Authors note: Well this is my first story I guess. It's an Aatrox short story covering his involvement in the Magelord/Protectorate conflict. Seemed like a good place to help me develop and flesh out his character further before diving into a major Epic involving many of our favorite league characters. I'd like to personally thank ViperofGrand for inspiring me with his exceptionally well written league fiction as opposed to the all too common "rapefics" I keep running into. Ya'll should check out his "Blade Reforged" Riven epic and Udyr short stories if you haven't already. Again I will be trying to edit this and hopefully add more chapters. There's a ton of ground I want to explore with my favorite connoisseur of manslaughter

"Do not go gentle into that good night.

Old age should burn and rave at close of day

Rage, Rage against the dying of the light"

-Dylan Thomas

Prologue

1200 BCLE (Before Common League Era)

The Protectorate Insurrection

Gai liberated his sword from the neck of a Magelord thrall soldier attempting to clamber over the shattered ramparts of the fortress. The thrall soldier gurgled, blood pooling in its mouth, splattering specks of red onto Gai's face and armor before tumbling wordlessly into the moat below. Gai barely heard the splash as the Thralls body plummeted headfirst into its murky depths.

For all the fucking good its doing us. Gai thought, frowning sourly. Indeed the moat would have been a daunting obstacle for any conventional army to surmount. The Magelord forces were anything but conventional. With magic at their disposal, it was a trifling matter for them to construct arcane bridges with which their slave soldiers could cross, setting up towers and ladders to besiege the Protectorate. Other sections of the wall, the ones that had not been utterly decimated, fired volley upon volley of slings, arrows, and ballistae. It was a futile gesture. The Protectorate's missiles harmlessly bounced off of enchanted barriers that had been erected to defend the Magelords frontline scaling parties below.

Gai sheathed his blade, returning his attention to the siege ladder. With a grunt, he raised a polearm he held in his other hand, the length of it allowing him to reach as far back as the stone wall behind him. Using the wall as leverage, he pressed his body against it while at the same time pushing the siege ladder off the battlements with the pikes hooked edge. The swarms of Thralls that clutched the rungs silently fell to their deaths. Gai shuddered. It's not right. Men should scream when they fall. They weren't men of course. Not anymore.

"Damn it all!" Gai must have sworn for the hundredth time. Hundredth? No, maybe it was, a thousand? He chuckled. It hardly mattered. This was it, they were losing. Fighting the Magelords without Magi of their own made for horrendous odds. The only reason the Protectorate had managed to keep the rebellion going this long was due to the anti-arcana weapons, artifacts and talismans they'd managed to sack from their oppressors.

A shower of electricity jolted over the ramparts, slithering across the stone and arcing violently towards him. One of the enemy mages had cast a bolt from afar. It incinerated the bodies of his fallen comrade's and foes without distinction. He leapt away from it madly as its deadly fingers reached out to singe his flesh. Gai rolled out of the way, propelling himself as far as he could before kissing the stones at his feet, anything to avoid the indigo arc of smoldering death. Metal and rock were reduced to red hot puddles of molten material…but Gai was unharmed. The burning smell of human flesh and brimstone polluted the air. He breathed it in deeply, gratefully sucking in the stench of life. It was the most glorious breath he'd tasted in ages. I am alive…I am still alive. Gai giggled hysterically. His heart felt as if it had leapt into his esophagus. Adrenaline flooded his system like venom. Arc Shots were a terrible way to die.

Gai folded one hand over his chest, trying to soothe the frantic tempo of his beating heart. Eventually his heart rate lowered to a tolerable level. He idly fingered the Negatron Cloak that shrouded his muscular physique. The seemingly delicate fabric was marred with forked scars and singe marks along the hem. It had done its job, shielding him from the worst of the damage. He lost count of how many times the magic resistant shroud saved him from certain death.

There were not many things that could protect one from magic and there wasn't enough to go around. Supplies were as scarce as victories, and if he were to be honest, most of those artifacts had been stolen by their extensive spy networks rather than honest plunder. But Gai would be damned if he didn't celebrate those victories. It mattered little that he could only count them on one hand. The odds had always been against them.

