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If there was one thing Marcin knew how to do, it was to keep his head down.

Before him, rowdy voices intermingled with the clatter of tankards and the sloshing of beer. Every once in a while, someone barked a drink order, and just as soon as their coin landed on the bar, a drink slid in front of their waiting hands. His quick and silent service kept him unnoticed—and as such, uninvolved in any trouble.

And there was always trouble.

It took on many forms. A belligerent brawler, itching for a fight. A transaction among cloaked figures that ended with a dagger through a throat. Or, perhaps most unexpectedly, a little girl, pushing through the heavy tavern door.

Marcin watched the girl hum and skip her way toward the bar. Behind her, the door slammed shut, one last swirl of winter air blasting across the room, the loud bang grabbing the last few eyes that weren’t already following her, baffled by her presence.

The girl clambered up a stool, barely peeking over the edge of the bar. Marcin took in the child’s bright red hair, the tattered toy clutched in her grip, the frayed satchel on her back, and the ragged, unseasonably short-sleeved, dress.

“What can I get for you?” he asked.

The girl stood on the stool and plopped her toy on the counter, peering at the many bottles on shelves. Marcin could see it was a stuffed bear, once well crafted, since well loved. The stitching at its limbs were visible after many years of stress. Somewhere in its life it had lost one of its button eyes.

“Could I get a glass of milk, please?”

Marcin raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He walked toward the far end of the bar to fetch the ceramic jug.

“Awfully late for you to be out by yourself, ain’t it?” a deep voice rumbled.

Marcin sighed. Trouble always attracted more trouble. He pulled the jug down from the shelf and gazed back down the bar. A large man next to the girl had turned to peer down at her with his one good eye. Seated in front of him, the girl looked like a pebble at the foot of a mountain. He was a pile of muscles criss-crossed with scars. The loops of ropes, chains, and hooks at his belt, along with the massive blade slung across his back, loudly announced him as a bounty hunter.

The girl looked up at him and flashed a smile. “I’m not alone. Tibbers is here with me. Aren’t you, Tibbers?” She held up the bear, beaming.

The bounty hunter laughed out loud. “Surely your parents must be missing you.”

The girl’s hands dropped to her side as her eyes drifted down and away. “I don’t think so,” she replied.

“Aw, but I do think so. Would pay a pretty penny to see you home safe, I imagine.” Marcin could practically hear the coins clinking in the bounty hunter’s mind, the man already tallying up the prize for her safe return.

“They can’t. They’re dead.” The girl plopped back down on the stool, staring into the button eye of her bear.

The bounty hunter started to speak again just as Marcin placed the mug down on the counter with a percussive thud.

“Your milk,” he said.

The girl turned and beamed at him, breaking from her sullen mood.

“Thank you, sir!”

She set her bear on the table and reached back into her knapsack. Marcin waited, prepared to accept any coin she put down as payment enough.

He did not expect the massive purse that landed with a clatter.

A few golden coins bounced onto the counter, one rolling toward the edge. Marcin stopped it on reflex, one finger pinning the escapee. Slowly, he lifted it from the bar, its heft and texture proclaiming it as authentic Noxian mint.

“Oopsie!” the little girl giggled.

Marcin swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. He reached over, hoping to shove the coin and the purse back into the girl’s satchel before anyone else noticed—

“That’s a mighty big purse for a mighty small girl,” the bounty hunter growled, far too loudly.

“Tibbers found it,” the girl replied.

The bounty hunter snorted. “Is that so?”

“It was on the man who stopped me in the road. He was a real meanie.” The girl took a sip of her milk, her attention back on her bear.

“That’s too bad…” The bounty hunter leaned in closer on his stool, hand sliding towards the purse.

The girl looked up at him, a playful smile dancing across her face.

“Tibbers ate him.”

For a moment, everything stood still. Then the bounty hunter’s laugh cut across the room.

“I’m sure he did,” he roared. He thrust a meaty hand forward, grasping the toy by the head and yanking it away from the girl. “This big ol’ scary monster.”

“Let Tibbers go!” the girl cried out, reaching up for the bear. “He doesn’t like being pulled.” The bounty hunter just laughed harder.

Marcin pocketed the coin in his hand and turned away, walking unnoticed toward the back. He wished he could help, but he hadn’t survived this long by sticking around longer than he should.

Her voice stopped him cold.

“I said. Let. Tibbers. Go.”

The words rumbled with gravel and rage, cutting through the din. Against all his better judgement, Marcin paused and looked back. The girl stood on the bar, staring at the bounty hunter, fury smoldering in her eyes.

Then chaos erupted.

A flare of light and a burst of heat erupted from the girl. Too late, Marcin threw his arms up, crying out in pain. He stumbled back, knocking into the shelves behind him. Several bottles crashed around him as he ducked beneath the bar, cursing his idiotic hesitation. The screams of men and the sound of breaking wood punctuated a growing roar of flame. A guttural, impossible sound reverberated through the air, rattling his bones. Marcin crawled, still half-blinded, toward where he hoped the doors to the kitchens were. Around him, the screams heightened—then stopped with a stomach-turning crack.

For the second time that day, Marcin forgot all his honed skills of avoiding trouble and peered over the edge of the bar.

A hulking beast loomed, silhouetted against the firelight. Thick strands of sinew bound its limbs to its torso like stitching. With a start, Marcin realized the beast itself burned, unharmed by the hungry tongues of flame that danced across its fur. In its claws it held aloft, by the head, the slumped, bloody form of the bounty hunter, a limp rag doll in the massive paws of the monster.

Before it, the little girl stood wreathed in fire.

“You’re right, Tibbers,” she said. “He didn’t like being pulled either.”

Marcin looked around the room in horror. Throughout his tavern, overturned chairs and tables ignited, raising a thick, black smoke. The smell of blood and burning flesh crawled inside his nose, and Marcin choked back a cough, his stomach turning.

The beast turned and looked at him.

A whimper escaped Marcin’s lips. He gazed into the glowing abyss of the bear’s eyes, and swallowed in the certainty of his end.

A peal of laughter rang out over the crackle of flames.

“Don’t worry,” the little girl said, peering around the monstrosity. “Tibbers likes you.”

Marcin watched, frozen, as the girl hopped, skipped, jumped her way through the burning tavern, the beast lumbering behind her. He stared as it smashed the heavy door off its hinges. He gaped as the little girl turned back one last time, a sweet smile back on her face.

“Thanks for the milk, sir.”

And then, the girl walked out into the snowy night as the tavern collapsed behind her.

Up in the mountains that separate Demacia from the Freljord, there aren’t a lot of jobs that pay coin. Some pay in furs, or in loaves of frost-hard bread... But Aegil’s baby sister was born sickly. The family needed coin to keep her well-fed, and to buy her medicine.

So Aegil’s father cut a deal with Aegil’s uncle, Jasper. Aegil would become a servant in Jasper’s inn at the mountain pass, selling ale to passing traders.

“Work hard, all right?” Aegil’s mother told him. “For your sister.”

One night, a season after Aegil started working for Jasper, a whole crowd of customers arrived just as the inn was closing. It was strange for travelers to arrive so late after nightfall in the winter.

Jasper peered out the window. “I don’t know them,” he said, tugging nervously on his wild black beard.

The door slammed open and a crowd of shaggy-haired men thumped inside, shaking the snow from their boots and cloaks. They parted ranks, and an old fellow with a velvet-trimmed cloak approached the bar.

“Good evening,” he said with a Great City accent. “Our business associate is arriving in a few minutes. What’s on offer?”

Uncle Jasper pointed numbly at the drink list hanging behind the bar. There were twelve brews there—an impressive selection for this part of the Demacian hinterlands. But one by one, the guards all ordered the absolute cheapest: Forsyn’s Red. Aegil had never tasted any other beer, but even he knew it wasn’t good stuff. That’s why it was so cheap.

Aegil hurried into the back room where the kegs were kept to pour their ale. As the skunky beverage foamed into the cups, he wondered how much these guests would tip. Would he get one big tip from the leader, or eleven small tips, one from each? His heart raced.

Then Aegil heard a heavy step on the path outside. The door creaked open... and the next step made the tavern floorboards groan.

Aegil wheeled the drink cart out into the main room. The newcomer was the absolute biggest man he’d ever seen. His head scraped the ceiling beams. His limbs were pure muscle, as thick as tree trunks, and his face was covered in a bristly red beard. The grisly scars criss-crossing his vast sides looked like he’d really lived through the gruesome battles Jasper’s drunken patrons liked to brag about.

The velvet-clad man raised his hand toward the stranger. “Gragas, I presume?” he called.

Gragas didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on the drinks list hanging behind the bar.

“You are Gragas? The brewer?” the merchant repeated impatiently.

Gragas turned his huge shoulders and gave the little old man a red-faced glare. With a voice so loud it reminded Aegil of an old god speaking from below the snowpack, the newcomer growled, “I’m buyin’ a drink.”

The air in the room felt like it does when a thunderstorm gathers overhead. Aegil began handing out the ales. His hands were shaking.

“What’s that ‘Karsten-Flower’ stuff?” Gragas asked Jasper, pointing at the list. “What flower’s that?”

“That’s just the brewer’s name,” Jasper said. “It ain’t got flowers in it. Sorry.”

“Hmmm,” Gragas rumbled.

Aegil handed out the final drink to the old merchant, then stood patiently, waiting for his tip... but the merchant ignored him. His glinting gaze was fixed on the huge newcomer—like a fox’s eyes before the pounce.

“I’ll take... the Sungold Porter,” Gragas announced. “That’s a precious one, I’ve heard.” Jasper scurried into the back to pour it, and Gragas thumped over to the table to sit down. “Now, what d’ya have for me?” he asked.

The old merchant started digging around in his huge coat. “I heard you’re in the market for Shuriman goods,” he said. “Floodplain grains. Cactus blooms.”

“I’m... innerested,” Gragas said.

The merchant noticed Aegil standing there. “Shoo, boy,” he said.

Aegil froze. No tip?

“I said shoo,” the merchant snapped. All the guards laughed.

Tears starting at the corners of his eyes, Aegil hurried into the keg room behind the bar. Jasper was pacing back there, tugging nervously at his beard.

“Damn that man,” Jasper seethed. “The Sungold Porter? I don’t have any!”

“We ran out?”

“We never had it! I can’t afford to stock any of those rare ales. They’re on offer to impress people. Almost nobody orders them—they’re too expensive! And when they do, I just mix some stuff together! Nobody can tell!”

To Aegil, this seemed like stealing. “You should tell the big man,” he said.

Jasper laughed. “Why? It doesn’t hurt anyone. I have a business to run, boy! One glass of the porter is a week of earnings here at the inn.” Jasper squared his shoulders. “He won’t be able to tell.”

Jasper snatched a massive stein off one of the hooks on the wall and started filling it at the Forsyn’s tap... then Eigen Ale... then Karsten-Flower.

As that murky mixture foamed toward the brim, Aegil realized he’d have to deliver Gragas the concocted drink. Cold washed over him like a night wind over the snow. When Jasper thunked the stein into his outstretched hands, he almost fell over.

“Keep a straight face!” Jasper ordered.

Aegil thought of his sister. He thought of money clinking in his palm. Then he tottered forward across the empty floor of the inn, struggling to hold the stein aloft.

Gragas’ booming voice filled the room. “...The recipe I’m working on has a very spicy taste already. I need somethin’ to balance it out.”

As Aegil approached the table, the merchant leaned forward. “So. We arrive at the real business.”

“Yeah,” Gragas grunted. “The real business.”

The merchant reached inside his coat and drew out a palm-sized lockbox covered in gold and glinting jewels.

The shining box was absolutely the most valuable thing Aegil had ever seen in his life—it was probably worth ten lifetimes of Jasper’s smelly ale. Standing near it felt like standing beside the sun.

“Azir’s Tears,” the merchant said. “Ancient heirloom spice. Ground from tomb-herbs found only in the ruins of the Sun Disc. The Sun Emperors used it to season their mead.”

“Really...” Gragas said.

“When I heard about your quest—the greatest ale ever brewed! Well, I immediately sought out the Tears. The trades I had to make! The spice is worth a fortune, but I knew you’d be good for it.”

Gragas nodded slowly, thinking. Aegil suddenly realized that if anyone was going to be able to notice a substitute drink it would be a master brewer on a quest to make the perfect beer. He reached for the stein, thinking frantically of an excuse—

But he was too slow. Gragas noticed Aegil, and the beer sitting at his elbow. “Thanks, boy,” he said, and grabbed the stein himself.

He drank deep—and immediately, Aegil saw his bushy eyebrows furrow. His nostril twitched. His bearded lip curled into a hint of a grimace. His gaze traveled across the room... and fixed on Jasper.

Aegil felt like he was going to melt. He knows we’re tricking him!

But the master brewer did not shout out his displeasure. Instead, Gragas held his hand out for the jeweled box.

“So lemme see,” he said. “Show me your perfect spices.”

The merchant handed it over. Gragas lifted the lid of the lockbox and sniffed.

And again, his nostril twitched. That sensitive sense of smell had found another flavor that troubled it.

Aegil felt his heart stop. They’re tricking him too. It’s a FAKE!

One forgery was forgivable. Two? Over the same pint? Not as much. Gragas glanced at Aegil—just for a moment.

It was warning enough. Aegil dove away from the table like a snow hare leaping for the safety of the treeline.

Then Gragas stood. He flipped the table as he rose, and simultaneously, each one of the guards produced jagged hatchets from beneath their cloaks.

Gragas just took out his fists.

Aegil saw only bits of the ensuing fight. He saw the merchant flee toward the bar... then Gragas followed with huge strides. There was a sound like an explosion. Jasper gave a high-pitched scream and skittered straight out the front door. Then the kegs all rolled across the floor toward the guards, a thundering avalanche spraying ale and foam in every direction. It flattened them—all but one, who hid behind a table, then popped up, ready to throw his axe—

But Gragas grunted, a barrel flew across the room, and the guard simply vanished. So did half of the back wall. Aegil heard the guard’s tiny scream disappear down the mountainside.

Aegil crawled out from under a table to see Gragas pouring the grey, dusty contents of the shiny lockbox onto the groaning merchant at his feet.

“Mummy dust,” he growled. “Have some respect!”

Then he caught sight of Aegil. His wild brows narrowed. “Boy,” he called. His booming voice made shards of broken glass tremble on the floor. “Come here!”

Cautiously, Aegil approached. He thought of his sister. He wondered whether he could run faster than a thrown barrel.

“Tell the innkeep to go lighter on the Forsyn’s next time,” Gragas said.

Then Aegil saw the lockbox in the master brewer’s outstretched hand. A huge smile parted that bushy red beard.

“Yer tip.”

The Rat Town slaughter docks; they smell as bad as their name suggests.

And yet here I am, hidden in the shadows, breathing the blood-and-bile stink of butchered sea serpents.

I melt deeper into the darkness, pulling the brim of my hat down low over my face as heavily armed members of the Jagged Hooks stalk by.

They’ve got a reputation for savagery, these boys. In a fair fight, they might take me down, but I’m not big on playing fair, and I’m not here to fight. Not this time.

So what brings me here, to one of the foulest districts in Bilgewater?

Money. What else?

It was a gamble, taking on this job, but the payout is big enough that I couldn’t pass it up. And besides, I cased this place to stack the deck in my favor.

I don’t intend to linger. I want to be in and out as quickly and as quietly as possible. Once the job’s done, I aim to collect my payment and be gone before dawn. All goes well, I’ll be halfway to Valoran before anyone knows the damn thing’s missing.

The thugs turn the corner of the massive slaughter shed. Means I’ve got two minutes until they swing back around - plenty of time.

The silver moon slides behind a bank of clouds, covering the wharf in shadow. Crates from the day’s work are scattered across the dock. It makes for easy cover.

I see lookouts on top of the main warehouse, silhouettes standing watch, crossbows in hand. They’re gossiping loudly like fishwives. I could be wearing bells and these idiots still wouldn’t hear me.

They think no one would be fool enough to come here.

A bloated corpse hangs overhead, a warning for all to see. It spins slowly in the midnight breeze coming off the harbor. It’s an ugly sight. A huge hook, the type used to catch devilfish, holds the body aloft.

Stepping over rusted chains lying limp upon wet stone, I pass between a pair of towering cranes. They’re used to haul giant sea creatures into the slaughter sheds for butchering. It’s those looming factories that are the source of the gods-awful stench that permeates everything here. I’m gonna need to buy myself a new set of clothes once this is over.

Across the bay, past the chum-churned waters of the slaughter docks, scores of ships lie at anchor, their lanterns swaying gently. One of the vessels draws my eye; a massive, black-sailed war galleon. I know whose ship that is. Everyone in Bilgewater knows.

I take a moment to gloat. I’m about to steal from the most powerful man in town. There’s always a certain thrill that comes from spitting in death’s eye.

As expected, the main warehouse is locked up tighter than a noblewoman’s virtue. Guards posted at every entrance. Doors locked and barred. For anyone other than me, it would be impossible to break into.

I duck into a blind alley opposite the warehouse. It’s a dead end, and it’s not as dark as I’d have liked. If I’m still here when the patrol comes back, they will see me. And if they get ahold of me, the best I can hope for is a quick death. More likely, I’ll be taken to him... and that would be a far more painful, drawn out way to go.

The trick, as always, is not to get caught.

Then I hear them. The bruisers are returning early. I have seconds, at best. I snap a card from my sleeve and weave it through my fingers; it’s as natural as breathing. This is the easy part, the rest can’t be rushed.

