Ahri's body felt hollowed out, drained past any limit she had known before. Every breath scraped through her chest. Her tails lay limp around her, half-curled over the strange platform as if they no longer belonged to her. Her vision was blurry. The weight in her arms was the only thing keeping her from slipping away.
Logan.
He was there. Broken, breathing, warm in places and frighteningly cold in others.
Kassadin had done what he could.
His blade had carved away most of the corruption buried in Logan's flesh, and Ahri had watched every second of it with her teeth clenched.
But some of it remained.
Ahri could feel those pieces.
They were small, thin strands of corruption hidden deep inside Logan's body, beyond the reach of Kassadin's blade. They had curled into places that could not be cut. She sensed them the way she sensed breath, dreams, and souls.
They were waking up.
Logan's eyelids twitched.
Ahri lowered her face close to his. "No. Stay here."
His lips moved without sound. His fingers, the ones he still had, dug weakly into the torn fabric of her sleeve.
The dreams had started again.
Ahri had pulled those dreams out of him before. She had bled herself dry doing it.
This time, she had nothing left to give.
So she whispered.
"Logan. It isn't real..."
He did not answer.
Far away, something struck the dark with a force that made the entire Void tremble. Ahri turned her head slightly, but she saw only distance and darkness. Another impact came, heavier than the first. Then a roar, not like any beast she knew.
Selyra and Zarr, perhaps.
Or something worse.
Ahri no longer had the strength to care. Not beyond Logan.
"Hurry," she breathed.
She did not know what that spiritual presence was. She only knew it had to reach them.
"Hurry."
Kassadin stood several steps away, his blade angled down. Void residue smoked off its edge. His armor had been cracked across one shoulder, and one side of his helmet flickered with unstable violet light. He looked at Logan only once more before turning toward the weakening field around them.
The gravitational shell was still moving, dragging their small platform through the black, but its shape had begun to distort. The invisible pressure that kept the five Voidborns away thinned by the second. Their claws scraped at its outer edge.
Ahri forced her voice out. "You're going to fight them alone?"
Kassadin did not look back. "That is the only option."
Their bodies resembled a mantis stripped down to muscle, bone, and hunger.
Kassadin raised his gauntlet. "But this field gives me an advantage."
One moment he stood inside the shell. The next, he vanished.
A violet tear opened outside the gravitational field, directly above one of the Voidborns. Kassadin stepped through it already swinging. His blade punched through the creature's upper body and dragged down.
The Voidborn shrieked and twisted toward him.
Kassadin did not stay.
He planted the edge of his blade into the creature's carapace, using the weapon as a hook. The gravitational field was still moving. Without an anchor, the difference in motion would have pulled him away from the platform. With the blade buried deep, he let the creature's own mass hold him in place for a single heartbeat.
His gauntlet flared.
Three purple orbs fired into the Voidborn's face at point-blank range.
Then he ripped the blade free and teleported back inside the field just as two other creatures lunged through the space where he had been.
The shell shuddered.
Ahri watched through half-lidded eyes, unable to help.
Kassadin disappeared again.
This time he struck the second Voidborn from below, carving across one leg joint, then another. When it turned, he used his blade as an anchor against a jagged growth along its side and fired another cluster of orbs into the wound he had opened. He did not waste attacks on all five. He chose two targets.
Hit. Anchor. Fire. Return.
But the field was failing.
Ahri felt it in the pressure against her skin. Each impact from the Voidborns bent it inward a little farther.
Logan jerked in her arms.
His breath hitched, then came too fast.
"Logan."
His remaining hand grabbed at empty air.
Ahri pressed her forehead to his. The movement was clumsy. Her body wanted to collapse, but she would not let it. She could not pull the corruption out, so she tried to give him something to hold instead.
"Come back to me."
His face tightened.
Another shudder ran through him.
Ahri's voice dropped until even she barely heard it. "I still have things I never said properly. Stupid things. Yours, maybe. Mine, maybe. Just… stay long enough to make me regret saying them."
His breathing faltered.
For a second, she thought he had heard.
Then the darkness under his skin flickered.
"No," Ahri whispered. "No, no, no."
Outside, Kassadin struck again.
One of the wounded Voidborns had slowed. Its left side no longer responded cleanly, and its bladed limbs twitched out of sync. Kassadin emerged above it, drove his blade into the base of its skull, anchored, and poured a sustained burst from his gauntlet into the wound. The creature convulsed. Its body bent backward in a way no living thing should have survived.
Kassadin left the blade in for half a second longer. His gauntlet fired one last orb, brighter than the others. The blast tore open the Voidborn's skull plating and sprayed black-violet matter into the dark.
The creature reeled.
Kassadin ripped his blade free and teleported back inside the field before its rear limbs could close around him.
He landed hard. One knee struck the platform. He pushed himself up immediately, but Ahri saw the brief delay.
Two of them were wounded now. The one Kassadin had just struck dragged itself along the outside of the shell, its torn head twitching as new growth sealed over the wound. The other moved unevenly, one side no longer responding cleanly.
The field gave another violent pulse.
Ahri pulled Logan closer.
"Hurry," she said again.
This time it came out like a prayer.
——————
Far behind them, inside Bluebell's belly, Jinx had stopped talking.
Normally, she would have made a joke about cosmic stomach acid, or asked whether Bluebell had a no-shoes policy, or accused Ekko of looking too serious while being digested by a glowing sky blue potato.
The boost Goldie had given Bluebell was fading. The ride had slowed. Bluebell still pushed forward, but not with the same bright surge as before.
