He swiveled towards the source of the shout, feeling premonition needling his back, but to no avail. Confused, nauseous, sore; circumstances Leo had no control over, were things that slowed him down and turned the air into molasses - it made reacting impossible.

Fresh fire bloomed along his legs, delivered by a force great enough to pull his limbs right from under him.

His body mirrored his mind in incomprehension. For a second he was stuck in mid air by the principle of inertia and left to wonder what the hell was going on.

Gravity took hold of him before he could blink and Leo found himself once again back on the ground and staring at a blue sky. The impact emptied his lungs with an achy cough. He was wheezing with tears in his eyes when footsteps hurried over.

Leo rolled and scrambled and pushed himself up on all fours, working more on adrenaline than bodily strength at this point. A quick look at his legs showed them bound by razor wire ending in mysterious metal sachets and trickles of blood seeping where the steel bit deepest through his jeans. Oh, oh fuck… Oh no no no!

His eyes zeroed in on the red patches and hemophobia, something he fought with his entire life, reared its crippling visage.

His heart rate accelerated towards a dangerous pace, palpitating madly in his chest; every bit of focus was honed in painfully on the sensation of precious blood pumping past the cuts and leaving his body; his face quickly turned clammy, cold and hot all at the same time.

Ignore it. IGNORE IT! Breathe, just breathe. In and out. It’s all in your head, man, all in your head.

Over and over Leo remind himself: these were just tiny cuts, you are not bleeding out, this is totally harmless. Unfortunately, irrational phobias weren’t so easy to beat.

A tensing in his calves and subsequently more of his warm blood spilling sent him right back into vertigo. Drowsiness overcame him and his eyelids began closing. He fought against it, against the loss of strength and autonomy, but every inch of him was lead and cotton. Everything closed in on him, suffocating the last bits and pieces of awareness. The impotence was heart-wrenching.

Through the fog draped over his mind he noticed a swirling pattern on the back of his right hand, slowly receding beneath his skin.

The embracing darkness, one he met so often as of late, had become a friendly face almost.

----------------------------------------

“So, what do you see?”

“No insignia, no mark, nothing. Must be a loose Rogue then, as far as I can tell.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, not really. I mean, yeah, sure, he has no fancy emblem and stuff. But by the Celestials, have you seen that light? WE saw that a league away! I don’t know ‘bout you, but to me? That screams trouble.”

Samson pushed his feet into the dirt, stopping his bobbing leg. Anxiety had little compatibility with his brash demeanor and less with the strong-arm image he built for him and his crew. Nonetheless, he nervously rolled around a dozen marbles of petricite in his hand.

“The verdict then?”

A spyglass was retracted and put neatly into a belt bag. Cho quietly sat on his haunches.

Samson watched as Cho’s jaws worked out an answer, weighing options, risks and possibilities of success.

“Let’s assume that lightning wasn’t a fluke, then we are about to face an incredibly dangerous opponent-” Samson looked to the sky at that, the sky with nary a cloud. “He’s probably a rogue mage, as I said, but a powerful one then. Even so, a spell like that should take a lot out of even the greatest casters.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Cho’s eyes hardened. “If we hit him fast, surprise him with the petricite, he’s a goner. Pass him over to the Rose and we will be set for the next three or four years.”

The sound of that tingled a hungry - for gold and prestige - part of Samson’s brain. Not enough to have him act impulsively, but enough to cement his stance on what was to come.

“Imma assume you are of the same opinion, D?”

Leisurely Dege juggled a brass sphere and gave him a look, the look: no hesitation, no fear, just plain old insanity - and that was all he offered.

“Alright, D, you will do your thing. Once he’s down, move out, quickly. If he moves, starts mumbling something - anything! - put a blade in him. We won’t take any risks. If he starts flying, blasting spells or some other grouse-shit, well-” a bitter smile was on his lips. “Then it was a pleasure to know you arses.”

Dege giggled and Cho kept his eyes trained on their quarry.

As one they moved from cover, an ancient evergreen rounded by deceptively tall grass. With rote movements they crept forward and behind whatever spot could hide them.

Their gambesons were muted-red, a necessity to have among martial noxians, and accented by the sparsest bits of reinforcing metal, not the best for sneaking in a sea of green, though the dusky red meld perfectly with the soil. The wind picked up in their favor, rustling loudly and masking whatever rattle their armor made.

