The Old City awaits, and the conclusion commences.
Ruination: Return Chapter XV
Depths Beneath Part VII
Pyke strokes the side of the creature's head and pushes off of it, diving deeper into the darkening sea. It follows, diving with a swift grace its size belays. Together, they jet beneath the waves, winding around the tendrils of Black Mist that dare to try to impede their paths.
He glances back, thinking about the individuals safe within the beast.
Each was a fool in their own way.
But Lucian might be the biggest.
Trusting Fortune was folly, but he could sense the betrayal waiting within the man's heart, though he wasn't certain who it was aimed at.
Regardless, he would keep his knife ready for any sign of a new name atop his list.
But for now, his quarry was close, racing against them to reach the Old City.
"Hard days killing ahead," he promises himself, voice echoing amidst the deep, drawing the life that remained free of the Mist to him.
He'd be prepared for anything that came, even if the others weren't.
Senna is unsure what she expects to find as the maw of the great beast opens.
But a fanciful city resting beneath a pearlescent dome was not it.
The others shift after her, and Diana looks around for several moments, her eyes widening in recognition.
"This… this is Marai magic," Diana states.
Pyke nods as he taps the beast on the nose and sends it sinking back into the canal from which they emerged.
The buildings remind her of the Buhru structures she saw racing through Bilgewater, but older.
"The Marai and my people long had an alliance, guarding against what lurks in the Deep, and came with the Mists." Pyke growls, "They've all fled, seeking brighter waters. Other things have managed to crawl in.
"Mistwalkers?" Lucian demands.
"Amongst others." Pyke returns, looking to Senna, "I got you here. Now, what are you after?"
Senna closes her eyes, reaching for her connection and feeling a draw.
There, a faint ringing in her ear, the chime of an aged bell, north and deeper into the complex.
"That way," she states, raising a hand.
"Right, on your guard, folks." Lucian remarks, drawing his pistols, "Who knows what could be waiting for us down here."
"Most sensible thing you have said yet." Pyke snarks, dropping into a crouch, blades leaving their sheathes with a rasp.
The others follow their lead, though Graves grimaces as he draws his own cannon, "Not a lot of good it will do me."
Lucian flips one of his pistols around and hands it out to Graves, who grimaces.
"Bit small for my liking," he grumbles, glancing at Senna, "Think I could-"
She moves past him without even looking, her steps quickening the further into the complex she goes.
Ledros and Diana shift after her quickly.
Yasuo pats Graves on the shoulder and draws a smaller blade from behind his back. " I could always use this," he says.
Graves scoffs and takes Lucian's extended pistol.
"Peashooter over a shank any day of the weak." Graves returns.
Lucian glances towards Fortune as she stays at the back of the group, 'I'd offer the other, but-"
Her harsh expression softens slightly, "No worries, I'm covered. Hop to it, though; you're losing her."
She nods forward, and he turns to see Senna at almost a dead sprint as she begins racing up the stairs before them, Diana, Ledros, and Pyke just a step behind.
'Right," he murmurs, his expression muddled.
Lucian takes off, Graves shifting after him, grumbling all the while as he puzzles over the gifted pistol, leaving Yasuo and Fortune.
He glances at her, seeing her smile immediately fade.
"Are you really covered?" he asks.
Her eyes flick to him, her expression neutral, "Didn't think you were keen to speak to me."
"I'm not." he agrees, "But we went through hell together for months. I'm not glad for how we got here, but that doesn't mean I want you dead, Sarah."
"I… thank you." she mutters, shifting after the others, "But I am covered."
"Good," he states, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly.
"How did you fall in with this lot?" Sarah asks.
"That's a longer story than I think we have time for." Yasuo returns, flicking his sword in and out of its scabbard as they rush up the steps after their departing allies.
He sees her eyes lingering on Lucian's back as he finally catches up to Senna, Ledros shifting so they can run side-by-side.
"How did you meet him?" Yasuo asks.
"He was in Bilgewater during a Harrowing. The fight was hard, but without him, Illaoi, and this crazed Freljordian, things would have been a lot worse." Sarah states, "Was right after I had "killed' Gangplank, the whole city was in shambles. Ruination would have come early if it wasn't for them."
"He has a habit of being in the right place at the right time then." Yasuo remarks, "Met him in a pretty similar way."
"Tried to convince him to stay." she states, a chuckle getting stuck in her throat, "Needed people I could trust, and he was-"
She pauses and shakes her head, "Eh, he was too focused on something else to ever be what I needed him to be."
"Senna?" Yasuo asks, and she nods and looks to the side.
"She's lucky. Someone went to the ends of the world for her." Sarah states, "Not many ever get that in their life, let alone after they die."
