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Welcome to the Abyss

Frei crept around the slaughterhouse with a practiced paranoia, her white hair drawn back and hidden by a brown hood.

Torrential rain tore at her clothing, cold sinking into her bones and water sloshing inside her boots, but she continued on without any hesitation, wiping rain off her brow before visoring it with a gloved hand.

Narrowing her eyes, she looked at the blood and grime-covered windows of the building, before lifting a telescope to her face and peering in.

Carefully, she stepped behind the wall of the adjacent warehouse and then cranked the scope, looking at three different men carrying crates of gold, weapons, and fresh meat, more than she'd ever seen in the same place at once. It would appear that they'd stolen a new haul of wares, most likely from the more poor and destitute on the lower levels of Bilgewater, or from other travelers of Runeterra's untamable seas.

This was her third night of observing these pirates, and this was the third night of a typhoon that had graced the slaughterdocks. Of course, the docks didn't stop for Mother Nature, and down the way she could see more serpentine corpses being dragged from the rushing waves, yanked up by pulleys, their skin and meat carved away by the workers.

But that wasn't important, and she turned back to the slaughterhouse. It was one of many, looking exactly the same as all the others with one slight difference: no sea monsters had come in or out of this building for the entire time that she'd been hanging around here.

Undoubtedly, this was the place, but for tonight, she could only look.

Lightning struck across the ocean, followed by a powerful gust of wind that rushed through the alley between the warehouses, blowing Frei's face with a massive amount of rainwater and nearly wrenching the telescope from her hands.

The stone-paved floor was slippery, she realized. Nevermind the repercussions if these pirates found her hanging around their homebase, she'd just as soon slip and crack her skull on the unforgiving ground if she wasn't careful.

She lowered the telescope, collapsed it, and then stuck it into her utility belt. More riches were being carted around inside the warehouse, silks and weapons and battle armor from lands afar.

If she made it home alive tonight, tomorrow she and her...she wasn't sure what to call them still...she and her allies would bleed that slaughterhouse dry.

Frei ducked away from the warehouse and began to make her way back into the dingy city of Bilgewater, rubbing her bare upper arms as she shouldered her way through the cold, making sure every step was deliberate and solid to keep from slipping.

And then, a voice.

"Hey! What're you doing out here?"

Frei went ramrod straight, and her hand reached for her belt as she turned to see a tall and muscular man standing outside the slaughterhouse she'd just been watching. Her face paled, and she scrunched it back and forth, trying to wring out some convincing tears.

She stood still as the pirate approached her, and hot tears began to stream down Frei's tanned face, her eyes becoming rimmed with pink and her nose quickly reddening. Her lower lip quivered and she forced herself to tremble, before letting out a sob.

"I don't—I don't—" she began to stammer as the pirate got closer and closer, his beefy hand reaching for the pistol on his belt. She resisted the urge to steal a worried glance at it, and began to stare at the stranger with feigned sadness. "Sir—I don't—I got lod—lost…" she let out a fresh spring of tears, wiping her face as the pirate stared at her.

He raised an eyebrow, his tattooed face contorting in a way that made his face look terrifying. He moved his hand away from his gun and slowed to a stop in front of her. He was just far enough away to keep her from attacking him with her fists, but everyone in Bilgewater knew better than to get closer than arm's length.

"You're in the wrong place, girly," the pirate growled. "Do you want to leave alive?"

"Y-y-yes!" Frei blurted out, before letting out another childish whimper. She almost gagged at her act, but this was how they told her to do it, so this was how it would be done.

"Drop that toolbelt of yours, empty your pockets, and run." he said, pulling out his pistol and aiming it at her. "You have five seconds before I put a bullet through your brain."

Classic thug, Frei thought to herself, before her hands slowly moved for the latch on her belt, directly in front of her stomach. The man's gun was trained on her head, and she continued to sob. How's...this gonna work if he's still got that pistol aimed at me?

"Wait a second," the pirate rumbled as he examined her face. "You're—"

Lightning struck behind them once again, followed by booming thunder, and Frei took her chance. Her hands shifted away from her belt buckle, and she leaned to the side as the man regained his senses, firing at her, the sound of the gun masked by the thunder.

