Gold and pink ran across Logan's body in uneven lines. The glow from Aatrox had spread into him, tracing the bones of his arms, his chest, his neck, and the side of his face. Crimson-pink burned along the edges, sharper and heavier, while the gold-orange light pulsed beneath it like a second heart.
His wounded shoulder had not healed. The missing part was still gone, but the wound had been sealed by light instead of flesh. It looked wrong when he glanced at it, a gap held together by power and will. It should have hurt more, made his arm useless.
Instead, the pain sat far away, present but unable to command him.
The wings behind him shifted.
They were wide, but not stable. Their outer edges flickered between feathers, blades, and raw light. Some parts looked almost solid. Others scattered into sparks when the Void pressed against them. Gold ran through the center. Pink and crimson framed the outside.
Incomplete but powerful.
Logan could still see and hear, his senses were intact.
But moving was no longer simple.
He tried to lift his right hand and found that the motion did not belong fully to him. His intention traveled through his mind, reached his body, and met Aatrox there. Like another hand already holding the same lever.
Aatrox had taken control of almost everything.
Logan still existed inside his own body, but not in the usual way. He was like a rider sitting behind someone far stronger, both of them holding the reins while only one knew how to handle the beast.
"This is incredibly weird," Logan said.
His mouth moved a fraction after the thought. The voice was his, but the posture was not.
"It will become worse if we fail to coordinate," Aatrox answered. "Most of the power will come from me. Your task is to stop resisting my movement."
"I'm not resisting on purpose."
"You are alive. That is enough to create resistance."
Logan almost laughed.
The fuchsia Watcher had not attacked yet.
Its many orange eyes had opened across its body, but none fired. The creature's attention remained fixed on Logan and Aatrox, or whatever they had become together. It was studying them, judging the new shape.
"We still have a problem," he said. "We can't leave the gravitational field. It can shoot through it with enough force, but we can't attack from inside it."
"In this state, I can cross it."
Logan paused. "You can?"
"Yes."
Logan looked toward the blue Watcher.
"Even if we can cross the field," Logan said, "the blue one might not tolerate it."
The answer came before Aatrox spoke.
A force hit Logan from the side.
It simply pushed, a controlled nudge from something far too large being careful with a fragile object.
Logan's feet left the platform.
For one dizzying second, his body passed through the edge of the gravitational field and out into the Void.
He turned his head.
The blue Watcher had one arm slightly extended.
Logan blinked.
He looked at the platform, then at the space around him. He had expected the field to vanish or collapse after being crossed, but it did not. Ahri remained inside it. The broken platform remained inside it. If anything, the field looked denser now, its invisible pressure made clear by the way the darkness bent around its border.
Logan let out a small laugh. "You could have done that before we got this deep into disaster."
The blue Watcher remained silent.
"Did you make a decision?" Logan asked under his breath.
Aatrox extended Logan's right hand toward the platform.
Logan felt it then.
The gravitational field was still there. Not only still there, but stronger than before. The blue Watcher had reinforced the barrier around Ahri and the platform.
Before Logan could think more about it, the fuchsia Watcher fired.
Not at him.
At Ahri.
Logan reacted instantly.
Move.
His mind gave the command with everything he had.
His body did not obey.
Aatrox held him in place.
For a flash of pure panic, Logan almost fought him.
Then the beam struck the gravitational field.
It did not pass through.
The orange line dug into the invisible barrier, burning against it, making the entire field ripple. The platform shook, but the beam slowed. It did not stop forever. Logan could see that much. If the Watcher kept the attack there for a minute, maybe thirty seconds, it might drill through.
But not instantly.
Ahri was safe for the moment.
The blue Watcher's arm shifted again.
Slowly, Ahri's body began to float toward the blue Watcher's side of the platform. She looked startled, then angry, then too weak to argue with a force that did not care about pride.
Logan exhaled.
"I said I'd protect her," he said. "Turns out it's you and the blue one doing most of the protecting."
"Then stop looking at your owner," Aatrox said. "She is no longer your immediate concern. Pay attention to the battle."
Logan's expression twitched. "Please don't make it sound like I'm a pet defending my owner."
He wondered what the fuchsia Watcher thought of the blue one, and what the blue one thought in return. Clearly not working toward the same goal, but he dropped the thought almost immediately. Void creatures did not need to make sense by human rules.
...
The humor faded.
Logan focused on the fuchsia Watcher.
The creature stopped firing at the field. Its arm lowered slightly. The orange eye at the end of the limb closed, then reopened with a brighter glow as it turned back toward Logan and Aatrox.
Aatrox adjusted their stance.
The wings did not flap like those of a bird. They shifted, opened, and angled against invisible pressure. Logan felt each adjustment as a line of force through his back. Aatrox used the wings the way a swordsman used footwork.
"We have had good compatibility in previous battles," Aatrox said. "This requires more. We must think close to the same thought."