"There is something to be said for finding peace and moving on, though," Yasuo returns, "After all, the world is in this mess for a reason… not too dissimilar."
"You think they realize that?" Sarah asks.
Yasuo grimaces. "I- I don't know."
"Maybe we should talk about something else," Sarah mutters.
"Right, that Freljordian you mentioned didn't happen to be the size of a small building with red hair, did he?" Yasuo asks.
"Aren't most of them?" Sarah returns.
"Well-"
Lucian hangs close to Senna as she leads them up the stairs, her steps almost desperate as they ascend.
"You're so close," she murmurs, Mist briefly pooling from her lips.
"Senna?" he asks, reaching for her hands. She flinches away momentarily, fear gleaming in her eyes before she blinks, and the look turns into comfort.
"Yes?" she returns.
"Are you okay?" he presses.
"I-" she begins, and then Pyke grabs him by the back of the collar and pulls him down.
Lucian goes to yell, and a barbed trident soars above his head, Diana catching it before it can sink into her chest.
"Eyes forward," Pyke growls as he releases Lucian and sinks into the ground.
He turns, and a horde of amphibious reptilian beings, Black Mist seeping from their eyes and wounds, amass atop the steps. The leader, an immense being with tentacles in place of hair, stands atop a writhing mass of squid-like limbs. Their hand is extended almost lazily, hinting that they were the ones who threw the spear.
"Naga,' Yasuo murmurs, raising his blade, wind swirling around him.
Senna takes a step back as the lead looks directly at her and reaches behind it, drawing a ghostly yet familiar blade from the air, its eyes igniting with green fire.
"Viego," Senna breathes, her eyes igniting with fire of their own.
"Viego" snarls and points towards them, and the other Naga surge forward, shrieking and snarling as more tridents begin flying towards the Sentinels.
Two fall in a bleeding heap as Pyke surges upwards from the ground like a shark, cleaving their head into the air and then throwing his harpoon, aiming for the center of Viego's chest.
The possessed Naga parries the strike and attempts to spear Pyrke in the stomach, but he shifts midair as if he is still underwater and vanishes once more into the stonework.
"Open fire!" Senna roars and Yasuo begins the barrage by sending a snarling tornado racing up the stairs, snaring and tearing apart numerous Naga, while a hail of light follows.
The front line of Naga falls, but the rest surge forward, blades and tridents slashing and stabbing, forcing the Sentinels to scatter.
Senna glances back up the stairs momentarily as she plasters one of her attackers against the wall with a cannon swing.
Other forms begin to emerge from the encroaching Mist as "Viego" turns and heads deeper into the city.
"No!" she cries, becoming spectral and allowing the next strike to pass clean through her. She then darts ahead, weaving between the attacks.
"Senna, don't!" Lucian cries, rolling and darting around strikes, a constant blur of light as his shots bore through skulls and reveal ribs.
"I've got her!" Diana and Ledros state at the same time, the former spinning her blade, a cutting disk of moonlight flying free, carving a wide swathe through their attackers, and the latter lifting his shield and simply charging forward, battering Naga aside with his shield and in some cases, running right over them, his gleaming form leaving burning boot prints across them.
"Push forward!" Lucian roars as the pair departs, racing up the stairs after Senna.
"Damn, I wish my cannon worked." Graves growls as he lines up a shot and downs two of the attackers with a single shot, "Clearing this would be cake."
"Quit the belly-aching and just fight, Malcolm!" Fortune fires back, pistol wiping one of her attackers, Yasuo parting it from its head a moment later.
The sound of shattering stone draws their attention back the way they'd come, to something vast and Mist-Shrouded clambering from a newly formed hole in the ground.
"They're boxing us in," Yasuo warns.
"They're wasting our time," Lucian counters.
Pyke reappears, gutting another Naga on the up slash and completing the breach by piercing another through the head with a downward stab, pining it to the ground.
"Correct, rest of you get moving," he states, "Now."
"What about you?" Yasuo demands.
Pyke's grin is not seen, but it can be heard, "I'm going fishing, now get!"
"Fighting retreat!" Lucian cries, and the others fall in line, firing at any Naga that approach them, while the new writhing thing surges closer and closer to Pyke.
"Sink with me," he murmurs, the glow in his eyes intensifying as he leaps into the air, blades poised in a downward strike to this new warped horror of the Deep.
Senna heard the others behind her, but it was like a dream, muffled and far away. Viego, the form he had stolen, felt closer, her attention locked intently on him.
He would not get to Her before her.
There is a feral urge to stop him echoing in her heart.
She lashes out, not with her gun but with her, and a claw of Mist extends, clawing across the Naga leader's back.
It turns, and a grin that doesn't work for its face widens.
