Requested by a friend of mine. For some reason, writing this one was extremely hard - I wanted to show that Annie is much darker than her ten years of age should allow, but didn't know what she should go through during her judgment. I settled on her dream for the future, where she is sixteen and much more mature so I could write her personality more easily.
Cameo: Parm, my jungler, once tried to gank an enemy Annie during a game I was Syndra mid vs Annie mid. He tower dived with 30% hp left and gave Annie both buffs, so I decided to put him in a cameo here to honor his sacrifice...
[JUDGMENT:ANNIE]
Candidate: Annie Hastur, the Dark Child
Observations:
"Excuse me, mister," says a sweet, high-pitched voice, and when the confused Warwick does not find anybody for the voice to belong to, there is a tug on his leg. He looks down, snarling, and everybody gives him a wide berth. The staff at the Institute - actually, anyone who's heard of Warwick and his wicked temper and the experiment with Singed - know better than to bother him when he gets annoyed. "Can you tell me where the Hall of Reflection is?"
Warwick bares his teeth in a feral snarl. "Go back to school, girlie," he growls at the young girl with ruby-purple hair and the large green eyes. "Who let you into this place?" One of the staff makes as if to help the girl, but Warwick's head snaps up to glare balefully at the man, the he scurries off, leaving Annie Hastur to Warwick's wrath.
The girl giggles. "I let myself in. Can you please tell me which way the Hall of Reflection is? I think I'm almost late," she implores the half-beast, half-man, undeterred by his foul breath and his vicious expression. "Do you like fire, mister?" Annie holds her small hand up and crimson fire - which at first glance looks like natural fire, but then you realize it's too...dark - flickers to life in the palm of her hand.
Suddenly, the girl's smile seems just a little too wide and a little too innocent, and the firelight coming from her hand seems to reveal something dark and sinister behind her intelligent eyes that suddenly seem a little too intelligent. Like she knows something that you don't, a terrible secret about you that even you don't recall. And her wide, puppy-eyed expectant expression is suddenly more than just expectant; she seems to be...waiting for something to happen to you.
Whatever Warwick sees in her verdant eyes, it seems to unsettle him. "Come with me," he barks grudgingly at the child, who he now notices is holding a small, worn stuffed teddy bear. Sullen and hating the fact that he has had to sink so low as to play nanny to a ten year old girl for even a couple minutes, the half-beast, half-man leads Annie Hastur to the Hall of Reflection.
It is a strange sight, the two of them: Warwick is so annoyed that it wouldn't be a surprise if steam blew out of his nostrils, and Annie is so giddy and small and cute that people grin at her as they pass by and whisper oh, how precious to each other in hushed tones. "Thank you, mister!" Annie giggles, hugging his furry leg and skipping off before the frustrated manhunter can do anything to express his irritation. Then she stops and turns back, as if forgetting something. "Oh, and Tibbers says you smell bad," she calls back in a sing-song tone, wrinkling her nose and waving her stuffed bear at the dumbfounded wolf-man.
Without hesitating (or stopping to read the inscription above the doors, either), the ten-year-old skips inside the Hall of Reflection, humming cheerfully, her backpack bouncing on her back. As the doors slam shut behind her, the entire Institute seems to shake as a loud, long, annoyed howl rips through its hallways.
Reflection:
It was dark inside the Hall of Reflection. But the darkness had never really bothered Annie - after all, fire provided plenty of light. She lit a tiny pillar of it in front of her now, so she could see what else was in the room with her. To her disappointment, there didn't seem to be anything in the room at all - just black emptiness. "Hello?" she called out curiously, skipping around the room. "Is anyone there?"
"Why do you want to join the League?" a man asked, and Annie perked up, looking around to find who had spoken.
When she found nothing but darkness, the young girl shrugged. "I dunno," she said whimsically, keeping her face neutral and her voice light. "My mama and my papa would have wanted me to, I guess. Isn't becoming a champion, like, a really cool job or something? I think they'd be proud of me, don't you, Tibbers?"
"And where are your mama and papa now, Annie Hastur?" the manless voice asked after a short delay.
Annie shrugged, her playful smile never once slipping off her face as she hugged her teddy bear close. "Somewhere up there, I suppose," she sighed, gesturing vaguely to the ceiling, "if heaven is up there. If not, I don't really know where mama and papa are. Inside me, I guess. Where the fire comes from."
