The Outcasts [Rewritten]

Chapter 1: Alone

Huh, so this is what dying feels like. This is what my blood tastes like, it tastes metallic and gross, but I can't stop it from pouring from my mouth. It is a odd thing to be lying in a puddle of your own blood and having that puddle expand more as more blood leaves your body. The world is blurry and I can't seem to focus too long on one object. I do know that there seems to be a small group of people standing in a semi circle around me, they were all saying something, but their speech was too fast and I couldn't understand a word they were saying. Among their chatting though I was able to hear my name being said, whatever they were talking about they were talking about me.

"Fizz, Fizz, Fizz…" It sounded something like that, sometimes they would repeat my name more or less.

I tried focusing on one of the people to see what they looked like, but like I said, I couldn't seem to focus at all on one thing so I had no idea what these people looked like or who they were.

My eyelids began to feel heavy, I tried fighting against the feeling, but I simply couldn't and after awhile it seemed that any strength I had left in my small body had left me. As my eyes began to slowly close the voices grew louder and seemed to be in a panic as I clanged on to my last breath of life. They cried out my name, hollered it to the heavens as finally, I let go.

"Hello? Hello, Fizz? Are you feeling okay?"

My eyes opened, I looked around and saw that I was sitting on a chair positioned in front of a large wooden desk. The room was small and on the walls were certificates and medals for practices in magic. On the desk were stacks of papers that were almost as tall as me. I sighed as I remembered exactly where I was, I was in the office of one of the high summoners of the Institute of War, home to the League of Legends. The man behind the desk was high summoner, Sullivan, out of all the summoners in the league he is the one I'm most acquainted with. I don't know if I would say that's a good thing though for the reasons that brought me to his office.

I must have fallen asleep again during one of his usual lectures he gave me when I was caught pulling a prank on one of the other champions/summoners, I swear that so many people in this place didn't know how to take a joke? How was I supposed to know that trying to play fetch with Nasus would offend him so much? I thought dogs were supposed to like stuff like that right?

Sullivan was watching me, waiting for a answer to his question so I gave him one,

"Yes high summoner Sullivan, I'm feeling fine." I said it as politely and seriously as I possibly could, if there was even a hint of sarcasm or annoyance in my voice than this lecture would go on longer then I wished it to.

Sullivan was a kind man, he was one of the oldest high summoners at the league which was saying something since all of the high summoners were extremely old. He always had that friendly grandfather attitude towards everyone, while his face was full of wrinkles and spots were plastered all over his face, he had a very soft and gentle features such as his lips that seemed to always be pointed up to a smile. The only problem with him was that his lectures literally lasted hours and you could only pray to the gods that he was either feeling tired that day or whatever you did wasn't that bad. Sadly Sullivan looked rather full of energy today and what I did definitely wasn't a small thing in his books I could already tell.

"Alright…" Oh boy, here he goes on with his lecture. "As I was saying, I understand that you have a…unique sense of humor, but that gives you no right to shave all of Heimerdinger's hair off!"

I tried to hold back my giggling, but I just couldn't. How could someone sleep through having their hair shaved off anyway? I swear that once he woke up that morning to find his hair gone his angry screams and cursing could be heard from the other side of the institute. The image of Heimerdinger bald filled my head and I burst into a fit of laughter, Sullivan however, wasn't as amused as me from my brilliant prank.

"You're lucky there's nothing specific In the rules that says you can't do anything like that or else you could've gotten in big trouble."

I continued laughing, barely paying attention to whatever he was saying. Sullivan sighed noting that trying to show me the "error of my ways" was a waste of time. He rubbed a hand over his wrinkly face and pointed toward the door.

"You may leave now."

I wasted no time jumping out of that chair and running out of the room. It was nice and all that Sullivan decided to watch out for me since I'm a new champion here, but man could that old man talk a lot if you let him. I ran aimlessly around the halls of the institute passing by tons of champions and summoners, I waved at a few of them, but as usual none of them returned the wave and as soon as eye contact was made with me they would look away quickly. It was a sad truth of life that no one here seemed to share my idea of fun and did not appreciate it when I tried to play one of my games with them. I spent most of my time alone because of this, I didn't mind at all though, most of these people were boring anyway who needs them?

