Just outside of the largest Noxian camp on Ionia, on a quiet night with a bright, beautiful star-filled sky; two ninjas were rushing towards a small, unassuming corner of the complex.
Kal rushed in with no hesitation. After a full hour of scouting, he was very confident with his plan of infiltration. He had successfully pulled off infiltrations with higher stakes and less preparation.
Akali, on the other hand, with no prior knowledge simply did her best to keep her silhouette to a minimum as she followed her partner.
Of course, after an extensive scouting, exploiting Noxian's weaknesses was child's play. In the first place, Noxian's were never really great at anything that didn't involve running head-first into a battle.
The Immortal Bastion, Noxus' capital was most definitely well protected and well made, but that may be the only structure in Noxus that was made with defense in mind.
Regardless, Kal and Akali dashed towards the walls of the Noxian camp. Often using the gentle nightly winds to cover the sounds of their shoes crushing the grass beneath them. And using the moon hiding behind some clouds to make distance.
Due to the Noxian's incompetence in architecture, Kal discovered that there was a small gap between two sheets of metal that made up part of the outside wall.
The second they reached the wall and Akali knew how to get in, she signaled to Kal. Understanding the signal, he leaned in close to hear what she had to say.
"...want to make a bet?" She whispered.
"...depends what the bet is." Kal replied.
"...whoever gets the intel first can give a future mission to the loser." Akali grinned.
"...let's do it." He replied. "...when this coin hits the ground, we start."
Akali nodded in response. Kal flipped a coin and tensed his muscles, ready to shoot into the complex like a bullet.
Seeing the coin flip mid-air, Akali also readied herself and placed a hand on the inside of the entrance, showcasing her plan to go in before Kal, creating an advantage.
*PA*
The second the coin hit the soft grass, Akali slipped into the crack in the wall and dashed along the wall, using the shadows as her cover. In an instant, she had already entered a tent and scanned the insides; once she scanned everything, she moved onto the next.
At present, the only thing that mattered to Akali was her speed. If she didn't find any documents by sprinting around and searching, she could always take the slow and methodical route after finding nothing.
On the other hand, Kal had already identified the most populated tent that was located towards the backside of the complex, on the other side of the Noxian structure.
He took no time at all to get there and infiltrate it.
The large tent was littered with guards; some inside, some outside, some patrolling the two. Thankfully, Kal's scouting had already displayed a plan to him.
He noticed that the entrance at the backside of the tent was guarded far heavier than the front side. At the very least, it implied that anything valuable would be towards the back of the tent.
After making a well-formulated plan, Kal found that a guard was slowly jogging towards the large tent from a distance. It would still take him a couple of seconds to reach the line of sight of any other guard.
This instantly filled Kal's head with another idea.
---------
Inside the tent, two guards shared a conversation.
"It was pretty surprising to watch Swain take the throne out of nowhere." A guard commented.
"Yeah, I mean obviously there's the whole council and what-not, but Swain's pretty much the one running the whole thing." Another responded.
"Hmm, did I ever tell you that I shook his hand once?" The first guard bragged.
"What? No way!" The second guard exclaimed. "What was he like?"
"Well, this was back when he was still... a cripple." The first guard made sure to whisper the last part.
"Yeah, go on." The other spoke.
"It was actually a pretty surreal experience." The guard spoke. "Maybe it was just because he lost his hand, and he was more conscious of it or something, but he extended his servered hand at first."
"Damn, really?" The other guard asked.
"Yeah, and even weirder? I shook it at first as well, I swear I felt something there." The first guard spoke. "Of course, after we both realized what we were doing we switched hands and bid our farewells."
"So, you grabbed his phantom pain or something?" The second guard laughed.
"I don't know man. It felt like something was there." He spoke. "At the very least I was looking down at our hands, so it's not like I grabbed onto his stump."
"Well whatever man." The second guard spoke. "At the very least it's not the same bullshit I've been hearing about him being a demon."
At this moment, another guard approached the previous two.
"A Demon? Swain? Who the hell's spreading that rumor?" The third guard asked. And although neither of them recognized this guard, they had no reason to doubt his appearance, the third guard was Noxian after all.
"I dunno man. I've just heard that a black-red energy surrounds him in meetings when he's hearing bad news. Probably just some magic to make him seem more intimidating." The second guard spoke.
"Black-red energy, huh?" The third guard pondered for a moment. "Is that it?"
"I mean, that's the only thing that a lot of people agree to be real." The second guard spoke. "I've heard all types of shit, but that's the only one that seems to be concrete."
"Well, thanks boys. I'll get back to my patrol." The third guard waved and walked away.
"...you know that guy?" The first guard asked.
"Nah, probably just some recruit." The second guard replied. "If he keeps pausing his patrols like that, he's gonna get killed by the commander though."
They both laugh at the potential for the third guard's misfortune and go back to gossiping about random topics.
The third guard however, did not return to a patrol.
'Black-red energy.' Kal thought to himself. 'That's a lead at least.'
Of course, Kal was the third guard. He was able to knock-out a guard and use his armor to infiltrate the tent with no problems.
Generally, humans looked similar throughout Runeterra. However, Ionians and Noxians, being mortal enemies, found a very easy way to distinguish each other. Ionians had thin eyes and Noxians had much rounder eyes.
This well-known difference allowed Kal to easily fit in, he was originally Noxian after all.
Kal intended to quickly make his way through the tent and wrap up the mission. After all, there's no way that the most highly guarded tent wouldn't be guarding the highest-value intel.
However, loud shouting interrupted his plans. Kal could hear many soldiers shouting and screaming all over the camp. The most common word heard was;
"INTRUDER!"
'Did Akali get caught?' Kal pondered.
"ALL SOLIDERS AT TENT 12!"
'Well, I can't really slip in and get the intel now. It's going to be heavily guarded from here on out.' Kal thought to himself. 'Might as well go out as see if I can help her out.'
Exiting the tent and following the line of soldiers, Kal quickly found the problem. Akali hadn't been found, in fact he found her hiding in the shadow like a ninja should.
The troublemaker was someone he knew well; Kayn.
Kal knew that he couldn't exactly escape the eyes of the Noxians without a bigger distraction. And therefore, he was forced to follow their flood of movement. He quickly signaled to Akali that he'd escape momentarily, and she should escape on her own.
She nodded and took off.
Unfortunately for Kal, it wasn't exactly easy to stealthily escape a horde such as the one he found himself in.
This meant that he'd have to cause a distraction or use a smoke bomb. The problem was that Kayn was familiar with both of these methods.
Kayn was currently a member of the Order of Shadow. To put it simply, they used shadow technique to assassinate whoever and whatever they wanted.
This put them at odds with the Kinkou Order.
Kal especially had bad blood with Kayn, so he didn't mind causing a little bit of mischief before beginning his escape.
As Kal continued to get pushed forward, he found that Kayn was carving through the Noxians effortlessly. Despite being a member of assassins, Kayn loved turning camps into battlegrounds.
And Kal was prepared to use this to his advantage.