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Chapter 53: Militarisation

The brisk air of the room barely registered in my mind, completely nullified by the warmth of Ahri's body on mine. In fact, I couldn't feel anything that wasn't a part of Ahri. Everything was taking second place to her lips. The taste was even better than I remembered and the feeling in my core was more exhilarating than I had thought possible.

Even when we broke apart for air, she kept pressing her lips against mine and I was all too happy to return the sentiment.

A long time had passed since we realised, yet the sheer level of passion we put into every second never faded.

Every part of her was exactly as I remembered. My hands traced past her perfect curves, following the same patterns they always had; meanwhile hers didn't bother trying to. They just gripped me like a vice, rebuking any attempt I might have made to get out of her embrace. Not that I had any inclination to. I'd spent who-knows how long only daring to leave her arms' grip when I wanted to pleasure her from a different position.

We had to have been there for hours at that point. In that little time I had fallen in love with every part of her all over again. Her smile made my heart skip a beat every time I saw it, her body made my mind rush with thoughts of how such perfection could even be possible, her eyes made time stop in its tracks, the entire universe getting lost in her bright, golden orbs. I stared into them as our lips stopped moving mid-kiss. She looked right back and, for the first time since we began, I rediscovered a phrase that worked where no other could: "I love you."

"Right back at you." She began before planting another short kiss on my lips.

"But don't think that means you're off the hook for being gone so long."

"I have an odd feeling I'm gonna be told I'm not 'off the hook' a lot over the next few weeks."

"You're also going to get punched at least once."

"Yeah, can't wait to find Akali and get that out of the way."

"I wasn't talking about Akali." She grinned before winding me with a well-placed fist. I had a few moments of not quite being able to breathe as a flurry of worried thoughts flew through my mind. Somehow, I entirely forgot that I wouldn't die from that blow, leading to quite the terrified expression appearing on my face.

Air returned to my body with a hacking cough that quickly dissipated. I immediately calmed myself and asked: "Was that entirely necessary?"

"Yes. Had to make sure I can still take your breath away in the literal and figurative sense."

I wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a joke or just a play on words, but she kissed me a moment later, so I didn't really care.

A few hours later (18:00):

"Is everyone here?"

"The last one will be here in a minute. I think you'll like him."

I looked across the table at the people who had arrived on time. Garen, Ashe, Renekton, and Tristana, who could barely see over the table.

"Hello everyone. Despite what you may have believed these past few months, I'm not quite dead yet. Thankfully, I can say the same for all you. Let's just skip the pleasantries and get straight to the difficult job we've all taken on. I realise it was my plan that fucked us over in the first place, but I'm confident I can come up with something better this time around. So, if you'll all turn your attention to the table, someone pick up Trist, I'll give you an idea of what's going to happen."

Garen placed the Yordle on his shoulder-guard as the circular table we were standing around displayed a map of Runeterra, centred on Valoran. All of the major cities and bases were labelled, with lists of their conditions at the time noted down.

"As you can see, there is heavy fighting over Piltover, Bilgewater, and Yordle City. You may also note that there are no targets of any major importance in the Freljord, so we will start our liberation in Piltover."

Ashe interrupted angrily, slamming her hands on the table: "What of the people of the Freljord!? We cannot leave them under the oppressive rule of the League!"

"I know we can't but we can't allow ourselves to get bogged down fighting an entrenched force with no sizeable local resistance. However, as we force the League's forces from places like Piltover and Bilgewater, they will have to divert more resources and Summoners to the places under the most threat. By the time we take down the command centre of the League, there will be no Summoners left in the Freljord to oppress people. I know it's not the perfect solution, but this isn't the perfect war and we are by no means the perfect fighting force."

She sighed and considered it for a moment before stating: "But we WILL return to free the Freljord soon!"

"Of course. We'll send so many people the fighting will be over before it can dream of beginning."

She seemed to accept the compromise, so I continued: "Once we reach Piltover, our primary focus shall be linking up with the people already fighting back and giving them all the support they need to push the League's forces out. Once I have set up the necessary technology to protect the city from any weapons of mass destruction the League may have thrown together, we will move onto Bilgewater. Not because it's more important than Bandle City, it's just closer and the fighting will be easier with all the bloodthirsty pirates around."

Tristana butted-in proudly: "But Bandle City has a Gnar."

