The morning after Morgana's "Great Rat Purge" arrived with a quietness that, in Noxus, is always suspicious. A day without the sound of someone being stabbed in an alley is a day when everyone is busy sharpening their knives in secret.
On paper, I was officially 'on holiday' from the business of creating super-soldiers. I had handed over the Project Chimera recipe to Vorth's team, a group of alchemists as inspiring as mouldy bread and declared myself a 'consultant' emeritus. Translation: they could now blow up their own laboratory, not mine. This left me with a glorious amount of free time, which I invested in my true passion: deciphering the engineering flaws of dead empires.
While Morgana, with the serenity of someone who had just solved a moral problem with a healthy dose of magical terror, was tending to her plants in the courtyard, I was inside, poring over old maps of the Immortal Bastion's foundations. Her peace was getting on my nerves. She had cleaned out a nest of rats; a noble, but temporary, act. Rats, like ambition, always find a way back. I, on the other hand, was hunting much bigger ghosts.
The truth was, I knew her peace wouldn't last. In Noxus, every action generates a chain reaction, usually involving more screaming and bureaucracy than the original action. Morgana's one-night crusade in the slums hadn't been a small pebble in the lake; it had been a rock the size of an angry elnuk. We were just waiting for the ripples to reach us. And I didn't expect them to be polite.
They arrived in the form of a man named Marius, the captain of Lady Vorth's personal guard, whose expression was permanently that of someone who had just chewed a lemon. He materialised at our door unannounced, an irritating talent Vorth's lackeys seemed to cultivate.
"Lady Vorth sends me," he said, with all the cheer of an executioner starting his shift.
Morgana, interrupted from her meditation with the flowers, approached. "Does she require a remedy?"
"She does," Marius replied, but his cold eyes slid past Morgana and fixed on me, which told me the 'remedy' was of a more… political nature. "An Ixtali merchant captain is running a fever. She requests a diagnosis."
The excuse was so thin it was translucent. A tropical fever? They had a dozen apothecaries in the empire for that. It was a pretext for a conversation.
I rose from my maps, bored. "Tropical fever? An infusion of Shadow-leaf, ground with the venom of a river serpent, served chilled. It'll relieve the symptoms within the hour," I rattled off, just to show their problem was trivial. "It hardly requires our attention. Is there something else Lady Vorth desires, or does she just enjoy sending us on glorified errands?"
Marius, who was not used to children who diagnosed exotic diseases and complained about the service at the same time, was taken aback. a thin, humourless smile touched his lips. "You're direct, little one."
"It saves time," I replied. "And time, for us, is a finite resource. For you, it seems to be something that grows on trees."
He leaned in, and the facade of a medical mission fell away. "Your… efficiency… is the reason I'm here." His eyes flickered towards the general direction of The Sump. "Lady Vorth appreciates the… tidying up… that occurred in the lower district. Rats, she believes, must be exterminated for the house to remain clean."
"A lovely metaphor," I said.
"However," he continued, his tone hardening, "the 'disappearance' of a gang leader and the neutralisation of his lieutenants in a single night… it generates reports. Rumours. The High Command dislikes anomalies, especially magical ones, acting without its permission. It attracts the kind of attention that is… bad for everyone's business."
He was addressing Morgana, but the warning was for both of us. "My lady suggests that the 'Shadow Lady's' future actions be more… discreet." He shrugged. "Rats can die of sudden illnesses. Or in back-alley brawls. It creates less paperwork."
He straightened up, the captain returning. "Prepare the cure for the merchant. And understand the message." With a short nod, he was gone.
The quiet returned, now tinged with threat.
"So she approves," Morgana said. "As long as I get my hands dirty in the 'right' way."
"She doesn't care about your morality, Morgana," I retorted. "She cares about control. She's just given us a new leash, only one with a longer, invisible lead."
I could almost hear the cogs of her ancient soul turning. She was not averse to the role of a dispenser of justice. In Demacia, she was a shadow who defended mages. In the Freljord, the Keeper who advised the Warmother. On the outskirts of Noxus, the Lady who purged evil. The function was the same. What Vorth was suggesting was a change in method. The Noxian method. Clean, efficient, lethal, and devoid of mercy. It was a poison being offered as a remedy, and she was pondering whether she should drink.
It was then I made a decision. The research could wait. Morgana's moral war, apparently, could not.
"I'm going out," I announced, pushing the scrolls aside.
She turned, her violet eyes drawn from her introspection. "Alone?"
"Going to collect herbs from the market. Take stock," I lied smoothly. "And you… you should meditate. Reflect. Find your balance." I gave her the perfect excuse for the solitude she clearly needed to resolve her conflict.
"Be careful," was all she said, before turning back to her thoughts.
I left. The truth was, I needed some air too. But more than that, I wanted to let her reach her own conclusion. Because I already knew what it would be. Morgana could use Noxus's shadows, but she would never use their blade. Her justice, I was beginning to understand, wasn't about efficiency. It was about hope. Even for those who didn't deserve it.
