Third POV:

Back in the Institute of War, Sylas' trail was still going. Sylas had just explained his reason for starting the rebellion to the High Summoners, and they were currently discussing between themselves.

Apparently, Sylas had started his rebellion because of Demacia's unfair way of treating Mages. All Mages were instantly arrested, even normal people who show potential for magic, and were treated as criminals.

Tianna Crownguard tried to justify or deny Sylas' claims, but a single order from Jarvan had her stay quiet for the rest of the trail.

Ahri, Grey, Brite, and Solas listened carefully to the trial, while Aki tried to keep her head down this whole time.

Solas personally sided with Sylas, believing that what Demacia was doing is simply racism. Brite and Ahri also believed that Demacia was plainly being cruel, and Grey simply tried to figure out why Demacia had such a great hatred for Mages.

"We have listened to you, Sylas," the Shuriman summoner said as he and the other summoners finished their discussion. "We would like to make a proposal."

"What kind of proposal?" Sylas asked, not entirely trusting the summoners.

"We would like to offer you a place in the Institute, where you can fight for your rights," the Piltover summoner revealed, shocking Sylas and the Demacians. "You claim that you had no rights in Demacia. Now, you can fight for your rights in the Institute. Along with the rights of the other Mages."

"Objection!" Tianna Crownguard stood up from her seat. "You cannot possibly tell me that you are giving this criminal a chance for freedom!? And his Mages are not 'innocent' themselves!"

"That decision is not yours to make, Tianna Crownguard," the Noxian summoner said before turning his sight to Jarvan. "Prince Jarvan, what is your take on this situation?"

All sights in the room turned to the Demacian prince as he also stood up from his seat, but in a far more calm manner than Tianna.

"I have no objections. If Sylas can prove that he has the right to freedom and innocence in the Institute of War fairly, then I would be insulting Demacia's honor to object on his rightfully won freedom," Tianna seemed shocked at Jarvan's statement. He sent her a glare and she grit her teeth before sitting back down.

"Who will fight with me?" Sylas asked, looking at the High Summoners. "If anything I know about the Institute is to go by, the matches here are done by teams. Who will be on mine."

"There is quite the number of neutral champions to choose from," the Ferljord summoner said. "And any land that is hostile towards Demacia would most likely not mind lending you their champions."

"May I ask something," Tianna Crownguard stood up from her seat again. "We are offering freedom to a dangerous criminal who killed and hunted farms on all boarders of Demacia. What right does he have to be free?"

"What!?" Sylas cried out, glaring at Tianna, but he was ignored.

"Ah, yes, we assure you Tianna Crownguard that we have planned to punish him for-" the Noxian summoner was cut off from finishing his sentence.

"What are you people talking about?!" Sylas yelled, catching everyone's attention this time. "Me and my Mages never touched Demacia's borders except the ones near the Ferljord! And even then we never touched any farms."

The High Summoners began talking between themselves while Tianna glared at Sylas. "Resorting to lies? Just as expected from a criminal like yo-"

"If I may say something," the Ionian Summoner said, turning the attention to himself this time. "Weren't the Ancient Fear and Eternal Nightmare arguing over territory the past few days?" he asked receiving nods from the other High Summoners. "Where exactly is the territory they were arguing about?"

The Shuriman summoner waved his hands, causing a map to suddenly appear in front of everyone. The map showed the whole of Runeterra, before it started zooming in to Demacia, where several locations in the borders were highlighted.

"It seems that Nocturne and Fiddlesticks are the true cause of most of the attacks on the borders," the Demacian summoner said with a hand on his chin. "Then we can leave that for later and deal with Sylas no-"

"HAVE YOU PEOPLE GONE MAD!" Tianna smacked her hands on the table in front of her, sending a heated glare to the High Summoners. "Fiddlesticks?! Are you telling me that a CHILDREN'S FAIRY TALE was the cause for all those deaths!? Or are you telling me that you believe such fables!"