"You're slipping." Viego taunts, his voice a whisper in her mind as the creature does not speak.
She grits her teeth and whips her cannon around, light roaring to life, "I won't let you take her!"
"Such devotion," he taunts, even as her cannon burns across the Naga's skin, Black Mist bursting and oozing up from within. It rears forward, snarling and burbling, and its trident nearly punches clean through her stomach.
She dodges, and it simply grazes across her side, and Viego speaks again, his voice everywhere and nowhere, "Or is it desperation?"
"As if you have any right to judge anyone when it comes to desperation." Senna snarls back.
Viego chuckles, "Perhaps not, but desperation is a powerful drive, is it not?"
"SENNA!" Lucian shouts as he crests the steps, guns gleaming, his cry seeming to punctuate Viego's point.
"See?" the ghostly monarch taunts, "He understands."
Lucian's shot lance into the Naga, blasting hole after hole, yet Viego's voice echoes in her head unhindered.
"And so will you." Viego warns, "I will not be stopped, and my love's centuries of half-existence will come to an end."
"The existence you caused!" Senna roars, the next shot of her cannon bellowing with such force the Naga snapped in half from the strike, the upper torso burning and melting into slag and ash.
"And yet you, as her supposed protector, seek to prolong her suffering," Viego states and Senna feels a needle of guilt slip around her guard and lance somewhere deep within.
"It's what she wants." Senna remarks, as she can hear the other Sentinels surging to join Lucian, more Naga spilling up from below and falling down from above in a tide of corrupted water and rent scales.
"Is it?" Viego remarks, "Or are you simply unable to let her go?"
His words echo the inverse of those she had heard what felt like ages ago within Illaoi's granted vision. She grits her teeth as she feels the hollow touch of the Black Mists try to get a stranglehold on her uncertainty and regret.
"Get out," she rasps, her voice two and then thrice-toned. The rasp of her spirit and the echo within her soul join in a declaration that causes the Black Mist to forcibly retract and muffle the next taunt Viego attempts to let loose.
"Senna?" Lucian asks, his hand falling on her shoulder. She looks up, realizing for the first time that the rest of their forces are spread around them, and the ground is littered with the bodies of rapidly decaying Naga.
"Are you okay?" Yasuo asks, voicing the concern in her husband's eyes.
"Yes, I…." Senna begins, faltering and then saying, "Viego is closing in if he isn't already here. We can't let him get any more pieces of Isolde."
"So you have said." Diana agrees with a nod.
"Pieces of what?" Graves interjects.
"Above your paygrade," Fortune notes, cutting him off before turning back to Senna with slightly narrowed eyes, "And mine, honestly."
"I can feel others approaching," Ledros remarks, looking up toward the ceiling. His remaining Lieutenants are near Bilgewater."
"Then how bout we quit wasting time," Pyke remarks, rising from the floor and turning his burning eyes on her, his gaze searching, "If y'all spent this much time jawing in the past, no wonder he's come out on top before."
Senna grimaces in silent agreement and then continues up the stairs. She fights, looking back at Lucian, but can feel the numerous questions radiating from his gaze and the slight attempt to keep a hold of her as she pulls away.
Sarah isn't sure what she is doing, but that is nothing new.
She'd been snapping at shadows and grasping at half-formed plans even before the Ruination unmoored her already precarious position at Bilgewater's head.
So long obsessing over Gangplank, she'd forgotten what it felt like to think about anything else.
Until the Mist… had reminded her.
She glances around at the folks surrounding her, old allies, new hires, and strangers, and can't help but slip into her old habits.
Spot the dangers, seek the weaknesses.
Diana or Pyke are the clearest and most prevalent dangers among this group.
Pyke is a variable she understands, even if she didn't fully know everything that made him… or maybe it, tick. Normally, his blade would be at her throat, if not all of the others as well, for what she had done, but the Bearded Lady was keeping him focused.
Yet, she'd seen the man within the monster, even if it was a struggle to even drag him out for a short conversation. Loyalty was everything, even before his change, and maybe the catalyst for his change. She isn't a mage or occultist, so best guesses are all she can muster. But, it is also a weakness, a one-track mind butting against the enchantments of a goddess.
Diana on the other hand, she has no full understanding of—a giant of a woman, ethereal, beautiful, and inherently intimidating. Targonian, yet more, if things were different, she would have been mighty keen to sit her down for a drink and… polite conversation. She'd heard stories of the Mountainfolk, rarely met one, but from how the others looked to Diana and the presence she carried, the light that seemed to pulse beneath her alabaster skin. Well, while Sarah hadn't put much stock in demigods before, now she isn't so sure.
