And without further ado, part two—the longest chapter yet. I hope you enjoy—and shoot me a review if you can!
Chapter 10: Final Spark
Part Two
After an undignified, near-fall caused by tripping over one of Ahri's tails, the three slow to a cautious crawl, creeping along only quickly enough to stay in sight of Lux and Garen. The doors of the Demacian champions loom on each side of the hall, simple wood with each champion's named inscribed in golden runes on the center. Through the cracks underneath, he sees and hears hints of the personalities of the champions within: hot, smoky forge light under Poppy's door, the gentle lilt of accented music mixed with the song of clashing steel from Fiora, and the scrape of stone on spear within the Seneschal's chambers.
Fiora? So, that was the name of that Demacian bladeswoman. Totally incomprehensible. Did she have a speech impediment, he wonders.
Garen is dragging Lux towards a bigger door, more elaborate than those around it, and he can see the gold dragon-prince waiting outside. The man's face is narrow and hostile when it falls on the Lady of Luminosity and he feels a great surge of worry. At his side is the dragon-woman herself, grinding her teeth together, hot fire dripping from her fingers in little flashes and spurts. Behind them, standing so still that Nasus almost mistakes him for part of the wall, is a statue with eyes, peering watchfully down the hallway.
"Damn it," Evelynn hisses. "It's Galio. He's the perfect guard—his eyes can pierce through any deception. We can't get any closer."
"I can take care of him," Ahri says confidently. "Just wait until the others go inside, and let me do my work."
"It's a tekepi," he growls, perplexed. "Tekepi have no emotions, little fox."
"No one can resist me, Curator," she purrs. "Man, woman, child, or beast—the power of my charm is greater than them all."
"I can," he says simply, feeling her tails brush against his wrist again. "I am beyond such things."
The fox-woman huffs an angry puff of air. "That may be true," she says snippily, "but you're not so hard-hearted as you think you are."
"I am a protector," he says, feeling the words as they resonate in the magically-silenced air. "Even you are not beyond protection, but the guardian must be free from all imperfection, lest an opening appear in his guard—and what I guarded on my homeworld was more dangerous than anything your planet has ever experienced. Never did I falter—even against the flesh of my flesh."
"He's pretty stupid, isn't he?" the fox-woman asks Evelynn, and he feels the flush of pride and duty in his chest evaporate.
"Yup," the demon agrees, "the self-righteous ones usually are. Listen, Curator, yes, you're noble, but as you may not have noticed, those Demacians are starting to move."
Nasus feels almost sulky as he strains his ears towards the conversation at the end of the hall.
"Good, you brought her," the dragon-woman hisses, leaning eagerly towards Lux, whose blonde head is drooping. "I'm ready to burn."
"No, none of that," the prince says, placing a comforting hand on her grey-blue arm. "Not yet, at least," he adds, directing a hard glare at the Lady of Luminosity.
He snarls in his own mind, some of the darker scrolls in his library leaping to his thoughts—spells of quicksand and tearing winds. They will not hurt her.
"I volunteered for a match against Noxus," Lux says bitterly, "what's so wrong with that?"
"You know you should not do such a thing," Garen says sternly, looking down on her. "I see how it pains you whenever you aid another city-state."
"Who knows what could have been happening to those prisoners!" she shouts and in a moment there is a huge, searing flash of light. Nasus tries to leap into action, but the infinitely faster Evelynn tackles him into the wall.
"No!" she hisses. "Wait until the last moment to break our cover!"
"I am no spy," he grunts, but stills, letting the cool stone calm him as he blinks the spots from his eyes.
"Get your hands off me," Lux hisses, now standing with her baton shoved into Garen's throat, the ends shining dangerously. The dragon-woman is snarling, rubbing her eyes and shaking her head, and the prince's brow is furrowed.
Brave, he thinks.
Slowly, the big male releases her arm, and she takes a step back.
"I'll listen, my lord, but I'm no criminal, nor a traitor," she says. "I'm an honored agent of the intelligence services, I've served loyally for years, I've helped Demacia in the League, and I don't deserve to be dragged through the halls like a prisoner going to interrogation!"
"You don't want to be part of my lord's plans," the dragon-woman hisses at her. "I can smell your fear, your distaste. You don't want to do what must be done for the glory of Demacia."
"I'm not a slave, or a little girl," she retorts. "I'm a Champion. And I will make my own choices."
"You will enter this room and listen to what I have to say, and if I want you to help us, you will do so," the prince says, and his voice reverberates with certainty. "Your mind is bound to the Measured Tread and you will obey me!"
