...
Several thousand years back in Runeterra's ancient past, long before the devastating Rune Wars that ravaged the planet had raged uncontrolled, long before the mystical, unexplained appearance of the Ionian islands near the Noxian coast and long before the summoners founded the Institute of War and the Champions came to exist, the continents were roamed by a fearsome race of warriors of unparalleled physical might and terrifying intellectual power. Nearly all members of this winged race have a natural, biological urge to fling themselves unto war's teeth; they actively sought out any conflicts between the ancient city-states of Runeterra in order to challenge themselves, often giving their assistance to the losing side of the conflict in order to maximize the challenge they would receive from the enemy.
These fearsome creatures were called the Darkin - the infamous shapers of war.
Naturally, whenever the Darkin chose to participate in a war, it was assumed that the city-state that they sided with will be winning quite soon, and the poor, unfortunate city-state that they chose to fight against could do no other thing but pray to their deities for a swift and painless defeat, preferably with minimum loss of life. For a while, the Darkin race sped up wars at an unprecedented rate - putting an end to the chaos of war quickly, one conflict at a time.
Unfortunately for the Darkin, there existed a timeless, near-omnipotent entity within the universe they resided in - an entity that grew in power and influence whenever disorder and strife materialized at any point in the physical realm. This powerful being, who never chose a name to call himself, had tolerated the Darkin for several millennia since they appeared; he let them be so he could feed off of the chaos and corruption they sow whenever they arrived to test themselves on the fires of battle. Now, what with how the Darkin had multiplied rapidly and started putting down wars before he could feed off the misery and havoc that conflicts inevitably bring, the being decided that it was time for him to arrange a suitable end to an asset gone bad.
Upon entering the Runeterran plane and taking upon his most favored material form - the form of a knight plated in the darkest of armors and endlessly burning with the unholy fires of chaos, the being summoned his demonic warhorse unto his service and took up his entropic axe. He then went on with his corrupted crusade, systematically seeking out and hunting down any and all Darkin he managed to find in Runeterra with merciless brutality.
One by one, little by little did the Darkin race dwindled in numbers as the Chaos Knight hacked members of their species until they were nothing but mangled pieces of scorched, lifeless flesh, and soon, the Darkin were forced to acknowledge that they were indeed in danger of extinction. For the first time in history did the fiercely individualistic warriors unite, forming a legion as a bulwark against their new, otherworldly foe.
A younger Darkin, the one named Aatrox, was but one of the many thousands of Darkin soldiers serving under this legion. After losing some members of his extended family to this new threat, he resolved to find whoever did his clan wrong and exact his vengeance upon him.
Taking a moment to pray to Scree'auk, the goddess of vengeance, Aatrox steeled himself as the de-facto leader of the Darkin legion, an unusually muscular and bulky figure named Destrugere, flew with his warriors into the darkened, thundery skies of Ashur Fields, as part of a plan to lure out their hated foe into the open - leaving him open to be surrounded and overwhelmed by a large group of Darkin warriors. Once the enemy was subdued and in Darkin hands, Destrugere and his kind will make sure that the fate he suffered will be far worse than death.
As Aatrox's group roamed the skies in search of their quarry, suddenly, without so much as a faint warning, some sort of reddish-orange portal materialized into existence to a Darkin legionnaire's right, and out of the portal came an armored, humanoid figure on a mount. The legionnaire barely had time to register the mounted figure's presence as it slammed into his body and dragged him down, fast towards the ground.
As the figure's mounted form plummeted from the skies along with the struggling Darkin soldier, Destrugere had then managed to shake off his momentary shock and quickly swooped in after the falling foe, with his group following closely behind.
The Chaos Knight reeled an ironclad fist back and propelled it into his captive's skull with all the force only a Fundemantal could muster while in freefall. The Darkin's face immediately caved in at the force of the impact, and the entropic knight quickly disposed of his twitching corpse. Before Armageddon's hooves could hit the ground, the Fundamental opened a small rift in the physical realm just below him, allowing him to disappear into the portal, briefly enter a random plane of existence, and then re-enter the Runeterran plane without trouble.