I let my mind drift as the card starts to glow. Pressure builds around me, and I’m nearly overcome with the promise of everywhere. Half-closing my eyes, I focus, and picture where I need to be.

Then, there’s the familiar lurch in the guts as I shift. A displacement of air, and I’m inside the warehouse. Gone with barely a trace.

Damn, I’m good.

One of the Jagged Hooks outside might glance up the alley and notice a single playing card falling to the ground, but probably not.

It takes a moment for me to get my bearings. Dim light from the lanterns outside creeps in through the cracks in the walls. My eyes adjust.

The warehouse is crowded, stacked high with treasures from all over the Twelve Seas: gleaming suits of armor, exotic works of art, shining silks. All things of considerable value, but not what I’m here for.

My attention is drawn to the loading doors at the front of the warehouse, where I know I’ll find the most recent arrivals. I run my fingertips across the various cartons and crates... until I come to a small, wooden box. I can feel the power emanating from within. This is what I’m here for.

I unlatch the lid.

My prize is revealed; a knife of exquisite design, lying upon a bed of black velvet. I reach for it—

Chh-chunk.

I freeze. There’s no mistaking that sound.

Before he even speaks, I know who’s standing behind me in the darkness.

“T.F.,” says Graves. “It’s been a long time.”

I’ve been here for hours. Some folks might get bored standing still this long, but I’ve got my anger to keep me company. I ain’t leaving this spot until I settle the score.

Long after midnight, the snake finally shows. He suddenly appears in the warehouse, using that same old magic trick. I prime my shotgun, ready to turn him inside out. After years spent looking for that treacherous son of a bitch here he is, dead to rights at the end of Destiny’s barrels.

“T.F.,” I say. “It’s been a long time.”

I had better words ready for this moment. Funny how they all went out the window as soon as I saw him.

But T.F.? His face shows nothing. No fear, no regret, no hint of surprise. Not even while facing down a loaded gun. Gods damn him.

“Malcolm, how long have you been standing there?” he asks, the smile in his voice enrages me.

I take aim. I can pull the trigger and leave him deader than sea scum.

I should.

Not yet, though. I need to hear him say it. “Why’d you do it?” I ask, knowing full well he’ll just come back with something clever.

“Is the gun really necessary? I thought we were friends.”

Friends. The bastard’s mocking me. Now I want to tear his smug head off – but I’ve got to keep my cool.

“You’re looking as dapper as ever,” he says.

I look down at the devilfish bites on my clothes. I had to swim to get past the guards. Ever since he got a little money, T.F.’s been a stickler for appearance. I can’t wait to mess him up. But first, I want answers.

“Tell me why you left me to take the fall, or they’ll be pickin’ bits of your pretty face out of the rafters.” This is how you’ve got to be with T.F. Give him room, and he’ll pull your strings ‘til you don’t know which end’s your ass.

His slipperiness came in handy when we were partners.

“Ten damn years in the Locker! Know what that does to a man?”

He doesn’t. For once, he’s got nothing cute to say. He knows he did me wrong.

“They did things to me that would’ve driven most men mad. All that kept me from breaking was my anger. And thinking about this moment, right here.”

Then comes the clever reply: “Sounds like I kept you alive. Maybe you should thank me.”

That one gets me. I’m so mad, I can barely see. He’s trying to goad me. Then, when I’m blind with rage, he’ll do his little disappearing act. I take a breath and leave the bait alone. He’s surprised I ain’t biting. This time, I’m getting answers.

“How much did they pay you to sell me out?” I growl.

T.F. stands there, smiling, just trying to buy some time.

“Malcolm, I’ll be happy to have this conversation with you, but this really isn’t a good time or place.”

Almost too late, I notice the card dancing through his fingers. I snap out of it and squeeze the trigger.

BLAM.

His card’s gone. Almost took his damn hand off, too.

“Idiot!” he barks. I finally made him lose his cool. “You just woke up the whole damned island! Y’know whose place this is?”

I don’t care.

I ready a second shot. I barely see his hands move, then cards explode all around me. I fire back, not sure if I want him dead or just almost dead.

Before I can find him again in the smoke, fury, and splintering wood, a door gets kicked open.

A dozen thugs come roaring in, just to add to the damn mess.

“So, do you really want to do this?” T.F. asks, ready to throw another fistful of cards at me.

I nod, and hold my gun steady on him.

It’s time to settle up.

Things get ugly. Fast.

The whole damned warehouse is crawling with Jagged Hooks, but Malcolm couldn’t care less. I’m all he’s interested in.

I sense Graves’s next shot coming and turn away. The boom of his gun is deafening. A box explodes where I’d been a fraction of a second earlier.

I do believe my old partner is trying to kill me.

Somersaulting over a stack of mammoth ivory, I whip a trio of cards in his direction. Before they hit home, I’m already ducking into cover, looking for an out. I only need a few seconds.

He curses loudly, but the cards won’t do more than slow him down. He’s always been a tough bastard. Stubborn, too. Never knows when to let things go.

“You ain’t gettin’ away, T.F,” he growls. “Not this time.”

Yep, that trait’s still riding him hard.

He’s wrong, though — as usual. I’ll be taking my leave as soon as possible. There’s no use talking to him when he’s out for blood.

Another blast, and shrapnel ricochets off a priceless suit of Demacian armor, embedding into the walls and floor. I dart left and right, weaving and feinting, sprinting from cover to cover. He sticks with me, roaring his threats and accusations, his shotgun barking in his hands. Graves moves fast for a big man. I’d almost forgotten that.

He’s not my only problem. The damned fool’s stirred up a hornet’s nest with all his shooting and hollering. The Jagged Hooks are all over us, but they’re smart enough to leave some men barring the main doors.

I have to get gone — but I’m not leaving without what I came for.

I’ve led Graves on a merry dance around the warehouse, and I arrive back where we started a moment before he does. There are Hooks between me and my prize, and more coming, but there’s no time to wait. The card in my hand glows red, and I hurl it dead center of the warehouse doors. The detonation blows them off their hinges and scatters the Hooks. I move in.

One of them recovers faster than I expect, and he swings at me with a hatchet. I sway around the blow and kick out his knee, hurling another spread of cards at his friends to keep them honest.

My path clear, I swipe the ornate dagger I’ve been hired to steal, hooking it onto my belt. After all this trouble, might as well get paid.

The gaping loading doors beckon, but there are too many damned Hooks piling in. There’s no way out there, so I make for the only quiet corner left in this madhouse.

A card is dancing in my hand as I prepare to shift, but as I start to drift away, Graves appears, stalking me like a rabid bear. Destiny bucks in his grip, and a Jagged Hook is shot to tatters.

Graves’s glare is drawn to the card glowing in my hand. He knows what it means, and swings the smoking barrels of his gun at me. I’m forced to move, interrupting my concentration.

“Can’t run forever,” he bellows after me.

For once, he’s not stupid. He’s not giving me the time I need.

He’s keeping me off my game, and the thought of being taken down by these Hooks is starting to weigh on me. Their boss is not known for his mercy.

Among the dozen other thoughts rattling around my head is the nagging feeling that I’ve been set up. I’m thrown an easy job out of nowhere, a big score just when I need it most - and surprise, there’s my old partner standing there waiting for me. Someone a lot smarter than Graves is playing me for a fool.

I’m better than this. I’d kick myself for being sloppy, but there’s a dock full of goons waiting to save me the trouble.

Right now, all that matters is getting the hell away from here. Two blasts from that damned gun of Malcolm’s send me scurrying. My back slams against a dusty wooden crate. A crossbow bolt lodges in the rotted wood behind me, just inches from my head.

“No way out, sunshine,” Graves yells.

I look around and see fire from the explosion starting to spread to the roof. He may have a point.

“We’ve been sold out, Graves,” I shout.

“You’d know all about that,” he replies.

I try reasoning with him.

“We work together, we can get out of this.”

I must be desperate.

“I’d see us both dead before I trust you again,” he snarls.

I didn’t expect anything else. Talking sense to him just makes him angrier, which is exactly what I need. The distraction buys me just enough time to shift outside the warehouse.

I can hear Graves roaring inside. No doubt he just rounded on my spot only to find me gone, a single card on the ground, taunting him.

I launch a barrage of cards through the loading doors behind me. It’s long past time for subtlety.

I feel bad for a moment about leaving Graves in a burning building - but I know it won’t kill him. He’s too stubborn for that. Besides, a fire on the docks is a serious deal in a port town. It might buy me some time.

As I search for the quickest way off the slaughter docks, the sound of an explosion makes me look over my shoulder.

Graves appears, stepping through the hole he’s just blown out the side of the warehouse. He’s got murder in his eyes.

I tip my hat to him and run. He comes after me, shotgun booming.

I have to admire the man’s determination.

Hopefully it won’t kill me tonight.

The young urchin’s eyes were wide and panicked as he was led toward the captain’s quarters.

It was the agonized screams emanating from the door at the end of the passageway that gave him second thoughts. The cries echoing through the claustrophobic decks of the enormous, black warship were heard by every crewman aboard the Dead Pool — as intended.

The first mate, his face a web of scars, rested a reassuring hand on the boy’s shoulder. They came to a halt before the door. The child winced as another tortured wail issued from within.

“Steady,” said the first mate. “The captain’ll want to hear what you’ve got to say.”

With that, he rapped sharply on the door. It was opened a moment later by a hulking brute with facial tattoos and a broad, curved blade strapped across his back. The boy didn’t hear the words spoken between the two men; his gaze was locked on the heavyset figure seated with his back to him.

He was a big man, the captain, and of middling years. His neck and shoulders were thick and bullish. His sleeves were rolled up, and his forearms slick with blood. A red greatcoat hung from a peg nearby, alongside his black tricorne.

“Gangplank,” breathed the urchin, his voice thick with fear and awe.

“Captain, I figured you’d want to hear this,” said the mate.

Gangplank said nothing, nor did he turn, still intent as he was on his work. The scarred sailor nudged the boy forward. He stumbled before he caught his footing and shuffled closer. The child approached the captain of the Dead Pool as he would a cliff’s edge. His breath quickened as he caught full sight of the captain’s work.

Basins of bloody water sat upon Gangplank’s desk, along with an array of knives, hooks, and gleaming surgical implements.

A man lay upon the captain’s workbench, bound tightly with leather straps. Only his head was free. He looked around in wild desperation, neck straining, his face covered with sweat.

The boy’s gaze was inexorably drawn to the man’s flayed left leg. The urchin suddenly realized he couldn’t remember what he came here to do.

Gangplank turned from his work to stare at the visitor. His eyes were as cold and dead as a shark’s. He held a slender blade in one hand, delicately poised between his fingers, like a fine paintbrush.

“It’s a dying art, scrimshaw,” said Gangplank, his attention returning to his work. “Few have the patience for carving bone these days. It takes time. See? Every cut has a purpose.”

Somehow, the man was still alive, despite the ragged wound in his leg, the skin and flesh peeled back from his thighbone. Transfixed with horror, the lad saw the intricate designs the captain had carved upon that bone; coiling tentacles and waves. It was delicate work, beautiful even. That just made it even more terrible.

Gangplank’s living canvas sobbed.

“Please...” he moaned.

Gangplank ignored the pathetic plea and set down his knife. He splashed a cup of cheap whiskey over his work, clearing it of blood. The man’s scream threatened to rip his own throat out, until he slumped into merciful unconsciousness, his eyes rolling back in his head. Gangplank grunted in disgust.

“Remember this, boy,” Gangplank said. “Sometimes, even those who are loyal forget their place. Sometimes, it’s necessary to remind them. Real power is all about how people see you. Look weak, even for a moment, and you’re done.”

The child nodded, his face now drained of color.

“Wake him,” said Gangplank, gesturing toward the unconscious crewman. “The whole crew needs to hear his song.”

As the ship’s surgeon stepped forward, Gangplank swung his gaze back to the child.

“Now,” he said. “What did you want to tell me?”

“A... a man,” said the boy, his words faltering. “A man on the Rat Town docks.”

“Go on,” Gangplank said.

“He was tryin’ not to be seen by the Hooks. But I seen him.”

“Mm-hmm,” Gangplank muttered as he began to lose interest. He turned back to his work.

“Keep goin’, lad,” the first mate urged.

“He was playing around with some fancy deck of cards. They glowed funny.”

Gangplank stood up from his chair, like a colossus rising from the depths.

“Tell me where,” he said.

The leather belt of his holster creaked in his tightening grip.

“By the warehouse, the big one near the sheds.”

Gangplank’s face flushed an angry shade of crimson as he pulled on his greatcoat and claimed his hat from its peg. His eyes glinted red in the lamplight. The child was not alone in taking a wary step back.

“Give the boy a silver serpent and a hot meal,” the captain ordered to his first mate as he strode purposefully toward the cabin door.

“And get everyone to the docks. We’ve got work to do.”

I’m coughin’ up black. The smoke from the warehouse fire is tearin’ my lungs to shreds, but I don’t have time to catch my breath. T.F.’s getting away, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna spend another dog’s age chasin’ him all over Runeterra. It ends tonight.

The bastard sees me coming. He shoves a couple of dock hands out of the way and runs off across the wharf. He’s trying to work his escape card, but I’m keeping the heat on him, so he can’t focus.

More Hooks swarm around, like flies on an outhouse. Before they can block his path, T.F. tosses a couple of his exploding cards and takes the thugs out. A few Hooks are an easy fight for him. But I ain’t. I’m comin’ to get my due, and T.F. knows it. He scurries down the wharf as fast as he can.

His scuffle with the dock boys gives me just enough time to catch up. He sees me and darts behind a huge hunk of whale spine. A blast from my gun shatters his cover, filling the air with shards of bone.

He answers by trying to take my head off, but I shoot his card in midair. It explodes like a bomb, knocking us both on our asses. He scrambles to his feet first and takes off. I fire Destiny as fast as she’ll shoot.

Some Hooks close in on us with chains and cutlasses. I turn quick and blow their insides out their backs. Before I can hear the wet slap of their guts on the dock, I’m spinning on my heels. I take aim at T.F., but I’m clipped by a shot from a pistol. More Hooks, and these are better armed.

I duck behind a piece of an old trawler’s hull to return fire. My gun just clicks. Gotta reload. I slam some fresh shells into the cylinder, spit my anger onto the floor, and wade back into the chaos.

All around me, shots and bolts burst through wooden crates. One of ’em tears a chunk of my ear off. I just grit my teeth and plow forward, squeezing the trigger. Destiny is chewin’ up everything. One Jagged Hook loses a jaw. Another is blasted into the bay. A third gets torn into a red sheet of muscle and sinew.

I snap around to find T.F. escaping deeper into the slaughter docks. I run past a fishmonger hanging up scavenger eels. One of the beasts is just skinned, its innards still spillin’ onto the dock. The monger turns on me, swinging a meat hook.

BOOM.

I take off his leg.

BOOM.

I follow up with a shot to his head.

I shove away a stinking razorfish carcass and keep moving. The blood is ankle deep, some of it from the fish and some from the Hooks we’ve gunned down. It’s enough to give a dandy like T.F. fits. Even with me on his tail, he slows his stride to keep from messin’ up his skirts.

Before I can close in, T.F. kicks on into a gallop. I can feel myself losing wind.

“Turn and face me!” I holler.

What kind of man don’t own up to his problems?

A noise to my right draws my attention to a balcony holding two more Hooks. I fire, and the whole thing crashes to the docks.

The gun smoke and debris are so thick, I can’t see a damn thing. I run toward the sound of his lady boots thudding across the wooden slats. He’s makin’ for Butcher’s Bridge at the end of the slaughter docks - the only way off the island. Damned if I’m letting him get away again.

As I reach the bridge, T.F. skids to a halt, halfway across. At first, I think he’s given up. Then I see why he stopped: On the far side, blocking his way, there’s a mass of sword-wielding bastards. But I ain’t backing down.

T.F. turns back only to find me. He’s trapped. He looks over the side of the bridge, down at the water. He’s thinking about jumping - but I know he won’t.

He’s all out of options. He starts walking toward me.

“Look, Malcolm. Neither of us needs to die here. As soon as we get out of this-”

“You’ll run again. That’s all you’ve ever done.”

He don’t answer. Suddenly, he ain’t so worried about me. I turn back to see what he’s fixed on.

Behind me, I see every lowlife that can carry a blade or pistol storming onto the docks. Gangplank must’ve called in all his boys from across the city. To keep going’s a death sentence.

But livin’ ain’t the most important thing to me today.

They’re in no rush, the Hooks. Not anymore. They know they have us trapped. Behind them, it looks like every rat-stabbing cutthroat in Bilgewater has shown up to the party. No way back.

On the far end of the bridge, blocking my escape into the maze of Bilgewater’s slums, is what appears to be the whole Red Caps dock gang. They rule the east side of the waterfront. Gangplank owns them, just like he owns the Hooks and nearly the whole damned town.

Behind me, there’s Graves, stomping ever closer. The stubborn son of a bitch doesn’t care about the mess we’re in. It’s amazing, really. Here we are, yet again, like all those years ago. Deep in the muck, and he just won’t listen.

I wish I could tell him what really happened back then, but there’s no point. He wouldn’t believe me, not for a second. Once something’s lodged in that thick skull of his, it takes a while to shake it loose. And we don’t have a while.

I back up to the side of the bridge. Over the rail, I see the winches and pulleys suspended beneath me - then the ocean far below. My head spins, and my stomach drops into my boots. As I stagger back to the middle of the bridge, I get a full view of how bad a spot I’m in.

Looming in the distance is Gangplank’s black-sailed ship. From it, a damned armada of boats is closing in below, rowing hard. Looks like all of his men are heading our way.

