch. Nobody had to warn the situation and monopolised the confusion of the situation. Nidalee wasn’t there yet, but she was sure to be there soon. The Jungle Huntress proved her companionship worthy with Lux on that night in Summoner’s Rift, and it had made the difference between winning and defeat. Little did she know, Luxanna expressed a casual disdain in her absence, and she wanted to converse with the Jungle Huntress again, to share stories about their adventures in the League, during a time at which things had been exultant – free of design or doubt – worry and concern ironed away with the fleck of an iron-barred hot-knife, and little could be done to prevent his agitation, aggression, and she wanted to give everything to him, a curious thought, but one that he wouldn’t simply ignore. It was a situation worth investing a little faith in, keeping it held cautiously in his mind, bringing forth a relaxing scenario that promised perpetual bliss and a pretty cool life, or at least the possibility of obtaining such, and that was the humility of it all, the fact that this transcription was necessary to allow for the mental fixtures to accrue themselves inasmuch everything shone under the guise of clarity, and there was no point in attempting to deny that fact.

‘Thank you ever so much, Fallen Angel, you’re reputation for producing the most exceptional baked goods in Valoran is well deserved,’ Luxanna said, crossing her legs as she spoke. Her silk blue skirt was slightly ruffled from the feather-strength wisp-wind drifting in from the window slightly opened. It was an exciting time for her, at the peak of her career she beamed brightly with confident allure, and this was difficult to miss. With her cup a shade of beige darker than the blonde of her shoulder-length hair, and she twirled it playfully in her free hand.

‘You’re very welcome, Miss Lux, and congratulations on your recent League victory. I watched the events via crystal-vision, and was most impressed by your exceptional performance,’ Morgana said while bending over to replenish the Explosive Berry Cupcake Tray. A rose-red tinge lit up across the high parts of her freckled cheeks. With a flutter of her voice she supressed a laugh under her breath, and her eyes wrinkled into upsideown crescent moons before the momentary phase of shyness passed.

‘Your words fill me with happiness!’ she exclaimed. She cleaned away a stray smudge of heated berry puree from the corner of her mouth with a freshly pressed white napkin, and placed it back upon her lap. Morgana nodded her head and smiled brightly before returning back to the large oven, where the new batch of muffins was simmering carefully.

-----------------------

1 week later
The last thing on Talon’s mind was how to make her feel at ease. She was not as standoffish as the other champions, but likewise, she preferred to not divulge matters of a personal nature, or any other affairs deemed capable of interfering with daily life. The institute was caught up in a strong wind that day, a wind that would assuredly gain Janna’s envy. League summons were several hours from occurring, and already the champions were becoming mentally prepared, honing their skills and weapons in the courtyard and within the multi-chambered institute. The Yordle champions were given special quarters within the institute to better suit their size deficiency, though more often than not they were quite content simply roaming around the grounds, chatting up summoners and other champions. The social dynamics between League Champions and summoners were exceedingly difficult to interpret for the average person, and there were times when one appeared to be at the other’s throat. Unsuccessful summoners more quickly accrued the ire of Champions than successful ones, but there were also Champions who took the time to assist younger summoners, and even preferred them. Leona herself is noted to prefer novice summoners, and she’s been well regarded as an expert at helping Summoners become familiar with their craft. It was not a feat that everyone was capable of. It took one with a special mind attuned to the intricacies of Summoner magic, and although most Champions were no experts on the matter, Leona was an exception, providing illumination to those relegated to the imperceptibility and awkwardness experienced in those first shaky years as a Summoner. The learning curve to accrue Summoner mastery was insurmountable, and only the best of the best managed to survive the ordeal of training and apprenticeship. Most new summoners were deemed ill-equipped to handle the arcane rituals and synergistic magic that were to be dealt with on a daily basis.

Leona, the Radiant Dawn, representing the splendour of Runeterran sunlight, walked demurely down the ivory steps. Talon was waiting for her, and he appeared willing to engage in conversation. Obsidian flame towers could be seen in the distance, a dull blue flame circulating around their top-mounted braziers. It was a cool night, and clouds danced on ground level like mists from mountain tops. The blue flame filled the wisp-like fog with enough illumination to observe beyond it the shapeless forms from the surrounding forest, a curious translucence windowed by darkness. Where Leona walked, there was brought with her a lighted aura originating from the sun-touched brilliance of Mount Targon’s light.

