Cold steel clashed against brave armor as a battle to the death was endured. Garen, from Demacia, a large man of a muscular stature with short brown hair and a sturdy face, clad from neck to toe in armor and wielding a long sword meant for a two handed grip in just his right hand, was in a deep combat with a woman named Katarina from Demacia's rivaling country, Noxus, who was equipped in quite the opposite manner: she wore tight leather to allow for maximum mobility and fought with long daggers, one in each hand, and housed a beautiful array of smaller knifes and projectiles that lined her hips and sides, with her long red hair dancing all around as she slid from corner to corner of the room dodging the brutes swings and attempting to pierce his armor with her weapons. They were both members of an organized fighting arena called the League of Legends, where the strongest of fighters throughout the world of Runeterra pit to settle their disagreements. Inside the League, the members who fought were called champions, while the members who brought them to the arena were called summoners. Summoners do exactly what their name would suggest: summon champions to the Fields of Justice. On the Fields themselves, the champions are at no real harm. Gunshots are taken like slingshot wounds, dismemberments are healed back, and death was only endured for minutes before reverted. The idea was to allow the strongest of champions to fight for their country, so that regular soldiers do not have to: a pleasurable alternative to the mass slaughtering of countrymen, whose battles were more so determined by the strength of the strongest members anyways. While the League has not succeeded in removing war from the lands all together, its increasing popularity had definitely started to make a dramatic impact.

Its main flaw however, was exemplified with the fighting inside of the room where two champions were locked in the fury of battle outside of the Fields of Justice. The members of the League were growing more and more anxious for their next fight, and some to the point of picking battles even when not summoned, just to get their fix in. And thus, a story unfolded...

Garen lifted his sword up high over his head, using both hands for a change, and swung it straight down at Katarina. She quickly rolled out of the way of the falling blade and pulled out some spare blades of her own. As Garen's sword clanged against the ground, she threw the blades as well aimed to his skull as possible, just to see him lower his shoulder towards her in a football player's stance and deflect the incoming projectiles on his shoulder pad.

"Still hiding under that armor Garen?" she mocked.

"Still hoping to distract your opponents through flaunting your cleavage?" he retorted quickly.

"I'm just not still hiding myself in the armor given by my over protective mother." Garen grinned. The two acted like that all of the time. They had the most peculiar rivalry of all of the champions in the League. They seemed to hate each other as well as love each other; taking every chance available to battle one another with the incredible pride held in their home country. However, Garen has been known to protect her on occasion, blocking potentially lethal blows thrown her way by his own allies in the heat of battle. They had some sort of deeper connection or relationship not understood by anyone but themselves. They continued to fight; blade and knife clashing and sparking while echoing throughout the halls. They were standing in a square room inside the Institute of War – the League's main headquarters and housing for all of its champions and summoners – with long hallways protruding from each of the walls and the floor was mostly cleared in front of them. Few decorations were in the room, being a long forgotten and abandoned section of the Institute, making it a perfect spot for their battle. Fighting within the institute was strictly prohibited with punishment beyond imagination in an attempt to promote the peaceful environment outside of the Fields of Justice. The room was made out of a pale blue, marble-like material that left the floor fairly slick and allowed for plenty of sliding and maneuvering.

Garen thrust his sword in a stabbing motion at Katarina just to watch her slide to the side of the blade and take the opportunity to throw a dagger parallel to his sword towards him. He lifted his left arm and deflected the blade while withdrawing his sword, from its position, to his side. He lifted the sword to his right; holding it perpendicular to his body. He began to spin around wildly, slicking his feet along the ground in a talented waltzing formation, while approaching Katarina as he span. The woman reacted quickly by hitting the ground and rolling to the side to avoid his onslaught of whirling blade. When Garen noticed her avoidance, he stopped his rotation and locked on to her, not swaying an inch while he stood.

"I'll never understand how that's possible," she thought out loud. He lowered his sword and grinned.

