Chapter 7

It was totally quiet.

Riven poked her head through the door, glancing around at the inside. She was standing outside of the dozens of mess halls, her feet planted yet another one of the thousands of gray, featureless hallways that they had been crawling through for hours now.

Why can't people ever try to make warships look nice from the inside, Riven thought, as she scanned the darkness that filled the mess hall, before she slipped in, drawing her pistol up. Bolt it together with steel and don't bother to even put a fresh coat of paint, and you're just begging for something creepy like this to happen.
And it was creepy. This whole damn place. Riven had seen her share of Noxian warship insides back when she was serving the Empire, but never like this, dimly lit and shrouded in mystery and something that felt uncomfortably like… evil.
She felt like someone was watching her. She felt like the darkness outside was drawing out the darkness inside. She felt fear.
Riven sidled up to the next door, and laid her hand on the door's push handle. Her fingers brushed the cool metal, and memories swept up on her once more.
Just like before.

She closed her eyes. And remembered.


Lord of Generals Darkwill's Quarters, Kalamandra Station, Oot Nebula, How many years ago, five, ten years? It's been too long.

The room was brightly lit back then, and unlike her present surroundings, pleasant and comfortable. The housings of high-ranking Noxian commanders were usually grand and extravagant; the symptoms of hollow men, puffed up with rankings and honors, and so self-absorbed that before they realized it, they were swallowed up, victims of their own glories.
This man, this General Darkwill, was different. The walls were relatively bare, painted over in a pleasant cream color, although a fresh coat of blood intermittently splattered their once immaculate finish. The furniture was minimalist, but soft and clean, and what few desks he had was covered in either work papers or crayon scribblings. The only trace of extravagance was an opened bottle of aged brandy on the desk nearest Darkwill's fold-down bedding. The bottle was half-way done, with the gift ribbon still tied to its neck. The Lord of Generals liked his alcohol.

She remembered.

She stood with five of her other comrades, around the defeated General Darkwill, who was on his knees in submission. He had put up a fierce fight, him and his own personal guard. But now his bodyguards were lying dead, their blood splattering the walls that led down to the General's bathroom. By Darkwill's side, lay a gorgeous woman, perhaps a prostitute or a girlfriend; the General they knew was not married. Her fiery red hair was splayed out from behind her in death, clashing horribly with the crimson in her blood, that pooled beneath her body. Their deaths were purposefully made more gruesome than Riven and her team was accustomed to. This was no ordinary assassination.
Specialist Katarina Du Couteau leveled her ULNN-issued rifle at the General's head. General Darkwill, dressed in nothing more than his sleeveless shirt and boxers, looked up with quiet dignity at the gun barrel aimed at his face. His clear blue eyes stared fearlessly up at the instrument that was to kill him.
If Riven had allowed herself to be a woman back then, she might have noted the General's strong features: his clear stare, his set jaw, or his upright posture despite his broken leg. But she was sent to kill him, and that left no room for her or her emotions in the equation.

She was a sword in the night, a blade for Noxia, she told herself back then, and nothing else.

She slowly brought her blade to Darkwill's exposed throat, to keep him from trying anything stupid. Her blade was a gorgeous thing, a beautiful two-handed sword made of runic black stone; sharper than any razor, and blacker than hell itself. Inscribed on it was her codename she took, shining in bright gold letters along the body of the blade.

Then the Lord of Generals spoke.

"A last request," Darkwill seemed to whisper, yet Riven could hear him clearly. "don't hurt my daughter. Don't hurt Karen."

Riven glanced up at her comrades. Katarina returned her glance, and the Specialist turned back to the man kneeling before her. The assassin nodded. As soon as Katarina nodded, the Lord of Generals sighed in relief. His solace was apparent all over his body. His muscular chest relaxed, and he seemed to resign himself to his fate.

"Thank yo-"
Before he could finish his thanks, Katarina shot him three times through his chest. Her stolen gun gave only the slightest kick, and the General wordlessly fell to the floor, like he had been knocked unconscious. They all knew he wasn't.

Katarina knelt a bit to prod the fallen General. He didn't move. Satisfied, the assassin stood up.
"Finally." she muttered. The rest of her team nodded silently. The had just been through a fierce fight.
"That Darkwill..." Riven muttered into her mic, sighing. "Toughest customer yet, ye?" her teammates relayed the sentiment. Many of them were still cradling the wounds that the Lord of Generals had made on them, and with only a six-inch letter opener.

Riven took off her helmet, letting her sweat-soaked hair breathe a little. When she got back to her quarters, she would sleep for a week.

"Time to extract," Riven called out, "ye?"

They were silent. Confused, Riven turned back. Four of her teammates were filing into the one room they hadn't been into yet. Darkwill's daughter's room. She couldn't see Kat, but somehow, Riven knew where she was.

"Kat," Riven called into her mic, "what are you doing?"

"Finishing this job." Katarina called back, from inside the room.
"What?!"

