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I look out across the once-verdant field, now scarred and ruined by the toil of battle.

The loss of life will be immense, but I cannot save those who seek their own destruction. All those sons, all those fathers, all those futures lost. Demacians and Noxians, ever at each other’s throats, magnetically drawn to one another by something lesser than both.

Plenty of defenders exist for their lofty ideals, and they all stand in my way, almost gleefully slaughtering themselves over a scrap of land, with no idea of its true importance. Two armies entwined, both committed to their ruinous dance.

I could try to reason with them, ask them to move their brawl elsewhere, but my former countrymen now see me as something between a traitor and a wrathful god, and the Noxians… well, the Noxians have always been short on patience.

My usual weapons—wit, charm, and warmth—are useless in this cauldron of desperation. So I push aside those who would slow me, and wade into those who would stop me. Every kind of horror one soul can inflict on another rages around me as I near my goal.

And there, dead center of the roiling fury of battle, the blaze of color calls to me—a delicate life about to be snuffed out amid the mud- and gore-covered boots. Standing bravely, unbowed by the thudding dullness of the armored brutes around it, its beauty rings out like a single crystal bell. It is the last flower of its kind. If it dies, no more shall bloom. I can not allow it to perish.

The two opposing commanders pause in their combat as I approach, an uninvited guest at their last moments. They turn to me, suddenly allied in their outrage at my intrusion.

I stand at the very eye of the two armies, seemingly inviting the cold embrace of death from all sides. But unlike all those who are now taking wary steps toward me, their sword hands trembling, I know why I fight.

Hear! Upon the Great Mountain,

The beloved of the Sun sing to Her,

A song of Love and Devotion,

Of Battle and Glory.

The golden Sun, Her Light ever shining,

Bathes our faces in warmth

And scorches our enemies,

Burning them to holy ash.

Yet even the radiant Sun must rest.

And so we are left without Her,

Cold and naked and alone,

At the mercy of those who stalk in the Dark.

We mourn for Her as She slumbers,

Knowing She never wishes to part from us,

The last wink of twilight,

Her fading farewell kiss.

Yet the night we would miss Her most dearly,

The Darkness long and bitter,

We persuade Her to stay longer

And dance with us to Her own music.

Twilight’s kiss extended,

A roaring flame that thaws through winter’s grasp,

The Sun stays awake all through the night,

Whispering Her sweet secrets until the dawn.

We battle the lull of Darkness for Her,

For the love She bears us,

And we gaze upon Her glory

As we show Her our own.

Hymn of the Dawn

My Dayblessed parents,

I pray that my letter finds you both well, and that young Aidonel and Kespina are healthy and happy. I respect your desire for more correspondence, and so I write to you today with nothing much to say, certainly nothing of great import.

The instructors have begun their lessons on the Nightless Eve. I look forward to the shift in our waking hours as I and the other shield-aged prepare to face the Darkness together. To Mother’s question, I do not yet know whether I will attend in the company of another acolyte, nor whether I wish to do so. I understand that you doubt my honesty in these matters, Mother, but truly none have yet caught my eye. I assure you that you needn’t ask further, and that I will tell you plainly should that answer change.

Oh! I performed admirably upon the Wargames field this past week. Our trainer, Initiate Priestess Nycinde, praised me highly and asked the others to observe my footwork and swordsmanship. She has said that my shield suits me, though I must learn to use it in support of my allies on the field, not simply as a means to protect myself. I take her tutelage seriously and have asked Hyterope and Sebina to continue to train with me after our schooling has finished for the day. I expect to continue to improve.

My academic pursuits are going well, though I feel I am lacking in my oration skills. I have spoken with Sunsworn Priestess Nemyah, and she says that I am well on my way, yet on this I do not agree with her. I do not mean to say that I am disrespecting my instructors! More that I wish to better my skills, and it does not appear that Sunsworn Priestess Nemyah will offer any additional support.

There is a girl in my Oratory class whose arguments are concise and well-constructed, but her views and lines of thought do not always connect to what the instructors have taught. Yet she is always prepared, and other acolytes find their arguments fall to pieces under her scrutiny. Perhaps she is someone I could approach for assistance in this matter. I know you believe me capable of becoming a leader, and I will not fail you in this.

