Samira and Katarina scaled the gates. Bein quite well-trained in staying hidden even in broad daylight, the enemy soldiers weren't able to see them. "There." Samira whispered as she pointed to a platform that held a lever-looking contraption. "That lowers and raises the gate. There should be two platforms that have that." Katarina gave the Desert Rose an incredulous look. "How would you know that?" Samira gave the redhead a smirk in return. "Because unlike you, kitten, I have experience of breaching cities like this."
Katarina's look turned to a glare. "Call me that again, and I'll ensure your remains are buried in a place where no one can find till the end of time." With that, she ran off to find an opening, leaving Samira to process her statement. After a few seconds, the woman shrugged. "How does Monty put up with her?" She wondered aloud, shaking her head.
oooooooooo
Outside the eastern gates, Noxian forces had already gathered a few metres in front of the city. "Demacians!" Darius roared. "Surrender now and we will let you live." Behind the gates, Garen yelled, "Never! We'd rather kill ourselves first than hand the city to you willingly!" Darius growled in anger. "Open your gates then! Show me what Demacia is truly made off, or has my colleague killed too many of you that you all have become the snivelling cowards you are?"
Garen gave a haughty laugh. "One thing you should know, is that while Demacians have pride, we aren't fools. You must think very lowly of me if you think I'll actually open the gate." Darius smiled savagely. "I had a feeling you would say that." He called out, pointing at Garen. "Which is why I sent some friends over for a greeting."
As if on cue, screams of agony pierced through the air, and Garen turned to see the soldiers manning the gate levers fall from the platform, landing onto the ground with a sickening crunch. Gasps of shock and terror sounded amongst the Demacians, and Garen frantically looked up and watched a familiar redhead flash him a wink before unleashing a barrage of knives in his direction.
With that, all hell broke loose.
oooooooooo
Katarina smiled as she watched Demacian soldiers run around in a panic, trying to avoid the deadly projectiles she had flung at them. It wasn't until Samira had called out to her that she realised that the Desert Rose needed help pulling the lever. "Turns out you were wrong." The assassin mused smugly as she watched Samira struggle with the lever. "Not all cities have two levers to pull the gate up."
"I didn't say all cities needed two fucking levers for the gate, chica, now get your ass over here and help me with this!" Samira grunted as she tried to pull the lever down with all her strength, face scrunched up as evidence of her effort. Katarina hurled more knives at the soldiers for good measure before moving to assist her companion with the lever.
"Man, this thing is tight." She grunted as she strained with the lever. "Shut up and pull." Samira huffed. "Funny, it's the first time you're telling another person to shut up."
oooooooooo
As the two bickered, the gate slowly rose. Garen tried to restore order among the Demacian troops, but Lux saw some Noxian soldiers beginning to squeeze through the narrow gap between the gate and the ground. She looked up and saw a redhead and a Hispanic woman with a gigantic sword on her back being the sources of the problem.
"Demacia!" She cried out as she fired a ball of light at the two Noxians on the platform. The redhead saw the ball coming and pushed her companion out of harm's way as she herself dove to the ground, causing the ball to hit the lever instead. One would normally think that a ball of light couldn't possibly harm anything, but one would then remember that Lux was a mage who specialised in light, and so she knew how to use it as a weapon.
The light ball destroyed the lever, causing the gate to fall and crush some unfortunate Noxian soldiers who weren't fast enough to get through the narrow gap. The sounds were terrible, and their screams sounded like the damned. Lux blocked it out, trying to instead focus on the Noxians that had managed to make it through and were currently engaged in combat with her fellow Demacians.
oooooooooo
Katarina cursed when she saw the wrecked state if the lever. "Screw this." She growled, drawing two of her bigger knives out. She momentarily turned to Samira, said a quick 'This is your problem now' before jumping down and joining the battle.
Katarina didn't usually join melees and out-in-the-open battles, but that didn't mean she was inexperienced in those kinds of scenarios. She weaved through the crowd of Demacians, dodging, ducking, stabbing, and slashing. Soon, the Demacians around her fell to the ground as though their bodies were as heavy as rocks. As she continued to attack other Demacians, she began to concentrate on their screams, the sight of blood spurting from the open wounds they had received, and most importantly of all, the look of terror and realisation that they were about to die as they collapsed to the ground. All of this filled her with the adrenaline that she had learned to love.
