Unity - Chapter One
Before reading this story, please look at these linked champion concepts, as they're the main protagonists of this story, and this story will make much less sense without knowing their lore. Deity, Aspect of Unity || Terunis - Aspect of Runeterra
The darkness of the Void gathers in the clouds. The air itself feels like it's being repelled away from the gathering storm. The sky grows dark, and a multitude of shadowy figures begin to make their way out of what looks like a pillar of absolute darkness in front of her. The end has arrived...and she's all that stands in the way. "I have to move...this can't be allowed to happen. Not again!" The pillar unleashes a burst of power, knocking her to the ground. "Get up..." she mutters to herself. "I need to move...GET UP!"
At this moment, Deity sits bolt upright in her bed. She's been having this same nightmare for what feels like an eternity now. The haunting memories of her hometown of Icathia being destroyed...and also a vision of what's yet to come. The Void does not rest. Does not stop. Until it consumes all. Deity takes a few moments to look at her surroundings. The room of the inn she was staying at was very bland and ordinary, but the atmosphere felt very quaint. Almost no decorations were in the room. Just a bed, a bright red rug, a nightstand, a small lamp, and a book. Her book. Her diary recording everything she learned in her travels. She reaches for it, then stops short and sighs deeply. She's trembling again. The nightmare is getting to her more and more each time. "The day is getting closer..." she mutters to herself. "...If only these people would listen."
"Nobody but us can hope to unite them." The Aspect of Unity, bound to her soul, was correct, of course. The task was theirs, and theirs alone. They must get the people of Runeterra to hear their warning. The Void threat was fast approaching, and yet the humans, the yordles...even the land itself...all were fighting against each other. "I can only hope they hear me soon." Deity said quietly as she climbed out of bed. She quickly gathered her belongings and left the room. "Good day!" Deity said to the innkeeper as she turned in her key. "You have a wonderful day, miss!" said the innkeeper as Deity left the inn and walked outside.
The sunlight was strong, and the ever-present clatter of Piltover's many inventions being tinkered with filled the air with the sound of progress, and the occasional hint of despair from something going wrong. Deity walked along the busy road, being careful to avoid contact with any of the clamoring inventors hurriedly rushing along with their machines and parts, looking at the numbers on the nearby buildings. "241...241..." she mumbled to herself, looking for the correct address. "Oh, wait!" Deity pulled out a map of the town, and after looking at it for a moment, snapped her fingers and transported herself to the other side of town. Teleporting short distances was nothing to an Icathian spellblade, as long as they knew where to go. The map she has wasn't extremely detailed, but the town was simple enough to navigate with it that Deity could transport herself to one of the several large plazas she made sure to visit when she arrived here, and walk from there instead. It was a lot more comfortable than taking an hour to walk across town, at the very least.
Continuing her mantra of "241" as she walked along a different road, she eventually came to her destination: a rather unkempt looking building that seemed to be unoccupied. Leaves and twigs littered the sidewalk towards the door. The small patches of grass on either side of it overgrown from neglect. Deity took a small breath. "This is it." she said to herself. She walked to the door and knocked three times. No answer. She knocked again. Still she was left unanswered. "Your friend...is he not home?" The Aspect echoed in Deity's head. "Perhaps we should come again later?"
Deity shook her head. "Master Zilean's always been this way...we're definitely in the right place." Deity looked around for a moment to determine nobody was watching, then cast a spell, unlocking the door. Quickly, she stepped inside and shut the door.
"Interesting..." The Aspect was appalled, as Deity had never openly trespassed on someone in broad daylight in this manner before. "Is whatever you're hoping to find here so important?"
"Yes." Deity responded in her mind. "Master Zilean's spell that day was one to see all outcomes. If it was successful, and he has any record of how to defeat the Void, it's absolutely essential we know how. If it wasn't, then the tome containing the spell should be here, and we'll have to get it right so that we can stop this. We're running out of time. Besides...he owes us. He owes all of Icathia for his idleness.
Deity tore through Zilean's collection of books almost as haphazardly as he kept his books. The entire house appeared to have been neglected for quite some time, and the library of materials Zilean kept were equally disorganized, scattered about and strewn everywhere in the room. Deity didn't let this stop her. She'd been in charge of sorting these same kinds of messes for her master several times in the past. Almost methodically, she cleaned up the entire house as she went. "He can thank me later." she uttered periodically as this process continued for almost two hours. "He might finally want to reside here again by the time I'm finished." Zilean had a habit of being away for very long periods of time at once, and as a joke, Deity and the other wizard apprentices had claimed that he wouldn't return until they cleaned up his mess for him. Deity had no doubt her old master was far and away from here at this moment, and judging by how unkempt the place was, he'd remain gone for awhile longer. Deity then found, after all of the cleaning, a small trapdoor underneath all the rubble that once littered the house, and without hesitation opened it. Zilean liked to keep his most important work in places like these, and so she knew she was close.