Not me that's for sure.

As I ran around the institute my smile went away and I started to slow down, all the summoners and champions I have passed by had someone talking to them or just standing next to them. None of them were by themselves, except for me. I stopped running all together and was instead walking very slowly through the hallways of the institute…by myself. Being by myself was no fun and after all the trouble I caused around the institute no one would want to be my friend now, how could I have been stupid! This is the exact reason I almost had to leave Bilgewater because I was getting on so many peoples' nerves.

I stopped walking all together as I stood in a empty, barely lit hallway. I looked out one of the windows and saw that the sun had began going down, explaining the darkness of the hallway. I watched the sunset until finally it disappeared behind the nearby mountains, it was around this time that the torches that aligned the hallway flickered on by themselves illuminating the hallway. I blinked a few times to adjust my eyes to the sudden brightness, with the hallway lit up more I noticed something odd about it. The hallway lead to nowhere and all there was at the end of the hallway was a wall and a bunch of old crates in front of the wall, cobwebs littered the walls along with moss that seemed to be growing slightly out of the stone wall, the carpet on the floor also had stains on it and parts of it were torn, it seemed like no one had been down this hallways in years. Which was odd since the summoners always kept the hallways perfectly clean, what was their reason for abandoning this one I would never know, but that didn't matter because after looking around the hallway for awhile I noticed something else odd. There was a pile of green bandages at the corner of the hallway with the crates and the bandages looked wet for some reason. For some reason this drew my attention, I don't know how a bunch of bandages drew my curiosity, but it did and I walked over to them. As I got closer I realized that they weren't bandages, but a person, a Yordle to be exact. Why would they be wrapped in bandages like that for? Was he in a accident and needed them? Those were a lot of bandages though and he would need to be in the medical ward if that was true.

It also sounded like the Yordle was crying, maybe he was hurt in some way, what should I do though? Should I just leave him like this or go get Soraka to help the Yordle even though I don't know If he was actually hurt or not. Besides being wrapped in bandages he didn't look hurt from what I could see at least, his face was buried in his legs so I couldn't see his face.

I got closer to the Yordle, but as I got closer to him memories began to flash in my head. My old home under the sea, me and my parents and the house we used to live in, I looked so happy standing in the middle of my parents they held my hand. Suddenly with the blink of an eye, my parents were gone and it was just me and the house. The younger me had a worried look on his face and turned his head left to right looking for his parents and where they had gone. This continued for a few minutes until my old home and the surrounding houses around them disappeared too. Now it was just me standing alone on the sidewalk, there was no one else, just me. My younger self fell to his knees and began crying, the sidewalk underneath him disappeared and following it, the whole ground. Now it was just my younger self alone in a pitch black void, crying. My cries echoed throughout this void, but no one came to help, no one was there. It was just me.

Alone.

I had to snap myself back to reality, I was breathing, really hard, and my chest hurt slightly it felt like my heart was running a marathon. I didn't know what had brought up…whatever it was I had just experienced, but I hope it didn't happen again.

I took a minute to recover from my horrible experience then I remembered about the bandaged Yordle that had been crying this whole time. I looked around for him, but he was no longer in the hallway. I double checked to make sure it was just me in the hallway then I shrugged and hurried out of there.

"A hurt Yordle?" Sullivan repeated what I had said.

"Well, I think he was hurt, he was covered in bandages and crying a bunch!"

"…Huh, that's odd, I don't think-oh, wait, here we go."

Sullivan pulled out a file from his desk drawer and placed it on the table.

"Yes, here we go…" Sullivan flipped through the file real quick before he walked around the desk and gave it to me. I eagerly took it from him and opened it.

"That Yordle you found yesterday is Amumu, we have…little to nothing on him, all we know is that one day he came to the institute and asked to join, even during his judgment nothing was found, no memories, nothing."

Sullivan was telling the truth, all the file on Amumu really had was a few photos of him, his name and race, a page on his powers, and that was it. Usually files were packed to the brim on information about a champion, but Amumu only had three pages, not counting the photos on him that basically showed his sitting in a bunch of hallway corners by himself. This probably explained why Sullivan didn't mind showing me his file, files usually have a bunch of personal information on a champion that the league is uptight on not showing other champions and sometimes summoners, with Amumu though, there was nothing really big in his file.

