Rumble's heart pounded vigorously. His tiny yordle cheeks were flushed with excitement, and his hands gripped the controls of Tristy, his giant mechanical weapon, with great force. It took excruciating effort to not burst out with tears of joy and laughter. One might wonder what had the young champion so excited? He had partaken in many duels upon the Fields of Justice before this point, so what was so special about this one?
Bandle City was now in a very important match against Piltover. Both cities were pining after a newly uncovered reservoir of precious metals uncovered near the barrier, and they agreed to take the dispute to the League. Rumble thought that it would be marvelous to get his hands on it, and use these metals to further Tristy's advancement.
There were two more reasons that Rumble was fired up, though. Piltover had selected Caitlyn, Vi and Jayce as obvious choices to partake in the fight, but Ziggs and Heimerdinger had volunteered themselves as well. Heimerdinger put out a statement on the matter that, "Although I will be fighting against my hometown, I must secure these resources for my academy." With pressure like that, Ziggs was almost forced to agree. Rumble couldn't wait to demonstrate his clearly superior technological ingenuity by bashing the "Revered Inventor's" face in with a multitude of metal spears.
Then, the icing on the cake was his laning partner. As usual, the champions briefly communed on the fountain before departing to their designated lanes. The runes under Tristy's feet glowed bright blue as they usually did, making him feel warm and powerful. When standing on the Summoning Fountain one felt as if they could do anything.
Rumble, Teemo, Tristana, Kennen, and Amumu (drafted by his babysitter/Summoner to fulfill the jungler role) all stood in a circle around the platform. "They have a complete kill-lane set up in the bottom lane," the Summoner controlling Amumu spoke to all of them. Rumble was already set on going to the top lane, where he had hoped to be fighting Jayce, the Defender of Tomorrow. If Rumble could get a close enough look at the laser on the end of his hammer, he might be able to copy it onto Tristy.
"We have to retaliate with a similar demonstration of force," Teemo's Summoner responded. "They're likely already expecting our Teemo/Tristana combination that we employed versus Freljord last month!" she continued.
Rumble tended to tune out the Summoners' pregame babble. Who cared where they sent him as long as bad guys died? He was already moving Tristy toward the top lane when his own Summoner spoke. One's own Summoner was much louder in your head than the others. "What if we sent Rumble with Tristana?" Rumble stopped dead, and his ears stood straight up. He hardly even dared to think that he would have a chance to lane with the beautiful Megling Gunner.
Amumu himself had already grabbed a shield from the rack and moved off into the jungle, but his Summoner continued to speak to the team. "An interesting proposition..." The champions felt rather than heard his contemplation.
Tristana's Summoner spoke up for the first time since the match started. "I like that idea," was all that she said.
Rumble's heart skipped a beat. If both of the controlling Summoners thought that it made sense, then it was almost a shoe-in! His Summoner spoke to him and no one else. Communication between the Summoners would become scarce until they began to wander back and forth between the lanes. "I live in your mind, Rumble, so you must know that I'm aware of your feelings for Tristana," his deep but warm voice betrayed a certain edge as Rumble watched Tristana run across the base to the bottom lane. The yordle woman did a little spin through the air as she ran. Rumble thought that it was beautiful.
"Obviously I know that!" he quickly retorted, more than a little bit embarrassed.
"Then you know that you cannot let your feelings get in the way. It is now your job to protect Tristana from any danger. If she dies, then you can consider this match a failure for yourself," he preached.
Rumble scoffed. "You don't have to tell me twice!" he responded, moving Tristy after her namesake. The familiar grind of gears comforted the yordle. The ground shook slightly as he moved.
Tristana turned around briefly to yell back to Rumble. "Hurry up, slowpoke!" she waved back at him.
Rumble smiled. "Baby, don't fail me now!" he whispered to Tristy as he continued to move.
He arrived in the lane with six minions trailing him like baby ducks. Tristana had waited for him, leaning casually against the turret. "Time for a Bandle City beatdown!" she encouraged, punctuating the expression by slamming her fist into her hand.
Rumble smirked from pointy ear to ear. "That's my line!" he said.
Across the lane their foes stood shoulder to shoulder. Caitlyn, the Sherriff of Piltover, and her partner Vi, the Piltover Enforcer, made a deadly combo. Vi bounced from foot to foot in eager anticipation, and Caitlyn did a final check of her gun. She flipped it up from having the butt in the ground, to having it on her shoulder ready to fire. She already had the yordles lined up in her sights. "Ready for a showdown?" she asked her partner.
Vi smirked. "Put a dent in 'em!" she responded.
Tristana took immediate advantage of the tall grass on the sides of the lane, and ducked inside. While Vi or Caitlyn would have to crawl to be completely obscured, Tristana could stand straight up and not give away her position. Rumble had no such advantage, and was forced to move through the center of the lane, accidentally crushing allied and enemy minions alike.