Then there is Ledros, a "good" Mistwalker, resplendent in silvery blues, a behemoth in armor she vaguely recalls from one haul or another she pulled in years ago. Not the way she remembers him, they clashed on the Isle, attempting to keep her and the others from reaching Gangplank… and Viego. If she had listened then, would the world be in the situation it is now?
Yasuo, she knows, better than all the others, his strengths, his weaknesses, his quirks. He keeps glancing at her, so much going unsaid as they weave through the maze that is this lost city, battling Mistwalkers and fallen sea creatures at every turn. He has her back, though; she wants to believe.
Graves is nothing to her. A gun that got lucky more times than she could count, and from the fearful look in his eyes, he wanted to be anywhere else than where life had found him, yet she knows he's fighting for something more than he let on, even if she wasn't in the caring mood before to find out. He'd betrayed her… again, but that is what their relationship had always been: bickering, fighting, and occasionally working together—the Bilgewater way of things.
Her eyes finally fall on Lucian and Senna.
Senna, she thinks, is the more dangerous of the two. She isn't even fully sure if she knows what Senna is. Taken by Thresh, somehow returned, with eyes glowing just as green and as icey as any Mistwalker Sarah had ever seen. Yet, the others follow her lead—these Sentinels.
At least she wears her weakness on her sleeve if this does go bad. She's obsessed—more than Sarah thinks she can ever admit—with this Isolde figure. She wishes to know why, but Sarah doubts she will get the chance to find out.
Lucian is… so simple. His strengths, his weaknesses, his desires. She can read him like an open book, with nothing to hide, no reason to mind her prying gaze. He is certain in everything he does, just like the last time they crossed paths. It was alluring, that level of certainty, clarity, purpose… though, maybe he's not certain in everything as he keeps turning with furrowed brow and nervous twitch of the lips to gaze at his wife.
He's worried about her, and she thinks he will never be able to overcome that weakness.
Sarah swallows a sigh and the dozens of things she wishes to say to the people she considers friends and old allies. She sees the bonds that exist apart from her and those she helped maintain that are fraying where they once tied to her.
A cohesive unit, with her along for the ride, and when this is all said and done and the Sentinels go on their merry way, she knows where that will leave her.
Alone.
"More on their way!" Yasuo bellows, pointing with his blade, as more Ruined surge to meet them, a motley of Wraiths, Naga, and her own fallen people.
She squashes her feelings, even as she feels the Black Mist caressing the back of her neck, and draws her near useless pistols.
She does what she can, lost as she is.
Lucian grimaces as Senna places her hand against a fresh wound across his stomach. He glances around at the others, all wounded and worn, the corrupted sea beasts and lost folk of the waves seemingly endless as they push deeper and deeper into the sunken Buhru city. They are sequestered in a back alley shrouded by the remains of a fallen spire, patching wounds and catching their breath, those who need it anyway.
He could see the ocean, blacker than pitch far above their heads, kept at bay by some working of Buhru artifice or Marai magic. The only one who would know was Pyke, and his focus was justifiably elsewhere.
A dozen cuts covered his body, and the others were nursing similar, even Diana, glimmering blood leaking from where a lucky Naga Trident almost punctured one of her eyes.
"Just the bad ones," he rasps as he sees Senna pour more of her healing magic into him. She is fraying a well. He can tell, internally and without, Black Mist rising from her in a faint halo.
The worst he'd seen here, even during the early days.
She glances up at his face with a small, tired smile, but her eyes remain haunted.
"Save your strength," he murmurs.
"We're nearly there; I have to —" she begins, but she quiets as he gently touches her chin.
"All the more reason to keep some in the reserve." Lucian remarks, "I know this place has been taking a toll on you."
"I—" she begins, and he can see the moment when she chooses not to lie to him. "I have never felt the Mist's pull this strongly before."
"The Mist has been drifting in the currents of the Blue Fire Isles for decades." Pyke growls, ignoring the trio of gaping wounds dripping with sea-water-scented gore. The stitch slowly shut as he stares up at the leaning tower sitting before them, a faint silvery-blue glow glimmering at the peak.
"Back when folks from the continent just viewed it as a 'Bilgewater Problem,'" Fortune remarks bitterly.
"Had time to seep into all the nooks and crannies, just waiting for the right time to come bursting forth like a ruptured dam." Pyke finishes, "Now, let's get moving."
He mantles over the rubble, blocking their path, and is gone, Ledros and Diana a step behind.
Yasuo ushers Fortune and Graves ahead of him, the former's eyes lingering on Lucian and then Senna.
"Just a moment is all I ask," Lucian states, grasping Senna's hand. Yasuo nods, shifting away.
Senna stares up at him, and he can see so much unsaid roiling within her, pushing at the seams, yet still she keeps it locked away.
