Update 2: Driving Back the Shadows

Previous Update: Voices Wake Us and We Drown
== Driving Back the Shadows ==
by CupcakeTrap
“Summoner Soda Bat is looking for numerous kills—”
“—Bat?!”
“ … yes!”
The announcers fastidiously avoided eye contact with one another as they continued their rapid-fire narration.
Summoner Soda God 
held high the wicked mask called Liandry’s Torment and incanted a savage
 curse. It imbued Elise’s fangs with deadly power as she struck at the 
badly wounded Ezreal. Her bite clipped his arm as he twisted away. Venom
 and dark magic poisoned his blood. With each sickened heartbeat, the 
world shuddered and heaved before his eyes.
Ezreal blinked 
blindly away. He staggered, turned to fire back with a bolt of magical 
energy, and miraculously hit his mark. But Elise merely faltered a 
moment before she reared back to lunge and take him. His eyes went wide.
 Respawning doesn’t cover the therapy you need after being eaten alive 
by a giant spider.
Elise lunged. Her 
horribly long legs swung in to seize up the boy adventurer and feed him 
into her hungry maw. At the last instant, a stormcloud gray magical 
barrier materialized around him and the spider’s claws skittered off its
 surface.
Janna, eyes 
flashing lightning white, swept her arms wide and drove a mighty gust 
into the murderous creature. A cerulean wave of mystic energy from 
Ezreal’s arcane bow cut through her and put her down in a heap mere feet
 from the Nexus.
Piltover’s three 
remaining Champions struggled forward, hobbled by their wounds and stung
 by waves of caster minions. Columns of light shone down on the fountain
 platform, where within seconds the dark Champions of the Isles would 
appear to obliterate them.
Vi staggered up and slugged the tower. Dust plumed and she coughed. The color was quickly draining from her face.
Janna swung her wand in a spiral and pointed it up to the skies.
“Janna, the Fury of the Storm, calls forth the tempest’s wrath!”
The shrieking 
winds drove their talons into the cracks and fractures of the tower and 
tore it up from its earthy foundations. It burst into splinters of stone
 and crashed to the ground as rubble. Janna’s many fans stamped and cheered from the stands.
Ezreal stared 
blearily past the Nexus as the winds beat against the arcane energy 
field protecting it. He thought he saw something … a ghastly thin figure
 with a ripped-face grin … legs like sticks … surrounded by …
… crows.
He fired in 
desperation. His energy blast vanished into the gathering storm without 
effect. He fired again. And again. The crows kept swarming. The 
cacophony swelled and the nightmarish scene began to phase, to shift 
through space; he felt a terrible dark magic clawing its way into the 
air around him, in a moment he knew the crowstorm would manifest and —
HYAAAAAAAAAAA!
Vi blew past 
Ezreal. Her punch piffed against rotten sackcloth and knocked 
Fiddlesticks back just before he could complete his channeling. As he 
reeled, stick legs slipping and clattering over the smooth stone, she 
swung her weight back onto her hips and wound up for a vault-breaking 
blow—
—when Ezreal’s mystic shot lanced over her shoulder and blew Fiddlesticks into a cloud of sticks, dust, and crow feathers.
Vi turned with gritted teeth. “Thanks a lot, Princess. Really saved my a—”
Every decibel of sound imploded into the Nexus as it pulsed and then shattered.
The spectators leapt to their feet across the stadium.
“EZ-RE-AL! EZ-RE-AL! EZ-RE-AL!”
“TRIPLE KILL!” crowed a particularly enthusiastic and prolific announcer, her eyes maniacally widened.
“EZ-RE-AL! EZ-RE-AL! EZ-RE-AL!”
Vi turned slowly, 
wearily to face the audience, raised her heavy power-fists, and made a 
gesture which later necessitated days of apologetic press conferences 
from Piltovian Diplomatic Bureau officials.
The herald of the Council drew back her hood, and the hall fell silent.
“Noxus and the Shadow Isles have withdrawn from the Ceruleana dispute. Four petitioners remain.”
Murmurs spread 
through the room. Summoners had begun to suspect that, with control of 
Ceruleana, the Shadow Isles could have opened a gateway from the Isles 
to the Freljord and launched a massive invasion.
With the Shadow 
Isles withdrawn from the dispute and relinquishing its claim to 
Ceruleana, the Freljord no longer had to fear the grim prospect of 
invasion.
Or, as others more
 cynically and pessimistically put it, the Freljord no longer had to 
prepare for such a prospect. Demacia had already begun amplifying its 
northern border defenses should its fragmented and unpredictable 
ally-for-now turn against it. The Avarosan seemed sincere enough, but 
despite her occasional claims Ashe did not in truth control the entire 
Freljord. To most southerners, Sejuani was a bully heading up an army of
 restless warriors eager for rich spoils.
And should war break out with the Freljord, it will matter greatly who stands across from its shore as master of Ceruleana.
The Shadow Isles and Noxus have withdrawn from Ceruleana.
They were the lowest-scoring factions at the end of the June 17–23 tournament, and so have been removed.
Faction removal is not intended to be a recurring 
phenomenon. Rather, it had become clear that 6 factions at once was just too 
difficult; with Summoners so spread out, it was hard to find matches. Therefore, I decided to reduce the number to 4, and to make 
that the maximum going forward.
Next Update: Allies