A low fog covered the ground to create a false murky look about the open field, despite the fact that the sun was rising up in the background. Garen saw Jarvan the Fourth standing alone, and straight across from him was an entire army of Noxians, with both LeBlanc and Jericho sitting upon the same horse, in the lead of the pack. The Demacian led his troop straight up to Jarvan, expecting a strange confrontation where he would have to explain the whole situation. Instead, he merely nodded, keeping his gaze fixed on the horizon. The unfaltering focus was slightly disturbing, so Garen decided to speak up.
"Jarvan?" He spoke with genuine concern.
"You know that's not correct," Jarvan replied in a fairly monotone voice.
"I know... ? How are you aware?" Perplexed, Garen awaited his answer before pressing for justifications.
"You know that I am not Jarvan Lightshield the Fourth. That man stands behind you."
"So, who ARE you?" The intuitive question required a great deal of thought. The long time he had spent living a lie was finally coming to a close. He was not sure what to expect or how to react.
"I do not know. I was made to play the role of Jarvan the Fourth. I did not have his memories, his experiences, or his relationships. All that I had was a title, and a position to fill. My existence confused everyone, including myself. Yet I breathe. I laugh, I live, I love, I care, I fight, I anger, I fear, and I lead. I do not feel as if someone, or something else has a grasp on my conscious, but I was created, not born. It hardly makes sense.
I had hoped to collect my thoughts in privacy, but all I succeeded in doing was worry my own troops and get more lost than I was to begin with. I wish that I had some answers, but the safest route for everyone would be to strike me down now. Demacia and its army will stand no chance if I am commanded to rebel in the middle of battle. I know my strength and I do not want to see it used against my own country and its people... If you rid of me now, then the others will only see your Jarvan, and assume all is well. It is the best course of action."
Garen shook his head and gripped his sword tightly before raising it in front of the clone. He dropped it as his feet moved his hand to the man's shoulder.
"Do not give up hope," Garen told him. "If you have not been changed off course now, I cannot see why you would be later. We will lead into battle together. It would be my honor."
"No," Jarvan said while shaking his head. The group looked at him quizzically, wanting to know why he would refuse such a request. "It would be MY honor." Garen smiled and the two shook hands, before re-equipping and readying their weapons for the inevitable fight ahead. Moments later, Quinn and her party walked in behind them, shortly followed by a small army of Demacian soldiers. Jarvan looked at his reinforcements, then to the opposing force.
"We are horrendously outnumbered. Look at that, the entirety of Noxus must be there." Just as the clone had finished his sentence, the group saw another army step in with Noxians.
"Who are they? What are they doing here?" Garen asked.
"Vessaria," said Quinn and Talon simultaneously, both more than capable of seeing the woman with their well trained eyes.
"What?! Is the whole League against us?!" Katarina yelled, beginning to panic.
"Is Vessaria one of LeBlanc's? Interesting. That would explain a lot, actually," Marcus pondered.
"One of LeBlanc's?" Quinn questioned. "What is going on?"
"It is a lot to explain," Garen started, "but I'll give you a rundown. LeBlanc has made fake entities and scattered them throughout Runeterra in places where she could gain control. Your Jarvan, is one of them. Vessaria is another. Swain's bird is one." Quinn stared past Garen and to the yellow and black clad man standing in the background, twirling his broken lance and humming idly to himself.
"Wait..." she interjected. "Jarvan's not... real? That's not true. He is very real."
"Do not dwell on it, Quinn. We have a task at hand. Just understand my words: no one over there is an enemy, except LeBlanc, Vessaria, and Beatrice. The rest of them are just following their leader, and doing as they are ordered. Numbers are not the objective, the leaders are. We just need to topple those three, and cease the fighting."
"And how do you plan to do that? Just walk up and kill the leaders, but no one else?" Ashe chimed in, clearly as lost as everyone else was at that point.
"In a sense. We just need a distraction." Garen's gaze turned to the horizon and he gave a thumbs up into the wind. A small figure was seen way in the distance, standing upon a hill. Although barely visible, the man nodded back and Garen turned to face the Noxian army.