The high summoners openly sighed all at once. They were obviously tired of Tianna's unreasonable claims and demands, and this last one was obviously more tiring than the ones before.

"Fairy tale?" Grey asked looking at Ahri.

"Fiddlesticks is a well known fable across Runeterra," Ahri whispered back. "I don't think anyone believed he existed until he appeared in the Institute."

"Miss Tianna, we assure you that Fiddlesticks is real. It is here in the Institute, in fact. Even Prince Jarvan and Captain Garen has encountered it," the Piltover summoner said, motioning to said champions.

"He is telling the truth, Tianna," Jarvan said, giving the woman a hard look. "Stand down, that is an order," he commanded with a strong voice.

Tianna growled before slowly sitting back down in her position. The High Summoners began talking amongst themselves again, most likely talking about the details of Sylas' agreement.

"This is turning out more peaceful than I thought," Aki whispered to her group in the side.

"Yeah, they really gave me the impression that there was gonna be some killing involved," Ahri commented, resting her head on her hand.

"I just hope Tiara is having the fun she was looking for," Grey commented from the besides them as the court continued.

(Noxus)

"I'm bored!" Tiara groaned out as she was leaning on a wall in the sewers with Katarina besides her.

"Join the club," Katarina sighed, twirling a knife between her fingers. "are you sure this guy is gonna show up."

The Dancer nodded and motioned to the stack of bodies. "Yeah, those freaks from the Mound Makers never leave a pile alone. They always come back to it. Even if they don't want to," she replied.

"Your world seriously sounds messed up," Katarina commented, her mood becoming worse because of the stench of the sewers and corpses.

Tiara shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe, maybe not. Maybe Runeterra is simply soft. Either way, we all accepted our world as it is."

"Doesn't anyone try to change that?" Katarina asked as she stopped twirling the knife and looked at her reflection in it.

"What do you mean?" Tiara asked back.

"Doesn't anyone try to fix your mess of a world?" Katarina explained her question. "Why doesn't anyone try to help others. Doesn't your world have any heroes or something?"

"Heroes...?" Katarina immediately looked at Tiara, hearing the obvious change of tone. "There's no such thing in our world. Maybe... Maybe there was at one point in the past. But... They probably all died in the First Age of Fire."

"Seriously?" the Sinister Blade had originally asked her question in an attempt to humor the mood, but she didn't believe it would take such a drastic turn. "Come on, there has to be at least one. What about Brite and Grey? They're-"

"Brite is a Warrior of Sunlight, and their job is to keep hope and give people a reason to fight, and as for Grey?" Tiara shook her head sadly. "If he actually hears you call him a 'hero' he might actually kill you."

"Wait, what?" Katarina's look of confusion was impossible to miss.

"The Abyss Watchers are not heroes, they're executioners. They kill, purge, and hunt down any sign of the Abyss. They don't really care about who or what was infected. They always kill it on the spot," Tiara explained.

"What about the Lords of Cinder? aren't they supposed to keep your world alive?" Katarina asked.

Tiara shook her head again. "The Lords of Cinder are sacrifices, at best. Not heroes. Each lord is picked as the strongest of their time. They're not necessarily good people. A fine example would be Aldrich, who literally ate so many humans that he exploded into a pile of goo."

"Urghh! Gross! That's disgust- hup!" Katarina immediately turned around and covered her mouth to stop herself from vomiting. The combination of the horrible odor and the unsettling story getting to her.

Tiara simply chuckled while looking at the red headed assassin trying to get her bearings back. "Just pray that you never end in our world. No matter how strong you are, you'll be broken eventually," the Dancer advised.

Katarina took a deep breath and swallowed the lump in her throat. "I definitely don't want to end there just from that story," she replied which caused Tiara to chuckle again.

Suddenly, they both tensed as they heard the echo of a heavy movement in the sewer tunnels. It was obviously too large to be a rat. And from the sound of something being slowly dragged around, the two assassins knew that their target was here.

