AMBESSA
The afternoon sun shined high at the balcony by the Medarda Estate overlooking Piltover, where Ambessa, fully clothed and leaning at a table with a full map of Piltover, taking a sip of her wine cup and looking the map, looking for the potential site for the plan to be carried out, sliding her hand across it.
Perhaps a commercial site, like a marketplace at it's fullest, but the amount of casualties could be a distraction as well and sound just too suspicious. The docks would be too convenient a strike and too usual, for the intended goals. The Council chambers or Hexgates were just too obvious, with too tight a security since the bombing and would just get Piltover to wonder how Zaun managed to encroach so deep into the city again.
This left either an open square, with the possibility of too little casualties to draw attention, or a residential block.
In the corner, her loyal soldier and henchman, Kastor, simply observed as he stood guard, clearly noting Ambessa was far more focused than the usual, to the point her consort was relegated to the next room as she worked, ever since he returned with the... necessary ingredients.
"Either one of these locations should be suitable...", she murmured, before raising her eyes to Kastor. "There was little issue with what I asked you to bring, I hope?"
"No issue at all, lady.", Kastor answered. "I wasn't even followed."
"Good, good.", Ambessa nodded, taking a breath. "Leaves only to wonder how much it'll work then..."
"Not as effective as you're rooting hopes for, I fear."
The new female, mechanical voice caught both Ambessa, Kastor and two other Noxian guards virtually off, all readily unsheathing their weapons and taking battle stance, Ambessa included, behind the table.
A couple of seconds later, by the afternoon sun at the balcony, overlooking the city, coast and sea, a slim figure quickly dropped and hit the ground in an almost artistic position.
The figure got on it's feet with an almost delicate discipline, to reveal a rather strange feminine figure - an apparent elder woman, almost past her mid-age, with white hair, striking blue eyes and the most peculiar set of legs, which didn't seem to have feet. The figure whom simply stood there, facing Ambessa and the guards, in an apparent, calm manner.
"Are we to simply contest a stare, or are we going somewhere with this?", asked Lady Camille, in sarcasm.
"Guardsmen!", Ambessa ordered, and both guards charged towards Camille.
Camille remained still, watching both Noxian soldiers charging with their lances extended, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike, the moment she always took an advantage of.
The moment of a brief distraction, a mental stutter, where the mind is so distracted or so focused it delays to perceive a shift in conditions and process it to give pause to action.
And such as so with both charging Noxian guards.
She rapidly dove to the ground and swiped her left leg, making both guardsmen fall to the ground. Camille was quick enough to pick herself up, walk to the rightmost downed Noxian guard and stab him with the right 'leg', in a spot too precise enough to make he'd stay down. Permanently.
Camille waited for the other Noxian guard to get on his feet, get his spear and attempt a lunge, but then Camille dodged the lunge effortlessly, grabbed the lance to keep the guardsman from using it and hit him with her left hand. She then used the moment of distraction and her left leg to step forward and duck, then quickly pulling herself up, spinning backwards as the right leg sliced the guardsman vertically, whom fell with his back to the ground.
Kastor's heart raced slightly, along with Ambessa, at the manner at which how... casually this intruder happened to dispatch two hardened Noxian soldiers. Kastor walked towards her, his halberd in hand, preparing to strike a swipe quick on his own as he reached Camille, whom remained still, until something literally opened out of her thighs - both cylinders opened up, revealing cartwheels of a blue-colored wire tied to hooks which fired from gas-propelled barrels at a high speed enough to latch themselves to a nearby column.
Camille jumped forward as the wire cartwheels started retracting, practically pulling her to the column at a high speed before Kastor's swipe hit her. As her legs hit the column, Camille grabbed the wires and pulled them to force the hooks out at the same time she used the legs to pull herself from the column, launching towards Kastor like a human rocket. As the hooks and wires retracted back to the thighs and the cylinders closed, she spun herself and pushed both hands, clenched in fists, forward to hit Kastor with the blade-legs whom attempted to defend himself, but his weapon was shattered and he was pushed hard into the column, stabbed at the chest as the impacting Lady pulled back fell to the ground on her feet, walking to Kastor.
As Kastor attempted to recover and tried to hit her, Camille suddenly bent over quickly, using her left leg to strike Kastor through the neck, like the sting of a scorpion, her hands touching the ground with her right leg, forming a tripod. Kastor looked shocked for a moment and gasping for air as, when Camille removed the leg, went back to her feet and pushed him to the column, he coughed up blood and then collapsed to the floor. He didn't move or breathe anymore.
Ambessa's heart raced, her sword in hand, she holding position. It was clear that advancing was useless, she had to wait for the intruder to come to her.
But Camille simply, stood there, biding her time.
The doors opened for the remaining entourage of Noxian guards to enter the room, lances in hand, taking positions close to Ambessa as they witnessed three of their own, amongst them their tallest and strongest, dead. All as an intruding mature lady stood at the front center of the balcony.
