Jinx could not move.
Her heart hammered so fast it stopped feeling like separate beats. It became one hard, panicked vibration inside her chest, trapped under the suit, shaking through her ribs and into her throat. Her breath came thin and wrong.
Logan was there.
Broken.
Too real.
The Voidborn in front of her lunged.
Vi hit it first.
She threw herself between Jinx and the creature, both massive gauntlets rising in time to catch the mantis-like claws before they could tear through Jinx's suit. The impact shoved Vi backward. Her boots scraped through nothing, thrusters whining as they fought to hold her in place. The Voidborn pressed harder, its bladed limbs trembling with strength.
"Jinx!" Vi shouted.
Jinx could not answer.
The creature's head split open. Its jaws clicked inches from Vi's faceplate. Vi grunted, bracing both arms, but the Voidborn kept forcing her back. One claw slid along the side of her gauntlet, sparks snapping against the reinforced plating. Another pushed down toward her shoulder.
"Move!" Vi snapped.
Jinx's fingers twitched around her weapon.
Nothing else worked.
Then Ekko slammed into the Voidborn from the side.
He hit the creature shoulder-first, spinning out of control, and the collision knocked all three of them off balance. Vi took the opening without thinking. She roared and drove one gauntlet into the Voidborn's chest with everything she had.
The creature flew back, limbs folding and snapping outward as it tumbled away.
"Nice one!" Vi said.
Ekko twisted in the air, caught himself, and looked offended through the faceplate. "That was not on purpose! The one Vander and I were fighting threw me!"
A rough voice cut through the chaos. "Ekko!"
Vander was locked with another Voidborn farther out, his huge frame straining against its blade-limbs. He took a hit across the side and answered with a heavy swing that knocked the creature's head aside.
"Help them!" Vander shouted. "I'm fine!"
Ekko hesitated for only a second before turning back toward Vi and Jinx.
Vi looked at her sister.
Jinx had not moved. Her gun hung half-raised. Her eyes stayed fixed on the nearby platform. Vi followed her gaze for a fraction of a second and saw enough to understand.
Logan.
And the fox woman.
Ahri, Vi remembered.
Vi moved to Jinx fast. The Voidborn they had knocked away was already recovering, twisting its body back toward them, but Vi ignored it for the moment.
"Ekko," she said. "Can you hold that thing off for a few seconds?"
Ekko looked at the creature, then at Jinx. His expression tightened. "Yeah."
He shot forward before the Voidborn could build speed again.
Vi reached Jinx and took her face between both gauntlets as carefully as the bulky weapons allowed. The metal was too large for tenderness, but Vi made it work. She forced Jinx to look at her instead of Logan.
"Hey. Look at me."
Jinx's eyes shook.
"Look at me, Powder."
Vi leaned close.
Jinx's lips parted, but no sound came out.
"He's probably alive," Vi said, then immediately shook her head. "No. Forget that. He is alive. You hear me? He's alive."
Jinx blinked once.
Vi did not know whether she believed it. But it did not matter. Jinx needed it, so Vi gave it to her like a fact.
"Come on."
She pulled Jinx toward the platform.
Jinx let herself be moved.
A invisible field stopped them before they could reach Logan. Vi hit it shoulder-first and bounced off with a curse. She pressed one gauntlet against the barrier. It gave slightly under pressure, then pushed back with a low vibration.
Inside, Ahri lifted her head.
She looked as if the act almost cost her consciousness. Logan lay in her arms, his body torn and still.
Ahri's voice was thin. "Did a spirit come with you?"
Vi frowned. "A spirit?"
Ahri's eyes sharpened with effort. "A presence. Something gentle. Something not of this place."
Vi looked back, past the fight, toward the dark where Bluebell had been. "Maybe. A weird glowing thing brought us. Big eyes, kind of… soft-looking. It carried us inside itself." She paused, aware of how insane that sounded. "It's blue, wears a petal scarf. Hard to explain out here."
Ahri breathed in, and some of the tension in her face changed shape.
"One of Bard's meeps," she whispered.
Ahri lowered her eyes to Logan. "I need it. If it reaches me, I may be able to heal Logan."
