[Fanfiction] The False Hero
It's an undeniable fact. Everyone wants recognition for what they've done, deserved or not. Different reasons, same purpose. They want someone to tell them that their contribution to society wasn't totally worthless, that their contribution makes their existence valuable. That's not unreasonable. That's just human nature.
But what happens when all the recognition you get was based on a lie?
My name is Grayson Merlyn. I was an average 18 year-old soldier in the Demacian army. My rank wasn't that bad; I was a sergeant. That meant that I commanded an unit of thirty soldiers or so. Mine was mostly composed of privates and corporals. These people were either reluctant to be here but resigned to their fate, or were overly enthusiastic to get into combat and bloody their hands with Noxian blood, perhaps already imagining the fame they would get when they came back home. The rest were veterans who had seen it all before, and not entirely happy with their assignment. Our unit had seen action several times over the years.
I was honestly content to get by, to just do my time on the field and retire. I was in the army for two years, going on to three. I would be honorably discharged in two months, and then I would go into the family business with my father. He worked as an engineer for as long as I remember, originally hailing from Piltover before he met my mother from Demacia, who worked as a mechanic. They settled down and had me, and he had confided that as soon as I got out of the army, we would be moving back to Piltover. I've personally never been there, but Dad had nothing but good things to say about it, and some of his enthusiasm bled over to me.
Of course, nobody could have predicted what would've happened the next month.
I got the order from our king to march into the Kaladoun Marshes. I had been there before to recon the area, when I was a private. Now we needed to go there to take out the Noxian outpost, which would then put us in contention over the Mogron Pass, which led to Shurima. From the intel we got there, it was lightly guarded, with six archers and twenty foot soldiers. We just barely had a numbers advantage, but I was confident that my unit could handle the action. They had been through several situations like this before, and we had always come out on top.
So, we marched. Days of marching through marshland is more inconvenient than exciting.
We made it to the Noxian outpost in five days, around midnight. We set up camp roughly forty feet from the outpost, in heavily wooded area so that the smoke from our fire wasn't easily visible. I laid out the plan.
We would strike an hour before dawn, while the majority of their force was sleeping and there were only a couple of patrols. The outpost had a barrier where the patrols kept watch, but there was a weak spot just west of the barrier, where two men would go inside, take out the patrols, then open the gates, and our unit would slaughter the rest of the soldiers. Because they were sleeping, it was extremely unlikely that they would offer much resistance, and we would take the outpost with zero causalities.
It didn't work like that, but not in the way you think.
The plan was executed. Two men made it through the weak spot and went up to the barrier to kill the patrols.
Then they opened the gates, and we rushed through to slaughter the sleeping soldiers.
Except there were no patrols.
Instead, we were met with mauled corpses, and monsters standing over them, with blood dripping from their maws. And there weren't twenty-six like we thought, but several times more bodies. There had to be at least a hundred soldiers.
I didn't know it then, but that was my first encounter with Void monsters.
Describing a Void monster is hard. I don't know if there are words to describe some of them. But one thing was clear; where we expected to fight twenty-six soldiers, we were instead met with three Void monsters. They were two feet bigger than us, and we were just an entire unit. But we were also Demacians. We were taught to never surrender to the enemy, ever.
So we fought them. The privates and corporals went first, followed by the veterans, then by me, our swords and spears flashing as we rushed to engage the enemy. We had sharpened all our weapons just before we went marching---our swords were able to cut through marshland trees in one stroke, and from experience, we knew they were able to pierce through Noxian armor. But to watch what happened in the next few seconds, we might as well have fought with needles and pinpricks for all the good our weapons did us. The swords and spears broke when they came in contact with the bodies of the void monsters.
Dismayed but not undaunted, we fanned out in an attempt to attack them from behind. However, the monsters weren't content to let us fight them. One monster lashed out with its tail, knocking aside three soldiers with an audible breaking of bones and a low moan. A corporal had managed to get on the back of one monster and stab it with his broken sword, but it didn't go very deep, and he was shortly eaten by another monster. The monsters were not only stronger than us, but unfortunately also intelligent enough to put up a good fight. They started moving constantly, denying us the opportunity to backstab them, and piercing a majority of our unlucky soldiers with their fangs and claws or devouring significant chunks of them. I was knocked aside when a monster threw what remained of a soldier at me, and I struggled to get back on my feet. But when I did so, I realized a horrifying fact.