"He's there? I really want to see that."

"I heard a rumour that he's been in rage-mode ever since the League marched all those months ago."

"I feel genuinely sorry for the guys who have to try deal with him. However, it's still a lot easier to visit the pirates second. For now though, everyone make your way to the supplies area. We've got everything and anything you could possibly need in there. Tomorrow, we'll head out. Any questions?"

Renekton put up his hand: "Can I be in charge of taking the docks? I heard Piltover has quite the thriving fishing industry still and I'd like to… inspect the produce."

"Sure, but try to leave some for the people of the city."

"Maybe."

"It'll have to do. Anything else?"

No-one answered back, so I dismissed them: "Go on then. Best not leave the gearing until the last minute."

They all made their way out as I stared down at the map, trying to take in any details I could possibly need. I didn't have long, though, as I noticed movement at the top of my vision. When I looked up, I saw Shen stepping through the door. He saw me at the same time and we both just stood there staring for a moment.

The silence was broken when we both shouted each other's names in joy and ran around the table towards each other. I got to hug that magnificent bastard with all my strength, as he did the same. It was just about the best bro-hug I'd ever had.

We let go at exactly the same time and I swore I could see a smile behind that mask. I was certainly smiling.

"I've never been so happy to see you, Shen."

"The feeling is mutual friend. I had planned on this meeting happening earlier today, however I saw that you were making up for lost time with Ahri."

"When has that ever stopped you before?"

"Never, but I was in a generous mood. So, what's the plan?"

"We're headed to Piltover tomorrow. We'll use my skeletons and technology to free it then move on to everywhere else. I'll give a more detailed plan of action once we're close enough to analyse the situation inside the city."

"Very well. I have always wanted to take a vacation to Piltover. This is probably as good as I'm going to get."

"Man, when this has all blown over, you can take as long a vacation as you want. At least, until we've rebuilt everything."

"I doubt I'll be so unneeded that I can take time off. However, let's not get into making plans for what happens IF we win. We'll need to use the time makes ones for HOW we win."

"Agreed. Now go ahead and gear yourself up in the inventory room with the rest of the team."

"Do you have any grenades?"

"Tons."

He put his hand on my shoulder and stated: "This is going to be a fun few days."

As Shen left with a spring in his step, I turned to Ahri, who had been quietly watching the entire time. She smiled and commented: "I did say you'd like him."

"It didn't exactly take much to work that out."

"No, but I could also tell you the other thing I've worked out."

"What would that be?"

"You've rebuilt your original armour and axe. From the look on your face right now, I'd also say you've built something else."

"I'm impressed." I answered as my crimson armour appeared around me. It felt so… right, compared to that other set. It fit better, it had better technology, it had better armour, it looked better. I could have thought of a thousand additions to that list and still left some out. The simple fact was, very few things felt better than being a walking tank that an extremely small list of things could damage.

"Well, I see the stuff you've rebuilt. What's the new thing?"

I activated one of the many new features of the suit and walked right out of it, phasing through the material like it wasn't even there. Which, technically, it wasn't.

"MK-G-292. Turn around one-eighty degrees."

The armour did as ordered while Ahri questioned sceptically: "You've made two-hundred and ninety-two of those things?"

"Of this line, yeah. I was working on two-nine-three, but it had a bit of a habit of exploding, so I decided to leave it be."

"Wait, wait, wait, did you say 'of this line'?"

"Yes. Why?"

"How many other 'lines' have you got?"

I had to take a moment to recall before I could answer, though I didn't have much confidence in my conclusion: "Uhhhhmmm…. I'm going to say ten, cause there's a MK-J-1 out there somewhere."

"What the hell are the other lines? You've made this design do pretty much every job imaginable!"

"You said it yourself. This is just one of the designs of armour. The MK-A series is made of entirely straight plates of armour. MK-C's are all so bulky you can barely move, while MK-H's can barely even be referred to as 'armour'."

"I suppose all that time you didn't get to spend on your social life-"

"Went into my armours. You'd be surprised how much a smart person can accomplish when they're bored and have no hobbies."

"All-right then, point taken. So, did the armour turn around to show off that it could, or is something back there?"

"Armour, open the coil-pack."

I turned around and watched as the armour on the back of the armour split apart, revealing two tesla coils where the banner would normally be. They were both hooked up to a small, red crystal that was suspended between them.