I can’t get through the Hooks, I can’t get through the Caps, and I can’t get through Graves’s pig-headedness.

Only one way to go.

I step up onto the railing of the bridge. We’re even higher than I realized. The wind whips at my coat, making it snap like the sails of a ship. I should never have come back to Bilgewater.

“Get the hell down from there,” says Graves. Is there a hint of desperation in his voice? It’d break him if I died before he got the confession he wants so much.

I take a deep breath. It really is a long way down.

“Tobias,” Malcolm says. “Step back.”

I pause. I haven’t heard that name in a long time.

Then I jump from the bridge.

The Brazen Hydra was one of the few taverns in Bilgewater that didn’t have sawdust on the floor. Drinks were rarely spilled, let alone teeth, but on this night, its patrons could be heard all the way to Diver’s Bluff.

Men of some repute, and even greater means, were turning the air blue with wondrous songs of the very worst acts.

And there, in the middle of them all, was the conductor of the night’s revelry.

She twirled, toasting the health of the harbor master and all his watchmen. Her lustrous red hair whipped around, captivating the eyes of every man in the room, not that they had been looking at anything other than her.

No glass had been allowed to run empty all night - the crimson-haired siren made sure of that. But it wasn’t the dulled senses of every man in the room that drew them closer. It was the promise of her next glorious smile.

With merriment still shaking the tavern, the front door opened, and in stepped a plainly dressed man. Inconspicuous to a degree that only comes from years of practice, he walked to the bar and ordered a drink.

Among the clumsily assembled gallery, the young woman grabbed a fresh glass of amber ale.

“My fine fellows, I’m afraid I must take my leave,” she said with a flourish.

The men of the harbor guard responded with loud bellows of protest.

“Now, now. We’ve had our fun,” she said, chiding them amiably. “But I have a busy night ahead, and you are all so very late to your posts.”

She hopped onto a table without missing a beat, before looking down upon them all with triumphant glee.

“May the Mother Serpent grant us mercy for our sins!”

She smiled her most captivating smile, raised the large tankard to her lips, and then downed her ale in one tremendous gulp.

“Especially the big ones,” she said, as she slammed her glass on the table.

She wiped the beer from her mouth to a rapturous roar of approval and blew a kiss to all.

Like servants before their queen, the room parted.

The door was held open for her by the gracious harbor master. He hoped to garner one last glance of approval, but she was lost to the streets before he could look up from his unsteadily courteous bow.

Outside, the moon had dipped behind Freeman’s Aerie, and the night’s shadow seemed to reach out to meet the woman. Each step that she took from the tavern became more purposeful and surefooted. Her carefree veil dissolved, and her true self was revealed.

Her smile, her look of wonder and joy, were gone. She stared grimly, not seeing the streets and alleys around her, but looking far beyond to the many possibilities of the dark night ahead.

Behind her, the plainly dressed man from the tavern was gaining. His footsteps were silent, yet unnervingly swift.

In a measured heartbeat, he put his stride in perfect unison with hers, just off her shoulder, out of her periphery.

“Is everything in place, Rafen?” she asked.

After all these years, he was still taken aback at how he could never surprise her.

“Yes, Captain,” he said.

“You weren’t spotted?”

“No,” he bristled, reining in his displeasure at the question. “The bay was free from the harbor master’s eyes, and the ship was as good as empty.”

“And the boy?”

“He played his part.”

“Good. We meet at the Syren.”

At her word, Rafen broke away and disappeared into the gloom.

She continued onward as the night wrapped itself around her. Everything was in motion. All that remained was for her players to begin the show.

I hear Graves roar as I dive off the bridge. All I can see is the rope beneath me. No need to think about the fall or the bottomless black depths.

Everything is a blur of rushing wind.

I nearly scream with joy when I catch the rope, but then it burns into my palm like a branding iron. My fall stops with a snap as I slide to the bottom of the looping tether.

I hang there a moment, cursing.

I’ve heard that dropping into water from this height normally won’t kill a man, but I’d rather take my chances on the stone loading dock that’s at least fifty feet straight down. I’ll die, but it’s a damned sight better than drowning.

Between me and the stone platform, a pair of heavy-duty cables run from here to the mainland, one forward, one back. Crude, noisy mechanisms power them. They’re used to transport rendered down parts of sea beasts to the markets in Bilgewater proper.

The cables strum as a heavy rusted bucket, as big as a house, grinds its way toward me.

I let a smile creep on my face for a second. That is, until I see what’s in the cart. I’m about to drop feet first into a seething vat of rotting fish spleen.

It took me months to earn the coin for my boots. Supple as gossamer and sturdy as tempered steel, they were crafted from the hide of an abyssal sea drake. There are fewer than four pairs in the whole world.

Damn it.

I time my jump just right and land in the middle of the chum bucket. The cold slop seeps through every hand-stitch of my prized boots. At least my hat’s clean.

Suddenly, I hear that damned gun bark again.

The mooring line explodes.

The cart groans as it slides free from the cables. The wind’s knocked out of me as the bucket slams into the stone platform. I feel the foundations of the dock shake before everything flips on its side.

The world falls over my head, along with a ton of fish guts.

Struggling to stand, I look for another way out. Gangplank’s launches are closing in. They’re nearly here.

Dazed, I drag myself toward a small boat moored on the loading dock. I’m not halfway there when a shotgun blast rips its hull wide open, scuttling it.

As the boat sinks, I drop to my knees, exhausted. I try to catch some breath over my own stench. Malcolm stands over me. Somehow, he made his way down, too. Of course he did.

“Not so charmin’ now, are ya?” Graves grins, looking me up and down.

“Are you ever gonna learn?” I say, rising to my feet. “Every time I try to help you, I-”

He fires into the ground in front of me. I’m pretty sure I get a chunk of something in my shin. “If you’d just list-”

“Oh, I’m all done listenin’,” he interrupts, grinding out the words. “The biggest score of our lives, and before I knew it, you were gone.”

“Before you knew it? I told you-”

Another blast, another shower of stone, but I’m past caring.

“I tried to get us out. The rest of us saw the job was going south,” I say. “But you wouldn’t back down. You never do.” The card’s in my hand before I realize it.

“I told you then, all you had to do was back me up. We would’ve gotten out clean – and rich. But you ran,” he says, stepping forward. The man I used to know seems lost under years of hatred.

I don’t try to say anything else. I can see it in his eyes, now. Something’s broken inside of him.

Over his shoulder, a glint catches my eye - it’s a flintlock. The first of Gangplank’s crewmen are on us.

Without thinking, I flick the card. It slices toward Graves.

His gun thunders.

My card takes out Gangplank’s man. His pistol was leveled at Malcolm’s back.

Behind me, another member of his crew slumps to the ground, a knife in his hand. If Graves hadn’t shot him, he could’ve had me, cold.

We both look at each other. Old habits.

Gangplank’s men are all around now, crowding in close, howling and jeering. There’s too many to fight.

That doesn’t stop Graves. He brings his gun up, but he’s out of shells.

I don’t draw any cards. There’s no point.

Malcolm roars and goes at them. That’s his way. He shatters one bastard’s nose with the butt of his gun, before the mob beats him to the ground.

Hands grab me, pinning my arms. Malcolm’s hauled to his feet, blood dripping from his face.

Ominously, the hoots and hollers from the mob around us fall silent.

The wall of thugs parts to reveal a red-coated figure striding toward us.

Gangplank.

Up close, he’s much bigger than you’d imagine. And older. The lines of his face are deep and chiseled.

He’s holding an orange in one hand, slicing off its skin with a short-bladed carving knife. He’s doing it slow, making each cut count.

“So tell me, boys,” he says. His voice is a deep, rumbling growl. “Do you like scrimshaw?”

The fist slams into my face again. I go down hard, hitting the deck of Gangplank’s ship. Pig-iron cuffs dig into my wrists.

I’m hauled back upright and forced to kneel alongside T.F. Not that my legs would hold me if this pox-ridden mob made me stand.

The massive, slab-muscled bastard that hit me swims in and out of focus.

“Come on now, son,” I slur. “You’re doing it all wrong.”

I don’t see the next one coming. There’s just an explosion of pain, and I’m back on the deck. Once again, I’m lifted up and forced to kneel. I spit out blood and teeth. Then I grin.

“My old ma hits harder than you do, boy. And she’s been dead and buried five years now.”

He steps forward to knock me down again, but a word from Gangplank stops him in his tracks.

“Enough,” the captain says.

Swaying slightly, I try to concentrate on Gangplank’s blurred outline. Slowly, my eyes clear. At his waist, I see he’s wearing that damn knife that T.F. stole.

“Twisted Fate, huh? I heard you were good, and I’ve never been one to look down on a good thief,” Gangplank says. He steps in close and glares at T.F. “But a good thief knows better than to steal from me.” He hunkers down and looks me square in the eye.

“And you... If you’d been two shades smarter, you could have put that gun to work for me. But we’re past that now.”

Gangplank stands up and turns his back to us.

“I’m not an unreasonable man,” he continues. “I don’t expect folk to bend the knee. All I ask is a modicum of respect - something you boys pissed all over. And that can’t go unpunished.”

His crew pushes in, like dogs waiting for the order to rip us apart. I ain’t rattled, though. I won’t give them the satisfaction.

“Do me a favor,” I say, nodding toward T.F. “Kill him first.”

Gangplank chuckles at that.

He nods to a crewman, who starts banging away on the ship’s bell. In answer, dozens more across the port city ring out. Drunks, sailors, and shopkeeps start pouring onto the streets, drawn by the ruckus. The bastard wants an audience.

“Bilgewater’s watching, boys” Gangplank says. “Time to give ’em a show. Bring out Death’s Daughter!”

There’s a cheer, and the deck drums with the clamor of stamping feet. An old cannon is wheeled out. It may be rusted and green with age, but it’s still a beauty.

I glance over at T.F. His head’s down, and he ain’t sayin’ nothin’. They took his cards off him... once they found ’em all. They didn’t even leave him his stupid, dandy hat - some little inbred bastard in the crowd’s wearing it.

In all my years of knowing T.F., he’s always had an out. Without one, here and now, he looks defeated.

Good.

“You’re gettin’ what you deserve, you son of a bitch,” I snarl at him.

He stares back at me. There’s fire in him still.

“I ain’t proud of how things went-”

“You left me to rot!” I interrupt.

“Me and the whole crew tried to break you out. And they died for it!” he snaps back at me. “We lost Kolt, Wallach, the Brick - all of ’em - just trying to save your stubborn ass.”

“You made out alright, though,” I reply. “You know why? It’s because you’re a coward. And nothing you’ll ever say can change that.”

My words hit him like a punch in the guts. He doesn’t argue. The last glimmer of fight in him goes, and his shoulders slump. He’s done.

I don’t think even T.F. is this good an actor. My anger fades.

I feel tired suddenly. Tired and old.

“Everything went to hell, and maybe we’re both to blame,” he says. “I wasn’t lying, though. We tried to get you out. Doesn’t matter. You’ll believe what you want anyway.”

It takes a moment for that to sink in. It takes a moment longer to realize that I believe him.

Damn me, he’s right.

I do things my way. Always have. Whenever I pushed it too far, he had my back. He was always the one with the out.

But I didn’t listen to him that day, and I haven’t since.

And now, I’ve killed us both.

Suddenly, T.F. and I are yanked to our feet and dragged toward the cannon. Gangplank pats its muzzle, like it’s a prized hound.

“The Death’s Daughter’s done well by me,” he says. “I’ve been wanting to give her a proper send off.”

A heavy chain is dragged forward, and sailors begin looping it around the cannon. I see now how this is gonna pan out.

T.F. and I are shoved back to back, and the same chain is run around our legs and through our manacles. A padlock snaps shut, binding us to the chain.

A boarding gate in the ship’s bulwark slides open, and the cannon’s rolled into place in the gap. The wharfs and docks of Bilgewater are now packed with gawkers, here to see the show.

Gangplank rests the heel of his boot on the cannon.

“Well, I can’t get us out of this one,” T.F. says, over his shoulder. “I always knew you’d get me killed one day.”

A laugh escapes my lips at that. It’s been a long time since I laughed.

We’re dragged toward the edge of the ship, like cattle to the slaughter.

I guess this is where my story ends. I had a good run for a while there. But nobody’s luck lasts forever.

It’s only then that I know what I should do.

Carefully, straining against my manacles, I reach into my back pocket. It’s still there; the playing card T.F. dropped back in the warehouse. I’d aimed to shove it down his bastard throat.

They checked T.F. good for cards – but not me.

I nudge him. Chained back to back, it’s easy to hand the card off to T.F. without being seen. I can feel him hesitate as I pass it to him.

“You two will make a meager tithe, but you’ll serve,” says Gangplank. “Give the Bearded Lady my regards.”

With a wave to the crowd, Gangplank kicks the cannon over the side. It hits the dark water with a splash, and sinks fast. The chain on the deck spools out after it.

Now, at the end, I believe T.F. I know he tried everything to get me out, like he did all those times when we ran together. This time, for once, I’ve got the out. I can at least give him that.

“Get outta here.”

He starts going through the motions, spinning the card around his fingers. As the power starts to build, I feel an uncomfortable pressure in the back of my skull. I always hated being close to him when he did his trick.

And then, he’s gone.

The chains binding T.F. drop to the deck with a crash, and there’re shouts from the crowd. My chains are still locked tight. I ain’t getting out of this, but it’s worth it just to see the look on Gangplank’s face.

The cannon’s chain yanks me off my feet. I hit the deck hard, and grunt in pain. In an instant, I’m dragged over the edge of the boat.

The cold water hits me, stealing my breath.

Then I’m under, sinking fast, dragged down into the dark.

The card Malcolm puts in my hand could easily get me to the wharf. I’m so close to shore, and from there, the huge crowd’s just perfect for me to vanish into. I could be off this rat’s ass of an island inside an hour. This time, no one would ever find me.

Then all I can see in my mind is his pissed-off face disappearing into the depths.

Son of a bitch.

I can’t leave him. Not after last time. There’s no running away from this. I know where to go.

The pressure builds, and then I shift.

In an instant, I’m right behind Gangplank, ready to make my move.

One of his crew spots me – he looks baffled, like he’s trying to figure out how I got there. While he thinks about it, I punch him square in the face. He collapses into a crowd of bewildered deckhands. They all turn on me with cutlasses drawn. Gangplank leads the attack, slashing straight at my throat.

But I’m faster. In one deft move, I slide underneath the arcing steel and lift Gangplank’s prized silver dagger from his belt. Behind me, I hear cursing that could split the mast in two.

I leap to the deck, stowing the dagger in my britches as the end of the chain tears toward the edge of the ship. I stretch and grab the last steel link just before it disappears overboard.

The snap of the chain hauls me over the side, and now I realize what I’ve done.

The water is coming at me fast. In that frozen moment, every single part of me wants to let go of the chain. Being a river man who can’t swim has plagued me my whole life. Now it’ll be the death of me.

I take one final gulp of air. Then a musket shot rips into my shoulder. I yell out in pain, and lose my last breath just before I’m dragged under.

Frigid water punches me in the face as I sink into the suffocating blue.

This is my nightmare.

Panic wells inside. I try to quell it. It’s almost too much. More shots pierce the water above me. I’m still sinking.

Sharks and devilfish circle. They taste the blood. They follow me deeper into the abyss.

Everything is terror. No pain now. Heart pounds in my ears. Chest burning. Gotta keep the water out. Darkness coils around me. Too far down. No way back. I know that now.

But maybe I can save Malcolm.

Below me, there’s a thud, and the chain goes slack. The cannon’s hit the seabed.

I pull myself down the chain into the shadows. There’s a shape below. I think it’s Graves. Frantic, I drag myself toward him.

Then he’s right in front of me, though I can barely see the outline of his face. I think he’s shaking his head at me, angry that I came back.

I’m growing faint. My arm is numb and my skull is being crushed.

Letting go of the chain, I pull the dagger from my waist. My hand trembles.

I fumble in the darkness. By some miracle, I find the lock on Graves’s cuffs. I work the blade to coax it open, like I have a thousand locks before. But my hands won’t stop shaking.

Even Graves must be terrified. His lungs have to be giving out by now. The lock isn’t budging.

What would Malcolm do?

I twist the dagger. No finesse - nothing but force.

Something gives. I think I cut my hand. The dagger is falling. Into the abyss. There it goes... Is it glowing?

Above me, bright red. Red and orange... Everywhere. It’s beautiful... So this is what it’s like to die.

I laugh.

Water rushes in.

It’s peaceful.

Miss Fortune stared across the harbor from the deck of her ship, the Syren. Flames reflected in her eyes as she absorbed the full level of destruction she had wrought.

All that remained of Gangplank’s ship was burning wreckage. The crew had been killed in the detonation, drowned in the chaos, or claimed by the swarming razorfish.

It had been glorious. An immense ball of rolling fire had lit up the night like a new sun.

Half the city had witnessed it; Gangplank himself had seen to that, as she knew he would. He had to parade Twisted Fate and Graves in front of Bilgewater. He had to remind everyone why no one should cross him. To Gangplank, people were just tools used to maintain control - so she’d used that to kill him.

Shouts and tolling bells echoed across the port city. Word would be spreading like wildfire.

Gangplank is dead.

The corners of her lips curled into a smile.

Tonight was merely the endgame: Hiring T.F., tipping off Graves – all just to distract Gangplank. It had taken years to exact her revenge.

Miss Fortune’s smile faded.

From the moment he had stormed into her family’s workshop, his face hidden behind a red bandana, she had been preparing herself for this moment.

Sarah lost both her parents that day. She was just a child, but he shot her down as she stood watching her parents bleed out on the floor.