Vi didn't hesitate to charge into the brush ahead of her comrade, and stomped around angrily, completely unable to locate Tristana. While Rumble couldn't actually see her, their psychic connection through the Summoners allowed him to feel her location. It worked in the same way that he knew that Amumu was fighting a camp of wraiths, even though he had no way of seeing that. Part of the Summoner's jobs were to organize the information relayed to their champion in order to not make it overwhelming.
Regardless of how, he knew that Tristana lay in the brush about ten feet from Vi, who became more and more frustrated the more she moved. "Where the hell are you!?" she fumed.
Tristana attempted to line up a good shot, but was unable to due to the Enforcer's wild movements. Rumble realized that it would be his responsibility to keep her still and give Tristana a chance to attack. He moved the joystick in a wide arch to land Tristy's torso in direct alignment with Vi, and fired off an Electro-Harpoon from Tristy's magazine. It cut straight through the air, and slammed Vi square in the gut. Her armor blocked a lot of the force, but she stumbled back and lost her breath.
The brief lapse in movement allowed Tristana to fire off a hail of bullets from her cannon. They would've hit their mark easily, but a disoriented Vi managed to bring her gauntlets up to block the shells. It was a tough collision, but Vi remained standing.
Caitlyn pointed her rifle at the spot where the bullets shot out, and a small part in the grass revealed a patch of white hair. "In my sights," she whispered.
Rumble would have to act quickly if he didn't want his ally to be sniped by an Ace in the Hole. "I'm not even using the controls!" he taunted. "Look, no hands!" He moved his hands completely away from the familiar keys and buttons, and jumped up onto Tristy's broad metal shoulder. To Valoran's collective audience's horror, he pulled down the bottom half of his jumpsuit and mooned all of the females in the lane from his precarious perch.
Caitlyn spared a hurried glance in his direction, which was all that Tristana needed to Rocket Jump away into a different patch of grass. The small explosion snapped Caitlyn's focus back to the Megling Gunner, but she was already gone. "Damn!" Caitlyn cursed.
Vi had recovered from the assault, and was madder than ever. "Here comes the punchline!" she shouted, running toward Rumble. He had nowhere to run in the center of the lane, and minions were battling all around Tristy's feet, so there would be no clever aversion. Vi's gauntlets glowed blue as she charged her Vault Breaker move. Rumble quickly fumbled for the controls, and smashed the button that would activate Flamespitter. A torrent of flames erupted from the front of his mech, but Vi paid no heed. She leapt straight through the flames, scorching her own clothing and hair. Her fist made solid contact with Tristy's torso, and Rumble flew backward with his mech. His vision flipped over and over as Tristy landed squarely in the dirt.
Rumble hit a switch, which pushed pistons on Tristy's side outward. The colliding force flipped Rumble back upright, and he jammed the Electro-Harpoon trigger with all of his might. The javelin fired straight at Vi, but a blast shield generated by her gauntlets absorbed the blow. The woman's hair was singed absurdly at the tips, and parts of her striped pants and leather jacket had been consumed by the flame. Although there was a charred mark on her cheek, there was excitement in her eyes. A better description might have been crazy.
She spit on the ground. "Is that all you've got, Mechanized Menace?" she said his title in a way that sounded insulting.
Rumble wasn't intimidated. "Ready for round two!" he called to her.
It was then that the yordle's Summoner spoke to him urgently. "Heimerdinger has just slain Kennen in the middle lane!" he cried.
"Looks like the old fart is getting busy up there," Rumble said. "I'd better pick it up in my lane, too!" He looked at the spot in the tall grass where he knew Tristana was hiding and nodded. It was time to finish their business here.
Rumble pushed the big red button on his dashboard labeled "Equalizer" and quickly jerked his joysticks about to target his ultimate move. Rockets shot up with a flourish of smoke and fire from Tristy's back, and arched down toward Vi. They covered nearly the entire lane, and there was nowhere to hide. All that Vi could do was squat down and cover her head with her giant gauntlets. The veil of rockets was only meant as a distraction, though. Caitlyn, maintaining her position by the turret, couldn't see anything through the billowing smoke.
Vi's eyes stung, and she had to squeeze them shut. Everything on her body hurt from the stinging assault, and all of her senses were overcome by smoke. She stumbled, and nearly fell over. Before it could clear, Tristana burst from the bushes. Caitlyn looked intently through her scope, searching desperately for something to shoot at. The Megling Gunner walked straight up to the struggling Enforcer, her focus and will unhampered by the smoke, and fired a single shot into the center of her skull.
Only a short cry of pain was heard before Vi's body exploded into a light show and she was gone. Air rushed to fill the sudden lack of matter, and the light illuminated the area just enough for Caitlyn to get a lock on Tristana. The smoke quickly dissipated, and Tristana was standing alone in the center of the lane. The red line aimed straight at Tristana's heart indicated an Ace in the Hole was soon to be fired.