"What do those do?"

"Those coils will absorb any electrical attacks sent against me, even those created by magic, and funnel it all into that Arkinine crystal."

"What does the crystal do?"

"Just absorbs energy. No-one knows how much it can take before it breaks, because no-one has ever put enough energy into one to get a reaction, not even me. I threw one into an electric storm that was threatening to consume and entire planet. The crystal pretty much ate the entire thing."

"So you're not going to get brought down by a teensy little zap anymore?"

"Surprisingly, no I'm not. So you can go ahead and rub your socks on a carpet and static shock me all you want."

"That's helpful."

"Yeah. Really surprised that I didn't incorporate this into my earlier versions."

"Well that'd be cause you're a dumbass."

I looked over at her then shrugged: "Yeah, I suppose I can't argue against that after everything that's happened."

The next day (14th 10:35):

It even had the same whistle. Ever since the first variant of that armour design, the shoulder guards would whistle if the wind hit them just right. It wasn't loud. It wasn't annoying. It was just there. Every time.

In fact, the little things like that were what made me love that design so much. I could have made a set of armour infinitely more efficient; I already had. But it didn't feel the same. It didn't have the slightly increased padding near the butt so that it was more comfortable when I sat down. It didn't have the storage space in the shoulder-guards.

My main armour did.

I'd even gone to the extra effort of making the usual eagle with crossed swords emblem enamel, making it stand out of the rest of the chest armour.

Another returning feature was the zoom capabilities of the lenses, which I was using to help formulate a plan. Eventually, though, I realised that I was not gaining anything more from looking at Piltover. So, I looked to the sky and tried to focus my thoughts. If I wanted, I could have reached out and grabbed the clouds that hung ominously above me, threatening the land with a torrent of rain. They almost completely covered the sky, only a few beams of sun making their way down onto the war-torn city. Despite their ominous nature, they were a tremendous help in focusing my brain.

It only took a few seconds to come up with something and check it over. Just like that, I was free to dive from the peak. Plummeting towards the rapidly-growing farmlands. In the last few moments I had, I flipped over to land on one knee. My fist struck the ground at the same time my foot did, helping to lessen the strain on the not-yet broken-in servos. Plus it looked cooler.

"Everyone around me." I shouted while standing up. Once everyone was in a circle, I began to explain: "Basically what we've got is gunfire all over the damn place, half of the buildings in the city flattened, the other half on fire, and no sign of Summoner camps outside of the city. From what I can tell, the only fighting is within the city bounds. The surrounding area is completely untouched, except for, you know, the occasional giant purple scar in the planet. There seems to be considerably less here than we encountered in the Freljord, however."

"How do we proceed?" Shen questioned as an explosion rung out in the distance.

"It's going to be difficult, but we've got to find a concentration of Summoners and take it out in the most spectacular way possible. That's going to get us a meeting with the leader of the resistance, if there even is one, better than anything else."

Ahri spoke up from my left: "Didn't happen to notice a particularly well-robed area while you were up there, did you?"

"Actually, I did."

"Great. Where?"

"Remember when you were here on tour?"

"The stadium!"

"Uh-huh."

A short walk later (11:10):

Ahri's POV:

It was great and all knowing what we were going to attack, however the difficulty was not in actually attacking it. So far, it had proven to be in getting to the damn thing in the first place. Even with crocodile the size of a three-story building on our side, the fighting had been intense and uncomfortably close the entire time. When every building was at least partly made of rubble, it became very easy for nasty people to hide until the right time.

That fact was put to the forefront of my mind as we reached the part of the city where the buildings began to get taller. I kept to the side as much as I could, advancing slowly behind Zoh. It's not that I wasn't eager, it's just that he was much better at getting shot than I was.

As we approached the end of the building, we heard voices coming from down the road on the left of the upcoming junction. We got to the edge of the crossroads and I looked up to the rooves. Ashe and Trist were on one of them and, when they saw me staring up at them, the Yordle hand-motioned that it was five enemies behind cover.

After giving a thumbs-up, I turned around to Shen and whispered: "Ult me."

He nodded then began channelling as I dashed from the cover of the building. Diving through burnt-out cars and piles of what used to be buildings, I reached the enemy just in time. They were all hiding behind the wreckage of some kind of tank, no doubt a creation of Piltover. It didn't do them any good, though, when I rushed past it with a bubble of lightly-blue energy around me. Shen appeared and was immediately on one of them, getting into a fist-fight in an attempt to take him out non-violently.

