DISCLAIMER: "Mom! Mom! Mom! Mummy! Mummy! Mummy! Momma! Momma! Momma! Ma! Ma! Ma! Ma! Mum! Mum! Mum! Mum! Mommy! Mommy! Momma! Momma! Momma!" "WHAT?!" "I don't own League of Legends." *runs away giggling*
Despite what many of you might think, the whole Ahri/Zyra shtick that this fic was based on didn't originally come from A New Dawn. It actually came from me reading the champion entries on TVTropes and hearing the point that these two ladies present quite an interesting juxtaposition, with both being ascended to their human form via the use of magic but with the Nine-tailed Fox being a conscientious young woman trying to learn the nuances of the human psyche and the Queen of Thorns (for what little characterization she has) a merciless killer with the much simpler goal of experiencing as much as she can with her new form, no matter the cost. A New Dawn likely had the two meet as a nod to this.
So I made a fanfic where they duke it out while casually discussing philosophy under the sunset! Aren't I original!
Well, that and I think Zyra's participation in the battle was miserable and unfair and this is totally not a Fix Fic to lay out how it should have gone and you didn't just hear that because if you didn't I'm dispatching a team of highly trained monkey's to dispatch you.
So with that said, it's the first thing I've uploaded in over a year. Gotta keep my inferior writing somewhat sharp, after all. T_T
Enjoy, mis amigos.
Hybrids
Continental Flatlands
The forest whispered its agitation with every passing step.
Ahri felt the hollow bark of a rotting tree trunk creak under her sandals as she hopped off it onto the forest detritus. The girl was making her way from Noxus to Demacia on the other side of the continent after an unpleasantly long stowaway from Ionia and had opted to eschew the roadways that had taken her this far in lieu of a quiet forest stroll – the experience often brought back hazy memories from when she had been a fox and, while she had no desire to return to that form any time soon, the sheer pandemonium that was typical of human settlements was overwhelming to the gumiho more often than not.
As the girl continued her trek, her unease strengthened. Human language had almost no names for the feeling she had; the closest she had gotten was an Ionian word for, "sixth sense," but that was more in the context of an impending unfortunate mishap than a certainty of any incoming danger that threatened one's wellbeing. Perhaps she could use another few years learning the various tongues again.
The feeling spiked as she manoeuvred to avoid a thorny bush while not snagging any of her tails in its branches. Eyes widening, Ahri hurled herself to the side and curled into a ball as she felt – and heard – a tendril-like object whip through the space she had just been standing with an unpleasantly sharp crack. Straightening again, her eyes narrowed as she witnessed the spiny tip of a creeper vine retract back into the earth underneath the thorn bush.
She had never seen this before. Casting her orb into existence with a crackle of ethereal flame, she took slow, deliberate steps backwards, trusting her senses to warn of any new attacks.
Soon enough, it did so, alerting her to a tendril that had snaked its way up into the canopy of the trees and was arcing downwards right for the young lady in the woods. A smirk on her face, Ahri waited until the last possible moment before lashing her body to the side and bringing a single foxfire down onto the tentacle with her outward arm. The blue flame disintegrated upon hitting the material, unable to burn through the tough plant, though it left its mark as the outer few layers of flesh were incinerated and turned to ash. Meanwhile, the tentacle itself recoiled violently, showing a degree of pain reception that almost no plant possessed and swinging far away from her as if to retreat from the offending flames.
As the tendril retracted again, Ahri mocked, "Come out and face me if you're not afraid!"
She was mildly disappointed when she got no response for her efforts; either her assailant was smart or simply didn't care enough about the challenge to bother with a reply. But in either case, she wasn't luring them out any time soon.
The shattering of wood forced Ahri's head to turn long before her sixth sense even needed to kick in. The girl gawked for just a moment when she saw a massive wall of vines approaching from the undergrowth, shearing the bark from the trees it passed and outright uprooting anything of lesser size. Gathering her magic, the girl felt her head spin for just a moment as she forced it through the soles of her feet in a haphazard manner to jet herself out of harm's way. The wall of flesh passed her by and then almost instantly fell apart as the vines retracted back into the earth.
How irritating to go from a pleasant walk to running for her life, she bemoaned.
Her ears twitched towards the sound of cracking earth. Realising the sound didn't suggest any kind of projectile being fired at her, she frowned and turned, her gaze dropping to stare at the peculiar sight of what looked to be a pink flower bulb sprouting from the dirt.
