Ezreal awoke suddenly the next afternoon due to the blue glow of light surrounding his body. At first he attempted to roll over and fall back asleep, but his body was poked by the corner of a decrepit book made with a wooden cover wrapped in cloth. The pain jolted him awake in time to realize he was undergoing one of the most common – and yet his most dreaded – events inside of the League for any champion: he was being summoned. Within a few moments he sat on brick tile flooring, feeling the power of the Nexus' magic pouring through his body. The spot where he was sitting was commonly referred to as the fountain. While it contained not a drop of water, its name is derived from the fact that its magic makes the champion feel youthful again. Ezreal's grogginess from having been awoken was quickly dispersed as the fountain's magic flooded into his body to prepare him for battle.
He looked around at the champions that had been summoned to his side to fight with him on the Fields of Justice. The teams were almost always five champions each. To his left he saw a broad man in a red trench coat, worn loosely exposing the white shirt he had on underneath, along with black pants and a pirate hat atop his head. His scraggly beard was chest length and his mustache grew far past the point of cleaning melding with the rest of his facial hair. The pirate wielded a scimitar in one hand and a flint lock pistol in the other. How he managed to reload the thing in the heat of combat, Ezreal would never know. He was laughing jollily as he poured a vile greenish concoction onto his blade and bullets, bubbling and foaming as the liquid touched the metal surfaces.
"Prepare to 'ave yar flee rotten, urchin ridden corpses dragger down ta Davey Jones' locker ye scallywags!" the man boasted to the wind, as if the opposing team could hear the mocking shouts of a half drunken pirate while standing miles away from him. He came from the city of Bilgewater, on the Blue Flame Island. In combat, he was quite the teammate, which was not to be expected from a man who spent his time shouting out things like that. He did everything in his power to aid his allies in combat living under the policy that "no one goes down with the ship but the captain himself".
"Pipe down over there Gangplank, you're going to give me a stroke" said a light, yet sturdy, voice. The speaker wore all red garments, flourished with fancy decorations to make himself appear of high power and importance. His hair was long and pale, just like his face. He looked as if he had just seen a ghost and all the blood had drained from his face. He was cruel and sadistic fighter who curled the blood of his foes to and from their bodies, often times returning it ridden with diseases or pulling a trick as simple as giving them a type of blood that their bodies cannot accept. Ezreal was not quite sure how or why the man chose to fight with blood, but he honestly did not want to know.
"Aye, I 'ave jus' the currre fur ye Vladimir," gangplank said, referring to the man in red, while skillfully cutting the peel off of an orange with blade after having holstered his pistol. Ezreal was about to make a comment pertaining to the fact that he was cutting the orange with the same blade he had just previously coated in poison; however, the pirate did not seem to care. He finished peeling the orange in just a few seconds, then preceded to consuming the citrus, in half of the time. Ezreal raised a skeptical eye brow towards him, simply amazed by the speed at which he performed the action.
Vladimir sighed loudly. "Oranges cannot cure a STROKE Gangplank. They can only help the maggot ridden, malnutritioned, SCUM that wastes their days away sailing across the ocean," he snorted.
"Yar har har har harrr!" the pirate replied. "That what YOU be thinkin.'" Vladimir rolled his eyes and shifted off to one of the lanes on the battlefield. They were standing in an area called Summoner's Rift which comprised of three primary paths, or lanes, leading from the location of one teams Nexus to the location of the other's. The Nexus is what gave the summoners the magical strength needed to summon champions and perform the tasks that they did. Destroying the opposing Nexus would successfully insure that the other team was useless in comparison, and marked victory in the battle. The paths leading between them were lined with large structures that were referred to as towers or turrets, that shot at anyone from the opposing team who tried to attack its allies or go near it. Generally, summoners would be sure to send a champion or two into each lane to assure that the towers are contested, seeing as there are five champions on a team and only three lanes to protect.
Ezreal glanced around to try to get an idea of who he was fighting with. He immediately spotted Lux standing among the group of fighters and felt embarrassed that he had not seen her sooner. He strode through the arguing Vladimir and Gangplank, who had stopped proceeding to their lanes in order to argue about something pointless a little longer, and stood next to her.