I was similarly reserved in my attacks, even when I had to dodge a succession of huge fireballs from the remaining Summoners. Thankfully, there was plenty of clutter on the ground to duck behind, and I even managed to get a full-speed swing in before the support arrived. With two already down, the remaining three didn't stand any chance against the hail of arrows and cannon-shots, or the two huge guys about to ruin their day. Zoh immediately grabbed one by the neck and beat him until he was unconscious, even as countless different spells hit him. Garen managed to get the last two in headlocks, somehow, and slammed them together.

When it was all over, Zoh teleported them out to who-knows where, and we moved on. Ahead of us, the road split in two and circled around a massive statue. It looked like a man striking a victorious pose, but it was so abstract I couldn't really tell. The people of Piltover were great with technology; not so good with art.

As we got closer to the statue, a sudden influx of fighting coming from above us caught everyone's attention. One of the few functioning light-bridges left in the city had just erupted in gunfire and explosions. It became obvious in short order that the rebels were not going to win that fight, and we were too far below to be any amount of help.

Thankfully, Tristana had the quick thinking to fire a bomb up there. It didn't kill any of the Summoners, but it knocked them back enough to give the people time to retreat. She got a fist-bump from Ashe and we all continued forward, getting really close to the statue.

When we emerged into the roundabout, I noticed that a building on the other side had been very helpful and collapsed over the road, giving us a clear view of the stadium in the distance. That was the bright side.

The problem was that when I had looked up to our allies on the roof, they couldn't see the people hiding in the darkness of the buildings. So we were pretty immediately fired at from every building still standing. Every spell that you could imagine was headed in our direction. Thankfully, I had a Zoh to hide behind.

He didn't even flinch as an insane amount of fire, electricity and debris smashed into him. After a few seconds, the Summoners had to wait and regain their mana, giving me a chance to dash forward and up into the second floor of a building. The ceiling was partly collapsed and everything inside was burnt to a crisp, making the purple robes of the Summoner stand out. He saw me and backed away, whimpering: "No! P-please! I don't want to d-d-die!"

"You're not going to. This will hurt, though." I reassured before dashing forward and smashing him over the head. He was instantly knocked out, so I dashed up through one of the holes and onto the roof. I looked around just in time to see Zoh throw a car up in front of Tristana. She shot something at it that sent the vehicle into the side of a building.

Seeing that the next building I intended to clear didn't have any holes in its roof, I looked around for options. Luckily, Ashe saw my predicament and fired a huge arrow towards the building. It was headed straight for a hole in the side of the building, so I dived onto it and rode it in. I dived off it just in time to not be frozen along with pretty much everything within a few metres of where it hit. With one of them turned into a Summoner ice-lolly, I only had to deal with two. Safe to say, they were a bit less scared than the last guy, so I had to dodge some fire immediately. The slight bit of heat I felt on my tails showed they got a lot closer than anyone else had that far.

Despite that, I still managed to dodge everything until they had to pause long enough for me to go on the attack. Being in a small room, they didn't have anywhere to run to when I dived forward. I slid between the legs of the closest one, sticking my hand up at the right moment to really fuck him up. I stood up behind him a just a light shove was enough to put him on the ground. The other guy just looked at me and groaned: "Well… shit."

I kicked his chest, sending him to the ground, then picked up a loose brick and dropped it on his private area.

They were both still moaning in agony when I knocked them out with a couple kicks.

Unfortunately, the next few buildings had been destroyed completely, so I couldn't progress around the ring of buildings that surrounded the roundabout any further. Everyone else had dealt with the majority of the remaining, however there was still one building that a huge amount of spells were being fired from. It was a bike shop whose occupants had used a lot of its stock to set up a makeshift barricade over the main entrance. It had pretty much entirely avoided damage the damage that had ravaged the rest of the city.

I closed the distance between me and Zoh, who was slowly advancing on the shop, and tapped him on the helmet. He noticed me and ducked behind the same bit of rubble as me.

"I've got an idea for how we deal with the bike place!"

An explosion against the piece of cover we were behind prevented him from talking for a moment: "… I was just gonna walk up to it and hit it very hard but it's proving to take a while. What've you got?"