Before she could contemplate this new development, the sound of the ground rumbling under her feet made her only scoff in annoyance and roll out of the way as a veritable flechette storm of thorns erupted from the soil that would have surely left her brutally impaled had it hit.
Glancing around again at the bulb, she blinked. As if watching the growth of a plant at high speed, a stalk was threading its way out of the folded petals, following a curvy path akin to a snake slithering through the air. By the time it had finally stopped ascending, it was taller than Ahri. The tip burst open to reveal more pink-coloured petals that flared out to form a flytrap-like organism.
Cautious enough as she was, she was still caught by surprise when the plant turned and appeared to look at her directly.
And then it started shooting thorns at her too.
"You have got to be kidding me," she growled.
Rolling to the side and feeling the wave of thorns whistle through the air beside her, she began casting her orb into place as the flower reared for another strike. With a yell, she tossed it, feeling some primal satisfaction in seeing the flames disintegrate the plant from the neck up before it could fire and let the rest drop back to the earth in a dead heap.
In a show of effort that proved its owner would always value quantity over quality, more plants, vines and thorns burst from the undergrowth around her all at once before she'd even caught her orb back. Yelping like a kit, dizziness swam in her head once again as she jettisoned out of the way of all of them at once with a rush of spirit energy. Snatching her orb out of the air as it returned to her as well as dedicating what little multitasking capacity she had left to orbiting foxfires, she let loose with the expelled spirit energy, her foxfires and her spirit orb on as many of the thorn spitters as she could. Their remains hit the ground with a dull thump, before they too could fire a second salvo.
Letting out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding, Ahri paused and dusted herself off before panning her view along the forest around her, which had gone eerily quiet as the assaults appeared to have ceased. "No more challengers?"
In a fit of irony, the ground trembled. The gumiho recoiled and leapt out of the way just as a massive snarl of thorny tendrils spiked out of the earth and several dozen feet into the air. As she landed, they were already untangling to snake their way across the ground with frightening speed, forming a living carpet that strangled anything that stood in its way.
Eyes widening, Ahri's head spun as she practically threw herself as far as she could from the encroaching thorns. For all her agility, however, it was not enough to evade the attack; as the thorns reached a critical point, they thrust upward, uprooting all of the trees, ground and rocks they had grasped and catching itself just for a moment on her foot as she attempted to get clear.
The vine's grip wasn't strong enough to keep a hold of her as she went, but the force of it threw her head over heels and she barely managed to lift her arms up above her head before a grisly landing on the back of her head could occur. She tumbled several feet as her ears picked up the dreaded sound of more tendrils mobilizing, but before she could right herself and evade them, one finally managed to land an immobilizing snare, wrapping itself tightly around up to her shoulder in wiry plant material.
Despite her frantic attempts to dodge while partially bound, moments later another one snatched up her other arm in the same way, and both pulled tightly to keep her in place. Ahri winced as she yanked at the vines with all her might and was punished for it when their grips tightened again, her hands going an angry red colour as her blood supply was restricted.
Pausing in her struggles, she looked ahead with a wary expression as another bulb sprouted out of the ground just a few feet in front of her. This one was considerably larger than the others, however. The petals that made up most of its volume parted before an unusually thick thorn spitter which grew up to its usual height and remained motionless for a few seconds before a bulge began threading its way from its roots to its head.
As the swelling reached the plant's head, the spitter opened its maw wide, and Ahri prepared herself to respond to an attack of some sort.
She was caught off-guard, then, when the first thing to greet her as it exited the plant's mouth was the face of a disconcertingly beautiful human woman.
"And what might I have snared in my vines here?" the newcomer asked in a smug voice.
As the rest of the woman's figure left the plant which had expedited her entrance, more details were revealed. Unlike Ahri, the woman wore no clothing, but was barely kept clear of the social event horizon of immodesty by strange plant-like growths all over her body, just enough to keep the level of fair skin shown tantalizing instead of scandalous. Fiery hair with strands almost as thick as dreadlocks fell in a large mane down from her head to the back of her knees. The woman even appeared host to the ravenous tendrils that Ahri had been plagued with in the past five minutes – they simply extended out of her elbow joint to curl around her forearms like a spiral bracer.
