It was a calm night of gentle drizzles.
A night of pure serenity, wet with light rain, that made you appreciate life even in the midst of a full-scale Void Invasion of Valoran.
Five years it had been, since the portals to the Void ripped through the veil, letting countless creatures of many hideous forms escape.
Behind their magnificent walls, nine-nations of Valoran hid many cities and villages, protecting them from onslaught of Void Invasion. Any villages or cities that were on lands outside these protective walls were mostly all destroyed by gruesome creatures known as Emon's, spiky red-beasts, running on all four-legs and swift as the wind, deadly with their toxins and always traveling in packs, designed to seek-and-destroy the innocents of Valoran.
And on this day, exactly five years after the Invasion of the Void, a stranger traveled to Demacia, a majestic kingdom dashingly beaming colors of blue and gold, a land with towering castles taller than hextech-skyscrapers of Piltover.
His face hidden, the hatted stranger was approaching the far most eastern Demacian village. Under his jet-black umbrella, he fashioned golden shoulder guard, inner-area curved upward for neck protection, and under it a long black jacket that worked more as a cape, and with faded-magenta vest and his signature black Stetson shading half of his face, his well-fashioned goatee and long hair were emphasized.
Known as the Ultimate Gambler and the Card Master, the stranger was no stranger to many.
The stranger had set his sights on Demacia's famous tavern known as the "Dauntless Nights." After a long journey and much magic usage, the exhausted man fashioning an elegant trench coat embroiled in golden lacings needed a drink or two, he thought to himself.
When the stranger could hear the festivities of the pub, he tilted his hat up to see Dauntless Nights in all its glories. Music was playing, lights were flickering, noises were echoing, and after a realization that seemed all too ironic, a gentle smile found its place upon the stranger's face.
"Well I'll be damned," he chuckled, talking to himself as he approached the footsteps of Dauntless Nights.
Dauntless Nights was a famous tavern indeed, for it held many events with handsome rewards, night after night. The owners were gracious, one being the jolly-good bartender, so they gave back as much as they took and created a happy family environment. Not the ideal place for a loner such as the hooded man.
Upon entering , the stranger folded his umbrella and started making his way to the bars, passing many drunk Demacian citizens, and many forms of pleasantries. The stranger swiftly moved through the crowded areas, as if magic, and arrived at the bar area as he leaned his wet umbrella against a stool he soon sat in.
"'Ello there! What can I get for ye?"
"Bartender, I'll have two pitchers of your signature Demacian pale ale,"
"Well alright-y there. That will be six bronzes,"
The stranger handed over the payment, and tapped his fingers as he waited, observing the hooded man's behaviors. The man seemed to have been past the point of drunk, his face pointed towards the table. But the stranger had already known the man's true identity, and was exactly the reason why had come to the tavern in the first place.
The Bartender soon returned with two pitchers of Demacian pale ale.
"Dere' ye go, two Demacian pale ales."
"Ah, perfection." The hatted stranger replied, as he sipped a pitcher of beer. A good balance of malt and hops, nearly perfected to contain slight notes of fruit with bitterness in that exquisite range of floral and pungent.
"Anythun' else?"
"Actually, indeed. What do you know of that man over there?"
The stranger pointed to the far left corner of the tavern, where a hooded man was sitting alone on a round table, as far away as possible from the rest of the crowd.
"Aye?" the bartender squinted to look. "Not much, I'm afraid. He has been sitting deyah since this afternoon, drinking ale after ale. Other than that, not much, I apologize."
"Heh, any information is power. My sincere gratitude."
He grabbed the two ales and made his way to a certain table, not too far from the bar area.
"Heh heh. It has been a long time, old friend," said the stranger in hat, as he sat himself down next to the man.
The hooded man lifted his head up, holding on to his forehead with his right arm, no doubt due to drinking. His cheeks red and his beard wet with booze, this brutish man still had his eyes closed with a frown on his face.
"Are you talking to me, stranger?" The drunken warrior grunted, as he clumsily searched for and grabbed a half-finished mug of ale. It only took him a second to finish rest.
The stranger could not help but laugh at the man.
How the mighty had fallen, he thought to himself.
"Indeed I am," said the stranger to the man, in a calm demeanor. "May I sit?"
The man gestured the stranger to do so, and the stranger sat across from the man. He placed the two ales gently on the round wooden table, as he tilted his hat slightly forward and smirked.
"I am here with a job offer,"
"Job offer hmmm?" The man opened his eyes, red from all the drinking.
The stranger looked very familiar to him. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there was something definitely familiar about the stranger to the man.
"Do I know you?" asked the man.
"Highly possibly, partner, but I know you," said the stranger, as he chuckled.
"Everybody knows the King-Murderer," the man replied with sarcastic tone, as he tried to drink from an empty mug. He grunted as he just-nearly slammed the mug back onto the table.
The stranger passed a pitcher of ale to the man.
"All the ale you will probably need tonight, King-Murderer,"
"Probably will need more," The man grabbed the pitcher and drank from it with gusto. "Pale ale? Good choice." The man reached out to cheers the stranger, and the two drank the pale ale, crisp and fresh. "So," said the man as he wiped his beard. "How can I help you, stranger?"
The man had been discharged of his duties in Demacia, after killing Jarvan III, the former king of Demacia. No one knows of his motives for doing so, but his son Jarvan IV had no choice but to banish the man from the central kingdom, where the top officers of Demacia resided. Execution would have been the correct choice for the man, but Jarvan IV showed mercy to his former-best friend, much to the distaste of public opinion.