"Because the Watcher is still stronger than us."
"Yes."
"So what's the plan?"
"Technique against superior brute force."
Logan watched the Watcher's main eye. The largest orange glow sat deep in the center of its upper body, not exactly a face, but close enough for instinct to call it one. Kassadin had aimed for it more than once. Logan had noticed that during the fight. Every time Kassadin tried to close on that point, the Watcher denied him completely, redirecting space, limbs, or beams before he could reach it.
"You think the main eye is vulnerable," Logan said.
"It is obvious enough to be true or bait," Aatrox replied. "The armored one attempted critical strikes there. He was refused every time."
"So we go for it anyway?"
"We make it decide incorrectly."
Logan focused.
Yi's lessons came first, calm, efficient, precise. Do not chase the opening you want. Create the movement that makes it appear. Jax's training followed in a rougher shape. Do not admire a stronger enemy. Make it answer, then punish the answer.
Logan settled those memories into place.
Aatrox felt them.
"You will use those foundations, but this is not a duel."
"Then what is it?"
"A breach. We open a path through something stronger than us, and we keep cutting until it cannot close."
The fuchsia Watcher moved.
Not forward yet.
Its limbs spread. The horn-like ends twisted open, and orange eyes formed at different angles. It was preparing for multiple lines of fire.
Aatrox lifted the blade.
"No more time," he said. "I cannot control your body for long. The Watcher may already understand that."
Logan felt the golden-pink light around them flicker once.
Aatrox's grip tightened.
"Ready?"
Logan stopped trying to move separately.
He let his thoughts narrow until they touched the blade's intent.
"Yes."
Aatrox moved.
The wings snapped open, and Logan's body vanished from where it had floated.
The fuchsia Watcher fired at once.
Three orange beams crossed the space.
Aatrox did not dodge like Kassadin. There was no teleport, no fold in space. He cut through the angle between the beams, turning the blade once, twice, and letting the third pass close enough to burn a line through the light of one wing. The damaged section scattered, then reformed behind them.
Logan felt the movement but did not command it.
No, that was not right.
He had commanded part of it.
A fraction.
A prediction.
The moment he thought left, Aatrox had already chosen how. The moment Aatrox prepared to strike, Logan understood where the Watcher would counter. Their thoughts did not merge cleanly, but they overlapped enough to become fast.
Aatrox closed the distance.
The Watcher's left limb swept toward them.
Aatrox met it head-on.
The blade carved through fuchsia flesh and hard, glass-like bone. The severed portion spun away, dissolving into dust before it had traveled far. A second limb came from below. Aatrox twisted Logan's body around it and slammed a gold-pink wing into the joint.
Logan saw the opening.
High right.
Aatrox followed.
They drove in toward the upper body.
The main eye narrowed.
Space tightened around them.
Logan felt the Void try to pin their body in place. His spiritual power buckled under it instantly, but Aatrox's will pushed through. The gold in the wings brightened. For one second, the pressure cracked.
They advanced.
The Watcher opened six smaller eyes across its chest.
"Down."
Logan obeyed before the word finished.
The beams fired over them, converging where their torso had been. Aatrox rolled through the void, wing edges cutting against invisible force, and slashed upward as they passed beneath the Watcher's lower ribs.
The blade left a wound that burned at the edges.
The Watcher recoiled.
Pain.
Logan felt it.
The creature did not scream, but its body betrayed the hit. Its limbs pulled inward. Its main eye flared brighter. The fuchsia veins across its frame pulsed out of rhythm.
Then it adapted.
The space around the wound folded.
Aatrox pulled back just before the fold collapsed on their arm.
The Watcher attacked from all sides.
Its limbs stretched farther than their shape should have allowed. They bent around empty space and came from angles that made no sense. Orange eyes bloomed and died in rapid sequence, each one firing a short beam instead of a sustained shot.
Aatrox stopped trying to avoid everything.
He chose what mattered.
One beam grazed their side. Another cut through the outer edge of a wing. A limb struck their back hard enough to send a shock through Logan's spine. Aatrox ignored all of it and kept moving toward the main eye.
Technique against superior brute force, Logan understood.
Make the stronger enemy answer the wrong threats.
Aatrox feinted low, then cut across a limb. The Watcher defended its torso. Aatrox used the blocked strike to turn their body, driving a knee into the creature's side with enough force to push away from it and circle higher.
Logan felt the next counter before he saw it.
"Right arm," he thought.
Aatrox shifted the blade.
A fuchsia limb slammed into the edge, and instead of resisting, Aatrox rode the force, letting it throw them in an arc above the Watcher's head. The wings caught pressure halfway through the spin.
Now the main eye was below.
For the first time, the Watcher looked directly up at them.
Aatrox raised the sword with both hands.
The main eye flashed.
A pulse.
The space between them ruptured outward.