The bullet whizzed past her cheek, tearing some of her hood. She then ran towards the pirate and dropped low, her feet colliding with his and knocking him to the ground as she slid beneath him. His face collided with the smooth stones, breaking his nose and letting blood run with the water towards the coast.

She carefully got to her feet, before whipping around and making sure the pirate didn't have any time to get up. He was still disoriented from the hard fall, and she grabbed his dark brown hair and slammed his head back into the ground, effectively knocking him out.

"You should be more careful," she said to him as she used her feet to nudge his arms into different positions. "The ground's slippery this time of year."

She then walked over to him again, lifting his head and making note of his head injury, wondering if it was life-threatening. She then dropped his head and watched as his blood ran down the slaughterdocks, carried and dispersed by the water over the ledge and into the raging ocean.

Frei then picked up his pistol, which had skittered away in the fall, and put it back in the pirate's holster, snapping the latch shut carefully. She knew better than to take it for herself-she couldn't raise any alarms this soon into the operation.

She brushed some water off of her face, scoffing at her crying act. It was getting less and less effective as the days passed—she was becoming recognizable, which was inevitable in Bilgewater, even at her age. Especially when she worked with who she did.

"Should've shot me," she advised the unconscious thug as she walked away from him, lightning striking in the skies as she disappeared into the shadowed city of Bilgewater.

༺༻

Frei swung open the door of her home and hung her water-soaked coat on the rack where two larger ones resided—a red poncho with gold diamond decals and patterns, and a black duster coat with brown leather shoulders and gold gauntlet sleeves—water dripping from them into a bucket below. She took off her shoes and put them next to the two other pairs: brown boots with ivory fur, and navy shoes with leather strapping and light brown tips.

And as she stepped into the house, she found herself in the middle of the card game that took place every night without fail.

"We'll deal you in next round," Graves said as Frei unlatched her belt and pinned it up over the kitchen counter to dry. "How goes the scouting?"

"Fine," Frei replied, drying her face with a rag and then looking at the meal that had been left for her—jaull-fish meat, rice, and some dried seaweed and slightly bruised fruit. Graves and Twisted Fate both lowered their cards expectantly, and she waved them off. "No, no, continue your trust exercise. I need a minute to dry off and eat."

Graves let out a low grumble, but upon looking at Fate's sly smile and glowing blue eyes, they resumed their game. Frei leaned her head over a bucket and wrung out her short hair, before grabbing her food, walking over to the fire, and taking a seat there. From where she was sitting, she could see Fate's cards for an instant before he shifted his position.

"No peeking, Frei," he said easily, crossing his legs beneath the table.

"You're one to talk," Graves muttered, and Frei turned back to her food. "She's not even playing."

Frei took a bite of the serpent meat and rice, and then looked over at Graves knowingly. Graves groaned in frustration, reading Frei's face and knowing he'd already lost again. "Dammit!" He threw his cards down on the table again, and Twisted Fate dropped his down with a confident smile. "You're not supposed to be cheating, Tobias!"

"I'm not, Malcolm," Fate waved his hand and the cards began to shuffle themselves, before Graves snatched them out of the air and began to spitefully do it on his own, narrowing his eyes at his partner. "I can be naturally good at the game without using my abilities. You're just a sore loser."

Malcolm smacked his fist on the table, rattling the two whiskey glasses on the table and making Frei chuckle as she continued to eat her meal. "Well how am I supposed to know, huh? You beat Frei whenever she plays, too—"

"I'm just bad at the game," Frei admitted as she leaned into the fire, letting the warmth melt away the rainy cold. "And, really, so are you."

"Are you really picking his side right now?" Graves asked, but there was the slightest grin tugging at his thick mustache. "You know he's a self-serving gambler, right?"

"You know he's a self-serving criminal, right?" Fate mimicked Graves' harrumphing tone.

Graves then quieted down and looked over at Frei with sparkling sea-blue eyes. "New round. Wanna play?"