From the same tunnel they came from walked in a person slowly. The person was wearing a worn out armor with a simple metal helmet. They were dragging the corpse of a Noxian citizen with one hand while holding a rusty sword in the other.

Looking into the eyes of the helmet, Tiara chuckled. "Good, he's already Hollow, this should make things easier," she commented seeing the empty eye sockets.

However, as soon as she said that, the Hollow noticed them and dropped the corpse. Raising the hand it was using to drag the body, it opened its palm at them and a ball of fire started forming.

The ball of fire floated in the air and stayed above the Hollow, glowing brightly and almost looking like a miniature star, covering the Undead in golden light.

Immediately recognizing what the Hollow did, Tiara sighed in annoyance. "Of course he's a Pyromancer," she said sarcastically.

"Well, let's kill him already," Katarina said before moving in.

Tiara didn't have the time to explain before Katarina threw the knife she was holding at the Hollow. The struck its shoulder and made it take a step back.

Using Shunpo, Katarina vanished and appeared right behind the Hollow. Pulling out of her large blades, she immediately stabbed it in the back with the blade coming out

"Well, that was easy," Katarina pulled her knife out of the Undead's body. "I thought it would be harder than-"

It was purely through years of experience that Katarina managed to raise one of her knives quickly enough to block the sword of the Hollow as he suddenly turned around and attacked her.

"What the?!" Katarina jumped back to avoid the Hollow swinging at her again. "Okay, I'm absolutely sure I stabbed him in the chest. Do undead have their hearts somewhere else?"

"That's Pyromancy!" Katarina yelled from the other side of the corridor, pointing at the shining little star on top of the Undead. "As long as he's near that thing, any wound he receives will be healed!"

"So we just have to get him away from that?" Katarina asked, preparing her knives.

"Easier said than done," the Outrider knight replied.

As if to prove Tiara's point, the flame appeared again in the hand of the Hollow, and he swung it in Katarina's direction, throwing a crimson fire ball at her.

Experience from fighting Annie in the Summoners Rift gave Katarina the ability to easily move out of the way. The ball landed behind her, and left a small puddle of lava, showing Katarina that these attacks were more dangerous than Annie's own.

The Hollow was preparing to throw another fire ball. But, when he reeled back his arm, it was cut off by Tiara, who came in from behind the Undead and used her blades as scissors to slice off the hand.

"He can heal wounds, but not regenerate limbs," Tiara revealed as she kicked the Hollow away from the tiny star, but it managed to regain its balance and keep within distance.

Before it got the chance to do anything else, three knives struck it in the back. However, all that did was make it flinch before it used its remaining hand to attack Tiara.

The Dancer easily blocked the mindless swing. "Hollows don't have much reaction to pain," she called to Katarina, who groaned seeing her daggers did not do much.

However, the Sinister Blade looked down at the legs of the Hollow, and grinned. Pulling her large blades again, she used Shunpo to appear behind the Undead like before.

Katarina then stabbed her blades the legs of the Hollow behind the knees, causing it to fall on the ground. She then kicked it away, making it out of distance of the star.

"Can it die now?" Katarina asked, seeing that the Hollow wasn't entirely dead yet.

"Yup," Tiara said, walking to the Hollow.

She avoided a swing from the Undead, who was simply swinging wildly in desperation, before using her fire sword to stab it in the chest. She plunged it further, causing a small explosion of fire in the Hollow's chest, effectively killing it.

"There, that should do it," Tiara said pulling her blade out. "No bonfires, no coming back. This thing is down for good," she added, kicking the now lifeless corpse to prove her point.

"Great," Katarina sighed, putting away her blades. "For a single enemy, that thing was somehow both dull and annoying," she commented before looking at the pile of corpses. "What are we supposed to do with this?"

Tiara grabbed the leg of the Hollow and dragged its corpse to the pile before throwing it in with the others. Raising her hand, a small flame appeared, like the one the Hollow had, and the Dancer put her hand on one of the bodies, causing a small explosion of fire to happen, which made the corpses catch fire.

