The Redemption of Jericho Swain
Chapter 9: War as an Institution
Rainbow Dash groaned as she shifted in her bunk, trying her best to ignore the pounding headache that raged in her brain. As she struggled to get comfortable, her tossing and turning brought her too close to the edge of the narrow bunk, and with a loud thunk and an even louder, somewhat profane exclamation of pain, Rainbow Dash, along with Applejack and Rarity as collateral damage, were forced to dismiss the notion of sleeping any further. Rarity stifled a yawn in as ladylike a manner as she could manage. “Rainbow Dash, dear, what have I told you about using that kind of language? It’s completely uncouth.”
She received a groan and a muffled, incoherent dismissal that was either complaining about how loud Rarity was, telling her to do unspeakable acts with a cactus, or some combination thereof.
Applejack snorted and aimed a soft kick at the lump on the floor known as Rainbow Dash. “Ain’t no call to be rude, Dash, just cause you can’t handle your drink. Should’ve stopped when we told you to. Gotta admit, it was pretty funny seeing you trying to reenact Cadence and Twilight’s brother wedding adventure,” she finished with a snicker.
“Ugh, I can’t remember a thing, and I’m not sure I want to,” said Rainbow Dash as she crawled pitifully toward the chair and table that took up what little unoccupied space in the cabin was there. “Why are you two so peppy? Shouldn’t you at least have a headache or something?”
“A lady must always know her limits,” Rarity huffed. “Else one might make a fool of oneself. Of course, if you hadn’t indulged yourself to the point of not remembering, you’d know that lesson firsthand.”
“Earth pony fortitude,” said Applejack as Rainbow Dash turned to her. “The average earth pony will have twice the tolerance as any other pony. You shouldn’t be surprised, really. Pegasi are notorious lightweights, in pretty much every way. That same thing that lets you fly and run so fast also gives a weak constitution in return. Now, get up and come on. We’ll get you a glass of water, that’ll help with the hangover. If it makes you feel any better, you ain’t gonna be alone, Dash. Ah reckon Twi’s gonna be even worse off, ‘cause Ah’m willing to bet that she at least remembers some of last night.”
When the trio reached the dining room, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy were already waiting. Pinkie was her usual self, happily, noisily, and messily devouring the raisin muffins on her plate. Fluttershy was speaking consolingly to Twilight, whose disheveled appearance and downcast face attested to the truth of what Applejack had previously said.
“Don’t feel bad, Twilight,” cooed Fluttershy. “Your dancing wasn’t that bad. Nobody minded. Everypo-I mean everyone had a wonderful time last night, and nobody will hold your behavior against you. I’m sure Riven’s forgotten all about your comments.” Fluttershy realized her mistake a moment too late.
“Comments?! What comments?!” Twilight’s shame and discomfort were rapidly transforming into panic. “What did I say, Fluttershy? What. Did. I. Say?” Of course, Fluttershy was having a hard time answering through Twilight’s frenzied shaking of her.
Fortunately for Fluttershy, and unfortunately for Twilight, Ezreal, Kassadin, and Riven decided to join them at that moment. Ezreal and Riven looked like they were trying to suppress smirks. “Morning everybody,” said Ezreal with a little too much pep. “Gotta admit, last night was the most fun I’ve had in ages. Being a champion can get so stuffy sometimes. Also, nice moves, Twi’,” he finished with a wink, causing Twilight to blush furiously while burning a hole in her untouched food with her gaze.
Riven smacked him in the arm. “Don’t tease the poor girl. Not everyone can dance as...gracefully as you, Ezreal. No wonder Taric likes being in your lane so much.” Riven placed a comforting hand on Twilight’s shoulder while Ezreal sputtered in indignation. “Don’t sweat it, Twilight. Alcohol does some funny things to people, but don’t feel bad. It wouldn’t have worked out between us anyway. You should probably have a long talk with Celestia when you get home though.” At that point, it became too much for Riven to bear, and she burst into hearty laughter, joined quickly by Ezreal.
“You two need to stop now. Twilight’s on the verge of tears.” The laughter stopped instantly when the pair met Fluttershy’s sharp glare, and both of the seasoned warriors felt inexplicably unnerved at the pair of daggers pointed in their direction. “You will apologize now. You will mean it.”
“Err, sorry Twilight,” said Ezreal sheepishly. “I guess we got a little carried away. You really were the life of the party last night though. I don’t get many chances to unwind like that between fighting with the League and my archeology work for Piltover. It was awesome, even if I’m going to be terribly backlogged with work when I go back home.”
Riven nodded. “Yeah, I apologize. I used to go drinking a lot with my comrades back before the Ionian War. We were pretty rowdy. I guess I expected everyone else to be that thick-skinned.”
“I-it’s okay,” Twilight managed as she regained her composure. “Where’s Swain? I haven’t seen him since before we started drinking.”