No sooner than the word fire left her lips did the pillar of flames in her hand expand so rapidly that she couldn't even control them. No! She tried to scream but no sound came out, and the fire engulfed her. Annie squeezed her eyes shut, desperately trying to regain control over the fire - she'd never lost control like that before - what had happened...and why did the fire not burn her...?
Just as the thought occurred to her, the fire vanished, leaving spots in her vision and rendering her frustratingly blind. When her vision returned, she was standing in the middle of a sinister forest, where the trees themselves seemed to emanate a sense of unwelcome. The ground was hard dirt with barely any undergrowth, and the sparse canopy did little to hide the eerie gray sunlight that seemed to struggle to reach the earth. The tree trunks were hard, black, and brittle, and the ground underneath her feet seemed more akin to ash than to earth.
The Voodoo Lands, Annie recognized, feeling dizzy. The last time she had seen these forests was almost two years ago.
There was a loud bellow to her right, and a massive bear with glowing red eyes and viciously sharp claws lumbered out from behind a large tree. "Garaaaggghh," Tibbers said to her, falling to its haunches obediently as it approached the small girl and sat in front of her. "Gaaaaaaaargaaggh."
Annie giggled, hoisting herself up onto her bear's shoulders. "Come on, Tibbers!" she cried giddily, looking up at the sky and realizing that there were only a couple hours of daylight - well, greylight in the Voodoo Lands - left. "Let's go home." As her shadow bear trotted off at a slow pace, she played with a small ring of fire that she tossed from hand to hand. She wondered if she could juggle three firebal—
What's going on in the settlement?
There was noise from up ahead. Screaming. Crying. Things shattering...and metal on metal. What's going on? Annie thought, narrowing her eyes and readying a fireball. If anyone was going to hurt her Tibbers...but then her bear rounded one of the guard towers at the Grey Order settlement and the first thing she saw was blood.
It was everywhere. Thick, red, metallic - the acrid sting of it made her want to wrinkle her nose, but she didn't because she wasn't a scaredy-cat. It was just blood - it wasn't like she'd never seen it before.
The second thing she saw were bodies. Those were everywhere, too. Oh, no, she thought, jumping off of Tibbers and unsummoning him back into his teddy bear form again. No! There were men running around, men in shiny black armor with all kinds of lethal looking weapons, and as she ran urgently back to her tent-house, someone grabbed her from behind and lifted her up with one arm. She screamed, flailing and kicking at whoever held her, but it was no good.
"Hush, Miss Hastur," a low voice warned her, and Annie relaxed a little when she recognized the speaker - her captor - as one of her family friends. But his voice, usually calm and deep and soothing, was completely devoid of any gentleness tonight. It was filled with a sense of urgency and panic and something else she couldn't recognize. "We need to get out of here. Now."
"What?" Annie protested as the man cradled her in his arms against his chest. "No! No, put me down, Lorathor! Where are Mama and Papa? Mama! Papa! MAMA! We have to go get them!" She was ignored, even as she beat her hands against his chest ineffectually. "My house is in the other direction! Where are you going?"
The druidic shapeshifting member of the Grey Order shook his head flatly at her. "Too late. We need to get out of here, NOW," he repeated, running as fast as he could while carrying her. How dare some lowly scholar from the Kumungu Jungle order her around? Why was he ignoring her? Well, she would fix that.
"Let me go!" Annie yelled, releasing a jet of fire from her palms as she beat her fists against his arms. The shapeshifter yelped and dropped her as the flames burned his skin, and she took the opportunity to run off, ignoring his frantic calls for her to return. Run faster, Annie, come on, she urged herself as she heard Lorathor give chase. House is...right...there! She ducked through the small tent flap that served as a front door. "Mama? Papa?" she called, running into the tent. She collided with something hard and solid and fell backwards onto the ground, dazed.
She found herself staring up at four men in shiny black armor. One of them had a spear, one had wickedly curved swords, and the other two had hammers in their hands. "What is this?" one of the ones with the hammers said curiously as they turned their attention on her. "A child?"
Annie wasn't comprehending anything they were seeing. Between their legs, she caught a glimpse of her home. It had been overturned and hacked to pieces, but why was everything so red? "I wasn't aware those damn mages had a kid," the other one with the hammers was muttering irately.
"Guess we got lucky she wandered in here on her own," the man with the swords chuckled as he glanced behind him. "Too bad we already got your Mama and Papa," he sneered at her as he reached for her.