Frei got to her feet and dragged her stool over to the table. "What're the stakes?"

"It's a rigged game when he's playing," Graves muttered. "No stakes."

"Okay, fine," Fate stood up and left the table, opting to take his chair and sit at the fireplace. "So much for a trust exercise."

"Stop moping," Graves replied, and Frei took Fate's cards so Graves wouldn't have to deal a new one. "Card games won't make up for what you did."

The air in the room suddenly dropped several degrees, and Frei would've checked to see if there was wind blowing in from an open window if she didn't already know what this was.

She hadn't been working with Graves and Fate for long—a little over six months now, and only because they could hardly work together after some sort of incident that they'd never tell her about, but would always bring up in every single job without fail. She sometimes wondered why they kept her around. Not only were they incredibly capable on their own, but they didn't want to share any information about their pasts with her. So she was left with the information she could find in old newspapers on their escapades, which always painted them like brothers, not these strangely tense men who were glowering at each other over a game of cards and whiskey glasses.

"Hokay!" Frei said loudly, breaking the silence and looking at her cards with an intrigued expression. "The slaughterhouse."

This seemed to draw their attention, and Tobias steepled his fingers and pointed them at Frei. "What've you got?"

"It's not what I've got, it's what they've got, which is really everything you could dream of," Frei said as she and Graves began to play, Fate's eyebrow cocking in interest, his luminescent blue eyes watching their game with rapture. "Gold, armor, weapons, food, clothing, gold, gold, gold…" She began to count off on one hand as she played her turn. "Did I mention gold? It's one of the old slaughterhouses...number 51. And...there are a lot of men. I'd say more than thirty."

"Did you run into anyone?" Graves asked as he drew a card, watching as Frei set down another.

"Just a pirate scout, but I handled him," Frei said, and both criminals suddenly looked at her with distrustful eyes. "I handled him the way you two wanted me to. If anyone finds him, they'll think he took a wrong step and slipped hard. He's probably dead."

"Probably dead, huh?" Fate began to play with a deep blue card, throwing it from hand to hand and catching it between his fingers. "I believe we told you to make sure that anyone who sees you is definitely dead."

"I'm sorry," Frei muttered, holding her cards close to her chest. "If you've got a problem with it, maybe you should scout the place out yourself. The storms are getting worse every night, and you guys are in here playing poker."

"We got back from our bounty early, and made you dinner." Graves growled, and Frei seemed to back down, drawing a card with well-measured contempt. "Frei, our partnership with you is only as strong as your ability to follow our rules. This is a mutually beneficial relationship if you do things the right way."

"You mean your way," Frei watched as Graves tossed his cards down. "I don't feel comfortable killing people." She let hers drop onto the table, and she stood up as the victor. "If you have a problem with my conscience, you can get out of my house, and stop playing with my deck." She jabbed a finger into the cards and then took the bottle of whiskey away from the table, much to Graves' frustration.

"I don't have a problem with it, but Bilgewater does," Tobias pointed out the window, where rain was pelting the glass. "Compassion is the first thing to die here, followed by compassionate people."

"It's not like I'm going to stay here," Frei said as she put the whiskey in a bucket of ice water, watching as Malcolm straightened the cards and slid them back into their box. "After this heist, I'm out."

"What?" Graves and Fate asked in surprise, and Frei glared at them with hazel eyes as of to ask if they were stupid.

"Oh, wait, you were serious about the Piltover thing?" Fate pocketed his blue card and turned to face her with the ghost of a teasing smile on his lips. "I thought it was a joke."

Frei threw her head back in annoyance, and Graves frowned. "We do like having you here, you know."

"Don't I slow you down?" Frei took a seat on her bed in the corner of the room, leaning forwards and looking at the two crooks. "Taking a kid on your missions is not very professional of you."

"I was doing smuggling runs when I was your age," Graves pointed at her with an armored hand. "It's not all that unusual, and despite your hesitations, you're a decent thief. Especially with that crying on command thing. Makes you great for distractions."

