Hello. I feel like I owe an explanation here.

SOooo, basically, what happened was… Mass Effect. And another series. And College shit. But mostly Mass Effect. It's my favourite game series ever and has my favourite game (ME2) in it, so I decided to buy the trilogy and play it through. So, two playthroughs later and I'm finally able to move on to writing this. Although I'm probably gonna start another character at some point so watch out for that.

Anyway, sorry about this being late as all fuck. It's fine though, cause this is gonna be a chapter where stuff important actually happens (gasp).

Also, thanks to the new champ, here's the joke of the chapter: What's Aurelion Sol's favourite beer? Stella.

Anyway, onto the thing.


Chapter 56: A New Approach

Early morning (05:30):

Zoh's POV:

Waking up with a start was getting to be a bit repetitive, however it did put me in an interesting situation. My dreams were sad, lonely and dark. Some were even scary. But then, when I woke up, I got to spend my time with the fox-woman lying next to me, who was so beautiful that I'd wonder if I hallucinating.

I would've loved to wake her and remind her how much I appreciated her looks, in the most physical way possible, but it wasn't the time or place. It was too early and I had something far dourer to do.

Still, I leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek before sliding out of bed and tip-toeing around the room, gathering my stuff. I stepped out into the hallway and got a good distance from the room before teleporting away.

A few minutes later (05:45):

I was almost thankful that the wind was blowing the grass into my hands. The constant tickling sensation stopped me from focusing on if my decision was a bad one or not.

There wasn't really a whole lot else to keep me distracted. The usual Ionian sunshine was hidden behind a thin layer of clouds, bleeding through occasionally and briefly to get in my eyes. The smell of the ocean was carried through the trees by a weak gust of wind, though I couldn't hear the leaves rustling over the ominous howling of the crack in the landscape I had decided to sit on the edge of.

Odd to think that, if that thing opened just a few metres to the right, I wouldn't have a house to hand over to Nautilus. Apparently, my luck had decided to go easy on me for once.

I felt the slight shuddering of the ground as Nautilus approached from behind me. Standing and turning, I greeted him, not hiding my down mood: "Hey Naut. What do you think of the house?"

"It's perfect. But, when did you get it? I always heard you stayed at the League."

"I'd… rather not talk about it. Do you think it will work for the kid?"

"He's not stable right now, but he won't do any damage with me around."

"Make sure he doesn't. I don't have a second house to give you."

He put his massive hand on my shoulder and thanked me: "I appreciate you trusting me with this, Zoh. If you ever need something from me, don't hesitate a second to ask."

"I'll keep that in mind. Now, if you don't mind, I've got one last thing to do here before I leave."

He pulled back his hand and nodded at me as I walked off into the trees.

A few hundred metres from the house was a hill with a small river running down the side of it. All different kinds of flowers were growing around it, and the forest was slightly thinner in that area. In-amongst the scene of nature were two graves, one slightly bigger than the other.

I did my best not to disturb the flowers too much as I sat down in front of the graves.

"I don't really know what I'm supposed to do here… I would've brought flowers but… well, that'd be a bit pointless… I guess…" I paused briefly to hang my head in shame, sighing: "I messed up so badly. Thousands of people are dead, you two are dead, because I couldn't stop for a second and see the big picture."

There wasn't any point holding back the tears. I had to get it all out of my system at some point.

"I just… I was really looking forward to getting to know my little sister… I'm so, so sorry…"

A few hours later (08:50):

Carefully, I opened the door and slipped inside. The blinds were still shielding the room from the sun, giving me my first indicator that Ahri was still asleep. The second one came when I noticed a single fox-ear poking out of the bundle of covers on the bed.

There wasn't even a remote chance that I would be able to get back to sleep by that point, so I snuck over to the corner of the room with the armchair and slumped onto it. I was immediately bored enough to pick up the book on the nearby table and skim it over. Big mistake.

"What the hell kind of inn gives its customers maths books? Do they not want people to come back?"

Apparently I was talking louder than I thought, because it was enough to wake Ahri up. Her ear flickered just before she leaned up and brought her head into view. She was barely managing to keep her eyes open when she greeted me with a yawn: "Hey… you're up a bit early."

"Yeah. Naut needed my help."

"All-right then. Anything else you need to do right now?"

"Nope. Why?"

She patted the bed and replied coyly: "No reason."