Much like Ahri, the woman also bore some of the most vibrant yellow eyes she had ever seen on a human being.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
The woman raised a dainty eyebrow. "Who?" she replied. Her voice held a faint echo to it that set Ahri's nerves tingling with her sixth sense alone. "The question of 'who?' refers to a name, a societial construct by humans in an attempt to apply some value of self-worth to themselves. What practical purpose does it serve?"
"Identification in case of attempted deceit." Ahri met her gaze squarely. "A measure of a person's power and influence. The only constant among a thousand languages with which you can always rely on as a synonym for oneself. Lots of things."
"Names can be used for deceit as well as against it," she pointed out. "As for power and influence and languages, well..." She smirked. "Human constructs too. I fail to see the point in them."
Ahri rolled her eyes. "This argument is ridiculous. What do you call yourself?"
"You may call me Zyra."
"Well, then, Zyra…" She tugged on the vines holding her in place for emphasis. "What is it you want from me?"
"Merely some… perspective," Zyra answered, the smirk widening into a facsimile of a friendly grin.
"Perspective?" she inquired politely. "On what?"
Zyra gestured to herself. "Humanity."
Ahri blinked. That one she hadn't seen that one coming.
"No need for that surprised look, dear." Zyra started forward, taking slow deliberate steps as she made her way in a circle around her prey. "I would have thought my intentions were obvious."
"I'm sorry if I didn't think you attacked me out of nowhere just to have a philosophical discussion with me," she retorted hotly.
A tendril lashed out from Zyra's arm to slap her across the forehead, drawing a gasp out of the gumiho as it sliced a small cut into her skin. "Now, now. Who said that was all I had planned?" She chuckled. "And do try to still your temper. Anger tends to leave my victims unpleasantly tough and difficult to digest."
At least she was honest, Ahri inwardly grumbled. She analysed her mana reserves while Zyra contented herself with letting her gaze roam over the fox girl's curves. She'd expended a lot of it during the initial skirmish, but had managed to regenerate enough for probably another few salvos of spells if she urgently needed to.
"Yes," Zyra said, drawing Ahri's attention. "It should have been quite obvious indeed."
"What should have been obvious?" she said, keeping herself from snapping out and inviting another strike on the cheek.
The plant sorceress extended an arm and let a single tendril wave itself in front of her face. "The raw, unrefined use of magic." She reached up and attempted to flick one of Ahri's furry ears, though the girl pulled her head back indignantly to stop it. "The extraneous… additions to our otherwise human physiques." She smirked and abruptly jabbed a sharp finger into one of Ahri's breasts, drawing a surprised yelp from its owner. "The generously endowed proportions."
"Get to the point," she growled, miffed at having her personal space violated.
"You're just like me," she said in a low voice. "A product of human magic and arrogance that now stalks the earth searching for further enlightenment. We are one and the same."
Ahri frowned as she considered her words. "I don't eat my victims," she pointed out.
"Don't you?" Zyra suddenly laughed. "Ah, but of course. You simply have a different method than I do. Your techniques would suggest a much stronger affinity for magic than me. Perhaps you steal their experiences via manipulation of the soul?" At Ahri's shocked look, she grinned. "It seems I was correct. Tell me, how long have has it been since you first obtained your human form?" Her tone of voice had almost become as casual as if she were having a conversation with an old friend.
The fox girl frowned. "A few years. It was a while before I even learned how to count so I never tracked it."
Zyra's eyes glittered. "Fascinating. So not quite the same effect, then. I can learn almost everything I need just from one victim. But you? I'm curious how many humans it took for you to reach where you are now."
"Apparently you skipped the basic human concepts of mercy and morality while you were at it." The girl was beginning to tire of Zyra's endless condescension.
That one brought a frown to the plant mage's face. "They are pointless. The concept of emotion is alien to us and nor is it one that appeals to our better nature."
"Don't pretend you speak for me," Ahri snapped. "I don't know how your barbaric method of eating people to steal their essence works, but apparently it robbed you of the chance to experience true humanity. Morality and emotions make humans unique among almost all other races on Runeterra."
Zyra just shook her head. "Forgetting your past self even after such a short time; attaining humanity has poisoned your mind. I find myself pitying you."
"Save it," she snarled. "Release me this instant or else."