"And you've got a sharp eye," Fate added on, not to be outdone by Graves. "Your talents do actually help us. You solve more problems than you cause, if I'm being honest." He paused. "Also, why Piltover? Is it the engineering thing?"

Frei looked at the seat of her bed where her latest invention was sitting. "I'd hoped so, but…" She reached over and grabbed the device, pressing the activation button and watching it whir for a second. "Hey, what?"

The machine began to function, it's blades spinning hard and fast. Her eyes lit up in excitement, and the device suddenly collapsed in her hands, one of it's rotary blades whipping past Fate's face and dropping into the fire.

"But that," she said, carefully picking up the pieces. "I'm starting to think that engineering is just not my thing."

"What's it supposed to do?" Graves asked as he finished his glass of whiskey. "If it was supposed to hit Tobias in the throat, I'll buy it off you right now."

Tobias chuckled lightly at the barely veiled threat.

"It's supposed to be a door cutter," Frei said as she held the heap of metal and gears in her hands. "For our heists, whenever I need to get out of a nasty situation. In theory, it would carve through a lock and allow me to escape. That way, we don't have any repeats of the Drytop mission."

"Oh, yes," Fate sighed, tipping his hat down. "Unfortunately, you may be right—engineering is not your thing. Oh, the shame! You'll just have to stay in Bilgewater."

"There's other things to do in Piltover, if that's really where you wanna go," Graves offered. "Like...be rich and corrupt."

"Haha," Frei laughed dryly, before laying down in her bed and putting her hands behind her head, staring up at the ceiling. "What're the plans for tomorrow, then?"

"Well, you've done your part," Fate said eagerly. "So while you're asleep, Graves and I are going to a final canvas of the location. Then, we'll meet you down at the western docks, and the heist will begin."

"Sounds like a plan," Frei replied. "Don't kill each other without me, okay?"

"We'll try," Graves said, before shooting a glare at Fate, who simply closed his eyes, tilted his head up, and smiled knowingly.

Far, far away, the pirate Frei had knocked out was slowly getting to his feet, rubbing his bleeding head and looking around in confusion, his vision blurred by the rain. He stumbled around for a moment, mumbling something slurred and incohesive. He heard the sound of a blade unsheathing, and he slowly spun around to feel a sword tear through his chest and out his back.

His attacker stared at him with blue eyes, set deep into a dark scarred face with a red bandana covering the lower half of it. The man let out a shuddering breath as blood gushed from his chest, and his fingers fumbled for his pistol.

The scarred man let out a rattling breath as thunder boomed around them, and he pulled the sword out, the serrated edge catching on the pirate's internal organs. He kicked the criminal back, his body splashing in the inch-deep water, blood pooling out across his white tunic.

And as he gasped out his last breaths, the man lifted his blade and plunged it into the pirate's gaping mouth, the serpent's head at it's hilt meeting the pirate's torn lips.

The man let out a sigh of satisfaction, and spoke in a low, harsh voice, his face up next to the dead pirate's.

"Welcome to the abyss."

Further down at the docks, a large ship was moored at the coastline, several people looking at its unfamiliar design with confusion and intrigue.

A strange creature stepped off of it, one with four legs and glowing green pipes for a mouth. He let out a low hiss as he looked down at the item in his hands—a strange pendant.

He looked out across the horizon, hydraulic steam meeting the rainy air and coruscating around him.

"Where...are you?"

༺༻

Frei arrived on the slaughter docks before Graves and Fate did, and found a crowd of people surrounding one of the carving pedestals, pulling something down from the suspension cords.

She wandered over with her arms crossed, weaving her way through the crowd until she was at the front, watching as two women pulled a dead body off of the massive fishing hooks. The corpse hit the ground with a loud thump, and Frei's eyes widened as she looked at the man who she'd had a scuffle with last night.

"Looks like the Bloodharbor Ripper got another one," a voice murmured from beside her, and if possible her eyes got even bigger.

Shit! Frei thought as she looked at the body, the man's bloodied eyes looking up at her, as if blaming her for what happened. If the Ripper's on the same trail as us...are we targets? She began to step away from the scene, bumping into several people as she stepped away, before turning on her heel and running.

