Garen woke to the sounds of pain and panic. War was raging in his ears despite the obvious lack of it near him. His sound ward was blaring from the ground. The shredded remains of his arm reached for it, Perseverance more than anything keeping him alive while the screams of dying and desperate men reached out through the arcane channels of the device, their tormented struggles calling to him- the siren of war. Garen clipped the headset to his ear and listened while he laid back against the trunk of the tree that had brought his equipment.

"Gods damnit! Where's that sharpshooter?"

"Pots! POTS!"

"Friendly cavalry incoming. Casters check your targets."

Garen reached for his kit, finding his pack and potions intact inside the nest of branches that had been woven for them. Thoughtful trees- an uncomfortable thought. He popped the stopper on one and released the air-hole on the bottom to shotgun it down his throat while voices- people- echoed and screamed around him.

"Jarvan! Back! Your flank, damnit!"

The king's voice. Garen was familiar with Prince Jarvan's brash decisions. A hard surge in his veins told him the potion was working; His blood was returning. Garen grabbed the next bottle and waited.

One, Ser-pen-tine. Two, Ser-pen-tine.

"Damnit, Jarvan! Respond!"

"All units, this is General Laurent. Caution entering houses; I'm getting reports that they're trapped. Someone tipped off Noxus."

Six, Ser-pen-tine. Seven, Ser-pen-tine.

"HQ, this is Pincushion. Extraction failed. We're pinned at Kumu Six behind the enemy force."

Prince Jarvan Lightshield, the younger, finally spoke. "Vayne, I thought you gave your earpiece to Garen?"

"Got a new one off one of your Lieutenants. He doesn't need it anymore."

Ten, Ser-pen-tine. E-le-ven, Serpentine.

Garen uncorked the next bottle and waited with his hand over the bottom air hole cover, silent and passive to the plight of his friends. Exhaustion and the inability to inhale fully was debilitating to his empathy.

"Hold position, Vayne! I'm coming to you."

"No-go, Jarvan. We're taking fire. Retreating south."

"Jarvan, you foolhardy bastard! You're already cut off!"

Fif-teen, Serpentine.

Garen shotgunned the second pot and reached for a third. A warm tingle in his extremities heralded the incredible pain of his sense of feeling returning. Hurried footsteps announced something worse: steel boots on cobble or stone- the road, Garen realized. A rifle sounded in the distance, followed instantly by a peck at the tree above him. The twang and swish of bolts responded as Vayne came into view. Three of the Vanguard were behind her; two men carrying the third, which left one man down somewhere. She was dragging Garen into a nearby bush before he could react.

"It's a Noxian fireteam," she whispered. "Two Rifleman, a Desolator, and two blades. We're countering when they catch up."

Garen nodded his understanding and guzzled the third potion. Vayne caught his hand mid chug, drawing her gloved thumb over the fox's bite marks on his hand before they sealed shut under the potion's magic.

Garen was expecting "I told you so" from her, but received only "Is Katarina still alive?"

Garen shook his head. "I don't know."

He could feel that he was moving backwards again, out of his bush and into another one. Garen had just barely managed to hold on to his nest full of kit, and was less than attentive as Vayne chastised and dragged him in.

"Damn it, Garen! We can't fight here."

She stopped as they entered a third bush, and dropped to a crouch beside him. The other two men took the break to feed their comrade a pot.

"Get your kit on, Garen. I can't carry you."

Garen slung the pack over his shoulder in a quick motion and hefted his lost pauldron back onto its rightful shoulder. He only had a moment to fumble with the buckle underneath it and secure the armor before another rifle report ricocheted near his head. Vayne forced him down and blindly returned a bolt.

"We're warded. Keep moving! Go!"

She pulled Garen to his feet and pushed him ahead, still firing. So the retreat continued, down the road towards a horizon of rising screams and burning houses. Bushes were available every few meters to slip into and out of cover, but Garen could not run, and his two comrades were carrying a third man- all that on top of Sion's corpse being split between them. The Noxans were catching up. Garen chugged his last pot and nearly choked when it shattered over his mouth. Another few centimeters and the bullet would have killed him.

"There!"

Garen ducked as another shot flew those extra centimeters down. The Noxans were on them. Vayne fired another bolt through grass, scowling at the lack of screaming enemies, feeling the dread of a tilting scale of power. They pushed ahead, out of bush toward another, and Garen had the briefest glimpse over his shoulder of the enemies.