After he climbed down from Armageddon's saddle and his greaves made contact with the grass, the Chaos Knight found himself encircled from all sides by Destrugere and his soldiers.
"And here is our enemy, brothers!" Destrugere called out to his kind as they prepared themselves for a bloodbath. Aatrox merely unsheathed his blade, planted it on the ground and leaned on it nonchalantly. With all the many soldiers against a single foe, Aatrox had come to expect an easy fight.
"You have drawn the ire of the entire Darkin race, Lohnarihn..." Destrugere addressed the knight with the name the Elders made specifically for him. In response, the Chaos Knight merely gave the Darkin leader a blank stare through the steel-plated helmet he wore. "Do you think us weak, that you thought your efforts alone would be enough to destroy all of us?!"
Destrugere drew his twin greatblades. Aatrox noticed the murderous light in his comrade's eyes as he shouted, "Reveal yourselves, my brothers! Come forward! To me, the Shapers of War!"
Immediately, a sight that should bring unceasing terror upon any mortal being came upon the fields of Ashur that day. The thick, gray clouds above thundered and rained heavily as waves upon waves of Darkin legionnaires swooped down from the skies, utterly swarming the Fundamental's surroundings with their numbers. The knight-like creature himself didn't even respond as the odds stacked themselves against him again and again. Hundreds of Darkin warriors each called out to him, addressing him with his Elders-given name. All of them collectively challenged the knight to a duel to the death.
"Before you die, I would like to hear one thing from from you, Lohnarihn..." Destrugere shouted his words at the knight as his comrades continued to shout and call out, drowning the area with the voices of the Darkin. "Why did you take it upon yourself to exterminate us? You have been foolish to even think of attempting such." He gestured at his kind all around him with one of his blades. "Nothing short of an infinite army of soldiers would even pose a ghost of a chance at defeating all of us! For every one of us you put down, ten more will take his place!"
At Destrugere's question did the knight menacingly laughed. Two portals appeared above and behind the knight, the one behind which the Fundamental's demonic horse disappeared out of, and the one above which belched out a colossal axe, which the knight nonchalantly snatched as it fell. Fire seemed to flare out from his helmet's eye sockets as he spoke,
"Your continued existence is... detrimental, to my interests."
The knight suddenly charged forwards and swung his blade upwards with a single hand after closing in on a nearby Darkin warrior, bisecting his unaware foe from crotch to head. Destrugere, Aatrox and the rest of the Darkin attack force came down upon the knight like a pack of rabid wolves in retaliation. Aatrox had been foolish to expect the foe to immediately be overwhelmed in such numbers, and he was immediately proven wrong when the knight suddenly disappeared from sight mere seconds just before he could be impaled by one of Destrugere's blades. His form reappeared quickly not as a single entity, but four.
The knight-creature had somehow duplicated himself, to the surprise and horror of the Darkin. The quartet of hellish knights stood back-to-back as they fought savagely to hold their ground against the Darkin tide. Several times did a Darkin soldier suffer a gruesome fate at an entropic knight's axepoint, and others were not so fortunate to die as quick.
At a complete loss on what to do, the Darkin simply charged the knights, hoping to overwhelm them through sheer numbers. This was their first mistake of the day, for the knights were impossible to dislodge. It was at that time that Aatrox had the time to observe how his foes fought, but he was left with very little, for the knights' fighting style was very inconsistent and chaotic. Though he did note how they relied heavily on brute force; without their unnatural strength to count on, the knight-creatures would have very little else to fight with.
When the knights had already cut down a large number of Darkin warriors, it was time for Aatrox to finally test his blade against the foe. He waited and hid in the shadows of his larger comrades until he got close enough to one of the knight-creatures, who was occupied with holding his ground from other Darkin warriors. Aatrox extended his blade before making his move, hoisting his weapon up in the air in preparation for the strike that brought down full-plated soldiers several times before.
Vengeance is mine! The young Darkin's blade sank down like a guillotine. The Chaos Knight merely spun around and grasped Aatrox's falling blade with his gauntlet, using nothing but his strength to fully halt the weapon's momentum. Aatrox only had time to widen his eyes in fear and surprise as the knight pulled his axe back with his other arm and plunged it into Aatrox's side in response. The young Darkin gasped and clenched his teeth together in agony. From the strength of the force that came from the knight's blow and down upon his body, it was a wonder that he wasn't split in half then and there, but he defiantly remained on his feet.
