The Redemption of Jericho Swain
Chapter 17: For Him that Knoweth to do Good...
Fluttershy watched silently as her friend downed another cup of coffee. It was past midnight, and yet again, Fluttershy sat, watching Rarity with equal parts worry and sadness. Rarity had been going downhill since the matches had started, getting only a few hours of sleep each day, and relying on coffee and magic to keep herself going. Her room was a scattered mess of matchmaking contracts, dossiers, and empty cups. Fluttershy's meek protests at Rarity's abuse of her health had gone completely ignored.
With an almost silent knock with a wing on Rarity's open door, she made her presence known. Rarity turned away from her work, and jumped slightly at seeing Fluttershy holding a tray with two cups at her door. "Oh, Fluttershy, I didn't think anyone else was awake at this hour. What can I help you with, darling?"
Fluttershy cast down her eyes momentarily. "Oh, I, um, woke up after being startled in a dream, and since I knew how you liked to work late, I thought I'd brew us some tea, and maybe we could, uh, chat until I settled down enough to sleep again. Sorry if I'm interrupting or being a bother..." Fluttershy tilted her head downward, letting her hair fall over her face as if to hide it.
Rarity smiled softly in response as she floated a cup of tea over to her desk, letting it come to rest beside the latest empty cup. "Believe me, dear, it's no trouble at all. Celestia knows I could use the company. Requests for the girls have been coming from Summoners left and right, and I'm simply at my wit's end keeping up with them all." Rarity took a sip of the tea, barely stifling a yawn afterward. "In other news, Nasus touched down in Zaun yesterday, and met up with Swain's agent. Today, we're all going to be seen 'leaving' the Institute to travel there. Swain has a safe-house that we shall be hiding in until Nasus is done."
Fluttershy frowned, trying to ignore the instinctual panic that she was known for rising. "But what if he turns on us? We wouldn't be able to do anything..."
Rarity put a hand on Fluttershy's shoulder, patting it reassuringly. "We've got that base covered as well. Riven will be there with us, and Ezreal will speak out if anything should befall us. If Swain harms the League's rising stars, he will inevitably lose its diplomatic immunity, and he'll be extradited to Noxus. As it stands now, he cannot be legally deposed without a trial, which won't happen if he never comes back to Noxus, at least until he's dealt with the accusations. As far as the matches we have scheduled, the League uses a recall spell for champions that are on Valoran but not at the Institute. It will allow us to go about our business unhindered." Rarity's attempt to hide her yawn failed miserably this time.
"Oh, my," commented Fluttershy, "I think you might really need some sleep. Being too tired will make working pointless anyway, after all. You might miss something."
Rarity sighed in defeat. "I suppose you are right. I am quite tired. It's so easy getting too caught up in one's work, especially something this important. Good night, Fluttershy. Sleep well."
"Good night Rarity," she responded before walking out of the door. After a few moments, though, she returned. "Oh, Rarity, I forgot my tea..." Fluttershy trailed off as she realized Rarity was already asleep. Looking at the desk where she had placed her own cup beside Rarity's, her gaze fell to the papers Rarity had been working on. 'Well, it's been a while since we've really coordinated. It's probably a good idea to see where she's going. Maybe I should just take a peek, so that I don't step on her hooves, er, toes when I schedule things...
It wasn't what she had expected. There were the standard fights backed by respected Summoners, letters and correspondence with the League's infinite paper-pushing network and those on either side of it. Causes needed champions, and political disputes sat right beside little insults and land quarrels. Any Summoner who could be contracted or convinced to take an issue into trial by conflict was ready and waiting for them.
Further back, though, there were other fights. Inexperienced Summoners with reputations for failures. Causes that couldn't afford the best of the best. Fights in which victory was unattainable, and struggle was futile. These wouldn't be valiant battles where the heroism of the combatants could compensate for cause's loss with good publicity. These were one-sided in every sense of the word. Things that wouldn't speak well for the girls' reputation, and their influence and power within the League of Legends. These things wouldn't lead to the General Assembly taking their side. Summoners were commodities to be bought and sold in the currency of fights, and their votes would only come at a price. All of the high talk of justice, of winning the favor of the General Assembly so that the League would volunteer resources, Fluttershy and Rarity both had figured out early that was false, and that only buying Summoners, one way or another, would give them what they need. It was a challenge the two had privately accepted between themselves to keep the distraction of politics away from the others, and now Rarity was sabotaging it behind everyone's backs. The League wouldn't ever help them if they went forward with these.