Dege got up into a crouch and fiddled with the brass ball in his hand, moving tiny mechanical studs. To Samson it looked like random nonsense, until the ball split along unseen lines and revealed a glimmering core at its center. Ethereal wings, thinner than a dragonfly’s, unfurled from inside the contraption. Dege held the mage-tech forward, aimed at the hunched mage, and whispered to it. At Dege's chanting the quiet droning of the machine changed into a diligent whirr and in the blink of an eye the construct took flight.

Piltover. Dege mouthed happily at Samson’s questioning gaze. The ‘how’ and ‘when’ Dege managed to get his hands on a hextech-petricite-contraption eluded Samson to this day. He bared his teeth and shook his head, those were thoughts for another time.

They waited with tensed legs - they were less than a furlong away now.

The contraption broke apart mid-flight and a spool of razors cast between the two halves housing the anti-magic stones. It became death from above, moving totally quiet save for a low whistling.

“GET HIM!” Samson roared and propelled himself forward. In unison they sprinted, eating up the distance between the mage. Time was of the essence.

Wires caught the dazed mage on his calves and shins. A wolfish grin played over Samson’s features when their prey fell to the ground with barely a struggle. That same grin disappeared when said mage crouched, collapsed after a moment and never got back up again.

The group of three shared a concerned glance. They aborted their sprint and trot over, with weapons - axes one and all - drawn and ready. Each had a handful of obsidian pebbles in their hand, geared to throw them at the still figure.

“That… was it?” Dege asked, fingers twitching around his weapon and disappointment evident in his voice.

Samson scratched at his chin and mulled. “Yeah, I guess that was it.” He didn’t quite manage to keep the uncertainty from his voice. Nothing has ever been that easy after all.

“You sure? I mean, he ain’t moving - but! - you never know with these guys. Tie told me Rogues can get really, uhhh-”

“Crafty?”

“Yeah, crafty. Real crafty fellas-” Dege bared teeth and prod the strange mageling with his boot. “Dontcha think he’s just playing krug?”

“Hum…” Samson spoke over his shoulder. “What’s your take on this Cho?”

“Why’s it matter? Petri’s sucking him dry as we speak,” Cho strode towards the stiffened body with surety.

Dege squinted. “Maybe he’s got a knife,” he returned, doggedly. “Maybe he’s gonna slit your throat. Any moment now!”

Samson and Cho looked at each other. The former shrugged and moved up as well. He patted along the man’s strange garments and pulled at the many pockets, of which there were truly too many.

Cho began tying the mage’s hands together with trained efficiency. Before he went to work he slipped a few of the dark pebbles inside the enclosed palms, stuffed a hemp mouth gag between the man’s teeth and covered his eyes with a cloth shawl.

“See? He ain’t even armed,” their bounty tied up and rendered harmless Cho backed away with wrinkles of confusion in his features. ”I wonder though, what the hell was he even doing in the first place?”

Samson’s eyes roamed along the burned hill, stopping at the massive streak of charred earth running along its entirety. It was as if a giant, bored painter took his equally massive brush and painted a line of black on the earth. Mages and their strange minds were too far removed for a simple merc like him to understand.

Dege put his hands on his hips and stretched lazily. “Don't know, don't care. Those clothes seem very very nice though. Very warm too.”

Greed had always been an issue of his less morally upstanding companion, this time however, Samson shared his opinion.

Silent and without a hint of struggle he lift the bound mage over his shoulder the way a farmer lifts a sack of tubers. “Right you are. That shit feels incredible, soft as feathers.” Samson rubbed his face against the plushy fabric and smiled goofily.

Autumn was nearing its end and soon Freljordian cold fronts would break over Noxus and cover everything in its merciless permafrost. Sometimes the ice could persist for months, with disastrous results. People died just like their crops did, and on land as barren as Noxus every soul and their plot was worth that much more.

Dege ran his fingers over the grey velvet and pale blue pants and a smirk broke over his lips. “Right? Any noble - man, woman, whatever - worth their salt would salivate at the chance to get their grubby fingers on these.”

Dege was right. Money was to be made with these clothes. And if the mage turns out to be a fluke, neophyte or what have you, we would still have enough coins to pad our pockets with.

“First, we gotta get him to the closest Rose. The money comes after,” Samson shifted the man around on his shoulder. The sun was still sitting high up in the sky. Plenty of time to deliver their bounty.

“Let’s go.”

Dege and Cho followed after him.