So why fight then? What was the point of it all? Freedom? Justice? What good were those to the dead? Dying was all they could do here now, and yet….Gai lifted himself back onto his feet, looking out across the horizon. An endless sea of bodies assailed the fortress. There were thousands of them, tens of thousands. Many of them were probably just poor bastards conscripted from every province of the Magelord Empire, literal tribute offered to the Magi by their puppet rulers. That was how some of the viceroys paid their taxes. What they didn't have in coin they could pay with flesh. The bulk of this army consisted of Thralls however.

They had been children from the lands the Magelord's subjugated, trained in the arts of battle until they were ready for Initiation. Their hearts, minds, and souls would then be purged through some foul sorcery. They had no will to call their own; mere dolls that danced in the hands of their puppeteers. A skilled Magi could command a company of these Thralls with absolute obedience, and they'd even end their own lives, if you could call them lives, at the whim of their overlord. It was a double-edged sword though. The Protectorate knew that if you could kill the Magi their Thralls would cease to function. Without a Magi they couldn't even eat without being told.

He looked out at one particular formation of Thralls traversing an arcane bridge their overlord had summoned. They shambled mechanically towards the gate. The drawbridge had been raised but that hardly mattered now. Gai didn't have to look at their faces to know that their eyes were as lifeless as the corpses of the Thralls he had just slain. There would be no opportunities to slay any wayward Magi though. They had hid themselves behind the safety of their own lines.

"Cowards!" Gai spat venomously.

They had fought. Oh yes. They had tried to overthrow the caste system of mages and non-mages. They had dared to rebel against the tyranny of the Magelords. He and his comrades had given it their all, but to no avail. It was only a matter of time before that square of Thralls smashed down the gates with the battering rams they had brought with them. Then the Magelords forces would pour through the breach, swarm in and overwhelm their battalion.

"The last battalion. How heroic." Gai muttered aloud humorlessly. That was what remained of the Protectorates 3rd army, less than a thousand men. 1rst had long since been obliterated, and as for 2nd? Last he heard they were still putting up a fight, but were engaged in another theatre of operations. No help would come.

The clap of thunder and the force of an explosion suddenly threw Gai onto the stone beneath him, rendering the soldier unconscious. He slid into the concave impression produced by the violent impact.

A shadow cast itself over his still form. The dark being responsible for the crater rose from its depths. "At ease warrior." It said quietly. The Shadow examined Gai's fallen form. It was impressed. How long had it been since it had seen a warrior with such resolve? It would have to prepare a special reward for the man's efforts.

A staccato rhythm of ladders propped themselves onto the parapets. Thrall shock troopers clung to the topmost rungs, riding atop them fearlessly whilst being elevated. The shock troopers leapt onto the wall before the ladders had even touched stone. Their directive was clear. Kill everything in sight. They could not perceive the Shadows true form, but it seemed alive and it was definitely in their sights. The mindless puppets advanced upon the Shadow and the fallen warrior with mechanical precision. A chorus of steel rang out as the Thralls drew their sabers in unison.

The Shadow was slightly impressed by the flexibility of the Magelord's tactics. Unlike most men, these fearless dolls did not balk at the terror of ascending fortifications in such an absurd manner. It smiled as they approached, its left arm trembling in anticipation of the violence to come. So, these hollow husks will be the first to decorate my canvas? Aatrox's eyes flashed greedily, hungering for blood. So be it…

Gai awoke amongst a crater filled with debris and severed limbs. He lay there, spread eagled on his back, eyes glaring at the indifferent sky. He felt like cursing the Gods, old and new. He had been knocked unconscious by a blast of some sort. Tenderly he felt his head. His hand came away with scarlet ribbons of blood. Gai screwed his eyes together, wincing as a lance of pain shot through his nervous system. He tried to gauge his surroundings. It looked like he was still on the wall, but something was wrong. There were a lot more corpses than he remembered there being…enemy corpses. All the defenders, his comrades, on this section of the wall had long since been dead.

Who could have done this? Gai thought to himself. He had been the only one holding it for the past half hour, frantically running back and forth like a madman, decapitating intrusive heads, and dislodging siege ladders with the grim determination of a gardener tending to belligerent weeds. His gaze drifted towards the sky again. The sun was beginning to set when he had been conscious, now? It was a barren glimmer over the horizon. Dusk had settled.