I smiled and got up from the chair, explaining as I went over to her: "We can't spend all day here. There's a lot to do if we're going to free Bilgewater completely."

"Don't worry, I just want a cuddle."

After kicking my shoes off, I laid down on the bed next to Ahri. Pretty much immediately, she rolled over and hugged me. She was really pleasantly warm, so I pulled her close and enjoyed it.

It was all quite peaceful for a minute, until I couldn't refrain from asking any longer: "So, is this just a hug for hugging's sake or is it an occasion?"

"It's mostly for not dying yesterday. This is for helping me with my arm." She stated before grabbing my head in both hands and planting a kiss on my lips. The feel of her thighs in my hands, the scent of her perfume, the taste of her rosy lips. I didn't need my eyes open to see that the situation I was in was perfect.

I couldn't have been more disappointed when she pulled away. At least, that feeling lasted for a few seconds. Then she sat up on my stomach with her back arched and gazed down at me.

What a view.

"So uhh… you got any other broken limbs? Cause this is a pretty cool reward."

"You always seem to forget that you can get this at any point. You're pretty much two words away from sex at any moment in a day."

"I realise that but… feels wrong, you know? This seems to me like something that should be earned."

She smiled confidently and leaned down until the tip of her nose bumped against mine, whispering: "You earned this the second you came into my life. Every good thing that's happened to me is thanks to you in some way, so I think I can let you initiate a bit of mutual fun when you feel like it."

"I'm not sure how true that is…" I began, pausing briefly when she edged closer and closed her eyes: "… But count me as convinced."

A short while later (10:20):

"Another one!? How the flying fuck did they get another one? And why? And when?!"

Shen shook his head: "I do not know. However, this does confirm that the previous one was not a magical anomaly, and that Nautilus was correct about there being multiple. They must have found a way to infuse children with magical potential."

"That's pretty much the worst possible thing. You saw how powerful the Archon was. We can't deal with an army of them."

"You are certainly right, but I don't believe they have the means to create such a force. Otherwise they would not have revealed two of them. It would not make sense to show them in enough numbers for us to fight back and develop countermeasures for when the rest arrive."

"Hmm…"

We both pondered it for a moment before Ahri piped up: "I think I know a part of how they made them. Zoh, you remember back in the Freljord when we found that giant crystal?"

"The one the head Summoner inspected?"

"Yeah. Those things contain huge amounts of magic. What if they just found a way to put it all into these kids?"

Shen stroked his chin for a moment before querying: "That would make sense, but why children? He's shown that he can control adults without difficulty, so it's not to make them easier to brainwash."

Akali provided a partial answer, wondering: "What if it's something genetic that only children have? Maybe it's something to do with bone formation or something."

It hit me the moment she finished speaking, an epiphany that provided the answer to years of pondering on my part.

"It's the STEM-cells! That's why people have to be born with magic! The embryonic STEM-cells fuse with the magical energy before they become specialised! Adult stem-cells don't make up as much of the body, so it'd be like filling a cup that's already three quarters full. With a baby that's still developing in the womb it's like the cup is empty."

Thankfully, they all seemed to follow what I said, so I wasn't going to have to explain the technical babble.

Ahri's expression suddenly took a turn towards confused and angry as she questioned: "Are you saying they have been experimenting on babies that haven't even been born yet?"

"Sadly, yes."

"How come we fought a teenager then?"

"Forced-aging is an old and well-known technique. However, it stops working quite suddenly at about ten years-old. Not sure why, but it's the truth."

"This is disgusting… why didn't Nautilus tell us?"

"I don't know, but we're about to find out. Grab on." I ordered Ahri while standing up. She got to her feet just after me and gripped onto my sleeve while I pulled out a teleporter. Just before we left, I had one final request for the ninjas: "See if you can gather any intel on the Archon heading to Bilgewater. We'll find you in a couple of minutes."

The last I saw of them was some nodding before we appeared in an eerily familiar place.

"Zoh, is this…?"

I turned my head to her, hoping she'd recognise the meaning in my expression and drop the subject. Thankfully, a nod allowed me to start walking around the pond and towards the house.

As we got closer, I noted that I could not see either of them and there was no clear movement inside the house. It could have been that they simply were not near any of the windows, but I guessed that they were outside someone. I had little to base that on, I was just guessing.