"There, that should deal with this," Tiara said, stepping back from the now burning pile of corpses. "This place is already filthy enough as it is, and anything left is gonna be eaten by whatever lives here."

"Great, can we leave now?" Katarina practically begged while covering her nose. The smell of burning corpses was too much for her.

Tiara rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, light weight," she teased. The smell was nothing new to her. It was a natural smell for the Undead Settlement, and she has been there many times.

(In the Institute)

The High Summoners were finalizing the contract between Sylas, Jarvan, and the Institute. The other champions and Demacian soldiers are to wait outside until the meeting was over.

"Hey, guys," Lux greeted weakly as she walked up to the others.

"Lux," Ahri immediately stood up from her sitting position at the waiting chairs. "Are you okay?"

The light mage sighed and shook her head. "I can't even bring myself to lie and say I am," she said sadly while holding the side of her head. "Look... A lot of things have been happening in Demacia recently, and, I'm pretty sure you can guess, they are not good," she said.

"I'm assuming this Sylas is in the middle?" Solas asked and Lux nodded. She was obviously connected to the case, but he didn't want to make her more uncomfortable than she already appeared to be.

"Yeah, it's... Complicated," Lux sighed, shaking her head.

"That seems to be an understatement," Brite commented.

The doors to the High Summoners chamber were opened and out came Sylas and Jarvan. They immediately drew the attention of everyone.

"What is the situation, your highness?" Garen asked as he walked up to Jarvan with Shyvana following close by.

The prince looked at Sylas who simply scoffed and started walking away. "We have came to an agreement. Sylas will fight for the rights of his Mages here in the Institute and cease their rebellion, in exchange that no more Mages are hunted," Jarvan explained.

"Your highness, you can't be serious," Tianna groaned out. "As the prince, it is your duty to see these Mages-"

"My DUTY is to protect Demacia," Jarvan stated firmly, glaring at Tianna. "It is neither to please you, or the Mage Seekers. If they have a problem with my decision and the Institute's rules, then let them act by themselves, not in the name of our land," he instructed.

Tianna gritted her teeth but remained quiet. Her glare immediately turned to Lux, who froze on the spot. "And what of her?" she asked, motioning to the light mage. "May I remind you that she helped this mess be caused?"

"I will see about that," Jarvan said.

"Her punishment should be done by her family," Tianna added while crossing her arms behind her back. "Helping that criminal and causing all that... Destruction," she said, making Lux lower her head. "You will be lucky if you don't get disowned."

"No such thing will happen," Garen immediately stepped in front of his horrified sister, glaring at his aunt.

Tianna glared back at him. "Your parents are already angry enough. I assure you, it won't take much convincing to-"

"You will do no such thing, Tianna Crownguard," to everyone's shock, it was Aki who said that. Standing firm in front of Lux alongside Garen.

"How dare you?!" Tianna was obviously outraged. "Just who do you think you are?! A mere Summoner? A mere mage?!"

Aki didn't care much for Tianna's anger and simply raised her hands to remove her hood to reveal her face and short blond hair. Jarvan obviously recognized her by his widening eyes.

"My name is Akiza Peacekeeper, head of the Peacekeeper family," Aki revealed, shocking Tianna. "Lux is a great friend of mine. Should you actually testify against her on any way, I promise you that my family will now be enemies of the Crownguard."

"You can't be serious!" Tianna yelled.

"Try me," Aki replied back, glaring daggers at Tianna.

The older Crownguard kept her glare before huffing and turning to leave. The soldiers that came with the Demacian champions all looked confused before Jarvan motioned for them to leave as well.

Once they were all gone, all eyes turned to Aki, whose legs began shaking before she fell backwards, only to immediately be caught by Brite.

"Oh, gods, I thought I was gonna faint," Aki said, breathing heavily. For a naturally shy person like her, that earlier argument was mentally exhausting.

"While I definitely want an explanation," Ahri said crossing her arms with a smile. "I still have to say, that was pretty bad ass, Aki."