In the Love of Her Light,
Leona

Dayblessed Diana,

Are you often busy after our Middle Rakkoric instruction? I sense that I am not doing as well in Oratory as I could be, and humbly ask that you help me grow my skills in constructing and delivering convincing arguments.

The content of your arguments notwithstanding, you are more skilled at constructing the logic behind them than anyone else in our year, and likely in our temple. You have heard some of the end-of-year debates and presentations that the older acolytes have made in years past, have you not? I believe you are better suited to train me in this than any of them.

I know your time is limited, so I would not ask that you spend much of it on me. But I would greatly appreciate it if you could look over my notes before our next rhetorical exercise, and help me grasp what it is I am not yet understanding.

And please know that I do not ask this lightly. If there is anything you are struggling with, anything that I can do to assist you where you need it, I pledge myself to it in return.

In the Light,

Leona

How I could ask someone to attend the Festival with me

—A note? Is that too childish? Not straightforward enough? Lots of notes as it is... but I love getting notes from her. She always makes time to answer, always very thoughtful and smart

—Ask her to take a walk with me? When? I have skirmishes every night this week

—Flowers? Don’t know if she likes flowers, or which flowers she likes

—A meal? Never shared a meal together, might be too public. What if the meal is gross? Bad omen?

—Offer to train her with her shield? She doesn’t use her shield much, that could work! Or maybe she doesn’t like using her shield? She doesn’t seem to like skirmishes

—Debate some scripture? Good chance to talk in person, get to see her at her best, be brilliant... try to impress her? Maybe tell her you need help with a big project for Oratory? No, she’s in the same class as you, this is stupid

—Pray together? Good excuse for privacy, but she would never say yes to that

—Ask her if she already has plans? Be casual, doesn’t have to be as more than friends, she probably doesn’t want to go alone. What if she’s already going with someone? Who would she go with

—Tell her I don’t have a companion? This is not a terrible option

—Don’t ask, just see her there and ask her to dance with you? Also not a terrible option

Why is this so hard

Poppy had nothing against the briar wolf, aside from the fact that it was about to maul her. Its muzzle was stained crimson from a previous kill, and the yordle wouldn’t chance being its next. She was hot on the trail of a renowned monster slayer, and she didn’t intend to die before she found the man and judged his worth.

“You should step back. You won’t survive this,” Poppy told the wolf, holding her hammer aloft as a deterrent.

But the briar wolf was not discouraged. It padded toward her, propelled by some strange desperation that Poppy couldn’t identify. Then she saw the telltale foam at the corners of its mouth. This animal was not driven by hunger or territorial instincts. It was in pain, and it wanted release. The wolf leapt at her, as if it had made up its mind that its next act would be to kill or be killed.

Poppy swung the hammer, using every ounce of her strength to move the weapon’s considerable weight. The blow she delivered collapsed the animal’s skull in an instant, ending its torment. Poppy took no pleasure in the kill, but she supposed it was the best possible outcome, for her and the wolf.

The yordle looked around at the empty meadow, but sensed no trace of the monster slayer she’d come to find. She had roamed the countryside, following rumors of his activities, hoping this mysterious hunter might be the fabled hero she had sought for so many years. But thus far, all she’d found were wolves and wyverns and highwaymen, most of whom she’d been forced to kill in self-defense.

She had spent weeks traveling from hamlet to hamlet in the far-flung corners of Demacia. She walked as fast as her tiny gait would allow, but the monster slayer always seemed to be one step ahead of her, leaving naught but tales of heroic exploits in his wake. For a yordle, time is a curious thing whose passing is seldom felt, but even for Poppy, the search was beginning to grow long.

One day, just when she was beginning to doubt herself and her mission, she spied a notice nailed to a roadside post:

“All are invited to attend the Festival of the Slayer!”

It was a celebration to honor the very monster hunter Poppy had been seeking. If there was any hope of locating this elusive hero, she would certainly find it there. He might even make an appearance, and then she could size him up in person to determine if he was worthy to carry the hammer Orlon had bequeathed her. The prospect put a spring in her step, and she marched with renewed purpose toward the celebration.

Poppy was anxious when she arrived at the village, its banners and streamers gaudily proclaiming the day’s festivities. Ideally, she would have arrived early at such a public event and claimed a spot in the rear of the crowd, so as not to draw attention. But the main market was already packed with spectators, and Poppy found it hard to maneuver through the press of bodies. She squeezed through the legs of the townsfolk, most of whom were too inebriated to notice her.