"About time you noticed me Ezreal!" she said sarcastically, bearing a broad smile. He smiled back.
"I had no idea that I was in a match today, I was woken up when I got summoned this morning," he told her. She grinned back.
"It's been posted for weeks. And it wasn't this morning; it's afternoon Ezreal." He blushed lightly and turned so that only half of his face was visible to her.
"Well I… uh…" His stuttering was cut off as Gangplank took a firm hold on his shoulder and spun him about.
"C'mere you fluffy haired laddie, we got some booty to plunder," the pirate said to him. Ezreal cringed as he prayed that Gangplank had not intended for his comment to be as sexual as it sounded, and parted from his conversation with Lux to trudge down to the bottommost of the three lanes with Gangplank.
Ezreal stood next to an ally tower as he watched Gangplank dance and sing to himself merrily about fifty feet in front of him. It was a bit risky to stand so far away from the turret before the Nexus had spawned its first wave of minions to storm down the tower-protected lanes towards the enemy's Nexus; however, the jolly pirate hardly seemed to care. Ezreal looked across the way to see if his opponents had showed up yet. He saw two people standing near their team's tower: one resembled a Viking in his clothing and horned helmet along with his blonde hair and lengthy beard that reached down to his belt buckle. His belt housed the loops for him to store his two hand axes; were he to ever unequip them. Next to him was a famed Noxian assassin: Katarina. She wore long scarlet hair and dressed in mostly tight leather. Her outfit was lined with spare daggers to insure that she could always hit her target regardless of their distance from her handheld blades.
As Gangplank danced about, a throwing axe and a razor sharp dagger found their ways to the ground besides him. He immediately paused his jolly jig and looked up to see where the projectiles had come from. Katarina was standing beside her tower, holding another throwing knife in her had in threatening preparation. Olaf stood further in front of the tower than she did and was shouting something at Gangplank that was inaudible at Ezreal's distance.
"Throw 'nother one of them axes, and ya'll find yerself on a one way trip ta the bottom of the ocean!" Gangplank yelled back. By that point in time, the minions had arrived and Ezreal followed behind them. He floated on the outskirts of the skirmish between both team's minions and helped his teams out by shooting quick bolts of pulsing yellow energy from his enchanted glove at the enemies as they looked injured and close to death. Summoners were awarded a small amount of currency whenever their champions finished off a minion or monster, or aided in the takedown of a champion or turret. The currency was not used for anything outside of the Fields of Justice and was never referred to anything other than just simply "gold". The gold could be used to buy items from a vendor who set up shop in the fountains of either team. These items were handed to the champions to use in combat. That way, a team could create an advantage by performing well on the battlefield.
Ezreal, and his summoner, kept an eye on his opponents as he shot at the minions to make sure that he was not in any danger of being attacked. The opposing team was doing the same; just getting the finishing blows on the minions to maintain a constant gold income. Gangplank however, did not act in the same manner. Instead, he chose to sit amongst the bushes, alongside the minion flattened lane, with a bottle of rum in one hand and his flintlock pistol in the other. Between swigs from his bottle, he would shoot down a weakened minion and proceed to fumbling around with his pistol until it managed to become reloaded. The process continued for much longer than it ever should have until Gangplank decided to fire one his shots towards the blonde haired viking. The bullet, to Ezreal's amazement, landed in his thigh. He hardly seemed to notice any pain from the wound but seemed to take it as quite an insulting gesture. He immediately looked at his thigh, then back up towards the location of its shooter. Much to his own dismay, Ezreal prepared to fight him. He shot a few bolts of arcane energy towards the brute as he charged towards the bushes where Gangplank sat and slammed his axes into the ground with such immense force that the blow appeared to have hurt himself a little in the process. He noticed that the pirate was no longer standing in the bushes, and there was a human sized crater in the ground in front of him. Ezreal chuckled at his barbaric efforts.
