UUNNNNGHGGGHGHGHHGHGGHGHGHGH OH GOD IT'S HALF FIVE IN THE MORNING AND I'VE NOT SLEPT YET WHY UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Okay I feel better now.
Nope. That's a lie. Oh well.
Anyway, I realise this is late but that's cause the last update to an old chapter took ages (for various reasons) and that's pushed this back but, hey, you know.
On the positive side, I've probably only gotta do a few more chapter updates cause they're not so bad after chapter 10-ish. I'll probably get to 15 then switch to a brand new series I'm going to be making. Not gonna spoil what it is here, but it won't focus on any of the main characters of this series.
There's nothing to change and I still can't think of a joke so on with the chapter I guess.
Well, it'll be right below here for you guys but for me it's hours away because I'm gonna go die for a while then wake up feeling terrible and horribly regretting my decision to stay awake so long.
Have fun.
Chapter 55: Mercy
"So, uh… care to explain, Naut?"
"I was the only one who did not hurt them in the laboratory. No matter how indoctrinated they may be, children remember kindness."
"What's to say that he's not about to turn around and blast me out of the atmosphere?"
"He won't."
I stared at him, motionless, for a few moments before I decided that his assuredness was enough for me.
"All-right. What are you going to do with him?"
"I will find a home for him and any others we come across. It will be difficult to find somewhere not destroyed by the war or the cracks, but I will not rest until I discover the right place."
"If you're sure you can keep them from hurting themselves or others, I will help you find a place."
"You have my word."
"Okay. We'll get to it later. This isn't the time or place and I'm certain this city has a few more fights left for us before it'll let us have some rest."
"Agreed."
Metal smashed against metal as we shook hands on it and stepped away from each other. I couldn't say for sure that Nautilus would be able to keep the Archon from hurting people, but I was willing to give him a chance. If nothing else, it meant that I didn't have to kill a child. To me, that was an incredible weight off my conscience. Although, to be fair, it was probably the same for most people.
I tried my best to clear my thoughts as I approached Ahri, who was still dusting bits of snow and ice off herself from the earlier freezing. When I reached her, I flicked a bit off her shoulder before asking: "You okay?"
"I bit cold, but I'm mostly fine."
"What, not gonna ask me the same?"
"Oh yeah, I'm sure you must be freezing under those heavy metal, air-tight plates with in-built radiators."
"Hey, I never told you about the radiators."
"Please Zoh, I know you well enough to realise you probably put radiators in everything you own. I half expected to find one in that pool table you made ages ago."
"… Well… I'm not gonna confirm or deny that…"
"I have no words. That's gotta be the biggest waste of time to ever take place in the League."
"Not entirely true, I did once spend seven hours repainting our entire apartment."
"But… it never changed colour."
"Yeaaaah, I changed it then realised I preferred the old colours so I painted it all again in the original colours."
"You're a dumbass, I'm cold, and this place is getting boring, so let's go now."
"See, we agree on some stuff. That's a perfectly functioning relationship right there." I joked while putting my hand up for a high-five. She stared blankly at me for a second before shaking her head and walking right past me.
"Hey, don't leave a man hanging!" I complained while turning my head to look back at her.
I couldn't have been more disappointed until I felt someone high-five me. When I turned around, Shen was there and Ho. Ly. Shit.
He had switched out his old cloths for actual armour! His mask was mostly the same with his mouth and cheek area protected by metal along with three stylised metal prongs that covered where his eyebrows would be and a line going from the bridge of his nose up to the top of his head. His eyes And a small area around them were open to the elements, revealing that they were actually completely white and not a dumb-looking yellow colour.
His chest was covered by a blue vest with metal plates that covered almost the entirety of his main body, arranged so that they would move and give way as he twisted and turned. He had a wide metal belt going around his waist with two pieces of cloth hanging from it, a larger one at the back and a smaller one at the front, both of which were adorned with metal around the edges.
He had roomy blue trousers on with two pieces of armour where the pockets would normally be. His lower legs were covered by leather that clung tightly to his legs, in contrast to the wide and loose trousers. His shoulders were protected by blue, metal pouldrons that were not connected to the chest-piece, allowing them to move freely around his shoulder as he moved. His upper arms were left open, showing off his very well-built arms; while his lower arms and hands were covered by leather with metal armour on the outside that stopped short of his wrists.
He had also replaced his boring old swords with one massive ornamental-looking one and one curved one.
He looked fucking cool.
"Shen, dude, bruh, friendo, buddy, you look incredible."
"It is kind of you to say. I went delving into some long abandoned temples in Ionia and found these relics. They functioned better than my old equipment, so I decided to take an upgrade."
"All things considered, I don't think you could have chosen a better time to get the best stuff you can."
"Indeed. However, you must realise that the onus is now on you to design some new armour for yourself. I doubt you'll be able to find anything of use the same way I did."