"For Demacia!" he shouted to the wind. Behind him he heard his cry mimicked by an army, and they charged across the open plain in unison. Hanging behind for a ranged support, Luxanna and Ezreal met eyes, having been hidden from one another by their respective companies.
"The vision..." Ezreal started as Lux approached him.
"This is the battle, isn't it? The one that you saw in the locket on the night before you left? What's different this time Ezreal? Did we succeed?"
"Yes. Garen was not here before. And the figure in the distance is still watching... But this place feels familiar. Where are we, Lux? I just followed Garen here."
"A small plain just east of Demacia. It doesn't really have a name. It used to be a graveyard, but having its caretaker deceased for so long, Demacia decided to just bury it and replant grass and trees on top."
"Huh. And when did this happen?" Ezreal asked, becoming lost in thought.
"Oh I dunno, a number of years ago. It wasn't anything big that made news lines. It just kinda happened."
"I wonder if that's the graveyard where I found the locket at in the first place..." Lux shrugged in response to indicate that there was not really a way of knowing anymore. Ezreal nodded and looked at the Demacian force rushing forward, Garen, Shyvana, Xin Zhao, and both Jarvan's in the lead. The only indication of which Jarvan was real, was the suit of armor being well beat up and destroyed, along with the broken lance.
Across the battlefield, Jericho stared straight at his enemy, rushing forward into eminent death.
"Fools..." he muttered. He held a hand across his chest before whipping it straight out in front of him, signaling to move forward. The massive army charged out, on course to meet the Demacians. As they rode past him and LeBlanc, he turned to face her, puzzled.
"Are those champions? You got the League's support?" Jericho asked.
"Yes. I sent a messenger to inform Vessaria that Demacia planned to invade Noxus for vengeance after King Jarvan the Third fell in a just duel. She sent reinforcements immediately." Jericho nodded at Evaine's response, but his face held as stony as ever. He examined the battlefield and waited for the forces to collide, when a voice boomed out across the plains. Everyone held in their tracks, turning attention to the figure upon the hill.
"Warmskins!" Yorick yelled to the crowd of soldiers below him. "Today is the day that you will REMEMBER Yorick Mori!" The hunched man then rose his spade into the air, and in with it came an army of undead soldiers from beneath their feet. No one seemed to know how to respond, and Garen was the first one to react.
"Demacians! Use the undead soldiers as shields for your lives, and theirs! Do not fall in battle, and do NOT kill in battle! Today, we stall. Let there be no bloodshed as we take down the ones plaguing the minds of innocents. Forward!"
Following Garen's orders, they fell in line behind the ghouls and slowly marched forth, being sure to allow ample room between them and their spontaneous allies.
"Where the hell did so many of them come from? Where are we?" Jericho demanded. Vessaria walked up next to the two, still resting on their horse.
"Pleasure as always Jericho," she snarked. He shot her a glare and she proceeded with her intentions. "I believe that we are on a field covering an old, old cemetery. My guess is that we are fighting the thousands of buried bodies from the generations of the Mori family's work. This is an interesting tactic. I must say, I did not foresee such a strange twist. Regardless, I can put the dog down. With your permission, of course." Jericho nodded sharply and turned back to watch the fight unfold. Vessaria turned to a small group of champions who had stayed behind the initial rampage.
"Thresh, sick him please." The spectral warden cackled with pleasure, grasping his chains and letting them jingle and crack along the ground as he slowly glided around the outskirts the warzone, making his way towards Yorick on the top of the hill.
The gravedigger kept himself occupied by continually summoning ghouls as they fell in battle. He had never used them to simply act as meat shields, but that day seemed to be a first for many things. He saw Thresh moving towards him and grumbled. Yorick had no wish to fight the monstrosity that was the chain warden, but clearly that was not an option. He had the ability to let the ghouls keep up their battle as he held off Thresh, but it would b a tiring nuisance.
Yorick shuffled towards the specter and lashed out with his crooked spade. The being dodged it and whipped his back with the chain housing a hook on the tip. The wound meant nothing to Yorick, being undead to start with, and he turned around in time to deflect the next slash with his shovel. Thresh grinned before mocking him further.
