Jinx did not like how quiet the Void was.
It was not silent in the normal way. Zaun could be quiet at dawn, if one picked the right alley and ignored the pipes groaning behind the walls. Piltover could be quiet in its fancy districts, all polished windows and people pretending they did not hear anything unpleasant.
This was different.
There was no wind. No footsteps. No echo from the rescue team's movement. Even the hum of her suit sounded like it belonged somewhere else, like the Void refused to let noise travel too far.
Ahead of them, the two meeps floated in a slow, careful path. Their golden light was dimmer now, reduced to a faint glow that barely pushed back the dark around them. The smaller one led the way, bobbing up and down as if it were listening to something the others could not hear. The other stayed closer to the team, occasionally turning its round little body to make sure nobody drifted too far.
Jinx had already decided she liked that one better.
Behind her, Vi moved with one fist half-raised, not because there was anything to punch, but because Vi always looked more comfortable when she was ready to punch something. Vander stayed near the rear, his larger suit moving slower than the others but with steady control. Ekko checked his readings every few seconds, which was very Ekko of him. Kai'Sa with her living carapace folded around her like a second body, its edges twitching whenever the darkness seemed to press closer.
Jinx kept glancing at it.
"So," she said, drifting sideways until she was closer to Kai'Sa. "How many flavors of ugly are we talking about?"
Kai'Sa looked at her.
"You mean Voidborn."
"Sure. Voidborn. Purple nightmares. Teeth with hobbies. Things that look like they were designed by a drunk butcher with a bug problem."
Kai'Sa was quiet for a few seconds. Jinx almost thought she would ignore the question. Then Kai'Sa looked forward again and spoke in a low voice.
"There are burrowers. The ones beneath Shurima. Most people only know the Xer'Sai because they come up from the sand. Some are small enough to hide under loose stone. Some are large enough to swallow a caravan. Rek'Sai was different. Older. Stronger. Smarter in some ways, but still an animal."
Jinx nodded with exaggerated seriousness. "Big angry sand shark mommy. Got it."
Kai'Sa did not smile, but Vi made a sound that might have been a laugh if she had not swallowed it halfway.
"There are flyers," Kai'Sa continued. "Not birds. Not insects. Something between both, sometimes neither. Some move like manta rays. Some have too many wings. A few hunt by sound."
"Lovely," Ekko muttered.
"Then there are the ones that crawl in groups. Small bodies. Fast. They could bite through bone if they get close enough. Some dissolve flesh before they eat it. Some do not need to eat. They only attack because something in them wants living things gone."
The meeps kept moving ahead, their path curving through empty dark. There were no rocks, no broken ground, no drifting scraps of ruined buildings. Nothing for the eye to rest on. The team moved through open nothing, guided only by the two little lights.
Jinx hugged her arms for a moment, then forced herself to relax. "What about the smart ones?"
Kai'Sa's carapace shifted against her shoulder. "I have seen things that wait. Things that watch from far away and only move when they understand enough. Some mimic voices. Some imitate people badly. Some do not speak, but you can feel them thinking."
Vi came closer. "How many of those have you fought?"
"Enough to know not to chase them."
Jinx looked at Kai'Sa's carapace again. "And yours?"
Kai'Sa did not answer immediately. When she did, her voice was flatter than before.
"It is not like them."
"It wants to survive. It reacts to danger. It learns. Sometimes it pulls me toward threats before I know they are there. Sometimes it wants to attack when I would rather hide." Kai'Sa's fingers flexed. "But it has kept me alive."
Jinx tilted her head. "Sounds annoying."
"It is."
"Also useful."
"That too."
"Like family."
Kai'Sa looked at her again, and this time Jinx regretted saying it before she knew why. The words had slipped out too easily. Maybe because Vi was behind her. Maybe because Vander was there. Or maybe because somewhere far away, Logan was still waiting, and she had refused to say goodbye to Isha because goodbyes were for people who planned on failing.
Kai'Sa did not question her. She only looked ahead.
Five minutes later, the meeps stopped.
Jinx nearly bumped into the rear one. "Hey. Roadblock?"
The leading meep turned around. The one near the team floated up beside it. They faced each other and began making tiny gestures with their little arms. One raised both hands. The other shook itself. The first one leaned forward. The second one spun once in place.
Jinx narrowed her eyes. "Are they arguing?"
Ekko leaned slightly to the side, trying to get a better angle. "I think they're deciding something."
The meeps continued. One held out a flat little hand. The other made a rounded shape. Then both changed gestures at the same time.
Jinx blinked. "Are they playing rock, paper, scissors?"
Vi stared. "No way."
"They are absolutely playing rock, paper, scissors."
"They don't even have fingers," Ekko said.
"That has never stopped anyone with confidence."
The meeps repeated the game twice more. On the third round, one of them froze. The other bounced in place. It was impossible to tell whether the bouncing one had won or lost, because both seemed pleased and nervous at the same time.
Then the chosen meep drifted forward.
The other one lowered its glow until it was barely visible and began to sing.
The sound was soft, too soft for words, almost too soft to hear at all. It was not the bright chiming from the golden tunnel. This was slower, gentler, and strangely careful, as if the meep was afraid the dark would notice if the song became too clear.
The chosen meep started to dance.