Fluttershy was hurt, and feelings of confusion and betrayal flashed across her face as she continued ruffling quietly through the papers until she found a small, faux-leather-bound book. It didn't surprise Fluttershy in the slightest that her friend kept a journal, but what did is that she found herself reaching for it. It was an invasion of privacy, a breach of Rarity's trust in her. It was wrong, but Fluttershy had to know Rarity's reasons. If the stress of this world had gotten to her and she'd lost hope, or if she was in some sort of trouble, this was the only way to know without letting Rarity know, and potentially covering everything up with denials and sweet-talking, and Fluttershy was more than aware that a few smooth words could stop her in her tracks. Here, in silence, she could find the truth. Taking a breath, she opened to a random entry.
Dear diary,
I'm not sure why I even bother sometimes. Ever since that conversation with Ryze, I feel like I've just been floundering about aimlessly. I had to admit I had trouble believing it when I was first told how duplicitous these humans could be, but not anymore. Maybe that's an unfair judgment, as we've met several good souls here. Strangely enough, though, none of them seem to be in positions of political power. I wonder if that's just a coincidence. I doubt it. Still, the girls have been through this much. I refuse to let all of this have been for nothing. We'll need Malzahar's knowledge to succeed. No, that's not it. We need his power. The girls haven't even questioned why we're not just playing this defensively, waiting for him to make a move. If they do, I can play it off as being proactive. After all, we can't expect that man to simply let us be. It's still yet another lie of omission, though. It isn't about stopping him anymore. Kassadin and Ryze's experiments have shown promise, but Kassadin can't channel enough of the Void's energies without succumbing to it like Malzahar already has. The only way is to capture him. I've been putting the girls through Tartarus getting them ready for that fight.
It's troubling, knowing just how useless I am. Fluttershy, the poor dear, doesn't realize just how little we're doing. Honestly, if it weren't my more clandestine intentions, she could handle the paperwork by herself, and I would focus on making contacts. Generosity has nothing to give, it seems. No, that's not true, now that I think about it. Dealing with that snake, Swain, has taught me otherwise. He'll probably be tickled pink to find out that I've been setting up my friends for failure. It sickens me to know that I'm sacrificing the innocence of my friends, but I won't let them go in unprepared. They will probably hate me for it, but I suppose that their friendship, however precious to me, is a small price compared to their lives.
Somehow, I expected that writing that down would make my words seem less hollow to myself.
I wonder how my sister is doing back home... I know that we will meet again one day, though, and this will all be worth it.
Fluttershy frowned, confused more than anything else, though it stung a bit that all of her work didn't mean as much as she thought. More concerning to her, though, were the mentions of Ryze and Kassadin, not to mention Rarity's concern that she would lose her friendships preparing her friends for a direct confrontation with Malzahar. Casting a quick glance back over to her sleeping friend, she flipped through the previous pages of the journal, scanning for anything that promised to explain what was going on. A feeling of dread overwhelmed her as she found what she was looking for.
Dear Diary,
I spoke to Ryze yesterday evening. I'm glad Fluttershy wasn't about afterward, because I'm pretty sure that I spent the next hour crying, and I woke up today feeling oddly drained. I must have looked rather unsightly to her, with my baggy eyes and my messy hair. Of course, she still insisted that I looked fine, but I could see the worry in her eyes. She thought that I had been staying up late setting up meetings. The truth is a bit worse, I'm afraid. Ryze had been asking around, and doing research. He told me that he'd been looking into the spell that Summoners used to pull beings from other worlds. He told me that the spell didn't interact with location at all, and that it merely searched for traits. Theoretically, we could search for the traits that perfectly define someone from our world, and use them as an anchor to transport ourselves to. That would take years, though. 'I could reverse engineer a teleportation network from this,' he said, 'but finding a single world that we're not even sure exists in the same plane that this one does... I'll keep trying, but don't hold your breath.' He almost sounded sorry, as much as you can tell past his rough demeanor. I guess this world makes you a little jaded after a while, but he just stood there after shattering everything we've been working for. I might have said some extremely unladylike things in response. I can't begin to justify how I behaved at that moment, but I suppose it worked, because he mentioned a long shot. Both Kassadin and Malzahar have attested in the past to the universality of the Void's presence across worlds. If this is true, and the Void has access to all of existence, then we might be able to use it as a bridge to home, if only we can figure out how to harness it. Ryze doesn't think we'll be able to pull it off without gleaning information from Malzahar though, and outside of the safety nets that the League gives us, neither of us think well of our chances in a battle against him and his lackeys. I have a plan, though. We'll have to see how well it works.