In what felt like an eternity but had to be a minute and a half, I lost twenty-nine good soldiers. And there were still three Void monsters. It was hopeless. But again, "The Measured Tread" came to me: "Never surrender to the enemy".
I didn't want to die, but if I was going to go out, I didn't want to die a coward. So I steeled myself, my dented sword in my hand, blood from my soldiers on my armor, and a silent regret that I might never get to see Piltover in my lifetime. And I rushed at the monsters.
But they didn't fight me. They just disappeared all of a sudden, into some purple-black circles.
I was left all alone, with a hundred and twenty-nine corpses around me.
I stabbed my sword into the ground and sat down, with silence, the sun on my face and survivor's guilt to keep me company.
Another eternity passed before I heard the marching of another unit.
I heard chatter all around me, mostly indistinct, but I got the gist of it. "What the hell just happened here?" I was still trying to process that, myself.
A soldier came up to me. I stood and saluted, almost on instinct.
The captain of the Demacian army was standing in front of me. He was a black man in his forties, with some gray in his hair already and wrinkles around his eyes. He was highly decorated, and for a good reason; before I came into the army, he had been in charge of several successful campaigns, and he was no slouch himself. He boasted over one hundred confirmed kills and was skilled in both the sword and the spear. And he was talking to me.
"At ease, Sergeant Grayson. What happened here?"
"Sir, we had a plan to take the Noxian outpost by exploiting a weak spot in their defenses. We struck an hour before dawn, but we were beaten to the punch. There were monsters there, sir, nothing like I ever saw before. We engaged them, but my unit was wiped out in a minute and a half. I was the last man standing, and I rushed to fight them, but they just disappeared..."
The captain blinked and his eyes narrowed. "Wait. You said monsters?"
"Yes, sir."
"...We'll discuss this in private. Don't talk to anyone about this."
I was confused, but I was also taught not to question my superiors without permission.
So I marched with the captain's unit back to Demacia. Several days and a couple of hours later, I was in a private room with the captain, a scholarly type and the commander.
"Commander," the captain was saying, "I've some bad news. The sergeant here says when his unit attacked a Noxian outpost, there were monsters instead of Noxian soldiers." To me, he said, "Describe what the monsters looked like to the researcher. Take your time and try not to skip over any important details. I know this must be stressful, but your testimony is important."
So I testified. I stumbled a bit over the description of the monsters, but all things considered, I think I did well.
"Mother of god," the commander was saying. "You were researching Void monsters, weren't you, Professor? Does his description match what we know of them?"
"Yes. It's really quite odd that they disappeared instead of engaging the sergeant, but based on the testimony, I think we can confirm that they just fought against Void monsters."
Void monsters? What?
The commander sighed heavily. "Thank you, Professor. You and the captain are dismissed. Sergeant Grayson, you stay here."
The captain and professor bowed and left the room.
"Sergeant, you're most likely wondering what Void monsters are.
"Yes, sir?"
"Void monsters are creatures from another world. They came into the world a decade ago from nowhere. We don't know as much about them as we'd like, but we know they're big and can use portals to get in and out. We're still trying to figure out their endgame as such."
"So how come we didn't hear about this a decade ago? Sir?"
"It's about morale. We're already head to head with the Noxians, and we're not doing that well. You add in a third party, and there's panic. Good soldiers second-guessing their commitment to the war because there might be Void to fight. Civilians have two things to worry about, and we can't guarantee that we can fight against these Void bastards. And all the while, Noxus gets it easy when it comes to beating us in the war. So, this is on an need-to-know basis until we know more about them; how to kill them, what they want, and if possible, how to use their portals.
So you know what I'm going to do now? I'm going to make you a hero. Your unit marched on the Noxian outpost, but when you breached it, you were ambushed by a flanking force. Instead of twenty-six, there were a hundred, and your unit was almost single-handedly decimated. But you alone fought and killed a hundred Noxians. And because you showed exceptional courage in the face of danger, I'm promoting you to captain."
My eyes widened and I stammered as I did the math in my head. The commander was promoting me three ranks over my current one.
