I'm not gonna make any promises here because CLEARLY I'm utter garbage at keeping them. In fact, I might just be garbage in general.

Eh, whatevs, let's get on with this shit.


Chapter 68: The Relics

A soft breath of wind was making its way through the restaurant, and having quite the adventure along the way. It gave the lightest of pushes to a fly-trap, sending the orbiting bugs into a brief frenzy.

It didn't miss a single chime as it drifted through, filling the air with something of a makeshift orchestra as it approached our table.

I enjoyed watching it lift a few strands of Ahri's hair into her face. It was one of those many, many occasions where I had to take a moment to just look at her. Everything from the calming beauty of her eyes, to the faint smile on her lips as she stared into the distance. The hourglasses hovering above her shoulders would've been distracting on anyone else, but not her. She wasn't exactly lacking in things to look at.

There was no particular reason I could name for it, but I decided to reach over and tuck the loose hairs behind her ear. I suppose it was just an odd way of getting her attention.

She turned to me and smiled lightly before stating: "I take it you're in that mood right now."

"Yeah, I can annoy you later. Right now, I just want to bask in my own luck."

"It's probably for the best that you enjoy the good bits as much as possible. I don't think I've ever met someone who can be so lucky one second, then so unlucky the next."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, let's just look at it. You're born with an incredible brain, then are forced to use it to aid a militaristic empire. You grow up to be excessively handsome, but are so weird and awkward that it you hadn't even had your first kiss by twenty."

"To be fair, I might have had it sooner if aliens were anywhere near as hot as in the movies."

"Hold on, there's more. Who could forget the time when you finally met a girl who could put up with your nonsense, but then it turns out she wanted to kill you. Oh, and here's the best one: you finally escape the constant warfare to a peaceful planet, which then almost immediately devolves into constant war."

I scratched my back and mumbled: "When you put it like that, it appears like I'm responsible for a lot of the recent… issues."

"It looks that way, but I don't think you've had much to do with it all. You're a part of the explosion, not the detonator."

After staring at her for a moment I whispered: "Is- is that a compliment or…?"

"I don't think it's really a compliment or an insult."

Shrugging, I declared: "I'm going to pretend it's a compliment anyway. Thanks."

"No problem, I guess. So, what looks good to you?" She asked while plucking a menu from the pile.

"This place apparently does burgers, so there's really no other option."

She raised an eyebrow and asked: "What kind?"

"Beef."

She went wide-eyed and remained silent for a moment before concluding: "That's decided then."

Later (23:40):

After wrapping a towel around my waist to give myself something resembling decency, I approached the bathroom mirror. Despite how incredibly blurry the steam had made it, I could see how incredibly handsome I looked. As always.

I wiped off a bit of the steam so that I could see myself, then stuck my hair up in its usual fashion. Once I was happy, I gave the mirror the good ol' finger-guns and remarked: "Looking good, lad."

With myself being fairly presentable, I strolled confidently out of the bathroom. I was filled with the kind of sureness that usually disappeared during an alien invasion, but if there was one thing I had gained from my time on Runeterra, it was an absurd ego. I knew it wasn't a positive thing, and it was almost certainly going to get me killed or maimed at some point, but that didn't stop it from feeling good after a lifetime of self-consciousness.

The bedroom was almost as warm as the bathroom but was, thankfully, nowhere near as damp. That didn't make the heat much more bearable, but at least it meant that I wasn't going to be sweating quite as much.

Although, if things went well, sweating was inevitable.

The curtains started flapping as I neared Ahri, warning of an incoming wind. She was facing away from me, fiddling with something on her dress which, much to my approval, she wasn't wearing.

When I got close enough, I put my hands on her hips and gently pulled her back to me. Her tails moved out of the way as she set down her dress and put her hands on mine. I put my head on her shoulder then noted: "Kinda funny how your birthday is one of the few days that we haven't had sex."

"Do you think it's a bad omen?"

I turned my head slightly and looked at her, letting my sideways stare linger for a few moments.

"I somehow doubt this is going to be a trend."

"Well, we still have a few minutes left…" She began before spinning to stare into my eyes: "How about we end on a good note?"