The Desolator was a walking fortress. Covered in black, steel armor with arcane marks carved into his bracers, he stood a full two meters tall. Glowing seals dangled from his chest and back, warding off magics and jangling like chains. His weapon was a hulking spray-cannon attached to a tank on his back. Garen didn't need to know what was inside that. He sprinted to the next bush, feeling his legs burn and strain under their cuts. The Desolator was only ten meters behind them at most. Garen saw the two men carrying their wounded comrade ahead of him and knew, in a moment of dread, that they were severely outmatched if they let the Desolator catch up. But the enemy rifleman didn't need to catch up; His reach extended through the distance and silenced the man they'd been carrying, forever. His body slinked and fell from their arms to the ground, leaving their sword arms free to draw and turn.

Vayne and Garen finally agreed without speaking. This was the place to fight. Garen signaled his last two men to the edge of their latest bush with him, and watched as The Desolator came charging their way. But he could not fear death twice in one night. This was only excitement. The Desolator was almost within their grasp, only a few steps away, when Garen lunged. Vayne's bolt slipped through the eye-slits on The Desolators helmet while three swords found chinks at his joints. The Desolator groaned, his weight swaying under the confusion of so much pain. But when the swords were retracted for their next strikes, he was still standing. His weapon fired, spewing the noxious concoctions of Noxus in a wild arc that missed entirely. Garen slashed at his throat, scraping his steel against the heavy cloth and chain link there. The brute only roared and pushed his weight forward to swing a suddenly apparent vambrace. Garen ducked in time to miss the knives, and rose from his crouch in a mighty leap.

In his desperate swing, The Desolator had torqued his shoulder so far as to slide his pauldron one direction and his chain link headdress another, exposing his neck. Garen landed blade first, his steel delivering mercy from this world and justice from Demacia. Executioner, they called him- so be it. The Desolator groaned his last and crumpled under Garen's weight. But victory was short lived. Garen raised his gaze to the steady aim of two Noxan rifleman. In that sudden reversal of roles, Garen couldn't have been happier to have a man on either side of him. The riflemen would have time for only one shot each. The man to Garen's left charged, the rifleman adjusted his aim, and Garen felt a part of himself die of happiness. The rifles sounded like the shout of fate.

Jarvan never listened to fate. A cataclysmic eruption of dirt and rock sprang up around the sharpshooters, blocking their shots, and Jarvan appeared, his lance heralding a future that he had chosen of his own will. Screams and slashes echoed through the rock coffin, the blue ribbon on Jarvan's lance the only visual clue as to what doom had come.

Garen signaled his men sideways at the nearest bush and charged. "There're two swordsman nearby! Don't let them get away!"

The Noxian's charged from their concealment, engaging and falling swiftly to the Vanguard's swarm of blades and bolts. Vayne appeared at Garen's side just as the last man fell, her disappointed grim replaced with a reluctant smile towards Jarvan's wall of rocks.

"If you didn't save us, you'd have gotten us killed," she called.

Jarvan Lightshield the Fourth, Exemplar of Demacia, hoisted himself over the wall of boulders his strike had raised from the Earth. While his armor left the impression that he was a Demigod endowed with inhuman muscles, his face was just that of a mortal man. Jarvan slid down the rocks to his feet, patting one lightly for its novelty. Magic, not muscle, had displaced it.

Garen envied the magical aptitude, but he had done well for himself without it. He nodded and grinned when Jarvan met his eyes. Their old friendship said the rest before Jarvan turned to Vayne. Before he could speak, she interrupted- "Please tell me you brought someone with you."

Jarvan's head shook. "No. I've got another contract for you."

Vayne didn't react. She seemed frozen in her place on the road, stark in contrast to the dancing flames and screaming voices in their wards.

"And you couldn't wait to tell me?"

Again, Jarvan's head shook. "Yes or no, Vayne, but quick. I'll double your pay."

Vayne folded her arms, seeming incredulous behind her shades. "I can't spend money if I'm dead, Jarvan."

He nodded. "We're already cut off. We're already behind enemy lines. You can walk home or help me do this one thing and get extracted by a summoner."

Everyone's ears perked up at that. Vayne's arms unfolded and planted on her hips. "I'm in. Why a summoner? What's going on?"