‘You’re looking well,’ said Talon, greeting her warmly with his shaded eyes.

‘The dawn thanks you for your compliment, assassin,’ she replied, a calm smile beginning to stretch into the corners of her rosy cheeks. Her presence put him at ease in a way that was beyond explanation. It was as if her lighted countenance split the depths of his pain-wracked subconscious, somehow filling it with sublime radiance, bringing from behind his mind and beneath his soul a wellspring of comfort. He thought back to the terrible time he had spent in The Box, a place of solitary confinement granted in exchange for his prolific delinquency as a youth. But none of that mattered now. He had a life, an opportunity given to him by the powers of the Noxian High Command, General Couteau in specific. The man had recognized his penchant for subterfuge and armed combat, two requisite skills for service in the Crimson Elite. General Du Couteau’s recognition of Talon’s abilities was even enough to earn Katarina’s patronage, and she was not one easily impressed.

‘Good to see you, are you ready for today’s match?’ she asked cheerfully.

‘I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,’ he said, looking casually around the grounds. The Radiant one was mindful of his assuredness, and this made her smile, but she knew that there was something he was hiding from her.

‘The rogue Summoner…’ she paused, ‘the Necromancer, did you find him, did the Crimson elite find him?’ there was a brilliant flash of light from the pillars of flame nearby, the blue scorching the sky, smoke clouds venting outward in semi-circular patterns, a curious geometry that caught his attention for a moment before returning to meet her concerned expression.

‘We have no leads,’ he admitted, looking harshly down at his open palms. ‘The event in the Northwatch tower was just a taste, just a segment of what he is capable of, and we didn’t even catch him. He got away, and now we’re at a complete loss as to how to relocate the bastard.’ Talon clenched his fist and kicked the ground, sending a small clump of dirt flying outward. Leona shared his dejection as she glanced downward at the sodden earth, her smile slightly faded, but still she tried to comfort him.

‘You’re going to find him, I believe in you,’ she said with fire in her eyes. ‘It’s just a matter of time, and then we can stop worrying. All this worrying going on around here, it’s not healthy.’ Just then a soft wind picked up, sending the blue flame-halos sputtering about at random, flapping like loose flags caught in an updraft. The reflections of the blue firelight danced on Leona’s armour like living chrome, a nightlight trick melding shadows with the sheen of polished sunlight steel; her trademark plates linked with gold chain. It was a set of armour forged specifically for the Children of the Sun, the light bringers capable of providing illumination to even the darkest places, despite the circumstances. Countless League matches had forged within Leona an iron resolve to defeat all adversity, overcome any obstacle both mental and physical, to gaze upon that clandestine sunset of victory almost tangible to those responsible for upholding the battle-standard of victory, blazing gloriously one more across the Fields of Justice.

STORY TIME (ripped from novel draft)

No formatting. I hope your eyes have fun trying to read this shit.

Will edit tomorrow. Too lazy.

And she was brought back to those verdant fields, beams of super-heated energy searing overhead, cracking through the wind like electrified whiplashes. The proximity of the violent bolts was cause for concern, as Leona did not want to be incinerated. And so she heaved her emblazoned shield skyward. Shyvana’s flame-infused breath crashed into the steel with a loud clap. The flames appeared to engulf the Radiant one at first. So bright and strong was the blaze that Leona had to buckle down and hope that the shield provided enough protection. As the fire passed over the raised ridges on the perimeter of the plated steel, she could feel strands of hair getting singed clean off, leaving behind charred roots. Had she been less image-conscious, this infraction on her appearance might have been casually dismissed, but Leona cared about her appearance, especially while fighting on the Fields of Justice. After the strength of the fiery assault diminished, Leona ran her hand, gloved in red velvet and polished metallic webbing, through her hair while channeling a reinvigoration spell, a little trick she’d picked up from Luxanna. Beneath her fingertips the auburn strands underwent a self-repairing process. With her scalp now rid of burnt hair, she raised her Zenith Blade in defiance, a mocking gesture that caused Shyvana to clench her firsts in anger. The Half-Dragon focused her mind and crouched low as transmissions of devastating spellcraft were received via her Summoner. Shyvana was pleased at the cognisance with which her Summoner acted, and with a careful phrase and several shifting gestures she conjured forth a transformation that overshadowed anything Leona had seen during the entire match. While still crouching, jets of light seemed to shoot through Shyvana’s body, causing her to quiver and rise slowly from the ground. Her eyes became orbs of fire, and her voice cried out with revenant fury. It was a state of eternal glory, the right of a Dragonborn, encapsulated in a moment of untamed energy and beauty. Her limbs grew outward to produce sinewy wings stretching outward like a great sea-sail, and her skin formed upon in thickly layered scales reinforced with dragon blood. During this transformation, the ground surrounding Shyvana blew outward in a cloudy ring, causing Leona to shield her eyes from the projected grass and underbrush flying towards her.