The last thing that Aatrox saw before unconsciousness took hold of him was the knight's furious gaze unto him. The Chaos Knight channeled a ball of entropic energy within his metallic fist as the young Darkin's vision started to have black spots. He never felt the flare of energy that blasted him across the field like a ragdoll.
...
When the time came for consciousness to come back to Aatrox, he found himself splayed on the grass, the left side of his body bleeding profusely. The battle between the Darkin and the knights had continued still, however, but Aatrox noted that there were already hundreds of dead legionnaires on the ground. He paid a glance at the center of the fight, and saw Destrugere and some other soldiers engaged in combat with the knights, which now numbered almost three dozen.
Aatrox slipped in and out of consciousness as he watched Destrugere and his men struggle against the rapidly self-replicating foe. At the very start of the fight, the original four knights were forced on the defensive due to their massively inferior numbers, but now, they were at an unstoppable advance - trampling down any who put up a fight. Destrugere himself had tried to fight three of the knights at the same time, but he was quickly overwhelmed when seven more knights joined the fight with their identical brethren. The Darkin leader's arms were lopped off with two simultaneous downward swings, and he was dragged by his wings and his legs further behind the enemy lines. His bloodcurdling screams were all that were heard as several of the knights took hold of his remaining limbs and pulled.
Panicked calls for a hasty retreat were heard all around from the Darkin ranks, which was something very unheard of, as the Darkin never retreated. Ominous laughter and guttural war cries from the advancing demonic knights were also heard above the sounds of battle as the identical soldiers brutally slaughtered their way forwards. At this stage, the enemy advance would reach Aatrox in his vulnerable position in a few fleeting minutes - as the young Darkin learned to his horror. He tried to prop himself up, but his injuries kept him down.
The darkness started to creep in his eyes as Aatrox exerted himself further and further. As consciousness started to leave him once more, he felt cold metallic hands clutching at one of his wings and his shoulder, tugging him slowly away from the hordes of knights about to envelope his position.
Never before had Aatrox thought of having the most undignified death to take him from the physical world's grasp. To think... I never even touched the foe... his thoughts resounded bitterly. Vengeance... has eluded me...
The dying Darkin's grip on his sword tightened and shook. No... this cannot be the end!
His crippling despair at his desperate situation slowly transformed into anger at his unjust fate. Still, his wounds were mortal; he was going to die there, without even coming close to avenging his fallen brethren. He opened his eyes to look at what had befallen his kin one last time.
What he saw further drove him mad with fury.
The Darkin were routed in full - not one of Aatrox's brothers and sisters stood and fought. Those who had to bravery to stand and fight were violently cut down like dogs where they stood. Resistance against the onslaught of multiplying knights was in vain.
All was lost for the Darkin race... and Aatrox knew all too well that there was nothing he could do, with his dying body.
Unless...
A stroke of insight jolted inside the young Darkin's mind. Indeed, with only his mortal shell to rely on, he was helpless. But with godly intervention, he just might be able to turn the tide on the enemy.
The gauntlets holding Aatrox's wing and shoulder left him in a panic. It appears that the person holding them had decided to leave his dying comrade to his fate to save his own skin. Not that Aatrox cared, for he did not plan on leaving the field alive anyways.
"Scree'auk... g-goddess of righteous vengeance a-and unrelenting wrath..." As he lain on the grass, Aatrox weakly began his prayer. The Chaos Knight and his clones had already passed his body, but they ignored him upon noticed his grievous wounds and his body's shattered state.
"Invigorate this b-broken vessel of mine... with your strength and guidance..." He coughed lightly, spitting out blood. "There is... a-a task it needs to fulfill..."
Aatrox clutched his sword tightly. He was too weak to even continue with his prayer. He could feel his life spirit away from him, as his body lost all feeling. His prayer hasn't been answered. Scree'auk has abandoned him.
