Jinx decided that traveling through a magical golden tunnel was much less boring once she stopped trying to stand still.
Standing still was impossible anyway.
The light pulled them forward so quickly that her stomach kept trying to argue with the rest of her body. There was no floor under her boots, no wall she could grab, and no wind even though they were moving fast enough that there should have been plenty of it. Everything around them stretched into long golden streaks. Sometimes Jinx was almost sure she saw shapes in them, but before her eyes could catch anything, the tunnel swallowed the image and threw a new one past them.
The meep guiding her seemed perfectly fine.
It floated ahead of her, humming a few notes, then drifting back as if checking whether she had gotten lost in a tunnel with one direction.
Jinx reached out and poked it.
The meep spun once.
She grinned. "Boop."
"Jinx," Vi shouted from behind her.
"What?"
"Stop poking the guide."
"I'm testing guide durability."
"You're annoying it."
The meep chimed.
Jinx pointed at it. "See? It likes me."
"I don't think that meant it likes you."
"You don't speak puffball."
"And you do?"
Jinx grabbed at the meep again. It slipped out of reach, spun upside down, and gave her a smug little note. She gasped.
"Oh, you little traitor."
The meep drifted backward, just close enough to tempt her. Jinx kicked lightly with one boot, forgot there was nothing to kick against, and rolled sideways. Vi caught her by the back of the suit before she could tumble into Ekko.
"Quit playing around," Vi said.
Jinx hung there for a second, arms dangling. "You know, for a rescue mission into cosmic horror, you're being very controlling."
"I'm keeping you from smacking into people."
"That's controlling."
Jinx made a face, but she did not pull away. Not immediately.
The golden tunnel continued rushing around them. Vander moved nearby, large enough that even floating weightlessly he somehow looked like he belonged on solid ground. Ekko was farther ahead, his eyes moving from his suit readings to the tunnel and back again. Kai'Sa kept close to the second meep.
Jinx looked past them all, squinting at the tunnel walls.
"Do you think this is all we're going to see?" she asked.
Vi tightened her grip on her suit. "What?"
"This." Jinx gestured at the gold streaks around them. "Pretty, yeah, but we're moving so fast it's all smeared. Maybe there are impossible worlds outside and we'll never see them because the tunnel's showing everything like a bad smear of paint."
Ekko glanced back. "That might be for the best."
"Boring answer."
Then the tunnel changed.
It did not slow. Jinx felt no shift in speed. The gold still carried them forward, but the walls became clear.
The smeared light peeled open.
Beyond it, there were stars.
Not the normal kind.
Jinx had seen stars from Zaun only rarely, usually through gaps in smoke and fog. Piltover had better skies, but even there the stars were distant pinpricks, pretty enough if someone cared to look. This was different. They were inside a place where stars did not sit far away. They burned in rivers, gathered in clusters, and drifted like lanterns in deep blue and violet space. Some were small and sharp. Others spread out in veils of silver light. Golden lines ran between them like paths drawn by someone who did not care about straight roads.
There were shapes too large to understand at once. Rings of dust around sleeping worlds. Broken islands of stone floating without falling. A stream of light curved across the distance, carrying tiny sparks that moved like migrating birds.
For once, Jinx did not speak.
Vi's grip loosened.
Ekko whispered, "Whoa."
Vander breathed out slowly. "Never thought I'd see something like this."
Kai'Sa's face softened, not enough to be called wonder at first, but close.
Jinx pressed both hands against the inside of the tunnel as if she could touch the stars beyond it. The meep bumped gently against her shoulder, and she did not poke it back.
"Okay," she said quietly. "That's not boring."
The tunnel carried them onward through the Celestial Realm.
For a while, none of them said much. Even Jinx found it hard to fill that kind of silence. Every time she thought she had seen the strangest thing possible, another impossible sight slid past the golden wall. A field of floating crystals larger than Piltover's towers. A small sun wrapped in rings of blue fire. A distant shape that might have been a temple, or a mountain, or the skeleton of something too big to think about.