"The fly demanding the flytrap for freedom," she chortled. "You are restrained and cannot wield your magic in any fashion. Why not accept your death to make my work easier instead?" The thorn spitter that had spawned her and had remained motionless for their entire conversation perked up and opened its maw wide open as it prepared to take its meal.
"Oh, and don't worry about death, my dear," Zyra added. "I'll never forget you…" Zyra leaned in close enough to Ahri's face to let the gumiho smell her breath. It bore the scent of lush plant life and hints of floral pheromones, but it held no solace for the nine-tailed fox whatsoever. "… as the first hybrid being I'll ever have the pleasure of eating."
Ahri took a deep breath, pulled back on the bonds holding her as far as she could, and then lunged forward to smash against Zyra's face with a thundering headbutt.
She didn't have magic, but the concept of using your body as a weapon had apparently never occurred to Zyra.
Star spun across Ahri's vision as her skull reverberated from the impact, but hearing the plant mage's resultant scream and feeling the warm liquid that spattered her forehead brought a grin to her face that didn't have the faintest hint of humour to it. The vines around her arms slackened for just a moment – not letting her go directly, but giving her just enough leeway to spin in place and cast her foxfires which greedily swarmed her restraints and freed her from her imprisonment.
Zyra had recovered enough from her shattered nose to give Ahri a seething glare as she landed safely back several dozen feet from her, holding her orb in one hand. "You'll die in agony for that," she snarled. The plant mage pulled her arm back and thrust it forward to summon a monstrously thick tendril that burrowed its way along the surface towards her.
Ahri grinned nastily. "Time to pull some weeds," she quipped.
She doubted she could burn through the thick plant muscle, so she simply took off as fast as her legs could carry her in a circle around Zyra. The mage could not concentrate on dodging her spells and coordinating her fleshy tendrils simultaneously as the last headbutt had shown, but her thorn spitters seemed to have sentience of their own.
Perhaps she could use that to her advantage.
With the wiry mass of tendril closing on her from behind, Ahri skidded to a halt and hurled her orb as hard as she dared without losing her balance. Zyra frowned at the attack but did not attempt to dodge, instead summoning a trio of spitters in front of her to block the attack.
Entertained by the sorceress' ignorance, Ahri turned her attention to the tendril bearing down on her. As it lunged forwards with its sharp tip, the young woman twisted her body with almost unnatural dexterity, letting the tentacle pass harmlessly by her side as the distracted Zyra watched the orb disintegrated upon collision with her plants…
… and then reform behind her and switch directions, engulfing the plant mage with blue energy. At the same time, the tendril flinched and violently curled back on itself, catching the gumiho by surprise as it snared itself around her arm and contorted with enough force to deform and twist it nearly ninety degrees in the wrong direction.
Both women screamed.
The tendril's grip slackened as Zyra arched her back and collapsed to her knees, letting Ahri crash to the ground in an unceremonious heap. The action sent rips of agony through her shattered elbow and the girl had to fight to keep herself from blacking out then and there, but refused to let even the mildest groan pass her lips. She wouldn't provide Zyra the satisfaction.
Clenching her bicep with the hardest grip she could manage to stem the overwhelming pain responses from her arm, Ahri stumbled to her feet. Zyra's back had been scorched dark red by her attack, though she was still plenty conscious enough to struggle onto one foot, trembling from the effort.
"Burning the weeds works too, I guess," she taunted, disguising the way she grit her teeth as a tight grin.
Zyra looked up, face contorting with rage. At once, several thorn spitters sprouted out of the ground behind her.
This was the moment she'd been waiting for.
Ahri's world blurred for one last time as she forced the last of her spirit energy down and out of her body. Zyra's face was a mask of surprise as the gap between them closed in just a few scant moments, Ahri's arms outstretched as the two crashed together and were both sent tumbling to the ground.
The thorn spitters fired.
Using the momentum from her dash and fall to bring herself to her feet with unnatural speed, Ahri hooked her arm around the base of Zyra's neck. In a fit of horror, perhaps realising what the gumiho was doing, the plant mage summoned a tendril out of the ground in front of them, thick and strong enough to surely crack Ahri's skull if it hit… but the girl tightened her grip and let loose with a powerful knee strike to her spine, disrupting it for a few precious moments. As she did so, with a mighty effort she wrenched her victim around to have her face the oncoming flechette storm of bristles.
"No!" Zyra cried, but it was far too late.