"Don't get too cocky now Mr. Mori... You still have a soul that I can snag." The comment was coupled with a slight shake of his lantern, emitting its sickening green glow of the remainders he had taken from all of his victims. Yorick glared back, ignoring the threat, before striking out with his trusty shovel once again.
On the Demacian side, Ashe, Tryndamere, Ezreal, Luxanna, Sejuani, and Quinn watched the scene unfold. They had expected to provide a long ranged background support, but seeing as Garen had a different tactic in mind, they had ended up doing nothing at all.
"Can we just go punch things?" Tryndamere asked his wife.
"No. There is no need to. You will just get blood thirsty and go kill innocent people," she replied.
"Innocent enough to charge at me with weapons and a blood lust in their eyes?"
"Innocent because misguided. Leave it be Tryndamere. It is not our fight anyways. I will be better off back here where I can fire into the crowd as needed."
"But it's sooo boring!" he moaned.
"Shush," Sejuani told him. A few eyebrows rose at the comment as they waited for her to continue her statement. "She is right. It is not our battle."
"Since when have you been known not to rush into a fight?" Ashe shot.
"Garen is different. I wish to see how he plans to execute this battle. He wishes to fight a war and suffer no casualties. That man has unique mind compared to most." As she finished her sentence, attentions shifted to Garen in the head of the fight, pushing Noxians off of his allies and doing his best to disarm any foe that he could. Behind Ashe, three more figures arrived at the scene. She turned to face them, and was highly confused by their presence.
"Vayne?" Quinn asked, sharing Ashe's curiosity.
"There are is no time for pleasantries. How is the fight faring?" she demanded.
"Not too well," Quinn replied. "The Demacians are not really pushing, and if Thresh succeeds in taking down Yorick, the cover will be completely gone. The ghouls may even go rampant amidst the mess."
"Ezreal," Vayne said, already taking action. "Take a shot at Thresh. We have to keep him off of Yorick. We do not have the time run all the over there, not to mention it's much too risky to approach him."
"Wait, Thresh is here?" Lucian called out from behind. "Why the hell is that bastard here and not on the Shadow Isles?" Shauna bowed her head, retracting herself from the task at hand to turn and respond to him.
"Lucian... He is a champion of the League. He normally isn't on the Shadow Isles; I set you up. I set up the wild goose chase that sent you to the lonely tree in Demacia, guiding you to the Shadow Isles. That's why I gave you and Senna the ship. I knew Thresh was going to intervene if you went to them, killing off its inhabitants in waves, and I had hoped you could finish him off for me, with your light weapons.
He was acting as a gatekeeper to the Institute of War. It made slipping in or out very difficult, and I feared corruption from within was on the brink of breaking through. I worked around it through Quinn, but I did not leave you prepared enough. I am sorry."
"I..." Lucian stammered, not sure exactly how he should take in all of what he had been told. She turned to Ezreal, not to ignore Lucian, but because she knew how pressing the issue was. He looked back at her and nodded, receiving a reassuring rub on the shoulder from Luxanna. He saw to the hill and drew a deep breath.
Valoran stood still as Ezreal walked. His steady pace resembled a march. He felt nothing as he moved forward; not a chill from the wind and not the barren ground beneath his feet. He could hear his heart beating ever so steadily in his chest as it thumped in sync with his footsteps. The sound of his boots hitting the dirt seemed to resound throughout the planet as he continued to walk. The fiercely blowing wind front of him was the only sound. His peripherals showed Runeterra frozen in time as he moved on. His thoughts were blank and his actions were scripted, but he continued onward regardless.
Once Ezreal was at the best vantage point he could find, he scanned the surroundings; he saw what he needed to see. He closed his eyes and sensed the world about him, and what he had to do. He traced the outline of the beautiful blue bow that he needed to conjure to make his shot. The mana draw to execute such an art was tremendous enough that he really only had one chance to make the bolt connect. He gripped the intangible arrow with his non gloved hand and pulled it back before he opened his eyes once more and locked onto his target, aiming slowly and carefully, then releasing the shot. He watched his arcing light wave course through the air towards Thresh. The shot was right on track. The wave flew closer and closer in. Then Ezreal's heart sank.
