Chapter 1: The Institute

The harmonious purr of a whirring engine phased in and out of the background, playing second fiddle to the chorus of activity in and around one of the League's many gardens. The heavy feet the engine propelled clattered rhythmically across the smooth pavement. Heavy boots neared and then passed by, but not without a nod from their owner.

"Mornin'."

"Guard mour-ning." Came the garbled greeting. The voice then directed itself toward its owner.

"June se-courn-" static, "note, se-mi ar-gent. Tell Vik-tar vice-box-" more static, "needs main-te-nance."

So far, the low ferns occupying the margins in the stone sidewalks had seen little company, as would be expected at six o'clock on a cool summer dawn. They welcomed the yellowed machine as it marched contentedly by their forked green fronds. The engine's head turned as it processed the drumroll of nearby dice, a drumroll which prompted a furry face to chirp a shrill, almost feminine melody.

"Twenty! Teemo heroically defeats the wicked ghoul!"

"Hmph. I've done that twice already! Haven't I, Pix?"

As the engine passed, the curious faces looked up from their game, shrouded in the shadows of the garden's larger shrubs.

"June se-cond, note, ob-ser-" low static, " veer-tion. Tee-mo and Lu-lu ear-wake ear-lier than us-ual."

As the voice faded away the drums returned, this time introducing the bubbling symphony of water, poured from a bowl grasped carefully in the outstretched hands of an angelic figure, locked in time within a sarcophagus of stone. The engine's whir joined the water's voices, whining slightly as it stretched its enormous, square fingers, wrought of Zaunite metal. A sudden explosion of color caught the steady gaze of the machine's white eyes, a stark contrast to the rich greens and browns of the garden foliage. The engine slowly raised a metallic hand in greeting as its sharp vision met the green goggles of the wide-smiled yordle.

"Hey, Blitz!"

"Good moor-" intense static, "or-ning."

Blitzcrank slowed his carefully measured steps as he inspected Ziggs' latest hexplosive. Perched upon a grey stone bench in a sea of lush grass littered with scraps of smudged sketches, Ziggs took up his pencil and scrawled on a clean square of paper, peacefully set on the bench within the chaos of Ziggs' experiments. Nearly done with his routine walk, Blitzcrank left Ziggs to perfect his confetti grenade. With a burst of static, Blitzcrank made a mental note.

"June se-cond, note, ob-ser-" static cut off Blitzcrank's sentence. "Ziggs ma-a-king new ex-plo-sive."

The sun shone on Blitzcrank's polished back as he stepped into the shadow of the Sleepless Hall. Braziers dangling from chains upon the walls flickered to life as he walked by, warming his cold steel carapace with fire and light. The hall owed its name to its unique inhabitants - champions who did not require the rest sleep offered. In light of this, the hall's interior was vastly different from the other residential halls. Since these same individuals rarely required privacy, the hall was largely empty, its chiseled pillars holding high a vaulted ceiling over a seemingly vacant void. However, the hall was far from vacant. Within its dark recesses, barely visible in the flickering firelight, resided Viktor, Orianna, Galio, and Blitzcrank, of course, along with several others like them. They had created a miniature democratic society of their own, and the first product of this society was the emptiness of the hall. They had agreed that such an environment suited them far better. They didn't remain within it for long periods of time, and even when they were there for longer than an hour they did not need the comforts of "home" most were used to. In fact, the members of Sleepless Hall's society would have been more at "home" in a neglected warehouse or even a vacant barn. The democratic council of Sleepless Hall had made this clear to the men who came to remodel their abode. So the men did their best to make the hall appear empty and derelict.

Even Viktor, who preferred to stay within the confines of the hall, was content with his environment. His corner of the rectangular hall was a regular junkyard - a barrel of tools and wide workbench lost within a hoard of hextech scrap. The others did not mind the endless sparks which shone and screamed within the darkness of that cluttered corner. Viktor was building the future, they knew, one piece at a time.