"Gotta..get up..g-gotta…pull some more weeds soldier." He laughed in spite of himself. He tried to rise from his position, his wounded body harassing him for his efforts. Gai's vision swam, his surroundings occluded.

Weeds eh? He vaguely recalled in his training days how his Sergeant had made him clear an entire acre of the damn things with his bare hands all by himself. Supposedly it was because of the "drunken sac-less gait that Gai called marching". The Serge was dead now. A Magi had torn him limb from limb with an incantation, but not before the Sergeant buried a crossbow bolt so deep into the Magi's skull they would have had to bury the bastard with it had they given him the courtesy.

Speaking of which….

The head of a conscript impudently rose over the ramparts, his gaze locked with Gai's for a brief moment. The conscripts face contorted into rage. Swiftly leaping over the battlement he charged at Gai shouting "Death to the rebellion! Long live the Mage Lor-erglur"-and promptly cartwheeled back over the precipice from whence he came, a thick bolt protruding from the base of his throat. Gai lowered the formerly-loaded crossbow, one of many he had spaced strategically across the perimeter of the wall. Luckily this one had been within his reach and, despite his wooziness, his aim had been true. What could he say? He had learnt from the best. Gai's expression darkened when his eyes fell upon the ladder that once bore the unfortunate conscript. The look he gave it should have shattered it to splinters. If only.

"Where's that fucking pole-arm!?" His eyes roamed the blood-stained battlements vehemently. The only thing he could find were the sanguine tendrils of blood that flowed betwixt the cracks and fissures of the rubble at his feet.

"Look no further, warrior."

Could it have been an illusion? For the briefest moment it seemed to Gai as if the streams of blood had flowed towards the direction of the voice, which should have been impossible since he lay in the middle of a crater about a foot deep and wide enough in circumference to fit two of him. Blood was supposed to run downhill, not up. Whatever had created the crater must have been what knocked him out.

Arcane barrage? Couldn't be, he was still alive. Not even the negatron cloak would have saved him from a direct hit. He even still had all his limbs now that he thought about it. Gai realized the speaker was in front of him. He hadn't noticed anyone approach. Somehow he had lost himself, mesmerized by the viscous flow of red plasma that gathered in puddles around him. His hand reached out to one in particular.

Strange, I never thought it could be so…beautiful. If he focused he could almost make out his own reflection.

He snapped back to reality, lifting his head slowly away from the pool of blood that now drenched his clothes from the waist down. He felt a tug in his chest as he reluctantly tore his gaze from the alluring crimson. Was it regret? However, he could not resist. Something powerful beckoned his attention, something…MORE. After what seemed an eternity to Gai he finally coaxed his eyes to confront the foreboding presence. He could see his polearm was in the grip of an enormous silhouette. He stared at the pike like a scorned lover stares at his partner after catching them in the midst of adultery.

"Great, you found the cheating bitch." Gai said, grinning weakly at his own joke.

His expression froze. He could not make out the man that held the polearm clearly, if indeed it was a man. For reasons Gai could not fathom, every time he tried to look directly at the dark figure he couldn't make out any specific details. The source of the voice was naught but a vague outline. It was as if he were trying to glimpse a shadow that always retreated to the edges of his peripheral vision, no matter how fast he turned his head. What he could see was the brutalized, misshapen figures skewered from top to bottom all along the sixteen foot shaft. Yes, he could make out the impaled corpses well enough.

For a moment the two stared at each other in silence. Neither one moved. The sounds of battle faded into the background. Nothing else existed for Gai, nothing but the carnage on display in front of him. The Darkin known as Aatrox followed the exhausted soldier's gaze, tracing it back to his heinous banner. With a knowing smile he leaned forward and gripped Gai's arm.

His touch was fire! Gai could feel the infernal heat radiating from the flesh of this being. It was as if a molten torrent of wrath and ruin flowed through its veins. Gai's blood was lit a flame, his temples pounded like war drums in his ears, his breathing heavy and ragged. It was not the panting of a man on the borders of exhaustion, rather the respiration of one who danced upon the precipice of madness.