“I’d buy ’im a pint if ’e were here,” slurred one voice above her. “Saved my goats by killing that monster.”

Poppy’s heart raced, as it always did when she heard tales of the hunter.

What if he turns out to be the one? she thought.

But deep inside, Poppy asked a different question. What would she do once she was rid of the weapon? Would she find an entirely new purpose? A yordle without one was a pathetic sight indeed. She stopped her mind from wandering and brought it back to the task at hand.

The tiny warrior finally managed to weave her way to the back of the market. She found a tall lamppost both easy to climb and behind the eyes of the crowd. She then shimmied up the post, just high enough to see over the throng.

Poppy was just in time. On the far side of the market, a speaker stood with several Demacian officials on a dais, and behind him, something tall was draped in a ceremonial veil.

Even with her keen yordle senses, Poppy could barely hear the man’s words. He was talking about the monster hunter, and how he had saved numerous farms and villages from wyverns, rabid wolves, and bandits. He said that although this revered warrior had chosen to remain anonymous, it shouldn’t stop them from celebrating his deeds. The slayer had been spotted several weeks ago near the town of Uwendale, leaving the first eyewitness accounts of his appearance. With that, the speaker pulled off the veil to reveal a stone statue.

Poppy grew faint with excitement as she saw the hunter’s likeness for the first time. He was the paragon of a Demacian warrior—seven feet tall, armored in heavy plate mail, and rippling with sharply defined muscles. Beneath him lay the corpse of a wolf he had presumably slain.

Just as the image had begun to settle in Poppy’s mind, she heard the sound of a child’s voice a few yards away.

“Look, Da. It’s the slayer! The one from the statue!” declared the wide-eyed girl.

Poppy saw the girl was pointing in her direction. She whirled around to see if the slayer was standing behind her. But no one was there.

“No, lass,” said the girl’s father. “That one’s no monster slayer. Too small by half.”

The girl and her father quickly lost interest and strolled through the village to partake in the various amusements.

As the crowd in front of the statue dispersed, Poppy moved in for a closer inspection. Now she could see the fine details of the hunter’s marble depiction. His hair was long, fair, and bound in two separate side knots. His hands were gnarled from a hundred battles, and in them, he held a massive battle hammer not unlike the one Orlon had given her. If there was a truer hero in the kingdom, Poppy had never seen him.

“He has to be the one,” Poppy said. “Hope I’m not too late.”

She turned and left the festival as fast as her legs could carry her, taking the swiftest route to Uwendale.

One can travel to nearly any village across Ionia and hear the tale of the Capture of the Golden Demon. Depicted in a variety of plays and epic poems, the cruel spirit’s banishment is still celebrated to this day.

But at the heart of every myth there lies a kernel of truth, and the truth of the Golden Demon is one far different than the fiction.

For years, Ionia’s southern mountains were plagued by the infamous creature. Throughout the province of Zhyun, and even as far as Shon-Xan and Galrin, a monster slaughtered scores of travelers and sometimes whole farmsteads, leaving behind twisted displays of corpses. Armed militias searched the forests, towns hired demon hunters, Wuju masters patrolled the roads—but nothing slowed the beast’s grisly work.

In desperation, the Council of Zhyun sent an envoy to beg Great Master Kusho of the Kinkou Order for help. Charged with maintaining the balance between the spirit and material realms, Kusho was adept in the banishment of demons. Leaving in secret lest the cunning creature be alerted to their intent, Kusho, his teenage son, Shen, and young apprentice, Zed, traveled to the province. They tended to countless families shattered by the killings, dissected the horrific crime scenes, and looked for connections between the murders. Soon, Kusho realized they were far from the first to hunt this killer, and his conviction grew that this was the work of something beyond the demonic.

For the next four years, the Golden Demon remained beyond their reach, and the long investigation left the three men changed. The famous red mane of Kusho turned white; Shen, known for his wit and humor, became somber; and Zed, the brightest star of Kusho’s temple, began to struggle with his studies. It was almost as though the demon knew they were seeking it, and delighted in the torment sown by their failure.

Upon finally finding a pattern to the killings, the Great Master is quoted as saying: “Good and evil are not truths. They are born from men, and each sees the shades differently.” Kusho sought to hand off the investigation, believing now that they sought not a demon, but a wicked human or vastaya, taking them beyond the Kinkou’s mandate. Shen and Zed, unwilling to turn back after all they had sacrificed to bring the killer within reach, convinced him to continue the hunt.

