The mountains west of Shurima rose in dry layers of stone and dust, marking the rough border where the desert began to surrender to Targon's harsher slopes. There were no villages here, no roads worth naming, and no travelers foolish enough to waste their strength crossing these rocks without a reason. That was why Lissandra had chosen it.
The place was empty.
A cold wind moved between the rocks, carrying sand with it. Jinx stood near a flat stretch of stone, one hand over her brow as she watched the two meeps drift around Soraka. They looked small. Round. Almost harmless. One of them bobbed in the air as if it had forgotten gravity was supposed to matter, while the other circled Janna's shoulder and let out a soft chiming sound.
Jinx narrowed her eyes.
"So those little puffballs are the guides?"
Soraka gave her a patient look. "They are Bard's companions."
"Uh-huh." Jinx tilted her head, studying one of them as it floated upside down. "They don't look that powerful."
The meep closest to her made a tiny sound.
Jinx pointed at it. "Don't take it personally. I'm just saying, I've seen scarier things in a lunchbox."
Vi sighed behind her.
Jinx leaned closer to the meep, eyes bright with curiosity. "I mean, if Mimi was here, I could probably vaporize both of them in one shot."
The meep blinked.
Soraka turned her head toward her. "Mimi?"
Jinx's expression changed at once, proud and wounded at the same time. "My big girl. Huge cannon. Beautiful. Loud. Perfect. Still unfinished, but already gorgeous enough to make every councilor in Piltover faint on principle." Then she groaned and threw her head back. "And I can't even bring her."
Lissandra's voice cut across the mountain air. "Do you remember that this is a rescue mission, not a war?"
Jinx stuck her tongue out at her. "I know."
"You say that as if you find it disappointing."
"I do know," Jinx repeated, then turned away before Lissandra could answer. She reached toward the nearest meep with one finger. "Come here, tiny star potato."
The meep floated back.
Jinx followed it.
Vi watched her for a moment, then looked down at the suit covering her own body. It still felt strange, tight in places where it needed to seal and heavier around the spine and ribs. The surface was dark and flexible, layered with plates that looked almost like armor but moved more like a second skin. It had no living weapons like Kai'Sa's carapace, no shoulder cannons, no organic blades, nothing that would decide for itself when to strike. The suit's purpose was simpler: copy as much of Kai'Sa's resistance to Void corruption as possible without copying the creature attached to her.
At least, that was the idea.
Each suit had a sealed collar, a reinforced mask, compact thrusters along the back and legs, and small compartments along the waist and thighs filled with concentrated nutrient rations. There were also emergency injections, filters, communication nodes, and the special batteries made from processed Xer'Sai material, Shimmer stabilizers, Hextech channels, and whatever else Singed and Viktor had argued over until everyone else got tired of listening.
Vi did not pretend to understand it.
She only knew that it was supposed to keep the Void from getting into her head too quickly.
That was good enough.
A few steps away, Ekko was checking his gear again.
He had already done it before they left the Twin Cities. Then he had checked it again after arriving in Shurima. Then again when they climbed to this spot. Then once more after Lissandra told everyone to wait.
Now he was doing it for what had to be the tenth time.
He inspected the battery ports on his suit, counted the nutrient capsules, checked the weapon clips at his belt, and looked over the small gauges on Vander's larger temporary suit. Vander stood still with more patience than anyone else would have managed, letting Ekko move around him like a mechanic around a machine.
"All good?" Vander asked.
Ekko frowned at a connector near Vander's shoulder. "It was good the last time."
"Then why are you checking it again?"
"Because good isn't the same as good enough."
Jinx had finally managed to get one of the meeps to hover close enough for her to poke it. It made a bright little note and spun in place. She gasped.
"It squeaks."
The meep drifted upward and began circling above her head.
Jinx followed it with both hands raised. "Come back. I need to study the squeak."
Lissandra did not look amused, but she did not stop her either. Soraka raised one hand, and both meeps immediately turned toward her. Jinx lowered her arms with a disappointed sound.
The meeps floated to Soraka's side.
She closed her eyes and listened.
At first, there was nothing but a few light chimes. To Vi, the sounds were random. One note rose, another fell, then the two meeps answered each other in uneven rhythms that made no obvious pattern. Soraka, however, reacted as if she were hearing words. Her brow tightened. Then she nodded once.
Janna stood beside Vi and Vander, quiet beneath the pale desert light. Her presence made the wind softer around them, as if the mountain itself was being asked to behave for a while.
Vi glanced at Kai'Sa.
