Chapter Text
"Viego" here, "Ruination" there. Lulu was of course concerned about the Harrowing, but she didn't really follow all the strategy blabbering of Lucian, Senna and the other Sentinels, so instead she spent her time talking to Gwen and playing with Pix while the rest of the sentinels made plans on how to continue their mission.
She was currently stacking some rocks from the rubble near the entrance to the Sentinel hideout on top of each other, trying to stack them as high as possible without the tower falling over, but that was getting boring, and so she turned away from it and stepped closer to Gwen.
"Hey Gwen, wanna see a trick?"
Gwen was currently sitting on the floor nearby, and she was working on stitching together Lulu’s sentinel outfit.
"Oh, a trick? That sounds delightful!" She looked up from her work.
Lulu took her staff, twirled it around for dramatic effect, and threw it in the air. She caught it on her nose, casting her Transmorgify at the same time, and continued to balance it on her nose as the squirrel she transformed herself into. Gwen applauded and laughed. "That's so adorable!" Then she swooped up Lulu in her animal form and gave her a few pats on the head, before setting her down again, where she transformed back into the yordle she was. It was then that they noticed a shadow falling upon them from the entrance to the headquarters.
"It seems I've finally found you, you stupid 'sentinels'"
Everyone looked at the figure.
It covered the whole entrance… at least that's what it seemed to do at first glance. But on further inspection, it was nothing but a trick of the light, and the actual person was quite short, with sharp upright ears and a very tired look on their face.
It was Vex.
She crossed her arms.
"Well. I've come here to end your fruitless endeavor. You won't be able to-"
She was just starting to monologue, letting her eyes wander across the room, but stopped abruptly upon seeing Lulu. The other Sentinels, who had already drawn their weapons, ready to fight, followed her line of sight to Lulu.
Lulu stood up. "Vex?"
Vex quickly pulled her hood in her face, turned around, and was gone as quickly as she had appeared.
Lucian had to hold Senna back from running after the gloomy yordle, gun at the ready, and they both exchanged some quick words with the nearby sentinels about the situation.
Gwen didn’t join them, and instead crouched down to Lulu's height, and whispered to her:
"You know Vex?"
"Yes, very well at that!" Lulu replied. "I don't get why she ran away though…" It hurt her a little. It had been a long time since they had last seen each other, and she missed Vex very much. However, Vex seemed to be an enemy. But, so Lulu thought, maybe she could be convinced to switch sides!
Just then, Vex returned. She tried to replicate her entrance from before, but she appeared to be too flustered to be as intimidating a figure. Also, the moment was long gone.
"As I said, I- ugh- Ah, whatever, I'm here to stop your annoying interventions!" She yelled, and nimbly dodged a bullet from Senna, who was aiming at her, ready to cover her in a storm of bullets.
Vex motioned towards her, and everyone watched as Vex' shadow slithered across the floor and up Senna's legs, holding her in place, and spreading towards the rest of them. Gwen and Lulu were too far away to be affected. The other sentinels, who were already armed from before, were affected similarly.
Vex dragged herself over to Senna. She reached out to her, and the familiar green glow of the mist engulfed her hands. A moment before the glow touched Senna, Vex was interrupted. "Hey! You forgot someone!" Gwen yelled, just as she appeared behind Vex and the blades of her scissors closed in at the yordle's sides, almost snipping her in half. Vex managed to dodge it by a hair's width by a step forward. As she turned around to face the attacker, her face looked horrified at the sight of the scissors, presumably because she imagined what it would feel like to be cut in half by them, but her expression returned to indifferent immediately. She sighed and took a fighting stance, but before either of them could make another move, Lulu jumped in between them.
"Stop! You don't have to do this!" she yelled and turned to Vex. "Vex, whatever makes you act like this, I'm sure we can fix it somehow! You don't have to fight my friends!"
"Your… friends?" Vex' face went red. "I- I don't care! I have friends too! No wait, I don't. I don't have any 'friends'. I-" She was interrupted by a bullet that buried itself in her arm. She cursed.
Senna, now free from the shadow’s bounds, reloaded her gun.
Vex groaned and rolled her eyes.