Soon, her moody and irritable nature became one of a lunatic's. A crazed glint gleamed in her jade green eyes, and her smile stretched wider. Laughing maniacally, she launched two knives at two soldiers stupid enough to think they could take her on. The knives hit the flesh that was exposed in the gaps of their helmet, and they were dead before they dropped to the ground. Katarina continued to kill, but this time killing Demacians that came close to kill her own comrades. As much as she hated playing the saviour role, she had to ensure that Noxus' currently small numbers lasted while Darius and the rest of the soldiers tried to figure out a way in.
She killed another Demacian that had knocked one of her comrades to the ground before bending down to help the Noxian up. "Are you good?" She asked harshly, but then her eyes landed on the soldier's face, and she froze. That brown hair, those eyes, they looked like her.
"Willow?" Just as she was about to question her mental sanity, the soldier's eyes suddenly widened as she yelled, "Behind you!" Without thinking, Katarina drew a knife and spun around, plunging it into a Demacian's neck. The Demacian made a gurgling sound as he collapsed. Katarina turned back to 'Willow' but found that the soldier she had just saved looked nothing like her. She had short black hair and a scar on her face. Chiding herself for the momentary distraction, she hauled the soldier up to her feet and yelled at her to get back into battle.
Just as she was about to send another Demacian to the Judgement Gate, a flash of light blinded her, allowing the soldier to quickly get up and flee, too scared to make another attempt to take the Sinister Blade on, even if his opponent was blinded. Katarina growled as she blinked the spots away from her vision, scanning the battlefield quickly, looking for the one who dared to blind her like that. Her jade-green eyes locked on a golden-haired mage who froze like a deer in headlights when she realised that one of Runeterra's most dangerous people had her sights set on her.
Katarina snarled once, readjusting her grip on her knives before flinging two at the mage. The mage barely had time to properly dodge the projectiles and quickly decided to full-on throw herself to the floor just before the knives were about to impale themselves into her head.
The Sinister Blade chuckled darkly, two more knives appearing in her hands as she calmly advanced towards her new prey. The mage scrambled to her feet, and with a closer view, Katarina finally realised the girl was Luxanna Crownguard, the famed Lady of Luminosity. She grinned as she flipped a knife in her hand into the air as she savoured the look of faux bravery in the mage's blue eyes. "Scared, babygirl?" The light mage's eyes narrowed. "I'm not a baby." She said, and Katarina noticed the terror fading from the mage's eyes. Oh, she's one of those people, she realised as her grin widened.
Without warning, she lunged forward, knives flashing under the sunlight as she let loose a series of slashes and stabs that would catch a regular person dead. Her opponent dodged before casting another flash of light, but Katarina had learned her lesson from before and closed her eyes a split second before the attack was executed. With the Lady of Luminosity thinking she had successfully blinded her opponent again, Katarina surprised her opponent with a jab to the gut, causing the latter to fall back with a groan while losing her grip on the baton. A loud explosion was heard, and Katarina momentarily took her eyes off her opponent to see that Darius and the troops had managed to break through the gates with the help of explosives.
Suddenly, she felt a kick connect with her stomach, the force just enough to make her gasp and take a step back to prevent herself from falling backwards as Lux had. Cradling her stomach with a hand, she looked up to see Lux roll backwards, grab her baton and use the momentum of her roll to get back to her feet. "Oh," Katarina said smugly, rubbing her stomach before taking another knife from a belt. "Can the little baby actually kick?" Lux's glare was fierce, but Katarina could see how her hands trembled and how she shifted her grip on the baton.
"I'm twenty-one, you idiot." Lux said coolly, but assassin, trained in picking up the slightest slip in people's body language, behavior, or speech, detected the undertone that betrayed what the Demacian mage was actually feeling. She laughed at Lux's attempt of bravado. "Trust me," she said, assuming a fighting stance. "You'll be crying like a newborn child very soon." With that, the redhead lunged again, but this time, Lux didn't attempt to dodge. She tried another flash again, only for Katarina to close her eyes again. Is that her best attack? Katarina wondered as she opened her eyes, only to find her opponent gone. She turned around wildly, disregarding the chaos happening around her, eyes looking for her opponent.
