Gangplank's dark cackle of laughter spiked the hairs on Quinn's arms, and she flinched as the Noxian assassin clamped his leather-clad hand around her toned upper arm, the predator's grin splitting his gaunt face into two as he peered closer.
'Yes, Plank! Very well done! This is definitely the one the General's after,' he whispered triumphantly. 'This might get the old fool off my back for a little while, at least.'
'Glad to hear it,' the sea dog growled in relief, his off-white eyes swimming with malice as he watched the desperate ranger recoil from Talon's grip. 'You've Elsa to thank for finding her. She tipped me off after her and lover boy stuck out like a sore thumb.'
Quinn's panic-stricken mind surged back towards the witchy woman who had kitted them out as soon as they reached Bilgewater, and her stomach cindered with hatred at the memory of her smug face. Way to overestimate the power of charm, Yas, she thought bitterly.
'Great,' Talon replied absent-mindedly, never ripping his mesmerizing stare from his hard-won prize as he dropped his arm down to latch upon her wrist. She wrestled against his inhuman grip, but his harsh bark of laughter jangled her nerves and he twisted the wrist until her ankle bent underneath his strength, forcing her to yelp like a kicked dog.
'Ah, ah, ah,' Talon cautioned her softly, his cold breath brushing against her hair as his hand smothered against her mouth. His ochre eyes glittered with amusement, a muscle in his cheek tweaking upwards as he leant in towards her. 'Don't bite the hand that slaps you.'
Quinn growled against his gloved hand until he swished it across her face in a blade movement and slapped her down to the ground. Tears stinging in her eyes, the ranger's heart jolted as the door behind them was kicked off its hinges, sending a flurry of dust into her hot face. Sarah was brought in by two burly accomplices, her auburn hair fraying at the edges and blood dripping from a split lip. Her murderous glare locked on Gangplank, the anticipation of meeting palpable in the heavy atmosphere, and she pressed her lips together in a severe line.
'Sarah, sweetheart, how lovely of you to join us!' the pirate lord sneered, bustling over towards her with a malevolent smirk. 'Haven't seen you for a hell of a long time. How you've grown…hmm, in all senses of the word, I notice.'
'Pleasure,' the bounty hunter muttered sarcastically, throwing Gangplank a searing glare of hatred as his eyes roved her ample bosom. 'I was a little bit flatter when you murdered my mother and draped the body over her young daughter. Sorry it took me so long to inflate.'
'No matter,' he responded simply, before suddenly dashing over to her and seizing her silky red strands between his sausage fingers, twisting her defiant face to look directly at him. Quinn gasped, but Talon kneeled behind her and pressed a blade against her neck, tutting softly into her ear, and she fell silent as she watched Gangplank tower over Sarah.
'Mmm…' he hummed softly, taking in a large whiff of the disgusted bounty hunter's hair before exhaling with a shuddering sigh. 'Coconut. Just like your mother. Brains certainly didn't run in your family, but beauty did. You're hers, sure enough.'
'You mean the brains that knew how to forge metal the way you didn't?' she responded cuttingly, deliberately flicking her hair out of his oily grasp. His icy eyes cracked and he turned away from her suddenly, raising a finger to shut up Talon as he went to speak.
'Your mother's handiwork was not worthy of a king of the seas!' he spat at Miss Fortune as his closed fist punched his distressed desk. 'Pretending otherwise merely shows your delusions over your good-for-nothing mother. What a waste of business that woman was.'
'You killed her in cold blood!' Sarah shrieked, her muscles rippling furiously under the grip of Gangplank's crew members. 'Murdered her for her creations because you were such a shitty pirate back then that you couldn't pay for them yourself!'
'I didn't pay for them because they were not up to my standards, girl!' he roared back, kicking at his desk and knocking items off it to the bounty hunter's feet.
'Stop it! Plank, let her go. You've caused her more than enough pain,' Quinn blasted him furiously, only half-conscious of the thin assassin's blade still tickling her throat.
'Let her go?' he asked incredulously, tilting his shaggy head on one side and sneering at her. 'Let…her…go? My sweet little Demacian, you've no idea how this world works.'
'No, but I know how it should work,' she snarled, her fingers whitening as they clenched against Talon's sinewy forearms. 'And you've dominated Bilgewater for far too long.'
'Really?' the pirate lord guffawed, before slipping his terrifying sword from its gild and turning it on her. 'Then I suggest you try and take it from me, little girl.'
'Wish granted,' Sarah muttered quietly, before a glittering playing card flitted over her shoulder and buried deep into the Captain's chest.