"I think I can arrange that…" I whispered while bringing our lips together.

The next day (29th 13:00):

"Hey, is that a-" was all I managed to blurt out before getting smashed in the face by a missile of some kind. That's why wearing helmets is important, even for named characters.

I fell back onto the floor in a daze, my head spinning from the impact. Not literally, of course. That would be seriously unhealthy. Getting hit in the face by a missile, even just a dud, was unhealthy enough for my tastes.

Ahri giggled at me, even as the building was shaken by a strike from a not-so-useless missile. So far, they were 50/50 with those things, which not even I could consider a good success rate.

I rubbed my helmet, mostly out of habit, while pushing myself up from the floor. After sparing a glance at the missile, I concluded: "I suppose this means the battle has begun."

"Are you sure? That missile seemed pretty friendly."

"If I gave you a bar of chocolate, that's friendly. If I launched it towards your face at hundreds of miles per hour, that's not quite so nice."

"Well, I consider it a gift. And in return, I'm going to give them a gift of my own." Ahri started while stepping over to the end of the tunnel: "The gift of fire…. And probably punches if things go badly."

She gave a terrible attempt at a salute towards Azir, who had been watching, bemused.

"You two never take things seriously for long, do you?"

I looked over at him and shrugged: "Do you have any idea how serious and edgy half the damn champions are? We need to keep it level, or this whole thing is gonna just be constantly depressing."

"If it is okay with you, I will let myself be one of the serious one's on this occasion, what with Shurima's capital at stake."

"Mate, you can have whatever attitude you want, as long as you just keep those soldiers directed at the bad guys."

"Very well. Tell me when you are ready."

I turned around and zoomed in on the approaching aliens. They were marching in formation, with many different variants of trooper apparent. The big, scary guys were leading the charge, obviously. Behind them were what looked to be pikemen, who were most likely meant to be protecting the various ranged squads at the back. Well off in the distance were the artillery pieces and missile launchers. They were making themselves quite the issue.

Thankfully, we had planned for that after seeing what happened to Bandle City.

The dunes were eerily still, despite the oncoming army and barrage against the city's defences. The warden towers were shooting down most of the incoming ordinance, but the city proper was still taking a beating. It was definitely not made to survive being hit by whatever was in those artillery shells and missiles.

The aliens were within a hundred metres of the city walls when I activated my shield and declared: "Get behind me now, but only start on my mark!"

"Very well."

Azir got behind me and followed closely as I went towards the centre of the tunnel. As the only entrance to the city that had not been closed, we were relying on the aliens taking the obvious tactical choice of killing the leader of the city and one of their known enemies right at the start of the battle. With us gone, they'd be able to rush into the city, and the occupants would have nowhere to go.

Thankfully, the aliens showed themselves to be super dumb. They directed the vast majority of their forces towards us, only sending a few detachments to deal with Ahri. I could only assume they thought she was the bait, and not us.

With the aliens only a few dozen metres away and the front lines beginning to break ranks to charge us, I shouted: "Now, Azir!"

"Arise!" He exclaimed as thousands of Shuriman soldiers were summoned from the sands, most of them inside the enemy formations. The whole alien army shunted to a halt like it had just taken a punch to the face.

Immediately, the Shuriman army shredded the alien ranks. Azir commanded his soldiers with practiced perfection, directing each individual soldier at the same time. It was pretty clear that one of the benefits of Shuriman Ascension was extreme multi-tasking.

I was kind of jealous, to be honest. If I focused on one hand for longer than a second, the other would punch a pensioner, sell drugs to schoolkids, and probably start a nuclear war. Or just do something incorrectly. It was all equally possible.

With what his soldiers were doing to their army, it was no surprise that the aliens tried to rush Azir. That's where I came in.

"Fuck off, you creepy four-armed bastards!" I exclaimed as an odd sort of battle-cry while lobbing my axe directly into one of them. I had to bring my shield up to defend against a particularly nasty-looking hammer, wielded by a particularly nasty-looking alien. The force behind the blow knocked me down a bit, but I was finally getting used to the idea of a shield. Sure, I had always been pretty good at using it like a weapon, but using it for defence was a wholly different beast.