We went around to the back of the house and discovered Nautilus and the Archon sitting against the house, surveying the small farm in front of them. I immediately noticed that the Archon was wearing normal clothes and that he had snow-white hair.

Heading over to them, I immediately got into the questioning: "Why didn't you tell us what they did to the kids in those labs?"

"They did a lot of terrible things there. What part are you referring to?"

I stopped a few feet away from him and explained: "Oh I don't know, how about the part where they poured magic into these kids when they were still developing inside their mothers?"

He paused for a moment before answering: "There were no mothers there. They grew the kids in tubes of glass that were filled with some sort of liquid."

Well that was another layer of confusing on the 'what the hell is going on' cake.

"Don't you think you should've maybe told us this before?"

"None of it made any sense to me. I wouldn't have known what would be useful to you."

"Okay, just give me a second to think." I stated before beginning to pace back and forth along the length of the house.

There had to be a reason for making the Archons in tubes. Why go to the expense of creating the equipment and training the staff to use it when they could have easily just found some pregnant people? And why create the Archons when they already had a massive army of Summoners?

And why the hell did the child next to Nautilus seem familiar?

By the time I passed Ahri for the third time I realised I wasn't going to work it out there. I needed a clear head and more data, neither of which could be acquired near that house.

I stopped pacing and turned back to Naut: "I'm sorry for questioning you like that, but I have got to ask one last thing before we leave: is there anything you remember that stood out as especially strange when you were stationed in the labs?"

He looked down and squinted for a moment before levelling his gaze at me: "Now that I think on the subject, it dawns on me that I never saw any female test subjects, so I do not know where they got the stuff needed to grow a test-tube baby."

Adding yet another layer to that cake.

"Hmm… right. That might complicate things further, if such a thing is even possible by now."

I pulled out a teleporter and Ahri grabbed a fist-full of my sleeve. Just as I was about to press the button, something visibly dawned on Naut.

"Wait! There is something else. Near the end of my time there, one of the children started to stand out to me. Something was… it was like nothing you've ever seen. The power I felt coming off him overshadowed the Head Summoner by far when they met, and they met a lot. But the strangest part is, I do not remember what he looks like. It feels like the knowledge has been scrubbed from my brain. Where I should see a person, there is just darkness."

"That's… probably be the worst news I've ever heard. Thanks for telling me anyway."

"It is not a problem. Goodbye."

A while later (12:00):

Feeling another knife ping off my back was the final straw. Turning around to Shen, I shouted: "Can you please, for the love of fuck, keep them off me for a few seconds?!"

"That task is not as simple as you make it sound!"

"Neither is disarming a bomb with a fork, so I suppose we're both out of our comfort zones right now!"

I tried to focus on the task at hand, but my attention was torn away again by Ahri dashing next to me and asking: "Why are you even using a fork?"

"Because my fingers aren't a millimetre wide!"

She growled and shook her head before diving back into the clusterfuck behind me.

Why the hell was there a nuclear bomb in Bilgewater in the first place? Who the hell thought that would be a good idea? What cunt woke up in the morning and said to themselves 'I'm gonna go put a fuck-off big bomb in the middle of a city because I'm a twat'?

The big, annoying countdown clock ticked over to the last ten seconds as I frantically re-wired everything I could see. It was quickly dropping to that fun number which symbolised a major fuck-up on my behalf. I was about to let that nonsense happen. I'd spent enough time and energy in that city-sized pile of garbage to have it all swept away in a matter of moments.

There was one final wire to sever to stop that spot becoming the latest and greatest tourist attraction; 'see it now, the crater that used to be a bunch of ships that someone decided would work as houses'. If for nothing else, I'd stop it purely to never let that advertisement happen.

Problem was, I couldn't find the final wire. With only a few seconds left, I ripped off the countdown timer and tore out the wire hiding beneath it.

"HAHA! I did it! And I avoided two clichés at the same time!"

Ahri turned around and asked: "What the hell are you talking about!?"

I held out my two hands and unclasped them, revealing the purple wire and timer with two seconds left.

"That's great! But how about a little help?!"

I stared at her and sighed, dropping the items in my hands and reaching to a small canister on my belt while muttering: "There's not enough gratitude going around these days."

I pulled a pin from the canister and tossed it into the fight. A moment later there was a bright orange flash and everyone dropped to the ground, fast asleep. Except me. That'd have been a terrible idea if I fell asleep too.