W...what?
"Mama?" Annie stammered as she finally caught sight of two unrecognizable shapes lying on the ground. They were bloody and red and lifeless. "P-papa?"
"Huh. I guess they really did have a kid," the first man with the hammer mused, shrugging. "Must've been hard for them to raise a girl out here in the Voodoo Lands. Well, do what you gotta do, Parm."
The man with the swords grabbed her. Annie stared at her parents' mutilated bodies, shaking - and something exploded inside of her. As the man made to stab her with his weapon, a ring of fire blasted out from her body and knocked all four men back, lighting them ablaze and freeing her from the swords-man's grasp. "You killed my mama and papa!" Annie shrieked hysterically as the truth slammed into her numb mind. "You killed them! You killed them! YOU KILLED THEM!"
Those three words became a mantra. Still screaming, she suddenly found herself bursting with unbearable heat. It was like the sun had flown down to her tent - she as being burned alive, it was sweltering, the fire was consuming her. It was going to eat her alive if it didn't find an outlet.
So she released it.
Fire exploded from her hands like a waterfall, a never-ending pressurized stream of white-hot conflagration that swirled around Parm, the man with the bloody swords who had killed her parents and cut them up. And then, seconds later, he was nothing but crisps and bones. The inferno grew and engulfed the other four men and the rest of the tent, and then suddenly the fires dissipated into the sky.
She slumped to the ground, suddenly very sleepy. There was a lot of shouting and her eyelids were drooping shut, but she thought she saw a lot of men running towards her. Then she felt something snatch the back of her dress and flip her into the air like she weighed nothing. She landed on something soft and furry.
"Tibbers?" Annie yawned, clutching her teddy bear close as the animal under her began pumping its legs at an alarming pace. She nearly fell off from the speed, but managed to force her eyes open long enough to glimpse the long black fur of the panther she was being carried off by. "Lora...thor? They...they killed Mama and Papa, Lor," she mumbled confusedly, drifting into darkness. "They...they killed..."
Annie bolted upright, panting heavily in a cold sweat and prepared to summon Tibbers at any moment's notice. Then she remembered where she was, and she relaxed. "Lorathor," she whispered, and waited. Moments later, an enormous ebony-black panther materialized from the shadows around her. It was just a dream, the sixteen year old told herself fiercely as she buried her face in her long-time friend's soft fur. Just a dream.
The air around the panther shimmered as Annie released him, and Lorathor stood up on two legs in his human form. "The Grey Order is ready when you are, Miss Hastur," he informed her quietly as he moved to stand at the top of the hill overlooking the city of Noxus with her.
Annie blew out a long breath of air, instinctively clutching her stuffed bear closer to her side. Her long red hair billowed behind her as a stiff breeze gusted across the hilltop. She'd been waiting eight years for this moment. Eight long years with the straggled, bedraggled remains of her parents' Grey Order after the Noxian raid on the settlement. Eight long years since she had lost her parents to the Noxian High Command, which had decided that letting a colony of arcane practitioners live independent from the state government was too risky. Eight long years since Lorathor had given up his nonviolence oaths to train her in magic and become her best friend and father figure.
Bastards, Annie thought venomously as she turned away from the twisted little city. The moonlight lit the night up like day. But Noxus wouldn't need light from the moon anymore. Not after tonight. She walked down the side of the hill facing away from the dark city and into the woods where five of the six surviving members of the Grey Order were waiting. "It's almost time," Annie said calmly to them as Lorathor prowled around them, a growling feral panther once more. "We're just waiting on Amumu's signal now."
"Are you sure you want to do this, Miss Hastur?" her warlock asked one last time as the group of them skirted the hill and lay low outside the city walls. "If they overwhelm you, this could end very badly for you."
The red-haired young woman smiled her too wide, too innocent smile. "I'll be alright, Tasola," she reassured the hooded man. "I'll have Tibbers with me, remember? As long as we get into their central ministry building, everything will go according to plan."
The warlock nodded uncertainly, but seemed to trust her enough to take her word for it. Silence settled among and around Annie and her Grey Order as they waited in the moonlit darkness. Minutes stretched into almost an hour, and then Lorathor's sharp eyes caught the signal. "Annie," he purred as he padded stealthily around her, gesturing to a small blue light hovering on the ramparts above them. "Look. There's Amumu's beacon."