"S-sir, I thank you, but I can't accept this promotion. I have plans with my family after I leave the army, and my honorable discharge is in two weeks. Most of all, I can't accept this in good faith because it wouldn't feel right."
"That's all right, Captain Grayson, because I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. Make no mistake, you don't have a choice in the matter. The story I just told you is what you will tell anyone who asks what happened in the Marshes. There will be no mention of the Void monsters whatsoever. If you so much as breathe a word, I will have you dishonorably discharged by way of mental illness. And while this will hurt significantly, I'm pushing your honorable discharge back five years and forbidding any contact with your family. I can't take the risk that you'll let something slip and whoever you told will spread the information around. Any questions?"
"No."
"No, what?"
"No...sir." There might have been a trace of bitterness as I forced myself to add the honorific.
"Good. Now, the story. Repeat it back to me until it sounds natural, until you believe it yourself."
"My unit was marching on the Noxian outpost in the Marshes. When we breached it, we were ambushed by a flanking force. And then..."
--------------------
Saying I was disappointed was an understatement. I was pissed. Even though the promotion was good on the surface, everything that came with it was a veiled coercion. I couldn't tell the truth or I'd get locked in a mental hospital, and I couldn't talk to my family either. Mom and Dad wouldn't understand why I had suddenly stopped sending letters or why I hadn't left the army. They might think I had decided to stop talking to them or that I was dead, and I didn't know what was worse.
Unfortunately, the only thing I could realistically do was just embrace my promotion as captain. So I threw myself into my work. In five years, I was stationed around most of Valoran. I was in Kumungu, Bilgewater, Ionia, Bandle City, Urtistan and Freljord. In all of these places, my reputation followed me where I went. Which meant that my fellow soldiers and civilians of the regions would ask me about the Kaladoun Marshes, and I would respond with the story of my 'heroism' at the Marshes. I had told the story so many times that I had almost forgotten the truth, had almost started to believe it myself. As captain, I helped organize resources for our army and planned out small-scale battles, Sometimes, I fought in the battles. Which might have indirectly gave truth to the lie, but anything to take my mind off the five-year duration helped. Over the years, I also got several promotions.
Finally, my honorable discharge came. I went back to Demacia. And when I did, I was met with a hero's welcome. There was confetti, a triumphant fanfare and people in the streets yelling my name. "GRAYSON! GRAYSON! GRAYSON!" The roar of my name temporarily left my ears ringing, and it went on for the better part of 15 minutes as I was marching down the main street with my unit. The rest of the day was spent eating dinner with the king, telling a listening crowd about my heroic one-versus-100 against the Noxians, and listening to the commander tell me that I needed to give a speech to the people tomorrow morning.
The day I came back to Demacia was the worst day of my life, when you took out all the hero worship. The fact that anyone would kill to swap places with me didn't make it better.
The next day, I gave a speech to the thousands of Demacian civilians, waiting with bated breath for my words.
"My fellow Demacian citizens and soldiers. My name is Grayson Merlyn, Colonel of the Demacian Military. Many of you know me because of my...heroic deeds at the Kaladoun Marshes. Our nation is great, our dedication is strong, and the war with the Noxians is coming to a close. But despite all that we have accomplished in the last five years, we must not become complacent. We must stay strong, even in peacetime and especially during wartime..."
The rest of it went as you would expect from a motivational speech. Suffice it to say, there was a lot of cheering and clapping, and I left the podium hating the situation I had gotten into even more. I was bogged down with meetings for most of the morning, and was only able to get out in the late afternoon. With nothing else to do, I decided to finally pay my mom and dad a visit. They deserved to hear from me after all this time.
I knocked on the door of our house. Our house is modest, about two stories tall. It has a basement where our workshop was, and my dad, mom and I would use it to tinker with several projects.
Dad opened the door. He looked significantly older than when I had left to fight in the Demacian army, but that was to be expected. What wasn't expected was the lack of any enthusiasm to see me. Where I expected to see a smile, I saw only stony disapproval.
"Hi, Dad."
"Hello, Grayson Merlyn, Colonel of the Demacian Military. What brings you to this humble abode on this fine afternoon?"
The words sounded uplifting and a bit teasing, but the way he said them betrayed their true meaning; he was mocking me, and not in a good way, after all this time. Not a good start. I went along with it anyway.