Gangplank hollered in pain, fervently grasping at the card sticking out of his sternum and eventually yanking it out as his mad eyes fixed on a heavily breathing Twisted Fate, before Sarah clunked the two guards' heads together and they sunk like sandbags to the floor. The Noxian assassin hissed as he assessed the situation, tightening his arm around Quinn and dragging her across to the mildewed window, the pearlescent moonlight glinting manically off his brandished blade. Twisted Fate twirled another card in his hand, its colour flashing between blue, red and yellow, but the assassin smashed the window and rolled out of it, taking the ranger with him as they plunged into the icy depths of the Guardian Sea.
'Shit!' she heard Sarah moan, catching a glimpse of her coppery locks as she frantically leant over the windowsill. 'Hold on, Quinn, we're coming to help you!'
'Not if I have any say in it!' Talon yelled back, before roughly grabbing the back of Quinn's head and plunging it underwater.
Legs thrashing, lungs burning, the ranger struggled against the assassin's dominant body, but the Noxian was stronger as he pressed all his bodyweight down onto her chest. Spots began to burst in front of her eyes and blood thrummed horribly through her constricting veins. Just as the pain intensified, Talon wrenched her head back above the surface and she wheezed, coughing up the salt water in huge bubbles and gagging on loose seaweed.
'You bastard, let her go!'
The ranger recognised the fiery baritone voice cutting through the night, and she looked up through the droplets on her eyelashes to a furious Yasuo. He swung one leg over the side of the Dead Pool and perched in anticipation. 'What's it gonna be, Talon?'
'No life is worth mine, Ionian,' he snapped back up to him, before constricting Quinn's neck between his elbow and forearm. 'Let us keep the girl and we'll do you no harm, exile! We might even let the bounty girl live, at least as a token of my gratitude to Planky-boy.'
'Over my dead body,' Yasuo spat, unsheathing his sword and pointing it directly at the captor. 'You need us. You'll freeze to death in these waters without our help!'
'Ah, yes, that's quite true,' the assassin sighed, feigning disappointment until a triumphant grin curled his hard features upwards. 'So it's just as well I've got back-up, then, isn't it?'
The ranger, bounty-hunter and the exile stared in horror as familiar crimson sails began to flap on the horizon, dulled by the night but still standing out in the dark like smears of blood, and Quinn's heart sank. Noxian privateers. Now they really were in trouble.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Talon kept a fierce hold of Quinn with one clenched fist and flung a blade upwards towards Yasuo as the ranger screamed, desperately clawing at his arm to weaken his aim. He tipped over slightly in the rough waters, but managed to sink the blade into the exile's skin. The ranger saw him fall, only being able to hear Sarah's shout of surprise and thud of his body against the wooden slats below, and Quinn howled as she began kicking the assassin hard. Her underwater blows were easily caught by Talon, who gave a gruff laugh and twirled the ranger in the water to face him, his wolfish teeth shimmering in the moonlight.
'Great. Now that lover boy is out the way, I can do my job,' he tutted, dragging her along in the water with him. She struggled hard, biting at his arm and trying to gauge his eyes, but he simply forced her head under the water when she got too unruly until she finally submitted, sobbing. Sea salt burning in her throat and streaming through her nose, she gasped as a vision began to invade her mind. Only vaguely aware of being keelhauled through the icy water, her body flopped with exhaustion as she succumbed to her subconscious.
'Argh! There is it again!' a raspy voice complained, familiar black claws tightening around his whittled stick. 'Right now, I see and hear nothing but the sound of sloshing water. These damn visions are getting on my nerves. Is this old man going mad, Cassie?'
His companion chuckled sexily under her breath, reclining lazily against an exquisite leather settee and stretching out her glistening tail before coiling it back up to her hips once more. 'Come now, Jericho, darling. I think it's a bit too late for that.'
The old man harrumphed but did not say anything else as he raised a hand towards his temple, his vision closing as he squinted against the headache. 'Funny business. Can't say I've ever had anything quite like it. Only flashes, no real visions.'
'What triggers it?' the sultry snake asked absent-mindedly, admiring her reflection in a mirror and readjusting her golden headpiece accordingly. 'How often do you get it?'
'Intermittently,' the elder admitted gruffly, scratching the back of his bony hand, the razor-sharp nails passing over their many wrinkles and stains of liver spots. 'If I didn't know better….no. No, that can't be possible.'
'What are you thinking, my lord?' Cassie pondered, unable to contain her fond smile as she probed his brilliant mind. 'What vexes you so?'