Gangplank taught her a harsh lesson: that no matter how safe you feel, your world – everything you’ve built, everything you care for - can be taken away in an instant.

Gangplank’s one mistake was not making sure she was dead. Her anger and her hate had sustained her through that first cold, painful night, and every night since.

For fifteen years, she had scraped together everything she needed; waiting until she wasn’t even a memory to him, for him to drop his guard and get comfortable in the life he’d built. Only then would he truly be able to lose everything. Only then would he know what it felt like to lose his home, to lose his world.

She should have been feeling exultant, but she just felt empty.

Joining her at the gunwale, Rafen jolted Sarah from her reverie.

“He’s gone,” he said. “It’s over.”

“No,” replied Miss Fortune. “Not yet.”

She turned from the harbor, casting her gaze across Bilgewater. Sarah had hoped that killing him would kill her hate. But all she had done was unleash it. For the first time since that day, she felt truly powerful.

“This is just the beginning,” she said. “I want everyone loyal to him to be brought to answer. I want the heads of his lieutenants mounted on my wall. Burn every bawdy house, tavern, and warehouse that bears his mark. And I want his corpse.”

Rafen was shaken. He’d heard words like that before, but never from her.

I’ve thought a lot about the ways I’d wanna go out. Chained up like a dog at the bottom of the ocean? That one never crossed my mind. Lucky for me, T.F. manages to pop the lock on my shackles just before he drops the dagger.

I scramble out of the chains, thirsty for breath. I turn toward T.F. Poor bastard’s not moving. I twist my hand around his collar and start kickin’ toward the surface.

As we go up, suddenly everything lights up bright red.

A shockwave knocks me ass over ears. Chunks of iron sink past us. A cannon plunges by. Then a charred hunk of rudder. Bodies, too. A face covered in tattoos stares in shock at me. The severed head then slowly disappears into the darkness beneath us.

I swim faster, my lungs set to bust.

An age later, I’m at the surface, coughing up salt water and gasping for air. But it’s damn near unbreathable. Smoke chokes me and claws at my eyes. I’ve seen things burn in my time, but never like this. Looks like someone set the whole world on fire.

“Damn me...” I hear myself mutter.

Gangplank’s ship is gone. Bits of smoking debris are scattered all across the bay. Fiery islands of wood collapse all around, hissin’ as they go under. A flaming sail falls right in front of us, nearly dragging T.F. and me back down for good. Burning men desperately jump from smoldering pieces of wreckage into the water, quietin’ their own screams. It smells like the end of everything – sulfur and ash and death; cooked hair and melting skin.

I check on T.F. I’m strugglin’ to keep him above water. Son of a bitch is a lot heavier than he looks, and it ain’t helping that half my ribs are broke. I find a piece of scorched hull floating nearby. It looks solid enough. I pull us both on top. It ain’t exactly seaworthy, but it’ll do.

For the first time, I get a good look at T.F. He ain’t breathin’. I wail on his chest with my fists. Just when I’m worried I’m going to cave his ribs in, he coughs out a lungful of seawater. I slump and shake my head again as he slowly comes to his senses.

“You stupid son of a bitch! What did you come back for?”

It takes him a minute to answer.

“Thought I’d try it your way,” he mutters, slurring his words. “See what being a stubborn ass felt like.” He hacks up more water. “Feels awful.”

Razorfish and even meaner sea critters are startin’ to gather around us. I ain’t about to be anything’s chow. I pull my feet away from the edge.

A mangled crewman bobs to the surface, grabbin’ for our raft. I plant my boot in his face and shove him off. A fat tentacle wraps around his neck and drags him back under. Now the fish have something else to keep ’em busy.

Before they run out of fresh meat, I break off a plank from our raft and use it to paddle us away from the feedin’ frenzy.

I pull at the water for what seems like hours. My arms are heavy and hurtin’, but I know better than to stop. Once I’ve put some distance between us and the massacre, I collapse onto my back.

I’m spent like an empty shotgun shell as I look out over the bay. It’s stained red with the blood of Gangplank and his crew. Not a survivor in sight.

How am I still breathing? Maybe I’m the luckiest man on Runeterra. Or maybe T.F.’s carrying enough good fortune for the both of us.

I see a body floating by, holding something familiar lookin’. It’s Gangplank’s little inbred bastard, still clutching T.F.’s hat. I take it off him and toss it to T.F. He ain’t even a little surprised, like he always knew he’d get it back.

“Now we just need to find your gun,” he says.

“What, you itchin’ to go back down there?” I say, pointing to the deep.

T.F. turns a funny shade of green.

“We ain’t got the time. Whoever did this, they left Bilgewater without a boss,” I tell him. “It’s gonna get ugly here, fast.”

“You’re telling me you can live without your gun?” he asks.

“Maybe not,” I say. “But I know a really good gunsmith in Piltover.”

“Piltover...” he says, lost in thought.

“Lot of money flowing through there right now,” I say.

T.F. figures hard for a moment.

“Hmm. Not sure about having you as a partner again – you’re even dumber than you used to be,” he finally answers.

“That’s alright. I’m not sure about havin’ a partner called Twisted Fate. Who the hell came up with that?”

“Well, it’s a damn sight better than my real name,” T.F. laughs.

“Fair enough,” I admit.

I grin. It feels just like the old days. Then I go stone faced and look him dead in the eye.

“Just one thing: You ever have mind to leave me holding the bag again, I’ll blow your goddamn head off. No questions.”

Fate’s laugh dies down, and for a moment, he glares back at me. Then, after a while, he just smiles.

“You got a deal.”

Bilgewater was devouring itself. The streets rang with the shrieks of the desperate and the dying. Fires burning in the lowly slums rained ash across the entire city. Control had been lost, and now every gang rushed to fill the power vacuum left by the fall of one man. A war had been started by the spread of three simple words: Gangplank is dead.

Savage ambitions and petty grudges that had festered for years were now being acted upon.

On the docks, a crew of whalers ran down a rival fisherman. They skewered him with harpoons and left his body hanging from a trotline.

At the highest peak of the island, tall opulent gates that had stood since Bilgewater’s founding were battered apart. A cowering gang lord was ripped from his bed by a rival. His mewling cries were silenced when his skull was dashed upon the hand-crafted marble of his own front steps.

Along the wharf, a fleeing Red Cap attempted to staunch a bloody head wound. He looked over his shoulder but could see no sign of his pursuers. The Jagged Hooks had turned on the Caps. He had to get back to the safe house to warn his crew.

He rounded the corner, screaming for his brothers to gather their arms and join him. But his thirst for blood dried in his throat. Standing in front of the Red Caps’ own den was a band of Hooks. Their blades dripped with gore. At their head, a wiry figure, barely a man, creased his pock-marked face with a vicious grin.

The Red Cap had time to utter one last curse.

Across the bay, off a quiet back alley, a physician attempted to ply his trade. The gold he had been handed was plenty to buy his services – and assure his silence.

It had taken half an hour to peel the sodden coat from the sloughing flesh of his patient’s arm. The doctor had seen many horrific injuries before, but even he recoiled at the sight of the mangled limb. He paused for a moment, terrified of the response his next words would provoke.

“I... I’m sorry. I can’t save your arm.”

Within the shadows of the candlelit room, the bloodied ruin of a man composed himself before staggering to his feet. His good hand shot out like a lash and wrapped around the throat of the quivering doctor. He lifted the surgeon slowly, measuredly off the floor and pinned him to the wall.

For a terrible moment, the brute stood impassively, considering the man in his grasp. Then he abruptly dropped him.

Lost in panic and confusion, the healer coughed violently as the shadowed mass strode to the back of the room. Passing through the light of the surgeon’s lantern, the patient reached for the top drawer of a well-worn cabinet. Methodically, the man opened each drawer searching for what he needed. Finally, he stopped.

“Everything must have a purpose,” he said, looking at his mutilated arm.

He pulled something from the case, and threw it to the doctor’s feet. There, glinting under the lantern was the clean steel of a bonesaw.

“Cut it off,” he said. “I’ve got work to do.”

“You the marshal?” the river man said, his features an unreadable patina of lowland dust and dried bottlebrush needles, caked together by mud from the bottom of an old lakebed. He stood in the doorway of Lucian's private train cabin, small and large at the same time, dressed in gold-panning rags that had been picked from a dead claim jumper on the outskirts of Progress.

The river man didn't breathe in or out. Didn't have to.

Lucian had heard about them before, the river men, but never seen one up close. They needed moisture or they'd dry out, never venturing far from the mudholes and gulches they spawned in. If a traveler was unlucky enough they’d try to fill a flask with a river man's putrid water, or dig a pan into the silt where one lived. Without warning, it would snap up like an alligator, pulling you into the suffocating muck with wide, earthen arms, and just like that you were gone. Another ghost of the Old West.

“Not anymore,” said Lucian.

Lucian looked at the river man and the river man looked back, the gunslinger comfortably resting against the floral draperies of his cabin. Flecks of light occasionally entered through the curtains as their train rattled along, illuminating the river man's dark, piscine eyes, nearly hidden beneath the earthen cracks in his face.

“I want your badge,” he said.

Lucian nodded. A federal's badge would get the thing past Fort Nox, away from its government monster hunters, and down by way of caravan to the mangrove swamps just south of Bandle. Probably thought it could take up shop there, now that more and more east coasters were settling the low desert. Didn't make the creature's gamble less desperate, but Lucian appreciated when the stakes were clear.

“Must not be many of you left,” said Lucian.

“Ain't too many of anything left,” said the river man.

The boxcar's springs clicked once as they compressed against a couplet of uneven rail lines, and in the instant that the cabin shifted, the river man spread his arms wide, the mud on his face giving way to dozens of needle-sharp teeth as great spines burst from his shoulders. Before the springs clicked again a gunshot rang out, a thin ray of hellfire erupting through the side of the train and into the setting sun, and before the river man hit the floor Lucian's sidearm was already back in its holster.

The creature's head, split down the center and burnt beyond recognition, smoldered with the faint scent of sulfur and blackthorn. Its body contorted on the ground, flame roasting its membranes from the inside, and Lucian straightened his hat as he leaned back into the darkness of his room. The darkness shuddered softly around him, and smiled.

No one came to check on Lucian. No one came to take the dessicated body of the river man. The two traveled in silence together, door open, all the way down to the last stop at Angel's Perch.

And then out to the preacher who spoke with the dead.

Progress had been alive with whispers that this was the lawman what tangled with the devil and lost, and now he was headed up to New Eden to meet with the holy reverend. Both were ill portents in the Old West, so nobody would deny the aims of the man with the grinning shadow. They didn't need another Twin Reeds or Redriver, entire towns swallowed up and gone with some foul twist of happenstance. They needed Lucian out of their settlement and fast, and would give him anything he needed with all speed.

This had been the game ever since his last job with the federals, when they'd sent him out to reckon with the devil himself and drag him back to civilization. They would ‘put the devil on trial’—or that was the play, at least—and prove to the world that the frontier was safe to claim.

Of course, Lucian knew there wasn't just one devil, but the public thought better in singulars. He’d seen how the desert was crawling with strange creatures from every end of the world: demons in clean pressed suits, angels holed up in mountain crags, witches and ghosts and all manner of beast that might cloak itself in moonlight and tear an unsuspecting pilgrim to ribbons. The western natives and their alien weaponry; the skull-faced colossi who fed on ripened flesh; the mechanical men built by human hands, long gone rogue. And always, always devils.

This devil, though, was different. He went by many names—The Reaper, The Slaughter God, Old Turnkey, and Great Horn. He collected souls, or so the stories said, and went from town to town conducting his dark business, tearing the spirits out of the living and leaving their flayed skins behind. A creature of the Old World and demon of the wild frontier who, like his kin, sated his terrible hungers on an endless river of fresh-faced pioneers. Enough so that folks were starting to take notice, and for a government aimed on expansion, folks taking notice was bad for business.

Three marshals were dead at his hands, all told. Lucian had known two of them.

“They call it Thresh,” his handlers revealed. “Think you can catch him?”

Lucian looked over the sketches, noting the monster’s brazen, bovine skull, alight with the flames of all seven hells. He figured the lantern hanging curiously nearby was the source of its power, and if he could get in a clean shot, the fight would be over before it started.

Yet it was never that easy with devils, especially devils with a federal bodycount. He remembered tangling with a particularly nasty specimen near Chuparosa that moved with the speed of a desert storm, kicking up whirlwinds as it went. It was too fast to hit with a bullet, and if it hadn’t been for the timely intervention of his partner, Lucian might not have made it out alive. This hunt required backup.

“Not alone,” said Lucian. “I’ll need Senna.”

“Last stop, Angel’s Perch,” the conductor uttered, so gently it was almost a whisper. The heat of the journey had shriveled the river man’s corpse nearly into rawhide, but in the long shadows of the cabin a worse creature had perched itself upon Lucian’s seat.

It was smoke and fire, teeth and flames, its arms the artillery of a demon general cast up from the bottom of the abyss. It had the rough shape of a man, were a man made from campfire ash, with the glowing sigil of the federal marshals inverted upon its breast. Its legs were the incinerated spires of ancient, burning elms. Its red heart pulsed with the rage of all the earth.

“God,” spoke the conductor, not knowing which god he was invoking. The thing stood on its curious, spindling legs, leaning against the train’s still air. Its face seemed to peel apart, mouth broken in horrific ecstasy, as hellfire illuminated a ragged, mocking grin.

In that moment the ash fell away, and Lucian stepped out from the darkness.

“Sorry, friend,” he spoke. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

The conductor quivered in silence for a long while before Lucian brushed past, down the steel halls of the cabin car and out into the twilit evening. He figured the man would make a good story of it.

Angel’s Perch. A boomtown at the edge of civilization, where the trees grew tall and the air was thick with the scent of honey and wine. No one knew what lay beyond the ring of gargantuan pines at the foot of the mountains west of town, but they did know they had enough guns and men to hold off anything the far frontier could throw at them. Or at least they assumed. The creatures who made a home of Angel’s Perch would only reveal so much about what lay beyond, and no other living thing what had ventured that far west had returned sane, or at all.

Lucian made his way through the Perch’s bustling train station and into the center of town, past no less than three snake oil salesmen, each hucking the artificial magic ointments of the industrial east, and a saloon girl with the body of a cobra. Her milky eyes were hidden behind a veil, lest a paying customer turn to granite before they ever sat down to drink.

Near the mouth of main street, beyond the loggers and lamplighters, the general stores and the brothels, and the reclusive gunsmith rumored to be a fallen deity, there stood the town’s famed saloon. Popular myth held it had been in business since the founding of the settlement, or perhaps even before. It was called The Earthly King: be you man, woman or beast with a fate to outrun, its kingdom was open to you… as long as you had cash to spare.

It was, in many ways, the kind of place where a man might lose himself. But Lucian didn’t have much of himself left to lose, always feeling the tug of invisible strings against the weight of his soul, the shadow grinning behind him. He couldn’t stay for long.

Humans had little knowledge of settlements in the far west, and creatures living in town wouldn’t spill their precious secrets without a fight. The natives, if they spoke at all, would never reveal anything about anything, the few who tolerated settlers busying themselves with their strange machines.

Lucian had to rely on friends. Most could have been counted among the federal marshals, but they didn’t take kindly to demons, and like it or not that was what Lucian was fast becoming. He had to reach even further back, before the government contracts and the cobblestone streets of St. Zaun, to his days as a brash young gunfighter for hire. There he’d met many friends who lived and died with a revolver in their hand, but one figure remained as steadfast and obstinate as always, too big to kill and too old to die. He wasn’t a man per se, but he’d been fighting long before the first ships landed on the continent, and would probably be fighting long after everything else was dust and whispers.

Lucian stepped through the wide-set doors of the King and, for a moment, the bar grew quiet as its unsightly patrons sized up the harrowed stranger. “I’m looking for the longhorn,” he said, and they at once turned back to their card games and beer, the high shrill of an out of tune piano crashing against a dozen incomprehensible hoots and hollers.

Lucian soon spotted the longhorn at the far end of the bar—his massive bulk was hard to miss, even amid the carousing of the King’s clientele. Despite his frame he liked to keep to himself, though it was not uncommon for cocky young fighters to call him out over some perceived slight, hoping to down the beast for fame and glory. This never ended well, and more nights than not a boisterous challenger would have their skull pulverized with a single, swift butt to the head.

Alistar was a minotaur, easily ten feet tall and six feet wide. If you picked a fight with him, you got what was coming.

“Longhorn,” said Lucian.

“Marshal,” replied Alistar.

“I’m making my way to New Eden,” said Lucian.

“Aren’t we all,” replied Alistar, as Lucian sat beside him.

Alistar was old, now—few of his kind remained, and he would no doubt outlive them all. He spent his days as a glorified thug for other, weaker creatures, and his nights on a bar stool built for beings half his size.

The pair gazed solemnly ahead. Not a man came to Angel’s Perch without a reason, and fewer still walked through the doors of The Earthly King unless that reason was dire. It was the drinking hole of renegades and dead men, a drain where the aimless slowly circled downward, and those seeking a final battle spilled their coin before vanishing into the wilderness.

Lucian was heading deep into the uncharted northwest, where no trains ran and vicious gods walked among the trees, seeking a rumor on borrowed time.

Both knew the stakes, and the favor, though none had been asked.

“What do you think she’ll say?” asked Alistar. “When you get there.”

“I don’t know,” answered Lucian. “I don’t rightly know.”

The longhorn sighed into his drink, a thick aluminum tankard about the size of a child. He never had liked long goodbyes.

“Let me draw you a map.”