"Before we begin, what happened to your left arm?"
"Cut off in a duel," stated the man, his expression turning serious.
"Oh? Unfortunate. And where are your regular armors? Surely the captain of the Dauntless Vanguard wears it all the time,"
"Have you not heard? I murdered the king, I have been discharged."
"Can you still fight as you once did?"
The man clenched his Greatsword that was leaning next to him against the table, as he gave the stranger a glare as if he was about to cut him in half. The man was wearing a worn out wool cape, with a regular cotton clothes, ragged up from over-wearing. Bandages around his only arm covering many scars, he was an imposing brute of a warrior and his presence itself told of many glorious battles fought.
"Ha, such force. I apologize, I apologize. I did come to you for services after all,"
The man released the sword and leaned it back onto the table.
"Who are you, and what do you want of me?"
"Have you forgotten already, dear Garen?" the stranger said to the man, revealing the man to a former Champion of League of Legends.
Garen, startled, rubbed his eyes with his one right-arm, and looked at the stranger more closely.
"Twisted-Fate," Garen claimed. "You could have just said so from the beginning."
"Ha, that was not fair of me, do forgive," Twisted-Fate apologized, as he sipped his pitcher of ale. "But my friend, you are a shadow of your former-self. It has been five years since the Gathering of the Titans. Do you remember, Garen?"
"Who wouldn't?" Garen took another gulp. Remembering the past, he slammed the table in anger. "it's where I lost my f**king arm."
"A bit wrathful eh? Heh heh,"
"Get to the point, Tobias."
"Okay Garen," Twisted Fate responded, as he took out a briefcase filled with cash. "This is your initial pay, gold bills worth five platinum coins."
Garen's eyes widened at the amount of money. With this amount of money, Garen could take care of all of his financial problems he had been facing with the Demacian banks, as he had wasted away all the loaned money on booze.
"What's the catch?"
"I don't know myself. But there is always a catch,"
Twisted Fate finished off his ale.
"Long story short, I intend to restore order to Valoran by reviving the Institute of Justice."
Garen looked at Tobias and a momentary pause followed. He let out a sigh.
"That's noble of you, considering it is you, after all. So what do you want me to do?" Garen asked, seemingly looking peeved.
"This is no lie, partner. And I prefer the word, cheat. If fate deems me with mercy so kind, I may see a day where I can cheat the system once more,"
"What the actual f**k kind of reason is that!?"
Twisted Fate burst out in laughing.
"Quite frankly, it's what gives me the thrills. I want to cheat the system, but there has to be a stable system in the first place for me to cheat. I am not too fond of the state of the system Valoran is in, succumbing down to the Void's threat."
Garen finished off his ale as well, hard to disagree from Twisted Fate's point.
Any villages and civilians that were outside the protection of a major political nation of Valoran had to abandon their homes in search for refuge of nine nations of Valoran. The Void creatures dared not approach Mt. Targon, ever since the conjoining of Solari and Lunari orders.
"You drink fast," Garen proclaimed. He let out an obnoxious burp, with a smell of fried fish and yeast cascading onto Twisted-Fate's poor nose. He did not budge, but Garen could tell Tobias was uncomfortable. "So what is it that you want me to do?"
"Heh, I knew you would be interested," Twisted Fate scratched his finely-fashioned goatee, smirking as he took out three cards, red, blue and gold. "Simply partner, I require your services in armed-fighting. I want you to protect me, at all costs, in exchange for payment."
Garen looked at the gold bills inside the briefcase. He laughed, as he closed the briefcase and faced Tobias.
"Money? Is this your best offer, Twisted Fate?"
Tobias chuckled.
"Partner, don't you want redemption?"
"Redemption? So I can be maneuvered into killing another king? I am comfortable in this village," Garen replied.
Maneuvered? Good information, Twisted Fate thought to himself.
"What if I were to tell you, the entire Valoran is in grave danger?"
This peeked Garen's interest, Tobias could tell.
"What sort of grave danger?"
"That information, is confidential."
Twisted Fate stood up, as he dusted off his jacket.
"It is about time I left. All shall be revealed in time. So if you accept the job offer, be in front of this tavern 'morrow's morning, partner,"
"Wait,"
Garen, once a proud captain of the Dauntless Vanguard, still had his pride. But he was a lonely man.
"You should know, gambler, you cannot buy a man like me, no matter how hard times may seem," Garen stood up from his seat. "You cannot gamble my fate with money."
"Tell me, what is it that you seek?"
Garen took his hood off.
"A stranger once said, 'any information is power, my sincere gratitude,'" said Garen, his eyes with focus in them now.
Twisted-Fate heatedly laughed.
"I see your hearing is as good as ever,"
"The things I have heard back in Noxian prisons," Garen shook his head. "This plan of yours. How do you intend on recreating the Institute of Justice? And what is this confidential information?"
Twisted-Fate stared at Garen for a while, and silence fell amongst the two. But eventually, Twisted-Fate moved to tuck his chair in and broke the silence.
"Simply, partner, the Apocalypse is coming, and its armies are those of the Void. And I intend to stop it,"
And with that statement, Twisted-Fate walked away to exit the bar, with confused Garen, with a slight frown between his brows, looking on.