After grabbing the only people there who weren't ugly as hell, I teleported away to one of the mountain islands that surrounded the docks.

It was gonna take them a minute to wake up, so I set them down on the dirt and enjoyed the view, for what it was worth. The island we were on was basically a giant pillar of rock extending from the ocean to a few hundred metres in the air. The sides were far too steep, being essentially vertical, for trees to grow there, so a quick peak over the edge revealed that it was pretty much a bunch of rocks and dirt, with the occasional bit of plant-life growing here-and-there. From the top of it, I could see all of Bilgewater and most of the land surrounding it. Behind me the sea stretched on endlessly, falling below the horizon. That same ocean was sending a chilling breeze my way, making me regret taking my helmet off when we arrived there.

However, I couldn't, in all good conscience, put it back on after realised the wind carried a pleasant scent with it. The usual smell of the pirate capital was nowhere to be found and, as if all the other stuff wasn't nice enough, I couldn't hear any of the annoying noises you'd expect from the city.

It was all pretty good… except for Shen's snoring which ruined it completely.

I sighed and stepped over stepped over to where I had set them all down. A few nudges, that some people might have considered to be slightly on the heavy side, was all it took to wake them all up.

Ahri was the first to her feet, hopping up pretty much immediately after I 'nudged' her with my foot. She looked around frantically until her eyes caught onto me, and suddenly there was a frown on her face.

"What did you do?"

"Aside from disarming a bomb?"

"Aside from that."

"Well, I recalibrated the targeting arrays on my helmet earlier."

She grabbed my armour by the collar and dragged me down to eye-level with her, maintaining the intense glare the whole while.

"It was nothing serious, just a regular ol' neural shock! You'll be fine, I promise." I declared, putting on my best 'please refrain from punching me' face.

"How about, in future, you tell us when you're about to knock us out in the middle of a fight?"

"Aye aye, capn'."

She let go and turned around, stepping over to the ninjas.

"Get it? Cause we're in Bilgewater? And they're pirates and... never-mind." I sighed, straightening up and going over to them.

Akali was wondering aloud when I arrived: "… and why put a bomb in the corner of the city, of all places? It makes no sense."

Shen shook his head, explaining: "Not necessarily. What if they were using it as a distraction? It would make sense that they would not risk a mission to the centre of the city, where they would likely be killed before getting to plant it, when a bomb in a zone they have control over is easy and relatively safe."

Ahri joked: "That was very close to being the biggest 'distraction' in world history."

"Indeed. Thank you for averting that disaster, Zoh."

"Cheers. It's nice to get a bit of recognition every now and then." I responded while leaning towards Ahri and glancing over at her.

Shen, surprisingly, got my meaning and turned towards the city. Something caught his interest, enough so for him to state: "Zoh, put on your helmet and look towards the far left end of the city. Near the cliffs."

I did as asked and was wholly unsurprised by what I saw. Someone, and it was a real wonder who, had created a big energy bubble that almost certainly acted like a shield. Inside it was, oh-so-surprisingly, a garrison of Summoners and, even more unexpectedly, another Archon. I really did not see that coming. Nope. No way. Impossible to predict. Truly, a master play by our opposition. What strategic geniuses they must have been to come up with a plan so inspired.

After pulling my helmet back off, I turned to Shen, predicting his question: "How do you believe we should deal with this new threat?"

"Well, from the looks of the shield, it's a full sphere, so no open zones. They'll have someone inside blocking teleportation and likely an array of regular defences. A smart man would suggest we wait for them to open it up to let in supplies or something of the sort…"

"I sense that is not your intended course."

"Abso-fucking-lutely not. We're going to do it the incredible dumb and dangerous way."

"If you do not mind me asking, just how dumb are we going with this?"

All the response I needed to give was a big, cheesy smile.

A few hours later (16:40):

It was turning into a pretty damn lovely afternoon. The sun was shining, the birds were tweeting, Ahri was giving me a lecture on my stupidity, and the midday heat had stuck around pretty well. Just perfect.

"This has got to be the dumbest thing you've ever done! I can't actually believe you're being serious about this!"

"Please, Ahri, I've done stuff that made way less sense than this. I once used a live moose as a weapon to take out a spaceship."

"That's different! Unless that moose was huge, you weren't endangering an entire city of people!"