Then the light ahead narrowed.
The meeps chimed together.
The golden tunnel opened, and the rescue team spilled out into open space.
Jinx landed on her back.
Not hard. The ground barely seemed to care that she existed. She bounced once, slowly, then rolled onto her side and started laughing.
"I am definitely doing that again."
Vi landed better, though only because Vander grabbed her arm before she could drift too far. Ekko hit the ground on one knee and immediately started checking his suit. Kai'Sa landed on her feet, but her carapace flexed as if it had not enjoyed the passage.
Jinx sat up.
They were on a moon.
A tiny one.
The surface was pale gray and covered in fine dust. Small rocks floated a few inches above the ground in places, drifting lazily as if gravity had gotten tired halfway through its work. The horizon curved close enough that Jinx felt she could jog around the whole place if she had a free afternoon and a snack.
Above them stretched the Celestial Realm.
No sky, not really. Just open space filled with stars, distant lights, and colors too clean to belong anywhere near Zaun.
Then Vander pointed.
"Look there."
Not far from the little moon, though distance here was hard to judge, floated a small planet. It was larger than the moon, but not by much compared to the worlds Jinx had imagined. Blue, green, and pale white patches moved across its surface. Thin clouds curled around it. It looked delicate, like a toy globe someone had left hanging in the dark.
Ekko stepped closer to the edge of a shallow ridge, squinting. "I can see land. Maybe mountains."
"You can see mountains from here?" Vi asked.
"Barely. The suit lenses help."
Jinx slapped a hand against her hip. "Please. Amateur."
Ekko turned to her. "What does that mean?"
She pulled a small monocular from a hidden compartment near the side of her suit and popped it open with one hand.
Ekko stared. "Where did you get that?"
Jinx put it to her eye. "Good thing I made my hips and chest plating a little roomier. You can store so much useful stuff in there."
Vi closed her eyes. "Of course you did."
"What? Everyone said pack light. Nobody said pack nothing."
"That is not what pack light means."
Jinx ignored her, focusing on the small planet. The monocular clicked as she adjusted it. The distant blur sharpened bit by bit.
She saw mountains first, tiny but clear enough. Then a stretch of water shining under alien light. Then a cluster of shapes that might have been buildings.
Her mouth fell open.
"No way."
"What?" Ekko asked.
Jinx leaned forward so quickly she almost drifted off the ground. "No way, no way, no way."
"Jinx."
"There are people."
Vi frowned. "What?"
"Tiny people!" Jinx shouted. "Blue tiny people!"
She shoved the monocular into Ekko's hands.
Ekko caught it, muttered something about not throwing precision optics in low gravity, and looked through it. His expression changed almost immediately.
"There are structures," he said. "And movement. She's right. They look... blue."
Vander took the monocular next. He took longer to adjust it, then gave a low laugh of disbelief. "Well. That's something."
Vi looked and stayed quiet for a few seconds. "Huh."
Jinx bounced on her toes, which sent her drifting half a foot up before she came back down. "We found little moon neighbors! Or planet neighbors. Star neighbors? Celestial blue guys? Do we wave?"
"We are not waving at an unknown civilization," Ekko said, though he was still looking at the planet like he wished he had ten more instruments.
Kai'Sa accepted the monocular last.
She hesitated before putting it to her eye, as if part of her did not want to be distracted. Then she looked.
Her posture changed.
Not much, but enough for Jinx to notice. Kai'Sa had the look of someone who had spent too long surrounded by things that wanted to eat her and had suddenly remembered the universe could make small, strange, harmless-looking wonders too.
"They're really there," Kai'Sa said.
Jinx grinned. "See?"
Kai'Sa lowered the monocular, and a faint flush of embarrassment crossed her face when she noticed everyone looking at her.
"We should continue the mission," she said.
Vi smiled a little. "Yeah. Probably."