I wasn't THAT good with it, though, because he managed to sweep my feet out. My head hit the floor at a speed that should have made it hurt, but I landed on sand. I was expecting to be disoriented at least, but I was like getting thrown onto a poor quality bed.

The alien attempted to swing downwards at me, but I just slapped his hammer out of the way before pointing at him: "Don't be a dick."

A sand spear appeared through his face, and I had to roll out of the way of his body. After giving Azir the thumbs-up, went to retrieve my axe. I was about to grab it when my attention was grabbed by some yelling in the distance: "Bring out the relic!"

"The what?" I wondered aloud, getting a shrug from Azir.

After staring across the raging battle for a few moments, I saw a few aliens hauling some giant stone crate across the dunes. I was distracted by someone charging towards me from the corner of my vision.

A very small sidestep was enough to get his spear to pass right between my body and arm, however he kept charging until her bumped into me. I stared down at the alien for a few moments before saying: "I feel like we are supposed to kiss."

I broke his neck and went on: "But I'm taken and she's got good hearing, so this was really the only solution."

In a perfect world, I would have been able to concentrate on whatever odd ritual the aliens were working on with that big stone crate they'd brought in. However, Runeterra was an impressively unlucky world, so I was getting pretty consistently attacked by aliens.

Unfortunately, Azir was sending quite a few of his army further away, attempting to break the backlines of the enemy force. That left more of the aliens free to rush towards him, which meant they were going to have to go through me.

Seeing the oncoming horde, I got on the radio: "Ahri, I might need a little bit of assistance."

"I'm kiting a few hundred of them, so I can't really help."

"Can you summon that demon again?"

"I don't think I can get him specifically. I'm not really- oh shit…. I'm not really good at this. I'll see what I can-"

She was abruptly cut off by an incredible amount of incoherent alien babble, reminding me why we used radios so little.

After retreating a little to grab my axe, I took a moment to assess the situation. There was about… a shit-ton of aliens on their way, of various types. I was pretty sure one of them was the scout variant, who I'd discovered was the type that could revive itself many, many times.

All I had to deal with them was an axe, a shield, and a laser-minefield.

Thinking on it a bit longer, I realised that last bit was pretty damn fantastic. Like, those things were super fucking awesome. Lasers are inherently brilliant, and minefields are scary. Super scary. Scary with a little '2' behind it floating in the air. Maybe even a '3' if it's a really well-made minefield. Which it was. Because I made it.

And I'm awesome.

"Stand back, Azir! I'm going to deploy the Awesome-Field4!"

He stared at me blankly for a moment.

"Okay, dumb name… Just stand back, okay!"

He sighed and stepped backwards, further into the tunnel, mumbling: "Did serious people go extinct while I was away…?"

I wasn't going to focus on such negativity, I had a group of aliens who were mere metres away. They were being delayed by sand soldiers a little bit, but I still had very little time. So, I hastily began lobbing the spikes at random aliens. Some of them did damage, but the vast majority just got stuck in their armour. I kept throwing until I had nothing left on my belt, at which point I let out a hearty laugh.

"This is where the fun begins! Cue the music!"

There was no music, and when I looked over to my jukebox I found it was lying there in the sand, destroyed. I held back the tears while whimpering: "That's just not cool…"

A moment later I pressed the button, and the grid activated. Every spike sent lasers to every other spike, and only a single one had to be triggered to set off the whole thing.

All of the aliens looked at me as they realised what was about to happen, so I commented: "You really should have removed those spikes."

Shortly after I shrugged at them, a wave of explosions crashed across the battle. It was beautiful, watching each spike notify the next that they were meant to explode, followed by the brief pause from the wiring inside. Sand was carried by the shockwaves, fleeing the black smoke and green flames of the ever-growing explosion. Alien bits were flung far and wide, and it was absolutely hilarious to watch an alien get knocked out by the leg of another.

Laughing at that definitely elevated me to new levels of morally questionable.