On the eve of the Spirit Blossom Festival in Jyom Pass, Kusho disguised himself as a renowned calligrapher to blend in with the other guest artists. Then he waited. Shen and Zed laid a carefully prepared trap, and at long last, they found themselves face to face with their hated quarry. Kusho was proven right—the famed “Golden Demon” was a mere stagehand in Zhyun’s traveling theaters and opera houses, working under the name Khada Jhin.

After they caught Jhin, young Zed made to kill the cowering man, but Kusho held him back. He reminded his students that they had already broken their remit, and that killing Jhin would only worsen matters. Kusho worried that knowledge of Jhin’s humanity would undermine the harmony and trust that defined Ionian culture, or could even encourage others to commit similar crimes. Despite Jhin’s actions, the legendary master decided the killer should be taken alive and locked away within the monastery prison at Tuula.

Shen disagreed, but submitted to the emotionless logic of his father’s judgment. Zed, disturbed and haunted by the horrors he had witnessed, was unable to understand or accept this mercy, and it is said a resentment began to bloom in his heart.

Imprisoned in Tuula, Jhin kept his secrets, revealing little of himself as many years went by. The monks guarding him noted he was a bright student who excelled in many subjects, including smithing, poetry, and dance. Regardless, they could find nothing to cure him of his morbid fascinations. Meanwhile, outside the monastery’s walls, Ionia fell into turmoil as the Noxian empire invaded, and war awoke the tranquil nation’s appetite for bloodshed.

Jhin was freed from Tuula sometime after the war with Noxus, possibly put to use by one of the many radical elements vying for power of the First Lands near the conflict’s end. He now has access to the Kashuri armories’ new weapons, though how he came to possess such implements of destruction, and what connection he has to Kashuri, is still a mystery.

Whoever his shadowy patrons might be, they have endowed Jhin with nearly unlimited funds, and seem unconcerned by the growing scale of his “performances”. Recently, he attacked members of Zed’s Yanlei order, and mass murders and assassinations bearing his signature “flair” have occurred not only across Ionia’s many regions, but also in distant Piltover and Zaun.

It seems that all of Runeterra might be but a canvas for the atrocity that is Khada Jhin’s art, and only he knows where the next brushstroke will fall.

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.

The massive Noxian war captain shuddered and dropped his axe as Gangplank rammed his cutlass deep into the man’s gut. Blood bubbled from the warrior’s tattooed lips as he mouthed an unheard curse.

Gangplank pulled his blade free with a sneer and shoved the dying man to the deck. He collapsed in a clatter of heavy armor, his blood mingling with the seawater sloshing across the war galley’s foredeck. The black-painted hull of Gangplank’s ship loomed above, the two vessels locked together with boarding grapples and lines.

Gangplank’s black and gold teeth gritted in suppressed pain – the Noxian had almost bested him. Nevertheless, he refused to let his crew see his weakness, forcing his lips into a wicked smile.

Wind and rain whipping at him, he turned to survey the rest of the Noxians. He’d issued a blood-challenge to the enemy captain, and now that he’d won, their will to fight evaporated.

“This ship is now mine,” Gangplank roared, loud enough to be heard over the driving gale. “Does anyone else have anything to say on the matter?”

One of the Noxians, a huge warrior with blood-cult tattoos upon his face and garbed in spiked armor glared at Gangplank.

“We are sons of Noxus,” he bellowed. “We would all gladly die before we let our ship be taken by the likes of you!”

Gangplank frowned, then shrugged.

“Fair enough,” he said, and turned away.

Gangplank favored his crew with a vicious smile.

“Kill them all,” he roared. “And burn their ship to the waterline!”

The colossal brazier flared to life, its flames reaching high into the air. In times past, the gathered tribes would use this as the mark of the festival’s beginning.

The harvest festival had always been the largest celebration of the year for the tribes, and one of the last before winter set in on the plains. As the fire was lit, cheers should have echoed up the frozen slopes of the mountains, calling down blessings from the Three Sisters. Now, though, the mass of gathered Avarosans remained silent as they turned away from the flames to look up to the stage where Ashe stood.