Lucian had first met Senna at the end of a gun—her gun—during a bloody shootout in one of Buzzard Gulch’s most squalid drinking parlors. Not that shootouts in Buzzard Gulch were uncommon, but this one had involved some fool bounty hunter drawing on an Outsider with his back turned. It got ugly.

The Outsiders, so they claimed, were from everywhere and nowhere at once, creatures in clean pressed suits whose love of gambling had made them infamous among outlaw clans and desperate homesteaders. Beating one meant riches beyond compare, conjured from nothing and guaranteed by an Outsider’s wax seal—itself worth a small fortune. Losing was another matter, as they accepted no wager less than a man’s most deeply cherished possession. Farms, watches, children, souls… a favorite knife—the bet was always steep, even if you didn’t know it yet.

Rumor had it this specimen had beaten Jeremiah James, a millionaire railroad baron Lucian had once done small jobs for. Jeremiah was a giant, and a mean one at that, who’d posted a sky-high bounty the moment he lost whatever dire prize he so foolishly put up for collateral—enough to bankrupt him twice over.

And as almost every gunfighter knew, once a reward swung out of the piss-pot, gully stabbing, prairie-shotgun-ambush fare of Buzzard Gulch’s wanted board and into the realm of jilted industrialists, bounty hunters would come calling. The whole lot of them loved money and killing, and not much else.

The hunter drew with little warning, and instantly the room went quiet. The Outsider sipped his whiskey with a calm that suggested the absence of all intent. Senna, a handful of federal marshals and the longhorn were present, among the town’s usual collection of heavily armed scoundrels and murderers. Everyone waited to make a move.

“Now, friend,” the hunter cooed, her voice sugar tinged with blood, “I know you’ve got what I came for. Turn it over, and everybody walks out the way they came in.”

The Outsider said nothing—his face was as placid as a porcelain doll, unmoved and unperturbed by the threat of his assailant’s twin six-guns. He’d known she was coming the whole time. Probably knew before she even took the job. But in the heat of the low sun, plied with drink at the edge of the world, it was hard to tell who was itching for a fight, and who was just bluffing.

The hunter broke the silence with a bullet, and a heavy round exploded from her pistol and into the center of the creature’s chest. The Outsider’s body billowed outward, the hole rippling black smoke in the shape of crows, and from the smoky mass a great, vicious claw burst into a table of poker players. Cards, chips, and searing blood sprayed across the room as the hunter started unloading.

Lucian drew on the hunter, the marshals drew on Lucian, and the longhorn tore through the bar to get as many pieces of the action as time would allow. Every gun in the place lit up, and as bullets ripped through fastgun and marshal alike, Lucian took cover behind a pool table—where he found himself in quite a different predicament.

“Hello, stranger,” said Senna, her gun squarely aimed at Lucian’s forehead. Her eyes were the color of a gentle prairie, mottled with specks of black, and Lucian almost forgot he was speaking into a loaded firearm.

“Ma’am,” he replied.

“I assume you choose to associate with these upstanding individuals?” she asked, as the lead-riddled body of a barkeep collapsed limply beside them. Black smoke drifted softly out of his mouth.

“Some of them,” Lucian answered.

Senna ducked as another shell ripped past the backside of the bar, taking a chunk of a pool table with it. The motion was so quick Lucian almost didn’t see it—then again, he’d never seen anyone dodge a bullet. Certainly not with such confidence, and Senna had plenty to spare.

She smiled warmly, her badge glinting in the light. The star of a chief marshal, one of the deadliest quickdraws in the known world.

“Well, to each their own,” she grinned, gingerly confiscating Lucian’s pistol. “Don’t worry, I’ll give it back… if you’re not dead when this is over.”

And with two quick shots from cover, she swung back into the fight, leaving Lucian wondering what had just happened.

The rest of the shootout was a blur. At one point the bounty hunter ripped some sort of oil-soaked object from the Outsider’s roiling body and ran out the saloon doors, and the creature went screaming after her. With most of the clientele dead and nobody left to shoot, the survivors went across the street to finish their drinks. Buzzard Gulch never found itself wanting for corpses or liquor.

It was there, the marshals like to say, that Lucian decided to hang up his hat and hunt monsters for the government.

Though they’ll also mention it was less about saving people from beasts, and more about a pretty girl who dodged a bullet with a smile.

The longhorn’s map had been useful, if sloppy. Lucian had followed it on foot for what seemed like a hundred years, further north from Angel's Perch than most living souls would ever dare to venture. Here colors seemed more vivid, the air itself breathed with strange magics, and when Lucian drifted off, he could swear gargantuan creatures lurked just beyond the edge of his vision, watching. Yet Lucian did not feel afraid. He made camp as the sun dipped over the horizon, and steeled himself. The shadow grew strongest at night.

He would sense its evil dragging him downwards, pulling him out of himself. Soon Lucian’s skin would itch and flake away, his mouth twisted into a hungry grin. He would feel the flames, hear the demon whisper in his own voice. He would drown in the crackling inferno of indigo sagelands erupting into a sea of hellfire. And he would feel the anger. The terrible, ageless anger, the shame, the disgust. Hateful bile born the from the darkness of his own soul. Only then would the battle begin—the demon assuming Lucian’s body, while what was left of the man tried to wrestle it back.

Lately, the transformations were beginning to last longer than Lucian liked.

He felt his skin begin to prickle, and watched as it cracked against the cool night air. Lucian rested himself against an old log, as comfortably as he could. His muscles froze in place—awaiting the change, and the struggle, and the promise of morning.

His eyes glazed over. The sky twisted into deep crimson—overtaken by a perpetual sundown, ringed with flame, and the trees around him stood as ghastly totems against thick, otherworldly fog. Only the campfire illuminated the world as it was, the greens and browns of patchy grassland. The change had begun.

Or if not the change, something worse.

Deep in the forest, a train whistle sounded. It rang hollow, a warped and yawning sound that spilled out from the demonic vision’s umber mist. This was something new, a creature Lucian had not prepared to face—and locked in combat with himself, he could not turn or draw. He tried to stand as thick metal legs splintered the primeval woodlands like they were toys, dragging a colossal torso awkwardly behind them. He could not move, nor turn his eyes from the glowing core of hungry coals, or grisly flesh, or smoke from bulbous locomotive valves that lined the shoulders of a long-dead giant.

A devil, Lucian thought. Another devil.

The hulking thing stepped before him, still obscured by fog, and bent its massive legs down until a familiar face leaned into view of the firelight.

“Lucian,” it spoke.

Lucian recognized it—him—instantly. The millionaire, long thought missing or dead, who so many years ago had wagered his own heart in an Outsider’s game of chance.

“Jeremiah?”

The old industrialist chuckled. He was hideously malformed—gone were even the last glimpses of his humanity, replaced instead by infernal steamwork and the gutted skeletons of a dozen ruined cargo trains. His belly swelled with heat of a devil’s furnace, and the campfire between the two travelers seemed to draw towards it, as though Jeremiah were breathing it in.

“I have shed that name, my good marshal,” he spoke, his voice melting over the land as Lucian sat paralyzed before him. “You may call me Urgot now, for that is the name I have taken.”

“I know what you are wondering,” he continued. “Understand that I was laid low in my efforts to civilize this desperate land, and divorced from my plans for a great steel empire. No, I made a mistake of hubris—I took a deal, as you once did… and paid so, so dearly for it.”

The colossus motioned towards where his heart might have been, now nothing but a tangled mass of white-hot copper. The rumors had been true. Jeremiah had died.

“It was not death,” he said, as if snatching the thought from the air. “Though by the time my treasured property was returned, it was far too late to call myself alive. My body was abandoned at the edge of the desert by some… associates… who have come to know the dire price of treachery. Yet as you are aware, there are many devils… and unlike the monster you failed to destroy, I was visited by one with a particularly tantalizing offer.”

Urgot was close now, the campfire pouring endlessly upwards into his stomach. The grinding of a thousand starving gears echoed from somewhere within him, and Lucian imagined a devouring maw, chaining the sky down before swallowing it whole.

“I know you will lose the duel within yourself, marshal. I did. Brought low by my losses I turned to common banditry, and the darkest hollows of my sadly mortal imagination. When you follow me down that trail—and you will—I intend to meet with the creature wearing your body. We have… a great many things to discuss.”

With that, the enormous metal legs pulled Urgot away, until even his illuminated hellmouth disappeared from view. The sky buckled, and broke—bitter sun replaced once more by cold, lightless midnight, and Lucian was alone.

The shadow would claim him soon.

He had to move quickly.

Lucian had been careless.

Forgetting what a devil was, the kind of power one could wield, he and Senna had rushed into an alpine tundra on horseback, determined to take Thresh with a single shot. Lucian was one of the greatest marshals the outfit had ever seen; Senna was the greatest. They were brave, and impetuous, and in love—and Thresh had been waiting for them.

The devil called Thresh was not an ordinary monster of the high frontier. Ravenous and cruel, he had lived for eons before the men of the Old World landed on his continent’s eastern shores.

The cosmic beings who birthed the gods grew old and died, their ancient bodies fell to earth to become the mountains and valleys and primordial seas, but Thresh continued on, his unnatural life sustained by a bottomless, ravenous thirst for destruction. Before spoken word could give shape to his name, all living things knew his face—the skull of a beast, hateful and burning, gazing balefully down upon them. His malice was woven so deeply into his ancient form that it could never be purged, and he walked across the broken bodies of the vast things he had outlived, devouring the souls of their sad and forgotten children.

Lucian didn’t even see his opponent before a razor whip sliced cleanly into his shoulder, knocking him from his mount and crippling his shooting arm. Senna leapt for her lover’s pistol, but she too was struck low by the devil’s power, walls of flame erupting from the earth as laughter echoed from his bleached, lidless skull. His voice rattled within their heads, a deep and primordial howl, and Lucian saw in his mind the beast sinking his blade deep into Senna’s throat. The fight had lasted only seconds, and already Thresh had won.

The devil stood over Senna, flames within his ancient body twisting against the chill air, and he drew a jagged blade from somewhere inside of his ragged, billowing coat. Lucian had seen the skinned corpses of a dozen frontier towns on the way to Thresh’s den, and the piles of twitching muscle where unlucky wagon trains had drawn his hellish gaze. Lucian was prepared for the devil to take him, and always had been—but he would not let Senna share the fate of a young and foolish gunfighter.

And perhaps, momentarily amused after so many years of dark, sumptuous slaughter, that was why Thresh offered him a deal.

Such a simple thing, Lucian had thought. So easy to accept.

His soul for the life of the girl.

Then the shadow took hold, the hate and shame within the young marshal coming alive, hijacking his senses, his body corrupting before Senna’s pleading eyes. The bargain had been struck, the pact sealed. As Lucian’s vision turned to flame, he watched the monstrous devil he had been sent to hunt turn to Senna’s defenseless body—laughing hideously as he ripped out her heart.

The holy reverend of New Eden was little known or understood, but the rumors of his supposed power had spread even as far as the eastern territories. A man who could speak with the dead, as many liked to say, though few did survive the pilgrimage into the unexplored northwest to see if the rumors were true. Those who struck out for New Eden never returned—and now, looking down upon the enclave from a nearby hill, Lucian understood why.

Untouched by the elements and unspoiled by the beasts of the forest, the modest church commune was small and thriving, surrounded by bountiful crops and quaint homes that seemed to swell with life. Children ran across dirt roads as shopkeeps and townspeople passed peacefully by, far removed from demons and Outsiders, gorgons and giants, and the machinations of bandit clans that should have long ago picked every building clean. It was a place from a storybook, bright and clean. Lucian wondered for a moment if he had lost the duel with the demon already, and this was his reward.

He descended from the hill, and the villagers turned to see the newcomer in their midst.

“You’ve come to meet the holy reverend?” asked a fresh-faced young man.

Lucian nodded.

“Then hallelujah, stranger,” he smiled. “You’ve come home.”

No town in Lucian’s memory accurately compared to the sights of New Eden. A bakery filled his nostrils with the scent of fresh bread, as young women danced and fiddlers played in the street. Songs of salvation drifted from mead halls that had never for a moment known the Old West’s violent madness. Ordinary people greeted him as he passed by, offering him food and water, asking where he came from and where he was going.

The demon raged inside him, but in the light of day Lucian could overpower it, control it. And there was something about this place that calmed him, in a way he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

“No one fears death here,” someone spoke. Lucian turned to find a kindly old man, dressed in a modest preacher’s frock, possessing a youthful glint in his now-faded eyes. “A fear of death is a fear of life. We accept death for what it is, and live a life free from the snares of its uncertainty.”

Lucian liked the way the man spoke. His speech lilted softly, like a song.

“I don’t know if I believe that,” replied Lucian.

The man smiled. “Of course.”

He continued on, walking in no particular direction. Lucian followed.

“We live in a land of angels and demons. We see their influence every day, for good or evil, and the calamities they wreak. The world is old, but many of our gods are still alive, watching over their progeny even now.”

He motioned to the center of town, where a picturesque church with white walls and a blue roof stood. The building was immaculate—even the stained glass windows seemed to glow, polished to a radiant sheen. Villagers milled in and out, talking and laughing, as children crowded around their legs. The building could have been erected yesterday.

“And they bestow the faithful with many gifts. The gift of life, the gift of love.”

The man turned to Lucian, a knowing smile upon his face.

“And the gift of death.”

Something rang curiously in Lucian’s ears. It was the way the man said death, the way the sound was shaped by his lips, much like a secret whispered to a lover. The passersby, too, had become still, their eyes closed as if dreaming, and they only opened them again when the odd melody had finished washing over them.

“Meet me inside, when you’re ready,” he said. “They call me Reverend Karthus, and I have so much I want to show you.”

The interior of the church was clean and white—its pews were polished, its pulpit modest. Karthus shooed the rest of his congregation outside, and they looked lovingly at Lucian as they passed. Some whispered a passing “welcome,” others clapped their hands together in quiet reverence. To Lucian, New Eden seemed to be a sleeping child that hadn’t yet awoken to the monsters in the world outside its door. The fact that it stood at all was testament to whatever powers Karthus claimed to possess, real or not.

Deep within Lucian, the shadow raged. He once again felt the itch beneath his skin, the flames bubbling up from some dark corner of his soul, and his mouth twisting into a forceful, mocking grin. But something was different—the creature was frightened, and Lucian couldn’t understand why.

“My, my,” Karthus spoke, a smile still crossing his face. “We can’t have that now, can we?”

The reverend picked up a small, black-bound book, emblazoned with the symbol of a golden key. With a gentle wave and some intangible words, the demon was suddenly silenced—but not before Lucian felt something else, something the creature had not done before. It whispered softly in his ear, the low and crackling whimper of a dying fire.

“They are monsters.”

“In a land of angels and demons, I wonder what you will become?” continued Karthus, resting a faded stole over his shoulders. The reverend then motioned for Lucian to kneel before him, and to Lucian’s surprise, he did.

“Why do you fight this battle? What do you have to gain?”

Lucian did not answer. The light had begun to fade, as New Eden’s hopeful music slowly twisted into a strange, lopsided dirge. Karthus nodded slowly, his smile widening, and Lucian kept his eyes locked ahead. A curious skittering echoed from the floorboards behind him. It was a sound he knew well.

“We give so much of ourselves to fear,” spoke Karthus, his voice growing deeper and darker. “And you have given most of all.”

Energies swirled about the old man—luminescent blues and greens in the rough shapes of friends Lucian had lost, things he had killed. They danced against the rafters of the now decrepit church, its paint peeling away to reveal black, moldering rot.

Lucian sensed the presence of at least a dozen shapes behind him. Some were crouched on all fours, others clambered softly over the warped and ruined pews, and still more waited outside the church, their human disguises melting away. Lucian now knew why the town lay untouched, why its people seemed so good and kind: they weren’t people at all. Or if they had been, they’d been dead a very long time.

Lucian’s hands moved slowly towards his pistols.

The reverend now loomed over him, lifting off the ground as he gripped the book with the golden key, his sermon exploding into a rapturous chorus of overlapping voices: “Our souls will be purified in the cool waters of death! Our broken spirits will be repaired, the things we lost shall be returned!”

The creatures behind Lucian crawled forward, slavering and starved, as Karthus floated ever upwards, his arms outstretched, ascending into the musty air. Images of Lucian’s past twirled all around him, men and women whose deaths played out again and again.

A familiar voice brushed against his ear, almost a word, but not.

“Do you hear her?” asked Karthus.

Lucian listened.

The sound was crackling sage, the ashes of a campfire, the striking of a match. It spoke of Senna’s death, and how Lucian had fallen into despair. For years the ruined marshal had wandered from place to place, dead in everything but name and emptied of all joy. As each day had passed, another small, cruel thing filled his mind, and the shadow had grown wild within him, his inner darkness yearning to seize control. Any offer of peace had to be investigated, no matter how dangerous or foolish.

Lucian had heard of a man who could speak with the dead, and gone without question. He had given himself to a shadow that took the shape of his own monstrous hatred, and allowed it to rule him utterly.

Lucian found himself alone with the demon—away from the church, and far from the streets of New Eden. The two stood apart, facing one another, in a moonlit field of white flowers. Lucian could feel the cool air against his skin. He could see the distant lights of a town, high in the mountains, and the moon hanging low in the sky. Beneath the demon the flowers burned, but the creature stood calmly, its face twisted into a familiar, ravenous grin.

Lucian breathed. So much of himself had been lost to the shadow—to Thresh, and the spectre of the unforgiving west. But he still ruled his own soul, half-corrupted as it was, and the shadow was a part of it—a part of him.

It drew closer, slowly, each step burning more flowers away.