Maybe delighting in the suffering of aliens was just inherent to my people. We were exceptionally good at it, after all…

As the explosions cleared, I was rather displeased to see that some of the aliens had actually managed to survive. Azir's soldiers, however, had been thoroughly dispelled.

"Oh… shit."

With a clear line to me, it took mere seconds for the first of the aliens to smash one of his weapons on my shield. Unfortunately, he had another which he attempted to use to stab at me. I knocked the spear away with my axe, then knocked him away with my boot. The next one was already upon me, and swinging his axe with concerning accuracy and speed. I had to sidestep and move back to avoid most of his attacks before I got an opportunity to backhand him across the face. That, sadly, left me open to a swing of a hammer.

Thrown back a fair way, I gasped for the air that had been knocked so violently out of me. By the time I found it, I was beset by aliens from many angles. My armour and shield tanked enough of the hits that I was able to get to my feet, but they were beginning to figure out that only power attacks would get through. The rate of attacks slowed, but each one became far more deadly. They managed to surround me, but I made it clear that any who approached in a dumb way were going to have a bad time.

Despite my efforts to keep them all back, I couldn't defend against what I couldn't see. Any time I turned my back to one, he would go for me, and in facing him to defend I left myself open to the next. Eventually, my luck was going to run out.

However, my luck had a way of turning from bad to good very quickly. Pretty much everyone turned their head to the north when we heard someone get utterly atomised. There stood Nasus, having finally arrived.

"I have been stacking for THOUSANDS of years. Tremble before my might!" He declared before slamming the cane down on another alien, dissolving him into nothing.

"This day is fantastic." I smiled before cleaving half a dozen aliens in a single swing.

The split in focus between myself and Nasus caused the aliens to leave one of my sides free from attack. More able to defend myself, I was finally free to clear some space in the alien ranks. A couple of the spearmen thrust their weapons towards me, but I just ducked and grabbed their spears. Pulling the aliens towards me, I grabbed hold of one by his head. Using him as a weapon, I cleared a decent area in front of me.

After lobbing the alien… somewhere, I grabbed my axe and shield, charging into the aliens shortly after. They were distracted enough by the sand soldier reinforcements and angry dog that I was almost completely unhindered in my morning run. I swung my axe wildly as I carved a path through them.

Ahri's POV:

"Oh shit, I made a lot more friends than I thought." I mumbled while staring back at the group that was following me. Pretty much every single Scout variant in their army was following me; a few hundred at my best guess. Some of them could even fly, which made my life a lot more difficult.

It was times like those that I wished I had a Sivir or something. She was Shuriman, I think, so she should have been there to help!

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

"Has anyone found it?!" Sivir shouted at her crew while riffling through some rubble.

"Nothing yet."

"Nope."

"Nada."

"We ain't found shit!"

"Well, keep looking! It's gotta be here somewhere!"

"Uh, Miss, do you really think throwing your main weapon around so much is a good idea?"

"It has return magic!"

"It's been buried in the sand for thousands of years!"

"Shut up and keep looking!"

Back in the action:

Dashing around everywhere was starting to get very tiring, and I doubted that I'd be able to keep kiting them for too much longer. I needed something to distract them. Or kill them. Both, preferably.

Then I remembered. I was a warlock! I could summon a… something. The movies didn't really teach me what demons I could bring into the world, just that I had to say their names backwards and focus my magic on the words, whatever that was meant to mean.

"Zoh, do you know any demon names?"

"Wha- I… I didn't even know they existed until a few days ago!"

"Well, do you know anyone who would?"

There was a short pause, during which I had to dodge a few blasts of who-knows-what, before he replied: "Nasus says that he heard from Ryze that Morde told him that Nocturne mentioned that the original ones of each type are usually named anagrams of the type of demon they are! So, like, the original imp might be called Pim."

"Fuck it, that's my best shot."

It was hardly a perfect lead to go off, but I didn't have any better clues. The immediate issue was, I didn't know the names of any demon types, and I highly doubted an imp would be much help in my situation.

"Hell-guard, hell-man, hell-stabber, hell-spawn, hell… hell… hell-bringer! That sounds good! So, uh-" a blast of energy cut me off, causing me to turn back and yell: "Cut that shit out! Do you realise how fragile my tails are?"

