It's been Friday for the past forever, and it still is! :D

Friday... still, Dec18th - about 11:45AM; Portalroom to Mund

I don't understand… it was working when we came through!" Molly was standing in front of the portal on the Valorian side. She was shaking, partially in worry that the others left her and partially in fear of what the group of odd-looking champions would do to her now. "I… I just don't know why it'd go down like this."

Akali shook her head. "They left you here. They probably thought you were dead, so they destroyed the portal on their side to make sure no one could follow them. Very smart."

"They wouldn't leave me here! Ace wouldn't… unless he thought I was dead."

"Summoner teleport," said Teemo.

"Teemo, this isn't the time for jokes," Shen said.

"No, I mean, listen. The summoners can teleport champions wherever they wish as long as they're been there right?"

"Yeah, and what's your point?" Fizz asked. "None of the summoners have ever been to Flynt's world, in fact no one has."

"I came from there, does that help?" Molly asked.

Teemo shook his head. "They don't do it for non-champions, or people who haven't passed judgement, it's too risky." He sighed. "Nevermind guys, it was a stupid idea."

"No. I've been there," Ahri said. "If we get Lito down here, I can share the knowledge with him right? He can take us!"

Teemo shrugged. "I suppose, but if you die out there, you won't come back. The summoner's magic goes only so far."

"I don't care, I'm going alone if I have to." Ahri stared at her companions with a determined look on her face.

After a brief pause Thresh raised his hand. "I'll go."

"Hell no."

"Face it, you need me to fix him. Besides, I'm already dead, so I'll just be cannon fodder for you."

"What's in it for you?"

"I can only imagine how many souls I'll get to collect during this endeavor. Besides, it's not like taking all the hits is anything different than what I do for a living now." Thresh held up the small box given to him by Zed. "If this goes wrong, I'm keeping your friend."

"You-" She cut herself short as she ran off to find the most laid-back summoner in the Institute.

Meanwhile; Paragon's Castle, Prentice, Mund

Flynt woke up, or at least tried to, in a familiar setting. He was sitting against one of the cold stone walls of a room dimly lit by a small window directly above him. The entire room was poorly insulated, so it was freezing, but Flynt couldn't feel that all too much. He didn't really feel too much of anything, even his own breathing. He felt like he was halfway between awake and asleep, halfway between attentive and disoriented. Nothing felt definite, everything was constantly shifting, or stuck in a blend of two extremes. Everything save for the constant light pressure on his chest. He could tell that he was chained to the wall, and he was stripped down to a pair of thin, tattered shorts with a dirty brown coloration. He wasn't sure if he even had the strength, or motivation to stand and look around. He couldn't remember what he was doing in that room, or why he was there, but as he sat there for hours and hours, a few fragments of the past three weeks came back to him. A masked man, a floating white haired woman, but the fragments always seemed to pull back to this particular woman. She was cute, beautiful even, she had long black hair and a pair of animal ears poking out the top of her head. If that wasn't enough, the nine white tails completed her. It was a shame he couldn't remember too much about her or the others, much less put a name to any of the faces. The thing was, he saw these through the eyes of a spectator, like they were dreams, and that's what he determined they were. He didn't die after revealing himself to the entire town, they just captured him and brought him here, holding him for the past… however long he'd been in here. Right? That meant that he was back in his old torture cell he remembered from five years ago. If he could remember it right…

~Flynt woke up in a dimly lit room. He was sitting against the cold stone wall he was chained to. The entire room was freezing cold, he could practically feel his toes dying from frostbite. He was wearing nothing more than a terrible pair of shorts in the cold. The last thing he remembered was defending himself against another group of bounty hunters out for his head, this group actually led by the king himself. He was a bit frightened of what was to become of him. He'd killed one of their leaders, and then countless more. Of course it was in self-defense, but that didn't matter to them. Nothing he said ever did matter to them, and it never would. Flynt glanced up as the door creaked open and saw a tall man outfitted in gold and red robes. When the man stepped into the light Flynt could see the wicked smile on his face. Flynt backed away as far as he possibly could from the man, but he was already against the wall. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide from the man who produced a nine-tailed lash coated in some sort of liquid from behind his back.

