Family Business 38 (Patreon)

Family Business
Chapter 38

-VB-

Vayne hummed.

Sitting in the back of a small cutter as it rocked up and down the waves while sailing across the Conqueror’s Sea off the coast of Demacia, she couldn’t help but wonder how tough this fight would be.

Her last “fight” had ended with her serving her new master. Would this fight be another life-changing fight?

She snorted.

It certainly would be life-changing for the vast majority of the people. Before she left Demacia, she managed to get information from her old information network. Demacia had been hit hard by the attack. Many commoners had been slain by the Black Mist’s Harrowing, and the nobles were scared. If the Black Mist went away, then they would be safe.

It was the exact kind of work she liked.

The problem was that her normal weapons would not have been able to hurt the sources of the Black Mist: Thresh and Viego.

And so the Sentinels had provided her with the weapon she needed.

Honestly?

She loved it.

“What are you thinking about?”

She looked away from the ocean to look at one of the three Sentinels currently aboard the ship.

Senna was a stoic and firm woman. She had to be to do the work she did with her husband.

“My weapon,” she replied. “My past. My future.”

“Complicated?”

“Yes.”

The sailors around them continued to pull and tug at the ropes keeping the sail up. Vayne knew nothing about sailing, so even though it looked like they moved and acted hurriedly, she didn’t speak up. As far as she was concerned, that’s what sailors did aboard a ship.

“So where are we going from here, again?” she asked Senna.

“First off, I want to meet with the other Sentinels on our way and see if they can spare themselves for the effort in fighting Viego,” she replied to Vayne as she sat down next to her. “It won’t be easy to persuade them to leave, especially when all of the cities and locations that they are stationed at are in need of their help.”

“... Then why not do what you have done for me?” Vayne asked.

“Pardon?”

“Deputize others who can fight as you have done for me,” she replied. “And -”

“Vayne!”

The said woman paused and looked towards the cabin as a blue-haired former doll walked out with a grin on her face.

Yes, how could she forget?

Gwen, the self-professed Hallowed Seamstress, had been with Senna and Lucian, the two Sentinels aboard the ship with her, when she went to sign up with them. Oh, she was also the one who changed her outfit.

And coming out following her…

Vayne smirked and Senna outright laughed.

“Hello, Sentinel Lucian. I see that Gwen took exception to your outfit.”

The frowning tall man grunted. “I was just fine.”

“Well, you hadn’t changed your outfit in years, Lucian,” Senna chuckled, eyes crinkling up into smiles and lips upturned. “Actually, how did you even make that costume for him?” she asked the seamstress.

The bluenette huffed. “I’ll have you know that I can do a lot of things! I can fight, but that’s just one of the things I can do, especially with the Hallowed Mist.”

Vayne hummed.

It was … odd.

All her life, the stories about the Shadow Isles had been of horror and fear. The Black Mist was an untouchable and unwinnable force that acted upon the world, and yet here was Gwen, telling everyone that the truth behind the Black Mist was that of the Hallowed Mist.

If Vayne hadn’t seen Gwen “cure” the Black Mist they came across in their brief journey together, then she wouldn’t have believed her.

“Then what would be our first stop?” she asked Senna, turning back to her as Lucian and Gwen argued lightly about why he should continue to wear his current outfit.

“We go to Piltover and Zaun. Ada and Dess, two of our members, should be there.”

“And from there?”

“Bilgewater and then to the Shadow Isles to fight Viego.”

Vayne nodded.

It was a simple enough plan…

But she had a question.

“Do we have a backup?”

Senna blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“A backup.”

“The Sentinels do not have such a thing. We fight, and when we fall, we leave the next generation to pick up the fight.”

“So no, you don’t have a backup.”

“...No.”

“Good thing my master gave me this, then.”

And then pulled out from one of her pockets a vial.

Senna, Lucian, and Gwen all immediately recoiled from it.

“What is that?!” Gwen asked, aghast.

The vial held within it a viscous black liquid.

“Master calls it his magnus opus. It is a … far more destructive version of his quicksilver guardian. Once released, it will devour everything in its path before it runs out of the specialized mana it needs and falls apart into ash, leaving no evidence that it existed except for the damage it wrought. If … we cannot win against Viego, then I will release this. If it swallows the entire Shadow Isles whole along with Viego and perhaps even the likes of this Thresh you told me about…?”

She leveled them a flat stare, ignoring the obvious chills the trio felt at the weapon’s purpose and potential damage.

“So be it.”

Because if she couldn’t go back home to her master, then let her final act be a success for him and Demacia.