While thinking, I had failed to notice how some of them had flanked and put themselves in front of me. They'd tried it plenty of times before, but I had always been able to slip past them with casual ease. That time, though, I was too distracted to change direction in time.

Suddenly finding myself in the middle of a group of angry and tired aliens, I summoned my Orb and flung it into one. It was quickly on its way towards the next closest of them, but he put up one of those annoying shields. I jumped onto him, knocking him to the ground, then shoved some fire into his helmet.

One of them plunged a spear down towards me, but I just leaned back and let the spear drive into the other alien. I grabbed the spear and used it to fling myself up from the ground. I just barely got high enough to dash out over the sea of spears, and instantly put some distance between me and the aliens.

Not wanting to let that happen again, in case the next group would be more competent, I blurted out: "Bernerhillg? Ribrnellegh? Heerrbnillg?"

Nothing. It seemed like it was going to take me a few decades to find the right one. Then I had an idea. A terrible idea.

"Bell-Hringer."

A giant, red monstrosity appeared next to me in an explosion of ash and scarlet flames. It had a reptilian body, almost like a crocodile, but stood on its large hind legs, reaching about thirty foot at its highest point. It had the eight legs of a spider on its back, made of pure-white bone, each swaying ever so slightly, ready to kill at a moment's notice. It had two arms with claws the size of me, and a tail covered in jagged spikes, pointing in all directions, many of which had chunks of still-living people on them. Its head was a cacophony of eyes, split in four by an x-shaped mouth. The teeth inside were needles, all pointing inwards to allow no escape. Each time it closed its mouth, it cut itself, leading to an unending steam of blood to pour from its lips. The most disturbing feature was its hide. Plates of bone covered large parts, but where they weren't, people were. Half-absorbed into the creature's body, they cried out in ceaseless agony. Those who had hands grasped for nothing and everything, seeking help that I knew no-one could provide.

I knew I had made a mistake, but it was already charging the aliens. Its spider legs speared many, delivering them into its waiting jaws, while its claws cleaved dozens apart in seconds.

For once, I hoped the aliens would win.

The creature was still tearing them apart when a loud and exceedingly short 'bang' shot out from the middle of the fighting. It seemed they had finished that ritual, and I learned what it achieved when pillars of burning light crashed down from above, landing all over the battlefield. They had not even dissipated fully when another round rained down, followed by another, and another. I was having a hell of a time trying to dodge them, especially after I saw what they did to anything they hit. If it wasn't alien, it got incinerated completely.

I dashed towards Zoh, dodging any fights that were still going, and the growing number of Shuriman soldiers turned to literal glass.

The aliens were, unfortunately, immune to the effects of the ritual. Any time one was hit by a pillar, it only seemed to fill them with renewed murderous rage.

Oddly enough, the lights had a similar effect on the monstrosity I'd summoned. Any time it was hit by one, it just singed the creature's armour and made it chomp on its current meal with a bit more ferocity.

It did seem that the aliens were angrier with the monster than they were me, as very few broke off their attack on the demon to follow me. Those that did follow were stopped by Azir's soldiers, who seemed to be putting particular effort into clearing my way towards him and Zoh. Seeing as they were becoming more outnumbered every second, it made sense why he'd want me there.

Diving through the corridor of peace, I quickly reached the epicentre of the battle. Azir had to be the first priority, so I threw my Orb through one of the aliens approaching him, then dashed around the fight to pull it through two more on the return trip. I was going to set the last on fire, when a spear crashed into her face. The triumphant laugh made me suspect that Zoh was behind it.

I barely had time to take a breath before more came in. Charming one, I dashed forward and lobbed my Orb towards another. His shield appeared just in time to block it, and he immediately retaliated with a thrust of his spear. I pulled the charmed one in front of it, then dived over him to stab the alien in the head with a sword I'd borrowed from one of the bodies.

Falling to the floor, I yelled at Azir: "We've gotta leave! Anything outside this tunnel is getting decimated!"

"I noticed!"