It was to this chaotic workshop that Blitzcrank made his steady, calculated way to. Even as he approached, Viktor was bent over his workbench, focused on the two halves of the Ball which lay there. With the cool patience only a machine could muster, Blitzcrank stopped still before the maze of technology before him, watching as Viktor's third hand brought the mechanics of the Ball to life in a shower of sparks wreathed in curling smoke. Viktor's iron visage flashed before the thunder and lightning of his work. The shapeless darkness that was his workplace momentarily flared with brilliant colors when a spark flew, silver gears and jet-black pipes and complex engines and tiny furnaces torn from the darkness, and as violently as they had been brought forth returned to an unrecognizable mass of total blackness. Finally the storm subsided, and Viktor gingerly held the two pieces of the Ball together in the grasp of a veteran mechanic and welded them tight. The metal hissed indignantly and glowed an irritated red, flinging smoke at Viktor's emotionless face before calming to the peaceful grey of cold steel. Only Viktor knew the secret to his rapid welding and cooling process, a secret which allowed him to work many times faster than others in his area of expertise. As he set the Ball aside he turned to Blitzcrank, evidently having been aware of the golem's presence the entire time.

"What's the trouble this time?"

Static. "voice-box."

"Really, again?"

"Ye-es."

"One moment."

Viktor trusted no-one to enter his sanctuary, so with calculated steps he picked his way to Blitzcrank. The Zaunite innovator fiddled with a hatch at Blitzcrank's collar and opened it. His eyes glowed with piercing light as he inspected the contents of the hatch. Viktor nodded, and spoke in his cold, resonating voice.

"Ah. Typical."

He reached into the barrel by his workbench and extracted a pair of needle-like objects. He took them and began adjusting Blitzcrank's voicebox, sending thin, metallic noises reverberating through the mostly empty hall. He fixed whatever it was within minutes, closed the hatch tight, and replaced his tools.

"Better?"

"Testing. Yes. Thank you."

The struggling flames of the braziers had been lost in a stalemate with the monstrous darkness of the Sleepless Hall, occasionally reinforced by the fleeting light of stray sparks from Viktor's work. They relied on the light from the massive opened doors to aid them in their fight, but suddenly, a titanic silhouette inundated their unfailing bulwark with a solid shade of black. Blitzcrank, immediately noticed this change in the tide of battle. The large, arched doorway to the hall strained to contain the hulking bulk that was Nautilus. He stood a moment, allowing his glowing eyes to slowly adjust to the black hole before him, before setting the flickering fires shuddering with his thundering footfalls. If he had emotions, he didn't make it particularly obvious. He greeted the miniscule figures before him with merely a glance; whatever emotions or friendliness the giant felt were contained within his iron shell. The tremendous being trudged heavily to his stage adjacent a stained-glass window, tremors radiating from his path.

The giant's stage was a solid slab of stone which rose taller than some men, hewn from the seafloor with his own anchor. It was less like a stage and more like a stand, for that was all Nautilus did upon that rock: stand.

Blitzcrank's programming had not included emotions, however he loved to delve into his bottomless memory as much as an emotionless machine could love anything; it was his favorite activity. Now the golem siezed the oppurtunity to recall when that slab had first been brought to his home.

It was long ago, when Nautilus had first entered the gates to the honorable Institute of War in his personal pursuit for truth and answers to his condition. Upon entering the Sleepless Hall he had done what he now did every time he returned to that vast building, redemption for so many of his kind: he gazed slowly into the darkness, as though the creeping shadows contained answers to his many questions. Then, one resounding step at a time, he took a straight path to that same window which he now stood silently before, as though it was the answer the shadows contained. Not once had Nautilus done otherwise. That exact path he had taken again, and again, and again; hundreds of times.

And that first time he had exited that melancholy place, retracing his same path, again, and again, and again; hundreds more times. And that first dramatic disappearance, too, the titan had not returned for nearly a week. Blitzcrank, that gentle-hearted observer, thought he had left the League forever, never to return, even if age devoured the League as the depths had devoured him. But return the walking tank did, the flat boulder hooked in the steely embrace of his monstrous anchor.

With inhuman strength Nautilus had catapulted the stone to its current resting place, and as the stone of the projectile and the stone of the floor made contact a deafening crash echoed through the entire Institute, a sound that made thunder cringe. The slab rent the floor beneath it asunder, webs of fissures and cracks pleading to the giant for mercy.

And now, in the center of those webs, the monster waited, perhaps for prey, perhaps not. But as the memories faded away Blitzcrank became aware of voices beside him. He recognized Viktor's, but the other? Was it-? Yes, it was. The benevolent golem was expecting her.

A/N: Hey guys, thanks for reading not only my first fanfic, but my first serious attempt at writing! :D Reviews are greatly appreciated as I am still trying to figure out how to write well. As far as the story goes I'll use the first couple chapters to set the stage for the story before that starts. OC won't be introduced until much, much later. Not really sure how to end this without being awkward so...bye, I guess!