His vision twisted back towards the snake lady's lemon-yellow eyes, and she recoiled slightly at the unfamiliar expression of confusion in his face. 'General Swain?'
'It could be another binder,' he confided anxiously to her, his voice dipping in volume to avert any eavesdroppers. 'Someone out here. I notice it's been getting stronger over the past month – maybe they're making their way to Noxus?'
'Another binder?' Cassie asked sceptically, before pausing for a second. 'Wait. But the only other avian binder you ever knew of was-'
'My daughter, yes, rest her soul,' the General snapped, his fist temporarily whitening on his staff before he exhaled sharply. 'I…Forgive me, my dear Cassiopeia. I did not mean to take out my temper on you. I…I still miss what could have been.'
'No apology needed, my lord,' the Serpent's Embrace confirmed, patting the back of his shrivelled hand. 'As the daughter of your child's alleged killer, you would be entitled to do worse.'
'You were never a reflection of that scumbag Du Couteau,' Swain clarified, catching Cassiopeia's smooth hand between his wrinkled ones. 'Your hot-headed sister and your half-witted brother, certainly, but never you, Cassie. You had the brains and the beauty of the family.'
The snake lady bristled for a moment, snatching her hand away from his comforted grip. 'What do you mean, I had the brains and the beauty? Do I not still look beautiful?'
'You know very well I meant no offense,' the General confirmed, waving his hands towards her cursed tail. 'I simply refer to how you all grew up after your father disappeared. If anything, travel and fortune brought out the best kind of beauty in you: power.'
Cassiopeia softened up, swatting Swain's hand away with her shimmering tale as her eye glittered with amusement. 'Oh you are fun to wind up, Jericho.'
'Only because you are the only one who can get away with it,' the Master Tactician noted dryly, snorting briefly as Cassie gave a tinkling laugh. Suddenly, the handsome mahogany doors in front of the lounging pair came swinging open abruptly, and Rina, looking stressed and irked, strode into view.
'Katarina, sweetie!' Cassie called out in delight, slithering up further along the settee to let her sit down. 'I hadn't realised you were back. Welcome home, dear sister.'
'Not through my own choice,' the Noxian assassin grumbled, though she opted to remain standing. She turned to look at Swain, wiping sweat from her forehead before speaking.
'The Lightshield-Crownguard wedding is scheduled to take place next week, sire - during the first day of autumn at thirteen past the hour. The locals are unaware of the precise date as it is not officially announced until the actual day for security reasons. Nevertheless,' she added quickly, 'I was able to extract the information from a loose-tongued Demacian guard. He soon squealed under the pressure. Sadly I was unable to stay any longer to find out more.'
'Huh, I suppose it will have to do,' Swain confirmed, twirling his walking stick between his hands. 'Thank you, Rina. Any news of your brother yet?'
'The Noxian fleets are returning from the Bilgewater interception right about now. I have no reason to believe that he's not on board with them,' she responded smoothly, turning back towards the door.
'Sit down, Kat,' Cassie implored her, tutting as she tapped her tail against the settee. 'You never stop rushing around. Bask in your success once in a while.'
'What success?' Katarina sniped, her hand on the brass doorknob. 'There is no success, in this career, Cass. There is only survival.'
'Ugh, I'd hate to be an assassin,' Cassiopeia shuddered, settling back down onto the settee. 'You're all so hard and unfeeling, always focussed on your next kill.'
'As it should be,' Swain growled, causing the snake to fall silent. 'That's why I have you for a bit of light relief, Cassie.'
'Thank God for that,' she murmured, yawning as she closed her luminescent eyes and threw her forearm across her forehead. 'Wake me up when the prisoners come, won't you? I need a new maid for my apartment – but a butler would suffice,' she added hopefully, giggling.
'All you think about is men and money,' Katarina muttered, opening the door and throwing her head back to Swain, her fiery red locks slicked with sweat behind her ears. 'Anyway, I'm off to bathe. I'll meet you back here when Talon arrives within the next half-hour or so.'
'Got it,' the General murmured. 'Shut the door behind you, Kata.'
The door hit the wall so hard that the cracks in the plaster flaked off a little more. Swain tutted and stood up as the door knocked again. 'Come in.'
The door creaked open carefully and Swain tensed in surprise as ivory eyes bore into his own. A shock of platinum hair glinted like metal in the sunlight peering through the brown velvet drapes, and his anaemic-looking features stood out powerfully against his high red collar. The Crimson Reaper bowed his head respectfully to Swain, who remained mute as the haemomancer strolled forward.