The other woman was standing apart from the group, looking toward the rocks with her arms folded.
Vi stepped closer. "Can I ask you something?"
Kai'Sa turned her head. "You can."
"You've been in the Void, right?"
Kai'Sa was silent for a moment. "I've been in places under Shurima where the Void had already swallowed almost everything."
"That's not what I mean." Vi looked toward the meeps, then back at her. "Have you ever been in the true Void?"
Kai'Sa's answer did not come quickly.
"I don't know," she said at last. "There were places where I could no longer tell if I was still in the real world. The air was wrong. The ground moved when it should not have moved. Distance stopped making sense. Sometimes I would crawl through a tunnel and feel like I had crossed a few steps. Then I would come out somewhere that should have been miles away." Her voice stayed even, but her eyes darkened slightly. "Maybe that was still Runeterra. Maybe it was already something else."
Her gaze shifted back to Jinx.
Jinx was crouched now, speaking very seriously to one of the meeps. Vi could not hear what she was saying, but from the meep's confused floating and Jinx's hand gestures, she guessed it involved explosives.
Vi's chest tightened.
She had asked Jinx about Isha before they left. She had asked whether Jinx wanted to see her, even for a minute. A quick goodbye. A promise. Anything.
Jinx had refused.
No need, she had said. I'm coming back with Logan.
She had said it with that stubborn shine in her eyes, the one that dared the whole world to disagree with her.
Vi knew there was more beneath it. She did not want the girl to hear the word Void and understand the fear behind everyone's eyes. She did not want to turn a rescue mission into a farewell.
And maybe, in her own way, Jinx was right.
Vi smiled faintly despite herself.
Kai'Sa noticed. "What is it?"
"Nothing."
"You were looking at your sister."
Vi blinked, a little caught off guard. "Yeah."
Kai'Sa looked between them. "Have you always been that close?"
Vi let out a short laugh. "That's a complicated question."
Kai'Sa waited.
"At first? Yeah." Vi rubbed the back of her neck. "Then no. Then definitely no. And now..." Her eyes softened as Jinx tried to copy the meep's floating motion by hopping from one foot to the other. "Now I think we are."
Kai'Sa stared at her for a second. "That answer does not make much sense."
"It does if you know us."
"I don't."
"Probably for the best."
Kai'Sa seemed to consider that seriously.
Vi realized, too late, that she had no idea how to continue the conversation. She was not good at this kind of thing. Fighting, yes. Casual emotional questions with a woman who had survived the Void under Shurima, not really.
Still, she tried.
"What about you?" Vi asked. "Do you have family?"
Kai'Sa's face changed.
It was subtle. Very subtle. But Vi saw it anyway.
Before Kai'Sa could answer, Lissandra raised her staff and struck its base against the stone.
"Enough. Everyone, come here."
The group gathered in front of a wide wall of rock at the side of the mountain. It was just stone, tall and solid, with pale cracks running across it like old scars.
Lissandra looked at Ekko. "Is everything ready?"
Ekko took one last look at the readings on his wrist display. His eyes moved quickly from person to person, checking the signals from their suits. Vi. Jinx. Vander. Kai'Sa. Himself. All active. All sealed. All batteries stable.
He swallowed.
"Yes," he said. "Everything is ready."
Lissandra turned to the others.
"Then listen carefully. The meeps will open the path and guide you. Do not separate from them unless there is no other choice. Do not chase anything. Do not answer any voice you cannot identify. Do not trust what you see if it tries to make you hesitate." Her gaze settled briefly on Jinx, then on Vi. "Your mission is to find Logan. If Ahri is alive and reachable, bring her back as well. If the situation becomes impossible, return with whoever you can save."
Jinx's expression tightened.
Vi noticed but said nothing.
Lissandra continued, "You are not going there to fight the Void. You are not going there to prove yourselves. You are not going there to win. You are going there to retrieve two people and come back alive. Is that clear?"
Vander answered first. "Clear."
Ekko nodded. "Clear."
Kai'Sa said, "Understood."
Vi looked at Jinx.
Jinx rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes. Grab Logan, grab Ahri if she's there, don't punch the entire Void in the face."
Lissandra held her gaze for a second longer, then looked at Soraka.
Soraka stepped forward.
The meeps moved with her. They floated in front of the stone wall, still and quiet for a heartbeat. Then Soraka spoke to them in that strange, gentle way, though what came out of her mouth was not a language the rest understood. It sounded like a hum, a breath, and a note all at once.
The meeps answered.
Their chimes were soft at first. Separate. Uneven.