Lucian reached out his hand, and the shadow rested a charred limb upon it. It whispered: “Would you cast your enemies into the fire?”

Lucian was silent. His skin crackled at the shadow’s touch, but he said nothing. It already had its answer.

It whispered once more, now in Lucian’s own voice, as its ashen body bonded with his mortal flesh: “Then we will go together.”

“Do you hear the love you have lost?” Karthus sang.

Lucian drew his pistol. “No.”

His arm elongated, stretching into the hellish cannon of the demon within him, and a ray of unholy flame ripped through Karthus’s forehead. As the preacher’s body fell, Lucian spun around, melting into shadow as a screaming ghoul leapt at him from one of the broken pews. He fired again, obliterating the creature, and launched a third shot into the crowd of its shriveled, wide-mouthed brethren—the fiddlers and bakers, dancers and farmers now shrunken, twisted, and hollow. The bullet exploded among them, blasting their bodies apart, and at once a swelling sea of horrors flowed in through the doors, windows, and broken cracks in the church’s ruined facade. New Eden had risen to greet him.

Lucian’s body gave way to the shadow, and it lifted its arms high as a stream of liquid fire tore through the crowd of monsters. The demon shrieked with joy, its voice melding with Lucian’s own, and it soared into the air as hellfire sprayed in every direction. Burning wood fell from the ceiling as shots tore outward through the church’s brittle walls and across the sprawling wastes of New Eden, setting the town alight. Ghouls shrieked in terror, their hordes turned to flee, but the demon was quick—springing through the crumbling roof and into the delipidated streets, firing the cannons of hell into the creatures’ still-open mouths.

Then, Lucian surged outwards from within the demon’s form, its body bursting into ashen mist. He clapped his pistols together as the undead hordes scattered in every direction. Artificial magics woven into the gunmetal bubbled, their intricate filigrees spiraling outward as the barrels hungrily fused. A concentrated beam of light surged from somewhere within them, cutting across the plains as screaming undead melted beneath its fury.

Soon the light faded, and the metal unwound itself as Lucian scanned his surroundings.

He waited. The shadow within him was quiet now. No more ghouls lept from the burning, derelict homes, or rose from the beds of rotten crops. Karthus lay dead as his church collapsed around him, flames consuming even the memory of his fell magic. Though from the corner of his eye Lucian swore he could see the old preacher, grinning among a crowd of New Eden’s townsfolk, as the burning roof finally caved in over their heads.

The former marshal turned back towards civilization and began to walk, the shadow grinning close behind.

He’d been close to speaking with Senna again. Closer than he’d ever been. But Lucian no longer needed the comforts of old rituals and incantation—he would see his love once more, one way or another, the day he was lowered into the dirt. That was the rightful end of a true and valiant gunfighter. Until then, there were terrible things lurking in the darkness, which could only imagine the demon soon to knock upon their doors.

Out there, somewhere in the wild expanses of the great frontier, Lucian had a devil to kill.

Vi remembers little of her childhood in Zaun, and what she does remember, she wishes she didn’t. Running with the sump-snipe gangs, she quickly learned to use her wits, as well as her fists, to survive. Everyone who encountered Vi knew she could talk—or punch—her way out of trouble. More often than not, she chose the latter.

None of the old-timers from her youth could tell her anything of her parents. Most assumed they had died in one of the industrial accidents that were, sadly, all too common in the undercity. Though she had ended up in the crumbling Hope House orphanage, a notoriously mad sump-scrapper claimed to have found her adrift in a bassinet large enough for two in the ruins of a collapsed chem-lab. In the end, Vi figured some things were best left unknown.

With her wild pink hair, she became a distinctive sight on the streets of Zaun—hightailing from angry shopkeepers in the boundary markets, swaggering through the colorful bazaars of the Black Lanes, or hitching rides up into Piltover aboard the hexdraulic conveyors. Wherever there was a scrape to be gotten into or a scam to be run, Vi was in the thick of it, though she never stole from those that couldn’t cover the loss… and never hurt those that didn’t deserve it.

As she got older, the capers of childhood became more audacious and daring, and Vi formed a gang of her own. Brash and quick to anger, she still relied on her fists a little too much, and was rarely without a black eye or split lip.

She found a mentor in the owner of a bar on the edge of the Lanes, who tempered some of her more self-destructive tendencies. He tried to reinforce her moral code, and showed her how to fight with discipline, as well as teaching her ways to better direct her simmering anger.

In time, Vi earned a reputation as someone who got things done, no questions asked.

Listening to the chatter of the Zaunite miners who frequented the bar, she came to learn when big deals were being made, and how payments were to be delivered. To a chem-baron, this was chump change—but to her and her friends, it would be a fortune. She planned a heist, but knew it would require extra bodies to pull off, so Vi reluctantly brought a rival gang, the Factorywood Fiends, in on her score.

Everything was going fine, until the leader of the Fiends killed the mine owner with a pair of oversized pulverizer gauntlets, and trapped the rest of the workers in the tunnels. Even as both gangs fled with the loot, Vi knew she could not leave these innocent people to die. She snatched up the gauntlets, the wrist mechanisms clamping down painfully on her arms, but she endured the agony long enough to smash open a path to free the miners.

The following day, Vi paid a visit to the Factorywood Fiends. Still wearing the powered gauntlets, she took on the entire gang, administering a beating so legendary that it is still spoken of in the Lanes to this day.

Vi eventually disappeared from Zaun during a time of great upheaval, when tensions with Piltover were running high. Rumors circulated between the gangs that she had been killed in a huge explosion in the heart of the undercity, or that she had turned her back on her friends and struck out for distant lands. The truth, however, finally came to light when Old Hungry’s Scars—a vicious gang whose murder sprees had spread topside—were brought down by a respected sheriff of Piltover and her new ally… Vi.

The former gang leader was now in the employ of the Wardens, and she had replaced the chem-powered pulverizer gauntlets with a pair of brand new hextech Atlas prototypes.

No one yet knows the exact reason why or how Vi came to be working alongside Caitlyn—but given the anarchic nature of the crime wave now sweeping Piltover, speculation runs rife that it might involve a certain blue-haired hellion from Zaun…

They came at Lucian in a blur of shadow, lunging at him with insubstantial talons and ancient, rusted blades. They moved fast… but he was faster.

He moved like a dancer, turning and spinning, ever in motion, the relic pistols in his hands lighting up the rotting interior of the inn with their blazing, arcane light.

Lucian’s long leather coat and tightly bound locks whipped around him as he moved, effortlessly avoiding the frenzied attacks coming at him from every direction. Every shot he fired burned with the intensity of the sun, banishing one of the screeching spirits, sending them reeling back into formless darkness.

He took no satisfaction in this duty. Not anymore. All the light in his world had been snuffed out when she had been taken.

Dark talons raked across one of Lucian’s forearms, making him hiss in pain. Cursing himself for being momentarily distracted, he destroyed the offending spirit with a blast of light to its head, and focused upon the task at hand. Standing firm in the center of the inn, he gunned down the tide of spectral forms rushing at him, every shot lighting up the darkness.

At last he was alone, arms spread wide, weapons pointed in opposite directions, their stone tips still glowing. He glanced left and right, awaiting another attack. The fire in the inn’s hearth seemed to burn more brightly, banishing the deeper shadows, and the icy chill retreated.

Suddenly weary, Lucian righted a fallen bench and sat with a groan. He placed his pistols upon the table, then turned his attention to his wound.

Wincing, he slid the long, black glove from his left hand. The leather was unmarked, but the flesh of his forearm was blackened where ghostly talons had slashed him—almost like frostbite.

He caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye, and Lucian was instantly on his feet, both pistols aimed at… a dark-haired girl, barely into her teenage years, who had emerged from her hiding place in a back storeroom.

She froze, staring up at him, eyes wide and unblinking.

“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t.”

“Shouldn’t sneak up on people,” Lucian said, lowering his guns.

He made to turn away, but caught a shadow of movement reflected in the girl’s eyes. He spun, swinging his weapons around, but this time he was not fast enough.

A wraith lunged from the receding gloom—an emaciated, insubstantial creature, swathed in shrouds. Pale, blue-green light spilled from its eye sockets and gaping mouth, and it lashed at him with talons the length of daggers.

Lucian was hurled backwards by the force of the blow, flying over the bar, some fifteen feet distant. He slammed into the wall, shattering dozens of empty liquor bottles lined up on the shelves, and fell to the floor in a shower of broken glass. His chest burned where the wraith had struck him, and an icy chill clutched at his heart, making him gasp for every breath.

He searched frantically for his weapons. He spied one, lying on the uneven floor ten paces to his left. Too far. The other had spun across the floorboards, before coming to a halt at the girl’s feet.

She picked up the ancient weapon and aimed it at the wraith, clutching it with shaking hands as the thing lunged towards her, its mouth opening impossibly wide.

“It won’t fire!” she wailed, backing away. “There’s no trigger!”

An echo of memory rose in Lucian’s mind, as sudden as a knife strike.

“But how do you fire it?” Lucian said, looking down at the exquisitely crafted weapon, a look of puzzlement on his face. “There’s no trigger.”

“It doesn’t need a trigger, my love,” said Senna, her eyes glinting with amusement. She touched him lightly on the side of his head. “The trigger is in here.”

“I don’t understand,” said Lucian.

Senna aimed her own weapon—a more elegant version of the one he held—at the target twenty feet away. Her expression hardened, her eyes narrowing. “You have to will it to fire,” she said, and the target exploded in a searing blast of yellow flame.

“Right. Will it to fire,” said Lucian, leveling his pistol at the next target. Nothing happened. He shook the pistol, and snorted, partly in frustration, and partly in bewilderment.

“It requires control,” said Senna. “It requires focus. You need to will it to fire with every fiber of your being.”

Lucian laughed and turned to Senna, one eyebrow raised. “Every fiber of my being?”

“Try it!” she urged.

He did, but couldn’t keep a smile from curling at the corners of his mouth. “I give up,” he sighed. He stepped in close to Senna, and drew her into an embrace. “How do you expect me to focus on anything else when you are near?”

Senna pushed him away, laughing. “You’re not getting out of this that easily,” she said. “Again. And actually try this time.”

The girl was backed up against a wall now, the slender relic gun—Senna’s gun—a useless weight in her hands.

“Throw it to me!” Lucian barked, darting forward.

The girl shrieked as the spirit flew toward her, and hurled the gun in Lucian’s direction. It spun end-over-end through the air, passing straight through the wraith. Lucian deftly caught it in mid-sprint, simultaneously dropping to one knee and sliding across the floorboards to scoop up his other weapon. He came to his feet with both pistols ready, and opened up.

The wraith screamed and tried desperately to escape, coiling and spinning through the air away from him, but Lucian was relentless. He dashed sideways, maintaining his strafing torrent of fire. The blazing light tore through the ghastly apparition, and its cry became piteous as its dark form dissipated, like mist beneath the rising sun.

Lucian came to a halt, though he kept the pistols raised. All was silent once more.

“Is… it gone?” the girl said.

He didn’t answer immediately, his narrowed eyes scanning the room. At last, he holstered the two guns. “It’s gone. You are safe.”

“I… I couldn’t make it fire,” the girl said, staring at the darkness. “I thought I was going to die. Like the others.”

Lucian remembered his own difficulty with the weapon—it felt so long ago now.

It requires control. It requires focus.

“I certainly have focus now, my love,” Lucian murmured, under his breath.

“Did you say something?” asked the girl.

“No,” Lucian replied. He cocked his head. The sound of rattling chains was coming from somewhere nearby. “Do you hear that?”

The girl shook her head. “I don’t hear anything.”

Lucian frowned, eyes narrow. “He taunts me, still…”

He turned to leave the inn, cursed to follow that distant, tormenting sound.

“Bolt the door,” he ordered. “And pray for dawn.”

The Northern Steppes ain’t the place for fancy undies and golden piss pots. It’s tough land. Ain’t nothing go here but barbarian raiders, poison grass, and harsh winds. To survive, you gotta eat rocks and crap lava. And I’m the toughest, meanest, killingest bastard in these parts. So I figure that makes these plains mine.

“But how did I end up here? And why am I alone with yer dumb yella hide?” I say out loud, starting it off again.

Skaarl snorts her response from the rock she’s sunning herself on. Her scales is dark metal with hints of gold. Ain’t nothing can break that drakalops’s skin. I’ve seen a steel sword shatter against her leg.

Don’t make her farts smell any better though.

“I’m callin’ you a damn coward. You got somethin’ to say about that?”

“Greefrglarg,” it says as it looks up and yawns.

“It was a hooked grouse! No bigger than my hand. And you run… Darn dumb, stupid animal!”

“Greef…rglarg?” Skaarl asks as it swats the flies away from its half-opened eyes.

“Oh, good retort! Yeah, real funny, right? Ha ha ha! I’m damn tired of yer heretical pontifications. I should leave ya here to die. That’s what I should do. You’d die o’ loneliness. Hell, you wouldn’t last a day without me.”

Skaarl lays its head back down on the rock.

There ain’t no use communicating with her. I should forgive her—but then, and no doubt to mock me, her sphincter splutters rhythmically as she breaks wind. The smell hits me like a frying pan.

“That’s it, you bastard!” I throw my stinking hat onto the ground and march away from the campsite, swearing I’ll never set eyes on that foul-mouthed drakalops again. ’Course, it was my good hat, so I have to trot back and snatch it off the ground.

“Yeah, keep sleeping, ya lazy flaprat,” I say as I walk away. “I’ll do the patrol!”

Being ten moons from any farmstead don’t preclude doing the patrol. It’s my land. And I aim to keep it that way. With or without that treason-ish lizard’s help.

The sun’s dragging its way down to the horizon by the time I reach the hills. This time of day, the light plays tricks on you. I meet a snake who wants to discuss pie crusts. Except it ain’t a snake, it’s the shadow of a rock.

Damn shame. I have some durn specific notions about pie crusts. At least when I remember what they are again. I ain’t had a proper conversation about the subject in years.

I’m about to take a swig of my mushroom juice and explain my views to the snake, when I hear them.

Drake hounds howling and braying. It’s the sounds those beasts make when they is herding elmarks. And if there’s elmarks, then there is humans. And those humans is trespassers.

I scramble up a nearby boulder and check north first.

The rolling hills of my grasslands is empty, save for the iron buttes scattered across the horizon. The braying sounds might be the mushroom juice playing tricks on my head… But then I turn south.

They is about a half day’s walk from this hill. Three hundred elmarks grazing. Grazing on my land.

The drake hounds circle around the herd, but there’s no horses. A few humans walk around them on foot. Humans don’t like walking. So it don’t take a genius to figure they must be part of some larger convoy then. ’Course, I am a genius. So that was easy to figure.

My blood begins to boil. That means more damn trespassers, disturbing my peace. Here, when I was about to have a lovely conversation about pie crusts with that snake.

I take another sip of mush-juice and head back to the campsite.

“Get up, lizard!” I say as I grab my saddle.

It raises its head, grunts a response, and returns to lying in the cool grass.

“Get up! Get up! GIT UP!” I yell. “There’s trespassers, invading the peaceful serenity of our environs.”

It looks at me blankly. I forget sometimes she don’t understand me when I’m speaking.

I buckle the saddle onto its back. “There’s humans on our land!”

It stands, and its ears perk up nervously. Humans. That word it knows. I jump into the saddle.

“Let’s get those humans!” I roar, indicating our southward destination. But the damn beast immediately starts going north.

“No, No, NO! They’s that way! That way!” I say, using my reins to pull the cowardly beast back in the right direction.

“Greefrglaaarg!” the drakolops cries as it kicks off. In an instant, she’s running. The insane speed of it makes my eyes close. Scrub grass whips painfully against my legs. A cloud of dust billows behind us. What’d take me half a day of walking is past before I can get my hat tied down.

“Greefrglorg!” the drakolops screeches.

“Now, don’t be like that! Weren’t you saying you wanted company last night?”

The sun is just starting to dip below the horizon when we reach the herd. I slow Skaarl to a trot as we approach the humans’ campsite. They’d already started a fire and have a stew going.

“Hold, stranger. Show your hands before you approach,” a human in a red hat says. Their leader, I figure.

I slowly take my hands off the reins. But instead of putting them up, I pull my long axe from its saddle loop.

“I don’t think you understand me, old timer,” the human in the red hat says again. His fellows ready weapons: swords, lassos, and a dozen repeater crossbows.

“Greefrglooorg,” Skaarl growls, ready to leave already.

“I got it under control,” I tell my lizard, before turning my attention back to the humans. “I ain’t impressed with your fancy, city-folk weapons. Now I’m giving you one warning. Get off my land. Or else.”

“Or else what?” a younger human asks.

“You boys best know who you’re dealing with,” I say. “This is Skaarl. She’s a drakalops. And I’m Kled, Lord Major Admiral of the Second Legion’s forward artillery—cavalry multiplication.”

Several of the humans start snickering. I’ll learn them soon enough—once I’m done talking.

“And what makes you think this is your land?” asks the human in the red hat, smirking.

“It’s mine. I took it from them barbarians.”

“It’s property of Lord Vakhul. He was granted it by the High Command. It’s his by rightful dispensation.”

“Well, High Command! Why didn’t you say so?!” I say before spitting on the ground. “The only law a true Noxian respects is strength. He can have it. If he can take it from me.”

“You and your pony best be moving on, while you still can.”

I forget sometimes humans don’t see us like we see them. It’s the last straw though.

“CHARGE!!!!” I scream, and snap the reins. The drakolops kicks off, and we rush them. I meant to make a clever retort first, but I got ahead of myself.