"If you can throw Garen at it, he can bring down some Demacian justice from the sky and take out one of the walls! Then I go in with Shen like we did earlier and clear it out, using the confusion from the big, golden sword!"

"Shen can't! He's up top protecting Ashe and Trist along with Renekton!"

"Okay, we'll do it without him then!"

"Sure you want to go in there alone!? We don't know how many we're dealing with!"

"If you don't fuck up the throw, I'll have Garen to help! It'll be fine!"

The remains of a car a few metres behind me was suddenly replaced by a huge slab of concrete with some mud on the underside of it. Up until that point, I had no idea steel could be squished so much.

I waved Garen over and, after dodging a streetlight, he kneeled down next to us. It got very loud, so Zoh had to shout extra-loud to make himself heard: "I'm gonna lob you at the dudes in the building, and I'm counting on you to make yourself an entrance with some aerial-justice! You okay with that?!"

"I heard the first part and I can improvise the rest!"

"Good enough!"

Zoh stood up and gabbed Garen by the back of his shirt in two places. After a few warm-up swings, he hurled Garen in the direction of the bike shop. Even among all of the crackling of electricity, the rumbling of explosions, the crumbling of buildings, the Demacian's war-cry could be heard loud and clear: "JUUUUUSTICE!"

Right on time, a huge, golden sword fell from the sky. It landed on one side of the building, crushing it completely. The ground trembled and dust flew into the sky all around as a nearly-deafening sound rung out, resembling an explosion more closely than the slice of a sword.

Using the dust for cover, I Spirit-Dashed forward, clearing the distance swiftly. The pile of rubble provided a useful ramp up to the second floor, where I pulled Garen up to his feet.

Hiding between the lines of display bikes were around ten Summoners. A few had been knocked back and, by the blood splatted under my feet, at least one had been killed by the sword. I didn't get a moment to think up a plan, as a massive chunk of ice was flying at me.

Didn't know they could use ice.

I had to duck backwards, like I was playing some sort of messed-up limbo, just to avoid the thing. Seeing the waves of incoming flame, I dived backwards and out of the window. Right then, when I was in the air but had not yet started falling, I was suddenly able to float again. Even after all the time I had spent practicing that, it was still amazing when I actually pulled it off in the middle of a fight.

I still didn't feel safe with it, though, so I dashed over to the other window as quickly as I could. Smashing through it, I found myself pretty much in the middle of all the Summoners. I couldn't think of a better idea on the spot, so I grabbed a bike by its tyre and used it to smack a few of them over their heads. When I very nearly clonked Garen over the head with it just as he was joining the fight, I stop swinging it randomly and chucked it at one of them. Just as I was about to dive onto one and beat the shit out of him, I felt my right foot get stuck to the ground. For the next few seconds, I had to put all of my effort into ducking and swerving all of the attacks coming my way, while also burning away the ice with Spirit Fire. I managed to melt it in time to jump over a wave of snow coming from one direction and a wave of rock coming from the other, both intending to fuck me up in all kinds of unfortunate ways. When I landed, I made the split-second decision that the ice dude was a bit of a dick. So, I dashed forward and kicking him in the head. The hit knocked him over a rail and down the spiral staircase. I chucked my orb down at him, only leaving it in long enough to make him unconscious. By the time it returned to me I was kicking myself off a wall towards two Summoners. A throw of the orb took one out, while an elbow to the face knocked the other over. I immediately turned around to find a heavily-armoured Summoner swinging a huge mace at me. I was about to take the first hit of the day, not having anywhere to dash to without putting myself in the way of something else, when the mace was knocked out of his hand by a thrown axe. At the same moment, the end of a sword appeared through the Summoner's chest. I would have owed Garen, however I immediately dashed behind him to tackle a mid-cast Summoner. I landed on top of her and one good punch was enough to end that threat.

The noise stopped completely and the distant sound of fighting was all that could be heard. I dusted myself off and took a minor detour to pick up Zoh's axe before exiting the building and returning the weapon to its owner.

"Thanks for the save."

"Wasn't about to let my second favourite face in the planet lose a few teeth."

"Second?"

"Can you really compete with that?" He asked jokingly while poking Shen, who had just stepped up to us, in the face.

"Well I suppose, with that existing, everyone is just competing for second place."