The light whizzed through the air and never collided with the spectral being. He had missed. All of the time, all of the preparation, and when it mattered most, he failed. He sat on the hill in astonishment, not sure what to do or say. He just stared into the empty abyss known as failure.
The entire group seemed to let their breath fall out to the ground as the shot soared through the sky, past its target. Lucian was the first to collect himself, taking off at a full blown sprint around the valley, towards Thresh and Yorick. No one seemed to object, even if they did have doubts.
Jax mimicked the action but he shot the other direction, planning to circle the fight and take on the three enemy leaders in the backline. Vayne told Quinn to get Jarvan and Garen into the fight with him, so she ordered Valor to swoop into the chaos below and retrieve the two Demacians. The eagle took flight and raced through the heat of battle, dodging arrows gracefully and heading straight for his targets.
"My weapon is broken!" yelled out the real Jarvan, clearly quite frustrated at the state of his Banshee's Veil imbued lance. Garen chuckled, knowing that it had been broken for quite some time, and moved to trade him. The lost prince took the Demacian blade and continued hacking away at the Noxian forces in his path. Whether he was following Garen's orders and refraining from killing anyone, or he was simply too insane to realize that his moves were non-lethal, remained unknown.
The cloned prince pointed to the sky, as he heard Valor's cry through the roaring of the war around him. Once Garen saw the bird moving towards him, he held his hand up and waited for the bird to pass on a message of some sort. To his amazement, the bird grasped onto his wrist and pulled him from the ground.
Soaring through the sky by his hand, Garen looked back to see Jarvan as he looked towards him in awe, only to be lifted skyward as well. He chuckled at the sight of Galio, the large animated Demacian gargoyle, lifting the prince off of his feet and carrying him behind Garen. A few minutes later, they were dropped in front of Jericho Swain, Evaine LeBlanc, and Vessaria Kolminye. Once on their feet, they turned to see Jax just a few steps behind. As Galio scooped up the exhausted Valor and turned to get him to safety, Evaine dismounted her horse, while Vessaria just laughed in their faces. Garen turned to Jericho and raised his brow.
"Where is your dog, Darius?" he barked.
"In the battle, like a true Noxian."
"And why are you cowering in the backlines?" he shot back.
"I planned to direct. This is not happening. I will not waste anymore time here," he said while cracking the reins of his horse, stampeding off into battle. The group turned to watch him storm away, some in shock, some in disappointment, some in horror. Garen reacted instantly and drew the poison lined knife from his coat that had been given to him by the Freljordian village elder. He threw it in Swain's direction, not intending for it to come anywhere close to the man; but his bird was not so fortunate.
Beatrice, fairly oblivious to what was going on, simply following Jericho as closely as possible, took the throwing knife to the back of the neck and fell to the dirt with a thud. Jericho hardly noticed the departure of his ally, and trotted onwards to aid his Noxians in battle. Whether or not the dagger itself had been lethal did not matter: the acidic coating would be sure to finish it off.
Meanwhile, Lucian continued up the hill towards Thresh, an obvious thirst to fill the being with his pistol's holes. Up above, Yorick doubled back to avoid another chain being hurled at him, and glared at Thresh.
"You have betrayed us Yorick! This is just a lovely way of me giving you my thanks. The Shadow Isles will enjoy watching your soul burn for an eternity, set up on display for everyone to enjoy the show."
"Imbecile. You cut a deal with the devil to gain passage to our isles, and then walk through them like you are the king, pretending to rule through fear of being locked in you decrepit lantern."
"Decrepit?!" Thresh cackled. "This, this is beauty. You my friend, are... Well... Completely disgusting. Do mirrors hide from you?"
"Jokes and threats won't save you Thresh. Today… you suffer."
"Yes, yes of course," he taunted before lashing out once again. The chain was deflected by Yorick's spade, and Thresh gave it a sharp tug, raveling around the shovel and holding tight. The jailer then used his hooked chain to thrash at the gravedigger repeatedly, until he clumped to the ground.