Riven rushed to Karen Darkwill's room. The door was ajar, and Katarina was standing a few feet inside, checking the pullback on her slide, surrounded by their teammates. The white casing of the ULNN rifle stood out in the darkness of the child's room. A few feet further in the darkness, Riven could see a small child's bed, with a small form asleep under pink covers. Karen Darkwill's chest moved slightly up and down as she dreamed sweet dreams.

"Kat..." Riven pushed through the door and past her teammates, a pit in her stomach. "What in hell are you doing?"
"Making sure the kid stays sleeping. Good night, sweety." Katarina aimed the gun at the little girl, but she yelled out as she was knocked aside. Her ULNN rifle fell clattering to the ground, while the assassin stumbled forwards. Specialist Katarina wheeled on her.

"The hell!?"
"I should be saying that!" Riven drew up, face to face with Katarina. "We gave Darkwill our word!"
"We have a job to finish!" Katarina snarled, her normally pretty features twisting into something harder. "No survivors is what my father said! What OUR Admiral Du Couteau said!"
"She's just a kid!" Riven shot back, her fists balling up in anger.
"So was I! Childhood sucks!" Katarina tilted her head so Riven could see he scar over her eye more clearly; her voice dropped to only a whisper. Riven had seen this before. Kat's 'souvenir' from her childhood. "My father did this to me when I was only twelve. I won't fail him again."
"She's asleep!" Riven bit her lip, pleading frantically, "She hasn't seen anything!"

"I'll make sure of that," Katarina muttered, picking up her ULNN rifle again. She lowered her head, putting her eye through the rifle's scope. "Now get out of the way so we can make a good little international incident just like my Lord of Admirals father wants."

"You won't." Riven stated flatly. She took a single step past Kat, putting herself between Karen Darkwill and her assassin.

Katarina lifted her head to stare at Riven with wide eyes, like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Then, a smile cracked across the assassin's scarred face. Her chuckle, low and humorless, filled the child's room as she beheld her suicidal comrade.

"You always were a pain in our ass, Rivi. Now, of all times, you decide to grow a conscience? Why couldn't you just wait a few years for the PTSD to kick in like everyone else will, and kill yourself then?"

Katarina leveled her rifle at Riven again.

"And now," Katarina's voice dropped, her tone almost apologetic, "you're gonna force me to kill a friend." Riven stared back at Katarina, her face impassive. But her hand was creeping slowly downwards to where her runic black sword was holstered. Katarina spotted Riven's movement, and seemed to laugh at the notion.

"Oh, Rivi. You'll always be trouble." Katarina lowered her rifle, sighing. Across from the Du Couteau, Riven still had her hand drifting near her sword. Riven wasn't going to let her guard down. She knew Kat too well for that.

"Which means we'll have to finish our job before we deal with you." Katarina raised her hand, signaling, and the left-most of their comrades raised his rifle at Karen Darkwill, and fired.

"No!" Riven yelled. She lunged to the side, drawing her sword in one fluid motion.

Please reach! She pleaded desperately in her mind, as she flung her sword out to the side, trying to block the shot. For a single, glorious moment, she felt the weight of the bullet on the body of her blade, and she had an instant of relief. Then, impossibly, she saw her blade shatter. Runic black stone, one of the heaviest, hardest elements in the world. Shattered by a mere bullet when she needed it the most. The broken pieces of her blade fell clattering to the floor. The man who fired the shot, Falcon, lifted his ULNN rifle back up, his job done. The shattered pieces of Riven's blade lay scattered about the floor; dark black pieces shining bright even in the low light.

Why...? Riven thought, horrified, as she turned her gaze to face the sleeping Karen Darkwill. At a glance, she looked fine. But there was a single point in the bedding that had been spun and sunk in deeply, and Riven could see blood starting to seep through the pink fabric.
She failed.
She felt her hand drop, the weight of her sword feeling alien in her hands; too light from the lost mass of blade. The rest of her body felt numb all over as the realization crept onto her.

Katarina turned to Riven, and for a moment, the assassin's eyes softened. She knelt down beside the motionless Riven; her friend still in shock.
"I'm sorry, Rivi." Katarina lowered her rifle, while drawing one of her two daggers from her leg sheath. "I should have known you were the most sensitive of our team. I shouldn't have taken you on this mission. That was my fault, and I apologize for that."
Katarina raised her dagger to Riven's throat, who was still staring out into space.

"But you're a liability now. Goodbye, Rivi." Katarina leaned in for a soft kiss on Riven's cheek, and then she would draw her dagger over Riven's throat. But before she could, Riven turned to face her. Katarina caught a full view of the blankness in Riven's eyes. And the fire deep within.
Then Riven leaned back, and rammed her forehead into the bridge of Katarina's nose.

The assassin stumbled back, clutching at her bleeding nose, swearing. Blood seeped out from between her slender fingers. Katarina fell against the back wall, and stared back at Riven, who was slowly rising, broken sword in grip.