At first, it was silly. A little turn. A wiggle. A dip that made Jinx smile despite herself. Then the motion changed. As it moved, its small round body started to change. Its glow deepened, pink petal-like shapes unfurled around its neck, and its form shifted into a more ornate version of itself, still small, but now looking like a tiny robed creature with a flower-like collar and a brighter, more mystical appearance. The air around it rippled, and for one second, Jinx thought she could smell something impossible, grass after rain, old incense, warm festival lanterns, a memory that did not belong to her.
Then it was over.
The transformed meep hovered in place.
Everyone stared.
Jinx slowly pointed at it. "Okay. That one got a costume change."
"Don't poke it," Vi said.
"I wasn't going to poke it."
The transformed meep seemed to ignore them. It remained still for a few seconds, as if thinking with its whole body. Then it turned to the normal meep and made a few soft sounds.
The normal meep answered with a shorter chime.
The transformed one looked into the darkness ahead, then slowly continued forward alone.
The normal meep turned toward the rescue team and gestured with both arms.
Follow.
Jinx's smile faded. "So pretty flower mask goes first, we follow, and you stay behind us?"
The normal meep bobbed once and the team continued.
━━━━━━
Logan approached the rift slowly.
Ahri stayed beside him, one tail still connected to him by that thin thread of spiritual power. The connection had become familiar in a way that worried him. Without it, he was not sure how long he could keep his mind clear.
The rift ahead turned in a massive spiral of violet light. It did not shine like something alive. It shone like a wound that had forgotten how to close. Around it drifted pieces of a dead world, stone, metal, fragments of buildings, slabs of land, and materials Logan did not recognize. Some were small enough to hold in one hand. Others were larger than towers.
They had landed on one of the bigger fragments earlier, and from there they moved from broken surface to broken surface, using careful pushes to cross the gaps.
Logan looked at the debris and tried to make sense of it.
All of this had to be from the same place. The shapes matched too well to be random. Streets cut off at impossible angles. Walls that had once belonged to the same structure. A bridge broken into three pieces, each one floating at a different distance from the rift.
A world had been here.
Or part of one.
He could not tell whether it had anything to do with Runeterra. That uncertainty bothered him more than he expected.
In the lore he remembered, the Void was always tied to Runeterra. Icathia. Shurima. The Watchers. The tunnels beneath the deserts. The horrors beyond reality. There were Celestials, spirits, demons, gods, and realms beyond mortal understanding, but other planets were never really the point. Not in a clear way.
But that did not mean they did not exist.
Runeterra could not be the only thing creation had ever made.
Logan kept those thoughts to himself.
Ahri was tired. Too tired.
She floated a little ahead of him, guiding them toward a long chunk of stone with half-buried carvings along one side. Her movements were still graceful, but not effortless. Her tails no longer flowed with the same full light. Even her breathing had changed, quieter and more measured, as if she were rationing that too.
They landed on the stone.
Ahead of them stood a statue.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
It was enormous, even broken. The head was gone. The ends of the arms were missing too, broken off before the hands. The legs had shattered below the knees. Time, impact, or the rift had taken away every detail that might have told them what kind of people had built it.
Human, vastaya, something else entirely, Logan could not tell.
The body shape was close enough to be familiar, but not close enough to be proof. It had a torso, shoulders, limbs, and carved folds that looked like clothing.
Logan drifted closer and touched the edge of the statue's robe.
"At least they wore clothes," he said.
Ahri looked at him.
Then, with a completely straight face, she said, "Boring."
Logan stared at her.
A second later, he laughed.
It hurt a little. Not physically. The sound pulled at places inside his mind that were still tender, but it was worth it. Ahri smiled as if that small laugh had given her more relief than any rest could have.
They settled on a broken slab in front of the statue. Sitting was easier than floating. It made the situation feel almost normal, if he ignored the giant rift, the dead world, the absence of sky, and the fact that reality itself wanted them gone.
Logan leaned back on one hand. "This place was probably pulled in through that rift."
"Probably."
"Or the rift opened inside it."
Ahri looked at the spiral. "Would that make a difference?"
"To them? No."
She did not answer.
Logan glanced at her again. Now that she was still, her exhaustion was impossible to miss. The strain was in her shoulders, her eyes, the faint tremble she tried to hide whenever the connection between them flickered. If she had once been a full flame, now she was a coal held between cupped hands, still hot, still alive, but too close to going out.
Ten percent, maybe five...
"Ahri," he said.
She turned toward him. "Hm?"
"Thank you."
Her expression softened. "For what?"
"For keeping me alive."
"That is a very dramatic way to describe me being selfish."
"Ahri."
She lifted one hand, palm up, playing along with a smile that did not quite hide how tired she was. "What? Maybe I simply enjoy having a handsome man depend on me in a dark, dangerous place."
"Thank you," he said again. "Really."
Ahri's teasing expression faltered.
"You do not have to say it like that," she said.
For one brief moment, the Void, the rift, and the ruined statue seemed to fall away from her face. She looked almost embarrassed. Her cheeks colored faintly, and she turned her eyes aside as if the broken world behind them had suddenly become very interesting.
She opened her mouth, perhaps to answer, perhaps to make another joke.
Then she stopped.
Her head turned a little farther.
Her eyes fixed on something behind them.
Logan heard her whisper, "What?"
His body went cold.
Slowly, he turned.
One meter behind them, also sitting on the broken slab, was a Watcher roughly their size.
It was watching them.
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