Flynt sort of woke up again to the sound of a door being opened. There was a grunt as someone pulled something heavy into the room and set it on the floor. Flynt didn't bother looking up, he knew what was coming.

A familiar voice spoke, it was Ace, "Finally got you." He laughed weakly to himself. "You son of a bitch."

Flynt didn't respond.

"Nothing? You've got nothing to say?" Ace's voice grew bitter. "Do you even know what you've done?"

Fragments began assembling into memories of the night he returned. He remembered cutting soldiers down like butter. He did it with a smirk on his face. He nearly killed Sam, Ace, and Molly. He fought Garrison and lost, but was saved by…

~"Let him go. Please? For me."

Dreams.

Flynt shook his head. He didn't care at this point. He felt like something was missing.

"They're both dead because of you."

What was he talking about?

"First Samantha, then you had to go and take Molly too!"

The memory of Samantha dying in his arms slammed into his mind, like a whip cracking against him.

~"You're such a child Flynt." "Where are we going porcupine?" "I'm going to count to three." She never made it to three. "I'm sorry." "Get out of here."

But… it was all a dream. Sam's still alive, and Molly too. The only one who's life is in danger is his, and he'd get out of this, he always did. He'd just go on the run, find a new home and maybe do a better job of hiding himself.

"Are you even listening to me!?" Flynt heard him stand and walk over to where he was on the ground. He then felt the impact of hard metal against his face. Flynt let himself fall to the side. "Pfft… some all powerful being. Can't even take a punch." Ace spit at Flynt and walked back to his seat. "I'm going to enjoy our time together Flynt."

Flynt wanted to cry out, he wanted to yell something, anything, but he couldn't. He couldn't do anything except wait for his current nightmare to end so that he could wake up again. It would all be fine once he was awake. Right?

It was becoming increasingly harder to stay awake at this point. Flynt couldn't have been in the prison for more than a few hours, and in that time he received countless tastes of the torture device he was so familiar with. He didn't yell, he didn't scream, he didn't feel it at all. He couldn't tell that that dark puddle around him was growing as he lay face-down on the floor. He had no idea that his old scars were joined by fresh wounds, and that his face was in a puddle of his own blood. He could barely hear the two men argue right over him.

"He's dead!" one shouted.

"No, look! he's breathing!"

"You've taken it too far this time!"

"It wasn't me! He was unresponsive from the beginning! Just take him now! before he really dies."

Flynt went back to hearing nothing as he felt himself being picked up and dragged. It was almost over. After a while he felt cold stone on his back again after being lifted a few feet, or a few inches, he wasn't sure. He thought he heard conversation, but it was impossible to focus enough to make out the words. He heard something heavy and metal slam into something else, maybe something made of rock. But none of that mattered when the pressure built up in his chest finally began to let up.

About 3:00 PM; Flynt's shack

It took a long time to not only find Lito, but to also give him enough understanding of Mund to get them there. Lito and Molly didn't go of course, but Thresh and Ahri arrived in Flynt's homeworld after the spell was cast.

"My my, this forest reminds me of home," Thresh said upon opening his eyes.

The forest surrounding Flynt's shack, or what was left of it, was unusually dark and scary, or at least darker and scarier than when Ahri was first there.

"I tend to forget that you used to live in the wonderfully cheerful forest of death," Ahri replied.

"Indeed, a most delightful place. Now, where are we headed?"

"Follow me, I think I know the way."

"Nothing gives a man more faith than following an uncertain guide."

"Oh hush, this way." Ahri navigated the forest the way she remembered taking it with Flynt. Now that she thought about it, it was probably a good thing that Flynt hadn't spoken for almost the entire way to his village or else Ahri wouldn't have been paying attention to where they were going. When they reached the village they drew odd looks. Maybe flaming spectral men with a glowing hook and lantern following a nine-tailed fox women weren't so common on this world.