Jinx heard that.
Vi felt the shift before she saw it. Her sister's gaze sharpened, still full of terror, but no longer empty.
"You hear that Powder? Logan is alive. Ahri can heal him."
Jinx stared at Logan.
Vi glanced back at the fighting. The meep was not here. Maybe whatever rules kept it from fighting would keep it away from the center of this mess.
Ekko was barely holding.
He kept dodging, hitting its joints, forcing it to turn, but every exchange pushed him closer to a mistake.
Vi grabbed Jinx's face again.
"Stay here."
Jinx did not respond.
"Jinx. Stay here. I have to help Ekko."
Vi's voice hardened. "Powder."
Jinx's eyes moved to her.
"Stay here. Don't move. Got it?"
A long second passed.
Then Jinx gave the smallest nod.
Vi let go.
She wanted to say something else, something warmer that would make the terror in Jinx's eyes go away. There was no time. She turned and launched herself toward Ekko.
The Voidborn caught Ekko across the chest and sent him spinning. Vi intercepted it before it could follow. Her fist smashed into one of its front limbs, bending the blade away. Ekko recovered and came in from above, striking the side of its head with a burst of force that made the creature recoil.
It recovered too fast.
"Thing's strong," Ekko said.
"Noticed."
Vi blocked two claws, but the impact rattled her bones. She drove a knee into the creature's middle and shoved. Ekko slipped under one blade, swung his bat hard into the softer joint near its abdomen, then kicked off the creature before it could catch him.
For a few seconds, they forced it back.
Vi used them.
"Ekko," she said. "Go get Bluebell."
"What?"
"The fox woman needs it to heal Logan."
Ekko looked toward the platform.
Then he looked at the Voidborn between them. "And what about this thing?"
"I'll handle it."
Ekko's face changed. He knew what she was not saying.
"It's stronger than you!"
Vi slammed both gauntlets into the Voidborn's chest, forcing it away for half a breath. "Move!"
Ekko cursed, then broke off and shot back toward the direction Bluebell had thrown them from.
The Voidborn turned as if to follow.
Vi hit it in the face.
"Hey!" she barked. "Get through me first."
The creature answered with a scream and lunged.
———
Kai'Sa drove three missiles into her opponent's side and used the recoil to pull distance.
The Voidborn she faced twisted through the explosions instead of away from them. Its carapace cracked, then flexed back into place. It was fast, strong, and far too aware. Every time she found a pattern, it changed. Every time she wounded it, it adjusted its movement to protect that side.
Something between instinct and calculation.
Kai'Sa angled left, fired again, and forced it to guard its exposed flank. The brief opening gave her a chance to see the rest of the battle.
Ekko had left.
He was heading back, likely toward Bluebell. Kai'Sa did not know why, whatever had happened near the platform had changed their priorities.
Vi was alone against one Voidborn.
Barely holding.
She fought with force and stubbornness, blocking more than she dodged, using her body as a wall because that was the only way to keep the creature away from the field. It was a bad matchup. Kai'Sa could see that in seconds. Vi's suit gave her strength and protection, but not enough speed.
Vander was doing better, but he wasn't winning.
He endured with a kind of rough patience, taking glancing wounds, catching limbs, shoving the creature off rhythm whenever it tried to chain attacks together. He was weaker than it, but not easy prey.
Then there was the man in purple armor.
Kai'Sa's eyes narrowed.
He fought two at once.
His armor carried damage, deep cracks and scorched marks across the plating. She could not tell whether those wounds came from these Voidborns or from something before.
He vanished, reappeared near a joint, cut once, anchored himself with the blade, fired from his gauntlet, then vanished again before both creatures could close. He never stayed long enough for them to surround him, and he never let them forget him. Every attack was chosen to slow, blind, or divide.
Against two Voidborns, injured and alone, he fought with a calm that did not belong here.
Kai'Sa wondered who he was.
The Voidborn in front of her punished the moment of distraction.
A blade scraped across her side, hard enough to twist her off course. She fired point-blank into its chest and drove herself backward before the follow-up could land.
Focus.
Questions later.
She raised both hands and attacked again.