"Kill her!" Katarina yelled into her hand, and her teammates raised her ULNN rifles at Riven, but they were too late. She was already in motion.
Riven shifted to put only a single man in front of her, and violently swung her broken sword at the man's helmet. The jagged runic black stone shattered the metal of his protective vision like an eggshell, and Riven could feel her sword dig into Falcon's skull through his polyester visor.

Before Falcon could fall to the floor, Riven grabbed his corpse by the label, and rammed him against the woman directly behind him. Loon stumbled back into Avis who fired a wild shot into the ceiling. Johka was faster on his feet, and he managed to avoid Avis to draw a bead on Riven. He got off two shots on Riven before she was on him. His bullets slammed into her suit and broke bone, but their impacts were not fatal. She rammed the broken end of her sword into the part of his suit that covered his neck, and the thin plating yielded easily. Johka choked, clutched at the sword in his neck, and died. More blood seeped out from the end of her sword. Loon and Avis were just beginning to recover, so Riven didn't give them that chance. She swung her sword as violently as she could, carving into both of their stomachs in a single cleave. If she had been holding her complete sword, that would have cut them both in half.

Riven was just about to catch a breath, before Katarina lunged at her from behind Loon and Avis's falling bodies.

"RIVI!" She screamed, a dagger in each hand. She pushed Riven back with her furious slashes, clashing against the runic black stone of her blade with every strike; blue sparks shot out every time their weapons made contact. Time and time Katarina lunged at her, going for the kill, and time and time against Riven deflected her by a hair's breadth. They seemed to be evenly matched. But they both knew that Riven was the close-combat specialist of their team. Katarina was tiring faster than Riven was. She was starting to win.

Riven checked a looping cut from Katarina, before slamming into her hard with her free hand. The assassin fell back, growling. Riven took the chance to leap at Katarina. In a flash of desperation, Katarina had flung her daggers at Riven, one at her heart and one at her eye.
If Riven's sword had been whole, she might not have been fast enough to block the lightning-fast throws, but her sword was lighter and Riven just barely managed to deflect the daggers. They spun off into the darkness of the room, clattering somewhere off in the distance, or perhaps lodging themselves into the walls. It didn't matter. Katarina was weaponless.

Riven held her blade out, leveling her jagged point over her friend's heart.

Katarina stared furiously into Riven's eyes, her chest heaving up and down in anger and exertion. Riven stared back, her eyes blank, sadness creeping slowing into her soft, grey eyes. Katarina glanced over at Avis's discarded ULNN rifle, and back at Riven. Riven didn't miss the glance either.

She could see it in Kat's eyes. Riven shook her head the slightest bit.

Kat. Please don't.

A grin almost formed on Katarina's face, the slightest tribute to their long-standing friendship. For a moment, Riven thought she would yield. Then, the assassin's face darkened, fury bleeding onto her scarred face.
"DO IT, RIVI!"
"KAT!"
Katarina lunged for the rifle, but Riven stopped her.

She stabbed with her blade, and rammed Katarina up against the wall, until Riven could feel the stiff resistance of the plaster wall at the tip of her blade. As Katarina heaved forwards, driving the blade deeper into her stomach, Riven could smell the soft scent of Sandalwood from Katarina's hair. That's right. Kat had wanted her to try her perfume after this mission.

"Might finally get you a man," Katarina had joked in the locker room. "Wait too long, and you'll be an old maid, Rivi." She laughed at Riven's strucken face, just to show she was kidding.

Riven seemed to come back into the world. She looked up, at Katarina, with the slightest bit of surprise dawning on her face.
"...Kat?"
Riven looked down at her blade, which was buried almost hilt-deep into her friend, and back up at her friend's dying face.
If she had looked up expecting to see some sort of smile or comforting gaze, she was mistaken. Katarina's face was contorted in pain and anger. Her teeth were bared in frustration.

"Riven..." Katarina muttered, in her dying breath. "damn you... you idiot."

Riven drew back, drawing the blade out of Katarina, and the assassin fell forwards, dead. Everything was silent. Riven looked slowly around at the spectacle. Karen Darkwill was still dead in her bed. Falcon's helmet was shattered at it's visor, blood seeping through the cracked polyester glass of his helm. Johka was slumped against the wall behind him, blood flowing like a river from his throat. Loon and Avis were silently lying on the floor, clutching at the deep cuts in their stomaches. And Kat...

"No..." Riven started backing away from the horror scene.

"Oh God, what..." Riven didn't know whether she was thinking it or saying it out loud any longer. In a sense, it didn't matter. If a tree falls on a massacre, does it make a sound?
Riven fell to her knees, leaned upwards to the heavens, and screamed.


HLS The Ravenous Hydra, Horsehead Nebula, 0360 hours

Riven opened her eyes. How long had she been dreaming? She glanced back, but it seemed none of her teammates had noticed her lapse. It couldn't have been that long. Wordlessly, she opened the door, and glanced around. Only silence answered her. Tch. Empty. Silently, she closed the door again. And she tried not to imagine Kat's eyes staring back at her from behind the door crack when she did.