Jinx snatched the monocular back for one last look.
"Wait, wait, I need to see if they have tiny hats."
She pressed it to her eye, adjusted the focus, and went still.
"Huh."
Vi looked at her. "What?"
"They're running."
Ekko turned. "Running?"
"And pointing." Jinx leaned farther forward, squinting. "And screaming. I think they're screaming. Tiny blue screaming."
Vander rubbed a hand over his face. "Can they see us?"
Jinx slowly lowered the monocular.
For a moment, everyone looked at the small planet in silence.
Then Jinx frowned. "Why are they panicking? We're adorable."
Ekko stared at her. "Imagine if one day, everyone in Zaun looked up and saw a giant face in the sky staring at them through a tube."
Jinx opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Then nodded once. "Okay, fair. I'd probably shoot first."
The meeps had been waiting a short distance away. One of them waved both tiny arms. The other drifted forward, then turned back and chimed, clearly impatient despite having no face built for impatience.
Jinx tucked the monocular away. "All right, all right. Lead on, spark dumplings."
The meeps flew off the surface of the moon.
Kai'Sa followed first, her carapace propulsors giving a low violet pulse. The rest activated the thrusters built into their suits. Jinx wobbled badly for the first few seconds, overcorrected, then shot past Vi.
"Hey!"
"I'm fine!"
"You're upside down!"
"That's a perspective problem!"
The moon's weak gravity lost hold of them quickly. Soon there was no falling, no rising, only drifting and correcting. The suit thrusters did not need much force. Small bursts were enough to keep them moving behind the meeps.
For the first several minutes, Jinx kept looking back.
The tiny moon shrank behind them. The little planet with the blue-skinned people turned slowly in the distance. She wanted to ask a dozen questions. What did they eat? Did they have music? Did they have explosions? Did they know they were floating next to the path to the Void? Did they look up and see the meeps passing sometimes?
She said none of it.
Even she could feel the mood changing.
The farther they traveled, the less the Celestial Realm felt like a sight to admire. The stars still shone. The colors still moved. But the space ahead seemed thinner. Quieter. It did not look darker, not yet, but something about it made the suit feel tighter against her chest.
"How far do you think we are from the Void?" Vi asked.
Ekko looked at his readings. "I don't know. The instruments don't understand where we are. Distance values keep changing."
Vander kept his eyes on the meeps. "Lissandra said they'd take us to the edge."
Kai'Sa's face had gone still. Her carapace lights had dimmed further, almost instinctively. She was watching the empty space ahead with the same look she had worn in Singed's lab when talking about places beneath Shurima where the world had stopped feeling like the world.
After about an hour, the meeps stopped.
They turned toward the rescue team and hovered in front of them.
One of them raised its tiny hands. A cluster of little lights appeared between them, blinking gold and white. The second meep added violet sparks around the edges. The lights arranged themselves into a crude shape.
It looked like a small monster.
Round body. Jagged mouth. Little claws. One crooked eye.
Jinx immediately loved it.
"Aww."
The first meep made more lights. Bright ones. They flashed around the little monster's face. The monster spun in place, confused and blinded, while the lights darted around it.
Ekko frowned. "I think that's us."
Jinx pointed at the little light monster. "That's adorable, and I want it recorded that I'm offended we're not the monster."
"The monster is the Void," Kai'Sa said quietly.
The meeps chimed at once.
Vander's expression hardened. "And the lights?"
"Us," Ekko said. "Or anything bright enough to be noticed."
The little show ended. The monster opened its eye wide. Then all the lights vanished.
Jinx looked ahead.
There were still stars. Still distant colors. No wall. No hole. No black gate waiting with teeth around it. The Celestial Realm stretched on as far as she could see.
"That's it?" she asked. "Where's the spooky line?"
"There may not be one," Ekko said.
Kai'Sa's voice came through the suit channel, lower than before. "There is something ahead."
Vi turned toward her. "You can feel it?"