“He ate by himself and headed above deck again. He spends much of his time communing with the creature dressed as a bird. The stench of the Void on him is nearly unbearable.” Kassadin’s eyes narrowed. “I will be glad to be rid of him as soon as possible.”
“Geez, barely awake and already full of doom and Void prophecies. Maybe you should have joined us last night,” snarked Ezreal.
“Alcohol is a vile substance, and I have refused to partake of it since before I was touched by the Void,” Kassadin said flatly. “Even if I so desired, the complications of my respiration system make ingesting food and drink in the traditional method impossible. To keep myself alive, I must sustain myself via raw magic.”
Twilight perked up in sync with her curiosity. “If you don’t mind me asking...You talk a lot about how you’ve been ‘touched by the Void’, but you don’t really say much more. What happened, exactly?”
Kassadin was pensive for a few moments, his expression as unreadable as ever. Twilight began to worry that she had offended him with her curiosity. A few seconds later, though, her fears were assuaged as he responded. “I was once a scholar. I did have some magical ability, but nothing prodigious. What I did have, however, was an insatiable curiosity and a knack for finding out things I shouldn’t. My studies once led me to stumble across mention of a forgotten city named Icathia.”
Kassadin drew a deep, rattling breath through his mask, almost sounding as if he were in pain at the mere recollection of the experience. “I saw things that I cannot speak of there. Words cannot capture the fear and horror I felt when I gazed into the Void in that necropolis. At first, I tried to fight it as the power of the place began to seep into both my body and my mind. I knew I was not strong enough to save both, though, so I let my body be consumed and filled with the energies of the Void, draining me of what magical potential I had and replacing it with a new power capable of fending off the tendrils of the Void that ripped at my mind. When I finally escaped from Icathia, I vowed to do everything within my power to protect this world from the Void.” Kassadin sighed. “Unfortunately, playing politician within the halls of the Institute of War seems to be the only path to gather the support I need to seal this world from the Void once and for all.”
“What about Malzahar?,” quipped Rainbow Dash, who until then had been silently nursing her headache over a bowl of soup. “How does he fit into all of this?”
“Malzahar is the only other human to step foot into Icathia and survive, if you can call his existence that,” Kassadin growled. “From what I understand, he was once a talented seer from the Shurima Desert, who was drawn by visions from the Void into Icathia. His body survived, but his mind did not. He is nothing but a puppet for his Void masters now.”
- - - -
Swain’s thoughts flew with the unceasing breeze that often drew him to the airship’s deck. He hadn’t taken part in the revelry that had occurred the previous night, being well too aware of the risks of alcohol. He was also loathe to admit that Pinkie made him nervous. She always seemed to be looking right at him when Nightmare decided to make a comment. Adding to it, his feathered companion seemed unusually reticent lately. His bird seemed to dislike the Nightmare immensely, or so it seemed to convey the last time they had exchanged thoughts and feelings in the strange way the two communicated. It was through this method that the two long-time companions were having a silent argument. ‘Well at least tell me why you hate this Nightmare so much. His dislike of the way things work in the Void has been working greatly to our advantage.’
The bird blinked its six red eyes as if it were explaining something to an unusually dense child. ‘Names important.’ Swain felt the bird’s mistrust spike at this. ‘No names, only titles. Titles go to the recognized. False names taboo without real name. Kog’maw is false name for Mouth of the Void. Cho’gath is false name for Terror of the Void. Nightmare is false name for something.’
‘So he has a title that is also a name. What does that mean?,’ Swain queried with his thoughts.
The bird squawked derisively. ‘Losing brain? Void titles same as Runeterra titles. Cannot deal with child more. Hunting time.’ Swain sighed in defeat at the bird flew away.
‘That one doesn’t like me, I think. Always flies off when I want to talk. What do you two talk about anyway?’ Nightmare’s voice was considerably friendlier than the harshness of the birds thoughts against Swain’s mind.
“It was simply squawking about how it disliked one of my plans. Astounding that after all of these years, it hasn’t put much effort into learning manners or how to speak in Runeterran properly,” Swain snarked in response.
‘Sounds annoying. Why put up with it?,’ asked Nightmare flatly.
“Despite a lack of refinement, it has been my oldest traveling companion for years, and has offered insight, loyalty, and magical assistance to me. It would be foolish to send it away for its quirks.” Swain’s voice seemed artificially harsh and apathetic, and his conversation partner picked up on it.
‘...I get it,’ said Nightmare after a pointed delay. ‘I never expected someone as practical and ruthless as you to have such an obvious soft spot. You’re a strange one, Swain. You use your own kind like disposable tools, and a being that by almost anyone else around you would be considered an abomination is your only friend. You ever hear that saying in Equestria about pegasi of a feather fl-’
“Be silent, Nightmare. Whose company I keep is none of your concern, and there is a reason behind everything I do,” Swain snapped defensively. “On to a subject that has been on my mind for a while...you mentioned that you represented a group of Void creatures that wished for a different lifestyle?”