‘Prepare to meet your doom, Leona!’ cried Shyvana in a voice that reverberated with draconic might, each words deep and resonating with the strength of a thousand winds. Leona appeared visibly stunned for several seconds, unable to support the thought of this ravenous beast unleashing havoc upon the field. ‘By the might of the Dragonborn, I will run you into the ground!’

Leona said nothing. She rearmed herself and prepared to meet Shyvana’s oncoming rush of fury. The dragon at first unleashed a barrage of incendiary blasts that shook the earth around the Illuminated one. Leona dodged a blast that nearly scorched the left side of her face. She felt the heat through her armor as a large flame-bolt flew past her before crashing into the ground and burning up all the vegetation at the point of impact. Without further delay, Leona recovered her senses and charged forward with her shield raised at the Dragon. The shield provided for her a temporary burst of magical resistance that flooded through her body, requisitioning the power of the sun to shield her person with pure, lighted resilience. Shyvana responded to this burst of fortitude by summoning forth a whirlwind of encompassing flame, turning the ground beneath her feet to scorched earth. Undaunted by the deathly flames, Leona projected a solar image of her sword, the Zenith Blade, that honed in on the Dragon, piercing one of its wings and pulling her towards it with a blinding quickness. The crowd erupted with jubilation as Leona crashed into the beast with the blazing disk of destruction still rending the air. In single moment of blurred motion, the fire splashed across Leona’s shield like a waterfall landing upon a tin roof. The image of the blade erupted in the wing with a flash of magical strength inflicting vicious tendrils of pain before dissipating into ember fragments fading from bright red to charcoal black, breaking off into the rotating inferno. Shyvana reeled from the blight of the attack. She let loose a throaty roar that penetrated the flame-licked surroundings. It was a howl so deep that Leona felt the vibrations rattle her armour, and it almost caused her to misstep. The Radiant Dawn was apt to regain her senses, and she struck down repeatedly with her sword while the effects of the charge took their toll on Shyvana’s, disorienting her for several seconds. Before landing the third strike, Leona shield-bashed the dragon with a force that nearly knocked her off her feet. Her winged arms became fully extended as she fought to rebalance herself as she recovered from the attack. Leona became caught up in the radius of the fire surrounding Shyvana, but due to her amplified resistance, very little damage was inflicted. Shyvana snarled in anger, her claws clutched into tight fists, trying to pummel Leona into the ground. Each fearsome strike was met with the reinforced steel of the Shield of Daybreak, but Leona was simply unable to block all the attacks, and with one strong punch, the ardent defender was hurled back in a bundle of flailing limbs and residual magics surrounding her in an invisible aura. She landed flat-faced on the ground not far the spot from where she initiated her charge, and was nearly knocked unconscious. In her draconic form, the forces of Shyvana’s attacks were exponentially more powerful. Feeling overwhelmed and disoriented, Leona felt the familiar Summoner intervention flooding her spirit, the bond strengthened by the ethereal connection traversing dimensional spaces unseen. She felt the connection in her mind becoming entwined with her motor functions, her magical abilities bolstered by the sheer mental aptitude of her respective Summoner. The instructions came as a veiled whisper, subliminal yet received with perfect clarity within the space of her mind. It was a state of entanglement by which summoners communicated with their champions, an instantaneous transmission relaying an impossibly dense stream of arcane data flowing freely at all times during League matches. She felt compelled to rise, to stand firm, and confront the dragon once more. With a strong gaze of utter contempt, Leona stared the half-dragon down, putting it in its place.