She let her eyes roam over them. No festival had ever seen so many gathered together, and she knew they had come to see her.

She grabbed her bow and unslung it, the now-familiar piercing chill of the True Ice surging through her body. The cold was still painful, even after all her time with the weapon—but now she welcomed it, using it to focus and block out distractions. She lifted her gaze from the crowd to the roaring flame, and took a deep breath as she pulled back the bowstring. All other sounds of the festival faded.

A crystal arrow of pure cold formed, beckoned forth by the deep magic coursing through the bow. Ashe held her breath as she let it continue to channel magic through her arms. The temperature on the stage plummeted, frost creeping out from beneath her feet.

When the cold threatened to finally overwhelm her, she released her breath and let the arrow fly.

It arced high over the crowd, and slammed into its target with a deafening crack. In an instant, the brazier was frozen over, the dancing shapes of the fire enveloped by the spreading ice. The setting sun shone through the crystalized flames and onto the crowd below, and finally the cheer broke out. The crowd invoked the blessings of the Three—Lissandra, Serylda, and Avarosa herself, reincarnated in Ashe.

Ashe kept her address short.

“Avarosans! Never before has a harvest festival seen so many. Sit with your kin from across the snows—we are one family now. Eat, drink, and enjoy!”

She smiled as the crowd cried out her name. She raised her bow high, and the cheers rose higher in response.

Inwardly, she grimaced. As so often, she wondered if it was her leadership that drew them all together, or the weapon she carried. It was the symbol of Avarosa, and many in the Freljord believed that, as its wielder, she was Avarosa reborn. Ashe slung the bow over her shoulder and shook the thought. Why they joined wasn’t as important as what they had become. She hopped off the stage and moved into the crowd as they dispersed to feast-laden tables.

The boisterous tribes mixed together, sharing food, drink, and tales of hunts past. The Stonepicks described the warm yet treacherous southern mountains. Ashe cheered with the others when the Red Snows recounted the defeat of the Noxian warbands that had tried to advance inland from the coast. A warrior from the Ice Veins, storied blizzard walkers one and all, clapped Ashe on the back as she passed, sending a strange chill through her.

All these and more had responded to her call and joined the festivities. All had pledged themselves to the Avarosans, and each tribe needed her to be something different. A prophet, a savior, a mediator. A Warmother.

Ashe would be them all if she could.

As she neared the far end of the feast, though, she froze. At the last table, sitting somber and removed from the rest, was a group of Iceborn that she knew all too well—the Snow Followers, vengeful zealots who had slaughtered a whole tribe only months ago.

A tribe whose only crime had been joining the Avarosans.

A large woman, doubtless their leader, rose and approached Ashe. “Warmother Ashe, Avarosa’s chosen, wielder of Her divine bow. My name is Hildhur Svarhem, truthbearer and Warmother of the Snow Followers.”

Ashe imagined the sight of the scorched huts again, the screams of her people dying in agony, and her fury ignited. The crowd around them quieted as Hildhur continued, whispers spreading quickly. All gathered had heard of what the Snow Followers had done.

“We swore an oath that no faith-traitors would ever again follow those falsely claiming to be Avarosa reborn. Your warriors fought bravely, but not well.” She unslung a large war-axe from her back, its blade coated in a thin but clear layer of True Ice. A true Iceborn, she bore the discomfort of the weapon’s chilling effect silently.

Ashe measured the woman’s wide stance, counted the few steps between them. Dried blood matted Hildhur’s armor—more Avarosan blood? Ashe’s muscles tensed as she prepared to move. She was ready for any attack.

What she was not ready for, however, was for the Warmother to kneel, lower her head, and offer up the war-axe with both hands.

“Forgive us, Warmother Ashe. I did not know then what I do now. I came to challenge you before all your followers, to unmask you as a false prophet. But the magic you wield is beyond any I have ever witnessed. None can deny that She speaks through you. I offer you my axe, Joutbane, and my head. Spare my people, that they may prove their worth by hunting, farming, and dying in your name.”

Each of the gathered Snow Followers followed their Warmother’s example, kneeling in deference.

At once, voices from the crowd called for vengeance. “Death to the raiders!” they cried.

Barely more than smoldering ruins when Ashe had arrived, the skeletal remains told the story of a village surrounded. The few warriors had been easily identified, for their bodies were untouched by fire, but hacked down and left for the crows. The rest of the tribe had hidden in their homes, praying for mercy, or simply a quick death.