"You think something's funny, do ya?" the man shouted at Ezreal. An axe came flying through the air and skimmed Ezreal's arm. Under normal circumstances, the pain would be intolerable; however, in the Fields of Justice, it was minimal. In fact, he could already see the skin regenerating over the mark.
"You don't deserve the hair of a viking" he yelled out, referring to Ezreal's blonde hair. He turned to see the brute sprinting towards him. Ezreal channeled the power of his glove to shift his position away from the viking and started to run towards the shelter of his tower. The chase was slowed as the poisoned bullet's effect started to spread throughout the man's leg and cause his pace to decrease. Ez took advantage of this and turned to shoot bolt after bolt of magical energy to flux through the air towards his pursuer. The bruiser took the energy pulses and continued to storm forward, shouting with rage as he began to ignore the poisoning pain and sprint forward. Ezreal decided that his shots were not effective enough to stop the rampant charge, and turned to sprint towards his turret once again. In swiveling around, his foot got caught in the terrain and he tumbled to the ground. The berserker moved forward and prepared to smash Ezreal into a throbbing pulp. Ez began to wonder where his ally, Gangplank, had wandered off to in his half drunken adventures. As he lay on the ground, belly up and feet towards his pursuer with head and back propped up by his elbows, he saw a muscular man in a red trench coat step over him and extend a pistol bearing arm towards the pursuer. With a quick click and a loud bang the viking lay in a heap on the ground.
As his saver began to laugh, Ez realized that it was Gangplank standing over him. Perhaps he had not strayed as far away as Ez has initially thought. He though the pirate to be quite a strange man; not only did he come from an island known for its looters and marauders, he was considered king of the pirates for the recognition he gained from serving in the League for the city of Bilgewater. It was truly astounding how an island so far away could stay in contact with the mainland, and have such a powerful representative, through the League of Legends.
After thinking it through, Ezreal had an epiphany. He visualize the map of the world of Runeterra; a map that he had seen thousands of times before. He saw the small dot marking the city of Bilgewater resting on the continent referred to as the Blue Flame Islands. It rested just east of Valoran's shores. Ezreal's mind lingered on the idea.
He sat up from his laying down position on the ground so quickly that his head almost collided with Gangplank, who was still standing above him.
"Keep yer eyes open lad. One more movement like that an' you'll 'ave us BOTH lyin' on the ground," the pirate said to him. Embarrassed, he shifted around and got back to his feet. A separate thought hit him just then.
"What happened to Katarina?" Ezreal asked. "Wasn't she down here earlier?"
Gangplank laughed loudly in response to his question. "Better cut that hair o' yours lad, you can 'ardly see a thing. I fought 'er 'til she was forced to retreat, then turned 'round to save your sorry butt." Ez turned an even darker red then before and decided that he ought to put more of his mind into the match at hand. Death only persisted for a matter of minutes before a summoner was capable of reviving a champion at the fountain; however, dying was not a pleasurable experience in general.
"Let's go back to the fountain," Ezreal told his summoner, "We ought to have some gold to spend." The summoner started an incantation to teleport his champion back to base and they browsed the store upon arrival. Ezreal pointed to an icy glove and the summoner agreed to his decision. He slid the glove overtop his arcane one and gave it a chilling aura. The bolts he shot forth were coated in an icy aura that transferred to his targets. Hopefully, that would help him escape from his pursuers in the future. In addition, he got a pair of boots decorated with small wings. They were built to prevent sliding on the slick surfaces and were enchanted to allow him to move at speeds he could never physically obtain alone.
The match progressed with one tower falling on either side after another until both teams were down to just a few left apiece. Ezreal found himself in lane with Gangplank again; however, this time he was up against a legendary duo from the highest positions of nobility throughout the icy lands of Freljord; Queen Ashe and King Tryndamere. Her arrows would act like Ezreal's new gauntlet and freeze enemies as they walk, while Tryndamere dove head first into large fights and picked off slowed targets as they tried to escape. The man was capable of inducing a rage into himself so powerful that it seemed no quantity of punishment would put him down. He was a fearsome foe, and was known for lasting through entire matches without a single fatality.