"Just let go of your shovel Yorick. And let your soul drift to me..." His lantern began to glow a bright green as he laughed his horrid cry. He raised his hook and began to spin it around in preparation to throw it at Yorick. "It's just like fishing..."
Near the bottom of the hill, Lucian saw the impending doom about to rain down upon Yorick. He knew how dire the situation was and decided that he only had the option of trying to hit Thresh from where he stood.
Slowing his pace down to a walk, he took careful aim into the horizon, at the two beings perched on the hillside. Holding one light slinging pistol in each hand and keeping his arms straight, he pulled the triggers of each gun, one after another, as quickly as he could. A flurry of light coursed at Thresh, and began to pound into his backside. His essence seared in pain just as his hook sank deep into Yorick's body.
He let the lasso around the ghoul's spade fall loose, and took the lantern in hand. He had to decide if he wanted to use the souls within the lantern to block Lucian's shots, or to take Yorick's soul and finish his task. As if deciding for him, he heard a yell and shifted his attention downwards. Lucian had dropped one of his pistols as the rapid firing had scorched the flesh on his palm.
"A pity how fragile the human body is..." Thresh mocked, before turning his attention back towards Yorick.
Lucian gripped Senna's gun in his right hand, fighting through the pain of its heated surface. His left hand pressed firmly underneath to help stabilize the shot, while his own gun lie in the grass, slowly dissipating its heat into the dirt below it.
"For Senna..." he whispered before pulling the trigger. The inner workings of the runic weapon sprung into life, sending the purifying light blast through the air towards Thresh. His lantern took the shot in full force, splintering its metallic frame into pieces. The soul he had been attempting to draw from Yorick and put into his lantern, then snapped back into the gravedigger since there was no longer a force pulling it away.
A scream was heard throughout the valley, but its sharp crack was overpowered by the sounds of thousands of souls crying as they escaped their prison. A flood of green and blue spectral lights exploded out of the fractured lantern and lit up the sky in an aurora of spirits. The sight was both beautiful and terrifying, knowing that one being could have been harnessing the power of so many lost lives.
Lucian grinned, silently praising himself for the success. He picked up his pistol before marching up the hill and towards Thresh, who laid on the ground clawing the dirt in agony.
"You fool!" he shrilled. "You have just released your precious wife's soul into the world, to wander aimlessly! You will never be able to find her now..."
"Like you would have given her back anyways," he spat, unwavered by his mockery. "I'd tell you to go to hell but that place is too good for you."
"Hehehe..." the specter cackled. "Do it Lucian. Finish of this... Monstrosity."
"No," he retorted. "No I do not think that I will kill you. I'd rather watch you suffer in a world without your souls. Weak and helpless like the disgusting whelp you are." He kicked Thresh in the ribs and turned to leave the battle scene to its own workings. He had gotten his revenge on Thresh, and it was obvious that the League had no intention of helping him at that point. There was not much left for him in those plains east of Demacia.
Yorick slowly got to his feet, quickly taking note of the missing and damaged parts of his body.
"Flesh..." he grumbled, clearly annoyed by the state of his person. Leaning on his shovel, he spectated the war below him. He smirked softly, remembering that Lucian was the man he had spared on the Shadow Isles. He knew that if he let Thresh make as many enemies as he did, one of them would catch up to him eventually. Luckily, that enemy had come just in time: had Yorick let go of his spade, the battlefield in front of him would have become vastly different.
Yorick scanned through to see that all was going as planned. It seemed that Jericho and Darius were taking an exceptionally large number of ghouls to restrain them, but it was not a worry. There were plenty more bodies lying under the soil: generations of work performed by the Mori's family. The Noxians would no doubt be too ignorant to realize it, but they would collapse from exhaustion long before the gravedigger ran out of ghouls.
In the backline, he noticed a smaller battle about to take place, as tensions had been gradually growing from their argument, trying to get one another to stand down. Clearly, neither planned to budge.
Garen and Jarvan glared their opponents down as it became increasingly obvious that neither party was willing to give up the fight.
"What are you even doing here Jarvan? You know that you are nothing more than my puppet. Stand down before I make you skewer your friend," LeBlanc spat.
