So I recently enrolled in a creative writing class in college to try and both help my writing improve and to help get back my motivation to write in the first place. Fans of my other stories will notice how I haven't updated anything in...

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...Wow... 10 months... that's longer than I thought...

Anyways, hopefully now that I have a class dedicated to making me write things it will get the old muse and motivation going to pick my other stories back up and start writing them again. So this short piece here was our first assignment; a small piece, fiction or non, on any subject matter for the teacher to get a feel for our writing as a whole. Someone in class asked if fanfiction was allowed and he said sure. So I figured I could make a fanfiction piece myself and started thinking about what to write about. Seeing as League of Legends is one of my favorite games I figured why not? That left what to write though and I started going through the lore and characters I like and remembered Lucian. For a single character with only a few small paragraphs on his lore page, there is a hell of a lot of creative stuff for the Purifier. Enough Riot could go and make their own game just around him and his story. Not a lot of the characters get such good tales with that little on their lore page. Most just get a basic history and info but he has an entire story that gives history, motivation and goals all in one. Before the recent lore reworks, like the Bilgewater event, very few got that much effort put into lore.

So I decided I'd write a piece on Lucian and this is what came out. I hope you all enjoy and hopefully I can get back into writing more for my other stories soon.

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This couldn't be happening. I thought as I shot away another undead man away, his rotting flesh burning up from my guns' purifying light. Everything had been done right, just like always. A routine hunt of a few undead from the Shadow Isles that were plaguing the mainland thanks to some unlucky or unkind ship, we'd yet to find the crew so we weren't sure if they were the victims or the criminals. Either way left us with zombies so it didn't matter much at the time. Senna and I had hunted them down rather quickly and with our purifying pistols we made short work of most of them. That's when the cry for help came. Senna, being the closer of us ran to help while I finished up the last of the undead. Then I heard her cry out in pain and rushed over myself. I'm ashamed to say a small part of me wished I hadn't.

Lying on the ground, her chest cut open from neck to navel, was Senna. Her eyes were vacant and her skin was already going pale. Standing above her was the cause, the monster known as Thresh. A skeletal face floating where a head should be and illuminated by green fire filling out a large black trench coat in a human shape, even giving the thing spectral clawed hands. In one hand a sickle with a chain going from its handle to wrap around the coat multiple times before trailing down the other arm to the lantern it held in its other hand. The lantern that was drawing a green light from Senna's body into itself. I'd heard enough about the so-called Chain Warden to know what had happened. Thresh collected souls in that lantern, some off the dead it came across and others from the dead Thresh itself created. That green light I saw was Senna's soul being taken away.

I couldn't even react to the horror I witnessed. I dropped to my knees as a scream came from the lantern followed by another in my wife's' voice. There hadn't been anyone in trouble over here, the scream was a ploy by Thresh to trick one of us over here to kill. It had been a cruel trick, and Senna had fallen for it. I could only stare in numb shock and horror as Thresh turned its face to me and held up the lantern mockingly. I could hear its laughter echoing as it turned away and left. Staring at Senna's dead body, it didn't even cross my mind that it apparently didn't even find me worth killing.

"Senna?" I called out, crawling over to her body. I wasn't expecting a response and I didn't get one either. Lifting her head up in one hand I cradled her against me as tears ran down my face, a small part of me damning the old stories I'd hear as children. In those tales the dying always managed to live just long enough to give parting words, one last message for their loved ones and such. But not here, not now. Reality is cold, just like Senna's body is becoming. I howled out my anguish as I hugged her body closer. This wasn't right, it wasn't fair, it wasn't possible. And yet the proof of it all was lifeless in my arms.

Senna was gone.

I could hear moaning and shuffling behind me which brought me back to the knowledge that there were still some undead left. My gun was lying on the ground next to me, from when I dropped it at the sight of Senna's body. I could see hers only a foot away as she must have dropped it when Thresh cut her down. Looking at Senna's pale face I couldn't help but think of how beautiful she looked even now. Couldn't help but think of joining her in the afterlife now. After all how was I supposed to live without her? She completed me. Her smile was my world, and now that world was gone.

Wait... that's wrong. I thought. There was no wife waiting for me on the other side of this life. Her soul didn't pass on, it was captured for whatever Thresh does with the victims in the lantern. I may not want to live without her but how can I expect an afterlife with her if she hasn't reached it? The realization startles me into a new plan, one I know Senna would likely approve of.

I slowly set her down as I harden my resolve. Reaching out I pick up my gun and with a moment of hesitation, of remembrance, I reach for hers as well. Standing, I look down at her, vowing to return after this. There's no way in any level of hell or torment imaginable that I'm going to just leave her body here without a proper burial. I'll take care of what's left of her the moment I'm finished. I have a job to do, a goal to accomplish. I can't live without her but I can't die without knowing she's waiting either. I make my vow here, over her body for the world to know; I will free her. I will find Thresh, slay the beast it is, and free Senna from the lantern. Then and only then, am I allowed to die. Nothing will stop me, and nothing will be left if it stands in my way. Turning around to face the zombie hoard that had gathered to attack me I raise both guns and close my eyes. With her face in my mind, her gun in my hand alongside my own, and my vow etched into my heart; I open my eyes and started shooting, the battle cry I let out telling everyone of just why I fight.

"For Senna."