Chapter 1: Destined to fail.
"Got fire for me?"
Talon took the lighter from Katarina and lit his cigarette. He, Kata and Zed were sitting below the fire escape at the back of the Academy. Smoking was prohibited on school property, and leaving school property during lunch break was prohibited too. Obviously, the only option was to do it all secretly.
Talon leaned back against the wall and slowly exhaled. Ten more minutes before their math class would start. Skipping was no option, with Twisted Fate as the teacher, so these were his only minutes of freedom for the next few hours. He glanced at Zed, hoping that he would not-
"Did you take notes in Professor Heimerdinger's class?" Zed asked.
That. That nerdy behavior. Katarina thought Zed's shadows were the coolest thing ever, so Talon was kind of forced to hang out with him too. But that guy was just obsessed with getting good grades.
Talon grunted as a way of saying 'no'.
"You?" Zed raised his eyebrows at Katarina, barely visible under his grey hoodie.
"No, I really have no idea what that guy is talking about." Katarina replied absentmindedly, blowing a puff of smoke into the air and watching it disappear.
Zed put his hands below his chin and leaned on them.
"Shen was writing so fast, I'm surprised his hand didn't fall off. I'm sure he's going to get higher grades than me this year. Again."
Talon rolled his eyes. So what? Nobody cared about that, not even Shen. Probably. Maybe. Actually, Talon had never really talked to Shen. Didn't seem like fun.
Katarina, however, bumped her fist against Zed's shoulder with a wicked grin.
"Nah, I'm sure you'll crush him this year."
That was another reason why Talon didn't like Zed: the attention Katarina gave him. Talon missed the times where they would just sit together, without Zed, contemplating life in silence while sharing forbidden cigarettes. Sometimes, they would have liquor too. But now, the only thing left of that were the cigarettes and the only thing Talon was contemplating was whether he was fast enough to knock out Zed before he could shadow away. Probably not. Stupid Marty Stue, who was good at literally every subject, including P.E.
"What time is it?" Katarina asked.
Before Talon could even grab his phone to look, a big eye appeared above all three of their heads.
"Fuck," Zed said, right before he vanished into his shadows.
Katarina made a run for it, teleporting to the tree furthest away that she could still reach.
Talon would've thrown his knives around him and disappear too, but he was too confused to do so. Had Zed actually said 'fuck'? That little nerd knew and used swearwords?
While Talon's respect for Zed grew by just a tiny bit, a circle of cards appeared on the ground beside him. He saw it, and knew it was too late to run. He would get stunned anyway and be in even more trouble.
From the cards, his math teacher took form. But instead of angry, disappointed or even slightly amused by the prospect of punishing, Fate looked like he was the one being caught in the act. And Talon only needed to glance down at the oversized shotgun in TF's hands to know why.
AN: What if all the LoL champs were in 1 highschool, instead of the Institute of War? That seemed like a fun idea to play with. And as making a series of animations turned out to be way too much work, we decided to turn this idea into a series of kind-of-related fanfictions, describing one semester on the Academy of Runeterra.
And we even made a Logo and everything!
-Roozyj and Nana Ba