The humans let loose their first volley, but Skaarl raises her ears. Like giant bronze fans, they shield us as the crossbow bolts ricochet off her impenetrable flesh.

She roars happily as we dive through their camp at the leader in the red hat. Swords clang against Skaarl’s hide, while my axe swings. I turn two of them humans into confetti. The bastard in the red hat’s quick. He ducks under my blade as we pass by. Another volley of crossbow bolts hits us.

Skaarl screams in fear. Damn thing’s unkillable and immortal, but easily spooked. Problem with magical beasties, they don’t make no sense.

I yank the reins, and we ride back into the middle of the humans. I easily kill the rest of his men, but the red-hat bastard’s a tough one. My blade slams into him—but the blow clangs dully against his heavy breast plate. That should give him something to think about, anyway.

That’s when the ballista fires. The bolt is longer than a wagon. It smashes into the drakolops, knocking my long axe from my hand, and sends us rolling to the ground. Skaarl ain’t hurt. But she shakes me off the saddle and runs for the hills.

“You ungrateful bastard! We had the frassa-gimps in the razabutts!” I mean to scream more insults, but my words start tripping over themselves.

I roll to my feet. Dust and grass cover my face. I throw my hat toward the cowardly lizard’s path, then turn back to kill the man in the red hat.

But behind him, on the hill line, is another hundred of them humans. Iron warriors, bloodrunners, and a wagon-mounted ballista. Red-hatted blurf-herder brought most of a legion with him.

“You ain’t nothing but a durn sneaky-sneak!” I scream.

“You don’t look like much,” he says, “but I guess you’re the one who’s been giving Lord Vakhul’s ranchers so much trouble.”

“Vakhul ain’t no real Noxian. Your lordship can kiss my lizard’s puckered mudflap!”

“Maybe I’ll let you end your days in Lord Vakhul’s fighting pits. If you can learn to keep your mouth shut.”

“I’m gonna rip your lips off and use them to wipe my butt!” I roar.

I guess he don’t like that, ’cause him and his hundred friends start running at me, weapons drawn. I could run. But I don’t. They’ll pay dearly to kill me.

Red Hat’s fast. He’s nearly on me before I can recover my weapon from the ground. His blade is high. He’s got the killing stroke. But I’ve got my hidden scattergun.

The blast sends him to the ground. It knocks me back, too. I tumble end over end. The single shot buys me some time. But not much.

The bloodrunners are closing fast. Their hooked blades is ready. I’m gonna die in this turd-stain. Well, if it’s my last stand, might as well make it a good one.

I dust myself off as the first line of bloodrunners attacks. I’m carving those dark magical bastards apart, but they’re cutting me to ribbons. I’m beginning to tire from the effort and loss of blood.

Then the iron warriors scream their battle cries, as they charge in their thick black armor. They’ve split into two groups, doing one of those “pinching” maneuvers. Plan on using those two walls of metal to crush me flatter than a Noxian coin.

Damn it.

Any hope I got of surviving this, it’s gone…

And that’s when I see her. The most loyal, trustworthy, honorable friend an undeserving bastard like me could ever have.

Skaarl.

Riding like hell toward me. Faster than I’ve ever seen her run. A rooster tail of dust is shooting up behind her. The damn lizard even picks up my hat on her way to me. I run to her just as those black-clad warriors are about to crush me.

I leap into the saddle, and we circle around the iron warriors. There’ll be time to kill them after we get rid of that ballista.

“It’s been a while since we took on a whole army together,” I say.

“Greefrglarg,” Skaarl screeches happily.

“Back at you, buddy,” I say with a smile wider than a croxagor’s.

’Cause there ain’t nothing I love more than this dang lizard.

Intro
You know who it is
Coming 'round again
You want a dose of this
Right now
It’s K/DA uh!

Verse 1A
I'm a goddess with a blade
소리쳐봐 내 이름
(sori chyuh bwa nae eereum)
잊지 못하게
(itchi moht ha geh)
Loud loud loud loud

I could take it to the top
절대 멈추지 못해
(juhl dae mum choo ji moht hae)
내가 끝내주는
(nae ga kkeut nae joo neun)
Bad gal gal gal

Verse 1B
And when I start to talk like that (like that)
Oh you won’t know how to react
I’m a picture perfect face
With that wild in my veins
You can hear it in my
Growl, growl, growl, growl

Pre-Chorus
So keep your eyes on me now
무엇을 보든 좋아할 거야
(mu uhtseul bo dun joah hal guh ya)
닿을 수 없는 level
(dahl sooup neun)
나와 대결 원한 널 확신해
(na wa dae gyul won han nuhl hwak shin hae)
We gotta it all in our hands now
So can you handle what we’re all about
We’re so tough
Not scared to show you up
Can you feel the rush now?

Hook
Ain’t nobody bringing us down down down...
They could try but we’re gonna wear the crown
You could go another round round round...
Wish you luck but you’re not bringing us down

Bridge
We go hard
Till we get it get it
We go hard
We so in it in it
We POP/STARS
Only winning winning now
Ain’t nobody bringing us down down down down

Verse 2A
Hey!
You ready for this? Lessgo!

See 언제든지 내 모습 Magic
(see uhn jae deunji nae mo seup magic)
단 한 번에 내가 잡어
(dan han bun eh naega jab uh)
절대 기죽지 않지
(juhl dae gi jook ji ahn chi)
Pow pow 네가 뭘 알아
(pow pow ni ga mwol ahruh)
견딜 수 없어, 원해도.
(gyun dil soo up ssuh won hae do)
원하는 게 얼굴에 보여
(won ha neun gae uhl gool ae boyuh)
I’m trouble and you’re wanting it
I’m so cold
When I move that way
You gonna be so blown
I’m the realest in the game uh!

Verse 2B
Say I’m on fire with a blade
You’re about to hear my name
Ringing in your head like ohhh

Pre-Chorus 2
So keep your eyes on me now
무엇을 보든 좋아할 거야
(mu uhtseul bo dun joah hal guh ya)
We’re so tough
Not scared to show you up
Can you feel the rush now?

Hook
Ain’t nobody bringing us down down down...
They could try but we’re gonna wear the crown
You could go another round round round...
Wish you luck but you’re not bringing us down

We go hard
Till we get it get it
We go hard
We so in it in it
We POP/STARS
Only winning winning now
Ain’t nobody bringing us down down down down

Bridge
Ooh, mm, ...
Oh... 난 멈추지 않아
(nan muhm chu ji anna)
Oh oh we go hard
Oh oh we POP/STARS, stars

Hook
Ain’t nobody bringing us
Ain’t nobody bringing us down down down...
They could try but we’re gonna wear the crown
You could go another round round round...
Wish you luck but you’re not bringing us down

We go hard
Till we get it get it
We go hard
We so in it in it
We POP/STARS
Only winning winning now
Ain’t nobody bringing us down down down down

Many civilizations have resisted Noxus, but none as long as the clans of the Great Barrier mountains. Though these fierce minotaurs had protected the overland trade routes to the ancient city of Zaun for centuries, they preferred to avoid Valoran’s wider conflicts.

The noble warrior Alistar was respected among all the clans. Out on the mountain peaks, his roar could scatter even the bravest trespassers, leaving only the foolhardy to face him in combat. Even so, in the moot halls he would always urge his kin to forge greater bonds with other mortal races. Many saw minotaurs as little more than beasts, which soured any interaction and kept them firmly as outsiders.

Then Noxus came, promising something better. Their emissary, the matriarch of House Tewain, proclaimed that the empire was poised to take Basilich, a coastal city to the east. However, she pledged that they would not do this without the support of the great clans of the mountains, and called for parley on neutral ground.

Many of the minotaurs were eager to accept her offer. This was a way to gain the power and recognition they sought, by joining with Noxus.

But Alistar remained skeptical—he had encountered many Noxian scouts in recent years, and knew them to be a duplicitous and cunning people. For this reason, his clan sent him to meet Tewain, along with fifty of their mightiest warriors, to reject any alliance. The other clans could do as they wished, but Alistar would not accept the rule of some distant “Grand General”.

Under the banners of truce, he and his kin were betrayed.

The larger clans had already pledged themselves to Noxus, and their representatives turned against him as soon as he made his position known. The battle was swift and bloody, and Alistar himself crushed Lady Tewain’s skull with his bare hands—but soon enough he and his surviving warriors found themselves bound in chains, headed for the distant Noxian capital, accused of inciting rebellion.

These unfortunate minotaurs found themselves cast into the Reckoning arenas of the capital, as part of a grim gladiatorial festival known as the Fleshing.

Alistar was appalled by the chanting of the bloodthirsty spectators. He implored his clanfolk not to fight back, not to give these Noxians the monstrous display they so craved…

When the festival ended twenty-one days later, Alistar was the only member of his tribe left. Pelted with pebbles and rotten fruit from the crowd, dragged out to face Reckoner after Reckoner, he was driven to fight like a beast—and think like one. He killed and killed until even his memories of home became stained with blood.

Alistar had fallen far by the time he met Ayelia, a servant girl in the arenas. At first he bellowed and charged the bars of his cage, expecting her to fear or goad him like the others, but Ayelia did neither.

She returned every day, and spoke to him with gentle respect, until eventually Alistar answered in kind. Ayelia’s homeland had also been claimed by Noxus, and seeing his suffering had convinced her they should leave this hateful city together. She whispered her plans through the bars, and for the first time in years Alistar found he could think of home without dwelling on the way it had been taken from him.

One night, Ayelia brought Alistar the key to his cell. She had sacrificed much to arrange this escape, and he swore he would repay her tenfold.

They hurried to the river, where a cargo barge awaited them. However, as they boarded, Noxian agents burst from the shadows. Alistar hurled himself into battle, his vision tunneled with rage, and although Ayelia called out to him again and again, he did not hear.

By the time Alistar had slain their attackers, the boat was gone—and Ayelia with it—so he fled south on foot instead. He searched everywhere for the servant girl, but found nothing. Had she been captured? Killed? It seemed there were no clues left to find.

Weeks later, a political coup shook the empire to its dark foundations, and the arena minotaur’s escape was quite forgotten.

Alistar now travels alone, as quietly and anonymously as he can, encouraging resistance in Noxian-held territories and fighting on behalf of the downtrodden and the abused. Only when he has cleared the shame from his heart, repaying every cruelty and every kindness, will Alistar return to the mountains and leave his rage behind.

And in every city he passes through, he asks after Ayelia.

There existed, among the multitude of disgusting Bilgewater shipping warehouses filled with rusted knives and arms-length carnivorous rats, one Bilgewater shipping warehouse devoid of such things. Owned by a Piltovan arms dealer whose relative was recently murdered (and skinned and stuffed into a dockside horror house), it was primarily used to ship large quantities of high explosives—both powder and hex—to various enemies of peace across the continent. Most notably, the Noxians in Ionia, the Noxians in Shurima, the Noxians in Demacia, and, very occasionally, the Noxians in Noxus—the latter having recently sent a letter threatening to murder “the cheap bastard who was gouging them with their bomb prices.”

Said Piltovan owner-slash-bastard, deciding it was no longer safe to be the consigliere of colonial evil, therefore employed a group of heavily armed Azure Way mercenaries to guard his warehouse while simultaneously hiring a different group of heavily armed mercenaries to steal the entire hoard from under the first group’s noses. A great sum of coin was spent insuring this hoard so that in the event of a colossal chain explosion during a violent, hypothetical gunfight, the owner would walk away an ever-so-slightly wealthier arms dealer. A forward-thinking business decision, considering his heist crew consisted of notorious con artist Twisted Fate, and notorious bath-avoider Malcolm Graves.

Collateral damage was intended.

“What the blue hells is this? Some kinda setup?” Malcolm Graves correctly guessed from behind a second-floor catwalk, his large, meaty body only barely concealed by a double-wide pillar. Gunfire rained upward all around him, chewing away thick pieces of his cover and punching holes into nearby shipping containers—many of which displayed prominent illustrations of a frowning cartoon man being blown apart.

“Seems that way,” Twisted Fate replied, crouched nearby as he flipped a playing card over in his fingers. With each turn, its hues shifted from blue, to red, to gold—though when he got especially nervous, he couldn’t get the order right. This was a problem, considering the red ones caused large flaming explosions, the gold ones caused large glittering explosions, and the blue ones were not really that useful right now.

“Why aren’t you doing anything, ya jackass? I can’t even take a shot!” yelled Graves, his finger twitching over the trigger of his human-sized shotgun. He didn’t mind being shot at as long as he could return the favor.

“They’re set up behind a crate of gunpowder,” Fate snapped back, motioning around the room that was stacked floor to ceiling with volatile dry-pack explosives. “Unless you want to go down like the Dead Pool, we might need to figure out a plan B.”

“I don’t wanna do that!” whinged Graves, not specifying whether he meant dying or thinking. “This sucks! Why do we always gotta pick the weird jobs?”

“Because they pay the best,” replied Fate, perhaps more nonchalantly than the moment called for. “Ain’t a reflection on us.”

“Huh. Makes sense when you say it like that.” Graves pondered their predicament, wondering if his smoke bombs would cause the pair to immediately die by igniting some stray black powder on the warehouse floor, or if they’d die half a second later when one of the blinded fish-men accidentally fired his gun into a crate of dynamite. The second option sounded good. Really good. Really, really good.

“I’ve got a really, really, really good plan!” Graves announced, confidently holding out a live grenade. He glanced at the tiny frowning cartoon man on the boxes in front of him. “Don’t judge me,” he told him.

“What are you doin’?” Fate protested, his eyes widening in horror as Graves’ arm arced back for the throw. In his mind, he saw the two of them disintegrating along with a good portion of the Slaughter Docks—or at least Graves disintegrating, which would be inconvenient at best. “Malcolm, what are you doin’?”

“Wait!” boomed a voice from below. “Do not throw that!”

Graves, somewhat disheartened by the order, but equally grateful the gunfire had suddenly ebbed, lowered his smoke bomb. Fate, who in a state of panic had forgotten the color of the card he held, gripped a red one, which would have accidentally killed everyone if he’d mistakenly activated it to try and escape the warehouse.

The partners locked eyes for a moment, looked at their respective explosives, then back at each other.

“Mine was better,” gloated Graves. “Safer.”

The voice from below, now near hysterical, busied itself commanding the other mercenaries to stop firing wildly into a warehouse stuffed with bombs, specifically lambasting someone named Kouign who “should know better after last time.” The gunmen grumbled in turn. Or burbled, or blubbed, depending on the size and configuration of their prominently fishy heads.

As the unseen voice in charge moved about, Fate leaned over to Graves, pointing at his interior coat pocket. “You still got that blue card I gave you?” he whispered.

“What, the one from the Sentinels? Yeah, I still got it,” Graves answered at a normal volume.

“Quiet. Now what say we pop that sucker and get out of here? These guys are distracted. They’ll never know we left.”

“Nuh-uh, you already told me what all this is worth. You think I’m just gonna leave a score that big on the table? I got a mouth to feed: mine.”

“We shoulda died at least a hundred times already. Now’s the chance to cut our losses.”

“I’ll never die, because I’m the handsome protagonist. Everyone knows that.”

“Everyone knows squat. One stray bullet, and we’re all portraits at a funeral.”

“Your funeral, maybe. I beat Viego. That makes me the male lead.”

“The male lead? I am so tired of this damn story!” yelled Fate, immediately attracting the attention of everybody in the room.

“See? That’s your fault. Real deuteragonist behavior,” Graves gloated, about forty percent sure he used the word “deuteragonist” right.

Everyone collectively hesitated, each glancing around nervously as the realization of where they were and what, exactly, they had gotten themselves into began to sink in. Yet neither the pair of bumblers nor the rank and file Azure Way castoffs had the authority to end this standoff... Or really any standoff, as immediate and violent escalation is a rich Bilgewater tradition.

The tall hammerhead-shark man with a menacing harpoon gun and no shirt was also unable to end this standoff, but he did not know it yet. His name was Bombolini, and the two things he knew best were how to project an understated elegance for a creature of his stature, and how to know exactly what to say to command a room.

“What are you doing, you buncha ding dongs?” he shouted toward the catwalk. “You tryna vaporize half of Bilgewater? What kind of heist crew brings live ammunition to a powder job?”

Malcolm Graves and Twisted Fate both (unwisely) poked their heads out from their cover, each looking into a different monocular eye of their newfound opponent. His steely gaze, his muscular figure, his mean-looking weapon that was clearly intended to skewer sea serpents. A second of recognition passed. Two seconds. And then, for some reason, three.

“Bombolini?” Graves asked.

“Malcolm?” Bombolini asked back. “Malcolm Graves? Is that you? Are... Are you robbing me?”

Graves let out a sigh of relief, relaxing his shoulders. This wasn’t just any dumb fish. This was a dumb fish friend.

“I’m not robbing you. I’m robbing the guy who hired you,” Graves explained. “I think he hired us, too. Which makes what we’re doin’ up here morally sound.”

“Us?”

“Hey, Bombolini,” Fate waved. “I’m robbing you, too.”

“Wha—” protested Bombolini. “Now wait a damn minute! You two blew me up! You blew me up on my own ship! We were partners, and you double-crossed me for the worst score this city has ever seen!”

“It wasn’t the worst,” retorted Graves.

“One jewel,” Fate corrected. “Ended up being glass.”

“Nah, that’s not right,” Graves said. “Had to be more.”

But it wasn’t.

Many years prior, Bombolini had been the unappreciated third member of the Graves & Fate crime duo back when they pulled small jobs for bad pay, and their posters were somewhat... unfortunately worded.