"Well, I finally got the time to come home after the speech, so I thought I could come see you guys. Can I come in?"
Dad stepped away from the door and disappeared inside. I walked inside and shut the door.
The house normally had an uplifting aura to it, before I was drafted in the military. Back then, I could feel safe, spend hours curled up in my bed and imagine the future. But now, it felt drained, devoid of any cheer whatsoever. Nothing had physically changed, but I found myself wanting to get out, not wanting to spend any more time here than I needed to.
"So, uh, where's Mom?"
"Working. Let me get something first, and then we can visit her."
I could swear I heard my dad's voice crack. But even without that, something felt very off.
"Sure."
Five minutes later, we were walking down the street, my dad with a box in his hands and leading the way. But the paths he was taking were odd to me; Mom usually spent her working days in the main center of Demacia, usually working on something or getting parts from merchants to work on something. Dad was leading me somewhere different, somewhere I had never went more than once or twice.
We entered the cemetery. Five minutes later, we stopped at a grave that read simply:
'RIP - Olivia Merlyn. Gone too soon.'
That was why everything had felt so odd.
"Dad...she died?"
"Yes, she died. Heart attack. She had been having problems for two years, but she died the year before you came home."
Dad looked me in the eye, anger and sadness rolled into one piercing gaze.
"Of course, you would have known about it, if you had read your goddamned letters."
I was speechless.
"Five years, Grayson. You couldn't pick up the pen and write to your family? Really? The last time I heard anything from you was six hours ago. Five years, Grayson!"
"Dad, I..."
"You know, you used to be good at correspondence. You would write one letter a week about nothing or everything, and that was fine. Hearing from you was good. We waited for letters and we'd write back to you, because we cared and because you used to care. And two weeks before the business at the marshes, you told us that you'd be honorably discharged in a month. That was something to wait for. You, me and Olivia would move to Piltover and start an engineering business. Life would be good.
But then you drop off the face of the earth. The letters stop coming. Olivia and I have absolutely no idea what's going on with you. Did you die? Did you just decide it wasn't worth your time? We hoped that it wasn't anything like that, because the Grayson we knew wouldn't just stop writing to his parents because it wasn't worth his time. So we waited. A year and a half later, we learn that you single-handedly won a fight against a hundred Noxians and got promoted to captain. But you didn't see fit to tell us about any of that, did you? We had to learn that from rumors. The Grayson we knew would be practically rushing to tell us about these achievements; remember when you got promoted to sergeant?
We couldn't believe that our Grayson would do that to us. We still wrote, about everything and nothing, because we cared. But apparently, you didn't care enough to open your letters."
Dad all but threw the box at me. I caught it and opened it. There were at least a hundred envelopes inside, all unopened.
"A soldier came by to drop these off. He was as incredulous as we were when he saw that the letters were unopened. And this from someone who idolized you---to hear him talk, it was like you were a god or something ridiculous. That's how we got our news, by the way."
"And then, finally, after five years, you come home. And the first thing you do a day after is a speech. All that crap about standing strong in peace and wartime? Where the hell were these encouraging words of wisdom when my wife was breathing her last? A speech is not a letter, Grayson."
"You know what's really ironic to me right now? Even when you were accomplishing something, you always made a point to say that you couldn't wait to come home and move to Piltover. But I guess being a goddamn hero became more important than your family. My son is standing in front of me, and I can't look at him without getting irrationally angry, and I keep thinking to myself, 'Is this really my son?' And I'm thinking, maybe it's not my son after all. Because the Grayson I knew wouldn't anger me so. Because the so-called 'hero' couldn't be bothered to give a damn about his family."
Dad turned to leave. I couldn't let him leave, or things between us would be irreparably damaged. Of course, that meant...
"Dad, wait. I didn't kill a hundred Noxians on my own. My unit fought against three Void monsters."
He paused. "So, what, you lied because you didn't want to look bad? This information is doing so much for me right now." He then realized something. "Wait...you said Void monsters?"
"Yes." I told him the truth of what happened, and why I didn't write anything for so long.
Realization dawned on his face. "Oh god. That explains a lot of things.
But damn it, Grayson, even with what I know now, I can't just forgive you on the spot. You still left us in the dark for five years. I know now that you had good reasons not to say anything, but I can't just erase five years of dead silence and the death of my wife. I think it might be best for you to just not come home tonight, for both our sakes."