Jarvan shied a guilty look towards Garen before answering, "We lost a spy in Noxus last week- thought she was dead. But as soon as the battle started she lit up her beacon. She's in a tavern called The Hasty Hammer."

He nodded his head, wanting to continue but not finding the words. Garen, meanwhile, shifted his weight and his mind uneasily, sorting through Jarvan's apparent guilt and what he had said.

"Luxanna," Garen finally realized.

Jarvan nodded, scratching the back of his head uneasily. "We need to get into the town ahead of our own forces, extract Luxanna, again ahead of our own forces, and then make sure that whatever information she has gets back to Demacia."

Garen nodded, not fully understanding but still trusting his friendship with Jarvan. "Why don't we just tell her to wait? She stays low, we capture the town, then we sort her out of the prisoners."

Jarvan's guilty look returned. His head shook. "Noxus is disguising fireteams as families. We were losing too many people to ambushes. Before Lux lit up, we... I ordered that no prisoners be taken."

Vayne nodded the conversation onward, towards the two Vanguards carrying the corpse. "We're taking Sion with us, then?"

Before he could answer, she interjected, "too bad we don't have any extra hands."

Jarvan's pained expression was half embarrassment and half annoyance.

"We're pretty sure Noxus is monitoring our sound wards, so I came alone and didn't tell anyone."

Vayne's silver-tipped sarcasm lashed. "That's fucking brilliant, Jarvan. They teach you that logic in college?"

Jarvan didn't care to respond. He mumbled, "The tavern's not far from here. Ready to move?"

Glances and nods confirmed. They moved, Jarvan leading and Garen at his side while Vayne and the last two Vanguards kept pace at the sides. Jarvan's idea of where the pub lay somehow involved traveling the exact direction they had been running from before; Up the road, its slow, stone curve circling around the battle until it straightened into Kalamanda proper, Noxus' flank.

The burning fires were no longer a part of the horizon. Garen could see the battle less than a mile ahead of them. The silhouettes of mounted lieutenants signaling maneuvers to columns of men was contrasted against squadrons of shadows clashing in door to door combat at the town's edge. The outlying structures had already been demolished, and many of the town structures were now being raided. These were proper buildings, many of them even Demacian in design, their sturdy walls slowly caving to blows and burns.

The sight was too much to appreciate at the moment, so when Jarvan turned off of the main road onto an unpaved avenue, no one hesitated to follow. Noxian civilians were running or barricading their homes, clutching their children close and praying- some pleading with their sons to not join the fight- while Jarvan and his mend strode through, uncaring to their plight. In the chaos it seemed even the people around them couldn't tell that they had Demacians in their midst. Several soldiers of Noxus even passed by without notice, hurrying to the battle with singular focus. Perhaps it was the dark orange tint of a night lit by embers, or the red hue of spilled blood on their cuffs that disguised them. Garen was more concerned with the civilians. It was all too surreal, how human- Demacian- these people seemed. But he would not lose focus to pity. Jarvan pointed to a tiered structure centered between several shops and shouted something no one could hear over the local agony. Jarvan didn't need to be heard. One of the Vanguard ran to kick in the door, and was just barely stopped by Vayne. She seemed the only person not disoriented into blood-rage by the blood and rage- like she was at home in suffering.

She pushed the vanguard away from the door and opened it by its handle, entering with the casual grace of someone who was definitely not recovering a spy behind enemy lines while covered in blood. What she lacked in appearance, she made up for in poise. The people in the pub were drinking their last with no idea of it, making small talk about what being under Demacian rule might be like.

"Taxes is taxes," one man mumbled from the bar. "It don't matter what color the king wears."

"Noxus doesn't have a king anymore, you twat!"

"High Chancellor, then!" the first man yelled. "Duke! Grand General! King! Pirates and Emperors, the lot of them!"

Vayne scanned the room for threats, disinterested in conversation. She nodded and pointed out the windows, signaling something Garen didn't recognize but assumed to mean "entry/exit." Her boot stomped and dragged against the wood floor, checking for something it would only occur to her to check for. She sniffed and finally pointed "entry/exit" at the bar. Garen only saw a wall there, but trusted the instinct. Vayne turned to Jarvan.

"You know what she looks like?"

