STAR GUARDIAN:
TWIN STARS

Sarah was flying faster than she’d ever flown, heading toward the park. No more babysitting. She was a Star Guardian lieutenant once again. As she soared between the last of the skyscrapers, she saw a grassy field leading up to the edge of Valoran Park. There, two figures stood at the base of the Wishing Tree.

“What took you so long?” Xayah crooned.

Sarah plummeted, Xayah’s quills passing harmlessly above her.

Where are the others? Sarah pulled up from her dive and hovered in midair, looking back to the buildings she’d passed, dread bubbling up once more. Lux. Ezreal. Her frien— Her team. What if Xayah had—

Xayah leaped, her body a missile heading straight for Sarah. There was no time to dodge! Sarah braced for impact... but it never came. Instead, gale-force winds blasted from between the buildings, knocking Xayah out of the air and into Rakan. Janna and Soraka ran onto the grass a moment later.

“That was very good,” Soraka said fondly to Janna. Poppy and Lulu rode on the older girls’ shoulders, and Sarah didn’t know if she should laugh or cry with relief. They were okay! Sarah landed just as Lulu glared from behind Soraka’s waves of green hair.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to chase people?” Lulu demanded.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude not to just let us kill you?!” Rakan countered, as Xayah rolled off him.

“Oh, shut up!” Jinx said as she shoved past a sprinting Lux and Ezreal. She fell to one knee, aiming her rocket with unusually careful precision.

BOOM! Jinx’s whoop of satisfaction was followed by Rakan’s cry of pain. The rocket had clipped his wing.

“I’m sick of you shooting at us!” Xayah swore, firing a quill at Jinx.

“Well, we’re sick of you two being jerks!” Ezreal retorted as Yuuto burst out of his gauntlet to knock Xayah’s attack off course.

“Nice one, bolt boy.” Jinx gave him a rare grin.

“Ez! Jinx!” Sarah ran to them, fighting an insane urge to hug them. “Can you clear me a path?”

Ezreal nodded, before teleporting right to Rakan. Sarah expected him to fire an arrow, or an orb, but to her utter delight, Ezreal simply tackled Rakan to the ground. Xayah raced for Rakan.

“Whatcha think, kiddies? Should we help out?” Jinx said to her familiars. Kuro let out an almost intimidating roar in answer. Shiro, ever in contrast, gave a small, horrifying grin that matched Jinx’s own. And then they were sprinting, Kuro and Shiro raining bullets on Xayah without mercy.

Lux gave the barrage a wide berth as she caught up to Sarah. “That purple explosion earlier... that was Syndra and Multi?”

Sarah nodded. “Can you hold them off?” she asked, watching Ezreal and Rakan roll on the ground.

“What does she think we’ve been doing?” Poppy said, leaping off Janna’s shoulders. She ran, hammer raised, to help Ezreal.

“We’ve got this,” Lux said as another plume of purple fire scorched the sky above the park. “Go!” She ran toward the others.

Sarah didn’t need to be told twice. Syndra was still alive! Sarah knew she was powerful, but against some foes, power was never enough.

I’m coming, Syndra. Just hold on.

Sarah raced through the trees, not stopping to marvel at the paddle stars that had fallen in an eerily perfect circle, leaving the heart of the park intact.

As she passed through the circle, she saw a tall girl with midnight hair.

“Syndra!” Sarah cried, though her relief was fleeting.

In front of Syndra sat a little girl on the swings. But this was no child. The swirling eddies of her purple hair were streaked with blue and adorned with shimmering stars. The girl looked at Sarah and smiled.

Laughter on a lonely planet. Friends screaming, falling around her. The taste of chaos and magic scorching her tongue. Cold, fathomless eyes. A grin that promised nothing. And everything.

Zoe.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Syndra muttered, not daring to turn her back on the Twilight Star. Fear made every step an effort as Sarah moved next to Syndra. Sarah could see her own terror-stricken face mirrored in the gem atop Zoe’s brow. Still, she chanced a glance around the park. No sign of Kai’Sa. Thank the Light for small mercies.