Caitlyn had no need to rush the shot. Vi's punch had thrown Rumble almost all the way back to hit turret, putting him in no position to help. "Nowhere to hide," Caitlyn smirked.
Rumble remembered his Summoner's words. It would be his failure if Tristana died, his and his alone. The yordle entered a fury of action and emotion, tilting Tristy's torso down. "I will not fail!" he cried, stomping the "Eject" pedal on the machine. His chair, propelled by a sudden release of gas, launched him out of the cockpit and into the air.
"What the hell are you doing!?" his Summoner screamed to him, but Rumble was in no state to register his words.
"Rumble!" Tristana cried in surprise.
The blue yordle spun uncontrollably through the air. The red line aligned perfectly with his chest as Caitlyn pulled the trigger. The bullet cut through the air at an incredibly fast speed, and sunk straight into his heart. Rumble's eyes opened wide, and his attempt to cry out anything at all was cut short by a spurt of blood flying out of his mouth. His body had his mech had dissolved into nothing before he hit the ground.
Tristana knew that no harm would actually come to Rumble, but she was energized by his sacrifice. She used Rocket Jump to close the distance between her and Caitlyn, and landed at the foot of the tower. Rearing back from the recoil, she fired a Buster Shot straight at Caitlyn. A bolt of purple energy slammed into Tristana, sending her flying backward. Rather than any kind of fire or energy, a hit from a turret was like a sledgehammer to the gut.
Her small body fell to the ground five meters away, winded but otherwise unharmed. A turret's blast only became deadly if you attempted to whether it for an extended time. However, the same could not be said for Caitlyn. The Buster Shot had exploded in front of her, burning her entire body and sending her flying backward. She collided with the turret, and a hurl of spit flew from her mouth as her spine broke on impact.
The ruined girl fell to her knees, and crumpled to the ground from there. Her hat fell off of her head as she attempted to lift it, looking at Tristana one more time, picking herself up. Caitlyn's body dissolved immediately after, leaving Tristana alone. "Did you fall down and go boom?" she spoke one of her catchphrases to a glowing ball she had noticed while moving through the brush.
"DOUBLE KILL!" the League's announcer cried emphatically to a crowd of yordles. They were packed together like mice in a town square, a windmill turning steadily overhead. They pumped tiny fists in the air, and some of the larger males cheered and whooped.
That early fight set the pace for the whole game. Rumble and Tristana plowed through the enemy team, easily blocking Jayce's energy blasts, and stomping on Heimerdinger's turrets. Rumble was never able to kill the inventor personally, but it was worth it to fight alongside Tristana. Her white hair flowed majestically when she leapt around the lanes, and her smile lit up every corner of the map; there might as well have been no fog of war, because Rumble wasn't afraid of anything with Tristana at his side.
With Kennen, Amumu and Teemo they swept the floor with the team from Piltover, destroying the Nexus before anyone could say "League of Draven". The crystal shards flew through the air and the billowing cloud of smoke covered them all as they were teleported back to the Institute of War.
Rumble sat on a rock outside of the prestigious building, turning a wrench over in his hand. He twirled it through his fingers absent mindedly as Tristana walked up behind him. "Hey, Rumble!" she slapped him on the back cheerfully, and he jerked up in surprise.
"Hey, T-tristana!" he stuttered. "Crap, I didn't think of anything to say after the match!" he cursed himself.
"Awesome job today!" Tristana congratulated him. "You were all like, WATCHAW, I then I was like, PEWPEW!" she fired an imaginary gun at a tree studded on the hill.
Rumble laughed, scratching the back of his furry head awkwardly. "Yeah, it was like totally awesome today!" he put out a forced smile.
Tristana tilted her head to the side. "Is something wrong?" she asked.
Rumble shook his head side to side vigorously. "Nononono, I'm happy that I got to lane with you!" he persisted. "We should totally do it again sometime!" he suggested. "God damn it Rumble, it's a fight, not a freaking dinner date!" he chastised himself again.
Tristana smiled. "Yeah...yeah, totally!" she accepted the idea. "I'd love to talk, but Teemo is going to teach me some maneuvers!" the Megling Gunner waved to him as she ran back into the gaping building.
Rumble eased himself back down onto the rock, grinding his teeth together. "That damn Teemo!" he whispered so that none of the Summoners exiting the institute could hear. One of the purple cloaks that he recognized to be his own Summoner waved. He was a large dark skinned man who was in his early forties. He gave a small wave back. The Summoner kept walking, because one who's been inside your mind has no need to ask what's wrong.
Rumble sighed, and saw the two long pigtails he recognized as Poppy leaving through a different door. He waved the Iron Ambassador over, and she made her way through a group of Summoners to come talk to him. "Do you have anything that could cheer up a sad yordle?" he asked her halfheartedly. "Like a joke?" he suggested.
"Jokes?" Poppy thought for a second. "I don't know any jokes."
Rumble sighed.