Nightmare laughed. ‘Whatever you say, boss. Okay, brief rundown of the Void. Take notes, human, you’re about to learn more than all but one sane man has. Runeterra used to have the troublesome habit of taking creatures from other worlds and dimensions to fight in its League, as you know.The Void exists as a nexus between those dimensions, so to speak. It has been the tradition in the Void to use the massive amounts of power at our disposal to seed worlds in the various dimensions with Void magic. The natural magic that a dimension produces and recycles would be drawn to the new world, paving the way for societies of supreme magic users who would eventually be drawn to their own destruction by the sheer amount of power at their disposal. At this point, the boundaries between dimensions would be as weak as they were when the world was first touched by the Void, and we would come in and rip the gathered magic from the world to consume and grow in power. After a brief hibernation, the invasion force would return to the Void and prepare for the next invasion while seeders looked for suitable worlds to groom.’
“Seeders, you say?” Swain pondered for a moment. “What goes into seeding a world?”
‘Well, really all it takes is finding a world with magic, creating a dimensional tether to the Void that can be used to open a portal later, and then making sure that the culture of the strongest magic users on the world advances far enough to destroy themselves when they go to war. You’d honestly be surprised at how often we find humans or variants thereof. It seems to be a favorite configuration of the worlds in this dimension,’ replied Nightmare casually.
“So you have a direct effect on the cultures you encounter? Are these ‘Seeders’ responsible for the odd similarities between various worlds and dimensions that we have seen?,” Swain asked, his mind ablaze with questions.
Nightmare seemed almost enthusiastic to explain his home to Swain.‘Oh, yeah. Seeders fancy themselves artists or something like that, but they’ve found certain...cultural formulae that almost always lead to war. For simplicity’s sake, most of the time a seeder will draw from a prefabricated template to influence a culture toward, and then cast some minor illusion spells to make certain cultural aspects appear comprehensible from one world to the next, so that they don’t have to keep up with one million dialects. It works for most human worlds, though Equestria was a rather messy lesson in not assuming every world works like human worlds do. The seeders underestimated the influence that those demigods would have on society after we left. They inherited a lot of the cultural similarities that you saw, but became a society too pacifistic for the world-shattering conflicts we rely upon to weaken the dimensional barriers to occur. Everyone pretty much decided they weren’t worth the effort after that, and the place was forgotten until my associates and I decided it would be a perfect place to refine our new way of life into something more sustainable in the long term. After all, eventually we’ll run out of targets, even if that is eons away. Eons don’t mean much in our society. After all, you of all people should know about sacrificing the easy way to improve the future, right?’
- - - -
Pinkie held her hand to stop the rapid shaking that had been rattling her arm for a minute, telling her that someone was hiding something. At the same time, an itch on her foot told her something bad was in the process of happening. It still baffled someone as scholarly as Twilight not to have a solid explanation for the so-called ‘Pinkie Sense’, a series of bodily sensations that Pinkie had learned to interpret over the years in a somewhat prophetic manner. After yet another night of exasperated research, the best Twilight had been able to explain it with was that there might be an bit of unicorn in her ancestry that may have caused a genetic anomaly with her native magic. Pinkie didn’t really know what that meant, but it seemed to keep Twilight from stressing too much about it. At this point, none of her friends questioned when she had the urge to randomly wander off, driven by her intuition-laden twitches and spasms.
What her body lead her to, however, left Pinkie even more confused. She knew she was watching something important, but whoever this ‘Nightmare person was didn’t actually seem to be there, despite Swain carrying on half of a conversation with ease. It was very puzzling that Swain seemed to talk to himself so often. When Pinkie had started imagining voices in her head after a huge misunderstanding regarding her birthday, Twilight had told Pinkie to get counseling. She never did go, but maybe Swain needed counseling too if he was hearing voices. She would have to do some thinking. Pinkie headed back down into the belly of the zeppelin, unnoticed by the one she was observing.
“Twitchy tail, itchy back,” commented Pinkie as she rejoined the others. “Hey everybody, I think we’re going to be landing soon.”
- - - -
The Institute of War was a breathtaking sight for those who hadn’t previously seen it. The massive architecture, carved out of the face of a mountain, was every bit as grandiose as its self-proclaimed intentions. Even Rainbow Dash, native to the relatively opulent city of Cloudsdale, was forced to admit that she had never seen anything like it before. “This has to be bigger than Canterlot Castle. What the hay do they even use all of this space for?,” she commented as she gazed at the huge, magnificently decorated doors that stood in front of the group.
Ezreal patted her on the shoulder. “Offices. Lots and lots of offices.”