"I would never do such a thing. I cannot betray my country!" he shouted.
"Bah. I simply made you too well. No worries. I can fix that quite quickly…" she finished with a wave of her hand, indicating an attempt to mind wipe the Jarvan clone. Moving instantly, Garen thrust the broken lance into his allies open palm, allowing him to grasp it. In response, LeBlanc's motion did nothing.
"What?!" she yelled in disbelief, before analyzing the weapon Garen had handed him. Is that…"
"A Banshee's Veil," Garen concluded with a sinister grin. The trinket's magic kept LeBlanc's control on Jarvan at bay, much as it had protected the real Jarvan from the terrors in the void for so many years. Furious, she raised her scepter in preparation to blast Garen aside with a spell, but she opened her mouth and no words came out. A cough and sputter accompanied the motion and a small dissipation of mana was seen.
"I owe you one," Garen said to Talon, who was gagging the woman with rope of his blue Banshee's Veil. The token had soaked in her magic and was being used to lock the woman down. Behind them, Marcus and Katarina uncloaked themselves from their magical camouflage, provided by the General himself, and once LeBlanc was on the ground unconscious, they all turned to face Vessaria.
"Five on one? Now this hardly seems fair," she snorted with a grimace. Instantly, a magical shockwave sent all of them flying backwards and she launched herself at Garen, clearly most angry at his disturbances to her plans. Before she could make it to the fallen Demacian, a hooded figure burst past Marcus, nearly toppling him in the process, and intercepted her with a fist smashed against her face. She recovered quickly, and glared at her opponent.
"One V one me, bro," Jax jested as he stood in front of her. She got to her feet and spawned two magical chakrams, and a prison around the two of them.
"Stand down Jax. You may be unbeatable by champions. But have you ever faced a high summoner?"
"No," he whispered, gripping his hood and mask with his right hand. He pulled the two away and threw them to the floor, unveiling a normal human face, a little older and clearly exhausted from the struggles of his life, but very much alive.
"What…" Vessaria stammered. "Reginald?"
"That's right. I AM a high summoner... The only high summoner, mind you." Jax leapt through the air and swung at the momentarily stunned woman, landing a fist against her jaw. She recovered quickly and shot a flurry of elemental spells his direction, attempting to abuse her range advantage. After a small clearing of smoke, Jax stood completely unharmed, twirling a circular piece of magical steel around his finger. Vessaria glanced at him and then to her hand, noticing one of her Chakrams had vanished.
"Do you EVER bring your own weapon to a fight?"
"No point in extra luggage," he replied as he tossed the disc her way. A quick roll avoided the blade but she stood up to receive a kick to the face. Tumbling backwards, she threw her chakram out and spawned two new ones in her hands. The whirling weapon cut Jax's ankle, but flew off track and clanged to the ground just outside the magical barrier keeping the outside world separate from their fight.
She continued to hurl the blades at him and gradually stepped backwards, keeping Jax at bay with the projectiles, which continued to return to her like boomerangs. Jax scooped up his discarded hood and raveled it like a towel. The next chakram that came his way, he whipped out of the air and back towards its owner. The woman rolled forward to dodge the missile, but placed herself at a dangerously close distance to her foe. Jax leapt up into the air at a ridiculous height and Vessaria remained in place. She waited for the man to get within feet of crashing down on top of her, and she rolled out of the way, summoning a pit of enchanted spikes where she had been standing. A horrid laugh echoed out from her lungs.
"You forget Jax, I am a master of magics! There is hardly a thing I cannot summon to aid me!" She then launched another flurry of elemental blasts at his location, attempting to overkill the skewered target. Seeing his body limp among the spiked bed and seared with chemical burns, she lowered the outside barrier and walked towards him casually.
"You see this fools! Even the unbeatable champion cannot stand against me! You have no chance at victory!" With a flick of her wrist the spike bed and chakrams disappeared from existence, and she turned Jax over to look at his defeated face. Before she could finish, a hand shot forth and into her gut, a deep red glow emanating about her.