"And so the hornets scramble...", Camille mused, checking over her nails, though she wore gloves.
"Any last words?", Ambessa asked, in a threatening tone.
"If we're done with this puerile, masculine display of shock and awe, that is?", Camille asked back. "Indeed, I'd like words."
"It would've been a lot easier to schedule an appointment.", Ambessa retorted, her anger showing.
"As if you would ever be in the mood, and my mood currently is of a haste too latent for such procedures.", Camille replied. "I've a loyal employee of mine whom is on his way with a tray and lid, containing a kettle of tea and some cups. It'd be civil of your part to allow him bring it here. And before you ask, no, it's neither drugged or poisoned."
"And if I refuse?", Ambessa asked, the irony all too heavy.
"The tray and lid shall make it's way here, either now or tomorrow, General Ambessa.", Camille answered. "Of course I don't take much responsibility for the switching in contents. Daughter is highly unlikely, but not impossible. Also, quite the consort you've acquired..."
Ambessa simply remained there, the guards a bit shaky and nervous, just waiting for the order. As did Camille as well, glancing at both in a relative calm, as if she were totally in control. Which seemed unlikely, given the number of guards at the room, led by a seasoned Noxian war veteran.
"General, there's someone by the hallway, doesn't look like one of the serfs here!", a soldier shouted from the doors behind Ambessa. Ambessa's eyes darted to the side for a moment before staring at Camille for a moment.
"Let him in.", Ambessa said.
"But, my lady-", a guard besides her started protesting.
"LET HIM IN AT ONCE!", Ambessa roared, a roar heard only on the distant battlefields across Ionia, Shimura or Demacia. "Leave the room!"
"You can let one remain here.", Camille said. "A gesture of... good faith."
Ambessa, locked her eyes tightly at the intruder. "One of you, door cover.", she ordered, as the remainder started to leave, unsure of who posed the most threat - the intruder or the intruded.
One guard remained by the door, breathing fast, but maintaining his position, as another person, a well-dressed one, unlike any seen in the estate, walk in carrying the aforementioned silver tray and lid.
"You can leave it by the table.", Camille said, as Malt walked in, a bit apprehensive, following the lady's orders to the latter. He left the tray at the table and opened the lid, revealing the kettle and tea cups, as was promised, along with some napkins. "Wait outside the estate. You shan't be harmed."
Malt nodded as he turned to leave, crossing the doors, which the lone guard closed and stood guard.
Camille turned to the corner to pick a chair by the nearby desk with a mirror as Ambessa watched, sword still in hand, though her combat posture relaxed itself. "I am Lady Camille of House Ferros, speaking of which.", she said, in a cordial tone.
Ambessa's eyes remained locked in her across all of Camille's process of picking the chair, carrying it in direction of the table and positioning it in one side. "Not very lady-like, what you just did...", she said, sarcastically.
"For the stereotypical Piltovan noble gender, you mean?", Camille shrugged. "Perhaps. In another angle, one would see this as a demonstration of cultural similarities...", she then sat on her chair, taking a napkin. "Do take your seat, please."
Ambessa, though not trusting, did sheathe her sword back and picked a chair, taking it to the table and sitting to face her 'visitor', as Camille started using the napkin to swipe away the blood from both her legs.
"A sugar or two?", Camille asked, after she finished cleaning her legs and started serving tea for herself.
"What do you want?", Ambessa asked rashly.
"To bluntly go, straight to the point.", Camille mused. "Classic Noxian..."
The warlord shut her eyes, annoyed. "Just one sugar, please.", she said, heavy tones of sarcasm evident on the last word.
Camille locked eyes at her for a moment before spilling the tea into Ambessa's intended cup, and then taking a sugar cube and dropping it at the General's tea. "It seems there are indeed more similarities between the two of us, more than I expected.", she started, taking a cube and dropping it at her own cup, and then taking a spoon and stirring her tea. "You cheat, manipulate, murder and are ruthless, all in the service of your nation. As do I. We both have the future of our nations in our sight, and we both fostered it as our purpose. But this doesn't preclude that we do have personal goals in the longest term. Goals we don't need to reveal each other, for the time being."
"Is that a proposal I smell?", Ambessa scoffed. "Right after you kill three of my guards? One of them my finest?"
"I said one could see this as a demonstration of cultural similarities.", Camille answered. "And this was just it. A demonstration, in an elegant fashion of course."
"Similarities of killing capability, between Noxus and Piltover?", Ambessa ironized, as Camille blew air into her teacup. "So it seems..."
"Indeed, only I'm amused at this one conundrum...", Camille replied, taking a sip. "Noxus is renowned for, let's put it so, making their own way. A nation that boasts it's bellic might, the ferocity of it's champions, the raw power of it's war machines. And yet, for a nation of such might to venture for something like Chem-Tech...", she mused, revealing a folded paper, resting it on a table for Ambessa to peruse.