"Talk to me," Lucian urges softly. Anything, everything, whatever you think there is time for, allow me to lighten your burden, if even a little."
Senna goes to speak but winces in pain, clutching her chest, a scream not her own emerging from her mouth and seeming to echo across the city for a moment.
"Senna-' Lucian begins, but she tears away with fury, racing at full tilt towards the tower.
"No, no, no." She shouts, and within an instant, she is in the air, tearing up the tower like a wraith. Lucian stands alone, the last to follow, the words of the Bearded Lady echoing in his mind.
"Will you be able to let her go?"
"Please." the voice urges, again and again, a mantra near to madness as it echoes within her. She pushes herself ever faster, clawing and clambering up the tower, her limited flight aiding the climb, but the others are left far behind.
She crests the pinnacle, pulling herself back together, ignoring the streamers of Mist that refuse to consolidate. A dias stretches before her, surrounded by imagery of the Bearded Lady, and she feels at that moment as if every depiction is staring at her, judging.
But she cares little for the Goddess at that moment, her eyes drawn to her goal in the center.
A small bronze bell, shining with silvery-blue light, sits within a spinning ring of stones marked with Buhru sigils.
And standing before it, snarling with rage as his blade screams against the protective ward, is Viego.
"Stop!" Senna bellows, firing her cannon. The shot slams into Viego's shoulder, but he barely flinches. Instead, he turns, taking her in as she stalks towards him.
Viego shakes his head and chuckles darkly, "I had hoped I would have more time. But it seems the world…"
He pauses his sentence to strike the ward with his fist, the undead flesh searing and smoldering.
"Is as ever against me." Viego intones, looking back at the bell mournfully as he turns to face the Sentinels.
"Did you know-" he begins, but the Sentinels surge towards him, causing him to pause once more.
He whirls his blade and stabs it into the ground, and a wave of Black Mist pours from his chest, dozens upon dozens of Camavoran Mistwalkers crawling forth, their weapons lowered in her direction.
Senna looks around and finds the Black Mist parting around her, forming a ring. This allows her to see Viego as he stares at her, his youthful visage flickering and shifting, becoming the monster she remembers from Ionia and also a newer visage of an aged and broken man.
He continues, "In Camavor, it was traditional for the mother of the bride to choose one of the wedding bells as a gift for her daughter."
Senna is struck by a wave of grief, as within her burbles a true and genuine feeling of loss and sadness as Viego continues.
"This bell would then go on to become the first gift the bride's firstborn would ever receive. A remembrance of the bond between mother and child." Viego intones his aged vision, looking up at Senna and revealing black tears tracking down his face.
"Isolde had been so delighted with the thought, shifting between ideas for a new toy or adding it to… to her Gwen." Viego mutters, "She loved children and the thought of having her own…"
His face shifts back to the bitter and cold face of the Young King.
"Another joyous facet of our future cruelly stolen away," Viego states.
"And one you can't get back." Senna returns, understanding in full the burning grief of her companion at that moment.
"No." Viego agrees, "But I can reclaim all that was lost."
The other Sentinels emerge atop the stairs behind her, weapons rising. Diana, Ledros, and Pyke burst through the Mist and race at him.
"Then why does it seem your heart has not returned to the fight?!" Diana bellows, body radiant with silver light.
"You would bring her back, even knowing a core joy of her past would ever be denied her?" Ledros challenges, raising his shield to pummel Viego.
Pyke simply lunges at him like a shark, blades extending, eyes gleaming.
Viego stands, unmoving, as they each race each other to be the first to carve into him.
"My heart is always in this fight," Viego states, glancing upwards with a smirking grin."It was my concentration that was elsewhere."
With a thunderous boom, something immense crashes into the protective dome above, and this vast entity pushes its way inside—so too does the ocean.
Senna barely has time to speak before the crushing dark is upon them.
And then a light.
She opens her eyes and sees Diana's hands raised, straining. All around them, a gleaming silver dome holds back the inky depths that fought to crush them all to nothing.
"The bell." Diana growls, glancing down at Senna, "Hurry."
Senna scrambles to her feet, Lucian immediately at her side, Ledros laying blow after blow against Viego, but the King parries them all, if in a sloppy and guarded manner.
Yasuo, Fortune, and Graves scramble to their feet, the latter staring around him and whistling softly.
"Damn," he murmurs before Fortune kicks him in the side, pushing him out of the way of a charging Camavoran soldier.
"Head in the game!" she demands, weaving and dodging around other soldiers, leaving them open to direct and swift strikes from Yasuo as he fights to reach Viego as well.
Senna glances around, spotting Pyke staring directly upwards.
She follows his gaze, and her heart lurches into her throat.