"So, no one knows anything about him? Where he came from, what he is like, what his favorite snack is? Nothing?"

"Nothing." Sullivan repeated, putting the file back to its place in his drawer once I handed it back to him. Sullivan sat back down at his chair and sighed as he leaned back, if he didn't have that almost infinite amount of power that summoners had then he would've been utterly defenseless. "Anyways, why are you so interested on the mummy Fizz?"

"Wait, he's a mummy?"

"Well, yes, I would have to say that is one of the biggest information we have on Amumu is that he is undead…I thought you read the file?"

"Heh, uh…well, I more skimmed over it than actually read it." I chuckled nervously and Sullivan just shook his head.

"Like I was saying, yes he is a mummy. He died a long time ago and somehow he was brought back to life for some unknown reason and also for some unknown reason he can't stop crying, even when he is not sad, which is rare, he still has a few tears leaking out." Sullivan ran a hair through his short, barely existing, grey hair. "Now, why are you interested in Amumu Fizz? To be honest, this is the first time anyone has asked me about the sad mummy."

"…Hm, that's a good question, when I find the answer I will tell you." I smiled and Sullivan chuckled and shook his head.

"You're a odd creature Fizz."

"Took you that long to find out?"

I got off of my seat and head towards the door, I pushed it open and was about to leave when suddenly Sullivan called out to me and said,

"Don't get into any trouble Fizz, you hear?"

"Yes I hear you, but I don't make promises I can't keep!"

I had spent hours wandering around the institute looking for that Yordle, Amumu, but I couldn't find him anywhere. I even tried asking a few of the champions and summoners I came across in the hallways, but the responses were usually: "Who is that?", "Nope, haven't seen him", or "Get away from me you annoying bastard." Usually it was the third response I got.

After so long of searching my stomach started to growl, I hadn't eaten all day and I was starving. I didn't want to eat any of the cafeteria food though, land food tastes good and all, but nothing could beat the taste of fresh caught fish and that was what I was having a craving for. The fish here tasted so fake, I wondered if it was actually fish. I knew there was a lake nearby so I left the institute and started walking down the road to the lake.

Outside of the institute building was a great, expansive forest with trees that almost touched the clouds because they were so high and this wasn't because of my shorter height that made them look taller, no, these trees were huge! A series of dirt and stone roads ran through the woods leading to different locations, I took the one that lead to the lake and in a short amount of time I made it to the lake.

I sighed happily as I took my first step into the lake, I never came here before, but from the view my bedroom window gave me of the lake I could tell that it was probably one of the purest water sources in Valoran, it looked untouched and had zero pollution in it unlike the waters of Bilgewater that always tasted like old rum and gods know what else. I learned that most land creatures use a fishing rod to catch their fish, but I was able to catch four salmon with just my mouth and hands, the advantage of being a sea creature like me was that stuff like this I could get done ten times more quickly than a land creature, still, fishing with a fishing rod had its own charm to it, whenever I needed time to think I would use one since I wouldn't actually care about trying to catch fish or catching them quickly.

Once I had collected my fish, I began munching on my feast. Also unlike land creatures I had no need to cook the fish and I thought it tasted more better when they weren't cooked, it made more of a mess but it was worth it.

I was about to begin eating my second fish when I heard it, crying. My head shot up and I looked around, I didn't see anything so I relied on my ears to try to pinpoint his location. It seemed like the sobbing was coming from behind one of the rocks nearby. I swallowed the fish in my mouth quickly and slowly approached the rock. I peaked around the corner and saw the Yordle from before. He was still crying, positioned in a similar way to when I first saw him in the hallway the day before. I suddenly felt dizzy, it wasn't that great but it was still there. I dared to tap him on the shoulder to get his attention.

"Uh…hello?"

If he had heard me then he made no attempt to make any sign that he did and he just kept sobbing into his legs.

"Amumu?" I tried calling him by his name, that got him to stop sobbing for a second, but he immediately began crying again after that second.

For the next few minutes I spent my time looking down at the Yordle, after that few minutes I went back to my fish and brought them with me back to Amumu.