'General Swain,' he greeted him politely, bowing forward to him. Cassie started as she heard his breathy voice, and he smirked as he pulled out a dark red rose, laying it down across her breasts. 'And Cassie, of course.'
'That was very naughty of you, Vlad,' the snake lady purred, flipping onto her front to smell the flower. 'Long time, no see. How are you?'
'Never mind that – what are you doing here, Vladimir?' Swain cut over her, his fingers tapping impatiently against his staff.
'I come bearing interesting news, sire,' the haemomancer explained, pulling a leather-bound tome out of his striped jacket and waving it. He looked over to Cassiopeia, admiring the view for a moment before gathering his thoughts. 'I borrowed this from the Institute of War. It's, ahem, quite sensitive information. Are you happy for Cass to listen in on this?'
Swain paused for a second, deflecting the snake lady's pleading gaze, before looking back to Vladimir. 'How sensitive? What does it concern?'
'It's about the Demacian woman that you came to me for a month ago,' he confirmed, flipping opening the book and running his nail down to a specific section. 'You sent me off to track her down in the library, but I think I found out more than we had maybe bargained for.'
'Is that so?' Swain asked suddenly, curiously getting the better of him as he looked up at the patient librarian. 'Alright, Vladimir. Tell me what you've got. Out you go, Cassie.'
The snake lady pouted at the general's command, sulking as she slithered out of the hall.
'It regards her heritage, General,' the Crimson Reaper started dramatically, speaking swiftly for fear that Swain's ears would soon close to his words. 'She's not pure Demacian.'
'Oh?' the tactician muttered, his curiosity spiking as he finally gave the haemomancer his undivided attention. 'A halfling? That's even more unheard of in Demacia, those inbred fools. How did she rise to a ranger of the army? A full Demacian female would struggle.'
'I'm not quite sure, sire,' Vladimir admitted, flipping around his heavy book to place it into Swain's lap. Tutting at the impetuousness, the general bent forward and peered at what appeared to be a spidery chart.
'What am I looking at, vampire?' he snapped impatiently, beginning to turn the page as he delivered his more acerbic nickname. 'I don't have time to be reading all of this.'
'Don't you recognise it, General?' the blood mage probed gently, tracing his long pearly nail across the interlinked lines. 'Here's the bloodlines of the major noble houses in the whole of Runeterra, cross-referenced alphabetically. There's the Noxians, look, the Du Couteaus and the Zaavans are across the other page. Here's the Demacian bloodlines - the Laurents, Vaynes, the Crownguards, and Lightshields. And here, along the Crownguard marriages…I found your daughter. The Institute show no bias in the history they record.'
'What?' Swain asked sharply, peering closer to the book and giving a sad sigh as he traced his finger over the painful name. 'My daughter,' he murmured, softer now, though his fist clenched as he read the name of the man next to her and his scratchy voice morphed into a growl. 'That damn idiot Crownguard. I'll never forgive him for leading her-oh…oh…'
As the grand general fell silent, his scaly finger frozen on one single word below the union of his daughter and wretched son-in-law, the ornate wooden doors swung open.
Quinn, trembling from head to foot, was shoved roughly by Talon through the foreboding archway, and her eyes immediately fixed on the hawked face of an old, wiry man hunched over a book. She noticed his sallow cheeks were blanched, his finger paused on a section of the thick volume, and her eyes roved to an equally pale man with an icy mane of hair slicked back behind his pointy ears. They suddenly perceived the emerging audience and snapped back into action, the older man getting up very sprightly for his age and closing the book with a dusty thud. Katarina, the ruby-headed assassin, looked as bored as ever as she brought Yasuo in behind her and opened her mouth to speak.
'Here's the girl you wanted, General,' she said like a restless receptionist, tightening her grip on Yasuo's sinewy air as he steered to the side of Quinn. 'And here's a token Ionian who tried to stop us taking her. Cass already wants to stake her claim, but he looks too useful to be her eye candy.'
Swain barely took in Katarina's words as he stared at the terrified ranger, who managed to meet his creepy scarlet eyes despite the instinct to look away. So these were the eyes she had kept dreaming through ever since she had gotten closer to Noxus. His features swum vaguely in her head, having dreamt about this very room once before, and the eerie sense of déjà vu now snaking through her veins chilled her to the spot.
'Excellent. Put the Ionian in the cells – we'll deal with him later. I'd like to talk to the Demacian first,' Swain ordered her, his bemused face slipping into a cold mask.