An immense beast hovers above the dome, its body lit with the sickening green flame of the Mist. A horrid fusion of whale, serpent, and… shipwreck, its head alone monumentally larger than anything she'd seen in her entire life.
"What-" she begins, her voice faltering, and Pyke looks down to her.
"You heard the Moon Lady," he rasps, and an instant later, he is gone, vanishing into the blackened waves, his body igniting with white-green fire.
"The Deeps won't have you!" he bellows, and the creature lunges, poised to swallow all of them in its colossal jaws.
Senna raises her gun, and the creature's charge is cast aside as another leviathan, the same Pyke summoned to ferry them, crashes into its side, eyes verdant against the inky darkness, and it is far from alone.
"They're buying us time," Lucian says, spinning his pistol, his eyes narrowing as he stares at the warded bell. "Defenses are still up."
"For once," Senna returns, looking down at the Black Mist coiling around her body, "I'm not sure if I can…"
"On it, love," Lucian states, and like that, he is off, weaving and diving between the Camavorans, shots dusting any that got too close.
Senna reaches out a hand and grants what little she can to boost Diana against the strain. The goddess nods appreciatively before running ahead as well, cannon firing shot after shot, punching holes in the distracted Viego as he deflects and dodges the strikes of both Ledros and Yasuo.
He snarls, and his eyes gleam brighter. The Black Mist roils and burbles on his chest, and the patches on the ground begin to roil once more as she leaps over one and brings her cannon down like a hammer atop Viego's head.
"You will drown in waves or the sorrow within, this I swear!" Viego bellows as his overhead strike against her is deflected by a joint parry by Ledros and Yasuo.
Sena shakes her head, "I'm so tired of the theatrics."
Viego smirks, "In Camavor, the saying 'theater of war' had a rather direct meaning. A bit of dramatism was expected. For example."
Ledros was ripped away from Viego and slammed into the ground with an immense axe embedded into his torso.
"An overwhelming show of force." Viego gloats as Rhasa looms over Ledros.
"Traitor." the conglomerate entity hisses, raising a titanic fist to crush Ledros.
Senna whirls and fires, Ledros cleaving his blade through the haft of the axe, and rises to his feet, shield prepared for the next strike.
Senna feels the wind preceding Viego's strike and barely manages to dodge under it, a bit of her hair falling away as he carves through it.
Yasuo goes to counter-strike him, and Viego shifts back, a wraith emerging from beneath his feet and lunging for the swordsman.
"A familiar face within enemy lines," Viego states. The wraith briefly assumes the visage of Ahri, causing Yasuo to stutter and step backward.
"Enough of these tricks!" Yasuo snaps, but Senna hears a question in his voice and a faltering in his conviction as the wraith smiles at him mournfully and then strikes with abandon, claws aiming for eyes and throat. Another arises, wearing the same visage, and attempts to grab him from behind, forcing him further away from Senna.
Senna batters his next blow aside, but Viego pushes forward, wrapping his gauntleted hand around her throat, and she feels him reaching, seeking, hunting for the piece of Isolde within.
"A sudden strike while-" Viego begins, and then his lower jaw vanishes as Lucian fires from the steps beside the ward, the dusting armor of a dozen Camavoran wraiths at his feed.
"Let her go!" Lucian roars.
Viego turns, his jaw reassembling, bone, and the musculature of the Black Mist snapping back together, and his eyes are filled with rage.
"The bell!" Senna rasps.
"While the enemy is distracted." Viego finishes, and Lucian is ripcorded backward as thick webbing snares around him.
Elise stalks from the Mists, horridly resplendent in her arachnid form, bearing down on the prone Lucian with her saber-length fangs.
Viego smiles and then snarls in pain and looks down. Senna's hand, now lengthy talons of Black Mist, pierces deep into his stomach.
"I'm sorry," Senna murmurs darkly, her eyes igniting with green flames as she digs deeper and feels…something gives within that she begins to draw in. The fury turns to momentary panic on Viego's face. "What were you saying about distraction?"
A shift in his chest catches her eyes, and for a moment, she swears she sees the triangular hole tied to the Mists shrinking ever so slightly.
But before she can press any further, Viego wraps both hands around her neck and, with a roar, lifts her into the air and then slams her into the stone floor, and then hammers his boot into her side, sending her skittering and rolling across the ground.
She rolls away dazed, and he grows, additional arms emerging from his shoulders, armor bursting free of his skin, and clamping closed around his face.
"What did you do?!" he demands, blade crashing down and powdering stone as she rolls.
"No idea." Senna answers honestly, hopping to her feet and allowing the Mist to seep in, the wraith coming to the surface once again, "But I'm willing to find out."