"How many idiots can we take down with Banshee's Veils? Well, at least two." Jax rolled over to reveal his unskewered person, having allowed his battle torn cloak to masquerade him. Vessaria hardly had time to react as an explosion of ice began to encase her body. Doing her best to ward off the magical true ice's spread with what mana she could draw despite the Veil's nullifying effect, she turned to see Garen take the broken lance back from the Jarvan clone. He held it in both hands before thrusting it to the ground, crouched down to force the weapon into the dirt as far as possible. A projection of the lance appeared above her head and came crashing down as Garen shouted the word "justice" to the wind. The Banshee's Veil acted once again to sate the massive mana draw from Vessaria, as she crumpled over in defeat. Staring off to the distance, he gave a thumbs up to Ashe, who had provided the icy prison in assistance.
He walked over and helped Jax to his feet, before they looked over the Noxian-Demacian war raging below. On the hill in the background, Yorick seemed to be enjoying the scene as well, clearly unphased by the near death encounter.
"Should we tell them they have lost?" Marcus asked, genuinely amused by the scene.
"It would probably be best, before someone gets hurt," Jarvan replied with a laugh. Garen turned to Marcus and gave a sharp nod, being the one most likely to calm the enraged Noxian force.
Both Garen's squad and Ashe's team walked around to meet up with Yorick, still standing in place, leaning against his shovel.
"I cannot thank you enough Yorick. You have won the battle and saved many lives today," Garen told him. The man grunted in approval, but did not say much past that. Talon then stepped forth.
"Gravedigger," he called out. "I still never did learn. Why did you help us? Why did you decide it was good idea to trust Garen's word?"
"We saw the monster that Thresh was. We knew just how dangerous it would be to have the power to trap the soul of any champion residing on the Shadow Isles. Many others, like Hecarim, saw this too. We decided that it would be best if made a few alliances here and there, and let Thresh maintain a few enemies, in the hopes that all would play out as well was it did."
Talon nodded his head but one last question sat on his mind. "And what did you do to me? What was that liquid you poured over my back?"
"It was not a liquid at all," he answered. "I have to bury a body for them to pass on the Shadow Isles. So I just continually poured your escaping soul back into you. So long as you kept your soul, your body pushed to heal. Time was the only ingredient."
A few of the listeners grew queasy hearing the truth, but it did not deter Talon.
"It seems that a few of us owe you in many ways Yorick," Garen stated. The ghoul smiled while shaking his head.
"With today's events, I have been more than repaid."
The battle had been ceased as Marcus approached General Swain in the middle of it. The undead stayed as the soldiers backed off of one another, realizing the truth to words being spoken to them.
"Demacian," Sejuani said as she approached Garen, distracting him from his analysis of the battlefield. "I wanted to let you know, that you have, in fact, opened my eyes. I doubted you. Yet you repeatedly prove me wrong. I wanted to thank you." Garen looked at the Freljordian woman, weak, wounded, tired, but holding strong and brave, swallowing her own words; and her pride along with it. "You have saved my life three times now warrior. And I continue to watch your deeds change the world and the people inside of it. For that, I owe you."
"You owe me nothing Sejuani. I did not do it for a reward. I did it because it was the right thi – " he was cut off as her arms wrapped around him, hugging him tightly against herself. He froze at first, unsure as to how he should react, but accepted the gesture and gave her a firm smile. She smiled back – something he was not sure she was capable of – and walked away from the group.
In the background, Talon and Katarina were talking to one another, trying to be sure they were fully aware of what all had happened, and where they should go next in life. Luxanna cradled a very depressed Ezreal, realizing that he had completely blown his chance at saving the day, Ashe and Tryndamere stood in utter confusion at Sejuani's display of affection, Jax remained unnervingly still and extremely quiet, Galio and Quinn nursed Valor as he lay extremely exhausted in the gargoyle's arms, Vayne stared out into the horizon watching Lucian dissapear into the backdrop, still feeling guilty for how things had played out, and Jarvan placed a firm hand on Garen's shoulder.
"What do we do now?" he asked his friend. He stood in silence for quite some time before merely shaking his head.
"I do not know. But this world is about to be very different."