They received neither…

Eyes welled up with fury, Ashe reached for the axe. She would take Hildhur’s head, as a warning to any who would—

As her hand clasped around it, and the True Ice sent the familiar spike of cold through her arm, Ashe felt her bow beginning to radiate against her back. A slow, chilling pulse, like a winter breeze.

Her mind calmed.

“Stand, Hildhur,” she said, looking down at the war-axe.

Hildhur rose, furrowing her brow in confusion. Ashe met her probing gaze.

“The Snow Followers have shed the blood of my tribe, and they are my enemies,” she continued. “But you have shown humility and remorse, here and now. You are not the Snow Followers any longer—from today forward, you are Avarosan, and that makes you family. You have nothing to fear from me, cousin.”

She thrust the war-axe back into the woman’s hands, and the tension in the air broke. Soon enough, the celebrations were underway again, the joyous feelings redoubled by forgiveness and mercy. Ashe walked to everyone seated at the table, welcoming each in turn.

As she turned from them and walked away, she was careful to keep her grief in check. Her heart still burned, but her people needed her to walk a different path than that of revenge. She played her fingers along the bowstring, seeking comfort in its chill.

She would be better. She must.

Jinx hated petticoats.

Corsets too, but she grinned at how she’d put the space under and within the stolen dress to good use. Her long blue braids were concealed beneath a ridiculous feathered bonnet that was the latest fashion in Piltover. Jinx sashayed between the wedding guests, keeping her smile fixed and trying not to scream at the dead-eyed people surrounding her. It took an effort of will not to grab each one by the shoulder and try to shake them awake.

Jinx had come here to get all explodey on the observatory atop Count Sandvik’s mansion, but when she’d seen there was a wedding underway... well, that was too good an opportunity for mayhem to pass it up. The count had spared no expense in making his daughter’s party a grand spectacle. The cream of Piltover society was here; the heads of the major clans, lauded hextech artificers, and even fat Nicodemus had managed to finagle an invite. The Warden-Prefect looked like an overstuffed poro in his dress uniform, chest puffed out and beady eyes ogling the sprawling buffet table. Music from a small orchestra drifted over the wedding guests, so slow and ponderous it made Jinx want to yawn. She’d take the foot-stomping, spin-around-till-it-made-you-sick music of Zaun any day.

Hexlumens fitted with rotating zoetropes and oddly-angled lenses projected spectral dancers onto the floor that pirouetted and spun to the delight of laughing children who’d never known a moment of hunger, pain, or loss. Mimes and sleight of hand artistes moved through the crowd, delighting the guests with the fingerwork of their card tricks. Jinx had seen better. The sump-snipes of the Boundary Markets would quite literally give any of these performers a run for their money.

Pictures of Piltover’s bigwigs hung on walls paneled with oak and inlaid with geometric copper fretwork. The men and women in the portraits looked down on the people below with haughty disdain. Jinx stuck her tongue out at each and every one of them as she passed, grinning as they tutted and turned away. Windows paned with colored glass patterned the mosaic floor with rainbows and Jinx skipped merrily over every bright square as she made her way to a table heaped with enough food to feed a hundred families in Zaun for a month.

A liveried waiter passed her, bearing a silver tray of fluted glasses filled with something golden and fizzy. She took one in each hand, spinning away with a grin. Flying foam stained the backs of dresses and frock coats of nearby guests and Jinx sniggered.

“Drink up,” she said and knocked back what was left in the glasses.

She bent awkwardly and set the glasses on the mosaic floor, right in the path of oncoming dancers, and burped the opening bars of Vi is a Stupid Fathead, a tune she’d only just made up. Cliques of society ladies turned to sneer at her coarseness, and Jinx covered her mouth in mock, wide-eyed embarrassment. “Sorry, I accidentally did that on purpose.”

She skipped on and helped herself to some weird looking fish-things from another waiter’s platter. She tossed them into the air and managed to catch at least one in her mouth. A few fell into her enhanced cleavage and she plucked them out with the glee of a sump-scrapper who’d found something shiny in the ooze.

“You thought you could get away from me, fishy-fishes!” she said, wagging a finger at each morsel. “Well, you were wrong.”