"I do not appreciate being made fun of."

"Oh, don't get your knickers in a twist, it was just a joke." I dismissed while turning to look at how far we had to go. It was only a few blocks away, so we quickly checked that everyone was okay before heading in that direction. A crumbled building gave us access to a series of back-alleys which got us close without resistance. However, the moment we stepped onto the ground of the carpark between us and it, the entire stadium was enveloped by a huge bubble.

We crossed the carpark and stepped up to the bubble. The only person who was brave enough to touch it was Zoh, who immediately got thrown backwards a few metres by a blast of energy. Apparently, it wasn't the friendly kind of bubble.

Renekton chuckled before asking: "This complicates things a little bit. Want to hit another target?"

"Nope! This doesn't change the plan at all." Zoh replied giddily while getting up from the floor.

"What IS the plan, exactly?" Trist asked as Zoh took his place beside me.

"Uhh… I think it's better to show you than tell you. Everyone just take a few… hundred steps back."

We all retreated to what was supposed to be a safe distance as Zoh tinkered with a button. We looked on in anticipation as he finally finished adjusting the various dials on the device.

"Okay, it's at minimal power, the charges are set, and I've got a big, red button to press. Everything is perfect."

He gave a satisfied sigh before pressing the button. The clouds above were instantly painted a dark shade of red and a huge hole was burnt through them as a massive beam of light smashed into the bubble, sending out a shockwave that knocked everyone but Zoh onto their butts. It took only a few seconds for red cracks to appear in the shield, and no time at all after that for it to be smashed like glass. The laser stopped instantly, perfectly timed to do no damage to the structure itself.

I thought that was the end of the plan as I got up, but Zoh proved me wrong when explosions went off all around the building. From what I could see, it looked like a ring of explosions had went around the entirety of the building. On its own, that didn't achieve much. When the ground became weak enough that it gave in and the entire building dropped, that achieved a lot. We were suddenly on level with the open roof of the stadium.

That was surely the end of his plan?

Nope.

Out of nowhere, skeletons poured out of the nearby streets, buildings and alleys. They reached the stadium and just hurled themselves in, not a moment of concern for their own well-being.

Everyone but Zoh looked between each-other with confused expressions as he stood proudly in front of us. I tapped him on the shoulder and questioned: "Should we… help? I'm not sure how to react in this situation."

"Hell yeah we should. I'm not going to let us lose any more skeletons than we need to."

We hurried over to the edge of the stadium's roof and looked down. A fierce battle was raging between the nearly-indestructible skeletons and the insane amounts of Summoners inside. Zoh shouted into it: "Clear a landing zone! A big one!"

A hole in the fighting started to form and that was the cue for Zoh to spin and order: "Renekton, get big. Everyone else, get on the crocodile."

I already didn't like that part of the plan as I clambered onto the harsh scales. Everyone else seemed as uncomfortable as I was with the situation, except for Zoh who wasn't moving to get on.

"What about you?"

"I'm taking the express route…!" He answered while jumping off the ledge, his last word trailing off as he plummeted to the ground. Without warning, Renekton followed him.

With a crash that shook the entire stadium and knocked off some of the looser parts of the roof, we landed. Being on the hulking crocodile didn't exactly lessen the blow a lot, but we were all still alive, so I supposed it did its job well enough.

He could have at least waited for us to get off before taking his first few swings of that giant blade-thing. I was hoping for a graceful dismount; instead I got flung off and only managed to cushion my fall by aiming for a particularly chubby Summoner. I would've preferred to use that levitation ability, but it didn't seem to be in the mood to work at that point.

When I pushed myself off the Summoner, after making very sure he was knocked out, I surveyed the battle around me. The inside of the stadium was a thick rectangular shape with almost all of the space taken up by chairs. They were highest at the sides that didn't hold the stage and descended slowly as they got closer to the centre of the room, which was flat. The fight covered pretty much all of it. The Champions on our side carved through the Summoners with relative ease, while the skeletons slowly pushed them back through sheer weight of numbers. Somehow, Zoh had gotten thousands of skeletons into that base back in the Freljord.

Everyone on my side seemed to get the easy jobs except me. I had to fight the fucking Nautilus.

He didn't seem particularly happy to see me.

His anchor utterly destroyed half a dozen chairs in a single smash, and the stomp that immediately followed it cleared out a few hundred all around him, giving us a pretty well-defined arena.

