I bowl out of the bloodEV with the silicon runes rattling in my hand as the howling hypotheticals come screaming out of the pit.

And there's the High Queen between me and the edge, her void eyes glittering, information streaking down her limbs like mercury, but she's not looking at me. I might as well not be there. In a minute I won't be.

I'm just the means to this end, you and this dead-eyed glory burning like a phosphorous flame.

It's never been you and me, not really. It's always been you and her, and it's you and her now, here at the last showdown before the next showdown.

And maybe you didn't even know what you were going to do when you got here, until you got here. Maybe you were teetering between hero and heel turn.

But you know now.