"Hey, do you have any idea what iteration this armour is? I've done plenty of upgrading."
"Yes, but it looks the same. With the exception of the removal of the banner and the insignia on the front, it is practically identical to the set you wore when you first arrived here."
"I suppose I can change the design of the helmet around… and maybe change the colours…"
"Please do. Then we will win the war on fashion before it even starts."
I stared at him in mild confusion for a second before he explained: "I'm just saying phrases I have heard Akali use. I do not know how fashion is relevant here at all. Speaking of whom…"
"Oh shit." I mumbled before something hit me hard enough over the head to knock out all the functionality of my helmet for a few seconds. When it had sorted itself out and the metaphorical birds had stopped circling my head, my eyes locked onto Akali, who was standing next to Shen with her hands over her chest.
"Okay, yeah, I deserved that."
"Damn right you did! Do you know how fucked the world's got since you've been gone?"
"Surprisingly, yes. I do. It's made kinda obvious by the giant purple holes in the ground and the fighting… well… everywhere."
"And where, exactly, have you been this entire time? Hanging out with a bunch of skeletons in some dusty old cave?"
"That's the vastly simplified way of looking at it, but yeah. How about I give you the full run-down while we head back to base?"
"You better hope I like it or I'm gonna punch you again."
She walked away and I waited for her to get out of earshot before mentioning: "I feel like I'm going to have to come up with a bullshit story, cause the real one is pretty dumb."
Shen patted me on the arm before advising: "All I shall say is: keep your armour on."
Two days later (17th January 13:00):
"Shen! Get in here! It's finished!"
As he strolled through the door, I marvelled at my latest and greatest creation. The most technologically advanced set of armour I had ever created. It was an improvement in every way over my previous main set.
"Whoa. Now that is cool."
"I know right?"
Light grey from top to bottom, the helmet had neon blue eye-lenses that were short, wide triangles. The bottom half of the front that covered the mouth and nose was slanted from where the ears were to the centre of the face, creating and edge that went from the chin up to the middle of the nose. The slant had multiple holes in a chess-board formation that led to the air regulation systems inside. The slant and holes ended abruptly where the bottom of the eyes began. The forehead and top of the nose were covered by a flat piece of metal that went back to the top very top of the head where three front-facing vents were located, one at the very top and two flanking it at slight angles on the sides. Those vents were for gathering various types of atmospheric data which was then relayed to the user interface.
The chest-piece of the armour was split into two main parts. The upper-most part was the thickest and protruded out from the rest. It followed the curvature of the ribs up to the head. At the front, it only came up to the chin. At the back, it came up to slightly above the head. At the centre of that piece was a symbol with an axe at the centre with two open wings coming off it. Those wings curved around the side of the piece and ended where the arm-holes were. Below that piece was a section of metal that was mostly plain except for around the hips, where it was slightly thicker and covered in details as if it were a belt. Descending from that section was a length of white cloth at the front that descended right down to mid-way through the lower legs.
The legs had taken a cue from Shen, with the two pieces of metal covering the pocket-areas. Both were in thick and slanted 'T' shapes and had golden edges. The upper legs were protected by cylinders of metal that were slanted at the top on the inside to avoid limiting the user's movement. The lower legs were protected by similar cylinders that were slightly thicker but with large arches at the top that covered the knees and a small part of the upper legs of the user. The feet were protected by plain, metal boots. All of the leg armour pieces were adorned with various gold details to break up the grey.
The arms had the usual massive shoulder-guards that covered from the bottoms of the upper arms to where the shoulders met the neck. They both had details engraved into them, but only the right one had a rectangular shield attached at the front. It was split between red and white, with one side being the former and the other side being the latter. Beneath those were two relatively thin cylinders of armour around the upper arms, both of which were completely blank as they were covered from top to bottom by the shoulder-guards. The lower arms were protected by slightly thicker cylinders and the hands had gloves that were made of thin, slightly bendable bits of metal that were designed to not limit the ability for the hands to do hand things what-so-ever. As with the rest of the armour, the armour on the hands and lower arms were decorated by various bits of gold.
At the back of the armour was a plate to protect the butt and a large square area on the back of the main chest-plate that protruded from the rest slightly, housing the anti-electricity equipment.
Shen stepped up to the armour as I introduced it: "Say 'hello' to the Mark K-1. Currently the single most advanced set of armour in the known galaxy. It incorporates all of the technology from my previous armour iterations along with a modular design that allows me to take out pieces of it and replace them with specialised variants at will. It is capable of withstanding practically any kinetic attacks and has shock dispersion and absorption capabilities so that I'm not battered around inside the armour. It has an anti-freeze secretion system that activates when the surrounding area dips below a certain area. It is heat-resistant to the point where I could take a bath in lava and not feel a thing for multiple minutes. It is air-tight and pressure-sealed to allow me to traverse the deepest oceans and float through the void of space in relative comfort. It has systems and fail-safes for any situation I could get myself into. It's only major weakness is a complete and total lack of defences against certain types of magic."