Ignoring the odd ritual, Jarvan and Garen stepped forward and glanced around the hooded faces of the pub, finally confirming with a shared glance. Jarvan tapped the ward on his ear.

"Carin, We're on site. Contact isn't here."

Summoner Lessa Carin's voice over the ward only carried enough for Garen to hear static and mumbling. Jarvan nodded, first to himself, then to Garen. "Check upstairs. We'll cover this floor."

Garen brushed past mumbling patrons to the stairs on the wall. Sliding between tables in full armor was not an easy trick, but the presence of an enemy soldier didn't seem to be trouble for anyone as long as his sword was sheathed. But making his way, the odd thought struck him that he hadn't seen Luxanna for almost five years now, since the beginning of his deployment. Would she even look the same? He stopped between two tables and turned, upsetting and worrying the patrons nearest for the moment in which his intentions were uncertain. He turned to Jarvan, about to ask a question, but was interrupted by the thought of Vayne's stomping ritual. Her glare was boring into him now. Garen pointed at her, then down, finally understanding. She nodded. Garen turned and moved to the bar. The bartender paid notice instantly, and set down the cup he'd been washing. His bald head turned down and his burly arms had planted against the bar uncomfortably by the time Garen reached it. The barman was the first to speak, his Kalamanda accent thick like good beer.

"Eivie's angvish?"

Garen paused at the question. He was distracted yet again by the bar. It had been carved from the same trees that moved in the nearby forest. The wood was a healthy black, like obsidian. "Eve's anguish," Garen realized. The bartender had asked "Eve's anguish" in a thick accent.

"I'm not here for a drink," Garen scowled.

The bartender picked up his glass and rag again, resuming his duties. "Zis is too bad." His gaze shot back up though, to Garen's side.

Vayne had appeared, the words "Eve's anguish" on her lips.

The bartender reached for a fresh cup, but stopped when Vayne finished, "Small thorns and a large mouth."

The bartender set down his rag again and nodded sideways at Garen, a question.

"He's with me," Vayne answered. "Hired help."

Garen wasn't entirely clear on what was happening. He turned back to Jarvan, who seemed equally confused.

"Well zen," the bartender muttered in a hushed, still masculine tone to Vayne. "Vhat is it zat you need?"

Vayne checked her shoulders in faux-concern and whispered, "There's a young woman here."

Garen nodded and stepped in, taking a stool at the bar. "A blonde about half a meter shorter than me."

The bartender nodded. "Fraulein funkeln. Ze spy."

Vayne nodded. "Where is she?"

Their bartender continued nodding, their question an answer to one of his own. Vayne's posture was quickly, but only slightly, shifting to something more poised, like a cat's hairs raising for battle. When the bartender spoke again, it was not with the overt comfort of a man or a server, but with the underhanded cunning of a killer.

"I do not vwish to frustrate ze Might of Demacia-" his eyes shot to Garen- "or to make ze exemplar-" his eyes shot to Jarven- "feel less zan... exemplary." His eyes returned to Vayne. "But I cannot help you."

Vayne scowled, not seeming to understand what position she was in or how to move the conversation from there. Garen was quickly losing confidence that she was ahead of him and that she knew what needed to be said or asked.

"You already know you can tell me. So where," she strained to say politely, "is the... fraulein."

The bartender shook his head. "I know now zat I have made mistake of trusting you. I vill not make two. But you misunderstand me."

He leaned in closer to them and stated, more forcefully and just as loud, "I can not help you now. Ze fraulein is not here."

Garen had gathered thus far that "ze fraulein" meant Lux. He was having trouble understanding why the bartender knew who or where she was, but Vayne seemed to understand. Her face turned past the barman, to a window down the wall, and revealed her expression to Garen: Fear. Surprise. And for Garen, the conversation very suddenly clicked into place.

Vayne turned back to the bartender, hoping for one last ounce of help, but was interrupted by his unhappy smile.

"No von can help you now."

With a sudden and well synchronized crash, the windows of the pub shattered. The door kicked inward, startling the last two vanguards and knocking Jarvan forward over a table. Garen turned to the nearest window and drew his sword only in time to see a blanket of velvet falling through the shower of glass. He saw it part for a moment, just enough for an emerald eye set in a vertical scar to glimmer at him. He saw, as he raised his blade, katarina's arms raise from her thighs, a knife under each finger. And he saw her spin.