[Fanfiction] Fracture - Chapter 10 (1)
PROLOGUE: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/fancreations/fZAXxjHA-fanfiction-fracture PREVIOUS CHAPTER: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/fancreations/Wksy4MBf-fanfiction-fracture-chapter-9-1
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.)
Note: Thanks to word limitations I have to separate this chapter into two parts as well. I might have to do this for a lot of coming chapters.
REVELATION
"So I led Cassiopeia here," said the Battle Mistress, tracing one finger across the leather map spread over the sand, "and it was in this structure that the curse happened."
The three of them sat around the map in the shade of a dilapidated pavilion. They'd stumbled upon it while continuing west and thought it a good place to stop and rest. In the distance, Cassiopeia coiled around a tilted column.
"The Serpent's Embrace was cursed in Shurima?" asked Nasus, surprised. "Was it not a Freljord diplomat who transformed her?"
"A cover story," answered Katarina, lips pressed together in a thin line as if it irked her to say so. "Noxus didn't want people knowing about our activities in Shurima."
"They paid me a lot of hush money to keep quiet, that's for sure," Sivir chuckled, ignoring the assassin's glare. "Of course, that was after they tried killing me."
"What was it that Noxus hoped to find in Shurima?" He had never seen any signs of them when he had wandered amongst the ancient ruins of the cities. Had they been so covert as for him not to have noticed?
"What Noxus is always looking for," explained the Battle Mistress breezily. "Power."
She paused, shooting a pointedly inquiring look at the Sinister Blade. Katarina raised one deadpan brow in reply, crossing her arms. Sivir rolled her eyes. As fascinating as their nonverbal communication was to watch, Nasus had the distinct feeling that he was being hopelessly left behind.
"Right. So," she continued, as if the brief intermission had never occurred, "I was guiding her through this tomb, very promising, when she didn't listen to me and set off a trap. What happens after I think you can guess."
"Miss Du Couteau mentioned that she and her sister attempted to seek me out." The Curator of the Sands turned a glance at the Noxian assassin curiously. "Why?"
"Beyond being a creature of immortal origins and keeper to a plethora of knowledge," she began, tone only slightly dry, "I knew you spent a lot of time in Shurima. I figured you would be our best bet."
"And so now, we seek the very tomb that cursed her in hopes of finding a solution?"
"That's the gist of it," affirmed Sivir, snapping her fingers. "Much as I'd love to leave her like that – "
"Don't even think about that."
"– I've always wanted to see what was left," she finished, with a sharp smile. "A lot of it collapsed in on top of us, but most of it should be intact."
"That significantly lowers our chances of discovering anything that may aid her, however," noted Nasus, frowning.
The mercenary shrugged, rolling up the map. "We'll just have to take what we can get."
"For your sake, it'd better be good enough for Cass," muttered Katarina underneath her breath. She got to her feet, brushing the sand off her pants. "Do you two... see that?"
The Noxian assassin pointed off somewhere in the distance, taking a hesitant step forward. On the horizon, a silhouette, made dark by the bright back-lighting of the sun, approached. There was something familiar about the bow-like shape they were carrying. Nasus rose.
"I'm not hallucinating from that cactus we drank earlier, am I?" she asked, warily.
"If you were hallucinating, we'd all be," muttered Sivir, coming to stand beside her. "But I do see something. A figure?"
"My brother," corrected the librarian gravely, putting a hand on the mercenary's shoulder and pulling her back slightly. "We should go."
"What do you mean 'go?' " she demanded, shrugging him off. "The three of us are more than enough to kill him."
This was true, certainly, but despite his earlier willingness to put his brother to rest, Nasus now felt within him a peculiar unease at the notion of it. Perhaps his brother was not so totally empty, nor utterly controlled by his rage as he had once thought – after all, he had somehow forged a friendly relationship with the Serpent's Embrace. Could there be salvation for Renekton after all? If there was, could he deny him that chance?
"Too late to run now," said Katarina, dashing off in the direction of the fast approaching silhouette. "Cassiopeia!"
Sivir cursed under her breath, and followed after. The younger Du Couteau sister had slithered out to meet him.
.
.
.
She was drowning.
"Why the fuck," she bellowed at the top of the lungs, "did you do this?"
She thought she heard laughter; she couldn't tell over the screeching.
Voidlings – voidlings, everywhere. They were swarming her, and no matter how many she crushed in her hands, how many she stomped into the ground, it was like they never. Stopped. Coming.
Vi growled, tearing one in half. Those goddamn Cult of the Void creeps. Were they spillovers from Zaun? Where in the hell were they, and why couldn't the police force seem to find them?