This is it. "Let's move," she replied tersely, starting forward and slipping through the unlocked side gate next to the enormous portcullis that barred unwelcome entry to the city. Annie felt at the stuffed teddy bear hanging from a belt loop at her hip as they crept into Noxus. She waved to the small mummy yordle sitting on top of the wall as they moved into the city, and the sad little mummy waved back to her before jumping out of the city and disappearing.
"Hey! You!" someone called in a very drunk manner, and Annie looked back towards her Grey Order to see a large group of intoxicated men who'd caught sight of her party. Intoxicated men wearing armor. Shit, Annie cursed. Why are the guards still awake? She'd underestimated the amount of activity that Noxus would have in the middle of the night - she had thought the city would be as still as it was black. "Who r'you an' whaddarya doin' in Noxu—"
The man who had spotted them fell to the ground, dead. Annie yanked her hand backwards, and the razor-sharp whip of crystalline fire flew obediently back towards her. Lorathor suddenly appeared out of the shadows and knocked another two men to the ground in a noisy crash. Without waiting for further orders, the rest of her Grey Order jumped into action, and within minutes, every single guard was dead.
"Move fast," she hissed as they sped towards the center of the city. "That was too loud. They'll know we're in the city." One by one, her Grey Order dropped back and spread through the city, until she only had Lorathor left by the time the two of them managed to reach the immense structure at the center of the city. By then, the alarm had been sounded and the city was awake and hunting for them.
The huge double doors in front of her were barred with metal. Annie smirked. Perfect.
"Ready, Lor?" she murmured. When she received an affirmative ear flick from the jungle cat, she smiled and raised her arms towards the doors. "Tibbers!" she sang as a small speck of light appeared between her hands. "Come out and play!" The speck of light grew intensely bright as a loud, thundering rumble shook the ground and her massive shadow bear exploded into life beside her.
The tiny pinprick of light between her hands was blinding, now, like a condensed sun. Annie grinned, and for a second, the world was frozen - Noxus and its wakeful inhabitants, Lorathor crouching beside her ready to pounce, the wind gusting at her dress - and then the moment was gone. She pushed with all her might, and the glaringly brilliant point of light between her hands exploded into a roaring surge of white-hot, blue-tinged fire that streamed forward and licked at the metal doors, trying to find something to burn for fuel. It found none, but Annie continued to flood the air with flames. The steel-barricaded doors turned cherry red and began to disform.
Tibbers roared and bulled forwards into the doors, throwing his immense weight at the scalding-hot doors. The doors, their steel bar having melted off, gave way easily under his bulk, and the enormous shadow bear crashed through them and into the Hall of the High Command. Over the noise, Annie could faintly make out shouts of surprise and alarm as her pet bear charged into them and scattered them like bowling pins.
"Go get them, Tibbers!" she giggled gleefully as Noxian guardsmen began to appear and approach cautiously, wary of her malestrom of white fire. Not losing control over the frightening vortex of swirling flame for a single second, Annie smiled and waved at them. A dismembered hand landed at her feet as Tibbers ripped straight through one man's armor. She laughed.
"Do you like to play with fire?" Annie called brightly to the guardsmen, who continued to advance on her. Nine against one, she thought, skipping towards the armed men and humming as Tibbers continued to tear apart the poor man whose hand had already been ripped off. "I can teach you!" she said when none of the men responded, and the scorching conflagration behind her surged forward to consume everything in its - and her - path.
Everything that happened after that was a blur of billowing smoke and blistering heat. The next thing Annie knew, she was standing in front of Swain, the High Command of Noxus, and she was hedged in from all sides by his guards and a couple other champions she recognized. She wasn't quite sure how Singed and Katarina had managed to reach the council chamber in time to save Swain and bring reinforcements, but they had. She clutched Tibbers more tightly - at least she had managed to unsummon him before she had been overwhelmed.
"You killed my parents," Annie informed Swain in an aloof tone, very well aware that one wrong move meant death for her. "You broke your promise to leave them alone if they left the city." As subtly as possible, she snapped her index and middle fingers on her left hand, hiding the small pinprick of light that grew in her palm.
The High Command sneered at her, and soldiers around her chuckled at how naive she sounded. That's right, Annie coaxed sweetly, keep laughing at me. All I am is a little girl who's sad because she lost her parents. "We made no such promise, Dark Child," Swain boomed merrily, staring at her interestedly. "As it so happens, we are no longer persecuting those who pursue the arcane magicks. You would make a fine High Mage on the Noxian military council, child."