He then felt the steel grip of his weapon soften and conform to his grasp, as if the sword was fitting itself on his hand. His blood boiled and his mind had started to cloud with righteous fury. Death's grip on his form had started to flee, and in its place, came a veritable rush of unearthly power.
Rage against the dying of the light, my child. A woman's whisper echoed in Aatrox's mind. It filled him with warmth and strength. Do not go gentle into the night.
Aatrox pulled himself up to his feet, and flared his sword up. To his mild surprise, his previously unremarkable steel blade had morphed into an extremely long, segmented red and black sword, one that glowed and writhed with unholy energies. His body had also changed; his carapace and his skin, once colored regally with gold and blue, were now dark and gray, with foreboding red spots here and there.
A small group of Chaos Knights took notice on the strangely colored Darkin standing in the middle of the field, as if dazed. They charged forwards, expecting an easy kill. Aatrox moved out of the way of the first enemy strike, and countered with a thrust of his sword, impaling one of the knights. Strangely, the skewered knight merely puffed out of existence with a blue cloud. In short order, he made quick work of his remaining attackers, each of them disappearing anticlimactically like the first one.
The commotion Aatrox made had not gone unnoticed by both the knights, and the Darkin remnants. Seeing one of their own make some small victories and remain unfazed had sent strange signals to their minds, inspiring them to stop running and make an effort to push the advancing knights back. In response to this, the knights sent a large group of their numbers to cut down the empowered Aatrox.
Not to be so easily put down like the last time, Aatrox weaved into battle against the phalanx of Chaos Knights all by his lonesome. He flew up a few meters in the air and brought himself down to earth at the center of the enemy's formation, knocking them aside from his impact point. The knights each summoned shields from several rifts in response and slowly advanced to Aatrox.
The Darkin's living blade didn't seem troubled cutting through the knights' new shields, however. One by one, Aatrox thinned their ranks. Parrying blows and countering their attacks, he seemed all but untouchable. He continued to bring down his assailants with little to no effort; with each blow of his blade, Aatrox seemed to invigorate himself with new life, inspiring himself to fight harder. With every kill, victory was brought closer.
Then suddenly, the knights around Aatrox stopped advancing. Aatrox savored the momentary peace, but steeled himself for another round nonetheless.
A couple of fleeting seconds passed, and the knights quickly formed themselves into a circle around their Darkin foe with all the discipline and swiftness of elite soldiers. Like clockwork, each and every one of the knights remained like statues as they stood straight, planted their axes on the ground and rested their hands on the pommel of their weapons. Their glares all focused on their adversary.
Aatrox didn't intend to just sit and let his foes remain staring at him. He brought his blade and and charged forwards, but was stopped dead by a bolt of entropic energy that came out of nowhere. Once again, Aatrox was hurled backwards, into the knights. Instead of attacking him like they were supposed to, they merely picked the Darkin up and threw him back into the center of the circle.
Aatrox recovered from the attack quicker than before. He made to stand up, and was greeted by one of the knights, looming above him like a king before a peasant. The Darkin swept his blade from under the knight, but the creature merely stepped one foot backwards, evading Aatrox's attack smoothly. In response, the knight delivered a heavy kick with his greaved foot to Aatrox's jaw, sending him sprawling.
"Yet another patron of an old friend, are you?" The knight's voice was deep and menacing; it reverberated inside his scorched helmet, oozing with pure, unbridled evil. "Scree'auk rarely made deals with mortals... she must take special notice of you."
The Darkin felt anger once more, upon hearing of the knight-creature's lies. "I will not let your foul words sully my goddess' name, Lohnarihn!" He staggered up, pointing his sword's business end towards his foe. "You might take my life this day, but I would not let you have it without taking you with me!"
A rumbling laugh escaped from the knight. "Your life, Darkin? Hah! When you made a deal with Scree'auk, she has left you with an overwhelming thirst for revenge and a small measure of her might. And in return, the goddess of vengeance took away your life - your soul. Submit to the facts, young one, for you are not alive... you are but a husk filled with nothing but hate and unceasing fury, doomed to destroy everything in your path to fulfill your lust for vengeance."