With a feral bellow, he charges her, and with a monstrous shriek of her own, she races to meet him.
"Senna!" Lucian cries, fighting to free himself, as Elise bears down on her, hungry eyes glittering with anticipation.
And then one goes out, her shriek of pain drowning out all other sounds, even the leviathans clashing above their heads.
Lucian rolls, spotting Fortune holding the pistol he handed Graves, tossing it back to the befuddled convict, and then dive-tackling Lucian, causing both of them to roll free of Elise's stabbing legs.
They come to a halt, Fortune lying atop him, a knife quickly finding her hand and working to cut me free of the webbing.
"She's holding her own. Maybe you should focus on your own life for once," she remarks, a level of heat he isn't expecting coloring her voice.
"I-" he begins.
"Don't." she returns, carving him free. "Get the bell."
Elise whirls on the pair of them, and he opens fire, peppering her monstrous face with holes, causing her to writhe and strike blindly.
Ledros ready for Rhasa's next blow, but a voice cuts through his concentration.
"No, Rhasa, see to the rabble." Hecarim commands, stalking towards Ledros, his body roiling and shifting with the amount of Black Mist he is drawing into himself a he approaches.
"Again, we do this dance?" Ledros demands, smirking as he sees Hecarim immediately rankle.
"No slippery water rats to aid you. This fight will be fair." Hecarim snarls.
"I have already beaten you fairly." Ledros states, "Many times."
Hecarim angers all the more.
"Things have changed," Hecarim states, and for a moment, his mortal face appears above the monstrous.
Ledros grimaces and meets his charge regardless.
Diana stares at the fights dancing around her, unable to move as she holds the crushing waters above at bay, a shimmering shield of silver gleaming amongst the black.
"How long do you think you can hold out?" a cruel voice growls.
She glances to the side, seeing the Pantheon approaching her. She feels a bit of pride that he remains wounded and then guilt as she remembers the parasite is not the one who truly felt them.
"I will not waver." Diana returns, "The Moon and the Waves are intrinsically tied; I can outlast them."
"At the surface," the Pantheon points out, "But down here, the tides and currents swallow even the light of the Sun. What hope does her pale shadow have?"
Diana's eyes narrow as Pantheon moves out of view.
"A mighty one if a coward were not about to stab me in the back." Diana returns.
"Hey, what can I say," Pantheon sneers, "War is rarely fair."
She senses the blade aimed to cleave into her spine, and she risks it, drawing her blade and striking the blow aside, keeping one hand raises to hold back the tide.
The strain immediately increases, and thin threads of water begin to pour in where her magic wavers.
The Pantheon grins, "You would have made a worthy host. A shame."
"The only shame is that you still believe you are anything but worthless." Diana retorts, and she strikes out at him, seeking to disarm him.
He leaps back and begins stalking around her, stabbing and poking but never quite getting close enough. Good. He still only sees their conflict as a game for his amusement.
Graves fights for his life, whirling and firing and swearing all the while, angry at himself that he got himself in this position. Berating himself that there is nowhere he can run this time, wondering why he even thought to come along with the Sentinels on this venture.
And as if in answer, a throw card whips past his face, nearly taking his eyes out.
He whirls and spots Him.
"Now… now that just ain't right," he murmurs.
Fortune fires her pistols, joining Lucian in assaulting Elise. The bullets are not doing nearly enough, but she needs to get the fury and worry boiling within her out somehow. The bark of her guns overrides all other sounds around her. Then, Lucian's shoulder catches her in the stomach,h and she is sent reeling backward.
She looks up, confused, and sees that Rhasa's axe is now embedded several feet into the stone where she had just been standing.
Lucian looks at her, now stuck between two towering monsters.
"Go!" he orders, pointing for the bell.
She looks around, seeing all of the others locked in bitter conflict, and nods, racing towards the ward.
Viego couldn't reach it.
And she'd let him in.
Would… would she even be able to touch it?
She reaches forward, expecting pain or rejection, as has been the path of her life. Instead, only a gentle warmth greets her,and a memory of a soothing voice and a gentle ruffling of her hair comes unbidden.
Tears cloud her eyes as she wraps her hand around the bell.
"No!" Viego bellows, and Senna attempts to hold him back, grappling and slashing at him, but a blast of energy blasts free of him, and all the Black Mist she had drawn into herself begins to rebel and roil, threatening to consume her, burrowing deeper and deeper, reaching for Isolde.
She releases the Mist and falls to her knees, feeling more drained than she ever has before.
Senna blinks, head swimming, eyes blurring, and sees Viego extend a hand toward Fortune.
Fortune turns, clutching the bell so tightly she wonders how she could ever let it go, and then she looks up.
Looking back at her, not aged a day, is her mother.