One thing is certain, though. The girls can't know. They need to stay focused, and not lose hope. There's no telling how they'd react, if they knew that they weren't going to get any real help from the League, no matter how well liked they are.
Fluttershy was on the verge of hyperventilating. The revelation that the League wasn't going to be of any help slammed into her like Rainbow Dash on a day of stunt flying. She heard a soft rustling noise behind her, and turned to see Rarity awake, eyes brimming with fear and regret. The two stared at each other for several minutes, Fluttershy's mind not certain how to react, and Rarity's mind afraid of that. After an eternity of silence, Fluttershy found the means to speak, though her voice only came out as a whisper. "...What do we do, Rarity?"
Rarity breathed a sigh of mixed relief and unresolved stress. "The same thing we've been doing all this time, Fluttershy. They have to be ready. They can't know, though. It would ruin everything. Please."
"I-I won't tell them. Cross my heart and hope to fly," replied Fluttershy. "They deserve to know, though."
Rarity nodded sadly. "Yes. They do. So did you. More than that, though, you all deserve to go home safely. The truth is, I'm not sure if this will end with 'They all lived happily ever after, The End'. I'm not even sure if it will end with 'They all lived.' If they knew what was going on, they might hesitate and lose focus. When you have to go out every day and feel what it's like to die, over and over again, you have to have strength of conviction to carry on. What do you think happens to that strength when they realize the League couldn't help them if it wanted to, and all of that effort hasn't been taking them where they want to go?"
"You should have more faith in them," reprimanded Fluttershy softly, before walking out of the room, her breathing still ragged and uneven. Rarity said nothing in response, and simply let her gaze fall downward.
- - - -
"We'll be meeting with Swain at his safe-house. Ezreal will be showing up later. Swain's taken the liberty of paying our airship to make a side stop, and several passengers under his command will be exiting at Zaun with tales of an engine mishap that delayed the ship for a short while." Riven paced in front of the group while she talked, occasionally stopping to take a drink of coffee from the flask at her hip. "Any questions?"
Rainbow Dash raised her hand. "Uh, yeah. If he's a wanted criminal, how is he managing to afford all of this?"
"Investments, I bet," replied Twilight. "If you were constantly competing with every other politician in a life-and-death struggle for supremacy, having a backup source of income would be needed in case your assets were frozen or seized. Did you know that here in Runeterra, people can buy portions of large companies as an investment, so that they have a say in the way the company is run, and in return the company gets more funds to work with? They call it stock trading. I bought a book about it, if you want to take a look." Twilight finished her explanation with a smile, obviously pleased with herself.
Rainbow Dash stared blankly at Twilight for a moment. "Sorry I asked. Anyway, I'm packed up."
The group got their breakfast to go, and before long, they were once more settled in an expensive-looking suite on what seemed to be an impractically large airship that somehow managed to fly anyway. Rarity, under Fluttershy's concerned urging, decided to nap for the duration of the trip, while Twilight, Applejack, and Pinkie roamed the ship. Fluttershy decided, after taking care of Rarity, to catch up on some of her own lost sleep as well, leaving Rainbow Dash and Riven to themselves in the ship's galley.
"So," began Rainbow Dash, "you really think Swain will keep up his end of the bargain with you?"
Riven took a swig of her Noxian ale before nodding. "Yeah, I do, actually. It'd be the perfect way to secure his power base. You take out all of the brutal competition in Noxian politics, it's a lot easier to stay at the top. Plus, if he doesn't, I'll kill him."
"Oh." Rainbow Dash looked to be at a loss for words for several moments before finally managing a reply. "I guess that's one way of being sure."
Riven's laughter almost caused her to choke on her ale. "You're too funny, you know that? You've gotten pretty good at fighting, but it still hasn't really sunk in, has it? All of this League stuff isn't real. I mean, it hurts like hell, but nobody ever dies permanently. This isn't a pretty, perfect little world like yours, Rainbow."
Rainbow Dash nodded, and signaled to a waitress. "One of what she has, please." She then turned back to Riven. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Its like a big game. A really painful game, but it's still a game. Even Pinkie's not getting depressed or anything, and you'd think that with how she can be, this would just break her in two. It isn't, though. I know I'm able to do all these things, that I could even kill if I wanted to, but if we ever get into a real fight, life and death... I dunno if I'll be able to, you know?"