Both teams waltzed about, waiting for the other to slip up and create an opportunity to move in. Gangplank and Ezreal stood defending their last-line tower in the bottommost lane while Vladimir and Lux mimicked in the topmost. The top lane turret was clearly in more distress than theirs was, seeing as the opposing members were tearing away at the rocky structure that comprised it. The viking took viscous swings at the base while the fifth member of their team, a large polar bear capable of speech and combat from a small Freljordian tribe, clawed at the tower's weapons. Ezreal knew Lux would get torn to pieces if she attempted to push them away, and Vladimir's thin stature would not do much better. On the other hand, if Ezreal or Gangplank left the side of their tower, it would surely fall to the Freljordian royalty.
"Gangplank, we gotta help them out, but I don't have the power to barrage 'em down on my own," Ez said to his ally. The pirate stroked his beard for a moment before turning back to him.
"But ye 'ave the range?" he asked.
"Yeah, easily. I'll just have to channel the arcane energy through my glove for long enough to allow a pulse of..." Ezreal's over winded explanation was cut off when gangplank fired a shot straight up into the air right next to Ezreal's ears; clearly the pirate had become bored of the education long before it was finished. The shot soared skyward and screeched through air while leaving being a thick reddish cloud of smoke.
"Shoot now lad" was all that Gangplank said before turning to charge at his opponents contesting the tower. Confused, Ezreal listened to his orders and spun about to fire one large and arced true shot straight towards the enemies smashing down Lux's turret. Quick on her feet, Lux bounced backwards and charged up a laser beam of her own. Above the tower, a hail of cannonballs streamed through the open sky to hail down upon the collapsing structure and its destructors. The viking looked up and saw the hail fire, to his left to see the light essence coursing towards him, and in front to notice the laser beam being projected from Lux.
"Not. Cool," he sputtered as the trifecta of power plastered the man to the floor. As the smoke cleared, the only thing left standing was a fractured tower and, to every ones surprise, the polar bear. It appeared as if he had given up on the assault, and he slowly lumbered away from the smoldering chaos, yawned deeply, and rolled over for a nap. Meanwhile, Vladimir laughed solemnly.
"How cute. The boy can't even protect the girl without her and an angry father putting up a bigger fight than he can," the vampiric man said, referring to his three allies who had been involved in the small victory. Ezreal wanted to make a snappy comback, but he had bigger issues. His "angry father" was sprinting headlong into Ashe and Tryndamere.
Ezreal turned back around to face the people he was about to fight and saw Ashe kneeling down, whispering some sort of enchantment to a frosty arrow. She placed it into her crystalline bow and let the projectile soar through the air. As it took off, it seemed to grow in size until its head became almost human sized. The massive arrow of ice collided with Gangplank mid charge and encased him in a tomb of ice from head to toe. Ezreal was forced into a two on one as Ashe and Tryndamere prepared to fight him at his tower. He quickly shifted positions with his glove's power to avoid Tryndamere's leap towards him, and allowed the brute's blade to smash into the stony ground where the explorer had been standing seconds ago.
Knowing he was done for, Ez decided to focus fire on the less resilient of the two targets; Ashe. He shot a flurry of arcane energy in her direction just to watch her duck and dodge a vast majority of them. Shooting accurately was not made any easier by Tryndamere standing between the two, taking massive swinging attempts to lop Ezreal's head off. Then, out of seemingly nowhere, a bullet soared in the air, with such intense velocity that it appeared to have been fired from a cannon, and tore through Tryndamere's skull as he made another lumbering attempt at Ezreal's life. Gravity took his huge body to the ground and Ezreal watched as it disappeared into the air in preparation to receive the summoner's magical powers to reincarnate the man back at his team's Nexus.
