Greater than Aesthetics
02

Judgement Kayle, Justicar Syndra, & Justicar Aatrox
(brief mentions of Order of the Lotus Karma and Arclight Varus)

Working for Valoran's Institute of War has its perks, but Syndra's favourite aspect of the job isn't even a special perk. Rather, it is a part of her job and duties, but she enjoys it fully. The young Justicar enjoyed her job at the Summoner Behaviour department of the Institute. Under Kayle, she and her colleague Aatrox sort through Tribunal cases daily, deciding on the punishments and sanctions to be handed out to the summoners in question. Every morning she would enter into their office and say hello to her co-workers before moving to her desk and beginning the day's work.

Hailing from Ionia, Syndra found herself working within the Summoner Behaviour department after one of her past instructors wrote a letter of commendation to the Institute, rallying for Syndra's inclusion into the establishment. She remembered the action astounding her – the Institute of War thought highly Karma, the leader of the Ionian Order of the Lotus, so her good word on Syndra had pretty much guaranteed her a job. While she thought of herself as being inherently smart and studious (when required), she felt that someone else deserved the recommendation better. However, flattered as she was, she wasn't willing to question Karma's word. So the day after she graduated, she bid her adoptive parents goodbye and set off to the heart of Valoran.

When she first started off, she wondered why she was put into the Tribunal department. She remembered thinking that it must've been Karma's idea of a funny joke – her, sifting through stacks of papers? What kind of punishment-? Laughing to herself, she remembered her early days at the institute, fuming at the thought that one of her old classmates, Varus, ended up working out in the field while she sat in a dusty office, sorting paperwork. But now, months after entering the department, she found herself enjoying her job – there's always something new, and it was never not interesting.

She snorted at the file she was looking at. With a pen in her hand she began to look through the names in the chat log she was reading up on, making notes as she went. For the most part, their office was quiet, so she tried to stifle her giggling a she read up on the chat log. Aatrox looked up from his file, his finger resting on a line on the sheet, to watch as Syndra bit her lip and began to glow redder and redder from suppressing her laughter.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

She pointed at her file and handed it over to him when he marked his spot on his sheet. His eyes began to scan over the chat log and after a few seconds of silence, he lets out a brief, breathy laugh. She couldn't make out his expression from behind his headdress, but he seemed to genuinely find it funny. The elegant, foreboding figure that was Justicar Aatrox continued to read down her chat log, hunched over and slowly losing his composure.

When the laughter began to fade he handed Syndra back her file and she teasingly asked, "Should I pardon this or do I give them a light ban?"

Aatrox shook his head, as if to shake the laughter away. "I trust in your judgement, Justicar," was his only response as he resumed work. Occasionally she would see him shake his head, or hear him snicker under his breath. She smiled to herself as she also resumed her work, quickly sorting through the piles of paperwork that never seemed to end. The room settled back into a comfortable silence with occasional snickers and "I have a joke for you". Aatrox and Syndra worked quickly and productively. Most of the summoners got off with light bans and chat restrictions, but there were few that had to be handled separately.

Special cases get put aside into a tray for Kayle to judge herself. Only the extreme cases. As the head of the Tribunal department, only Kayle can dish out permanent bans to summoners who repeatedly break the Summoner's Code, and to those who use extreme language against other summoners in their game. Those cases were never funny and none of the insults bore any playfulness – in fact, it wasn't uncommon for some of the cases to put a damper on Syndra's day, where she would occasionally lose faith in humans. Kayle was much firmer, and as strong a judge as she is a leader. She never doubted herself or her judgements (occasionally, Syndra would need her help to see if the punishment she wanted to give would be fair – like Aatrox, she would often tell the young Justicar to go with her gut if she could justify it), and while summoners would sometimes question her word, she would always have enough evidence to support her claims. The head of their department has been working in the Institute of War for years and there is little that shakes her. Kayle's permanent ban is a kiss of death for summoners – there is no changing her mind. Despite her ruthless reputation, however, the head of the Tribunal department wasn't as intimidating as people make her out to be. While her resting face was a constant frown, Kayle cared for her subordinates.

She walked into the office with a tray of cupcakes, which she had placed down on the table in front of them. "I don't know where they're from," she said, as she began to skim through her tray of special cases, "but they are delicious."

The two workers paused to look at the tray. "Thank you," they said, when she pulled out a box of tissues from one of her desk drawers. Their boss began to hand them tissues and reached for a green cupcake.

"They were at the kitchen downstairs," she said, replying to their unspoken question. "I thought of saving you some before the rest of the hungry hippos in the building eat them." She snickered, finishing off the rest of her cupcakes. "I wonder where they got them."

Syndra didn't. She devoured her purple-iced chocolate cupcake as daintily as she could, waiting for someone else in the room to grab a second cake. The cupcake was delicious and she wanted more, but she didn't want to give off the impression that she was greedy. When Aatrox reached for another cupcake, she took his movement as a cue to take another one and munched on it while reviewing a case. The room fell back into a lull as the three inhabitants began to resume their work.