‘You will soon feel the wrath of the sun!’ she exclaimed. The dragon paid no heed to the verbal offence, and focused instead on launching another charged bolt of magical flame. Before the attack could reach her, Leona drew from deep within herself a wellspring of untapped power unlocked only with the assistance of her Summoner. After several moments her arms began to tremble as the power within her spilled over into the surrounding air, radiating outward like a blazing hearth consuming stacks of flimsy kindling. Her hands became too bright to discern from her forearms. Globular orbs of raw sunlight burst from her palms aimed skyward, her eyes glowed pure white. Her form became temporarily phased out from existence as the ancient Solarian ritual was whispered from her lips. And with each word uttered, the area around the two champions grew dark and silent. Particles of light energy branched off and rose towards the sky at Leona’s beck and call. Shyvana did not know what to expect, and she became frightened by the magnificent display of advanced spellcraft. For a moment, the sunlight was blotted out entirely, and then a pinpoint of fire appeared out of nowhere above the half-dragon. With a gentle manipulation, Leona drew outward with her arms and extended her fingertips, bringing the ritual to finalization. The pinpoint sparked out, and a massive column of light-energy spewed out of it in an instant. Shyvana was completely caught off-guard, and as the column descended upon her, she was blinded and unable to move. The crowd went wild as Leona’s ultimate attack split the sky and drove towards the earth with reckless abandon. Had Shyvana anticipated the strength of the attack, she might have avoided it entirely, but the light was so captivating that she had lost all sense of situational awareness. There was a brief moment of silence before the emblazoned flood consumed her completely, a serene vision of brilliance that came like the calm before a storm. The beam was packed with the energy of a solar flare, and when it struck, her surroundings were screened behind a veil of blackness. In truth, this limitation in sight came about because Shyvana’s serpentine eyes were disintegrated from being exposed to the crushing heat, as was the rest of her writhing form, leaving behind a smoking crater and not much else. Another cheer erupted from the spectators. Leona had slain Shyvana while taking barely a scratch, and her Summoner knew well the weaknesses to exploit.

‘This is what I call solar justice,’ she said plainly, getting the crowd to rally behind her words. The blue team was definitely pulling ahead now, and Leona’s recent kill emphasized this fact. There were few champions with the ability to take down a visibly stronger opponent in as little time as she did, but a combination of experience and quick thinking made up for it.

‘And here we have The Radiant Dawn delivering a catastrophic end to Shyvana, amazing!’ said the announcer, riling up the crowd further. Leona smiled to herself and continued to push ahead. A fresh wave of minions trucked up steadily behind her in an orderly fashion, their wooden shields and metallic helmets clanking noisily up the field. There were a combination of more heavily armed minions atop mechanized cannons rolling ominously along, and the foot-bound minions followed close-by. Leona had hoped for multiple waves of minions to take part in the assault on the bottom tower, but so far as her luck permitted this was simply too much to ask for. She walked ahead and set her sights on the bottom defence tower. An opposing wave of minions crashed into her, but she quickly overpowered the little beings. The scene became a haze of tattered blue robes and broken weapons. She struck down hard on one of the leader units with her Zenith blade, slicing clear through its miniature thorax. The shapeless form of the summoned being immediately dissipated as she stuck and its magical essence returned to the nexus from whence it came. The fighting was steady for several minutes, with Leona accompanied only by the purple minion wave, but it did not take long for another wave to follow up behind her. Behind the scenes, multiple novice mages focused solely on the task of summoning minions worked their spellcraft with inordinate ease. These mages were able to command entire waves of minions with inordinate ease, and like musical conductors they directed the minions to push the bottom tower in an attempt to break it down. As the group of purples, led by Leona, approached the gleaming ivory tower, a low hum began to resonate loudly from within it. The tower was in the shape of a massive gargoyle, and when enemy entities were detected nearby, a sentient power within the turret commanded it to retaliate. There was a ruby-encrusted scepter held aloft by the massive stone gargoyle built into the structure, and when intruders were near, the scepter became energised with concentrated firepower. At a certain time, the mechanism would violently erupt with prismatic bolts directed at the enemy team, and as the current tower now did so, the sacrificial minion ways scurried helplessly into the blasts of charged energy. Leona recognized that the sacrifice of the minions was necessary in order to make an advance on the structure, and she eyed it for weaknesses with a cold and calculating eye. As the bodies of minions burst into flame and virtually disintegrated all around her, she lunged forward at the tower, careful not to attract its attention. One false move on her part would result in gaining the tower’s attention, resulting in a quick death. The co-direction of her Summoner influenced her to remain at the tower, hacking and slashing bits as hard as solid rock from it, chipping it away slowly as one would hew a wood block. With each swing, her blade dug great gashes in the tower, and the minions continued to die all around her, and the remaining ones gathered at her feet to assist in the demolition. Despite the oncoming reinforcements, the wave of minions within which Leona used to shield herself from the merciless onslaught of the tower was quickly being destroyed, and it was up to her to inflict as much damage as possible before being targeted. No sooner had she renewed her assault than an opposing wave of minions approached swiftly through the mists and tangled bushes of the enemy lane. They pelted Leona with unrestrained fury, but the attacks were but a feeble nuisance. Her primary focus was devoted to bringing the tower down, and no amount of minions would get in her way. For good measure, she drove her steel-plated boot into the foremost minion, stomping it into the ground as it attempted to bash her with its shield. Leona scoffed in disdain at the pitiful attempt. As she reeled back for another strike, she heard a sound coming from the dark, densely laden woodlands to her immediate left. Her Summoner advised caution, but Leona continued to pelt away without consideration for the noises.