With most of her allies either defeated or scattered, Ashe took flight towards her own base. No one on Ezreal's team seemed to bother chasing her down; instead, they cleared out the minions pushing into the base and shopped for new items to aid them on the battle field. Ezreal was glad that he had invested in the items earlier; they helped him move around Tryndamere until he was saved. However, he still did not know how he was rescued. He looked at Gangplank, who was standing aside waving his hands about in a jolly motion and drinking from his bottle of rum as he saw fit, intermittently shooting a stray minion that dared draw too close to his location.
"How did you get out of Ashe's frozen tomb so quickly?" Ezreal asked.
"Yar har harrr! I told ye matey, them oranges can cure more 'an jus' scurvy. Frost bite don' stan' a chance! Yarrr!" the pirate responded. He then took off down the centermost lane, shooting and stabbing everything in his path.
The half-insane pirate sprinted down lane with a slight gaze of kill in his eyes. It was obvious that he planned to end the match at that moment. Ezreal hurried off after him, aiding the man in defeating the pulsing waves of minions that confronted them. To his side, Ezreal could see that his allies were not all as dead set to the victory march as they appeared to be. He noticed the polar bear was in the middle of a heated debate with the fifth member of Ezreal's team: Zilean. He was an ancient man who possessed magical powers to warp and control time. There were some limitations to his strength, due to the fact that the magic of the opposing team's summoners would be certain to counter act any attempts to completely freeze or turn back time to allow fights to turn out differently. Nonetheless, he was, generally, a formidable ally. However, he seemed to be much more so engaged in conversation with the bear at the moment than he was with the battle going on. Since Ezreal had not even noticed his presence until then, he assumed that Zilean's participation in the upcoming skirmish was not all too necessary. Not to mention the fact that he was, in a way, keeping one member of the opposing team out of the fighting as well.
Vladimir quickly caught up with the pack and Lux followed shortly behind. The four of them made a steady push forward and knocked down the towers in their path with ease. They made their way inside of the enemy base where one last fight between the two teams, and the follow up destruction of the opposing Nexus, would determine the victor of the match. Ezreal looked in front of him and saw the blonde haired viking, Ashe, and Tryndamere standing in front of him. He quickly took aim with his glove by pointing it towards his opponents and pressing the non-gloved hand against the embedded gem. Ashe countered by holding her frost coated bow up and nocking an icy arrow.
Meanwhile, Tryndamere locked eyes with Gangplank and allowed an undying rage to burn brightly in his eyes: he planned to gain vengeance. The man rushed forward with the blonde brute right beside him. From behind, Ashe lobbed a volley of mystical frozen arrows that greatly hindered Ezreal's team's chances of escaping the fight. Ezreal returned fire, with his glove's essence fluxing through the air towards the opposing trio.
A vigorous fight ensued, and neither side seemed to be backing down, despite the fact that it was a three versus four. Ezreal stood next to Lux and the two of them did their best to bombard the opponents from a distance to insure that their lives were not at risk to the berserking men with massive weapons who were currently rampaging about in their combat with Vladimir and Gangplank.
After a few minutes of trading blows, Ezreal realized that Katarina was nowhere to be found. He glanced around in search of her.
"Hey Lux", Ezreal started, "have you seen Katarina anywhere lately?"
"Ummm... No. The last time that I saw her was when she was… Well quite some time ago honestly," she replied. Ezreal was not quite sure how to take this response and realized the answer when it was too late. The woman had used her allies as a diversion until she had a perfect opening. She used her shunpo technique to teleport herself the short distance she needed to close the gap between her hiding spot and the center of Ezreal's team. Time seemed to slow as she whirled in circles, carefully rotating her feet one after another, her soft red hair wrapping around her face in a beautiful crimson blur, while throwing daggers, knives, blades, and other generally sharp projectiles in every direction, each one of them landing in lethally critical points on Ezreal's allies. Ezreal made a quick motion to grab Lux's arm and shift the two of them away in an instant. As he did so, Lux left a bright ball of illuminating light behind to make certain that any pursuers would be too blinded to continue a chase. The combination of the two abilities guaranteed them a quick and successful escape; however, the rest of their team laid dead and awaiting a reincarnation by their scrambling summoners. Ezreal and Lux sat among tall grass and bushes, relatively out of view of the opposing team. They watched as the victors of the fight stomped off down the lane in which Ezreal's team had just entered, and pursue towards the Nexus. Ezreal let out a slight laugh; a mixture of relief of escape and acknowledgement of the loss that was coming. He turned to face Lux and a smile crept over her face. She let out a small laugh of a similar manner. Her laughter caused Ezreal to chuckle a little harder, and his chuckle provoked an identical reaction. Continuing until the two were in hysterics, rolling in the grass and laughingly loudly to one another, they both lay in the soft ground until they could hear the loud explosion sound of their Nexus being destroyed by the opposing team, and let the light blue glow surround their bodies as the summoners brought them off of the Fields of Justice.