Ahri winced as the thorns met their owner's body with a grisly squelching noise and felt the sorceress' body slacken under her grip. The thorn spitters wound up for yet another shot… and abruptly flinched and choked to death before they could do so. Zyra had likely stopped them herself, but the damage had been done.
Glancing around to see the tendril now lying inanimate on the forest litter, Ahri released the breath she'd been holding and her hold on Zyra's neck. The plant mage crumpled to the floor and curled into a ball clutching her stomach, her breath ragged. The young woman glanced down at her to see the damage she'd wrought. Several inch-long spines had perforated the woman's torso and their serrated edges would undoubtedly make removing them an excruciating task assuming she didn't die from the blood loss alone.
Zyra moaned and made to get on her feet once again. Tensing a little, Ahri took a few cautious steps backward as the sorceress' legs trembled from the effort of bringing herself to even a kneel with several thorns embedded deeply in her body. Any normal human would probably have long since fallen unconscious.
"Humanity is a gift," Ahri said softly as the mage did not make any move to attack her. "I don't want you to squander it."
Zyra gave several juddering breaths that hitched several times before she could summon the strength to speak. "I watched… the rest of my kind die off as our food was depleted, our water sources dried up and our home vanished from beneath our roots. I refuse to give up all I stood for for the sake of a race of parasitic landwalkers that would happily destroy us all in their battles to settle imagined slights."
The gumiho sighed, choosing wisely to ignore how Zyra had caused more devastation to the surrounding terrain than she had in their scuffle. "You seek perspective. What more of that could you possibly have than by becoming a human? All the new senses you have and the concepts you can grasp now; you can see the world in an entirely new light. It doesn't have to be like this."
There was a pause, and for a hopeful moment Ahri suspected her words had finally managed to have an effect.
"Humanity…" Zyra forced her head up with an effort, showing Ahri her shark-like grin. "… truly has poisoned you."
The young woman frowned, but before she could return a jibe of her own, the large thorn spitter from before burst up from the ground behind the sorceress. She recoiled and flared her orb into her hand without hesitation, but paused as the plant instead arched down and opened its maw wide, intent on swallowing Zyra whole.
"This isn't over," the mage growled. Moments later, the petals on the spitter's head snapped shut around her torso, silencing her and sucking the rest of her body into the stem like a liquid in a straw. The spitter arched skyward, letting the bulge that contained Zyra's exhausted body traverse its way back down its length as if conducting her entrance in reverse. As it vanished below the ground, the plant froze for a few seconds before giving a final death rattle and collapsing over, dead.
It was over.
Ahri deflated and whimpered a little as her broken arm sent a ricochet of pain signals about her body once again. Human doctors were never people she was terribly fond of seeing, but if she wanted to avoid killing another innocent person to heal herself then it was something she would likely have to do.
She looked up at the canopy of the trees above, considering Zyra's words. "You miss more than you know," she said sadly. To be human also meant having the freedom to do terrible things as well as great. If you disagreed with how someone lived their life, what could decide who was the more righteous of the two? Would such a thing even exist? Was solving this conundrum a task that every human had to face in time? The former kit wondered what grand design humanity followed to make it so complex.
Sighing as her arm continued to disrupt any attempt at introspection, she began making her way back to the nearest roadway which clutching her broken limb close to her chest. Demacia held better prospects of healing her wounds than waiting for nature to take its course. Zyra would have to wait for another time.
I've always imagined Zyra to be a lot like Dark Phoenix of X-Men yore - a terrible and cruel being who simply lives to experience as much as possible without any barriers of the conscience or society to stop them. I personally think it's a pretty good analogy (though if I'm being honest my only memories of Dark Phoenix was one time back when I was young and I happened to tune into one of its animated shows. The scene really stuck with me at the years went on). Ahri is Ahri. Beautiful, intelligent, compassionate, and more than capable of kicking your ass if she needs to. I think I idolize her a little bit too much. :P
Also, at risk of sounding vain, but I'm in promos for Platinum I as I write this up. With the season ending in about 10 days from now, I just might be able to make it to Diamond before my time runs out! I probably could not have dreamed of this when I was perfectly content to tank my MMR in Gold IV a year ago. xD
Anyway, I take my leave of you now, good sir or ma'am, to avoid bogging you down with unnecessary details and excessive conceit. I hereby bid you - good day!
Signing off,
Shaw Fujikawa