"May I sit here?" No response. "I'll take that as a okay."

I sat down next to his and bit down on one of my fish, Amumu's crying had grown more silent but it was still there. Eventually I could barely hear him cry at all, I was around finishing my last fish when he surprised me by speaking,

"W-What d-do you w-want?" Amumu still was sobbing and I could barely hear him since he was more talking to his legs than me.

It took me a second to get over my shock that he actually said something, I gulped nervously and spoke,

"I just wanted to talk."

"Talk? W-With me?"

"Yes." I smiled, but the smile didn't last long.

"W-Why? Why would anyone want to talk w-with me?"

He looked like he was going to go back to crying again so I thought of something to say fast.

"Uh, you seem like a cool guy I don't know why anyone wouldn't want to talk to you."

Amumu raised his head and looked directly at me, it was the first time I actually saw his face for himself and not on the pictures Sullivan showed me. His eyes were a glowing orange/yellow color and as I gazed into them I saw nothing but emptiness and sadness. It made me feel uneasy and I had to look away and back at the fish in my hand to break this feeling In my gut.

"Y-You actually believe I'm cool?"

"Yeah, I know it!"

I looked out of the corner of my eye back at Amumu and saw he was looking at me weirdly, maybe he didn't believe me when I said he was cool. I did actually believe that he seemed like a cool guy, but it seemed he had great trust issues along with him always being sad.

"Liar." Amumu turned his head away from me and was now looking straight ahead.

"No, I mean it! I've seen you fight on summoner's rift before, and you're powers are so cool!"

Amumu didn't respond and just continued staring straight ahead, sniffing now and then. I looked down at my fish and held it out to him.

"Hungry?" I waved the fish around a little bit, its head was gone since I had been eating it previously, but besides that I haven't touched much of it yet.

"I don't get hungry…"

"Wh-…oh, right." I retracted my hand and looked down at my fish awkwardly, of course he wouldn't need to eat, he's undead.

"I don't know who put you up to this, but you can stop now."

"Put me up to what?"

"Making you talk to me, what, did you lose a bet?" Amumu spoke sadly, but at the same time with a hint of anger.

"I didn't lose anything, I just wanted to speak with you…" I was worried that I upset Amumu. Turns out I did.

"LOOK, I get it, I'm a freak! My existence is just a big joke to you!"

"What? No I-"

Amumu stood up and began walking off into the woods, he looked back at me before entering the woods and said,

"Just let me be."

And he was gone, he just switched from being depressed to furious in almost a split second. I was used to people being angry at me, but I wasn't even trying to make him angry, I didn't say anything wrong, what was his problem? Maybe it was whatever was making him sad all the time, but what was that part of his existence being a joke and me being made to talk with him?

I considered following Amumu into the woods to try and apologize, but it sounded like he needed some alone time and I would allow him to have that time. For now at least.

"And he just walked away like that! I swear I didn't try to irritate him or make him angry, but he just snapped like that!" I spilled what happened to Sullivan, hoping that he would have some wisdom to share with me on what I should do.

"Hm…" Sullivan scratched his scalp for a minute, I waited on the edge of my seat for his advice, he always gave the best advice. "I have no clue on what you should do."

I groaned and fell back into my seat, disappointed by his answer.

"Sorry, with that Yordle there is never a clear answer."

I groaned in response and placed my palms over my face in slight frustration that not even Sullivan could think of what to do.

"What do I do then?"

"Fizz, I understand that you're trying to be friends with Amumu, but understand that Amumu doesn't want to be bothered with anyone and prefers to be alone."

"Why is that? Is it because of what's always making him sad?"

"That and also…" Sullivan pulled out one of his desk drawers and pulled out a file filled with papers inside, the file belonged to Amumu that much was clear from his name being written on the front, but it was different from the other one. "…This."

"What is 'this' exactly?" I questioned as he held the file in his hand showing it to me.

"These are all of the tribunal cases involving Amumu."

I whistled as he placed it on the desk, it actually shook the desk slightly.

"That's more than mine has!"

"Yes, but unlike you, these cases aren't Amumu's fault, all of these cases Amumu has been the victim in."

"Victim in what?" I tilted my head to the side curiously.

