Capelworth had fallen.
The words echoed in Tianna Crownguard's mind like the tolling of a funeral bell. She exhaled slowly, the parchment between her fingers as she read the reports that had arrived from the stricken province.
She had hoped, no, believed, that the arrival of the foreigner Asta and his establishment of the Magic Knights might stem the tide of unrest. Their presence had been meant to be used as a symbol, a declaration that Demacia's strength need not come from persecution, but from unity. A gesture to prove that Demacia still stood for justice, not merely for its hatred of mages.
And yet, despite every precaution, despite the risks she had taken and the political backlash she had endured, it had all crumbled to ash.
Sylas had struck again. And another province had been lost.
Tianna clenched her jaw, the faintest spark of fury breaking through her exhaustion. 'Curse that Dregbourne scum.'
But the fault did not lie with Sylas alone. No, the MageSeekers had been as arrogant as ever. She cursed them, too, under her breath.
In their zeal for control, the fools had built their laboratory into the roots of a petricite tree, one that ran through the very foundation of Capelworth itself. When Sylas brought it down, the explosion had consumed the entire district.
The casualty reports continued to flood in. Hundreds dead, perhaps more. Families torn apart. The streets that once sang with merchants and laughter now nothing but rubble and screams.
Tianna pressed her hand to her forehead, her eyes closing briefly as she whispered, "Winged Protector, grant me patience."
Her tone darkened as she continued under her breath, "Curse you, Eldred. The prince listens to you far too readily."
Her gaze drifted toward the window, where the towers of Demacia's capital stood proud against the waning light.
"If this continues," she murmured, voice heavy with the weight of grim foresight, "Demacia will not need its enemies to destroy it."
---
Emilia turned from where Darryl sat cross-legged on the ground, his eyes closed in deep concentration, and looked toward the three figures approaching across the courtyard.
Asta led the way, his usual energetic gait unmistakable even from afar. Beside him strode Garen Crownguard, ever composed in his polished armor, and trailing just behind them was a brown-haired girl whom Emilia dismissed almost immediately as unimportant.
Her attention instead shifted to the long, cloth-wrapped object Asta carried over his shoulder.
"Welcome back, Asta," she greeted, inclining her head slightly before turning to the noble beside him. "And good day to you, Sir Garen Crownguard."
"Yo," Asta replied with a grin, lifting a hand in casual greeting.
Garen offered a polite nod. "Good day to you as well, Miss Emilia. You seem well."
Asta glanced around the small courtyard. "We didn't interrupt anything, did we?"
Emilia gave a slight shrug, brushing a strand of hair from her face. "Not entirely. I'm teaching him about vibrations and tremors, the way the earth communicates movement. It could improve his awareness in combat. He's struggling a bit, so I've set him to meditation for now."
Garen crossed his arms thoughtfully. "I see. I cannot say I fully understand, but it sounds… impressive. Keep at it."
Her brow arched faintly. Even now, she found it strange, this new Demacia that entertained mages within its walls. Stranger still to hear Garen Crownguard himself speak words that, not long ago, might have been deemed heresy.
'How curious,' she mused. 'The man who once would have cut me down for my craft now praises it.'
But she said nothing, merely returning his nod.
Asta broke the quiet with a grin. "Cool then. Darryl, your package's here."
At once, Darryl's eyes snapped open. He blinked, his focus breaking as he looked up at his captain. "Package?" His gaze dropped to the long, wrapped shape in Asta's hands, widening with realization. "Is that…?"
Asta nodded, a hint of pride flickering in his smile. "Your magic broom. Though, well… it's not exactly a broom."
Darryl jumped to his feet, all traces of meditation forgotten. He rushed forward eagerly, taking the object from Asta's hands and unwrapping it with visible excitement. The cloth fell away in folds, revealing what lay within.
"A broom?" Garen raised a brow.
Darryl held up a long, greenish-silver staff adorned with intricate markings along its shaft. One end was carved into the head of a bull, the other flaring into a spear-shaped design that housed a softly glowing blue orb suspended in midair. It looked more like an elegant magic staff than anything meant for sweeping.
Emilia crossed her arms, unimpressed. She didn't see the appeal.
"That's not a broom," Garen remarked dryly.