With a nod, I left our fortress, the bone amulet from Ashe tapping rhythmically at my hip, leaving the chained queen to her solitary contemplation. Truthfully, I had no plan. I was simply fleeing from boredom, my oldest and most persistent enemy. My stroll took me towards the more opulent districts of the capital. A place of impeccable order, clean streets, and a suffocating rigidity. It was the perfect place, I thought, for a good dose of unexpected chaos.
It was in this forced silence that I felt it. Not with my eyes, but with my Qi perception. A small ripple of mischievous intent, like a dissonant note in a perfectly tuned symphony. And alongside it, the cold aura of contained lethal intent, like the stillness of a predator waiting in the long grass. It was a familiar combination of energies. I turned towards the direction it came from, a small smile forming on my face.
[Energy signature consistent with subjects 'Katarina Du Couteau' and 'Talon Du Couteau'. Current intent level: 'Tactical-Grade Juvenile Vandalism'. Probability of imminent public humiliation: 98.7%.]
I moved, not towards them, but to a vantage point: the roof of a small administrative building across the street. Hidden behind a gargoyle that looked as bored as I felt, I watched the scene unfold. And there they were. The red-haired girl and the shadow-boy. Noble children, clearly, playing at being commoners in clothes that were a cheap imitation of what the actual poor wore. They weren't just strolling. They were… hunting.
Their target was a Tactics Instructor from the Trifarian Academy, a pompous, arrogant man with a moustache that looked like it had ambitions to conquer the world on its own. He was in the middle of the square, publicly berating a young recruit for a tiny scuff on his boot. The personification of pompous authority. An irresistible target.
The operation began. They moved like shadows, swift and efficient. Any guard or common civilian would never have seen them. But I was neither. To me, their youthful arrogance made them noisy. They concealed their presence, but not their intent. And intent, to one who can read it, shouts louder than any alarm.
I followed them with my eyes as they wove their web of chaos. First, Talon. He slipped down an alley and, with the agility of a ghost, tied a thin cord at ankle height across the path the Instructor would take. It was nearly invisible. Then he was gone.
Katarina, from a roof opposite mine, prepared her munitions. Not blades. Something far more humiliating. Bags of flour.
The recruit was finally dismissed, practically running away. The Instructor, puffing out his chest with his own importance, turned to march off arrogantly. And he tripped spectacularly over the cord. The fall was not graceful. It was a dull thud of metal and dignity hitting stone.
Before he could even understand what had happened, the bombardment began. Katarina was an artist. The first bag of flour hit his plumed helmet with a satisfying *poof*. The second, square in the middle of his polished medals. In seconds, the imposing Instructor looked like a furious, powder-covered ghost.
The climax was a masterpiece of timing and applied physics. Talon, reappearing behind a pie stall, 'accidentally' bumped into it. With a move I recognised as a low-level force redirection, he caused the vendor to overbalance, launching a single, perfect blackberry pie through the air in a perfect ballistic arc.
The Instructor, still dusting himself off, looked up.
At the last second, Katarina threw a small dagger. The blade did not hit the pie. It hit the wooden post behind the Instructor's head. The dagger's hilt, at the exact right moment, deflected the pie's trajectory downwards. The dessert landed with a glorious *splat* right on top of his floured head, the purple jam running down his shocked face.
It wasn't vandalism. It was a demonstration. They had used stealth, projectiles, environmental manipulation, and even ricochet physics to neutralise a target with zero risk and maximum humiliation. It was… artistic. In a juvenile, psychopathic sort of way.
As the small crowd erupted in stifled laughter, Katarina and Talon retreated into a secluded alley, thinking no one in the world could possibly have seen them. Big mistake.
I let them reach their hideout. I heard them laughing, the adrenaline of the successful prank making them careless. It was at this exact moment of their triumph that I appeared.
I used the Shadow Step, a small Qi movement trick, sliding from one shadow to the next without a sound, and materialised at the far end of the alley. I sat down on a wooden crate, crossed my legs, and took an apple from my pouch. I was waiting for them, an audience of one for their mission debrief.
I heard them enter, their voices low, full of adrenaline and muffled laughter.
"...the look on his face when the pie hit!" I heard Katarina's voice, followed by a rare, quiet huff of a laugh from the shadow-boy beside her. "Flawless."
"It was efficient," he replied.
"Quiet," she said suddenly. They had sensed me. Not with their eyes. With their instincts. They stopped halfway down the alley. The darkness was deep, but I could see them perfectly. They knew they weren't alone.
"Who's there?" Katarina's voice was a hiss, a blade already in her hand.
I took a bite of my apple. The crunch was absurdly, gloriously loud in the alley's silence. I saw their silhouettes freeze. Slowly, I stepped out of the shadows, the dim light from a distant lantern illuminating my face.
The reaction was a work of art.
Talon moved first, a blur, his wrist blade flicking out with a deadly *shing*, stopping inches from my face. But it was a move of pure shock, not attack. Katarina froze, her mouth slightly agape. Her face went from triumph, to disbelief, to confusion, and finally, to a defensive, humiliated fury. The hunter had just discovered she had been the prey all afternoon. And the predator… was the girl who had beaten her at her own game, now sitting and eating an apple as if she were watching a play.