"T-Thanks, I guess," the Summoner said before finally standing up. "Thanks, Brite," she said in gratitude before she was suddenly hugged by Lux.

"T-Thank you," the young Crownguard said in obvious gratitude.

"Hey, it's no problem," Aki tried to comfort her friend.

"So, this is where you always were on your 'away business', Akiza?" Jarvan said, with a hand on his hip.

"Ah, I apologize, Prince Jarvan," Aki said, knowing that keeping her identity a secret this whole time was definitely going to need an explanation. "I assure you, this was entirely my own decision, and my parents were only following my wishes."

"We can discuss this in details later, but I'm sure you had your reasons," Jarvan would like to know the said reasons, but he also had a lot to take care of back in Demacia with all the new changes. "For now, it is good to know that a Peacekeeper is in the Institute."

Jarvan left with Shyvana following him close by. Garen would have followed him instantly, but he turned to look at his sister. "You should... Probably stay in the Institute for a while, but don't worry, I'll make sure you can return to Demacia soon," he said with a reassuring smile.

Lux returned the smile and hugged her brother, who did his best to hug her back before reluctantly letting go and leaving to follow Jarvan.

"How about we get something to eat?" Aki suggested, pulling her hood back in its place. "I could really use a meal right about now."

"Y-Yeah," Lux agreed, wiping away her tears. "I could definitely go for some... Anything to eat really," she said before pointing a finger at Aki. "But don't think you're out of the woods yet, miss Akiza Peacekeeper," she added, causing Aki to groan.

(Noxus)

"Hey, Grand Douche bag," Tiara yelled out as she practically burst through the doors of Swain's office. "We got the job done."

Inside the office was Swain alongside Darius and, surprisingly, Draven. "Ha! Grand douche bag? I'm definitely using that soon!" the executioner said in glee.

Darius glares at his brother while Swain sighed in annoyance. "Good, that took another obstacle out of the way," the General said. He then turned his sights towards Tiara. "I assume you'll be returning to the Institute?"

"Yes, and before you ask, no, I won't be joining Noxus," Tiara replied, crossing her arms.

Swain raised his eyebrow. "Oh, and what makes you think I was going to ask you?"

"I met people like you, Swain," Tiara stated firmly. "Pontiff Sulyvahn is definitely on top of the list. If you think for a second I'll join another one of your types after finally being free from one, then you're more insane than I took you for."

Swain sighed but didn't seem entirely disappointed. "Very well. You served your purpose, and that should be enough," from his tone, he was obviously tolerating Tiara purely because of how useful she was, which further reminded her of Solomon.

The doors to the office were opened again, and it was Talon who came in this time. "Hey, Talon, where have you been?" Katarina asked, looking at her brother.

"Hunting down some Black Rose spies," Talon replied, using a piece of cloth to wipe his blade which was covered in blood. He look at his sister and Tiara before saying, "You two need a shower."

The Dancer scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Now I see why Grey related to you."

(A/N: Thank you for reading this.

First: sorry for the lack of action, but it WAS just one Hollow, so...

Second: as you can see the Institute's existence is definitely making a difference in Demacia's mage problems. That's mainly because they give Jarvan grounds to work with.

Jarvan personally doesn't have anything against Mages, and he honestly wants to see Demacia united. However, it is clearly stated in his lore that the Mage Seekers corrupted most of the noble families, and with his father's death, Jarvan really has no choice but to fight Mages, otherwise Demacia would actually be a bigger mess than it currently is.

Third: guess the big reveal about Aki is out. I'm sure most of you were looking forward to this part.

Further explanation about her background will come in later chapters, I assure you.

And lastly, I'll be putting this story on hold for a while. Nothing serious, I just lost motivation to write anything League or Dark Souls related. It happens after that's all you write about for so long.

I assure you, I ain't quitting my story. I'll finish this story as soon as I get back to it.

Again, thank you for reading this. Please comment, review, and give me your thoughts on my story.)