“Thanks, now you ruined my plan” She gestured to her shadow with her uninjured arm and it swooped her up, carrying her to the doorway. She stood there for a split second, and looked like she was about to add onto what she said before, but was interrupted by another one of Senna’s bullets, which she managed to duck from.
Vex shot one last glance at Lulu before disappearing again.
Senna ran after her, but when Lulu followed her outside, she saw the woman standing there angrily, with no Vex in sight..
“She escaped again! We could have used her to ambush Viego, and then it would all be over already!”
Lucian tried to calm her down, while the others went back to their discussion.
While the others were clearly talking about what it would mean for them that Viego had found out their hiding place, Lulu was preoccupied with thinking about Vex.
They had known each other since they were young. Neither of them really got along with other yordles, in one way or another, and this might be what had driven them together. They had been best friends for most of their youths. Lulu remembered playing pranks on their teachers or their rude peers together, and how every now and then Vex cracked a smile when Lulu managed to pull off something extremely funny. Vex had always been this gloomy, so Lulu had always been proud whenever she got her friend to smile.
She remembered sneaking through a portal to runeterra together, the portal closing right behind them and only finding their way back a week and a handful of adventures later.
She remembered the games they made up, the excitement over artefacts from the mortal world whenever they found some, and so much more.
She also remembered detention together when they had broken a rule like they did so often, but that was nothing compared to the good memories.
She remembered leaving Bandle City after finishing school. Compared to many other yordles, there weren’t countless friends there to say goodbye, just two yordles: Tristana and Vex. Tristana had to leave due to some bandle gunner business, so in the end, it was just her and Vex. She remembered her promise to return and to tell Vex about the adventures she’d have had, and to bring her many gifts and souvenirs. She remembered her promise to travel together once Lulu returned.
And she remembered finally returning, excited to meet her friend again, only to be told that Vex was nowhere to be found. According to Tristana, she one day just wasn’t there anymore. She probably left during the night without telling anyone, Tristana had guessed. Lulu had been disappointed, and from that day on, on her travels, she always hoped to somehow meet Vex again, but never did.
Until now.
Vex stuck her face in the soft fluffy fur of a big Poro and screamed as loud as she could into it, before letting it jump back onto the ground and spitting out some of its white fur that got in her mouth. She was sitting in the shadow of a snow dune in the north of Freljord, cuddled into her big cozy hoodie, the empty glass bottle of a health potion lying in the snow next to her. She liked the snow, it was cold, and she liked to imagine that she was just as cool and stoic as ice. She was shivering, but that wasn’t important.The cold also really helped cool her down after what just happened.
By the way, what the FUCK just happened. She thought she would see the Sentinels she expected, like Senna, Lucian, Gwen, Irelia… but not Lulu! Why was Lulu, of all people, there? Couldn’t she just be chasing after some butterflies in the middle of nowhere or something? Not only did it embarrass her in front of the Sentinels, but it also stopped her from doing her job, which was capturing the Sentinels, or at least slowing them down as much as possible. She wanted to ambush them and Lulu ruined it. That reminded her, she should probably tell Viego that she couldn’t fulfill her task.
She stood up and told her shadow, “Take me to Viego”, and then relaxed as the shadow lifted her up and carried her at impossible speeds across land and water, through the black mist, to That certain place on the shadow isles that Viego thought of as his home. “Hey Viego, I’m back!” She yelled as the shadow lowered her back onto the ground. It took barely a few seconds for a wave to ripple through the mist, and Viego materialized in front of her.
“Ah, Vex! You have returned! How did it go?”, his voice echoed.
“Not so great, something, uuhh, unexpected was there. So I left again before I could really do anything”
“Oh well. You seem to have bought me enough time anyways. Soon, all that will be left to get are the fragments that Gwen and Senna possess. DId you at least figure out any new information?”
Vex informed him about the sentinels, the plans she heard of, and, reluctantly, of the new recruit.
When she finished her report, Viego spoke up.
“You seem to be familiar with the new sentinel”
Vex shrugged it off. “She’s simply an acquaintance from a long time ago. Nothing special”
Viego nodded. “Then she won’t get in our way. Good”
“...No, she won’t.”