“Two men who will do anything (and we mean anything) to anybody (and we mean anybody) for the right price (any price),” the leaflets used to say, which, in addition to Bombolini’s complete erasure from the group, led to a number of rather avoidable miscommunications with prospective clientele. And thanks to Bilgewater’s rich tradition of violent escalation, these mishaps tended to end in bloodshed or minor dock explosions—ironically drawing enough attention to the upstart criminals that they became a popular mercenary outfit.

The leaflets remained unchanged for years, which made a young Bombolini deeply bitter. He eventually used his portion of the group’s earnings to buy a modest schooner, retire from criminality, and start a solo wreck-diving operation in the Blue Flame Isles that paid much better than robbery and coincidentally did not bill itself as some sort of pirate flesh carnival in bar flyers.

Also coincidentally, success tends to draw eyes, and two of those eyes eventually hired Malcolm Graves and Twisted Fate to rob their former companion at a dive site near a Buhru ruin. Lacking any moral fiber whatsoever, the pair immediately accepted. The robbery instantly led to a small oil fire, then a large oil fire, then bloodshed followed by a minor schooner explosion. All the treasure sank with the ship... save, of course, for a single piece of sea glass.

Bombolini was assumed dead, the client was furious, and nobody got paid. All in all, it was one of the duo’s more successful heists.

“Didn’t you die?” asked Fate. “I’m pretty sure you died.”

Bombolini tilted his head, unable to see any part of himself thanks to the wide setting of his predatory eyes—though the attempt was quite valiant. “Does it look like I’m dead?”

“I dunno,” replied Graves. “Maybe.”

“Are we going to kill them, boss?” asked a fishman impatiently, this one a spotter resembling a large, bipedal goby.

“I second Goby,” said his partner, a hunched-over humanoid pistol shrimp with a rather impressive long gun. “You said these guys double-crossed you before, right? What’s their deal?”

Bombolini blinked, his walnut-sized brain chugging along as he attempted to remember what exactly their deal had been. After a few decades, one tends to forget the intricacies of their archnemeses.

Graves. Fate. Graves... but also... Fate. What is their deal?

Eureka.

He had arrived at something interesting. Something he could use. Something that would turn the entire confrontation on its head.

“They’re together,” he guessed confidently.

A pause.

“We know that,” replied Goby.

“No, they’re together,” Bombolini repeated, even more confidently. “I knew they’d end up with each other. Graves always had the worst taste in men, and Fate is the worst man I’ve ever met. It all makes sense!”

Goby shrugged. Shrimp sighed and turned back toward the pair of thieves above, adjusting the sight on his gun as he wondered why, exactly, he’d agreed to any of this in the first place.

Up on the catwalk, however, the mood was decidedly different.

“He thinks we’re together,” whispered Fate. “Like, together-together. A couple. Romantically.”

“I know what ‘together’ means, Tobias,” Graves whispered back, now decidedly more discreet than before. “But how do we use it? What’s the play? And why was he so mean?”

Fate stroked his chin with his free hand, flipping the errant red card into a gold card as he turned the question over in his head. The chance of everyone dying in a colossal fireball was still higher than he liked, but with Bombolini and his men off guard, now was the time for bold action. He needed something big. Something dumb. Something that would turn the entire confrontation on its head. He needed...

“I cannot believe you got us into this mess again!” Fate shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at Graves while making sure most of his body remained hidden from the sniper. “This is just like you, never thinking before you show up! You’re too big, you have no finesse, and you packed hex-shots and grenades for a powder job! My ma was right, we shouldn’t have stayed together!”

Graves was taken aback for several reasons. The first of which is that he had never met Fate’s mother, and, up until this point, had not been sure she even existed. The second was that Fate had not explained the plan to him and was now making jabs at Graves’ rugged burliness and masterful heist preparation—both of which made him a statuesque prince among thieves.

“Hey, what are you sayin’? You’re the one always goin’ on about how you’re so clever, and yet here we are, pullin’ another garbage job where you’re gonna die and I gotta save you! If it were up to me, we’d be doin’ easy jobs, like individual murders and light-to-heavy extortion!”

“Yeah, because you have no vision!” Fate continued, emphasizing the word “vision” while winking prominently.

Graves did not register this right away, and continued to bluster about his partner’s many shortcomings.

“That’s why we always fight,” Fate winked again. This one broke through.

Down below, Bombolini was ecstatic among an otherwise bored or confused crew.

When one is double-crossed by an old friend, their emotional chemistry is irreversibly altered. It makes them paranoid, delusional, and most importantly, occasionally taken with intricate revenge fantasies.

Bombolini embodied all of this. He often liked to entertain one of these fantasies wherein his two most hated enemies had an immediate falling out in front of his steely shark eyes. This falling out would take place in some sort of room or vessel with a heavy explosive payload that would, at the apex of the argument, burst into flames and detonate, killing them both as the smoke spelled out “We’re sorry, Bombolini.” Then everyone would cheer, and he would be given a crown and a sash. Possibly a scepter.

It was a very intricate fantasy.

What was not part of the fantasy was being hit squarely in the chest by a well-aimed gold card and flying out of the shipping door into the sea.

“Now!” said Fate, dashing out from his cover and into an adjoining office as he splashed the bare walls with gold cards wherever the explosives weren’t stacked high enough to ignite. Each card burst with a dazzling spray of golden filament, temporarily stunning Bombolini’s mercenaries who then immediately began firing in all directions.

As Graves followed Fate through the suite and into the guts of the larger warehouse, a stray bullet buried itself in the crate Goby and Shrimp were using for cover, and the two fish-men froze. With bullets whizzing through the air, Goby looked at Shrimp, and Shrimp looked at Goby. What felt like an eternity passed between them.

“I think we’re sa—” said Goby, exploding.

The first blast rocked the entire structure as Fate and Graves stumbled along a flimsy metal suspension bridge over far more crates of black powder than their client had originally described.

“That’s not good,” said Fate with a glance below.

“It really isn’t,” replied Graves. “I know we was doing a bit, but on a personal and professional level, I am not happy with you right now.”

“You’re never happy with me, anyway! We gotta move!” exclaimed Fate as several armed mercenaries looked up from the gloom, suddenly noticing the two distinctly non-fishlike criminals above them.

Graves, now more emotionally wounded than he wanted to let on, tossed a smoke grenade over the side of the catwalk, enveloping the first floor in a thick cloud of caustic fog. “That’s usually fun, but my heart’s just not in it right now,” he explained over the sound of dry-heaving mercenaries.

“Why are you being such a big baby? You’re a grown man!” shouted Fate, attempting to move the action along as stray shots rang out across the powder storage floor.

“Stop calling me a big baby! You’re always taking shots at my size. I’m the muscle that saves the day every time you get your goose cooked. You’re ungrateful as hell, Fate!”

“I’m ungrateful? I’m not the one who disappeared for months to go fight some Camavor ghost prince, then rolled back into town one night like he owned the place.”

“He was a ghost king, and you’re lucky I fought him or we’d all be ghosts! You’d be a ghost, I’d be a ghost. Everyone would be a ghost!”

“You weren’t even there! You think I don’t read Shauna’s letters? Graves, I’m a con man, you can’t trick me. They left you outside while scissors doll and the shirtless wonder saved the day.”

“That ain’t how it went down, Fate,” said Graves darkly. “That’s just the story. We don’t talk about what really happened.”

“Oh, please! Your delusions of grandeur were annoying decades before you became Valoran’s number-one hero.”

“Is this still a fake fight or are we having a real fight? Because if it’s a real fight, I will punch that stupid hat through your mouth.”

“I think it’s a real fight! And you know what else? You do stink, and you don’t think things through, and live grenades were not the best call here!”

“Yeah, well, this is why we stopped working together the first damn time! Because you think you’re better than me, and you think you’re better than this!”

“And what if I am?” yelled Fate, only realizing what he’d said after he had said it.

From the burning, rupturing front of the warehouse, Bombolini’s surviving mercenaries poured through the service door and onto the catwalk, its bolts decoupling from the walls under their combined weight. Many of the gunmen were badly singed and filled with a roiling anger fit to match their newfound crispiness.

“We can fight later, dammit! Get yer behind out that door!” Graves commanded as he and Fate dropped their argument and made a run for the exit with a rapidly sinking catwalk buckling underfoot.

Six strides from the doorway, another blast tore upward from the powder floor, consuming the Azure Way mercenaries in a pillar of raging flame as the crates beneath them began to blow one by one. The smoke from Graves’ grenade, a highly flammable mix of stinging, blinding, and stinking components deployed for tactical measures, immediately caught fire—something Graves did not account for, despite his supplier telling him several dozen times that the smoke was flammable. This, of course, ignited and exploded even more crates of black powder, launching both the slick card-sharp and the daring bath-avoider through a crumbling brick wall, down one floor, and into a grimy foyer—also filled wall-to-wall with explosives.

Among their heists, it still counted as one of the more successful ones.

“Ugh,” groaned Graves. “That sucked.”

Fate fumbled above his head to make sure his hat was still there, and only when he confirmed its safety did he hold his screaming ribs. “Yeah, it did.”

“Tobias, if we don’t make it out of this... I just wanna say one thing.”

“What is it, friend?” smiled Fate.

“I hope you die first,” Graves cough-laughed.

“Aw, shucks, that’s sweet.”

The warehouse shook again as debris and chunks of roof smacked hard against the floor, smoke poured through the gaping second-story hole in the wall, and flames licked tightly packed boxes of hexplosives—these emblazoned with a different frowning cartoon man in the process of blowing up.

“Did no one notice how wildly unsafe this was?” asked Graves, hobbling toward what appeared to be a service exit.

“It’s Bilgewater, Malcolm. Nobody notices anything.”

“Nobody... except for me!” said a familiar, if slightly raspier, voice.

Bombolini, now sporting a thick purple bruise in the center of his torso, stepped theatrically before the duo, his harpoon gun primed as his large, sharky shape stood between Bilgewater’s most-noticed mercenaries and the only way out. Graves caught sight of a damp, shark-shaped spot on the dock outside. Bombolini had likely been hiding there, waiting minutes for this reveal.

“Gods, not this donut again,” Fate muttered.

“And yet, it is!” Bombolini exclaimed, stifling a cough. “Do you know what I thought when I saw you two after all these years? After all that time, all that—”

“Not interested,” said Graves, pointing his massive shotgun at a container of explosives directly next to the shark-man. Graves pulled the trigger, the gun fired, and everything went up in smoke.

Several hundred arm spans from the rupturing warehouse once filled with far too many explosives to actually steal, Malcolm Graves and Twisted Fate suddenly appeared in the air a length and a half above a quaint little fishing pier... along with some residual smoke and flame, as Fate’s teleportation timing had not been perfect. The two crashed onto the ground with Graves’ gun landing squarely on his stomach. The sound he made was a bit like “uhbloof,” though it could have been any number of other expletives.

“Those blue cards sure are useful,” Fate bragged from flat on his newly injured back, dusting off his hat with the arm that wasn’t cradling his possibly broken ribs. It had been a long day.

“Yeah, but they’re never useful in the beginning,” wheezed Graves, a little toasty and bruised, but otherwise none the worse for wear. “We should use them before a gunfight breaks out. For stealing and whatnot.”

“That takes the artistry out of it. You don’t build a name for yourself by sticking to the shadows—you have to give the people a show!” Fate replied as the warehouse’s frame sagged in the distance and flames erupted furiously from still-unexploded payloads. He theatrically twirled his hand a bit, as if to underline the point.

“Fair,” said Graves, unconvinced.

The pair sat up in their blackened clothes, watching everything explode and then explode some more. It was almost romantic. If one considered that sort of thing romantic. Which, interestingly enough, they did.

“So, uh... what now?” Fate said, breaking the silence as quickly as possible. “Double-cross our dirty client? Dig a grave for whatever’s left of Bombolini?”

Graves chuckled. “Oh, we’re definitely doing that first thing. Nobody tries to blow me up without me blowing them up. As for Bombolini... I’d bet good money the shark is still out there. He’s like me. Too dumb to explode.”

“My friend, you’re the most brilliant dummy I ever did meet,” smiled Fate. “You’ll never explode. And I mean that sincerely.”

“Damn right,” puffed Graves. “Though, now that we’ve had it out... you and I need to have a conversation.”

“Right,” Fate sighed. He was tired of looking for ways to avoid apologizing, and all the adrenaline made him feel better about breaking his cardinal rule of never doing it for any reason.

He still wouldn’t say the word “sorry,” though. That was a bridge too far.

“Malcolm, I did not mean to imply that I was better than you. When we dissolved the business—”

“Stop, stop, stop,” said Graves, laying his shotgun behind himself as he dangled his legs over the water. “I already hate this. Apology accepted—next round’s on you.”

“Good man,” replied Fate thankfully, gazing across the sea as the sun began to set.

Graves looked over at his partner to add another quip, but noticed, perhaps for the first time, that there was a certain angularity to Tobias’ features that he had thus far failed to appreciate. A strong jaw, a shockingly unbroken nose, a bold choice in semi-fashionable hats. He was an objectively terrible person, but maybe the right kind of terrible for...

Uh-oh, he thought.

Malcolm Graves, now much older, only somewhat wiser, but infinitely more worldly, measured his next words more carefully than most things he did or said on any given day. Which was especially surprising to him, since navigating the complex relationship between two criminal masterminds such as themselves was not really his strong suit, nor had he ever given it much thought. He wondered... Why worry so much about Tobias’ opinion of him? It wasn’t like it mattered. They had their roles, after all, and—

“Malcolm,” Fate interrupted. “Do you have a concussion?”

“It’s possible,” Graves sighed, but not in a sad or tired way. More of a concussed way.

“Alright, let me look,” said the very injured Fate, brushing Graves’ hair aside as he looked for signs of a bruise. “We both know you’re a durable fella, but neither of us is invincible.”

“Not like Bombolini,” said Graves, confused by the welling excitement over Fate playing with his hair.

“I am legitimately dumbfounded by that,” Fate offered. “I remember that boat heist. Our old friend was caught in the middle of a deeply vicious detonation.”

“Deserved it, though. I do not have terrible taste in men. I have good taste in terrible men, and there is absolutely a difference.”

Fate finished inspecting his partner’s head, which didn’t exactly produce any new information, as he didn’t know what a concussion was supposed to look like. He gazed at Graves’ rugged features as the setting sun danced across his boyishly unkempt hair, and then considered all of those words together in a sentence, and then immediately recoiled at the complete thought. “Your taste isn’t terrible, Malcolm. It’s catastrophic.”

“Catastrophic?” Graves fired back. “Name one example. You can’t.”

“The Northman,” Fate said almost instantly. “The trader with the cockroach tattoo. That Buhru cultist—”

“Not a cultist.”

“Tried to sacrifice us both, but sure, not a cultist. The whale guy. The octopus guy. The second whale guy.”

“Orca.”

“An orca is a kind of whale. The monk. The vastaya. The Noxian.”

Graves winced. “Alright, he was bad.”

“A Noxian, Malcolm. From Noxus. People talked about that one.”

“More racist than I would have preferred in a man, in hindsight,” Graves allowed. “But it ain’t like you’re bringing home the greatest lovers in history. You ain’t that slick.”

“Excuse me, I am very slick,” Fate protested. “No matter the size, shape, make, or model, none can resist the charms of Tobias Felix. I have conned hundreds—nay, thousands—of dew-eyed tourists across the whole of this vast and gullible land.”

“Not this one,” laughed Graves, a little too forcefully. “Or, uh... you know.”

“Y... yes, of course, I am aware,” Fate responded, not making eye contact as he fiddled with his hat.

The two sat in silence for a while. Or relative silence, considering the towering flames and brutal detonations and screaming and shouting in the distance.

“Sweet Tommy Kench, look at that sucker burn,” said Graves, still dangling his legs off the pier like the world’s grungiest adult child. “Tobias, I’ve been thinking. And don’t get me wrong, I do love a crime or twenty, and you’ll be there for literally all of them—”

“What about Shauna? Or that lady with the laughing jar?” asked Fate with a tinge of poorly concealed jealousy, despite Graves having been gay for the better part of four decades.

“Vayne,” Graves corrected, more deliberately than was necessary for such a normal and casual conversation between platonic business associates, “is a good friend. But she’ll only help if we’re killing monsters. And for the love of all that’s sacred, never call her ‘Shauna.’ She will break your neck by looking at it. As for the other one... I don’t even want to deal with that right now.”

“She’s scary,” said Fate. “Never seen clothes like that before. So many hands.”

“She’s very scary,” Graves agreed. “I’m afraid she’s gonna kick me through a wall or something.

“Point is, I’m meeting new people. I’m seeing the world. Piltover. The Shadow Isles. I saw Camavor, Tobias. I’m expanding my horizons. I might even want to expand ‘em more. Hear Ixtal’s opening up. Could be good money out there... you know... if you wanted to come along for the ride.”

He rustled through his coat, producing a familiar blue playing card. “In which case, I probably wouldn’t need this anymore. Since you’d be around.”

Fate chuckled. “Why don’t you hold onto that for now? Think of it as... a souvenir.”

Graves grinned, slipping it back into his pocket. “I do like the sound of that.”

The partners smiled foolishly at this, each imagining various swashbuckling criminal misadventures while sitting at an awkward physical distance apart.

“But, you know, as, uh... partners,” Graves specified.

“Yes, obviously. Partners. In crime,” Fate added.

“Nothing else.”

“Nope.”

“Nada.”

“No sir.”

They concluded this exchange with a simultaneous fake cough. Graves looked unblinking at the water, and Fate looked at the underside of his hat. Far off in the distance, the warehouse burned and burned.

It was, all in all, one of their better heists.