Logan felt his bones bend.
For a split second, their movement stopped. Aatrox's control slipped, not completely, but enough for Logan to feel the full weight of the Watcher's power. It was greater than theirs. No question. Even in this form, the fuchsia Watcher was still many levels above them.
If it caught them cleanly, they would lose.
"Logan," Aatrox said.
"I know."
This time Logan pushed with timing.
Together, they moved at the pulse's weakest edge.
Aatrox cut.
The blade did not reach the main eye.
The Watcher twisted away at the last instant.
But the strike carved through one of the antler-like growths beside it.
A huge piece of fuchsia structure tore free, spinning into the Void. The Watcher recoiled harder than before, and this time its main eye flickered.
Logan felt a fierce satisfaction rise through him.
"It fears that line," Aatrox said.
"Then we keep drawing it."
The Watcher answered with violence.
It charged.
Not like before, when it had rushed as a body through space. This was sharper. More controlled. It folded its limbs close and drove forward, main eye blazing, both arms extending at the last moment with orange beams forming at their tips.
Aatrox met the charge.
Blade against beam.
Wing against limb.
The impact threw light across the Void.
Aatrox cut one beam aside, let the second score across their left side, then drove the sword into the Watcher's extended arm. The edge bit deep. The Watcher tried to pull back. Aatrox followed, refusing to let it create distance.
"Too close for beams," Logan realized.
The Watcher's smaller eyes began opening along its shoulder.
Logan saw the pattern.
"Chest, left side."
Aatrox turned before they fired.
He used the Watcher's own arm as cover.
The beams struck its limb instead of them.
For the first time, the fuchsia Watcher damaged itself.
The limb cracked.
Aatrox tore the blade free and cut again.
This strike severed the arm halfway down.
The Watcher pulled away, but not cleanly. Its body stuttered. The lost limb began reforming at once, fuchsia threads weaving together, yet the process was slower than before.
They had cost it something.
Aatrox pressed forward.
Logan helped where he could. He read the motions. He warned of angles. Every time his focus slipped, Aatrox's control grew heavier. Every time he aligned with the blade, movement became smoother.
They were not winning yet.
But the Watcher was no longer simply attacking.
It was defending.
Aatrox struck its lower body, then used the recoil to rise. The Watcher guarded the main eye with two limbs. Logan saw the trap a heartbeat before it closed.
"It wants you there."
"I know."
"Then why—"
"Because it must believe I want the eye."
Aatrox drove toward the guarded point anyway.
The Watcher committed.
Four limbs folded inward to crush them. The main eye drew back behind layers of fuchsia armor. Space warped, forming a cage around Logan's body.
Aatrox twisted at the last possible moment.
The wings folded tight.
Instead of entering the cage, they dropped beneath it and cut across the Watcher's core from below.
The blade struck a glowing fuchsia vein running under the main body.
The effect was immediate.
The Watcher's entire form jerked.
The orange eyes across it flickered out, then returned one by one.
Logan felt Aatrox's satisfaction.
"That was the target," Logan said.
"One of them."
The fuchsia Watcher recovered fast.
Its body contracted, then released a wave of force that hit them before either could move. Logan felt the impact through every part of him. The wings shattered into gold-pink fragments. Aatrox kept the blade in front, but the force still threw them backward.
For a second, they 'tumbled' through the Void.
Then the wings reformed.
Smaller now.
Less stable.
Aatrox's control tightened, but Logan felt the strain beneath it. This form had limits. Time was burning away.
The Watcher knew.
It advanced, not enraged anymore, careful.
The main eye remained partially guarded. Its limbs moved closer to the body. The smaller eyes opened less often, but when they did, each shot was better aimed.
The fight had changed again.
Logan breathed inside his own body and tried to match Aatrox's calm.
"Still ready?" Aatrox asked.
Logan looked at the fuchsia Watcher, at the damaged vein beneath its body, at the partially reformed arm, at the main eye that had finally begun to protect itself like something afraid of being blinded.
"Yeah," he said. "Now we know it can bleed."
Aatrox raised the sword.
"Then we continue."
They rushed forward again.
—
Behind them, inside the reinforced gravitational field, Ahri could do nothing but watch.
Her body would not obey. Even breathing felt like work.
Logan and Aatrox moved beyond the barrier in flashes of gold, pink, and crimson.
At times, she could still see Logan in the shape. The set of his shoulders. The way his head turned toward danger half a moment before the blade followed.
Ahri gripped the platform beneath her hand.
Then she felt it.
A distant pulse.
At first, she thought it was only the field around her shifting again. Then the sensation touched the edge of her spirit, faint but familiar, warm in a way the Void could not imitate.
Spiritual power.
Far away.
Moving toward them.
Ahri lifted her head.
The battle still raged ahead, but for the first time since entering this place, something beyond the Void was coming closer.
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