"Frei! Hey!" A young boy called out from near one of the carving pedestals, a box in his hands. Frei skidded to a stop, nearly slipping on the water-diluted blood on the ground of the docks, and looked over at the kid. He ran over to her, his blond hair catching in the dreary morning light. "I finished your order."

He walked over and pushed the box into her hands, and she smiled up at the kid. "Thanks, Alhan." She opened the box and looked at the four throwing knives inside, each in their own slot and gleaming to perfection. "You never fail."

Alhan nodded, before jerking his thumb over at the commotion. "Crazy how no one's knocked the head off of the Ripper yet. You'd think that Miss Fortune or someone of her caliber would've killed him by now…"

"Some serpents are just that hard to catch," Frei said uneasily as she picked up one of the knives, examining it in the light before putting it in her belt pouch. "Honestly, you're lucky you don't work in the slaughter docks, or on a fishing boat. Rumor has it that he's really only targeting those who work for themselves."

Alhan looked worried at this. "Doesn't that mean you're...also at risk? Since, you know, you work with those two guys?"

Frei bit her lip and considered it. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"You don't seem all that concerned," Alhan said with hesitation. "He's been killing people non-stop since that new guy Keyal came into town. Speaking of...this new guy docked at the port last night."

"Oh?"

"Big guy, mechanical spider legs, kind of creepy," Alhan said honestly. "Or so my brother says. He happened to be out here when his ship came to port—just weird, you know? You oughta be careful...things are getting crazy."

"Mhm," Frei said absentmindedly: she didn't really care that much about a new arrival, she was more focused on the guy she was working against—Keyal, the newest up-and-coming asshole to take Bilgewater by storm. His face was on all the bounty boards, and he was bound to become a target of the Ripper unless he did something really redeemable, like start a charity. "But I won't be here for much longer, so don't worry too much."

"Oh?" Alhan suddenly looked very disappointed, but covered it up with a curious smile. "Where to?"

"Uh, Piltover," Frei replied, rubbing the back of her head with almost embarrassment. "This heist is my last one, and I'll be using the funds to hop on a ship out to the western port isles, and barter my way onto a blimp."

"Sounds like a plan," Alhan said softly, and Frei frowned at him. He recovered fast, straightening his coal-stained shirt and stiffening his back. "A good plan, of course. But uh...Bilgewater's gonna miss you."

"I won't miss it," Frei said honestly, before looking over at Alhan. "But you're pretty...missable." She frowned. "I'm not sure if that's the right way to say it. I'm just trying to tell you that I'm not gonna forget you." She held out a hand, and he shook it firmly, smiling ear-to-ear. "When I'm rich as any Medarda, I'll come back here and help you with your dad's debt."

"Sounds like fun," Alhan smiled, still shaking his hand. She smiled and then pulled him into a hug, which he awkwardly returned with a reddening face. "Whenever that happens, I'll sail over to Piltover and start up a smithy or something."

"Maybe," Frei smiled at the idea. "Alhan's Weapons and Commodities." She gestured across the sky, as if imagining the sign already. "Ah, that'd be great. Hope to see you there, then, at some unknown point in my life."

"Hope to see you," Alhan said, and Frei handed him the now-empty knife box, the rest of them sitting in her belt. She flipped him a coin, and he caught it in his calloused hand, before heading on his way, looking back to smile at her again.

"Interesting kid," Tobias said, practically materializing beside her. She jumped in surprise, and Graves snickered from her left. "He's the one you're always talking about?"

"Alhan, yeah," Frei said evenly, before pointing down the docks towards the slaughterhouses. "Let's go. Did you see the body?"

"Don't know how we couldn't," Graves muttered, looking at the crowd as it slowly dispersed, the shock of the moment dying out. "We'll have to be extra careful this time. Nothing new."

"Mm," Fate hummed in agreement, and the three of them strolled over to the slaughterhouse, keeping to the shadows of the docks and then slowly splitting from each other, taking different paths towards their final destination.