Riven rolled her eyes. “To be fair, for a while they were working on that new Field of Justice somewhere in there. They were going to make a new battlefield near the magma flows inside, but the conflict in Kalamanda that created the new Field of Justice there sapped the funding, I think. Speaking of which, I heard that incident was orchestrated by a few Summoners.”
“Yeah,” responded Ezreal with a nod. “Half of the staff from the Journal of Justice got arrested. It’s a pity. I like that publication.”
“Or you just were infatuated with the idea of answering fan mail for a gossip column,” replied Riven with a derisive snort. “Nothing against the paper itself, though. People like to be entertained. It’s frustratingly typical of the League, though, to just make a few arrests and give no further reparation for the destroyed lives of the villagers who lived there. They’ll scapegoat a few Summoners for something that’s probably evidence of widespread corruption, and the continue to reap the benefits of a new Field of Justice. I’m beginning to view that name with a trace of irony.”
Nasus was waiting for them in the ornate lobby that they found just past the entrance. After a quick but friendly reunion, Nasus began to lead them to the suite that would house them, while Ezreal, Kassadin, Swain, and Riven went their separate ways to find their own suites. “Wow, this is really...who pays for all of this?,” asked Applejack as the group surveyed the lavish housing.
“I’ve got a better question.” Twilight looked hopeful as she spoke. “Is there any news on getting that appeal through?”
“There is good news and there is bad news,” Nasus began with a slow, measured pace of words. “I could not convince the High Council of Equity to direct more resources to us.” Six faces fell in unison. “There is still hope, however. If we manage to gain enough influence among the Summoners before the next General Assembly, where the Summoners and Emissaries gather to discuss issues that fall under the League’s jurisdiction, we may be able to get the resources we need.”
Twilight sighed, looking up a few seconds later with renewed determination. “Well girls, nopony said it would be easy getting home. Nasus, what do we have to do?”
Nasus took on an expression of unease. “Influence with the Summoners is gained by helping them. The most expedient way of gaining a Summoner’s favor is to represent their causes upon the Fields of Justice.”
Rarity’s jaw dropped. “You mean we have to...”
Fluttershy’s body hit the soft carpet with an equally soft thump as she fainted.
- - - -
Fluttershy awoke feeling well-rested. Seeing her companions around her with concerned looks filled her with both worry that something was wrong and happiness that they were so invested in her well-being. “Oh, my. What happened? All I remember is having the worst dream about Nasus saying we could only get home by fighting...girls?” Fluttershy felt increasingly uncomfortable as nobody said anything in response to her. Realization hit her. “Oh. It wasn’t a dream, was it?”
Rarity nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid so. Violence is our only path to get home, it seems.
Fluttershy felt the arms of panic closing around her chest again. “But I...I can’t...I don’t...” Fluttershy curled into a ball, her face hiding behind a lock of pink hair. “I don’t think I can fight.”
Twilight smiled reassuringly. “We know that some of us just aren’t cut out at all for what has to be done...That’s why you and Rarity are getting an equally important job that doesn’t involve fighting. We’re going to need you two to act as our representatives to the Summoners and anyone else we need to help us. Rarity knows how to make a pitch for us, and to be frank, Fluttershy, most ponies just have a hard time telling you no. The rest of us will undergo combat training, and then we will enter the League. Speaking of which, we were all about to go and spectate one of the battles to have an idea of what we’re going into. Would you care to join us?”
“That’s a relief,” replied Fluttershy with a sigh. “I suppose as long as I don’t have to fight, I can come watch. I still want to be there for you girls. I’m sorry that I just can’t-”
Rainbow Dash put a hand over Fluttershy’s mouth. “Listen. Don’t sweat it. We all know you wouldn’t swat a mosquito if it was biting you on the wing. It’s just who you are. We won’t be mad at you for that. Leave it to the more rough-and-tumble ponies to fight. I know I have some new moves to show Applejack out there.”
Applejack chuckled. “Ah might have learned a few new things myself, sugarcube. Come on now, we don’t wanna be late.”
- - - -
Nasus pointed to a thick cloth tunic and put a bag of gold coins in the hand of the new shopkeeper, a yordle whose name he wasn’t quite familiar with, and as he took hold of the armor, it vanished from his hands, becoming a wispy smoke that absorbed into his entire body. The League didn’t want the look of its poster-children tarnished by bulky armors and mismatched equipment, so a few enchantments had been made to allow a champion to buy a piece of equipment and wield its power without actually wielding it, resulting in odd situations where an archer might buy a comically oversized sword, or one of the beefier champions might buy multiple sets of the same suit of armor. It was a bizarre system, to be sure, but it worked. Nasus hoped that his observers would be able to learn as much as possible from the coming battle, as their training would have to be both rapid and unforgiving.
Nasus stepped off of the platform and readied himself for battle.