"If it takes my life to kill you, then I die happy." Aatrox responded in kind, flaring his blade to strike down the knight. "Enough talking! Have at you!" He charged the foe.
The Chaos Knight merely laughed quietly. As another ball of chaotic energy coalesced in his burning gauntlet, the Fundamental gave his new adversary a knowing smile from behind his helmet. "Perhaps there is hope for you after all..."
When Aatrox reached his foe, he parted the wind with his blade, hoping to split the knight in two from the helmet down. In a disturbing repetition of events, the Chaos Knight halted the Darkin's blade in mid-strike with merely his gauntlet and his strength. Aatrox roared in fury as he noticed the sickly red glow emanating from the knight's other hand.
"But I'm afraid there isn't any hope for the rest of your race." The Chaos Knight blasted Aatrox with another burst of entropic energy at point-blank range, one that's significantly more powerful and unpredictable than usual. Fortunately for the chaotic horseman, his desired effect was met; the Darkin was knocked into sleep almost instantly.
The Fundamental then looked at his legion of entropic knights. "I want no harm upon this boy." He commanded tersely. "But as for the rest of his kind..."
Armageddon emerged from another rift nearby the Chaos Knight. "Finish them. Leave none alive." He climbed onto his horse and strode off into the fray once more.
Several incarnations of Armageddon emerged from several rifts for the rest of the knights to mount. The Chaos Knight and his several thousand incarnations advanced unopposed with Aatrox out of action. Over the course of the day, the Darkin race was rendered virtually extinct, thanks to the efforts of the Chaos Fundamental.
...
In the present day...
Aatrox flinched at the hazy memory, and a subdued, pained gasp escaped from his mouth. He felt like vomiting.
"Aatrox, what the hell? Hey, tell me what's wrong!" The Darkin's summoner was on the verge of panicking. One moment did his Champion lay absolutely still and silent inside a piece of brush, and then suddenly, Aatrox lost his composure and looked like collapsing shortly. "Did you get stunned or something? I've got Cleanse at the ready!"
The Darkin grumbled angrily. "It's nothing, summoner. Focus on the match at hand, there are much more important things that demand your attention."
"...right." The summoner drawled. "Oh, and here comes that annoying spider-lady, making her way for the Dragon! Aatrox, make ready to move on my mark!"
"I am prepared." Aatrox monotonously droned. His mind still reeled at the sudden resurgence of something he thought he had repressed long ago. "Every kill brings victory closer."
Yes, that's right. The Darkin Blade made a deal with the goddess Scree'auk, much like our very own Vengeful Spirit, after suffering through the near-extinction of his race by the Chaos Knight's hands. Looks like Tryndamere has something in common with his nemesis, after all.
I wonder what'll happen if the Aatrox and Shendelzare met? What would Dragonus do?
This chapter is made in collaboration with Chill and Relax. Since he has heaps of spare time, he should be able to crank out chapters much faster than me.
Goddamn technical issues and real life - getting in the way of submitting chapters...
Also, since April's that time of the year, I made some preparations for some sort of troll chapter for April Fools. But since I know that everyone already expects it to happen, I decided to subvert expectations by not doing an April Fools chapter!
Devious counter-cultural bastard, aren't I?
Heavenian: Here's a chapter. Hope it didn't take too long. The next chapter will deal with the biggest war-chapter I've written for this story thus far, with the participants being:
Ashe's Avarosans, augmented by Kunkka's Claddsmen and Demacians
Sejuani's Winter's Claw, augmented by Darius' Noxians
Lissandra's Frostguard, augmented by those damned trolls under Trundle, plus SOMEONE TOTALLY UNEXPECTED
Piltovian auxiliaries, which includes Jayce, Caitlyn and Vi
Mercenaries for the Avarosan cause, which includes Graves and some Zaunites
MEleeSmasher: Shyvana's in the LoL world, but Jarvan's with Lycan, Mirana and Drow. The Dota group in Runeterra would eventually meet with Shyvana, of course.
achus93: Yes, but not as otherworldly as you might think...
Skipper311: You've done it! Come to think of it, there's an awful lot of nobles in Lycan's group. I think it's just Drow left in the commoner section...