"And thank the Protectors for that," Darryl blurted, earning a faint smirk from Asta.
"It's a magic broom," Asta said proudly. "That's how it was in my homeland."
Darryl frowned. "A broom? What am I supposed to do with that, Captain? sweep the monsters away? That doesn't sound very efficient."
Asta's grin widened. His grimoire fluttered open beside him, pages glowing as a burst of red lightning flashed. From its depths, his great sword materialized in a surge of energy that made the air hum.
Emilia's focus sharpened instantly, her gaze locking on the blade.
"In my homeland," Asta began, resting the sword on his shoulder, "we had two main modes of transportation..."
"One of them was through spatial magic," Asta explained. "Specific mages with that ability could create portals and channels for instant transportation. It wasn't very common, though, it's a rare magic type so almost all spatial mages were either in squads or working for the royal family."
He tossed his sword lightly into the air. It spun once, then descended, only to stop mid-fall, hovering a foot above the ground, perfectly horizontal. The flat of the blade faced upward like a floating platform.
"What was common, though," Asta continued, stepping onto the broad sword with a confident grin, "were magic flying brooms. Everyone could use them."
He shifted his stance, balancing effortlessly as the sword lifted higher, gliding in a slow circle around the group. The faint hum of mana trailed behind him as he spoke again.
"Of course," he added with a chuckle, "I can't use magic. So I had to figure out my own method."
Garen stepped back slightly, his cape fluttering as the gust from Asta's movement washed over him. He watched in silence, a faint line forming between his brows, as the foreigner hovered lazily above the courtyard, arms folded, balance unwavering.
Darryl's eyes, on the other hand, shone with amazement. "That's, that's incredible!" he breathed. "You're flying on your sword?"
Asta grinned, turning his head just enough to flash his student a look of pride. "Yup! Took a while to get the hang of it, but it's faster than walking, and way cooler too."
Emilia tilted her head slightly, her tone dry. "So in your homeland, you use brooms for transportation?"
"Pretty much," Asta said, completely unbothered. He leaned forward, the sword swooping low enough that the hem of Emilia's cloak fluttered from the wind. "You don't need more than a few hours to travel the entire kingdom if you have the magic capacity for it."
"I wanna fly too captain!" Darryl cheered. "Teach me!"
"And I will, dear student of mine," Asta said, landing beside him with a faint metallic thud, the sword settling neatly at his side. "We'll never have to suffer through that horrible form of transportation."
He crouched beside Darryl, tapping the bull-headed end with his knuckles. "Try channeling your mana through it. It shouldn't take you long to understand how it works."
"Elara crafted this?" Garen asked, his tone carrying a hint of unease. His gaze lingered on the staff, eyes narrowing slightly. "You do realize this is practically a magic item, don't you?"
Behind Asta, Darryl was already crouched low, setting the staff beneath him as though trying to figure out how to sit on it.
"She did," Asta replied with a shrug. "And believe me, she made very sure I knew she wasn't a mage. Repeated it every five minutes, in fact. Said she'd never craft a magic staff under any circumstances." He paused, then grinned. "But it's not a magic staff. It's a broom. A weird-looking one, sure, but still a broom."
Garen raised an eyebrow, his lips twitching despite himself. "That looks nothing like a broom."
"It's a broom, Garen," Asta insisted, as though correcting a stubborn child. "You'll see soon enough. You'd better start getting used to looking up, anyway, we won't be mingling with you land-walkers much longer. Once Darryl gets the hang of flying, give it a few weeks…"
"Uh… Sir Asta?" came a hesitant voice.
Asta turned his head slightly, spotting the brown-haired girl, Cithria, standing just behind Garen. She was staring upward, her hand raised to shield her eyes from the sun.
Asta frowned. "What's wrong?"
Instead of answering, she pointed. "That."
He followed her gesture, and froze.
Darryl was twelve feet off the ground, wobbling precariously as he clung to the staff for dear life. His legs kicked awkwardly beneath him as the staff drifted and spun in slow, uneven circles.
"Captain!" Darryl shouted, voice high with panic. "I think it's working, but I don't know how to stop it!"
Asta's grin spread slowly across his face. "Heh. That's my student. Starting to make me feel insecure with how quickly he's picking things up. Figure it out yourself."