"Yes." Kai'Sa stared into empty space. "It's similar to what I felt under Shurima. Not the same. Worse. But it's there."
The meeps changed.
Their bodies shrank slightly, or seemed to. Their glow faded until they were little more than dim specks with eyes. Even their chimes became quieter, almost too soft to hear.
Jinx's playful mood slipped.
She understood that, at least.
The meeps were hiding.
The rescue team moved closer together.
Vander took the rear without anyone asking. Vi stayed near Jinx. Ekko checked the team signals one more time. Kai'Sa floated near the front, but not ahead of the meeps.
They continued.
At first, nothing happened.
Then the stars went out.
Not one by one.
All at once.
The Celestial Realm vanished behind them like someone had closed a door.
There was only darkness so complete that Jinx's eyes hurt trying to see through it. The lights on their suits became the only points of reference. Kai'Sa's carapace glowed faintly violet. Ekko's suit indicators blinked green and blue. Vi's shoulder lamp shook as she turned too fast. Vander's larger suit cast a dull light across the emptiness. The two meeps drifted ahead, nearly invisible.
Jinx stopped breathing for a second.
The darkness pressed close, thick and wrong. It did not feel empty. It felt occupied by something too large to bother showing itself.
Vi's hand closed around her wrist.
For once, Jinx did not pull away.
"Stay close," Vi said.
Jinx swallowed.
"Yeah," she answered. "I know."
They had entered the Void.
...
Far deeper in the dark, violet light split open with a sound like space being cut.
An armored figure stepped through the tear and struck before the one-eyed creature could turn fully.
His blade carved across the floating monster's side. The creature twisted away, limbs spreading in a precise defensive pattern. The cluster of stolen essence remained bound in a field of light near its lower body.
"Interference," the one-eyed creature said.
The armored man answered with another rift.
He vanished from in front of the creature and appeared above it, blade already falling. The creature raised a barrier. The strike cracked it. A second strike shattered it. The third nearly reached the central eye.
A beam of violet energy fired from the eye at point-blank range.
The armored man disappeared again.
The beam cut through empty darkness, striking something distant and unseen. The impact woke movement all around them.
The Void stirred.
The one-eyed creature rotated, recalculating. Thin rays of light shot from its smaller organs, tracing lines through space where the armored man might appear next. He stepped through a rift behind it anyway and drove his blade into one of its limbs.
The creature severed the limb itself.
The lost piece dissolved before it could be used against it.
"Adaptive combatant," it said. "Void exposure. Human origin. High anomaly value."
The armored man ripped open another path and struck again.
This time the creature was ready. Its body folded around the attack, not dodging like flesh but repositioning like a diagram changing shape. A narrow beam struck the armored man's shoulder. He staggered, then forced himself forward and slashed across the creature's cracked eye.
The Voidborn recoiled.
Its collected essence flickered.
For a moment, the armored man almost reached it.
Then the others arrived.
Shapes crawled out of the dark. Some had wings without feathers. Some swam through nothing with long, bladed tails. Others were all mouths and thin limbs, rushing toward the fight with hunger and hatred drawn by the light, the wound, and the smell of power.
The armored man turned as the first wave reached him.
He cut one in half, stepped through a rift, and reappeared inside another's guard, driving his blade up through its skull. A third slammed into him from the side. He tore free, but more came.
The one-eyed creature watched for half a second.
Then it moved away with purpose.
It folded space around itself, carrying the strange essence deeper into the Void. Several smaller creatures followed it, drawn into its path or commanded by something in its movements. The armored man saw the escape and tried to pursue.
A massive Voidborn crashed down in front of him, blocking the way.
His blade flared brighter.
The one-eyed creature disappeared into the dark.
The armored man stood surrounded, battered but unbroken, and cut open another rift beneath his feet.
He vanished as claws and beams struck the place where he had been.
Far ahead, the stolen essence pulsed once in the grip of the fleeing observer, and the Void around it listened.
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