Katarina nodded before she turned to bring Yasuo back, and Quinn caught his eye as he left the room. His glare was murderous, and she knew that he was going to skin her alive the moment they got any time alone for getting them into this situation. She could not blame him, and shame curled up and died within her insides as he was led away.
'Release her, Talon, and leave us,' the general commanded, raising his voice angrily as the assassin opened his mouth to protest. 'That's an order! Jump to it, Du Couteau. OUT!'
The Blade's Shadow skulked off after yielding his vice-like grip on the ranger's shoulder, slamming the door shut behind him. Swain ignored his noisy complaint to Katarina, noticing that Vladimir had snuck out during the ruckus, leaving the book behind.
The Master Tactician's red eyes swivelled back to the defiant Demacian, a hint of a smile lifting his sagging face. 'That's better. I'm sorry you had to travel with such a cretin.'
'There's plenty of them around Noxus, General Swain. I'm sure I'll get used to it,' the ranger quipped vehemently, raising an eyebrow in confusion. 'Have you chosen to kill me first?'
'What?' the general asked, a wheezy laugh rattling his lungs. 'No, no, my dear girl. That's not it at all. What is there to suggest that harm will befall you here?'
'Oh, I don't know,' Quinn responded sarcastically, jauntily throwing her arms out to indicate their surroundings. 'Nearly getting drowned by your resident assassin? Being kept under lock and key without any food or drink? Having the High General of Noxus stare you down?'
'Mere lapses in Noxian hospitality,' Swain dismissed, waving his hand. He folded himself back down into his handsome leather armchair, gesticulating at a seat for Quinn to sit down. She did so hesitantly, utterly puzzled by the general's request, and anxiously hugged her knees together as she refused to take her eyes off him. She was unnerved to notice that he was the same way, a strange tinge of sadness piercing his evident hostility and arrogance.
'What do you want?' she whispered this time, finally breaking the silence that stretched out between them. 'Why me? Why did you trace me down? Why did you take Sona?'
The old man exhaled deeply, chuckling darkly under his breath. 'That's a lot of questions. Which do you suggest I address first?'
'Any?' she prompted hopefully, and he laughed again at her undisguised eagerness.
'I want to know,' he started slowly, 'who you are, Quinn.'
She stiffened, hard as a board, staring into his unfathomable face. 'What did you call me?'
'You heard me,' he said swiftly, sinking back into his armchair and pressing his clawed fingers together. 'Speak.'
'And if I don't?' the ranger questioned, her stomach crawling at the grin on his face.
'Then we might be sat here a long time. Your Ionian friend might starve to death by then, or…I don't know…I might not be there to curb Talon's bloody impulses. The Ionian didn't seem too best pleased with being ordered around by my assassins, and he may just say the wrong thing to set Mr. Du Couteau off.'
'On what grounds?' Quinn asked indignantly. 'That's illegal to kill him without a fair trial.'
'You are new to Noxus, it seems,' Swain snorted, tilting his head upwards to an ancient document framed behind him. 'Article 10, sub-section B – all execution orders are to be carried out with the prior approval of the Noxian General Chief-of-Staff. His life rests on my words. I suggest you listen to them carefully.'
'But he's an Ionian citizen,' the ranger protested, glowering at the block capitals above Swain's head. 'So your rules don't count.'
'Not from what I've heard,' the mage noted, his eyes glinting manically. 'The exile has forsaken his citizenship, and is thus of no fixed abode. No laws apply.'
Quinn fell silent, refusing to give Swain the satisfaction of recognising the angst that was building up inside of her. She was sure he could sense it anyway, feeling strangely tied to the evil man who sat before her. Maybe it was having accidentally gotten into his mind so many times that it felt like a familiar haunt, but she could not shake off the connection floating between herself and Swain, and she looked away to try and break it.
'Aren't you talking to me now?' he asked with amusement. 'Is he your boyfriend, this exile?'
'No,' she scowled, staring down at the ground. 'He's just a friend.'
'I think you're lying,' Swain dug at her, wrapping his fingers across his walking stick and leaning towards her, frowning. 'Don't lie to me, Quinn. I know everything about you. How's your brother? Caleb, isn't it? How's he doing?'
She turned to look at him finally, fire raging in her eyes. 'Don't you dare talk about my brother. You're not worthy enough to mention his name.'
'I'll mention anyone's name I want,' the general responded coolly, tilting his head as he relished the nerve he had touched. 'How is he?'