Suddenly, her legs were swept forward underneath her, causing her to land on her rear.
She got up and looked around, her smug smile gone and replaced with a dangerous scowl. "Demacian scum! Show yourself!" A Demacian did show up but was not who she was looking for. He charged at her, yelling a battle cry. Katarina merely dodged, and in a quick motion, slashed the soldier's throat. The soldier dropped to his knees, grasping at his throat, a gurgling sound coming from him as he choked on his own blood. "No!" Lux cried out, regretting it instantly. Katarina intercepted where the source of the sound came from and flung a knife in the cry's general direction. A gasp was heard, and she lunged at the invisible opponent, grabbing what felt to be her throat and slamming the mage onto the floor.
Lux groaned as her invisibility spell wore off. Katarina chuckled as she looked down at her soon-to-be-victim. "You tried." She purred, savouring the look of newfound trepidation in the mage's eyes. "But you still failed in the end." Lux grit her teeth. If she was going to die, she may as well die with her dignity. "Do it then, kill me." Katarina's eyes widened slightly at the Demacian's words. Noxus had always generally thought of Demacians as cowards, or idiots who dreamt of dying for noble causes, like that one Garen guy, and Lux was one of the people who Katarina thought would fall into the former category, but here she was, accepting death.
Katarina's eyes flicked around her for a moment. From the looks of it, it seemed that the Demacians were gaining a second wind against her comrades. The chances of the Noxians losing were increasing. She then looked down at the mage. The mage's resolve was admirable, and she was a noble in Demacia. A smile broke across Katarina's face as terrible thoughts began to cloud her mind. This will be fun, she thought. "I don't think so," She cooed. "Noxus may have some uses for you." With that, she suddenly slammed the hilt of her blade into Lux's skull, knocking her out.
Katarina slung Lux onto her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, kicking her baton away. Almost instantly, she heard someone who sounded like a Frenchwoman yell, "She has Lady Crownguard!" They didn't notice till now? Katarina thought as she began to make a run for it. Talk about a different time zone in the brain.
"Stop her!" A familiar, deep voice that commanded authority roared. Before Katarina knew it, Demacian troops surrounded her. Huffing, she dropped the light mage onto the floor before suddenly spinning around, unleashing her famed and feared Death Lotus. Some Demacians fell with howls of agony, some died before they hit the ground. Katarina knelt for a moment. Executing a move like that while still having a hangover was not exactly recommendable. Trying to shake it off, she grabbed Lux and hauled her onto her shoulder again before continuing her run.
She didn't make it far before a familiar hulk of a man tore through the crowds of fighting soldiers. "Release my sister!" He roared as he took a wild swing with his sword. Lux would have been cleaved in half if it weren't for Katarina's quick relflexes. She jumped backwards, landing on her feet, struggling a bit with the weight of Lux on one shoulder. "Careful there, pretty boy." She said smugly. "Wouldn't want to kill your sister, would you?" Garen's face went red as his face contorted into a viscious scowl. Before he could retort, Draven burst into the scene, yelling his catchphrase, "It's Draaaveeeeeeeen time!" He attacked the Might of Demacia, axes colliding with the greatsword. With Garen now occupied, Katarina ran through an opening in the crowds and out the gates. "NO!" Garen yelled, but Draven knocked him down.
"Focus here, Demacian scum." Draven chuckled as he lunged at Garen again.
oooooooooo
Katarina made it back to base safely. The soldiers that were there gave her questioning stares, but none dared to voice their curiosities. After they'd seen her trying to amputate a medic for asking her about her alcohol intake, they learned that curiosity only fuelled the Kat's rage.
Katarina made her way to the base's mini dungeon. She demanded for the warden to open a vacant cell, to which the flustered warden quickly obeyed. She then unceremoniously dumped Lux into the cell. "Make sure nothing happens to her." She warned the warden before dashing out the jail. Darius would question why she had suddenly disappeared from the battle, and she didn't need him chewing her out for being out of battle for so long.
She smirked to herself as she imagined the methods, she could use to break the Lady of Luminosity. Maybe some of the good old torture could get her back to the Sinister Blade she was and finally take her mind off what had happened.