Then the sounds started.
Deep in the Void, something crashed again and again, each impact rolling through the dark like the world's worst thunderstorm. Sometimes there was a roar after it. Sometimes a sharp scream.
Vi stared toward the sound. "What the hell is that?"
Ekko adjusted one of the controls on his suit, though there was nothing useful to adjust. "No idea."
Vander looked at Jinx.
She sat with her knees drawn up, one hand wrapped around the grip of her weapon.
Vander sat beside her, careful not to crowd.
"Powder."
She did not look at him.
He lowered his voice. "You don't have to make noise for us."
That got her eyes moving, if not her mouth.
Vander gave her a small, tired smile. "Sometimes when you talk too much, it means you're trying not to hear what's going on in your own head."
Jinx's grip tightened.
"I'm not saying stop," he added. "I like hearing you. Just saying, you don't have to put on a show in here."
For a moment, Jinx looked younger.
Then she turned away. "Stupid old man."
"Yeah," Vander said softly. "But I'm your stupid old man."
Vi heard it and pretended she had not. Instead, she looked at Ekko.
"Question. These little guys can guide us through the Void, open portals, swallow people, and fly through nightmare soup. Why can't they fight?"
Ekko glanced at Bluebell's glowing inner wall, as if the meep might be offended. "Soraka said, ehmm, Bard?, and his companions don't get directly involved in Runeterra's conflicts. Not unless there's some kind of imbalance."
Vi pointed vaguely outside. "Voidborn aren't from Runeterra."
"Yeah."
"So?"
"So maybe that's why they're helping a little." Ekko frowned. "Not fighting for us. Just nudging us in the right direction."
Kai'Sa stood near Bluebell's mouth, one hand against the inner curve of the meep's body. Her helmet hid most of her face, but her posture had changed. She was listening, not to them, but to something ahead.
Then she spoke to Bluebell.
"Throw me."
Everyone looked at her.
Ekko blinked. "What?"
"Throw me forward. Like the other meep did to you. There is fighting ahead."
Vi stepped closer. "Hold on. We're supposed to stay hidden, remember? No fighting unless we have to."
Jinx finally looked up.
Kai'Sa's voice stayed calm, but there was a hard edge under it. "And in this place, who would the Voidborn be fighting besides Logan?"
No one answered.
"The chance that it is him is high enough," Kai'Sa said.
Bluebell made a low, worried sound.
Kai'Sa touched the meep gently. "Do it."
Ekko muttered, "This is a terrible plan."
Kai'Sa walked into Bluebell's mouth.
The meep opened wide, caught her carefully, then compressed like a spring of light. A pulse ran through its body. With a bright pop, Kai'Sa shot forward into the dark, a purple streak vanishing in the direction of the battle.
Vander stood.
"Well," he said, "guess we're going too."
Vi turned on him. "Vander."
He shrugged. "Simple math. Girl jumps toward danger. We follow."
He patted Bluebell's inner wall. "Big fella, same thing."
Bluebell groaned, but obeyed.
Vander went next. The meep launched him with less grace than Kai'Sa, but enough force to send him hurtling after her.
Ekko stared at the empty mouth. "I hate that I'm about to agree with him."
He stepped forward, checked his suit seals one last time, then let Bluebell take him. Another pulse, another launch. Ekko disappeared.
Vi moved toward the mouth, then stopped.
Jinx was still sitting.
She held out a hand.
"Together?"
Jinx stared at it.
A distant crash rolled through Bluebell's body.
That got her moving.
She rose too fast, then caught Vi's hand.
Bluebell hesitated when both of them stepped into its mouth.
"Yeah, yeah," Vi said. "Sister package. Two for one. Launch already."
The meep launched them.
The Void hit like a wall.
For a few seconds, Vi's hand was the only fixed thing in existence. Then the creatures and the fight all came into view at once.
Kai'Sa was already engaged with one of the mantis-like Voidborns, darting low under its blades and answering with bursts from her carapace. Vander and Ekko had taken another. Vander drew its attention with brute force, blocking and shoving when he could, while Ekko moved around its blind spots, striking joints and retreating before the counterattack came.
A strange figure in purple armor fought two more.
He moved like a wound opening and closing, vanishing from one place and appearing in another, cutting, firing, disappearing again. Jinx did not know who he was.
The fifth Voidborn turned toward her and Vi.
Vi rolled, then came up swinging. She slammed her reinforced fists into the creature's front limbs, forcing them aside before they could spear through Jinx.
"Shoot it!"
"I know!"
Jinx raised her weapon and fired.
The recoil felt wrong inside the suit. Her aim lagged a fraction behind her hands. The first shots went wide. She cursed, adjusted, fired again. This time the bullets struck the Voidborn's chest and sparked against its shell.
It screamed and lunged.
Vi met it head-on, catching one blade against her forearm guard and driving her shoulder into its body. "Anytime!"
"I'm shooting!"
Jinx fired into the opening Vi made. One round punched into softer tissue beneath the creature's neck. Another cracked a side plate. The Voidborn staggered, then recovered too quickly.
...
Her fingers shook.
Not because of the monster.
Something had pulled her gaze past it.
A nearby platform drifted inside the failing gravitational field.
On it, a fox-eared woman knelt with someone in her arms.
For a second, Jinx's brain refused to understand what she was seeing. It gave her pieces instead. Blood. A missing arm. A missing leg. A face she knew even through ruin.
The weapon lowered by an inch.
Vi shouted something.
The Voidborn moved.
Jinx did not hear it.
Her whole body went cold inside the suit.
"Logan?"