"Why would I join the likes of you?" Annie sneered, curling her lip and narrowing her eyes. Katarina made as if to draw her dagger and jump, but Swain shook his head at her and she stilled.
"Let me rephrase my proposal," the High Command said pleasantly, as if he were chatting with someone over afternoon tea. "It would be in your...best interests, let's say, to join us." He gestured around the room to his military. "You're in no position to refuse."
That's what you think, Annie snickered to herself but twisted her face into a cornered, defiant kind of expression. Let him think I'm weakening. Let him think he's winning. Her incendiary explosion was charging as fast as she could pour fire into it. It was difficult for her to keep her hand from trembling from condensing so much magic at once. "I...I'll never join you!" Annie shouted, glancing around her and stuttering for dramatic effect. "You killed my parents!"
Swain grinned triumphantly as he saw her "wavering" under the pressure of his power. "You don't have a choice, little lass," he crowed. "You can either join the Noxus High Command as part of the council, or you will d—"
Annie pounced.
Tibbers exploded into life at the same time her fist clenched as she brought her arm over her head. A deluge of white flames surged outwards from her raised hand, filling the room with blinding light and parching heat. Her shadow bear lunged straight for the agile red-haired assassin, who barely managed to shunpo out of the way of his wickedly hooked claws. "You killed my parents!" Annie shrieked as she unleashed the storm of flames before Swain's guards could react. The fire whirled faster and faster as it expanded, becoming a blazing whirlpool until she couldn't see anything else.
When her vision cleared, there was nothing left of the room except ashes and sooty remains of charred bodies, which Tibbers was feasting happily on. Annie stepped up to Swain's corpse and reached out to rip the High Commander's helmet and pin from his body. As she reached for him, he lifted his head and looked at her. "Why do you want to join the League, Annie Hastur?" he asked. Their surroundings faded to black, and suddenly she was a ten-year-old child with a backpack and a stuffed teddy bear again.
She need not hide it from them this time; they had already seen into her mind. As intrusive as it was, Annie found that she didn't mind. She bounced up and down a little as she looked directly back into illusion-Swain's lifeless eyes and smiled a too wide, too innocent smile. "To watch you burn," she answered, her large green eyes expectant.
Silence.
Then illusion-Swain faded into nothingness, whispering, "How does it feel, exposing your mind?" as the doors in front of her opened to show her that she had passed.
Annie skipped out, humming cheerfully as she swung her teddy bear back and forth. "We're gonna have lots of fun, aren't we, Mister Tibbers?" she giggled as she ran into the Institute. There was a practice courtyard on her right, and she saw a man with skin that looked like a volcano practicing on one of the dummy targets. He was throwing oddly-colored balls of...
Fire! Annie recognized happily, running out into the courtyard and skipping up to the volcano man. She tugged on his hand and he froze, staring down at her with an absurdly confused expression on his face. Maybe he ate something funny for lunch, Annie thought as he stared down at her in surprise. "Hi, mister!" Annie said brightly, waving at him. "I'm Annie. Do you like to play with fire?"
The man grunted noncommittally and nodded towards the dummy he had been using. "Do you want to play together?" she asked excitedly as she incinerated the target dummy with a shock of fire. The man stiffened at her casual display of her prowess, and then he smiled at her, igniting a small flame on the end of his index finger like a candle and holding it down for her to observe.
"Play," the man repeated curiously, his voice sounding as cracked and dry as his volcano-skin looked. He gave her a violent grin before turning back to the dummy.
Annie smiled back, a smile that was too wide, too innocent. The firelight seemed to reveal something sinister and dark, too mature for a ten year old, behind her bright green eyes.
I will watch you burn, she hummed to herself as she played with her newfound friend, practicing on the target dummy. And you will scream for mercy before I let the fire eat you alive.
Annie Hastur, everyone. Meh. I didn't like writing this for some reason. Maybe if I'd written a judgment that made her go through a memory instead of something she wants for the future?
Anyways, leave a review! Next up in the Judgment series is Master Yi as per another request, but I'm going to write two standalone pieces first, a Diana-centric Diana/Leona fic (because Diana was my first real main char and her lore has so much potential) and a Lulu/Veigar oneshot (requested by a friend of mine). See you next time!