"Watch my feet," he responded. He mimicked the motion, without the sword raised, as Katarina watched carefully. Her eyes widened as she realized the pattern his feet took that allowed him to rotate while moving in one controlled direction. She raised her blades, one in each hand, pointing opposite directions, and began to imitate the dance. She made it a few steps, rotating with incredible precision to what Garen had showed her, but lost her balance after a few feet and had to stop. Garen laughed out loud at the sight and re-readied his sword.

"And the dizziness?" she asked, referring to the feeling she had quickly generated from rotating at such a ridiculous pace.

"Patience," he replied softly. She looked incredibly annoyed at the response and threw two daggers towards his neck. He swiftly deflected them with his sword as Katarina slid across the room towards him. While his arms were still raised to deflect the previous attack, she lunged past him, digging her knifes into the side of his armor and yanking him to the ground with the force of her momentum and gravity pulling him down. She rolled backwards and looked at Garen lying on the ground, quite disoriented from the fall in his heavy armor. A menacing smile eroded over her face as she realized that she had just created a wonderful opportunity to launch an attack for some serious damage. She readied another knife and threw it straight at his exposed skull. The blade flew through the air but only for a second before stopping in mid-flight. She was so busy basking in her victory that she did not notice the sudden halting of movement in the instant that it had happened.

Garen lay on the ground in a heap and heard Katarina laughing to herself. He expected a throwing knife to be launched in his direction momentarily and immediately swung his sword in an arch through the air to intersect where he expected the blade to be. To his surprise, he did not hear a resonation of deflected metal bouncing off of his sword and onto the ground, but instead, the sound of cutting flesh. He collected himself and sat up from his pile on the floor to see what had happened. Garen saw a man standing with his back to him a few feet away, dressed in mostly purple with a hood pulled up over the back of his head. He wore a cape split into strands, with blades attached to the ends of each strand. However, the cape was not complete. Part of it was dangling from the back of his neck while the other lay on the ground, slit in half by Garen's blade. Across his back, just under the point where his cape was split was a two foot gash, a few inches in depth.

Katarina looked up to see a man whom she knew quite well standing in front of her, holding her knife in his hand, lightly cutting into the flesh of his fingers and palm with the tip just inches from his chest. Katarina's eyes widened as she realized that someone had found out her and Garen's little midnight clash.

"Talon…" She said in a voice barely above a whisper. The man in purple grinned at her, eyes covered by the hood he wore.

"I thought I told you to stop fighting before the League exiles you," he replied in a soft, steady voice.

"I… well…" She croaked, too ashamed to even look at his face. She turned around and began to head back to her living quarters inside of the Institute of War when she heard a body hit the ground. She immediately turned around to see Talon face first on the floor, a gash oozing blood all over, and a mighty Demacian clambering to his feet immediately behind him. Her eyes widened once again as she collected what had happened. She ran back into the room screaming out his name.

"TALON! TALON! LISTEN TO ME! TALON!" she shouted at the man, praying that he was still conscious enough to hear her pleas. She crouched next to him, rolled him over to take his head in her hands, peeled back his hood, and looked into his face.

"I… I love you…" he stated as he drifted off into unconsciousness. Garen had taken a knee to the fallen man's other side and placed his hand underneath Katarina's chin. The mighty soldier lifted her face, level with his, and peered into her over stimulated watering eyes.

"If anyone asks you, you have no idea what happened. You do not know where Talon or I am, and you spent this night in your room as you should have. Do I make myself excruciatingly clear?" he asked in an almost growling tone, as he would use while giving an urgent command to a soldier. She looked at him, flustered, upset, and confused. However, she nodded and ran back down the hallway she had begun to flee through moments ago; her deep red hair flowed behind her as she sprinted. Torchlight reflected off of her occasional tear drop falling to ground, resembling a crystal in the sunlight. Garen bowed his head and spoke softly to the unconscious man while wrapping the grave wound with his shirt in attempt to ease the bleeding.

"I'll keep you safe Talon… You will live through this. Be strong, and trust the ones whose care I place you in…" He slung the limp body over his shoulder and took off down the hall. He had one note to leave behind, his equipment to drop off to be sure that no one knew his leave was conscious, and then to depart as fast as possible to ensure Talon's, Katarina's, The League's, Demacia's, and his own safety.