And from the depths of the jungle, the Wuju Bladesman leapt forward without warning. He wore upon his face an observation device that branched into multiple cylinders ending in jade-green lenses for additional visual perception. The Master moved only as a nascent blur - an inhuman quickness unable to be countered by those not learned in the ancient art of Wuju. Leona tried to brace herself against the Master Yi’s lightning blitz of melee swings, but the relentless Ionian too quick for her to respond. The multiple blows from his two-handed sword scraped across her golden breastplate, coughing out sparks and bits of sheared scrap as it separated the solid metal with ease. Before he had a chance to deal a third deadly blow, it was already clear that Leona was defeated. She fell to her knees, trails of blood weeping from her mouth. A moment later, she slumped hard to the ground in front of the Swordsman, landing flat on her face. Yi did not revel in his kills as other Champions did. ‘May the winds carry you to solitude and back,’ he said calmly. His ability to remain humble and collected in any situation was well regarded by League announcers and spectators alike, even if his opponents considered it arrogant. The Master wasted no time in dispatching the remaining force of enemy minions attempting to encroach on the turret, now badly damaged from Leona’s assault. The crowd was impressed by the swift defence of Yi, but it was well known that League matches in the Rift were won by destroying towers, and not by racking up enemy kills. Still, Yi’s penchant for accumulating kills was not to be overlooked, as his presence in team fights often turned the tide of battle.

Before the match could resume, custodial mages had to be deployed to specific locations on the field to clear up the discarded weapons and other items of fallen champions to prevent foul play. It was not a common occurrence that another champion would retrieve discarded items to enhance their personal power illegitimately, but such incidents had to be avoided at all cost. The most prominent case of item theft in recent history occurred when Gangplank of Bligewater retried from a fallen Talon and Renekton three Blades of Zeal early on in the match, resulting in such an unfair advantage that he decimated the opposing team no more than fifteen minutes after the game began. It was a horrible upset that lead to riots throughout Demacia, and Jaravan III himself had to be dispatched with a retinue of the Demacian Royal Guard to deal with the uprising. Since then, strict retrieval policies had been put in place by the institute. Even then, there were still attempts to cheat the system, especially for champions with stealth-like abilities like Evelynn and Teemo. Although the little Yordle was as honest as a Demacian cub-scout, his insatiable drive to win a match was unparalleled.