Garen sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Protectors preserve us…"
Emilia, who had been watching quietly from the sidelines, muttered under her breath, "Hmmm. There's promise in such a thing, perhaps."
Asta's grin faded, his expression hardening into something far more serious. He turned to face Garen fully, his voice lower now, steady but edged.
"I heard about what happened in Capelworth."
Garen's features tightened, the faint lines of fatigue visible even beneath his stoic demeanor. "I see," he said quietly. "It was… a grave loss for Demacia. Too many lives were taken."
Asta studied him for a long moment, then folded his arms. "You know," he said, tone skeptical, "I half expected you to send me after those rebel mages by now. My AntiMagic's basically built for that kind of thing."
Garen exhaled slowly and met Asta's gaze head-on. "Your presence in Demacia is still… precarious, Asta. You must understand, the kingdom stands upon uncertain ground. The Council would not risk any incident involving an emissary of an allied realm within our borders."
Asta ran a hand through his hair and sighed, the faintest trace of frustration slipping into his voice. "I thought we were past all that, Garen. Come on, man, I consider you my friend. I'm serious. We are friends, right?"
Garen's composure faltered for the briefest moment. His lips parted, as though to speak, but no words came. His expression warred between duty and sincerity, soldier and man, and in that heartbeat of hesitation, Asta caught his answer.
He gave a small, rueful smile. "They don't want me meeting this Sylas guy, do they?"
The silence that followed said more than any admission could. Garen flinched, just slightly, but enough for the two most perceptive among them, Emilia and Cithria, to notice.
Asta caught it too. He gave a quiet chuckle, though his tone carried no mockery. "I get it. Really, I do," he said, his gaze steady on the Demacian commander. "Mages are oppressed in Demacia, something I still find both odd and stupid, by the way. Sylas is leading a rebellion for equality, or at least that's how it seems. And someone like me, coming from a world overflowing with magic, would probably see things his way. I even declared my dream of becoming the Wizard King. So yeah, I understand why you wouldn't want me meeting him."
He crossed his arms, the faintest grin tugging at the corner of his mouth before fading into something more solemn. "But here's the thing. What Sylas is doing is wrong. It's that simple. I get that he's got his reasons, and I'm not blind to the pain he's gone through, but what he's doing won't fix a thing. It'll just breed more hatred."
Asta's tone softened, but his voice carried the conviction of one who spoke from experience. "I faced that same kind of oppression growing up. In my homeland, magic was everything. It decided your worth, your status, your very right to exist. And me?" He gave a small, humorless laugh. "I was born without a drop of it. To them, even the weakest mage stood above me. I was trash... trash to the trash."
Garen said nothing, his jaw tight, his gaze fixed on the ground.
"But I didn't stay that way," Asta continued, his voice firm now, burning with quiet pride. "I proved them wrong. Every last one of them. And I did it in a way they could never deny, by earning merit. By working until no one could look at me and say I wasn't worth something. You show them proof, Garen. Proof that they can't ignore. Proof that you're better."
He looked up toward the distant skyline, where Demacia's banners fluttered proudly against the clouds. "That's how you change a world. Not by tearing it apart, but by forcing it to see what it refused to before."
Garen slowly lifted his gaze to meet Asta's, the steel in his eyes tempered by weariness. "It's not that simple, Asta," he said quietly, his tone carrying the weight of years spent balancing duty and doubt.
Asta smiled faintly, though there was little humor in it, only conviction. "Maybe not," he admitted. "But how would we ever know if we're never willing to try? Sylas didn't bother to try. He didn't seek to change things, he decided to burn down the very country that wronged him. The path he's chosen has no good endings, only more suffering."
The words hung between them, heavy yet sincere. Asta stepped closer, resting a firm hand on Garen's pauldron. "You can tell the High Marshal that I'll be joining the defense against the rebels. She doesn't have to worry about me turning my back on Demacia," he said, his voice steady. "I made a promise to stand with Demacia, and where I come from, a promise means everything."
Garen studied him for a long moment, the foreigner's earnest expression reflected in the polished gleam of his armor. Then, with a slow nod, the Lion of Demacia replied, "Then Demacia will be honored to have you at her side."