Ambessa's heart raced for a moment, staring at Camille while attempting to keep her composure. She somehow knew this was just too easy, what Kastor did at her behest. She always did hear the rumors of a specific, secret force Piltover employed, between a state police and an order of assassins, something akin to the Black Rose back in Noxus.
How quickly can a rumor die when present before the real thing.
"Your subordinate, apart from the evidently unique look, should've known to hide his colors better.", Camille noted. "In any ordinary circumstance, and under any other of my... profession, this mansion would've been going through a cleaning routine, right now. Literal and diplomatically, that is."
"For the record...", Ambessa started, after a couple seconds of silence. "This was amongst the last of my intentions."
"Deliberate, you mean.", Camille replied. "Of course it was. Regret is what tempers the steel of our soul. I did speak with your daughter, whom just happens to be part of what's left of the original Council, making it sort of my business. And it pities me to declare that morality is a beautiful servant... and a dangerous master."
Ambessa's eyes darted away for a moment. "She got much from her father, as well as my late son.", she said, softly.
"Perhaps too much.", Camille followed. "Enough to cause disruption towards necessary steps. Hence why we stand at such a grueling crossroads. To either attempt our ambitions individually and fail, or attempt in unison, much to mutual distaste, but at least with our individual aims progressing."
Ambessa stared at Camille as that one took a sip from her cup. A look of both suspicion, distrust and caution. "What do you want?", she asked.
"I told you before, we have goals we don't need to reveal each other, yet.", Camille answered. "And these goals require the namesake of my beloved city."
Though catching the pun quick enough, Ambessa didn't laugh. "And you really expect me to trust you to work together?", she asked. "Just like that?"
"I require interest, not trust.", Camille said. "Suffice to say that not only you dare do this under the nose of others of my profession, whom can very well and subtly stop this, but your delivery system is grossly ineffective, for the aims you intend. Most of that black powder would just burn out the chemical compositions. It'd be a smoke show, a mere provocation, and nothing more. The solutions to both are the best I offer."
"Well, my Lady...", Ambessa started. "Now I got myself quite a puzzle too. I've heard tales of the people of your profession, dedicated to neutralizing threats to Piltover. And here I am, in a tea party with one whom clearly is planning to do the very thing they're sworn to fight against."
Camille shrugged for a moment, seeing quite a valid point from one of a such barbaric nation. "Progress is... often honed on necessary unpleasantries.", she confessed. "Such is the way of our House. For family, I will give."
"Lives of your fellow countrymen, included?", Ambessa asked, sarcastically.
"Would you not do the same for your daughter?", Camille asked back. "Or your late son if, in the rustic tongues of the Undercity, 'the chips were down'? Kettle meets teapot..."
Ambessa kept her eyes locked at the invader. "Let's imagine I... would be just insane to refuse it.", she started. "What then?"
"The best case hypothesis, you mean.", Camille said. "A bird would tweet. And another and another, on certain chemical compounds. The word would inevitably reach the ears of the newly-appointed Sheriff, whom just can't ignore such an imminent, avoidable act of atrocity, despite the urgency in capturing the culprit behind the recent tragedy. The act is averted, the apprehended equipment is determined by forensics to be of Noxian design. A warrant is issued, and the Medarda Estate is raided as the Councillor is put into suspicion and her mother detained. A diplomatic incident."
"Little choice in this, it is...", Ambessa picked her tea cup to take a sip of her own.
"Choice is the fancy of fools. It's what's done and whatnot, and the will of the doer that shapes the future.", Camille said, rising from her chair, turning towards the balcony. "Collaborators should come in a couple of hours, all deniable assets as well. They'll oversee to all the necessities."
"What, no lady talk?", Ambessa asked, in sarcasm, as the Lady started to walk. "There's still a plenty of tea..."
"Perhaps in a later future.", Camille answered, with her back on Ambessa. "Just so that we're in agreement, this is solely for Piltover's sake, given my goals do encompass it's long-term future condition. This and this alone. Any other future antics won't be as quite overlooked, General."
Ambessa's gaze remained stiff. Of course some always do try to pull the 'necessary sacrifice' card.
"Do enjoy your tea, miss Medarda.", Camille said, turning to face the Noxian, as her thigh cylinders opened again. "Even adversaries must maintain a modicum of civility..."
With this, Camile jumped the balcony, leaving the warmaster with her thoughts, letting that one breathe in a brief relief as she looked, clearly shaken, at the corpses of both Kastor and the other Noxian guardsmen. Ambessa then stared forward at the balcony, before getting on her feet, leaving the tea behind.
"Tell the men they can take the bodies now.", she ordered the door guardsman. "Tell them of these... collaborators and let them in, for now. I'm leaving."
"Are you certain, ma'am?", the guardsman asked. "That one-"
"She can try and kill me now for all she cares.", Ambessa retorted, leaving the room in a hurry, her heart racing, the stress catching up to her.