Soraka paired up with Master Yi to lead a frontal assault on the middle tower, and there were no enemy minions to impede them. Yi dived in with his sword slashing viciously, slicing clean chunks out of the foundation of the turret. Soraka channeled shard-like fragments of her vibrant inner spirit, converting them into powerful self-directed healing spells to regenerate her strength. Whatever tension and pain resided in her muscles was instantly released, and her mind became a focused plane of clarity as the healing spell took effect. Once it was over, she assisted Yi by hurling energy disks at the lonesome tower, each charged bolt searing the air and crashing on impact, cutting deep, damaging rivets into the structure. The combined efforts of the champions brought the tower down far quicker than was to be expected. After a few minutes of directed attack, parts of the turrets’ interior began to be exposed in the form of swirling purple energy shining through the cracks and seeping out in clouds of compressed gas. In some places, the pressure from within was so great that it parts of the outer casing began to bulge out and shift uncontrollably. Finally, the last hinges of integrity were removed as the Master bore down with one last swing. The exposed cracks rippled before the ammunition stores exploded violently, sending large fragments of gray slab in all directions. There was a burst of light accompanying the explosion, and within seconds the turret was reduced to a desultory pile of rubble, smoke still rising from it. The Starchild appeared content with the demolition. She stood, smiling, above the rubble, and gently touched Yi’s shoulder.

“We’ve accomplished much here, perhaps we should survey the bottom lane once more, and provide assistance if needed,’ Soraka said as she channelled a minor healing spell directed at her companion.

‘You’ll have to depart without me,’ said Yi, looking visible spent, ‘I must return to the nexus, as I am in need of wares.’

‘Do what you must,’ Soraka replied, ‘and meet me near the bottom riverbank when you’re prepared to do so.’ Yi raised his mask for a moment to make eye contact.

‘Avoid confrontation,’ he said. ‘Do not engage without me.’ The Starchild nodded, and proceeded to take off downstream towards the rendezvous point. Master Yi slunk into the shadows, and requested from his summoner the ritual of teleportation that allow for a base recall. Within moments, the spell began to channel, and Yi’s body was enveloped by glowing blue energy as the particles of his body were put into a state of suspended animation, disassembled, and redirected to the blue Nexus, referred to as the point of origin. Here, the particles were rebuilt accordingly, or at least that was the hope. There were times when accidents did happen. Fatalities occurred. However, it became a requirement of all League summoners to undergo extensive teleportation training before hitting the fields, causing the error rate to be cut down considerably. Luckily for Yi, his Summoner was very well experienced, and could, in some cases, perform teleportation rituals far more efficiently than others, allowing for decreased channeling times and not as much nausea when the ritual concluded. It was not uncommon for novice champions to experience a debilitating sickness for the first few teleports, rendering them inept for the rest of the match. This was often called ‘the shifts’, for one reason or another, but mostly due to the shifty nature of teleportation in general, and how it was known to wreak havoc on one’s immune system.

Sona looked at Janna, and a nod of agreement was made between the two champions. With a progressive strum of her Etwahl, Sona broadcasted an energetic hymn. Her music served to provide combat enhancements for both herself and nearby allies. When necessary, her tunes provided an offensive component, earning the ire and fear of enemy champions. Sona had become so adept with her Etwahl that few could resist enchanting splendour she produced with it, but all feared the devastation it wrought. Sona’s inability to speak made the connection with her summoner a much stronger one, as it was enhanced by magical telepathy. She glided seamlessly across the riverbank, and Janna, also airborne by several feet, followed closely by, her white majestic attire flowing sumptuously on the winds.

“Our forward tower was destroyed just now,” said Janna as she received the message from her summoner. Her eyes winced as she processed the thought. Losing a tower was serious business in the match, as each tower provided a first-line defence that, when removed, allowed for enemy advances to take place unhindered. Each tower brought down was more ground the enemy could potentially take advantage of, so that they could advance ever closer to the sacred Nexus – the main objective building in all League sanctioned matches of Summoner’ Rift.

“We should advance into the jungle, and cut off their reinforcements.”

Sona nodded in agreement, and the two champions glided across the water into enemy territory. With her delicate and beautiful hymns singing through the air, Sona provided for herself and Janna a boost of speed, allowing for further advancement with a swiftness that rivalled even the most mobile champions. The Maven of strings glided effortlessly, her aqua-blue hair, which faded into a mirage of vibrant yellow, whirled about as she moved. Sona could not communicate directly with Janna, but via summoner telepathy she was able to link important conveyances that Janna could interpret and follow. It was still far less difficult for Sona to simply follow Janna’s command and watch her movements. Even without a direct telepathic link, summoners that have fought alongside one another for extended periods of time often developed a extrasensory perception, where one could anticipate the movements and actions of the other. It was rare and exciting to witness a complete synergy between two champions, and this was a synergy that Sona and Janna were known to possess. It was as if they movements were entwined, their spirits reminiscent of phoenix-forms barrelling through ash-waste, breaking through on the winds, being carried to the coveted vaults of eternity, where the splendours endured for lifetimes, and the sea blazed red under the dying sun.

