Author's Note: Hey I'm back :) and only a week late. Not bad huh? Not much to say so enjoy :)
Warning: Swearing
It was Tuesday morning and already Rumble knew it was going to be a bad day. Firstly, his alarm clock had malfunctioned, causing him to oversleep; and since his parents were both working early, he couldn't even get a lift to make up for time. Instead, he simply threw on some clothes and grabbed an apple for the road, barely making it to school on time. As he got there however, he realised that, in his rush, he'd forgotten his English report, which – surprise, surprise – was due today. With a sigh, he resigned himself to it just being one of those days.
His first class that morning was English with Miss Pringer, who was definitely not happy about his forgotten report. Thankfully, Teemo and Tristana were able to talk her into giving him another day – just as long as he got it in to her first thing the next morning.
Next came his oh so favourite subject: sport. After an hour if gruelling humiliation he was finally released to lunch, where, low-and-behold, someone managed to accidentally spill their drink on him. His afternoon classes weren't so bad, but since none of his friends were in them, they ended up being quite boring. In the end he spent the rest of the afternoon staring out the window while, thankfully, nothing disastrous occurred.
Finally, the school bell rang and the relieved cobalt yordle rushed outside, more than ready to put this awful day behind him.
"Hey Rumble," Trist grinned upon catching sight of him.
Rumble, despite how downtrodden he felt, still managed to give her a smile, even if it was only a half-hearted one.
"Wow, bad day huh?" the blue girl asked with a raised eyebrow.
He sighed, "I don't want to talk about it."
Ziggs threw an arm over his shoulder. "Well on the bright side: school's over, so now we can work on our project!"
"With my luck today, you'll probably blow it up this afternoon."
Tristana burst into laughter as the green-eyed yordle shouted, "Hey! I resent that!"
"Stop being such a pessimist Rumble," the yordling girl came to her clumsy friend's aid. "And don't jinx us. He doesn't need any help." Sorta.
Ziggs feigned heartbrokenness, clutching his chest as he sent them a mournful look, "Now I see how it is. Some friends you are. Well, if I'm not wanted here I'll just go hang out with Teemo instead."
"Calm down silly," Tristana giggled. "You know we don't really mean it."
"I know," the brown-furred yordle grinned, breaking the facade.
"Besides," Rumble added, "you can't deny that you're accident prone."
The eleven-year-old shrugged, "Yeah, you're right. But that's just a by-product of my brilliance."
It was true. Despite the hyperactive yordle's energy and disregard for safety, when he and Rumble put their minds to it they could produce some truly impressive contraptions.
Rumble conceded the point before asking, "So where is Teemo anyway?"
"He's coming," Trist told him. "He just had to finish up something first."
As if on cue, the pale yordle in question came hurrying towards them.
"Good news," he grinned upon reaching them. "I finished typing up our presentation."
"Really? That's great!" The other three lit up, high-fiving the cream-coloured kit.
"That's the best news I've heard all day," Rumble told him with a smile.
It didn't last long however as a familiar voice taunted, "Well if it isn't the Heimerdinger wannabe."
With a sigh over the familiar nickname, the short kid turned to face his nemesis. "One day I'll be as great as Heimerdinger, just you wait," he challenged the bigger boy.
The pug-like yordle just laughed. "In your itty-bitty baby dreams."
Just my luck he'd decide to come pick on me today of all days, Rumble felt a headache forming from having to deal with the boy; his normally short fuse completely depleted after his day. "What do you want Klive? Did you actually have something slightly meaningful to say? Or are you just here to spout of garbage like usual. If so you can just shove off 'cause we have a project to work on."
Unexpectedly, the large yordle's grin grew bigger, setting off alarm bells in the blue boy's mind. "Why bother? You're never going to win anyway."
That got Tristana riled up and she shoved herself in the older teen's face. "Oh yeah?" the pale-blue girl glared. "And how do you know?"
He smirked, "I thought it'd be obvious why. After all, who'd be impressed at a couple of kiddies' science presentation? But to answer pipsqueak's earlier question: no, I didn't just come here to taunt you about your quaint project. In fact, I wasn't even going to bother to bring it up at all. I'm here because my sister actually wants to talk to you." He poked the blue girl in the chest for emphasis.
Aqua eyes narrowed. "Oh yeah? Well you can tell your sister-" the girl was cut off as a strong whiff of perfume caught her nose and an arm was slung around her shoulders.
"Tristana dear," Litani fired a 100-watt grin at her. "I hear your mother's organising the gala this weekend, are you going?"
"Yes," was the short haired girl's response, unfortunately.
"What a coincidence, so am I!"
Oh joy, just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, the blue yordling kept her mouth shut.
"We should totally hang out there! In fact, I don't see why we don't already. We both live in the same area, our parents are both rich, respected yordles and we generally end up at the same events. You know you don't have to hang out with these rejects if you don't want to. You can be in the popular group."
Tristana stiffened, pulling out of the pale girl's grip. "I think I'd rather stick burning pokers in my eyes than hang out with you, Miss I'm-better-than-everyone-else." Moving up into the older girl's space, Tristana continued. "Now you listen here and listen well: my friends are not just some inferior, sub-standard group. Their incredible, talented, funny and compassionate yordles who are friends with me for myself and not for my status. I wouldn't give them up for the world. So if you ever suggest that they're second-rate again, I'll kick your butt. Got it?"
Litani sniffed. "Fine, be that way. Just don't say I didn't give you a chance." She turned to her brother, "Shall we?"
He smirked, "Of course."
With one last malicious glare, the two of them stalked off.
"That was weird," Teemo commented.