Then the sounds began to join.
One meep rose higher while the other drifted low, circling near the ground. They moved around each other in slow, odd patterns, almost clumsy at the beginning. Jinx leaned forward, fascinated despite herself. Ekko stopped checking his gear. Vander straightened.
The notes changed.
What had sounded random became rhythm. What had sounded like scattered bells became a song.
The meeps turned faster.
Gold light gathered around them in thin lines, tracing their path through the air. The lines did not fade. They remained, curving over the stone, crossing and weaving until the rock face looked as if someone had drawn a doorway on it with sunlight.
The song grew clearer.
The movement became a dance.
Then the stone opened.
A circular portal spread across the mountain wall, about five meters wide, its edge glowing gold. Beyond it was not the other side of the mountain. It was a tunnel of light, deep and moving, as if the air inside had become a river flowing too fast to follow.
Jinx whispered, "Okay. That's a little powerful."
Janna stepped toward Vi and Vander. The wind moved with her, tugging gently at the edges of their suits.
"Go without worry," she said softly. Her eyes rested on Vi first, then Vander. "And take care of Jinx."
Vander gave her a steady nod. "We will."
Vi looked at Janna for a moment, then nodded too. "Yeah. We've got her."
Jinx pretended not to hear.
Soraka moved closer, her expression warm but touched with worry. "May you find them before the darkness changes its shape again. Hold on to each other. That may matter more than strength."
Lissandra just said. "Go."
Jinx moved first.
Of course she did.
"Logan!" she shouted, and sprinted straight for the portal.
One of the meeps chimed and rushed after her.
Vi cursed. "Jinx! Don't run ahead!"
She charged after her sister without waiting for anyone else.
Vander followed, heavy steps shaking dust from the stone. Ekko went next, eyes locked on the portal as if he could calculate a path that was not meant to be calculated.
Kai'Sa remained for one second longer.
Lissandra looked at her. "Don't die."
Kai'Sa turned slightly.
The Ice Witch's expression did not change. "I still have plans for you later."
Kai'Sa did not know what to say to that. She was not even sure whether it was a threat, encouragement, or simply Lissandra's version of concern.
So she nodded. "I'll try not to."
The second meep drifted beside her and chimed once.
Kai'Sa stepped into the portal.
The mountain vanished.
Light swallowed her whole.
For an instant, she felt no ground beneath her feet. Then she was moving, pulled forward at impossible speed through a vast tunnel of gold. The walls were not walls. They were streaks of brightness, bending and folding too quickly for her eyes to follow. She could not tell whether they were traveling upward, downward, across the world, or away from it completely.
Her suit readings flickered.
The carapace along her skin tightened.
Kai'Sa forced herself not to fight the motion. She had learned long ago that panic wasted air and strength.
This path had sound.
The meep ahead of her left a trail of notes in the light, and those notes seemed to hold the tunnel together.
Far ahead, she saw shapes.
Jinx was spinning, laughing or shouting, Kai'Sa could not tell which. Vi had managed to catch her by the back of the suit and was yelling something that disappeared into the rushing light. Vander moved behind them like a dark anchor, one arm out as if ready to grab both sisters if the path broke apart. Ekko twisted in the air, trying to stabilize himself with short bursts from his thrusters.
Then Vi looked back and saw Kai'Sa.
She reached for her.
Kai'Sa did not understand why at first. Then the tunnel shifted, and her body lurched sideways. Vi's hand closed around her wrist.
For a brief moment, Kai'Sa was not in the golden tunnel.
She was a child again, reaching for hands she had lost in the dark.
Her mother's voice.
Her father's face.
The memory came and went so fast it almost hurt more than if it had stayed.
Vi tightened her grip. "Got you!"
Kai'Sa heard it faintly through the light.
She looked at Vi, then at Jinx, Vander, Ekko, and the meep guiding them toward a place none of them truly understood.
Her throat tightened.
"Thank you," she said, though she did not know if Vi could hear her.
The tunnel carried them onward.
Behind them, on the mountain slope, the portal closed without a sound.
...
Far away from that golden path, in a place where distance had little meaning, something moved through the Void.
It was not one of the mindless things that crawled, swam, or tore at anything bright enough to hate. It moved with purpose. Its body was wrapped in old armor scarred by battles that should have killed any ordinary man. A blade of violet force burned at its side, dimmed for now but never gone. Its masked face turned toward the disturbance spreading through the dark.
The Void had changed.
Something had entered it.
Something that did not belong.
The figure moved faster, following the wound in silence.
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