Chapter 1: The Magic Man

I wake up in the harsh desert of Demacia sweating and delirious. Seconds ago I was in my room in the 2nd second floor of a dilapidated inn. It seemed like seconds but the sunburns on my skin tell me otherwise. I panic and look around there is nothing but sand, hot winds rush to my side. I search my body for cards but all I have are the clothes on my back.

I've opened a gate again, without my control.

I lay there in the abandoned wasteland not knowing what to do. I betrayed my friend Graves for magic I can barely understand and it's eating me up. It's a power I can barely control because- in the end I am just a man. These League champions don't know how lucky they are to be born with magic.

It started months ago after I obtained this gift on the tables of the enigmatic Dr. Xavier Rath. Needles prodded and poked my body, after six months of metaphysical magic transfer I was able to master teleportation. I escaped the facility after overhearing that they would wipe out my memory and turn me into a soldier of Noxus. I could care less about gods, kings or civil wars so I left but not before leaving a gate open to swallow the whole facility. They will not have me.

I escaped the high stakes world of gambling for fortunes deeper than a loan shark's pocket. I joined the League of Legends to obtain the second thing I wanted most in this god forsaken world: fame. In a few weeks I gained the people's sentiment and a pool of gold that would put the" Mistress of Riches" Sivir to shame but even after all that I have accomplished I knew that a reunion with the veritable Dr. Rath was not far from my fortunes after all he was part of the League Commission. Our meeting was the day Lady Luck started leaving my side. It was after a League battle with Alistair, the Minotaur. He was a fairly easy to beat and as I left I gave that Twisted grin which drove the crowds wild. A bevy of rose petals fell from the magic-embedded glass dome as the massive gates to the coliseum closed behind me. I took off the cape from the clasp of a bullfighter's apparel I wore which I thought would be fitting given Alistair's build. Sadly, he didn't find it funny. I was mending my wounds in the underground pits where the blood of gladiators flowed like a velvet spring when I heard him.

"Fate, how inappropriate a name for a man who's whole life has lacked any definite plan." I spot him in the shadows.

"Dr. Rath. I've been wondering when you'd appear. You sure did take your time." He steps forward. He's older, taller than what I remembered with dark spectacles and silver white hair.

He grins. "Well, I am a scientist and you Fate, are my creation, a specimen to be observed in a controlled environment."

"No one controls me." I stand up. I've hidden three Kings on the sleeve of my left hand. An appropriate death for a man like him. "Now before I kill you tell me, what did you come here for?"

"I've come to end the experiment." He shows me his teeth. I realize he is smiling in his own odd and crooked way.

I've had enough. I rush to him with a punch. Surprisingly, he dodges it. He's faster and somehow younger. We engage in combat. A roundhouse kick, a Wuju style punch that I got from Yi, a defensive block I learned from Pantheon later and we still had no winner. Finally I fling the cards directed to the three primary veins in his body. An eight of a second more and he could have been dead but he disappears in an instant and all I can hear in the dark graveyard was the horrendous sound of laughter.

"HAHAHAHA! HAHAHA! You're better than I expected Fate but you're not good enough-"

I stand in attention looking for him in all corners but it was too late when I realized he was at my back.

All I remembered when I woke up was the sound of my body falling on the dirt floor. Hours after I left the pits bewildered, why didn't he kill me?

For the most part I was fine. Everything was in place, my cards where there, my hat, he didn't even touch my body. Days later I had another battle scheduled, this time with Wukong, the Monkey King. We had the distinction in the League of having the loudest mouths and the biggest egos which in turn led to a friendly rivalry. All went well in the Fields of Justice until the fateful face-off we were equals in strength and equipment. I knew of his deceitful little tricks as I too have been known as a trickster. You know what they say about great minds? They think alike. We danced with sticks, blades, cards until the moment I used my ultimate. I opened the gate from his back and struck him he ran off as I suspected. I run off too fearing death with his ignite but something strange was trembling in my body. I dropped from where I stood there was incredible pain. I looked at my hands, they were shaking as the gate tattoo sigils rush all throughout my body. I knew the feeling well. Next thing I knew I was beside Wukong. My hand was on his broken staff and through it was his body frozen with death.

I had opened the gate two times, an impossible feat on all accounts. What truly ate me up was guilt because after that I felt much much stronger but it took something from me. I won the battle but lost a friend. I lost the war within my soul. The one thing that I refuse to steal aside from a good man's money was his life.

Find out what happens to the Magic Man's fate in the next chapter! :)