The wounded soldier didn't even realize he had been lifted onto his feet, nor that it had been done with such inconsiderable effort. The shadow moved, holding out the pike before him. It rested the blood soaked shaft squarely across the flat of its palms. Gai realized the being was offering it to him, corpses and all. "F-For me?" Gai asked tentatively. His hands shook as he slowly reached out for it.

Gai's vision tunneled, and all that he could perceive were the mannequin-esque bodies that swayed mesmerizingly. Time stretched. A minute seemed to pass, even hours before the silence was broken by the somber, almost hypnotic timbre of the demonic humanoid that now stood before him.

"Every kill brings victory closer." Aatrox tilted his head almost quizzically, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. "Wouldn't you agree?"

In that moment, as if a signal had been given, Gai accepted the grisly standard wordlessly. Oddly the weight of the bodies did nothing to encumber his movements as he flourished the polearm like a cyclone before grinding the pommel into the stone, fissures erupting around him. CRACK! …He sprinted towards the ramparts at an inhuman speed, pole-vaulting over the edge of the wall. Sixty feet below he landed dead center on the arcane bridge, right in front of a column of advancing Thralls.

Strangely enough, a Magi lead the column of Thralls bearing the sorcerously empowered rams that were meant to tear through the gates. The Magi fired a salvo of baal-fire to scorch another section of wall that had lost the protection of its hexdrinker's. Even now the magi could see the violet, semi-transparent shields flicker and diminish from the unrelenting barrage of arcana raining down upon the defenders. The artifacts could only soak up so much punishment. Soon the Protectorate would be naked against their assault.

Easy pickings. The mage exulted from the intoxicating power coursing through him. The knowledge he could destroy and inflict so much destruction with a mere thought filled the magi with savage glee. Who could stand against the might of those who wielded magic? Who would dare? To rule was their birthright. Who were these commoners to defy the natural order? A painful death was too good for them. He gave it to them anyway, incinerating the wall again for good measure. Screams of agony signaled the deaths of more Protectorate soldiers. There would be no prisoners.

The mages sadistic revelry was cut short when he noticed a single lone soldier barring the path before him. He was far enough away that the Magi couldn't discern him, nor could he make out the curious standard the soldier wielded. How the intrepid rebel could have gotten there without the Protectorate lowering the drawbridge the Magi could not guess.

It matters not, the Magi thought smugly. At least this one was stupid enough to save him the trouble of aiming. The Magi raised his hand, intent on obliterating the nuisance in front of him. The soldier made a lunging motion. A blur approached the mage at an incredible speed.

A ballistae? The Magi snorted in derision. A simple barrier will suffi-

The barrier, the Magi, and the entire middle column of thralls vaporized in a cloud of crimson spray. The concussive force of the missile plowed straight through the entire column, flinging soldiers in all directions from the epicenter. Those near the edge of the bridge were tossed over the sides like ragdolls into the blood drenched waters below. The remaining Thralls clattered limply on the translucent bridge, not even bothering to breathe. No one could order them to anymore.

From his perch atop the ramparts the Darkin, known only to history as Aatrox, violently descended into the battered courtyard of the fortress. Upon landing, a cloud of dirt, stone, and debris erupted from the sheer force of the impact. Two glints of hellfire peered through the dust. The flap of what could have been wings dispelled the smokescreen, revealing an imposing satanic figure to any who could perceive its true form. A circle of men amassed before Aatrox like moths to an insidious torch. Less than a thousand soldiers, the remnants of the Protectorates 3rd army, "The Last Division" waited.

Aatrox sensed their hopeless determination. Here, in this land ruled by death, even as they neared the chasm of oblivion, their inner flames burned brighter than ever. These men had seen their armies routed. Their lands scorched. Their comrades butchered like animals. And still they fought. With their backs against a wall they had fled here for one last stand; a final prayer for salvation. Seeking victory whilst bracing for inevitable defeat? How glorious! How beautiful! "Oh yes" the look in their eyes seemed to say "death is stronger than I." It was decided. Aatrox, the Darkin Blade, would accept their bloodlust. These warriors, their triumph, this battle…would be his masterpiece!