"Where are they coming from?" she gasped, trying to shake off the ones that had crawled up her legs. They were skittering up her stomach now and it was disgusting.
There was a controlled boom and a bright flash. "There's some kind of – some kind of tear in the middle of the square!"
"What, like a tear in clothing?" the Enforcer yelled back, stumbling on the voidlings skittering across the ground.
"I guess!" answered Lantern-jaw, and when she looked over she could see him covered in guts. "It's like some sort of portal to the Void, I think."
"Can you close it?"
"We have to –" He stumbled mid-sentence, catching himself on his Mercury Hammer and crushing one voidling on the way. "We have to kill the one keeping it open, I think!"
Vi cursed underneath her breath, flattening one of the little monsters with her palm as she knelt and tried to catch her breath. There were still so many left in the swarm, it was almost dizzying, and thank god she was durable as fuck because they were still climbing on her, sinking their little teeth in.
"Those bastards could be anywhere by now!"
"Just hang on!" yelled the inventor, swinging his hammer in a wide arc. "I think it's getting... smaller?"
"What?"
"It's shrinking, I dunno!"
She couldn't see the damn thing, and she wished she could because apparently Jayce sucked ass at explaining things on the fly. Vi looked around frantically, trying to track the movements of the voidling swarm. They were rushing out of the square as fast as they could, but it didn't look like many of them got out. Sometimes their officers were stupid little fucks, but at least they knew enough to form a perimeter.
An explosion rocked the ground. Then multiple explosions.
The Enforcer landed heavily, slipping on the guts and blood of the little monsters. There was a shrill laugh.
"Look what I found," said someone in sing-song.
"I do not have time for your shit right now, you crazy bitch," she grunted, hauling herself up.
The horde had thinned, but there was still a little trickle of them. She could see the tear Jayce had been talking about – a wispy, purple-y thing that looked hella bizarre when she stared at it too long. It was like gazing into one of Syndra's dark spheres for longer than a minute.
It was fucking tiny.
"Calm down, Fat Hands. I'm here to help." When she looked up, she could see the nasty grin on Jinx's face. Her doped up eyes still looked crazy a rooftop away. "Look what I brought you."
The maniac had someone's hood in her hand, and she slung him off the edge of the roof. He landed with a loud crack. Vi thought she could see the blood starting to pool.
"Oh. Oops."
"What the fuck?" she yelled, rushing over to the body. Jayce was already there.
"Already dead," he said, shaking his head regretfully. He shot a glance over at the middle of the square. "The tear's gone."
"He was the last of 'em," Jinx told them with a careless shrug. "I thought you'd want him to talk or something, buuuuut I guess that's a no-go."
"Why are you helping us anyway?" demanded the Enforcer, baring a clenched fist. "Thought this 'wreck the city' shit would be right up your alley."
"As hi-larious as it would be to watch you two wussies get eaten up," she began belligerently, hands on her hips, "I hear these Void punks wanna blow up the world. I thought it'd be fun until Fishbones mentioned no more world meant no more chaos – and no more chaos means no more fun!"
Jayce stared for a full moment before shooting her a sidelong glance. "This is the crazy you were talking about?" he whispered to her.
"Take a guess," she muttered back.
"I heard a little screaming and was like, 'Who's messing stuff up without me? That's my job!' and I came to check it out and found these guys running around. So I killed them. You can find the rest of them..." She looked back and forth, hand shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun. "...Somewhere."
"We, uh, appreciate your efforts, but now that he's dead, we don't have anymore leads," shouted Lantern-jaw, hands cupped around his mouth.
"Not my prob anymore, Hammer-face," Jinx replied, shrugging. "I'm just here to stop things from blowing up by blowing them up."
Jayce made a gloriously confused face, and for one eensy, weensy second Vi thought that, maybe, the crazy bitch wasn't so bad. It was incredibly short-lived.
"Right, uh..." He rubbed the back of his head, and she held in a smirk when he stopped to look at his hand and shuddered at the sludge it was covered in. "Thanks, I guess?"
"Nooooo problem," she sang, rocking on her heels.
"But where the hell do we go from here? The freaks are dead, and we don't have a clue why they were even here to begin with," the Enforcer pointed out, crossing her arms.
"What do ya mean 'no clue?' You only gotta look."
Jayce frowned. "Look where?"
"The big guy, with the teeth and the four arms," she said, pointing somewhere off in the distance over Piltover's wall. "He a friend of yours?"
...Four arms?
Vi blanched.
.
.
.
Next Part: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/fancreations/5Qa2YJNH-fanfiction-fracture-chapter-10-2