Back inside of the Institute of War, once the match was completed, summoners and champions alike were gathered around boasting about their victory, griping in defeat, or reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of the game. Ezreal could not see Lux anywhere, and assumed that she had either already taken off, or had been dragged aside to discuss some events of the previously concluded match. He was not too interested in the simple chatter, and still had no idea – or intention of caring – what the match was played for; he had other matters to attend to. Ezreal pushed through the crowd of spectators and participators in search for Gangplank. For some reason, the loud pirate wearing a pure red trench coat was nowhere to be found. Ezreal stood in place for a moment doing nothing more than scanning his surroundings. He felt a firm grip on his shoulder and jumped out of his skin from the shock. He whirled around and found the man he was searching for standing right in front of him. Ezreal sighed with relief from both the realization that he was not in danger and that he had found who he was looking for.
"Ye look like yer searching high an' low for a lost fortune. What's on yer mind lad?" Gangplank asked.
"I need your help, Gangplank. How much knowledge do you have on the people and ships that leave and enter Bildgewater?" Ezreal inquired. He got a loud, booming, laugh in response.
"Laddie, they call me king o' the pirates fer a reason. Who, er what, is ye lookin' fer?"
"Umm..." Ezreal looked around him, unsure as to whether or not it was safe to discuss around such a loud crowd. He quickly gathered that there were few people, if any, that would bother to listen in on his conversation. He turned to face Gangplank again. "I need to know if you know anything about Garen's whereabouts." The pirate smiled so widely that Ezreal could see all of the rotting – or golden capped – teeth that lay in his gums.
"Alrrrighty lad," he began, "I was told I could trust a blonde haired lassie with the… information o' his wurr-a-bouts. He took a small ship o' mine an' headed towards Ionia. 'Bout all I can say fer now. C'mon an' find me again if ye want the whole story." He then turned and casually made his way out of the now thinning crowd. Ezreal was fairly certain that the "blonde haired lassie" Garen would have been referring to would have been his sister, Lux, and not explorer himself. Ez was not sure if that was an intentional jest at his manliness or if Gangplank honestly thought he was a woman. He recalled being called "lad" multiple times by the pirate and assumed that the comment was purely intentional.
Ezreal shifted away from the crowd, just as Gangplank had. He walked down the hallways towards his room with thoughts pouring through his head. He had been wrong on his first two guesses: Garen was not in Noxus or Bilgewater. But why would he be in Ionia? Ezreal questioned. The whole thing was like putting together a puzzle. He knew that Garen had to of started in the Institute of War, and he left at the same time that Talon did. He left a note that he was heading west, assumed to be east. And at some point in time, he was in Bilgewater and left for Ionia by boat.
"But was he travelling with Talon? When would they have split? Why did he pick Ionia? And how did he even get to Bilgewater if he didn't have a boat? Perhaps I ought to go see if Gangplank knows a bit more..." His softly spoken thoughts were interrupted by the sudden appearance of an individual in the room to his side. Out of instinct, he shifted to a location that was out of vision of the person who had appeared. The door had been open, and she had just spawned from nothing in the center of the room. Ezreal had not been given a good opportunity to look at her, other than noticing a large amount of blue in her outfit, but he was certain that he had not been spotted. He stood at the end of the hall and peered around the corner. The room's door shut tightly and Ezreal could read the name "Quinn" on its plate.