"Hey there, firecracker," her mother drawls.
"Mama…" she murmurs, more tears welling in her eyes as she feels her chest burn where the necklace Viego possessed recently sat.
"Mhm, It's alright. I'm here now. You've gone through so much, but you don't need to put the world on your shoulders anymore." Her mother whispers, reaching out as if to touch her cheek but not quite getting there. You can rest."
"I…" Sarah mutters, looking down at the Sentinels and Graves fighting, Lucian calling her name, Senna fighting to stand, Yasuo attempting to break free of the horde of spirits wearing Ahri's face.
"Let it go, hun." Her mother says, lowering her hand outstretched for the bell. "Just let it go; it'll be okay."
"I…" she unfurls her hand, revealing the bell, bronze gone green from age, a bit of the warmth she felt still radiating into her fingers.
"I wanted you back for so long," she murmurs so softly she knows the others won't hear her.
"And I am. Just let it all go, hun," her mother repeats. This is too good to be true; she knows it; she can't help but know it. Yet, perhaps due to the influence Viego already had over her, or perhaps because she always deeply feared she was just an inherently selfish person, she didn't care.
"I'm sorry," she states.
Senna blinks again, and her vision crystallizes. She sees Fortune reach to place bell into the hands of the gaunt, weeping specter of her mother, Black Mist, having formed a crown around her head without her noticing.
"NO!" Senna screams, and she throws her right hand up, firing a tendril of Black Mist out, seeking to grab the bell. To Claim it. To make it hers. He can't have her! He can't! He CAN'T!
"Don't let me go!" echoes up from within.
And then all she feels is pain, and she watches, stunned and amazed, as her arm detaches beneath the elbow, Viego's Blade now coated in her blood, arching upward. Her… her blood is black… that… that's not…
"SENNA!" Lucian roars and begins firing, even within one pistol, becoming like the sun, every inch of his body burning with the radiant magic of his calling. Rhasa and Elise are pushed back, the Pantheon smirks and simply steps back through Diana's wavering dome into the waves beyond, Hecarim and the wraiths surrounding Yasuo are forced into flight, and yet Viego smiles, even as whole chunks of his body are blown away.
The bell settles into her mother's hand, and she looks up at Sarah with a smile.
"Thank you.'' Her mother states, and then the smile vanishes, and she sees her mother as she truly is, a weeping husk, silently mouthing something she can't make out.
"No-" Sarah murmurs, realizing the promise from the start was nothing but a veneer, and then she is gone. Ruined.
Viego rushes up the stairs, battering aside anyone who tries to stop him, scooping up the bell. As Fortune rises, her skin the same ashen pallor as his, the sobbing specter of her mother hanging on her like a shawl, he chuckles, glaring down at Senna as Lucian rushes to her side.
"I told you." Viego states, "Told you both that this story only has one ending."
He clutches the bell close to his chest and vanishes, the remaining Ruined being drawn within him into the Mists.
"No…" Senna mutters, "No, it doesn't. There has to be… I won't let her go. I won't…I can't… I…"
"Senna!" Lucian cries, "Senna, hey, can you hear me, can you-"
She looks at him as he holds her, her eyes distant and hollow, her skin flickering, Black Mist seeping from the severed stump of her arm.
"Diana!" Lucian cries, clutching Senna closer to him
"I-if I stop, we are crushed," Diana remarks, her forehead shimmering with sweat.
"Ledros?!" he demands.
"I am no healer. I… I do not know if I can wield the Hallow as Gwen does, but I can try," he murmurs, kneeling on Senna's other side.
Yasuo swears and bellows at the sky.
Graves glances around the others, "How…how are we getting out of here?"
"I don't-" Lucian begins but stops as he sees something rushing towards them through the deep.
"Diana, let go," he murmurs.
"What?" she exclaims.
"Just do it." he presses.
"Are you insane?!" Graves cries.
Diana turns to follow his gaze.
She blinks.
The dome drops.
And before the waves can take them, a leviathan does instead.
And so ends the Depths Beneath arc.
Next time, our disparate parties reunite, lick the wounds, and regroup before heading for the mysterious jungles of Ixtal, where someone unexpected awaits them.
I know I have been spotty with updates on this story as of late, but I am planning to work around that in the future. Namely, I am going to be working on arcs all in one go and then posting them in mass. The question is, do folks want me to post a chapter a day per the arc or weekly once I finish one?
There will likely be dips as I write the following arc, but this story is closing in on the end. Two chapters not seen at all during the OG Sentinel's event are crawling to the forefront of my mind, so expect a big change in scenery once the Fool's Errand Arc ends.
Regardless, as always, comments, questions, and critiques are appreciated.
This has been VerBeeker signing off!