"This sigil...What is this?"
Takumu knelt down and examined the strange glowing symbol on the ground. Reaching out with one dark blue finger, he lightly traced its edges; the sigil seemed warm to the touch, or perhaps it was just the ground. On the ultra-hard stage 'Demonic City' where the environment's indestructability could rival diamonds, the ground and the walls all felt the same.
The symbol itself didn't feel particularly strange. Round in shape, it contained the raised outlines of three objects - Takumu wondered if they represented crystals of some sort - placed before the outline of a building. The foundations seemed to be an opened book, supporting the three...crystals. The crystals themselves glowed a light blue, similar to his armour colour.
"Is this even part of the Unlimited Field?" Takumu murmured aloud. He flicked the symbol with his finger, pinging off the middle crystal. The crystal's light seemed to flicker ever so slightly, and then it began to darken, rousing Takumu's waning interest.
"Eh?"
The whole sigil began to darken, but the light within didn't fade out - on the contrary, a gem in the center of the 'book' began to sparkle. From deep within its depths, a white light began to twinkle as though from far away. There was nothing outwardly sinister about the light, and yet Takumu's gut instincts told him to back off. Unconscious signals translated into physical movements of his duel avatar, and his feet began to shuffle backwards away from the light-
"-!"
All was white. And then Takumu's world went dark.
League of Legends
Being a Champion is Suffering!
Begins.
Darkness. Lying on his stomach, head to the side.
A dull pain throbbed in Takumu's head. The ache reminded him of the one time he had tried a can of beer with his 'friends,' when he was still at the gifted school. The alcohol had burned for a day and left him with aches for a week-
This isn't school.
Takumu opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor, and wherever he was...it smelled. He inhaled a little of the room's odor and nearly gagged.
That's when he realised he was still in his duel avatar - Cyan Pile. It all came back to him: his exploration of the Unlimited Neutral Field, his discovery of the strange sigil on the ground, the light that had shone bright beyond imagination when he had flicked the sigil. Had he been teleported to another area?
"Wha...What is this place?"
It was very dirty, indeed. As his eyes adjusted, it was clear that this particular room had hardly been taken care of, for who know how long. A thick layer of dust clung to every surface, scrolls of all sizes littered the place and covered broken desks; the far wall was ominously covered in a blackish substance he cared not to identify.
"Atchoo!"
A distinctively human noise made Takumu whirl around, instinctively bringing up his Pile Driver-
[Stop! Don't hurt us!]
A young man's shrilly voice cried out in a strange language. The hood of his robe had come off, revealing a look of terror on his freckled features. Three companions behind him took one look at Cyan Pile and fled the room instantly.
Takumu had always figured that a duel avatar was larger than a human, but this boy appeared tiny in comparison! He looked no older than fifteen or sixteen, with strange features and ginger hair that was definitely not Japanese; in contrast, Cyan Pile's head nearly grazed the ceiling, so his avatar was nearly twice as tall as the boy. No wonder he looked threatening! Takumu quickly withdrew the Pile Driver and put up his hands: the universal gesture of non-aggression.
"Sorry! I didn't mean to scare you or anything-"
Takumu's assurance failed to relieve the boy. If anything, he only looked more scared than ever; a dark stain began to spread from the middle of the boy's robes. The stench only worsened the noxious air invading Takumu's senses and he wrinkled his nose.
"Can...Can you understand me?"
He tried to say it softer, gentler, affirming his intention to communicate. As he had begun to suspect, the boy didn't acknowledge his question, save for a visible tremor in his hands.
"Is it that you only speak English? Hi, I mean you no harm-" Takumu switched languages and extended one large hand forwards.
[EEEK!] The boy squeaked and fled the room instantly. Crestfallen, Takumu lowered his hand - Cyan Pile's hand - and look around him again.
This place couldn't be the Unlimited Field. Those boys had to be human; no amount of AI programming could replicate the looks of terror they had displayed. The fact that neither of them seemed to be able to understand each other was confirmation that they were very much from different places.
Something nagged at Takumu: were they merely from different countries? He strode over to a nearby scroll and unfurled it: it was covered from end to end in strange characters, resembling nothing like kanji. Not even English letters looked like this.
And then he glanced down at the floor, and the revelation hit him in the gut: the same sigil was carved into the floor. It was grimy, it was worn in places, but it was unmistakably the same sigil that he had seen in the Unlimited Field just a while ago.
His breath came in ragged gasps. With a thud and a small quake, Cyan Pile sank to the floor, not quite able to accept the facts.
I'm... I'm not in Brain Burst anymore, am I?
Footsteps interrupted his train of thought. Turning his head around, Takumu saw two figures: the boy he first saw earlier, and a second, taller man with a more ornate purple robe. Lines creased his forehead and his eyebrows were knitted together.
[What have you done here, boy... Have you summoned an Abomination from the Void?]
[I'm sorry, I don't know! Senior, forgive me, please!]
Takumu looked at both of them in confusion. He didn't need to understand to know their exchange: the man was obviously displeased with the boy, and punishment awaited. But what was to be done about him?
The man extended one finger and pointed it straight at Takumu, then at the corridor from which they had came from.
[You. Come.]
There was no need for a translation. Cyan Pile rose from the grimy floor, and with every step, approached his new future - or as Takumu thought, possibly his impending doom.
It was a good thing that in his duel avatar, within the pile driver covering his right forearm, no one could see his hand trembling in fear.
tbc.
.
Notes:
Hello reader. Welcome to the first chapter of the first LoL x AW crossover! I started playing League not too long ago, but after going through the champions, lores, endless pages of guides and information, and a handful of fanfictions, I feel like I'm ready to begin a new story that combines the two. This is not the most likely crossover, I'm quite sure of it, and the average LoL fan has probably never even heard of Accel World - the wikia is a good place to get started, but as of last year Yen Press has begun to market the English light novel. I'm not suggesting you buy a book you've never heard of just to read a fanfic, let's limit the crazyness to this point.
Boop.
As for AW fans, I've always wanted to have a Takumu-centric fic. If nothing else, he's done too much time having his ass busted while Haruyuki takes the credit, or he's set up as the curbstomp guy. Always. Let's objectively set aside his poor onscreen record for...something that could be worse. Ha. But in all seriousness and practicality, it's also because I've only thought about crafting a skillset for Cyan Pile to fit in the MOBA game style, so as the story progresses I could fit in more duel avatars. It's not concrete at this point.
As of this sentence, the chapter notes are no longer allowed to exceed 200 words: this is a story, not a author's notes' compilation. Stick around for the next chapter!
-Tusjecht