The moment the door opened, there was a flash of light. Deity screamed, shielding her eyes, as reality itself seemed to waver.
The darkness of the Void gathers in the clouds. The air itself feels like it's being repelled away from the gathering storm. The sky grows dark, and a multitude of shadowy figures begin to make their way out of what looks like a pillar of absolute darkness in front of her. The end has arrived...and she's all that stands in the way...
Sitting up abruptly, Deity looked around quickly, determining that she was indeed sitting in the inn from that morning. What...how am I back here? she wondered. It was indeed the same. No real decorations. Just a bed, a rug, a nightstand, and a lamp.
She stopped, eyes locking onto the rug. That was red before...now its green...what is this?
Just as Deity thought that to herself, the door to the inn opened. The intruder seemed taken aback. "You are you?!" he asked. "And why are you in my room?!" The man seemed to be in his mid twenties, with bright, silver-blonde hair. he had an impressive looking arsenal: a chem-tech revolver tucked into its holster on his waist, and a hextech blade similar to her own blades, but larger, folded away neatly on his other side. But what really confused Deity was that even though the man was a complete stranger, he felt...eerily familiar. Like someone she should know from somewhere, but couldn't remember.
At the same time, both Deity and the man noticed each other's journals, sticking out of the other's traveling packs in a very similar fashion. They looked exactly the same: hand-made using the same materials, bound in the exact same way she was taught to by the Vastayan she met while visiting Ionia...even the same feather she received as a gift from that very same Vastayan to remember her by. At that moment, Deity figured it out in her head.
"I can explain, but you probably won't believe me." she told the man, who was still staring almost in shock at the journal sticking out of her pack. The man started to slowly reach for his blade, but before he could draw it, Deity deftly lunged at him, grabbing his arm. She snapped her fingers, transporting them both to a place she knew wouldn't have changed regardless of what timeline she was in.
Quickly leaping back after the teleportation, Deity left the man to wonder for a moment. "This is...Mount Targon. You teleported us?! Why here?!" The man exclaimed as he drew his sword.
"This is the only place I could transport us to that will make you believe me...and the only place safe from others' ears." Deity replied, keeping her hands raised towards the sky to show she meant him no harm. "You're an Aspect, aren't you?"
"How...you're one too?"
"That saves us a lot of time. I'm not just any Aspect. I'm likely the very same Aspect as you are." Deity was trying to sound confident in this, but she was truthfully guessing. There was sufficient evidence to prove her theory...but there was no way to be completely sure of it without seeing evidence of the Aspect's will. That was the true reason she'd come here - to determine this man's status among Aspects. "I was looking for clues in my old master's residence, and I triggered some sort of trap. It seems like it sent me to another timeline, where you ended up being fused with the Aspect instead of me."
"That's impossible! What wizard could possibly...wait..." The man paused, thinking for a moment. "There was a boy in Zaun...he could rewind his own timeline. But that was through technology! And there's no way he could go far! You're saying there's a wizard who can manipulate OTHERS to travel through time against their will?!"
It was indeed possible, for a man like Zilean. Temporal manipulation was almost like a hobby for him. And it would make sense: if there was a spell to determine all outcomes, the obvious counter to that spell would be to manipulate which outcomes were possible. Damn that man! Deity cursed to herself. Does he never think about what could happen if he causes a paradox?!
"Is...was...hard to tell with that man what is and what isn't. Also, dumb question, but what day and year is this?" Deity asked, speaking quickly. "The day of their return was already getting closer...I'm not sure if I have very much time to explain."
"Yeah...it's close. The man said in a somewhat defeated tone. There was a long, tense pause as each faced the reality that they may very well face the threat with what Deity assumed to be only the support of the Vastayan tribes. They were, at least in her timeline, the only ones who had listened to her warning. And since the man had that same feather and journal, she felt confident that they were the only ones who listened in this timeline too.
"I suppose I have to believe you. Nobody else seems to even know what they are." he finally said. "My name is Terunis. If you're an Aspect from another timeline, then please help me with my fight. We can figure out how to transport you back once we save the world!" His tone was half-sarcastic, but Deity knew he was right. The Void threat was far more important than simply transferring her back to her original timeline. The Void does not stop. Not until it consumes all. Including her way home.
"I am Deity. I suppose we should prepare for war."
