Author's Note: I don't own League of Legends or any of the characters in this story.
This is inspired by a picture drawn by a friend of mine of Pulsefire Ezreal where it looked like he was wearing Pink Taric's belt around his neck. A little crappy editing on my part later, and I had colored the image. Me being the crazy person I am, I couldn't simply leave it at that, so this fic was born.
There's slight gore warning in the first of the two endings (because I couldn't make up my mind on which ending I liked better), but if you can handle looking at Sion or Hecarim's in-game models, you should be able to handle reading that ending. I'll repeat this warning at the beginning of that chapter.
Enjoy the story. :)
Ezreal awoke with the distinct feeling that something was wrong, and the fact that his head was abuzz with pain certainly didn't help matters. He opened his eyes, then immediately wished he hadn't.
"Where am I?" He had taken to speaking aloud in his travels; when a person had only themselves as company, they learned to make the best of it. Not only that, but he swore it helped cement things to his memory to be related to Taric when he returned home.
The surroundings were like nothing he had ever seen before. The sky was a dark brown with periodic red streaks and occasional eddies of grey. The ground was a dull, rusty tone, flat as far he could see. There were no trees, animals, or natural objects anywhere. In the distance he saw what looked like black smoke, but that was very far off.
"The last thing I remember," Ezreal began, trying to work out what had happened, "is exploring the Southern Wastelands then getting sucked into some sort of vortex in the air - kind of like quicksand… So how did I get here?" He sat up slowly, considering for several moments as his headache began to die down. What was even more disturbing for him was that he couldn't feel at all where he was. Normally, wherever he was he could feel a sense of location; with his magical gauntlet's aide, he could even sense directions to his destination without the need of any sort of physical map. Here, he read nothing. For that matter, he couldn't feel the usual sense of power emanating from the glove adorning his left hand. Reality sunk in, and he realized he was stranded, with no idea where to go.
Instinct told him to avoid the black smoke and get as far from it as possible, so he turned, looking at the horizon in the opposite direction. There wasn't much of note; just the same brown and grey -
"Wait. What was that glint? It looked almost like metal.."
With no better options in sight, Ezreal decided he might as well head towards the silver he had observed in the distance. Perhaps it was a city and he could get an explanation. It had looked too small, but Ezreal wasn't one to give up hope so quickly, so he made his way off.
After walking what he judged to be several miles, he reached the source of the silver he had seen. It wasn't a city.
From what the Explorer could tell, it was an odd mess of wires, tubes, and what looked suspiciously like a design he had seen on Heimerdinger's wall once labeled 'jetpack.'
"This can't be real." Ezreal told himself as he sorted through the wires and came to the realization it was some sort of body suit. Briefly, he wondered if he should leave it where he found it, but his curiosity got the better of him.
After much difficulty, Ezreal managed to slip into a wire-covered sweatsuit, complete with boots and gloves, and all a size or three too large for him. He had just slipped the backpack-thing onto his back, and put what looked like Gentleman Cho'gath's monocle over his left eye when there was a quick jab in the back of his neck near his spinal chord. There was a strange feeling of sharing his brain with someone, as if someone was reading his thoughts. No sooner had this happened than he heard a strange female voice inside his head, "Thermal reactor online."
The backpack made a strange hissing sound and Ezreal began to panic. Several flaps opened off of it, though he couldn't tell what was happening. "Fusion core active."
That was more than the poor Explorer could stand. Just as he was trying to peel off the left glove, a large cylindrical object formed around his hand. "Pulsefire cannon charging." There was a faint glow that quickly grew to a blinding intensity as objects clicked and whirred inside what he assumed to be the cannon.
The female voice came again, "Hello Ezreal, I am pleased to serve you." The Prodigal Explorer's panic levels hit maximum before he suddenly felt himself inexplicably growing calm. "I am PEARL, the AI in your suit. I have taken the liberty of injecting calming sedatives into your bloodstream for your own safety."
"Hi PEARL," Ezreal found himself saying. Maybe it was the sedatives, but it somehow seemed normal. Briefly he wondered if PEARL did anything other than talk, but he was immediately answered by that same voice.
"I monitor your vital signs, provide information and tactical assistance, have over nine thousand aziobytes of information stored in my databases, offer companionship, supply translation services, and am in charge of maintaining the physical part of the suit. Essentially I am hardwired into your brain to make your life an easier, less unpleasant place."
"Alright… Cool. I need... I need to sleep now." With that, Ezreal passed out, the strain of having a super computer uploaded into his brain in under a minute more than he could handle.
AN: For the record, Aziobytes are my own invention and not real in the slightest. I'm not all too clear on how much data the actual PEARL database would take up, so I made up a unit of measurement to avoid making the database too small.
Also, I've been working on this fic for the past 4-5 hours and now need sleep. I'll post the rest later/tomorrow.
Please leave comments with feedback if you have a moment? I'm pretty new to fic writing, so anything (positive or negative) would mean a lot. :3