Riven leaned back in her chair, sighing. "Yeah, I remember when I was like you. I mean, I was a lot younger, just because I lived in Noxus, but... the first time you kill someone, you lose something. It's just this thing inside you, that you never really get back. I've heard of people who can go back to being a farmer or a banker after being a soldier, but I can't imagine it. It used to bother me, back when I was climbing the ranks. Eventually it stopped really mattering, and I think that when I realized that I nearly quit the army on the spot. I guess I just got acclimated. That's what's wrong with Noxus. We're all soldiers who have gotten used to being soldiers. Honor stopped meaning anything, and then after that, life stopped meaning anything either. That's what I want to change. I don't want to copy Demacia or anything. With all their laws and restrictions and tyranny, they don't really know the value of life either. I'm thinking more along the lines of Piltover or Bandle City. Ever been to a yordle party? Crazy stuff, I tell you. Those little creatures know how to live. In fact, I'd say they know things we don't. Yordles who serve as soldiers don't really have much trouble readjusting after they come home, except for more extreme cases. It's like past all the blood and carnage, they stay innocent."
Rainbow Dash gratefully accepted her mug from the waitress, only to choke and sputter the moment the foul liquid touched her tongue, much to the amusement of her drinking partner. After several seconds of coughing and gagging, she managed to recompose herself. "I'm fine, I'm fine, just went down the wrong tube, that's all. But, yeah, I know what you're thinking. When we get back to Equestria, are we just gonna go back to the way we were? I've seen AJ break someone's neck with her bare hands. How do you do that and go back to being a farmer?" Rainbow Dash took a tentative sip of her ale once more, blanching heavily before swallowing. "Eh, this stuff's not so bad, once you get used to feeling like your tongue is dissolving."
"I know, right?" said Riven with a laugh. "You're doing it wrong, though. You gotta take it in swigs. Here, watch how I do it..."
- - - -
"So what'dya do after that, Twilight?" asked Pinkie as the trio stood on the deck of the airship, enjoying the feeling of the wind whipping her already untamed hair into a mesh of tangles that would make Rarity ill.
"Well, I actually figured out how to steal a bit of power from other champions, so after catching Veigar off-guard, I managed to unleash all the energy I stole on the rest of his team. Lee Sin still caught me from behind while I was running away, but my team came and cleaned up afterward," replied Twilight casually. "I actually got to talk to Lee Sin a bit after the match. You're right, Applejack, he's a pretty interesting individual."
"Ah told ya so," said Applejack. "Say, was it just me, or did Rarity look a little less primped than usual this morning?"
"She's been staying up late a lot lately, according to Fluttershy," said Pinkie with a frown. "It's not healthy. How's she supposed to stay all super-duper-fashiontastic if she's too tired? What if she get's so worn out she'll be too tired for our welcome home party?"
"Yeah... home..." Twilight trailed off, and the others couldn't help but stand in silence as they each thought back to all of the ponies waiting for them "Say, I have a spell I've been trying to create, and I need a volunteer. Think of it as a little slice of Equestria on Runeterra..."
- - - -
Swain sat, patiently watching the sky, trying to ignore the twinging pain in his leg, and the accompanying urge to put the armor back on. His bird sat on shoulder, staring at the sky alongside Swain. 'I've been thinking about what you said, about Nightmare.'
The bird turned to Swain. 'Finally stopped being stupid?'
'Let's hope,' replied Swain with his thoughts. 'At one point or another, Nightmare was important in Void society, else he wouldn't have taken a name, correct?'
'Correct.'
'What would prompt someone of such importance to abandon the traditions of the Void? I doubt that it would simply be remorse, after so long of doing the same thing.' Swain paused for a moment. 'I believe that taking out Malzahar has suddenly become a much higher priority. Nightmare is not telling us everything. Best not to alert him, though. If he is still working with the Void, taking out Malzahar before he can react or plan for it is the best course, especially if we can do it with the power he is mistakenly trusting us to further his goals with.'
The conversation was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Come in," said Swain gruffly, turning backward to look at the newcomer. "Oh, it's you. Think that vacation lasted long enough?"
"I assure you, it was a most excellent one. Ionia is wonderful at this time of year. Of course, I simply cannot stay away from my calling for too long, so all good things must come to an end. Speaking of which, I have made a bit of progress on your personal request." Singed smiled. "I must say, it's good to be back.