After dodging over a hefty swing, I threw my orb at him. Just before it would have hit, his eyes darkened to red and a turquoise glow appeared from every part of his being. The orb pinged off it like it was a tennis ball.

I needed a new plan.

Some dashing and probing revealed that there was no crack in the armour. Nothing to aim for. No orange, glowing weak-spots.

The predicament only got worse when he managed to predict where I would dash and caught me by the tails. Having no sharp weapons, Nautilus opted to chuck me at the ground. I would've certainly encountered a few problems if it worked, but thankfully the levitation kicked in with only a few centimetres left between me and some nasty splatting sounds.

"Oh, NOW you start working!"

I dashed out of it to avoid the follow up by Nautilus' anchor and put a bit of distance between me and him. In the few seconds I had before his anchor landed next to me and pulled him over, I noticed that there was a huge rack of stage-lights hanging loosely above us. If I could get him under them, I might be able to do something.

Easier said than done.

I was essentially able to do nothing but dodge for a while, hoping that the shield would eventually wear off or he would move into position. Neither happened after a minute so, going with plan B, I placed myself under the lights and stood still. He wasn't close enough to just swing at me, so he chucked his anchor. At the last moment possible, I dived out of the way and turned back to check the damage. He'd made a pretty big hole in the ground, which played into my plan perfectly. After repeating the tactic in the same place again, the hole was large enough for me to hide in. I knelt down, completely out of sight, and waited.

Each stomp sent rumbles through the ground, kicking up the rocks and pebbles that littered my hidey-hole. It only took a few before the light began to get cut off, notifying me that it was almost time.

When I looked up, I saw a giant, spiked boot lifting into the air above me. Just as his foot began to descend towards me, I dashed up and grabbed onto it. I propelled myself up off it and onto his head before putting all my effort into a dash. It was enough to propel me to just below the hanging lights. It felt like time itself stopped, waiting for me to reach. I only managed to hook a single finger onto it, but my weight was the straw that broke the camel's back. A great metal groan reverberated through the stadium, easily audible above the sounds of warfare.

I dropped. The lights dropped. It went pretty much as expected.

I barely managed to stand myself up and turn around in time to see the huge rack of lights slamming into the titanic, armoured monstrosity I had been fighting. The force immediately overwhelmed his shield, a blast of turquoise energy spreading out in all directions from Nautilus as his eyes returned to the normal shade of orange. He was knocked to the ground and pinned there by the lights which, despite his immense size, still dwarfed him.

I thought for a few blissful moments that it was over. Nope.

He somehow managed to shove the huge clusterfuck of metal off and get up to his feet. I groaned dejectedly as he took up his anchor and started stomping towards me.

I threw my orb at him and it went straight through. It stayed there for a few seconds before returning to me but, of course, it didn't do fuck-all to Nautilus.

"Of course that didn't work. Why would that work? I mean- I mean what kind of idiot would think that I could just win a fight in the usual way? No! Course not! Every one has to be new and different and annoying!" I grumbled, quite peeved-off at that point.

I dashed over to the nearest chair and yanked it from the ground before hurrying over to Nautilus. I climbed him, dodging a few attempts to grab me. I knelt on the arch-thing behind his head and repeatedly smashed him on the helmet with the chair. It didn't achieve a whole lot, but I was frustrated and needed to hit something.

After a moment, I noticed a semi-regular beeping coming from somewhere. It sounded like it was below me and, when I stared down at it, I realised that there was a little mechanical device on the back of Nautilus' helmet, tucked well out of view. There was a faint red light coming from it but before I could lean in for a closer look I got grabbed.

The trip through the air was kinda nice I suppose. I got a good view of the chaos still running rampant below and got to see the stadium from a whole new perspective.

Hitting the glass wasn't so fun.

Neither was falling onto the wooden floor of the VIP box. If I'd just come in slightly to the left I would've landed on the massage chair. After months of living in what was essentially a cave, I was tempted to let someone else handle the big fella while I sat up there and watched. However, I didn't want any chance of Zoh finishing Nautilus off and taking all the credit. The boasting would get insufferable.