"By the way, did you see anything on your run-around?" Frei turned back to Graves. "Alhan said there might be a new guy in town."

"We didn't see anything other than what you saw," Fate answered, Graves pulling out his shotgun and cleaning the barrels. "About three dozen men, lots of stuff to take, and now, the possibility that the Ripper's beaten us to it, and all of this might be for nothing."

Frei suddenly picked up the pace, and the two men exchanged glances as the young girl began to jog. They also began to run, and in no time, they were passing warehouse 50 and standing in front of 51.

Fate and Frei stood to the side of the door as Graves loaded his gun and fired at the chain lock on the warehouse, before rolling to the side. Together, the three of them slide the massive serpent-sized doors open to reveal…

...an empty warehouse.

All three of them stared in shock at the sight, and Graves nearly dropped his gun. Everything was gone, the chests, the people, and even the electricity, the lights having been shattered, glass on the floor.

"Ripper got here first," Graves growled. "God-fucking—"

"Wait," Frei said, entering into the warehouse and looking around, her eyes passing over the serpent hooks tied to the ceiling, the suspension cables strapped around the rafters, the railings of the second floor and the coat hooks on the bottom. "There's no bodies. Since these guys don't work the slaughter docks but are still corrupt dicks, the Ripper would hook 'em up like fish to dry. There's nothing here."

"No blood either," Fate added on, swiping a finger on the dustless ground. "Don't jump to conclusions so quickly, Malcolm!"

"Shut your trap," Graves said as he stepped into the warehouse. "But they were definitely here. They must've packed up shop, must've seen you, Frei."

"No," Frei said assuredly. "There's no way they saw me. It's more likely they saw you two bickering back and forth, like you always do." She rubbed her face in irritation. "And this means another week of scouting for me. Someone must've tipped them off."

Fate and Graves immediately looked at each other with glares, hands on their weapons. Frei didn't even have to turn around, and let out a groan. "I'm pretty sure it wasn't any of us. I would almost say it's the Ripper if he wasn't such a pragmatic guy. He doesn't enjoy the chase, he enjoys the killing part. Sending them off wouldn't make sense."

"So we've got a mole, and we have no clue who they are," Graves summarized in his gruff tone of voice, finally turning away from Tobias and looking at the empty warehouse. "We're back to square one."

"Sure does look that way," Fate said with a shrug. "But it's alright. I like the chase."

"Well, I like the money!" Graves snapped back, and Fate shook his head in disagreement, his glowing blue eyes displaying some sort of humor. "When did criminals get smart enough to evade me?"

For Tobias, something seemed to snap.

"Probably when you were gone," Fate replied with an ice-cold tone, and in the background of their argument, Frei found stairs up to the second floor, letting their issue unfold this time. "Listen, Malcolm, I want to rebuild that trust we used to have, but you're making it very difficult."

And something within Graves snapped, too.

"I'm making it difficult?" Graves shouted, and Frei examined the ground and windows above them, furrowing her white brows in concentration. "You're the one who always has to one-up me!"

"Only because you try to do the same, partner," Fate pointed accusingly at Graves. "Don't act like you're the good guy here. I did try to save you, but they call it the Locker for a damn good reason."

"You tried once, and then left me for dead," Graves lunged forwards and grabbed Fate by the scruff of his shirt. "I was in there for years. Bilgewater doesn't have prisons, hooray for you, but Zaun does. They tore me apart while you were out here, making a living. So if you want to regain that trust, you start doing things my way. Because your way got me put behind bars."

Fate glowered at his old friend, and Graves dropped him, as Frei slowly opened one of the warehouse windows, weak sunlight coming in and catching on the railing. "Low blow, Malcolm."

"That's me," Graves said, and Frei picked something up off the ground.

"Found something!" She said, holding a pendant in her hand. In the sunlight, it glimmered dimly, made of rusted silver metal.

Graves and Fate headed up opposite staircases to get to her, refusing to meet each other's eyes as they approached Frei.

"What's that?" Graves asked as he and Fate both reached for it, before both pulling away.