Janna fluttered graciously at the sight of Sona, who had made her way just in time.

‘You really do possess perfect timing, Maven of String,’ she said, still in awe of the fact that her presence was requested no less than a minute ago. Sona was apt to provide her long-distance telepathy to whomever was capable of receiving it, and often it fell to the job of the allied summoners act as her relays, but Janna was well attuned with the Maven’s thoughts. Without further ado, the pair of Champions progressed into the enemy jungle, not needing to take the necessary precaution of first scanning for enemy activity, as they knew that at least half of the enemy team was still in a state of resurrection. Moments passed where not a sound was heard as the pair of spell-casters glided noiselessly across the field and progressed upward once passing onto more stable land. The banks were dug deeply to allow for cover and obscuring movement, and there were multiple patches of long-grass present near the watermarks. It took months and even years of frequent summons for a champion to become fully acquainted with the terrain of Summoner’s Rift, and the most advanced champions were able to navigate the land with ease. Summoners were often more intimately familiar with all the niches and quirks of the field, and this foreknowledge helped to some extent, but ultimately the fog of war impaired a summoners ability to impart this knowledge. Tools existed that allowed for observational enhancements, such as specialized wards that boosted a summoner’s sigh on the field. These special items acted as secondary eyes for both summoners and champions alike, and the team that had wards was granted a significant tactical advantage.

‘I can see the lands up ahead,’ said Janna, with one arm raised to her sky-blue eyes, making a bridge across her forehead to block out the sunlight. Her lengthy gaze revealed enemy movement up ahead amid an oncoming wave of enemy minions, and without much thought it became apparent to her that a swift attack was necessary. ‘We must eliminate this threat before our position is revealed,’ she explained. Sona nodded in agreement, and plucked from her Etwahl a devious symphony that energized her for combat, and as well provided Janna with enhanced combat abilities. With renewed vigor, the champions descended upon the moving shadow ahead. The unknown champion was ruffling about unseen amidst a congregation of heavy ferns and dense tall-grass which shifted and swayed as the champion moved. Janna immediately spun forth a vortex of wind that sucked up loose earth, gaining more and more momentum as it developed. Under its own volition, the swirling wind rushed forward once it had attained a size capable of causing significant damage, and then it ripped across the grass with frightening speed. Sona stood and watched in awe as the powerful effigy of elemental air tore through the loose brush, tearing through plant life and tossing it in every direction without resistance. Janna smiled in satisfaction at her work, as the tornado crashed into the enemy location and revealed its occupant – Tryndamere, the barbarian king. The warrior was caught up in the whirlwind like a loose sock clipped to a clothes hanger. He had no time to avoid the attack, and within moments was airborne, shooting up into the sky in a state of complete confusion. He yelled, but his voice was masked by the torrents of wind circulating about his heavily muscled form, and as he went higher and higher, he began to physically prepare for the impending fall damage. Janna laughed as the barbarian crouched into a fetal position while still in the air. While Tryndamere was still mid-air, she whipped up another strong bolt of air energy, projected it from her staff, and gave the command for Sona to discharge her most potent barrage of deadly music. Before she could even process the command, the Maven was already strumming up a truly horrific arpeggio of devastation. The sound waves erupted from her instrument with such force and with such quickness, that their peak raced past Janna’s staff attack, and unloaded on Tryndamere with a crushing force that was impossible to anticipate or avoid. To add to the onslaught, the air disturbance created by Janna was laden with ear-splitting white-noise that knocked tryndamere back several feet after he landed flat on his face. Sona and Janna stood for a moment at his crumpled form, checking to see if they had fully incapacitated him or not. It was not uncommon for such a heavy barrage of synergy magic to render even the most stalwart champions disabled, but Tryndamere was a highly resistant champion, and was able to shrug off the majority of the attack somehow. Still clutching his ears from the pain of Sona’s sonic blast, the barbarian rose to his feet, slowly, and hefted forth his two-handed sword.