He walked away. I was alone in the cemetery with hundreds of graves that were almost identical to my mother's.
I stood there for quite a while, with melancholy, guilt and silence to keep me company.
I stayed inside a motel for the night. I resolved to go see my dad in the morning and try to patch things up. It felt so wrong to have lost the respect of my father without doing anything to deserve it, but I was sure he'd understand, and we could move past that bad spot in our lives.
So when the morning bell rang, I went to my dad's house. The road to his home from the motel was a bit long; in all, it took me an hour of walking to travel to the house.
I knocked on the door. "Dad, it's me."
No answer.
I knocked on the door a bit harder and turned the doorknob. Surprisingly, the door opened. Something was wrong.
I closed the door behind me. It was silent, and being inside the house still made me want to leave as quickly as possible, but I had to see if my dad was all right.
I went upstairs. There were doors on either side of me; the door on the left led to my old room, the door on the right led to my parents' bedroom. I opened the door on the right. It was comfortably large, with a single bed in the center, and bookshelves to the left of it. There were several textbooks about engineering and of Piltovian history on one shelf, and science fiction and math textbooks on the other. And there was a poster on the wall of Piltover. "A City of Progress and Science," the subtitle read, just under an image of an airship. But my dad wasn't there.
So I opened the door to my room. It was small in comparison, but it felt a lot larger when I was living in it. Roughly eight years ago, you'd have seen a telescope just outside the window and posters of Piltover Customs. And there was a bed there, of course. But now, there were none of these things. The room was stripped bare, presumably done during my time in the army. There was absolutely nothing taking up space in the room, except for me and my dad. His back was turned to me, and he was muttering something under his breath.
"Oh, Olivia, that's our son. He's going off to do great things, isn't he? Ah yes, the Piltover thing. We'll talk a bit more about it when Grayson comes home, but let's just say I have a plan. It'll be glorious; you and me, working together as a pair, and Grayson learning the ropes. Haha, yeah, you remember how we met?"
"...Dad, can you hear me?"
He turned to me. His eyes were a blank. He was still muttering under his breath, but he had acknowledged me.
"Grayson, the hero. We're expecting great things from you, me and Olivia."
"Dad...Mom is dead. You just told me this yesterday."
He frowned, and then his face lit up with recognition.
"That's not true. She's right there, Grayson."
I turned to see the commander and two other people. The commander was solemn, as if he was expecting me to be here and was totally unfazed by what just happened. And the people were similarly expressionless, as if they had done this a hundred times before.
"That's Thomas Merlyn, father of the Colonel. A shame about his mind...take him away, please."
The workers took my dad by the arms and gently guided him downstairs, while he was muttering about something. The door closed.
"Commander, what just happened here? That was not my dad speaking to me."
"Well, you know how grief affects us all. Poor Thomas, losing his wife to a heart attack. Having to bury her himself, when he had plans for her and you. It's really quite a shame, but I assure you, he will get all the help he needs in the mental hospital."
"Don't bullshit me. What happened to him? ...Sir."
The commander sighed. "I told you, Grayson. You weren't supposed to tell anyone the truth of what happened in the Marshes.
Which also includes your family, as you might remember. One of our officers visited him to talk, and Thomas mentioned void monsters, and well...she took the proper initiative. A form of mind magic, to loosen the cogs in his brain. To the untrained eye, it looks like insanity."
"I know you must be angry at me, but we really can't have potential leaks. You know how it goes; one small leak on a large ship inevitably leads to the ship sinking if it's not addressed in time."
Angry was such an understatement.
"You son of a bitch. I gave Demacia eight years of my life and some crappy heroism narrative to guard your secret. A secret which makes absolutely no sense to keep, knowing what we know about these things, but I did it anyway, for Demacia. I did everything you expected of me; I didn't contact my family, and I kept the narrative going strong. I did all the public-relations crap for you. But after all that, after I let the truth slip one time, you decided I didn't do enough and took away my father. Where does it end, huh?"
Silence.
"You know, I've been thinking about what you said to me five years ago. About how Demacia didn't want to hurt the morale of its citizens? I think that's crap. This was never about morale, it was about weaponizing. You don't actually want to kill these monsters, you want to turn them into tools to win your wars? Why else would you not tell the truth after so long, when we won the war against the Noxians? Huh?"
