Discord Update 2: The Battle for Noxus

Previous Update: Vengeance
== The Battle for Noxus ==
by CupcakeTrap
Driven by his consuming rage, Varus has betrayed Ionia and the other mortal nations of Valoran. He has declared for the forces of Discord as they battle in the League of Legends for the “right” to destroy Noxus.
Varus loosed a torrent of arrows and splattered the stones surrounding the Bandle City Nexus in blood.
“QUADRA KILL!” exclaimed an astonished Summoner. Her voice, empowered by a megavox enchantment, echoed through the arena.
Minions surged forward and battered the crystalline facade with their crude weapons. Varus turned, saw a fissure in the crystal, swept back his bow, and drove an arrowhead through the thin gap.
The Nexus exploded. Varus watched joylessly.
The tournament concluded, the Void begins to swarm Noxus. The High Command gathers to array its final defense against the onslaught, but prospects are grim.
Swain struck the map with his cane.
“Your regiment will hold here under a stealth enchantment. When their flank is exposed, you will launch a surprise assault.”
The regimental captain inclined her head. “What if their back ranks collapse on us?”
Swain scowled. “Then I’ll morph into a giant bird and EAT them!”
Beatrice squawked. He fed her a little morsel.
“Now go!”
Beyond the city walls, the earth of the Noxian military’s vast 
graveyards churned. The countless dead of its years of warfare clawed up from the black soil and began staggering forward.
Thresh stood behind the ghastly skeletal army. He reached back and cracked his flail like a whip. Jagged arcs of ethereal power stabbed through the air into the skeletal warriors, who lurched and screamed. Their eye sockets blazed white with balefire.
Malzahar hovered overhead. In his malefic visions he saw through the walls of Noxus, through its defenders, through the present instant, to the future when all this would be smoldering ruins and desolation.
Beneath him, thousands of voidlings skittered forward alongside Thresh’s skeletal regiment. He drew his sword and pointed it across the ramparts.
Bow to the void or be consumed!
Malzahar’s ultimatum echoed through the city streets. A dark purple mist began to creep up from the ground. The air shimmered and glowed. The Noxians began to choke. Otherworldly magic tore a violent purple gash in the sky. Buzzing hordes of many-eyed monstrosities poured out and dove down toward the city streets.
Reality sickened and faded. Noxus itself was being pulled into the Void.
Darius turned to the archmage behind him as the deadly magic spread. “Counterspell!”
The archmage hastily beckoned for an apprentice to bring the channeling crystal.
An apprentice rushed to him, bearing an ebony box inscribed with the gauntleted fist emblem of Noxus.
The archmage lifted the lid … and found only a scrap of parchment on which was scribbled the word —
SURPRISE
The false floor of the box popped up. A wickedly grinning jester face
 sprung out, spewing burning venom over the archmage’s face. He screamed
 and fell back.
The apprentice threw back his hood and cackled. His jester’s cap sprang out, bells jingling.
Shaco split in two and dove at the archmage with daggers drawn.
SWSSSH
CLINK! CLINK!
Katarina appeared standing over the fallen mage. She deftly parried both sets of knives and struck one of the demon jesters through the neck. He let out a melodramatic death cry and burst into ribbons. She snapped her head to look over her other shoulder.
The real Shaco vanished in a puff of smoke and reappeared on a rooftop. Katarina flashed after him, and they renewed their battle high above the main street as the Noxian mages struggled to revive their leader and force back the Void’s ethereal encroachment.
Just then, a diminutive figure in silver and blue armor leapt through the sky, born aloft on a gust of wind, and for a moment was suspended in mid-air over the Noxian battlements.
A most unexpected cry followed.
DEMACIAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lux cast forth a brilliant rainbow of light, incinerating the first wave of monsters spilling forth from the gash in the sky. The purple mists began to fade as she landed on the stone wall and Galio rose up to hover above her. The stony guardian glowered down at the stunned Noxian archers. One coughed and lowered her bow. “Uh, yeah, Demacia!” She smiled hastily and stepped back from the looming gargoyle and his blonde associate, who frowned skeptically back at her. Noxians, you see, are Very Bad.
Lux then looked out onto the approach Void army in time to see a volley of gunfire from Piltovian musketeers blast a rank of skeletons into bone dust, and a spread of brilliant electric shuriken cut into the voidling horde in a spray of purple and black ichor.
Darius hefted his axe and thrust it forward. The massive city gates swung open and his finest warriors charged through to meet the onslaught.
The Battle for Noxus had begun.
Shaco, the Demon Jester, has joined Discord!
Discord won a new Champion by winning the August 10–11 tournament. I polled the members of the winning Discord teams, and Shaco was the lead choice.
Next Update: Aftermath