Sequence 1.1

Ignis Kotov was a hard and mean woman. You had to be if you were going to make it as a chem-baron in the twin cities of Piltover and Zaun. She ran a tight shift, had brutal guards, and carried a sidearm at all times. Life as a chem-baron was dangerous after all. She was currently in a warehouse, overseeing her underlings as they unloaded shipments of illegal chemicals and modifications. The best part of smuggling Chemtech was that you didn't have to pay taxes. She laughed thinking of it.

"Is everything okay boss?" asked Ralf, her second in command.

"Yes Ralf, how's the perimeter looking?" she answered. One could never be too sure.

Ralf reached for his radio, thumbing a switch.

"Baker, how's the outside looking," he said into the radio.

He was answered with silence.

"Baker," he spoke again, slightly more frantic, "Come in, how's the outside looking?"

"Could it be them?" Ralf asked Ignis.

"Doubtful, they haven't been spotted this low into Zaun, they mostly patrol Piltover," she answered.

It was at this moment that a body flew through a high up window, plummeting for fifteen feet before slamming into the ground.

Ralf looked down and the lifeless face of Baker starred up at him. Blood pooled around the corpse. The workers froze and the guards around Ignis readied their weapons.

On the other side of the warehouse, the door exploded with a crash and in the light of the Chemtech, a silhouette rose from the floor. It raised its left arm and with multiple flashes, the workers and guards around her were gunned to the ground.

"Get them!" she screamed as she began to back up.

The figure pulled out some sort of weapon, shaped like a cane and skewered a charging guard through the throat before spinning and throwing the weapon into the back of a fleeing worker. The worker went down with a cry and attempted to crawl away before stopping, blood pouring from their wound.

They then brandished their wrist mounted machinegun and began to line it up with Ignis. Ignis pulled one of her brutes in front of her before they fired and she felt the impacts of the bullets through his thick body. The other brutes around her aimed with their weaponry and opened fire at the figure but they rolled out of the way, yanking their weapon out of the dead worker and pressing a switch on it, opening up a sort of shield in front of them.

The bullets pinged off and deflected, some hitting and cutting down the fleeing workers.
From the second-floor, a guard fired their rifle at the figure. Their shoulder exploded outwards in metal shards as the shell hit them. The whine of servos sounded as their mechanical shoulder spun and tried to compensate for the damage. At least this vigilante could be damaged.

Sparks leapt from their shoulder as they tried to raise their arm but the servos shrieked in anger before the arm dropped down. Their machinegun was out of commission, it's arm stuck in the downright position.

The figure activated another feature on their weapon and small canisters of smoke shot out of the tip, landing all over the warehouse.

Ignis couldn't even see the silhouettes of her closest guards but she could hear one by one as they were scythed to the ground by the mysterious weapon-wielder.

And then she heard nothing.

"P-p-please don't kill me, I have children, I have a family," lied Ignis, tears streaking down her face.

From behind her Ignis heard a noise like crying, heavily distorted by rebreather technology and radio equipment.

It was only the moment before her head was cut from her shoulders that Ignis realized that the noise was laughter.

The scene that greeted Caitlyn and Vi was one of carnage and death. Blood splattered walls framed broken windows like a cracked smile. Bodies sprawled all over the floors and rivers of red ran from them. Caitlyn was looking at the body of the chem-baron, a grisly sight. Her head was skewered into the wall at head height by a foot long spike while her body lay on the ground fifteen feet away. 'What could have done this?' she wondered.

She was interrupted from her thoughts by Vi, who pushed a slumped over body off of a crate. When the body hit the ground, something cracked and blood oozed out in light streams. Looking closer, Caitlyn realized the body had three holes in its chest in a circular shape, about three or four inches in diameter. These matched the bodies at the other ten sites of carnage that had happened since the vigilante began their movement.

Nobody was safe regardless of where they were be it the highest levels in Piltover or the lowest in Zaun. Vi gripped the lip of the crate with her large gauntlets and pried it open revealing a box full of chem-tech and robot parts.

"Cupcake, they didn't even take the goods," said Vi.

"Yes, Vi," replied Caitlyn, slightly annoyed at the nickname, "I noticed."

Vi shrugged before moving to another crate, ripping it open to reveal the same result. Almost every crate in the building was still full of illegal products… all except one.

A medium sized crate towards the back of the warehouse had a gaping hole cut into its side, small bronze cylinders had rolled out of it and laid on the ground spread out from it. Caitlyn picked one up and immediately recognized it.

"Kashuri Armories Type C Ballistic Round," she told her partner, "Outlawed in the mainland due to their unstable cores creating large explosions that could kill innocents with shrapnel."

She looked at the nearest body and realized that the holes in them were about the size of a detonation from one of these shells.

"Well that limits our suspects, Kashuri rounds are only able to be used in their own weaponry, although the weapons can use any type of ammunition, some monks think that their weapon-spirits prefer Kashuri shells though," Caitlyn explained, not noticing the bored look of her partner.

"Alright Cupcake, you can stop now," said an exasperated Vi.

SHI'AREAH [ENGAGED]

BOOTING UP INTERNAL DRIVERS

COOLANT SYSTEMS ACTIVATED

FALLBACK NET ACTIVATED

(INSERT MEMORY DIGIT): -

{NO MEMORY INSERTED}

(INSERT MEMORY DIGIT): 0000001

{VALID MEMORY… ENGAGING}

SEQUENCE STARTING

-~-COMMENCING MEMORY-~-

She runs next to me, her laughter sounds like twinkling stars. We run through the rice fields, I do not know where we are. I do not know when we are. I do not know who we are. I try to look at her face, look into her eyes. I see only darkness, or maybe it is light, I can not tell.

[WARNING! MEMORY COHESION 65%]

I try to look deeper. I see a smile, faded, cracked, glitched, but still there. And then the smile is gone. I laugh, the plants caress our bare feet, we fly over puddles of clear water. A storm brews behind us.

[WARNING! MEMORY COHESION 47%]

We are the wind, we soar through the fields, farmers are fleeing from the storm, taking shelter. We are the storm, we are the tempest. Me and her.

[WARNING! MEMORY COHESION 13%]

We fly over the hill and see the gates to heaven, it is burning, who am I? I am-t$%&a K*e!^*$*(b )!

[WARNING! MEMORY COHESION 0%]

-~-TERMINATING MEMORY-~-

SEQUENCE ENDING

FALLBACK NET DEACTIVATED

COOLANT SYSTEMS DEACTIVATED

SHUTTING DOWN INTERNAL DRIVERS

SHI'AREAH [DISENGAGED]

Hi all!

Long time no see!

Fresh Sorcerer here with a new side story while I work on a collab with some other authors. You might know who they are but I am not willing to share any more info yet! That's only for the people on the Discord Server.

Anyways, this is an idea I have had for a while ago and I think it's going to be cool.

Chapters will be on the short side but that means I can write them faster and I promise this story will go on farther than anything I've ever done!

Pay special attention to the glitches in the memory sequence in this chapter and following ones.

Thanks and bye!

-Fresh Sorcerer