Jinx stuffed the food into her mouth and readjusted her dress. She wasn’t used to this much up top, and stifled a giggle at what she had stuffed down there. The hairs on the back of her neck bristled, and she looked up to see a man staring at her from the edge of the chamber. He was good-looking in a stiff sort of way and wore nice, formal clothes, but was so obviously a warden that he might as well have had a sign around his neck. She turned and pushed deeper into the throng of guests filling the chamber.

She reached the buffet table and sucked in an impressed breath as she saw the towering wedding cake; a frosted masterwork of pink fondant, whipped cream and lacework caramel. A replica of the Tower of Techmaturgy in sponge, jam, and sweet pastry. Jinx reached out, lifted a ladle from the punch bowl, and scooped out a cave in the sponge. She tipped it out onto the floor, licked the ladle clean and tossed it back onto the table. She saw a number of the guests looking at her funny and bared her teeth in her best, manic grin. Maybe they thought she was mad. Maybe they were right.

Jinx shrugged. Whatever.

She reached down into her décolletage and pulled out four chompers. She stuffed three deep into the hole she’d scooped in the cake and dropped the other in the punch bowl.

Jinx strolled along the length of the table, pulling out another two chompers and depositing them in various dishes. One went in a copper soup tureen, the other replaced the apple in the mouth of a suckling pig. Her dress was a lot looser without the additional baggage upstairs, and as she pulled down the side zipper, Jinx spotted the good-looking man she’d earlier pegged as a warden making a beeline for her through the guests.

“About time,” she said, spotting another four, gussied-up wardens, three women and a man, converging on her. “Oooh, and you brought friends too!”

Jinx reached around to the small of her back and pulled the knot securing the petticoats around her narrow waist. The bottom half of her dress sank to the floor as her corset fell away to surprised gasps of the men and women around her.

Revealed in her pink leggings, ammo-belted shorts and vest top, Jinx ripped off the bonnet and shook her hair loose. She reached down and swung Fishbones up from where it had been concealed beneath her dress, and hoisted the weapon up to her shoulder.

“Hey folks!” she yelled, leaping onto the buffet table and drawing Zapper from her thigh-holster. “Hope you’re all hungry...”

Jinx spun on her heel and fired a crackling bolt of energy down the table to the chomper in the pig’s mouth.

“‘Cause this buffet is to die for!”

The chomper exploded, draping the nearest guests in ribbons of scorched meat and fat. A chain reaction of detonations followed. The tureen blasted into the air to drench scores of guests in hot beef soup. The punch bowl blew up next, and then the climax of the detonations; the wedding cake.

The three chompers inside detonated simultaneously and the towering confection launched into the air like a rocket. It almost reached the stained glass ceiling before it arced over and nosedived back to the floor. Guests scattered as the giant cake exploded on impact, and fondant fragments flew in all directions. Screaming guests ran from the blasts, slipping and tumbling in patches of gooey cream and sizzling punch.

“Seriously folks,” said Jinx, blowing a loose strand of blue hair out of her face. “Screaming helps, not at all.”

She skipped down the ruined buffet table and fired a rocket from Fishbones that blew out the nearest window. Iron bolts from hand crossbows flashed past her to embed in the walls, but Jinx laughed as she leapt through the shattered window frame to land in the garden beyond. She rolled back to her feet and pulled up short. She’d had an escape route sort of planned out, but looking toward the Sandvik Mansion’s entrance, she saw a tall, gleaming ring-rider that looked like it’d be a ton of fun to steal.

“Now, that I gotta try...”

She slung Fishbones over her shoulder and elbowed a host of gawping Sandvik footmen out the way, settling into the disc-runner’s hand-tooled leather saddle.

“So how do you start this thing?” she said, staring at the bewildering array of ivory knobs, brass-rimmed dials and gem-like buttons on the control panel in front of her.

“Time for a little trial and error!”

Jinx hauled back on the nearest lever and hit the biggest, reddest button she could see. The machine throbbed beneath her, spooling up with a rising whine and hum of building power. Blue light spun around the outer edges of the wide disc as the main doors to the mansion slammed open. Stern voices yelled at her to stop. Like that was going to happen! The stabilizer struts retracted into the gleaming frame and Jinx whooped with manic glee as the disc-runner shot away from the mansion like a super mega death rocket.

“See ya!” she yelled over her shoulder. “Awesome party!”