———
Jinx could not look away from Logan.
Everything around her had become distant noise, all of it reached her as if through water.
Logan's face was pale.
There was blood in his hair. His missing leg did not look real. His missing arm looked even less real. Jinx's mind kept trying to reject the image and build another one over it.
Logan smirking at her, teasing her, looking tired but whole.
The image in front of her did not change.
Then Ahri swayed.
Jinx's eyes moved.
The fox woman was almost on the floor, Logan still locked in her arms. Her head dipped, rose, dipped again. She was on the edge of passing out, but her grip did not loosen. Not even a little.
Ahri looked at her.
Their eyes met.
Jinx did not know what to think.
Ahri was covered in Logan's blood and holding him like letting go would end the world.
Jinx's thoughts could not form around that.
Ahri's lips moved.
Jinx did not really hear the words.
A voice cut through before Ahri could force them out.
"Don't."
Clear. Firm.
Jinx turned slightly.
The voice came from Logan's strange sword with a cold steadiness that did not match the chaos around them.
"Do not say it like that," the sword said. "For your pride. And for his."
Ahri closed her mouth.
Jinx stared at the blade, then back at her.
A heavy crash struck the invisible field.
Vi hit it back-first.
The Voidborn had her pinned against the barrier, both claws driving into her gauntlets and shoulders, forcing her harder against the weakening shell. Vi's face twisted behind her visor as she pushed back.
"Damn thing did that on purpose," Vi snarled. "It knows where it wants to go."
The Voidborn pressed harder.
Jinx's hand went to her gun.
Her fingers shook so badly she almost missed the grip.
The field beneath her palm began to tremble.
Ahri lifted her head sharply. "The field is failing."
Her voice was weak, but the fear in it was not.
The section behind Vi cracked without sound.
Then it broke.
Vi and the Voidborn fell through together, crashing onto the platform's inner gravity.
The Voidborn landed on top.
One of its mantis claws drove into Vi's thigh.
Vi screamed.
That sound reached Jinx.
Jinx stumbled to the broken opening and raised her weapon. She fired at the Voidborn from above, but her hands would not steady. All the shots went wide.
The creature turned toward Ahri and Logan.
"No," Jinx whispered.
Vi grabbed it from behind before it could move.
She hooked one arm around its neck and drove her gauntlet into its side. The Voidborn thrashed, slamming her into the platform. A blade cut across her ribs. Another tore into her shoulder plating and found something softer beneath.
Vi held on.
Jinx fired again.
Missed again.
Her own weakness hit her hard.
Move.
Do something.
Anything.
She threw the gun aside and dropped through the broken field.
Gravity caught her lightly, just enough to pull her down hard on one knee. She grabbed the small shock baton from her suit, and charged.
The Voidborn reared back to strike Vi again.
Jinx jammed the baton into its side and triggered it.
Electricity snapped through the creature's body. It shrieked, muscles locking for half a second. The sound was sharp enough to hurt through the helmet.
The Voidborn looked at her.
Jinx froze again.
Its claw stabbed down into the same wound in Vi's thigh.
Vi choked on another scream.
Then the creature lunged forward and sank its teeth into the place between Vi's shoulder and neck.
"Vi!"
The Voidborn drove forward with Vi still caught in its jaws and limbs. Vi's back slammed into Jinx. The force carried both sisters backward until they struck the invisible field on the far side.
Jinx felt the impact through Vi's body.
Blood spilled across Vi's suit. Too much of it. It ran over the torn plating, across Jinx's gloves, warm even through the layers.
"Vi!"
Vi cursed through clenched teeth. Her gauntlet rose and hit the creature once, weakly compared to before.
The Voidborn's shoulder split open.
Jinx saw movement inside.
Thin spines unfolded from beneath its carapace, slick and black.
Aimed toward Logan.
Time slowed.
Jinx saw Ahri move.
The fox woman should not have been able to move. She had barely been able to lift her head.
But the moment the spines fired, Ahri curled over Logan and pulled him tighter against her chest, turning her back toward the attack.
The spikes punched into her back.
One after another.
Ahri's body jerked with each impact, but her arms stayed locked around Logan.