He seemed to ponder it for a moment before growling: "Gah! Retreat to the city!"

Zoh cleaved a huge number of aliens in one swipe, leaving himself entirely open to counter-attack, while shouting: "Now!"

All the Shuriman soldiers disappeared for a moment before reforming in a huge line, shields in hand. They charged forward, their lines only breaking to let Zoh and Nasus through. All of the aliens were pushed back quite the distance, but the soldiers disintegrated quickly.

The three of them began running down the tunnel, but I stopped to stare for a second at the thing the aliens performed the ritual on. Cracks were growing rapidly on its surface, with light pouring out from within. Even the aliens were moving away from it.

I dashed backwards and caught up to them immediately, shouting: "You guys better hurry up, cause I'm ninety-nine percent sure that there's gonna be a huge explosion pretty soon."

"I'm guessing it's gonna come from that thing they performed the ritual on?" Zoh queried while glancing back at the pursuing aliens, who had just entered the tunnel.

"Yeah!"

"Eh, I'm sure it'll be fine! Those pillars of light didn't seem to do much damage to structures!"

"Best not take any chances." Nasus declared as we emerged into the city streets. The Shuriman reserves, who were actually human, were waiting for us. The vast majority of them had been tasked with evacuating and protecting the civilians on their march northward, so only a few hundred remained to hold the city.

Luckily, the city streets were not particularly wide in most places, so we could make numbers count a lot more.

"Soldiers, prepare for battle! The enemy is quickly approaching, and we have reason to believe an explosion will come right beside them!"

A group of shield-bearing soldiers ran forward to protect Azir, as the rest of us stood in front of the rest of the soldiers. From down the tunnel, we could hear the stomping of boots on stone.

I and Zoh gazed at each other for a few moments, as the stomping got closer.

"Steady!" Azir commanded, while the stomping slowed.

Finally, as the wind kicked some sand into my legs, the stomping stopped.

The aliens held steady at the entrance to the city. Not one stepped beyond the borders of the tunnel and onto the street. The silence was punctuated every passing moment, as time slowed to give us all a breather. But I couldn't. The weight of the eyes on me caught the air in my throat.

I'd never felt quite as reviled as I did in that moment. The aliens hated me, and would set the world on fire just to burn me with it. I was everything they hated most, and with every death near me, my target only grew.

There was a brief roar from the demon, before it was thrown through the city wall. The blast, which was utterly silent, obliterated the rest of the wall by itself, sending colossal chunks of stone into the city. Screams rang out, as buildings were crushed in an instant.

The closest of them came from behind me, when a chunk of rock crashed into the ranks of soldiers. With our defensive line weakened, the aliens charged forward. Endless waves of them filled every inch of street, as they closed the distance with remarkable speed.

I hurled my Orb into their lines, only taking down a couple before it was bounced back to me. Dodging backwards to avoid a swing, I sent a few balls of fire into the aliens, only one of them actually reaching its target.

Shuriman soldiers rushed past me; gold clashing with platinum. In a brawl like that, there was no room for skill. Being better than one guy didn't save you when the five guys around you were also trying to kill you.

It wasn't surprising, then, that Shurimans and aliens were cut down in equal measure. In a single moment, I witnessed an alien get stabbed through the face, as the Shuriman who killed him was sliced in half. The alien who did that only survived for a second longer, as he was hit by my Orb and Zoh's axe at the same time.

I went for every opportunistic kill I could, being careful to never find myself on the front line. I wouldn't be any use to anyone there, but in the back I could take out a fair few.

Then, I noticed a whole lot of movement from where the city wall had stood. The flying aliens were leaping into the city, raining down upon it. A lot of them came towards us, but many went further into the city. I had a moment of confusion before realising that some of the population were still trying to leave the city through the hidden exit. They were going to replicate their strategy from Bandle City.

Azir noticed it, too, and shouted: "Ahri, protect the evacuees! We will fall back and meet you at the exit!"

"On it!"

I dashed backwards, weaving through the lines of soldiers while dodging any falling rocks. Emerging from the crowd of Shurimans, I glanced around to find the shortest route. Three of the preferable routes were blocked by heavy fighting or collapsed buildings, and I didn't have the time to be climbing up buildings or fighting through alien hordes.