The next case she read over started off just regularly. Pretty tame, actually. Unfortunately, though, it seemed like it was a long game and the toxicity began early. From the looks of it, a new player had been forced to play a role they never had previously and a teammate began to critique everything they were doing. The poor jungler had died trying to gank top lane and the midlaner began to blast them with insults, calling out their incompetence in all-chat. The enemy jungler then began to camp midlane, making the midlaner angrier and angrier and his insults more and more hurtful. Syndra pursed her lips – this would be an example of a case that put a damper on her day. She flipped it over when she counted some seven racial slurs and five death threats in the space of ten minutes. This case is for Kayle.

"It really is amazing how wound up some people can get over a game."

The two Justicar looked up at their department head as she lifted her metaphorical ban-hammer – a 'banned' stamp which landed on someone's profile that will prevent them from returning to the Fields of Justice. Unsure of what to say, the two remained quiet but agreed with their senior with twin nods. The department head smiled sadly.

"It is amazing in a sad way," Aatrox said, placing another case atop Syndra's on the special cases tray. "When one turns on their own team over a small mistake."

Syndra stamped on a player's profile – chat ban for 425 games – and sat in silence, thinking.

"Anger accomplishes nothing," Kayle said, "but sometimes it is hard to not give in." She pursed her lips as she studied a new case, and Syndra paused to watch her senior's actions. Kayle remained calm, and her face betrayed no emotion. She sighed. "The toxicity drives so many new people away."

Syndra shook her head sadly, resuming her work. Their department, she found later, was formed to combat the growing toxicity in the summoner base that was ruining the League's reputation with the rest of Valoran. There was nothing they could do but hope that these individuals will learn from the punishments they dished out. However, if the mountainous pile of paperwork that never lessened was any indication, the young Justicar felt lost and somewhat useless. Are they even learning?

"Maybe we can reward the good summoners instead?" Syndra offered. She was surprised she even spoke up – normally, she merely nodded; agreed and asked. "Reward them for friendliness, and teamwork, and helpfulness. Show the summoner base that positivity is a quality that we want to garner." She tried to think of the positive messages she had read on the chat logs and the positivity that occasionally grew from positive behaviour.

"Maybe even reward them for being honourable opponents?" added Aatrox, keeping his gaze down. "I see summoners who defend others and go out of their way to help, sometimes even when they're on the other team. I think they should not be pushed by the wayside."

Thoughtfully, the Judicator hummed, before making notes on their suggestions. "Interesting," she said. "Thank you."

Their daily routine began to settle in the room again and the three resumed their work. The mountain of paperwork needed to be sorted, and as it continues to grow Syndra did not want the workload to be unbearable.

The phone rang. Their boss answered. The two other workers half-listened to their boss's voice as she proceeded to explain the reason for her permanently banning a certain summoner, her voice even and never rising. Hearing her quote the statements – misspelt, grammatically incorrect, and most of all, immensely hurtful – was odd, but there was something entertaining about hearing Kayle say, "get rekt, scrub; go back to your palace of bronze slaves."

The rest of the workday passed by with little fanfare. When the time to clock off rolled around, the two junior Justicar got up to stretch and pack their things away. During their lunchbreak someone had come around with another box of cupcakes – "A box from Sinful Succulence," they had said as the three of them hid the box they had already eaten, and the leftover cupcakes were stuffed into plastic containers and carried home.

They both paused at the doorway to watch as their head of department continued to work. "Uh, Judicator Kayle?" Aatrox called out, before lamely continuing, "It's… um… time to go."

She hummed and smiled. "Please, go ahead," she waved them both off. "I think I'll stick around a little. I have a meeting to get to later, anyway." Patting the pile of files in her tray, she said, "I might as well get to working on these."

Nodding to one another, they made a motion to leave before they were stopped by the blonde. "Wait," she called out. "Would you mind if I passed your messages along to the council tonight? We're meeting about end-of-season things."

"I don't mind," answered Aatrox. He turned to Syndra. She also shook her head.

"I don't mind either," she said.

"I promise to credit you both."

Embarrassed, the Ionian rubbed the back of her neck. "No, it's okay," she said.

"No, no," she replied. "Gives me a reason to brag about my department! Besides, I think it's a great idea that shouldn't be difficult to implement."

Unsure of what to say, they remained silent. Kayle waved the both of them off.

"I'm sorry for keeping you," she said. "I will see you both tomorrow, hopefully with news. Good job today!"

The two parted ways – Aatrox heading left and Syndra heading right. Adjusting the strap of her shoulder bag, she wandered down the hallway. She knew, vaguely, that she was heading towards an exit. Her head was filled with thoughts.

Hopefully Kayle's suggestion will bring something good.

Tomorrow, it will be work as usual.

Author's Notes: Inspired by the stuff I've read on the Summoner's Code website. Seriously, there's some funny stuff in there!