[Fanfiction] Fracture - Chapter 7
PROLOGUE: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/fancreations/fZAXxjHA-fanfiction-fracture PREVIOUS CHAPTER: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/fancreations/chAsUUTG-fanfiction-fracture-chapter-6
Fanfiction.net link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10770866/1/Fracture
Genres: Suspense/Drama/Mystery/a lot of others Characters: Leona, Caitlyn, Nasus, Kassadin, too many to list
Summary: The machine that sustains the lethal matches of the League fails. Events spiral outwards. (Character death.)
INTENT
One day now. One full day since the walls of his prison had come down.
He was free.
Twenty-four hours since the roof of his chamber had split open and the Terror of the Void had peered down at him hungrily. He had been curled on the ground at the time, listening to the tremors.
Then the Prophet of the Void floated in.
"What would you say," the seer had rasped, "if I told you I could lead you to your brother, Nasus?"
"Nasus...?" he'd repeated, wearily, and then something had stirred in him – something violent, and carnal, and filling. "Nasus!"
"I will tell you where to seek your brother," he had said. "In return, leave the mortals to their own affairs."
What did Renekton care about mortals? Light meat, dark meat, it was all the same to him. Their petty conflicts mattered not. It was only Nasus, and the ill-feelings he brought with him whenever he came to mind. So he had accepted, and now here he stood, at the bottom of Mogron Pass. The Shurima Desert was just beyond its final stone steps. He had walked day and night, non-stop, slaughtering anything that crossed his path.
It was freeing, rending flesh from bone, limb from limb as he pleased. It almost filled up the strange, hollow ache in his chest. He had ripped chunks from the corpses and chewed them as he went.
Staring out across the wide expanse of desert, he couldn't help but feel that something was missing. Something very important. He had focused on his brother, and the rage it summoned within him – merely because it was the only thing he could remember, and it was the only thing that gave him something to live for.
Why he was so furious, why the Institute had locked him up so long, why he was so empty, he didn't understand, he didn't know. He wanted to. Nasus must have the answer, he must know, or otherwise why had he such a rage towards him beyond even his comprehension?
The Butcher began descending the final few steps, glancing down at his blade in one hand, a blanket in his other. He could not remember where it came from, or how it had ended up in his cell. Roused from the fog of lethargy, he had stirred and found himself curled around it.
It was blood spattered and sand-coarse by now, buffeted by the wind and roasted in the sun, but it still smelled of something delicate and far away. Why he had taken it, he didn't know. It was familiar, somehow, and in a strange moment of clarity, he had wanted to take something that would keep him marginally comfortable.
Finally, his feet reached warm sand and he stopped. There was a howling wind, whistling through the pass. He looked out over the arid sea of sands, over Shurima, stretching out in the horizon. It felt so familiar – so curiously familiar, it was almost like coming home. Something that he did not - or could not - comprehend stirred in his chest.
Blade clenched tight in hand, Renekton entered the desert.
He would kill Nasus. He would quell this aching, endless rage.
And he would finally understand.
.
.
.
She woke to the humming of an engine.
It was dark, and she had to blink several times before she could comprehend whatever she was seeing. A concerned face, silver hair, blue skin.
"Sora...ka..." she murmured, the noise just barely escaping her throat.
Groaning, Ahri pulled herself into a sitting position as the world filtered itself into clarity. Where had she been? What had she been doing? She felt as if she had surfaced from a long dream, but... she couldn't remember what it had been about.
"How do you feel?" asked the Starchild, a hand supporting her by the small of her back.
"Fuzzy," she managed to say, rubbing at her eyes. The inside of her mouth felt cottony. "Where are we?"
"An airship, en route to Ionia."
"Ionia...?" The Fox looked around, dazed. "What about the Institute?"
Soraka didn't say anything for a moment, avoiding her gaze.
"H-how long have I been asleep?" she asked, voice wavering. Ahri got to her knees, grabbing the healer by her shoulders. "What happened? Hey!"
It couldn't be, could it?
"You've been asleep for four days," answered the Starchild at last. She paused, hands folding into her lap. "The Institute has fallen."
The Fox collapsed back into a sitting position, going white.
"No..." Her ears flattened on her head, a look of horror twisting her face. "This can't be...!"
Something cold and shuddering seized her heart.
No, no, no. This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't how he told her it would go.
"All champions have dispersed in order to defend their homelands. The Prophet seeks to open the Void," explained Soraka solemnly.
"Malzahar does...?" she whispered, and the world seemed to lose color.
Ahri struggled to a standing position, stumbling over her own feet as she fought through the onslaught of vertigo that followed. The ground seemed unsteady beneath her, her legs seemed so useless, so weak. Clenching her jaw tight, she grasped at a nearby wall for support and Soraka flew to her aid, hands going to her shoulders.