"Victory for our allies, defeat for our enemies, and justice for all," Lux whispers, her little face pinched in pain, and her shoulders droop. "Yes, my lord. I will hear you."
"Let's go, then. Who knows how safe the Institute is anymore," the dragon-woman hisses.
"Indeed," Garen says, looking over his shoulder. Nasus freezes, holding his breath, and he realizes that he hears Evelynn laughing ever so softly.
"Oh, down what merry paths shall this lead me!" she chuckles. "And oh, shall I drink in the suffering of these hard-minded fools!"
Ahri's teeth grind together. "I do not like the way they are treating her."
"You?" Nasus asks, confused at the way the fox-woman's tails are twitching.
"She's a friend, and I have few friends," she says shortly. "Miss Eyowyn introduced me to her when I first came to this place and she was kind to me."
"Do you still want to pursue this?" Evelynn asks, pricking him with her sharp claws. He watches Lux walk through the door, and closes his eyes as Garen shuts it behind the Demacians.
"Fear is the invention of mortals," he growls. "My duty is sacred. I may be without my library, but I still have charges to care for."
He thinks Ahri sighs, "You can read me like one of your books any time," but dismisses it as being totally implausible.
The moment the door clicks closed, the two women launch into action. He grips tightly to his staff as Evelynn pulls him behind a pillar and pushes him into the shadows. With a flash of spirit energy, Ahri lets go of the staff and appears, with a burst of blue fire, in front of Galio.
"Nine-Tailed Fox, you must leave this area at once," he says in his slow, stone voice. His heavy wings unfold with a great grinding of rock.
"I think not," she says, leaning forwards, and he notices with surprise that it seems that there has been some injury to her clothing.
She looks rather…squishy. It's a little repulsive. Politely, he tries to control the grimace on his face.
"Oh," Galio sighs, and the sigh is oddly breathless for a noise that sounds like two rocks crunching together.
"Ugh," Evelynn hisses, "she better keep all that love magic on that side of the hall. I don't want to end up randomly groping you while I've got Demacians to eavesdrop on."
"Oh dear," he says, rather shocked. "That would not be appropriate."
"Don't want you getting all big and hard too quick," she says with a wicked chuckle, "got to save that for the team fights, you know."
He chokes a little in the corner.
"Oh, relax," she mutters. "You have no sense of humor!"
He attempts to ignore her snickering, but watching Ahri lean forwards and place her pale hand on the gargoyle's stone cheek is almost as bad. Galio leans forwards, the light in his eyes dimming slightly.
"I—a guardian is always prepared," he says slowly. "Nine-Tailed Fox, my post—"
"Forget it," she whispers silkily.
"By your command," he rumbles, and his clawed hands close gently around her back as Ahri leans in and kisses his stone mouth, presses herself against him as if he is a wellspring in the desert, and…
Covers his eyes with her hands.
"Go!" Evelynn hisses, and they run towards the door. Nasus spares Ahri a glance as they run by, gagging a little as her tails twine themselves around the gargoyle's body.
He wonders if he should be ashamed in using this woman in such a way, but he notices little wisps of essence drifting from Galio and into the orb hovering behind her head and decides that she's really not making that much of a sacrifice.
As they reach the door Evelynn shoves her claws into the lock, and with a surge of magic it pops open. The little click it makes is expertly masked by the fox-woman's gasp of pleasure (which makes him want to cover his face and hide) and the demon quickly presses her ear against it.
"They're in another room," she hisses, and eases it open with her shoulder. "Ahri!" she calls in a strained whisper. "We're done here, let's go!"
In an instant the fox-woman draws back and cracks Galio across the face with a glowing fist. Before his jaw can finish falling open in shock, she flashes to their side in blue flame, disappears as she desperately flails around and manages to grab the invisible staff, and they hurry inside as the door slams shut.
Galio, totally blindsided, rubs his jaw and looks around.
"What just happened?" he asks of no one in particular.
No one in particular remains unsympathetically silent.
The dragon-prince's room is rich in dark wood and great tapestries in bright colors of red and gold. There is an air of luxury about it, a heavy smell of arrogance, which makes Nasus grind his teeth together.
"Where are they?" he barks, trying desperately to forget what he just saw the woman at now panting at his side do.
"In there," Evelynn murmurs, gesturing down a brief hallway. After a brief period of fumbling around with the staff, they managed to reach end of this corridor, which opens into a large hall with a firepit in the center. The dragon-woman is lounging on top of the coals, watching Lux with hateful, jealous eyes.
His nek'asha'mei is kneeling before a throne set by the coals, in front of her brother. Her hands are clenched, white knuckled, around her baton.