"They're not in any danger at all; I've done this hundreds of times… as long as you count the hundreds of times I imagined this while setting it up." I muttered that last part while walking away from Ahri.

It took no time at all for her to catch up and grab onto my arm, holding me in place and turning me towards her.

"Please, for the love of fuck, don't do this!"

"Would it make you feel better if I admitted that I have actually done this a couple dozen times and never had it go wrong? At this point, I've got it down to an art-form."

She sighed and finally realised: "You're going to do this no matter what I say, aren't you?"

I put on a sympathetic face and placed my hand on her shoulder, cheerfully stating: "Yep."

Half an hour later (17:10):

As the upper layers of the atmosphere rushed past me at multiple times the speed of sound, I couldn't help but feel like maybe, just maybe, Ahri was right about the plan. It didn't really matter much at that point, because I was pretty dedicated to it. And not in the 'I still think it's good' kind of way.

Nope. It was in the 'I'm holding onto an asteroid as it plummets towards the planet on a collision course with a major population centre' kind of way.

So… yeah… pretty much stuck with that plan if I liked it or not.

As I started noticing clouds blink past, I realised I was getting close. Seconds later, the altimeter on my HUD signalled my time to jump off. I let go and watched as the giant chunk of rock crashed towards the planet, leaving me behind to follow-up in its wake. For a few moments, the only things in the world were the sound of air rushing past me and my own heavy breathing.

Finally, the wake-up call I was waiting on sounded. The distant sound of an explosion in its infancy and a pinging in my helmet acted as my warning signs that the meteor had collided with its target. Then, with the press of a button, it was gone. The giant chunk of rock was exploding safely in deep space, but the damage had been done. Suddenly, the bright, blue shield that they had so carefully created was gone, leaving me the perfect opportunity to drop in for a surprise visit.

One moment I could see all of Bilgewater and miles of terrain all around. The next, I was smashing into the ground so hard that I propelled nearby Summoners backwards. The ground caved underneath me, creating a huge crater and a web of cracks that went out multiple metres in every direction. Enough dust and dirt was kicked up to create a make-shift smokescreen, blocking my vision almost completely.

I got to my feet and climbed out of the hole I had found myself in. After a moment, the air had cleared enough for me to realise I was surrounded by Summoners on all sides and not one of them seemed happy to see me.

What I was most certainly not expecting was for a few of them to charge me with weapons raised. I'd have thought an entrance like that would at least buy me a few seconds of stunned confusion.

Desiring to not get bogged-down in a melee fight, I pulled a canister from my belt and held it above my head. A small amount of pressure was all it took to collapse the canister and send bolts of non-lethal electricity arcing in all directions. Their steel weapons made them perfect targets, and almost all were immediately zapped into unconsciousness. The few still left to run into close combat with me were knocked out of the fight by a few punches.

The rest of the Summoners didn't seem to know how to react, waiting with baited breath for my next action. Fortunately for them, it was a simple and non-combative one. I grabbed my axe and held it in the air. And just like that, skeletons started pouring in from every side, accompanied by my team-mates. The entire area quickly descended into a brutal battle as each Summoner was forced to take on multiple skeletons each, all while watching out for the even-more dangerous fighters on our side. Most wouldn't have to worry about me too much. There was only one person I was after and the only other people I would take the time to dispatch were those who got in my way.

I didn't allow my attention to be averted from the Archon for even a millionth of a second once I caught sight of her. That may have been a little girl, but I was beyond determined to knock her the hell out.

Advancing slowly and carefully towards her, I watched for even the slightest indication of aggression. She remained perfectly still, glaring right back at me as I approached. Stopping a couple metres away from her, I shouted: "This is your one chance! Give up now and you won't be hurt!"

She let out what had to be the most pompous and snooty laugh I had ever heard, moments before I felt something smack into the back of my head. I turned around to see another one of her, and another one to my left. Even as I went to look back to the one in front of me, another appeared to my right.

"Oh for fuck's sake, you're one of those people?"

I let out a deep breath before accepting the bullshit I was about to be forced to deal with: "Okay then, let's do this."

An immediate kick to my right took out one and set up for me to roll to the left and smack another as I hopped to my feet. I didn't have a moment to think before two of them jumped onto me, both firing as much electricity as they could into my helmet. I grabbed one by the arm and flung her into a pile of supply crates before punching where the other was. She moved in time to dodge it and got in a kick to my head before I could smack her off with the blunt side of my axe. I was still disorientated by that kick when I felt chains wrap around all my limbs. My vision was blurry, but I could tell that a couple dozen of them were pulling on the chains, attempting to rip me apart.