As a child, Yasuo often believed what the others in his village said of him: on the best days, his very existence was an error in judgement; on the worst, he was a mistake that could never be undone.

Like most pain, there was some truth to it. His mother was a widow already raising a young son, when the man who would be Yasuo’s father blew into her life like an autumn wind. And, just like that lonely season, he was gone again before the blanket of Ionian winter settled over the small family.

Even though Yasuo’s older half-brother, Yone, was everything Yasuo was not—respectful, cautious, conscientious—the two were inseparable. When other children teased Yasuo, Yone was there to defend him. But what Yasuo lacked in patience, he made up for in determination. When Yone began his apprenticeship at the village’s renowned sword school, a young Yasuo followed, waiting outside in monsoon rain, until the teachers relented and opened the gates.

Much to the annoyance of his new peers, Yasuo showed natural talent, and became the only student to catch the attention of Elder Souma, last master of the legendary wind technique. The old man saw Yasuo’s potential, but the impulsive pupil refused his tutelage, remaining unbridled like a whirlwind. Yone pleaded with his brother to set aside his arrogance, gifting him a maple seed, the school’s highest lesson in humility. The next morning, Yasuo accepted the position as Souma’s apprentice, and personal bodyguard.

When word of the Noxian invasion reached the school, some were inspired by the great stand that had been taken at the Placidium of Navori, and soon the village was bled of the able bodied. Yasuo longed to add his sword to the cause, but even as his classmates and brother left to fight, he was ordered to remain and protect the elders.

The invasion became a war. Finally, one rain-slicked night, the drums of a Noxian march could be heard in the next valley over. Yasuo abandoned his post, foolishly believing he could turn the tide.

But he found no battle—only a raw grave for hundreds of Noxian and Ionian corpses. Something terrible and unnatural had happened here, something that no single blade could have stopped. The land itself seemed tainted by it.

Sobered, Yasuo returned to the school the next day, only to be surrounded by the remaining students, their swords drawn. Elder Souma was dead, and Yasuo found himself accused not only of dereliction, but of murder. He realized the true killer would go unpunished if he did not act quickly, so he fought his way free, though he knew this would all but confirm his apparent guilt.

Now a fugitive in war-torn Ionia, Yasuo sought any clue that might lead him to the murderer. All the while, he was hunted by his former allies, continually forced to fight or die. This was a price he was willing to pay, until he was tracked down by the one he dreaded most—his own brother, Yone.

Bound by honor, they circled each other. When their swords finally met, Yasuo’s wind magic overcame Yone’s dual blades, and with a single flash of steel, the outcast cut his brother down.

He begged forgiveness, but Yone’s dying words were of the wind techniques responsible for Elder Souma’s death, and that his brother was the only one who could have known them. Then he fell silent, passing on before he could grant any absolution.

Without master or brother, Yasuo roamed the mountains distraught, drinking away the pain of war and loss, a sword without a sheath. There in the snow, he met Taliyah, a young Shuriman stone mage who had fled the Noxian military. In her, Yasuo saw an unlikely student, and in himself, an even more unlikely teacher. He trained her in the ways of elemental magic, wind shaping stone, embracing at last the teachings of Elder Souma.

Their world changed with rumors of a risen Shuriman god-emperor. Yasuo and Taliyah parted ways, though he gifted her the treasured maple seed, its lesson now learned. As she returned to her native desert sands, Yasuo set out for his own village, determined to put right his mistakes and find his old master’s true killer.

Within the stone walls of the council hall, Elder Souma’s death was revealed to have been an accident, one brought about by the Noxian exile known as Riven—and one for which she felt deep remorse. Even so, Yasuo still could not absolve himself of the choice he had made to abandon his master or, worse yet, how that choice had ultimately led to Yone’s death.

Yasuo eventually journeyed to the spirit blossom festival in Weh’le, though he held little hope that its healing rituals would ease his heart. It was there he encountered a demonic creature that sought to devour him, an azakana that fed on his pain and regret.

Yet a masked intruder intervened, striking down the creature with righteous fury, and Yasuo realized he knew this man—it was Yone.

Fully expecting his brother to take vengeance, Yasuo was surprised when Yone let him go with little more than a bitter blessing.

With nothing left for him in the First Lands, Yasuo has embarked on a new adventure, though he knows not where it will lead, his sense of guilt the only thing weighing down the free wind.

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.