"I can neither confirm nor deny that."
"Screw you. Screw everything you stand for. I don't care how long it takes, but I will see you hang for this, you hear me? I will see you hang, no matter what it takes!"
"Suit yourself. But remember, if you will, the rank of the person you're talking to."
I snarled and stalked out of the house.
Six months had passed. The Demacian Military had publicly stripped me of my rank and had 'proved' that I lied about what happened at the Kaladoun Marshes. Instead of fighting an one-versus-one hundred, I had dropped my weapon like a coward when my unit was ambushed. I had begged and pleaded for my life, but that was cut short when the captain's unit swooped in and slaughtered the hundred Noxians. The 'heroes' were then publicly promoted to significantly higher ranks, while I was turned into a social pariah overnight. My name was tarred and feathered; where there used to be respect, there was now disgust when my name came up. Demacia takes care of its finest, as you can clearly see.
I was drowning my sorrows at the pub. I took a seat in the back, where no one would bother me. My clothes were in ill repair, with holes and stains on them. I couldn't have cared less about the state I was in, and I lacked the funds to make myself look presentable even if I had cared. I had ordered a bottle of the strongest alcohol they had, and I was already halfway through it. If I was going to be a pariah, I might as well act like it. As I drank, I bitterly realized that today, November 16, was my birthday. I was 24 today. I laughed loudly. There was no humor in it, only sadness. People looked at me, their eyes telling me to shut up.
A woman went inside the pub a short while later. She stood out because she wasn't dressed like the kind of women that usually went to pubs; neither a soldier nor a woman scorned. She was wearing a blue flower dress, the likes of which was far too formal for this pub. She was tall and pleasing to look at, with dark skin and long legs. The dress was neither too revealing nor too chaste, but just right for her.
"Bartender, I would like some red wine, please. And put what that man in the back has ordered on my tab."
The bartender raised his eyebrow and looked at me with scorn, and then at her with speculation. "Miss, you do know who that man is, right?"
"I'm well aware. If you please?"
He brought up his hands in a pacifying gesture and poured some wine in a wine glass. She took it with a smile and walked towards me, taking a seat at my table.
"I've been looking for you for a long time, Grayson Merlyn."
"Who's asking?"
"My name is Cordelia May, but you can call me May. I would like to hear the story of what happened at the Kaladoun Marshes."
I snorted. "Lady," I said, slurring the words through the onset of drunkenness, "I don't know where you live, but under a rock sounds about right. I'm a liar, remember? I begged and pleaded for my life, only to be saved by another unit. That's all you need to know. If you'd like me to tell the story of how I fought against a hundred Noxians, you're a couple of years too late."
She smiled. "I'm not talking about either of these stories. I'm talking about the real story, Grayson."
I blinked. "You're serious."
She nodded.
I downed the dregs of the bottle. "And what's in it for you?"
She sipped some wine. "The truth, of course. I had an interest in the void ever since I was 18. A decade ago, my parents were killed by Void monsters, but the Demacian government covered it up, said that it was a wild animal attack. Ever since, I've been traveling all over Valoran, searching for stories of people who have seen the monsters in action firsthand. What I want is for the government to finally acknowledge that there's a problem. The Void isn't something you can just ignore, pretend it doesn't exist."
"And why would I help you?"
"Because your country publicly humiliated you, and because they took your father away. I know about that. And also, if you help me, I would be willing to help you get closure for all that's happened. We have a group of people like you who were wronged by the Demacian government, and our base of operations is in Piltover."
I chewed over what she had just said to me. Demacia had screwed me in more ways than one, that was true. I had no reason to stay loyal to them still, especially after what happened to my father. And she said they were based in Piltover. I had never been to Piltover before, and after all that happened, it was starting to sound especially good.
"Is there a catch?"
She eyed the bottle. "I would like you to go sober if you decide to join us. I can see that you're a good man underneath that vagabond facade you dress yourself in, but I need your mind sharp."
"That's it?"
"That's it. You can turn me down, and I walk out of here, and you go about your life. But I think you don't really want to do that."
Ah, hell. I was good and convinced.
I told the truth, for the second time in five years.