"Shyvanna and Jarvan, what an odd couple," Ahri says under her breath.
"This coming from a woman that just licked the face of a statue," Nasus grumbles.
"We all have our preferences," Evelynn says diplomatically. "Shush."
"As I informed you earlier," the dragon-prince begins, "progress into finding the proper site for the portal is going extremely well. Our contact assures us that he has found the precise location in the ruins and that he is beginning to re-awaken the old spell his people used to flee to our world."
"It must have been thousands of years ago—even before the first Rune Wars," Garen says solemnly. "How can we trust that it can be reactivated?"
"I don't trust him," Shyvanna hisses. "He wants the Library for himself. You know he does, my lord."
"I honor my pledges," the dragon-prince says sternly. "If he does not betray us, he will have the spells that he desires."
He can barely breathe. The Library. A portal. Do they…can they mean…
"In any case," Jarvan continues, "he needs either the Curator's staff or the Butcher's glaive to fully open it. That is where you come in, Miss Crownguard."
Blind fury, so hot and thick he can taste it like blood, rising up in his mouth, fills him to the brim. Human scum, worthless, pathetic mortals, who he gave so much of his life to guard, and still he could not find even one who could be trusted. He thought she was different…
"I won't do it," she spits, and she looks up, right at where he is standing, and he cannot look away from her eyes.
Blue like the desert sky.
"I know it will be difficult," Garen murmurs encouragingly, "but you're the best of the best, my sister."
"The crown understands that it will take great time and effort to accomplish, Miss Crownguard," Jarvan tells her, "but it will be done. You have two months, and I will accept no excuses."
Her eyes shine with liquid, and for a moment he thinks of how wasteful it is that tears are. A brief flash of desert-born contempt, then it is submerged below the emotions burning, tossing and turning, inside him.
"As you command, my lord," she says hoarsely, and the dragon-prince gives a triumphant smile.
"Very good, Miss Crownguard. I will forget today's lapse in discipline—see that it does not happen again. And no more helping the Ionians—we want them and Noxus to be as close to each other's throats as possible while Demacia devotes herself to this task. When we have the Library, then there will be no need to let that island stay independent any longer," Jarvan says. "You are dismissed."
He can hear Evelynn and Ahri on either side of him, barely breathing, as Lux and Garen bow their heads and exit the room.
"So much pain," Evelynn purrs joyously, "oh, that feels good."
"Lux," Ahri murmurs, and he hears real sorrow in the fox-woman's voice.
"We must leave this place," he growls, "before I kill this man before me, and damn all consequences."
He watches the dragon-prince reach out a hand to his lover amidst the flames as Evelynn takes them quickly, quietly out, and he understands his brother's urge to kill.
Ahri flings a handful of foxfires out the door, and while Galio scrambles to put them out they run out of his sight, down the rest of the Demacian corridor and back into the main hall of the Institute, where Evelynn finally drops her stealth spell.
"That was exhausting," she moans.
"Thank you," he tells her, and he gently touches her blue cheek. The demon's eyes go wide with surprise as he moves his hand down and pats her spiky shoulder.
"Well…I…" she stammers, and winks back out of sight as soon as Nasus draws his hand back, smiling a little.
"What, I don't get anything?" Ahri complains, flouncing. He wrinkles his nose at all the flopping her chest is doing, but there is a real sense of gratitude inside him towards these two monstrous females.
"You have been a great help to me, Ahri," he murmurs, "and I thank you as well. Your aid was most…unexpected."
"You'll need more of it before long," she says, her fox eyes narrowing. "I don't like the sound of what they're planning."
"Then I will call on you the day after the ball, Lady Nine Tails," he says gravely, "and Miss Evelynn as well, if she will come."
She nods sharply, her orb spinning around her, and raises a hand in farewell before she moves off across the hall, her face softening into a beguiling smile the moment she turns. He smiles after her, but then his face goes hard.
Out of the corner of his eye, he notices a flash of gold and feels a heavy weight settle over him as Lux saunters into view, grinning brilliantly as usual—startlingly than he had seen her only moments before.
"Lux," he calls, reaching her in a few strides. She looks up at him, those tiny white teeth shining, and he hesitates.
"Would you like to accompany me to the Champion's Ball?" he asks.
Her eyes widen and he shifts uncomfortably.
"Yes, I would," she says quietly, a little of the blood returning to her pale cheeks. Without thinking, as he should have, he reaches out and touches them with a single finger, feeling the warmth of her blood under her skin as she stiffens in surprise.
"Good. We have much to talk about," he says quietly, and leaves her without another word.