“I came for you,” Sarah said. It was clear Syndra and Zoe had been fighting, but Syndra seemed unharmed. Just how strong was she?!

“You need to worry about yourself,” Syndra advised, just as another voice rang across the park. Xayah had caught up to them.

“Worrying about herself is the only thing Sarah’s good at!” Xayah spat, much to Zoe’s delight.

“Xayah! Sarah! I missed you two,” Zoe said.

“Can’t say the same,” Sarah replied.

“But we had so much fun last time,” Zoe whined. “Right, Xayah?”

“I don’t know if I’d call dying fun,” she admitted.

“It was fun for me! And I bet it was fun for Sarah! She probably couldn’t wait to get away from you.”

Sarah balled her hands into fists. “I know what you’re doing, Zoe.”

“I’m telling the truth,” she crooned. “I mean, why else would you leave?”

“Rakan was gone. Neeko was dead!”

“What about Xayah?” Zoe asked, innocently. Sarah said nothing.

“ANSWER ME!”

Zoe’s shout was so sudden that Sarah didn’t have time to react as she opened a black hole between them. A paddle star shot from the void, arcing around to slam into Sarah’s back, searing the exposed skin between her shoulder blades. Sarah fell to her knees, doubled over in agony. She pressed her forehead on the cool earth, trying to calm herself against the heat and pain, but a foot pressed on her shoulder, holding her down. Xayah.

“I didn’t know,” Sarah said through gritted teeth.

Zoe cackled as Syndra fired off three orbs of dark magic.

“See, Xayah? Sarah’s got new friends now,” Zoe teased. She then yawned, summoning portals of pitch to swallow Syndra’s attack. “It’s probably because Syndra’s stronger than you, Xayah.”

The pressure vanished from Sarah’s shoulder, and she raised her head to see Xayah turn on Syndra. Her feathers soared, and Syndra sprinted out of the way. Now at a safe distance, Syndra called upon Multi. Her familiar rose to orbit around her like small, giddy moons. Mouths opened wide, Multi swallowed the feathers whole.

“Whoa! That was almost as impressive as me!” Rakan whistled, finally catching up to Xayah. He turned to Sarah. “What’s not impressive is, like, how obnoxious your friends are? They keep following me—”

“Syndra! Sarah!” Lux was first to arrive, but Sarah heard the others not far behind.

“See what I mean?” Rakan said, before the whizz of his feathers clashed with the sound of Lux’s magic.

But Sarah didn’t watch them. Not as Xayah walked back to her, kneeling down where Sarah still struggled to rise. Zoe could hardly contain her glee, a dark aura beginning to pulse around her. Just like before.

“I watched you run,” Xayah said softly.

Xayah grabbed Sarah’s chin, forcing her to look up. At her. At Zoe. She watched as grasping hands began to take shape, magic peeling off Zoe in ligaments that clawed at Xayah’s wings. Her head. Her heart. Xayah didn’t notice.

“I watched Ahri grab you and run. I called out to you. I was alive, and you left me there.”

The hands clasped around Xayah’s throat as if to choke her, and when they moved, the wound on Sarah’s back writhed in pleasure. Chaos. Corruption. Zoe.

“No...” Sarah rasped. Darkness and pain lodged between her shoulder blades and beat like a second heart, every pulse a misery.

Sarah thought someone said her name, but Zoe shushed them.

“This is the good part!” Zoe said, and the paddle stars suddenly became a torrent, a curtain cutting the others off from Sarah and Xayah.

“Do you know what it feels like... to die?” Xayah asked. The grip on Sarah’s chin tightened painfully.

“No, no, no—” Sarah was crying, not from pain, but from memory. The dark fire beneath Sarah’s skin became tendrils, wrapping around her guilt, her fear, crushing all that she was.

“Dying was nothing.” Xayah’s voice was quiet yet somehow louder than the falling paddle stars. “Nothing compared to watching Rakan die.”