'Dead,' she grunted, surprised at the tears now glistening in her eyes, though she was bewildered by the genuine pain momentarily etched into the old folds of Swain's face. 'Why do you care, anyhow?'
'I don't,' the general stated casually, though Quinn could not shake off the impression that her words had affected the old warlock somehow. 'Just curious.'
'So, not content with dragging me into the bowels of Noxus to kill me, you also want to prise into my mind and make me remember the dead brother I try to forget?' she shouted, jumping up from her chair and glaring at him. 'What kind of a sick freak are you?'
'What's up, Swain, darling?' a concerned voice murmured from the door, and Quinn nearly gagged as her eyes set up a half-human, half-snake female that had wormed her way into the room. Her noxious yellow eyes fixed upon the ranger with immediate dislike, equally returned by Quinn.
'Nothing. We're done here,' the Demacian replied abruptly, turning to hurry towards the door. A screeching sound echoed through the hall and she suddenly found herself unable to move. Gasping at the darkened talons that had wrapped around her legs and arms, she looked up to the now standing Swain, whose walking stick now glowed with the tell-tale light of a magical staff. He breathed heavily as he turned to address Cassiopeia. 'Out you go, Cassie. I told you to stay out.'
'But my lord sounded threatened,' she replied coyly, her plump lower lip trembling as she stared between the two. 'What's this Demacian hussy been saying to you?'
'Nothing that concerns you,' Quinn sniped, throwing daggers at the playacting snake. 'Cassie? As in Cassiopeia? You must be the third blessed Du Couteau child.'
'Blessed and the best,' she claimed, preening as she turned back to the ranger. 'You're making a lot of noise for a prisoner, sweetie. Back up a bit out of the general's face.'
'And why should I listen to some crazy ass snake?' Quinn snarled, the talons cutting painfully into her limbs and draining her blood supply. 'I'm clearly doing nothing.'
The ranger paused in fear for a second however as she noticed something break in the snake's smooth face, and could not help but cower as she hissed, rising herself to her full height. 'Crazy?' she uttered slowly, a forked tongue flicking out angrily as she spat out the word. Cassiopeia swung back on her tail, almost as if she was about to retreat, but she suddenly turned round, baring sharp fangs as she shuddered, lifting her hands above her head. 'I'll show you crazy!'
Before Quinn could blink, the Serpent's Embrace threw her hand down and suddenly the ranger was gasping for air. Her skin began to blister and she felt her eyes bulging out of her head as she breathed in a venomous purple cloud that had now engulfed her, her lungs folding in on themselves. Dark magic blasted across her skin as the snake began her onslaught, her screams of rage splintering through her panicky core as she thrashed around in agony. All the ranger felt for what felt like forever was Cassiopeia's poisons seeping into her body, every pore on fire and every nerve ending ruptured as she experienced the worse pain she had ever had in the life. Quinn's eyes streamed, blood beginning to rise through her mouth, before she felt herself fall free from Swain's binds with a sickening crumple to the floor. The snake lady's piercing shrieks had drifted into cackles of pleasure, until she felt hands plunge through the smoke. She recoiled momentarily against their shrivelled texture, but the firmness with which they grabbed her was strangely comforting, and she wondered if death was taking her away.
'NO! No, Cass, stop! STOP!' she heard Swain bellow at her, dragging Quinn out of the poisonous violet cloud as she retched and vomited the toxins out of her stomach. 'Control yourself! This is why they said you couldn't leave Shurima!'
'What does she matter?!' the serpent wailed, breathing heavily as she fought against Swain's talons that had rooted her to the ground. 'She's a worthless Demacian! Aren't we killing these guys soon enough? Why won't you let me have this one?'
'Because she's my-'
The doors nearly got knocked off the hinges as reinforcements came piling into the room, the bulky protector of Darius leading the pack and brandishing his axe as Katarina and Talon flanked him. They watched Cassiopeia shoving furiously against the talons, shrieking incandescently as she tried to hurl spells at the grounded Demacian, and observed with even more horror the curious image of Swain bent protectively over the fallen Quinn, her hands unconsciously clinging to his patterned commander's robe for support as she coughed and retched, shivering in his arms.
'Your what?' Cassiopeia roared as Katarina tried to wrench Swain's talons off her sister and Talon instinctively twisted his blade to point at his commander.
'She's my granddaughter,' the Master Tactician finally admitted quietly, looking up at the knowing eyes of Vladimir before dropping them to the young woman drifting in and out of consciousness in his clawed grasp. 'She's part Vastaya, part human. Just like me.'