It was too late to cry now, but maybe it wasn't too late to amend. She'd tried to do it once, there was no harm in trying again. Was there? No, it didn't matter. She had to make it right. No matter what, she had to make it right.
If there was one place she could go, two people she could speak to to fix what she had done...
"I need to get to Piltover!" she breathed out, words coming out in a rush.
Soraka was visibly taken aback. "Whatever for?"
"Vi and Caitlyn were investigating the incident, right?" She took a few trembling steps forward, knees shaking violently. "I can – I can help them! I can stop this."
They were working on authority of the Institute, and they would have connections and resources, and Caitlyn was smart and she would know what to do. She had to.
The world tilted suddenly and she went shoulder first into the sheet-metal side and dammit did that hurt. Pain shot up to her collarbone, and she winced, scrabbling at the wall to stay standing even so.
"Stop!" exclaimed the Starchild, pulling her backwards. "You're too weak to go anywhere right now, and Valoran is not safe."
Didn't she understand how important this was? How dangerous things were about to get?
"I have to get to Piltover!" Ahri repeated desperately, trying to shake off the healer's hands. "You don't understand, all of this, it's..."
She stopped suddenly, wide gaze blank. Somewhere in the deepest crevices of her mind, there echoed a familiar voice. Heartbroken.
How could you?
"It's what?" Soraka prompted, gently.
The Fox closed her eyes, falling to her hands and knees. One breath, two breaths - a long, trembling exhale that seemed to pitch high as if it were rolling off a sob.
"It's my fault."
Silence reigned.
That same humming that had woken her stirred in the background, bouncing off steel walls and she hated it. It surrounded her, enclosed her, it suffocated her, and Ahri felt as if she were suddenly very small, inside a shell of something cold and unforgiving.
Soraka's hands left her shoulders, the healer herself rearing back into a crouch. For one long moment, she covered her face with her hands. The Nine -Tailed Fox didn't move.
Within the furthest depths of her soul somewhere, in some part that Ahri was sure was human, there was a gaping, gasping ache.
"Please," said Soraka at last, sucking in a ragged breath, "explain."
It was funny – no matter how much she wanted to say, it was hard to make the words come out. There were so many things she wanted to explain, so many things she wanted to apologize for and berate herself for, and so many people she wanted to tell those things to, but she just... A word came up to her throat, and then she choked, swallowing something thick that tasted bitter and hateful and a lot like regret.
"I just," began the Fox after a long while, trembling, "wanted to change."
She sunk to the ground, nine tails folding around her like a cocoon.
Such a fool. She had been such a fool.
"He came to me and said... he'd had a vision. A-and he asked me, didn't I think it was strange that after being with the Institute for so long... and collecting so much essence, I hadn't become human?" Her words were wavering and tight, and she had to take one moment to swallow again. "I did think it was – it was a little weird, but. I thought it would naturally get slower... even though I'd been collecting the same amount of essence as – as before."
"Ahri," came Soraka's voice, so tender with compassion and concern that it made her heart ache with guilt, "please tell me that you didn't..."
"He told me," she continued, as if the Starchild hadn't spoken, "that he knew why, and that he could help me. That if I did this one thing for him, I could become human."
Her white tails drooped, peeling away from her as if she were shedding a chrysalis as the Fox finally pulled herself into a sitting position. Upon her face, Soraka could see how little four days' worth of sleep had done for her.
"What did you do?"
"I charmed two guards." Ahri smiled a sardonic, self-deprecating smile that brought out the hollowness of her eyes. They were shiny and raw, but there were no tears. Only the hard glint that came with self-loathing. "They would take care of everything else. I just had to keep these two guards busy for this many minutes – make sure that they wouldn't remember a thing – and he said... I would be free."
"Free," echoed the healer thoughtfully.
The Nine-Tailed Fox nodded. "Free."
"Why in the stars did you believe him?" she asked, without hostility despite the gentle chiding in her voice. "Of all people, the Prophet is hardly trustworthy."
"If anything, Malzahar is the most trustworthy person in the League," answered Ahri, shaking her head ruefully. "Everything he says is the truth... you just have to understand what he's really saying, first."
"And you presumed that you did?"
"He was being straightforward then," she replied. She quirked another bleak smile. "It was stupid, and I had no idea what he was planning... But what he told me wasn't wrong."
Soraka frowned, cocking her head sideways. "How do you know?"
She paused. There was something in the back of her head - some fuzzy, far-off sort of feeling as if she had forgotten something. Ahri shook it off, and drew close.
"Notice something missing?" she asked, tapping on her cheek with one finger.
The Starchild leaned in, peering close. Her eyes widened
"Your whisker-markings... where are they?"
.
.
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Next Chapter: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/fancreations/9OfywUzq-fanfiction-fracture-chapter-8-1