The blue girl snorted, "Probably just trying to gain favours for the gala."
"Which gave Klive the excuse to be a jerk. Not that he needs one," Ziggs agreed.
The creamy-furred kit shook his head persistently. "No, that whole interaction was off."
"Teemo's right," Rumble said quietly, not taking his eyes off of where the two has disappeared. "That wasn't like them at all. Something's wrong."
The churning in his gut increased as he remembered Klive's grin when he'd mentioned their project. It could be nothing… but with Klive it was better not to take that risk.
"Come on," he briskly took off for home. "I need to check something."
The thick tension was palpable between the four as they made their way back to Rumble's workshop. Several steps ahead, the cobalt yordle kept up a fast pace, needing to make sure his paranoia was wrong. Behind him the other three were too busy trying to keep up to say much, instead turning the rest of their attention to deciphering the strange interaction. And all the while the anticipation increased; feeding off of each yordling's reaction to its dark presence and building to the point that when the large garage finally came into view, it could not be soon enough.
Rumble let out a relieved sigh at the sight of the sturdy, old warehouse standing unchanged and still intact before them. "Guess it was nothing."
Turning to the door however, he paused in confusion. The clunky, large padlock that usually adorned the front door's handle was laying on the ground, broken into two pieces.
Rumble went cold, stalling for several seconds as fear gripped at his heart before his panic shot him into action. In a frenzied motion he threw the door open, rushing into his work-shed. Hesitant, his friends waited outside. But after several moments of agonising silence had passed and there was still no sound from their short friend, they knew something was up.
Quickly they followed, only to stop dead just inside the door. Tristana couldn't help gasping in shock as Ziggs cursed quietly at the sight that greeted them.
Their project – the device they'd worked so hard on for the past week – was in pieces; smashed and trampled into unsalvageable fragments as a few remaining sparks flared in the dying piece.
And that, unfortunately, wasn't the worst of it. All around them destruction reigned, the place barely recognisable. Blue prints and notes had been torn and disfigured; tools smashed and broken; and the countless creations the place had once held were totally and utterly destroyed. Nothing had survived the massacre. All of Rumble's mechanisms; all of his and Ziggs experiments; and all of the four friend's projects from over the past years; all of it was gone. Only the lifeless husks of the former contraptions remained, scattered carelessly across the room.
And in the centre of it all, as broken in that moment as his creations, kneeled Rumble. Glazed eyes stared forward, barely taking in the sight. The boy sat trembling amongst the rubble, too numb to even register the sound of his friends cautiously approaching.
"Rumble?" Tristana called softly, but the blue boy didn't respond. Gently she touched his shoulder. "Hey talk to me. Are you ok?"
Obviously not, she scolded herself, but she couldn't think of what else to say.
And still he didn't respond. Unsure what else to do, she gave him a little shake, and, as if a switch had been flicked, he stood up with a growl.
"I'll kill him." Fury blazed in his amber eyes as the small yordle stalked towards the door. Only to be stopped by an uncharacteristically sombre and authoritative Ziggs.
"Move," he ground out.
"No," Ziggs shook his head.
Trying to get around him, the blue yordle hissed, "Get out of the way!"
The chestnut kid stood his ground. "Look Rumble, I know you're upset-"
"You think?" Rumble's voice oozed with condescending sarcasm but Ziggs just ignored him.
"-but you can't just take on Klive by yourself: he'll beat you to a bloody pulp!"
"I don't care!" The smaller boy tried to shove past his friend but was stopped as a pair of strong arms were wrapped around his torso. Rumble growled, fighting furiously against the restraint, but Teemo's grip was unbreakable. "Let go!"
"Rumble stop!" Tristana pleaded, but the cobalt yordle couldn't hear her over his own fury.
"He destroyed everything! Everything! Years' worth of work and research gone! I'm going to have to start it all over from scratch. All of it! And why? Because one fucking asshole with a sick sense of humour decided he didn't want us to win a school science fair! Do you have any idea how that feels?"
"I'm angry too!" Ziggs snapped. "I had stuff in here too! Experiments, ideas, projects. Things that we both poured our time and effort into. We all had stuff in here Rumble. And every one of us has the right to be upset." His ears drooped in sadness and the forlorn pain in his expression caused Rumble to decrease in his struggles. "But going after Klive is just what he wants; and I don't want to have to scrape up one of my best friends off the sidewalk. Look. I know it'll take time, but everything here at least can be replaced. You can't."
By this stage, the blue yordle's fighting had ceased and Teemo was able to relax his grip. He did not let go however, in fear that the smaller boy would collapse face first into the ground without the support. The kit hung limp in the pale yordle's grasp, head low. "Alright," he conceded.
Seeing that the blue yordle had calmed down a little, Tristana pulled him into a hug, which he gratefully returned, burying his head into her shoulder. The other two drew closer too, comforting their hurting friend. And, for the first time since he had started school, Rumble cried.
"Don't worry," Tristana told him, her own anger hardening into determination. "We'll get Klive back for this. But on our own terms, not his."
So, if anyone is interested my Shurima picture got shortlisted but I didn't win anything. In other news Riot's holding a fanfiction contest by July 11th now so I'm thinking of entering that too :D. So yeah, my next update might be a bit slow again.
I also had a question for my all my readers: how much would guys enjoy me drawing scenes/characters from this series? I have already drawn a picture of Kennen and Poppy which you can find a link of on my profile page and I am keen to draw some more pictures from it. Be warned though, I'm very slow at updating.
Thank you for all your support, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! :)
Aiden: Haha, I'm glad you're enjoying it