I dashed up the street and towards a small alley. I was pretty certain I saw people heading down there mere days ago, so it had to lead somewhere. The floor of the alley was concealed by layers of rubble, but it was enough to run over.

I made it half-way through before aliens came down to block me. Two or three were in my way on either side, so I had to get around them. That's when I noticed that the only thing left of the building on my right was the wall that made it an alley, and that was only being held up by a few bricks.

Deciding on which one looked most integral as the aliens came in to skewer me, I dashed at it and kicked the bricks loose. I wasn't expecting sandstone to hurt quite that much.

The wall collapsed into the alley, crumbling apart as it came down. I dived through it, dodging between the falling bricks and angry aliens as I made my way up the alley. The building dealt with my alien issue pretty well, so I was able to hightail it to the street.

I heard a roar and looked down the street, seeing the demon still battling dozens of aliens. It was clearly not taking any damage from their attacks, or at least so little that I couldn't see any. I could even see some of the aliens it had consumed stuck in its hide, silent screams forever emanating from their mouths.

I couldn't do it. Not even to the aliens.

Dashing past the aliens, I dived onto the creature. Climbing up its side, I ran up to its head and plunged my Orb into it. The beast immediately stopped moving, a long whimper falling from its mouth.

The seconds crawled by, until it finally fell onto its side. I jumped off before its head slumped to the stone, and shared a silent moment with the aliens that had surrounded it. None of them attempted to attack me as I dashed down the main road.

I'd seen broken cities before, but to watch one be destroyed in front of me was something else. Anywhere I looked, something was falling to dust, or someone was being killed. Ancient architecture that had survived millennia beneath the dunes was being brought down by artillery and rocket fire mere years after it was finally brought back to life.

After going down a few more side-streets and cutting some corners, I found the final few people still attempting to leave the city, only a few dozen in total. There were likely a few hundred more in the city itself, but they had little to no chance of making it out alive.

The soldiers protecting them had kept the civilians safe from the aliens that had come down already, but my presence brought down many more. The aliens had been following me from the air, and finally came down when they saw a chance to kill people who couldn't defend themselves nearly as well as I could.

As soon as the first of them touched the ground, I was at his back, my Orb lodged into his body. I grabbed his spear and threw it at another. He dodged, but I managed to nail him with a follow-up bolt of spirit fire.

I saw another drop directly into the group of fleeing civilians, so I instantly dashed towards them. Jumping over the civilians, I landed on the alien and knocked her to the ground, pinning her many arms under my legs.

Noticing multiple recently murdered aliens around us, I glared down at her. Taking her sword from the floor, I shoved it through her shoulder and into the ground, pinning her to the floor. I conjured a ball of spirit fire and let her look at it for a while.

"Fry, bitch." I scowled while pushing the fire into her chest.

I turned immediately when I heard Zoh's voice shout: "Ahri, get running! Again!"

He ran past me, but I kept looking into the city for a few moments to see what was happening. Every possible direction was filled with aliens. Waves of them charged in from the streets, through alleys, out of houses, as their scouts blotted out the sun. The light of Shurima was gone.

I dashed backwards and got past Zoh, just as he collapsed the tunnel entrance.

Hours later (20:13):

"So, that was you?"

"Yeah. I couldn't sit by and let it do that to people. Even if they're murderous aliens."

"Well, for what it's worth, I'm proud of you. If that's what warlocks do, I'd prefer you stick to being a soul-mage."

"Me too, but I can't shake the feeling it's not going to be my choice."

He looked over at me at the same instant as an old man in robes appeared next to him.

"Zoh. You shall be judged now."

"Eh?" Was all he got out before the old man put his hand on Zoh's shoulder and they both disappeared.

I threw my hands in the air and shouted: "Great! Just wonderful! We really needed that shit right now!"

I sat down by the oasis and sighed, slumping my face into my palms.

"Why are people always kidnapping my boyfriend?"


Oh look, it's the bold text. I guess that means the chapter is over.

Funny how that works.