‘My blade thirsts for your blood!’ he bellowed, pointing at Janna. Apparently the whirlwind had annoyed him far more than Sona’s debilitating Etwahl, and so, with less than a moment of notice, he hurled his considerable mass at the hovering air-spirit, and attempted to decapitate her in one swing. With keen perception Janna anticipated the attack and glided effortlessly to the side to avoid it, causing Tryndamere to slice nothing but empty air. In anger, the Barbarian heaved outward with a grunt. The swing was so quick that Janna was unable to fully evade it. With a wall of force, Tryndamere’s blade sunk into her torso. It was quick thinking that prevented her from being cleft into two parts, as prior to the strike she had projected upon herself a powerful shied that was capable of absorbing minor amounts of physical damage. Tryndamere’s brute strength combined with the force of his hit made quick work of the shield, causing Janna to panic. Jets of blood wept from where the barbarian’s blade had struck, and as if acting on instinct alone, Sona quickly reacted by strumming from her Etwahl a song of serenity, providing for Janna a potent healing effect. Despite her injury, the Zaunite Air Avatar was far from incapacitated. In stride with her determination to stay conscious, Tryndamere was far from ceasing his onslaught. Though he was alone, his heightened combat abilities and fearsome weapon made it possible for him to fight multiple enemies at once. This caused many champions and summoners alike to fear him, and it was a reputation rightfully earned.

‘You!’ he exclaimed as Janna sulked away to recover from the wound. ‘Your trifling heals have annoyed me long enough!’ He shot Sona a steel, vicious gaze with his piercing blue eyes. Sona stood in fright as the barbarian singled her out. She wasn’t sure if she should retreat, or attempt to rescue Janna, who seemed to have vacated the premises altogether.

‘It looks like your friend has deserted you, bah!’ said Tryndamere, looking around as he spoke. He clearly showed no pity for the lack of teamwork exhibited by the casters, but it did not occur to him that he was being fooled all along.

‘If you only planned as well as you swung your sword,’ said Janna, who was now floating well above him, ‘then perhaps you would not be blinded by your own ignorance.’ His mouth now gaping in surprise, Tryndamere dropped his sword as Janna unleashed a gust so potent as to rip the skin from his bones. In all but seconds, the Barbarian king was sent off into oblivion upon an invisible stampede of wind-fury. The attack drained Janna so badly of her magical power that she sunk to the ground, gasping for breath, looking visibly exhausted. Tryndamere was knocked so far off the field, that his body was never recovered. Instead, the link between summoner and champion had to be terminated, and a new summoning ritual using his last known position was undertaken.

‘That Janna, always abusing her powers,’ said a random spectator from a bench in the middle of a crowded Zaun street. All available civilian space within the over polluted city was crammed with people from all walks of life. Shimmer junkies watched the League events from their drug dens beneath the busy streets, and their minds were turned to mush as the applied the mind-altering narcotic whilst League events were broadcast on their crystal screens. The city of Hextech evolution was well known for its technological extremes and exotic rituals of hedonism and necromancy, usually for the benefit of experimental science, but more often than not it was due to the pursuit of mindless self-indulgence. And the crystal viewer nodes were oversaturated with direct lines to the League of Legends transmission center, communication pathways flooded with indescribable bits of clandestine data traversing untold distances at rates rivaling the speed of light, enhanced by techmaturgical breakthroughs made possible by the dedicated visioscopic engineers in Piltover.

In reality, Tryndamere’s airborne form soon reached an impassable barrier along a system of virtually projected walls on the outskirts of the Rift, practically a void-zone, an out of bounds area not design to support biological forms in any way. As the fields of justice were contained within a bubble of alternate dimensional space, there was no way of accurately monitoring the location of those within. It was a place of haywire magnetics and impossible physical laws bending the underpinnings of the space-time continuum; activities considered child’s play to advanced summoners who would often pass the time by observing particle transmissions occurring across distances far too miniscule for the average person to observe. And this was the case across all of Valoran – Summoners dealing with boredom. They would go weeks, sometimes months without their requisite adrenaline rush gained by League battle participation. Alternatively

And then the sky died. Where there was brightness, sunlight, and cottony white clouds, there was now a flood of matte blackness consuming all colour, leaving all variations of shade muted, lifeless. A third spell-caster entered the arena, this one burning with the unknown energies of Icathia. It was Malzahar, clad in thick purple and blue robes, and he had by his side a mechanical companion skittering about on four limbs. Sona froze with terror.