"We seem to have attracted a crowd." Just as Thresh said, a group of people were following a bit far behind the pair of champions. "Shall I teach them that interfering in business that is not theirs is a bad idea?"

"No, leave them. We have more important things to deal with right now. The guy who took Flynt is probably taking him to the king. He's got a bounty on his head, a big one, so whoever got him must have gone to claim it. I just hope we're not too late. Maybe he's already dead. What if we're too late? I don't even know where to go now. This was foolish, we shouldn't have come here."

Thresh slapped his hand on Ahri's shoulder, his version of a reassuring shoulder pat. "Calm down. We're not too late, and he has to be still alive."

"How do you know?"

"Because if he's not, we have no way of getting off this world until Lito decides that we've been gone for too long. By the way, you missed the big-ass castle behind you that just screams 'the king lives here.'"

Ahri turned around and gasped.

"What is it?"

"I… I've seen this place before. I saw it in a dream."

"Do you know where we're going then?"

She nodded and began to walk in the direction of the castle. "I should have made the connection sooner."

When they reached the castle, Ahri led Thresh around the side of the castle where the hidden back entrance was, several feet above them.

"Was this part of your dream?" Thresh glanced up to the opening and began twirling his hook. He threw it up, it caught onto something, and he pulled himself up. After he reached the opening, he tossed his lantern down to Ahri. She grabbed it and was pulled up by Thresh.

"Not exactly, but that works," Ahri replied.

The hidden entrance took them through a series of dark tunnels illuminated by the light given off by the souls contained in Thresh's lantern. This eventually opened up to a large, dark room with a wooden door that allowed light enter the room from under it. The two pushed past the door and Ahri led Thresh down the halls, just like she remembered from little bits of her dreams. When they reached the stairwell that they needed to take, the two heard the clanking of metal boots behind them. They were cut off by about fifteen of the castle's bravest soldiers. Apparently someone had finally found out that the two were here and sent for the king's guard.

Ahri raised her orb, but Thresh lowered her arm. "I will deal with them, go find your friend." He rolled his shoulders and grabbed the chain, allowing his hook to drop almost to the floor.

"What is this? You being nice to me?" Ahri joked.

"Don't get used to it. I know you're still stealing from me, and don't even think I've forgiven you for what you did to my lantern." He paused for a bit "But it's been a while since I've had a little group fun, and your Ionian buddies continue to pester me about my 'balance' so I might as well start now." Thresh smiled wickedly and turned to the soldiers who had their weapons drawn and pointed at him.

As Ahri descended the stairs to the underground dungeons, she shuddered thinking of what was in store for the men that opposed the warden. She actually felt sorry for them.

Extraction Chamber, Paragon's Castle

"Why won't it work!? Do you know how many people I've lost to get him!?" the King was yelling furiously at Elder Garrison. The two of them were standing in the extraction chamber after Garrison had attempted to remove Flynt's soul.

Garrison kept a level head and replied, "For this to work, I require his full soul. The body you have delivered to me contains only a fragment."

"How is that possible!?"

Garrison shrugged. "My guess? Someone on your team didn't finish the process of removing his soul, and it hasn't been placed back yet."

"So what now? Our plans are ruined. MY plans are ruined!"

"My king, if I may, there is an alternative."

"What?"

"The boy's father. I could easily give you the father's power instead of the Thrall's, now that we have the Thrall. His power is not as potent, but I'm sure it will fit your needs just fine."

"Do it."

"I must warn you though, I am not entirely sure how stable the father's power is, if it fails, you will be destroyed."

"I don't care. Do it now."

Garrison nodded and glanced at Flynt's chest, to the object that contained the new answer to the king's dilemma: a simple, circular piece of silver engraved with Flynt's mark, something gifted to him at the age of ten, something that he'd been looking for during the past few weeks.

Oh man, it's getting there. Almost done... -ish. I honestly don't know how many chapters remain. I can say that once the story is over it definitely won't be the end of Flynt and his universe of champions. I already have tons of little bits planned. I just have to write it qq.

GG