That… well… it went about as well as anyone could fairly expect.

I pulled my arms and legs in at the same time, yanking them all backwards suddenly. We all dropped to the ground, but I got up quicker and used their own chains to fling them away.

Retrieving my axe from the ground, I was not surprised when I saw her going for an entirely new tactic. Four of them surrounded me from a distance and started launching streams of spells at me. One fired lightning, another sent fire, yet another blasted me with ice, and the final one poured torrents of lava at me. The only real threat was the lava, which would mess with me big-time if it got a chance to harden on me. With that in mind, I threw my axe at her and dived out of the way of the lava. I heard my axe donk her on the head and drop to the ground, but that ultimately achieved little. She was a fast learner, and caught on to why I'd dived almost immediately. I just barely had time to stand before more molten rock was poured onto me, immediately being frozen waves of frost.

"I hate it when this happens."

Seeing as I couldn't move at all, the Archon decided I was dealt with and stopped pouring. She then made the critical mistake of making her clones disappear. Apparently, they didn't teach her about personal teleporters at the League.

I appeared in the air above her, without my armour, and fucking decked her. That had to be one of the most satisfying punches of my career.

Sadly, she wasn't a normal person, so she was almost certainly going to get up after a moment. Taking what time I had, I looked out for the only person who could help and called out to her the second I found her: "Ahri! Melt that please!"

She was mid-fight but still managed to set the blob of rock alight without so much as looking at it.

"Cheers!"

The only problem was, I had to deal with a pissed-off Archon without the use of my armour until it was freed.

I got the weirdest feeling as she got to her feet and stared daggers at me. She was in similar armour to the other Archon, with the white robes and floating armour. That meant that, for the first time in fuck-knows how long, I was fighting someone with more armour than me. It felt distinctly wrong.

It also meant that the big ball of fire headed my way was an actual threat, so I had to dive-roll out of the way. I managed to pick a rock up along the way and immediately threw it at her when I got the chance. That just pissed her off more, and I had to duck under a ball of crystalline energy. She tried summoning a few clones to grab me, but I just batted them away. With idea failing as spectacularly as it did, she switched to a new one. A line of clones appeared beside her and they all started casting shots of the same crystal-like energy as I dodged earlier. I wouldn't be able to avoid at least a dozen individual spells for very long at all, so I ran for the closest cover I could find, that being the remains of one of the ship-houses that used to be there. Along the way I had to duck, jump, and slide, along with all sorts of other things to avoid the constant barrage of spells.

Finally, after the most intense game of dodgeball in my life, I ducked behind the piece of hull. I heard hundreds of things slam into the thick wood of the ship remains before she gave up.

It was probably a dumb idea, all things considered, but I decided to stick my head out of cover to check what she was doing. I immediately had to duck again to avoid a few spells.

"Wait! We can talk about this!"

I peeked out of the cover and continued: "Wouldn't you prefer if we could end this fight right now and neither of us have to waste any more energy?"

She barely showed any sign that she'd even heard me as I took careful note of where she was standing.

"I realise that, as a species, we're pretty damn war-like. It's human nature to be assholes to each other every now and again. But surely you're smart enough to see that this is all unnecessary? Why go to the effort of fighting each other like this when we could just talk it out over an afternoon then be on our way? No-one has to die and we can still solve our grievances together. You wouldn't even have to bother! I could just talk to the man in charge and everyone else can have a day off to eat ice-cream and I have been stalling you for a while now."

She realised what just happened as I appeared inside my armour and behind her. The rocks had melted away, leaving me able to deliver a back-hand so strong it sent her a couple metres across the ground. No chance was she getting up from that.

"Get fucking destroyed! Smackdown champion of the world right here!" I celebrated, pausing after a moment and realising: "I just punched a child in the face… maybe I'm not a good person after all."

I stepped over to my axe and grabbed it.

"Eh, I don't really care at this point." I decided while swinging my axe at the closest Summoner, knocking him to the ground.

The fight was still continuing all around me but was clearly going in our favour. I was about to join in to finish it quickly when I noticed a group of pirates hobbling towards us from down an alley. The last thing we needed was another swarm of pirates, so I ran over to them.