So, I climbed out of the VIP box and down into the rows of seats. Not wanting to fight my way there, I dashed the entire distance. Upon arriving a few metres behind Nautilus, I had to take a minute to nurse my injured arm. It won the fight with the glass, but didn't come out of it healthy and happy. It was going to take a while for me to pick some of the glass out of that.

He didn't notice me and was about to go to town on some skeletons, so I lit Nautilus on fire from head to toe. He turned to me and one of the skeletons shouted:

"Thanks! We were really boned there for a minute!"

Was that the skeleton version of appreciation?

I didn't have time to think it through, as I had to dodge the flaming anchor. The flames went out as I hopped over his swing, no longer able to concentrate enough to keep them going. He immediately slammed his foot on the ground, causing a quickly-growing ring of small explosions to appear around him. They sent bits of concrete and rubble flying in all directions, creating a cloud of pain all around Nautilus.

I spent the next few seconds ducking, diving, and flipping to avoid the maelstrom of brick and metal. As it started to clear slightly, I saw a chance to dash forward. I took it and ended up right beside him. Thanks to the constant amount of rocks hitting him, Nautilus didn't notice me until I hurried up his back. I really hoped that little device was important, because I had to put all my effort into yanking it off. Because all of my weight was going into removing the beeping thing, I immediately fell backwards when it came off.

I fell onto my back and stared up at Nautilus, preparing for him to turn around and renew his efforts to fuck me up. A few seconds of him not moving caused me to sit up and hold the device up in front of me. Inspection revealed that the beeping had stopped and the light went out. The device itself almost looked similar. I definitely hadn't seen one of them before, but I vaguely recognised the way things were placed and how it was held together.

Nautilus dropping his anchor tore my attention from the device. I stared up at him, ready to dash out of there at a moment's notice. When he turned around, I immediately noticed that he seemed much less angry than before. As he stared down at me he almost seemed… sad.

Turns out, he was: "Sorry… sorry… I'm so sorry…"

His trademark voice: the impossibly low, booming, and metallic echoes, sounded genuine in his apology. He held his hand out to me, initially making me flinch a bit.

"Why so nice all of a sudden?" I asked while allowing him to help me up.

"You took off the nasty machine. It made me do bad things."

"This thing was… what, controlling you?" I asked sceptically while holding the device up.

"Yes."

"Why should I believe you?"

"I will help you here and from now on."

"Well you better get to it then."

"Yes." He agreed while picking up his anchor and turning around. I watched him with scrutiny as he wandered towards a group of Summoners. He hit the ground in their direction, sending a line of explosions towards the group until one massive blast knocked them all dozens of metres into the air.

I felt the pain in my arm grow suddenly, enough to make me gasp in pain. Looking over at it, I was reminded of the glass.

Upon looking around the battle, it seemed like we were doing fine. It was pretty even, but we had just got another big guy and he was already putting in lots of work.

With that in mind, I found an undamaged chair and sat myself down on it. I placed the device by my feet and began the job of plucking the shards from my arm. It was slow and tedious, but I really didn't want to rush it and have the glass break in my arm. If I fucked it up, I'd have to ask Zoh for help and would never hear the end of it.

The battle continued at the same pace all around me as I calmly pulled the fragments from me. It took a couple of minutes, but eventually I managed to get all the pieces out. I checked for anything I missed multiple times before waiting a few seconds then checking again. When I didn't have a shadow of a doubt that everything was gone, I looked up and searched the battlefield with my eyes. I spotted a nearby Summoner who was trying to do something, and failing, to Renekton. I hurled my orb at him and waited a few seconds before commanding it back. He wouldn't be getting up for a few days at best.

When the orb returned to my hand it transferred the essence over and disappeared. Over the course of a few seconds, the cuts and bruises on my arm sealed up and faded away until it looked exactly as it did before. Still hurt like a bitch though.

I sat back and relaxed, occasionally having to dodge spells or bits of rock. We were pretty happily winning when Zoh fell from the sky, landing next to me. He noticed me when he sat up and nudged me with his elbow: "Having fun over here?"

"Yeah. I dealt with the big guy, so I think I deserved the break."

"Nautilus? Why was he against us in the first place?"

"Apparently, it was this thing." I answered while handing the device over. He took it and immediately pulled it in half. Rooting around inside for a second, he mumbled: "Shit."

"Hm?"

"I made this."


I'm lazy and have very little to say so thanks for watching the chapter everyone.

Goodbye plebs.