Green eyes filled with tears. He wasn’t breathing. She wasn’t moving.

The tendrils thrummed, gorging on her grief, and Sarah wanted to scream.

Fuchsia feathers fell into puddles of black.

“I didn’t know, I didn’t know—” Sarah’s mantra was a discordant harmony with the pain in her back and the voice in her head screaming, It’s all your fault. It’s all your fault.

Someone grabbed Sarah around the waist, pulling, pleading. Someone was shouting— Wait. Someone was shouting! Someone apart from the screaming memories.

“DON’T GIVE UP,” a voice, so at odds with the chorus in her head, rang out.

“Who are you?” Zoe demanded, and for a brief moment, the stars ceased falling.

Rakan ran at Sarah but stopped, his eyes shifting to the sky above them. A fresh host of paddle stars waited there, but they did not fall. They were suspended, trembling in midair as if held by tenuous threads ready to snap. Rakan looked from Sarah to Xayah, some war inside him raging that Sarah didn’t understand. One side must have won out as he pivoted to Xayah, pulling her out of Zoe’s line of sight and away from the petrified stars above.

“Don’t give up!” the voice said again. But Sarah was giving up. It was her fault. The darkness in her heart knew it was time to let go. But that voice...

With effort, Sarah managed to turn to see a young girl. The girl was covered in dirt and dried blood, but it did nothing to dim the fire burning in her eyes. Sarah knew, as sure as she knew her own name, that it was Kai’Sa.

“Shut up!” Zoe yelled, hopping off the swings. Sarah watched Rakan pull Xayah farther back. “Why aren’t you shutting up?! You have to listen to me!”

Kai’Sa did no such thing, her eyes fixed on Sarah’s. “Your friends are behind you, so don’t you dare give up!” Sarah’s heart swelled, and she swore the tendrils in her back recoiled.

“Stop ignoring me!” Zoe seethed.

Sarah was struck by the raw determination in Kai’Sa’s voice. It reminded her of Akali. That foolish hope. But was it foolish? It seemed so strong to her now. That unbreakable bond was only possible when—

Your friends are behind you.

And they were. Sarah’s friends had come for her. The tendrils thrashed.

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” Zoe screamed, stomping the ground with a rage that shook the earth. Her footfalls gave way to pools of pink and purple slime oozing from newly formed fissures in the ground. Zoe could have blasted Kai’Sa with a thought, but Sarah realized Kai’Sa had played the only card in her hand. She’d made Zoe lose her temper.

“You’re not alone!” Kai’Sa said, her eyes glowing like twin stars.

Sarah turned again, to where Xayah and Rakan struggled to avoid the fissures and slime. They, at least, weren’t a threat at the moment, but Sarah knew it wouldn’t last. She saw Lux, and the others, all their attention fixed on Zoe. They were ready to attack, but hesitating. Sarah understood. Zoe, distracted by her own fury, seemed oblivious to everyone, even Kai’Sa. An attack could very well provoke Zoe into action, and Lux knew, as Sarah knew, they might not get to Kai’Sa in time. So they waited, poised on the knife’s edge. Syndra stood slightly off to the side, but there was a small smile playing about her lips.

Sarah turned back to Kai’Sa. “You see?” Kai’Sa said. “You’re not alone. You hear me? YOU’RE NOT ALONE.”

And as if Kai’Sa summoned them, two stars illuminated the park from high above. These were no paddle stars. They hurtled past Zoe’s suspended stars, crashing beside where Sarah knelt and Zoe raged.

“Well,” a voice said from the smoldering crater. It was a voice they all recognized. “You heard her.”

“Ahri!” Lux sounded as relieved as Sarah felt.

“Listen to the little yelling girl, Sarah!” Another oh-so-familiar voice. It wasn’t possible, but what did that matter? Neeko was smiling at her, offering a hand.

“You’re not alone,” Neeko said.

And Zoe lost control.