"Constant verbal abuse, physical abuse, mental abuse, the list just goes on about the things that others do to Amumu."

"Why are all of these things happening to him?"

"People, just don't like him Fizz I don't know." Sullivan put the file back in the drawer and shut the drawer. "Some things people have claimed are that he's just a mood killer so no one wants him around, his crying is annoyingly loud, and even in some cases people claim that once they got close to him while he was crying they will see a horrible 'vision' of some kind involving something terrible that happened to them in the past and still haunts them today."

Just like that one time in the hallway when I first saw Amumu, so it wasn't just me that has happened to other people. It's understandable how some would be angry about that, but it seemed like that wasn't under Amumu's control so that shouldn't give them the right to bully him.

"So that's why he is usually by himself…"

"Yeah, the reason he's always by himself isn't only because he prefers it that way, no one wants to be around him."

"…That's still not fair though, he doesn't deserve to be picked on like that!"

"You can't change peoples' minds on this Fizz."

"I know that, still it sounds like he could use a friend!"

"Wait, Fizz-"

I didn't wait though, because I hurried out of that room before he could finish speaking. Maybe if I found a way to show Amumu I meant no harm to him and I wasn't trying to mess with him then I could get on his good side, and maybe for once I would have a actual friend…

When I didn't find Amumu anywhere near the institute I went to the last place I knew he would be, the lake. As I went down the path to the path to the lake though I saw two summoners ahead of me going down the same path. Curious, I followed them to the lake doing my best not to alert them that I was there. They were more ahead of me so when I finally made it to the lake they were standing in front of a rock talking to one another. I realized though that a small figure was sitting down in front of them that I hadn't noticed before, it was Amumu.

The summoners were looking down at him, he was in his usual position with his face hidden in his legs. I moved to a nearby tree staying out of sight and listened into what they were saying.

"Hey you little runt, aren't you going to say something?" The taller summoner on the right asked Amumu.

"You think he's deaf?" His companion, a shorter and probably younger judging from his voice, asked.

"Na, I know this runt can hear me, he just has no manners to respond to people when they are trying to talk to him."

They continued on insulting and mocking Amumu, I was barely paying attention because it made me so angry watching them do this. What finally set me off was when suddenly the taller summoner kicked Amumu, hard, in his side and knocked him over onto the ground. I came out of my hiding spot and shouted,

"Hey what are you doing!?"

The two summoners looked up at me, their faces hidden by their hoods, then they ran off. I was thinking about chasing after them, but decided against it and ran over to Amumu to check on him.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Amumu said nothing for a few minutes, but thankfully he did say something eventually,

"I can't feel pain."

"…Well, that's good then, it looked like he got you hard."

I offered him my hand, not expecting him to actually take it, but surprisingly enough, he did. I helped him onto his feet and he looked into my eyes.

"T-Thanks…"

I smiled and said, "No problem."

There was silence between us for a few minutes, then I remembered something.

"Oh, I know your name, but I don't think you know mine!"

I held out my hand again, but this time for a different purpose.

"I'm Fizz!"

Amumu looked down at my hand seemingly contemplating whether or not he should shake it, once again I was surprised that he decided to shake hands with me.

"Hello…Fizz…it's…nice meeting you." Amumu struggled to get the words "nice meeting you" like it was the hardest thing for him to do, it probably was.

Amumu must not be good with goodbyes or something because after he said that he started walking away up the path to the institute. I watched him until his small form disappeared from my sight, he was strange no doubt, but I'm probably not the person to call people out on being strange.

A/N: Finally I finished the first chapter of my rewritten, The Outcasts. Even though this chapter had a similar word length to most of my newer chapters in the old version of The Outcasts writing the beginning to stories always takes more time for me since I always worry more on if the first chapter is good enough. I can only hope that this first chapter is any good and that it was better than the first one in the the old story.

One thing my old readers will notice is that I'm trying to flesh out and develop Fizz and Amumu's friendship more than how I did in the old "The Outcasts". In the old one I felt that I made it happen too quickly (I think they became friends on the first/second chapter) and something like this shouldn't happen that quickly especially with someone like Amumu. It will happen, that much is obvious, there will just be more space between that.

That's all I have to say, thank you all for reading and have a great day/night!