"Oi! We 'eard there was a foight going on. We's want in!"

"Uh, no, this thing behind me this is…" I surveyed the fight for a second, trying to find something to help me: "… this is just a really, really intricate handshake. If you stick around long enough you'll see the bit where everyone fist-bumps at the same time. We're really good at that part."

Inexplicably, that made enough sense to them for the pirates to leave, grumbling as they went.

I shrugged and went back to the fight.

Many hours later (23:20):

Of the many benefits of getting a few miles between myself and Bilgewater, the smell and the sky were likely my favourite. I could actually breathe without feeling like I was filling my lungs with as much filth as air, and I got a wonderful view of the stars. It was so clear that I could actually see nebulae and a few galaxies.

I looked over at Ahri, who was lying next to me, as she gazed up at the sky. She somehow still looked interested after listening to me explain why so much illegal stuff happened near gas giants.

"What's it like up there? Is it a bunch of big, scary aliens trying to kill us or something a bit nicer?"

"It's a bit… complex."

"Go ahead. We've got time."

"Well, imagine for the sake of simplicity that it's split into three sections. There's Wild Space, Alliance Space and Imperial Space. Wild Space is the biggest of the three and take up about half of the galaxy. We don't know what it's like there because no-one has ever returned from an expedition. No-one knows why. Alliance Space is the second largest and takes just over a quarter of the galaxy. Pretty much all that's good about the galaxy can be found there. All the species work together to make something greater, and they all get along. It's not perfect, but it's good enough that you actually want to fight to preserve it."

"I think I can guess what Imperial Space is."

"Yeah. I'm kinda at fault for that."

"But, how did they expand so far over the course of your life?"

"It's simple really. I created the means for them to explore space, and they started wars with it. A few short years later and they'd absorbed or destroyed every group that wasn't protected by the Alliance."

"Damn… do the two groups fight often?"

"Never. Neither of them can afford it with the constant threat of something horrifying coming out of Wild Space."

"Does a lot of stuff come out of there?"

"Occasionally. The occasional horde of Void monsters fly out to kill things, but they're not difficult to deal with. But the threat is still massive when you simply don't know what half of a galaxy is like."

"Surely you've been there and found out?"

"Actually, no. Teleportation doesn't work and I never found time to journey there by ship."

"Fair enough."

We remained in silence for a few seconds as wind swept over one of the cracks in the landscape, letting out a quiet whistle.

"It is beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yeah." I began before turning to look at her: "Too bad the best it can ever do is second place."

"Ugh, you're so corny sometimes." She smiled, jokingly hitting me on the chest.

"I try. Plus, you know as well as I do that you enjoy being complimented."

"I think everyone does."

"Yeah, but you like it more than most."

We laid there in silence for a minute, gazing at the sights above. After a while she took my hand into hers, but didn't do anything more.

Ahri looked over at me and glumly pointed-out: "This feels like the end, doesn't it?"

"It does. Are you worried?"

"Kinda… I don't know… I guess so. I'm not really sure what I feel. How about you?"

"I was, but then me and Shen came up with the new plan."

"Now that you mention it, I'm pretty happy with this change of heart. Partially because it means you don't get to come up with the strategy again. It didn't exactly go well last time."

"Sorry, I didn't account for our entire army and the majority of the enemy one to be taken out all at once."

"Yeah, you couldn't really see that coming. Doesn't mean it wasn't massively inconvenient though."

"Trust me, I know full well how annoying that was. Still though, it had been kinda interesting living at a time when the League are the bad guys."

"It has been, but I do miss the old days when we didn't have to sleep in inns and hotels."

"I miss Bob."

"Really?" She questioned, intrigued.

"Yeah. I started to like that fella somewhere down the line. I hope he's okay."

"I'm pretty sure he's able to teleport, so he's probably fine." She stopped for a couple seconds before mentioning, in a much different tone: "There is something else I miss…"

I already knew what she was talking about, so it was no surprise when she rolled on top of me.

"…When we could do this any time of day."

She leaned down and gave me a quick kiss.

"I have quite a few fond memories of that. What do you say we go find somewhere private and make some more?"


I don't think I need to write out the answer to that.

All I've got to say here is sorry about the delay and everything. I'm getting distracted really easily right now so it's hard to sit down and write something for a while.

I hope you all had fun and I'll see you next time.