"Prison tag," Frei said, placing the item in her palm and glancing at it. "With some sort of seal on it." She moved it into the sunlight so everyone could see it better, and Graves' eyes widened with recognition. "Dredge...Prison?"

"That's in Zaun," Graves said, and Frei handed the tags to him, since he seemed to know what it was. "When I was there…" his face soured at the reminder. "They mentioned it a few times, said that there was something going on there. Chemical experiments on some foreigner."

"What does that have to do with this, then?" Frei asked, looking out across the untouched warehouse. "I highly doubt some chemical experiment could've left this place looking so spotless, and this Keyal guy isn't even from Zaun. He's a Noxian, right?"

"Right," Fate said, stroking his beard. "It seems we've stepped into something larger than just a heist. This seems like some sort of calling card. Something personal, something complicated."

"Too complicated," Graves said sternly. "We're out. We've got the Ripper and some sort of Zaunite chemical experiment running circles around this Keyal figure. Last time a mission got this muddy…"

"We can keep acting like I didn't hear you guys yelling down there," Frei said honestly. "I really prefer it when you guys aren't at each other's throats, so I'm happy to pretend that I know nothing about why there's this tension between you." She interlaced her fingers to explain her thoughts, before frowning. "But if this heist is too much, then we've got to find something else, because I don't want to stay here much longer."

"We'll get back to the bounty boards," Graves said, pocketing the dog tags and walking towards the stairs with a slight stomping to his gait. "We'll find another self-advantageous ass, and we'll take everything he's got, and then you can go to Piltover."

"Are you guys gonna survive without me?" Frei asked as she followed Graves and Tobias down the stairs to the first level of the warehouse.

"We'll be fine," Fate said, and the three of them looked at each other to confirm this statement.

Then, a shadow was cast from the open slaughterhouse doors, and all eyes turned to a hulking figure in the doorway.

"Where is the...Noxian?" The figure asked in a low, mechanical voice. He had four spider-like legs made of steel, and green tubes coming out of his face and down his torso. His arms were muscular and veiny, covered with brand marks and tattoos.

Frei looked at the man in utter confusion and shock, and Graves raised his shotgun, Fate pulling out his red, yellow, and blue cards, holding them between his fingers.

"That's the new guy," she whispered to Fate. "The one Alhan mentioned." She then turned to the intruder. "We don't know," Frei offered her answer. "We're looking for him, too."

The man took a hissing, mechanical breath, before stepping into the warehouse with the loud thunking of metal on metal following him.

"No further," Graves snapped as he aimed the gun at the cyborg, who slowed to a stop. "Who are you?"

"I am...Urgot," Urgot introduced himself. "I am looking for Keyal Skangir. Tell me where he is, or..." several gun barrels began to protrude from his steel legs. "You die."

"We can't bargain on that?" Fate asked. "Clearly you're new to Bilgewater. Everyone has a price. What's yours?"

"Your life."

"No," Graves said back, before glancing up at Urgot. "I've got a deal for you. We help you find this Keyal, and you can do whatever the hell you want to him, but we get whatever riches he's got."

Urgot breathed for a moment. "I do not know this city. Do you?"

"Better than anyone," Fate said with his confidently lazy tone, his cards beginning to spin around him. "And if you don't take the deal, you're not gonna find Keyal at all." He caught the red card between his fingers, flipping it to show a sword engraved on its back.

"I see," Urgot said firmly. "We have a deal."

He's gonna backstab us, Fate, Graves, and Frei thought in unison, but they all smiled and nodded. "Deal." "That's a deal." "So glad to hear it."

"If you betray me, I will kill you slowly," Urgot said sharply.

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Fate replied, tucking his cards away as Graves lowered his blaster. "Now I've got a question for you, Zaunite: how good are you at kicking the ever-living shit out of people?"

Even though they couldn't see the man's mouth behind his facial tubes, Urgot seemed to sneer at this inquiry. "Very."

"Oh, goodie," Frei replied, narrowing one of her eyes and grimacing in worry. She clapped her hands together in concern. "Let's go catch a Noxian."