"What ones?"
"Matter manipulation, especially strong telekinesis… you know, the ones you only find with exceptionally powerful mages."
"I do not know of any on this planet who have access to such abilities, so you are probably pretty safe."
"Yeah, except for one of the ones I didn't mention before. A pretty rare type of magic that a few people on the Runeterra use. One of which is very close by."
"Who?"
"I'm dating her."
"So the one of the only people on the planet who could easily kill you is Ahri?"
"Yep. Good thing she hasn't wanted to suck my soul out for quite some time now."
"Really? So she doesn't want to get married?"
A little while later (14:40):
From a distance, Bilgewater looked like a hellhole. Even before the landscape had been sliced like a rich person who stumbled down the wrong alley, it had looked a bit shit. It was pretty much what you'd expect from a city where all of the buildings were made from bits of destroyed ships and it was all placed haphazardly on a bunch of seaside cliffs. Probably about half of the damn place was on fire and everything that wasn't looked like it had been before. Even though I was at least a mile away, I could see that the fighting made Piltover look like a friendly pillow fight. I could even hear the screams of profanities and insults so well-crafted that I took offense from them. Inexplicably, I could smell the… whatever the flying fuck that smell was. It was like someone was trying to shove an entire decomposing fish up my nose. If it was that detestable from a distance, I dreaded to think what it would be like up close.
Someone poked me on the cheek and, when I looked over to them, I was unsurprised to find Ahri standing there.
"So, what's the plan?"
"Honestly, the entire city is such a clusterfuck that I can't tell where to start. It doesn't even have a gate or a road in. It's nonsense masquerading as a city."
"So, we start by finding someone who knows the place. Then let them point us at the bad guys."
"It's Bilgewater. They're all bad guys."
"Fine then, we'll let them show us to the planet-destroying-through-incompetence bad guys, not the stab-you-because-you-have-an-decent-watch bad guys."
"Damn, you have incredible categorisation skills." I remarked jokingly while turning to look at the group we had brought along. Shen, Akali, and Renekton. Everyone else was off in Bandle City, because there was no way in hell anyone was dragging me to that place. I could deal with the sounds of people horrifically and insults that got more morally detestable by the moment, but I simply couldn't listen to Teemo talk for more than five seconds.
"Any of you been here before?"
Only Shen put his hand up.
"Okay, where do you think we should start?"
"I do not know. I had a bag over my head the entire time I was here."
"Do I want to ask why?"
"I was being kidnapped by a woman named Dave. It was not a good experience."
"Right, so, you're useless. I guess we'll just… stroll in… I suppose." I waited a moment for someone to tell me I was an idiot and describe a much better plan, but no-one did.
I sighed and activated my armour. It was disappointing that the lovingly-polished metal would be covered in dirt, blood, and anything else the streets of Bilgewater would throw at me. I didn't really want to think about the kinds of filth I would be covered in by the time I was heading out the opposite way along that river.
It wasn't even a nice day. Maybe, if the sun was shining and the clouds were all but a memory, I would have been in a good mood. If the birds were chirping, rather than cawing, and the flies were non-existent, rather than buzzing around my head, I would have been able to match Ahri's smile.
Ahri's POV:
I'd never liked Zoh's old armour all that much. It was too red and, let's be honest here, red was always my thing. Plus, it was kinda weird-looking. What was the point of having the big banner thing on his back when he didn't even belong to the side that used that banner? It made no sense! And there was the nonsense with the helmet's grill-mouth-thing. Surely Zoh of all people would hate the idea of having multiple big holes in the thing protecting his face? Thankfully, this new thing had solved all three of my major issues with Zoh's oh-so-precious armour. I especially appreciated the lack of effort he put into the colour change. Instead of painting it a different colour, he just didn't paint it.
Had to be said though, he looked more out-of-place than ever among the trees and rocks that we were passing by.
That hill we were on definitely looked a lot smaller from a distance. A lot greener, too. Sure, there was a decent amount of trees to the right of the path and the left of the river, but it was lacking the grass. Instead of the oddly-comforting feeling of stands of grass grazing my legs, I had to deal with rocks being flicked up by the feet of the crocodile in front of me. In fact, if I had to describe that hill in one word, it would be 'rocks'. If I had to describe it in five words, it would be 'rocks, rocks, and more rocks'. Rocks as the banks of the river. Rocks as the path. If it was possible I wouldn't put it past that hill to replace the damn air with rocks.
I definitely didn't trust that hill. That was the kind of hill who would say they'll drive you home from a party then get drunk as soon as you get there. That hill would agree to feed your pet while you were on holiday then forget and pass it off as 'I thought I saw you ask Jeff from down the road to feed it, so I didn't'.
We soon left that hill behind but I still didn't trust it. Everything before that hill had been cool. There was a nice river, a pretty forest, and a bear stalking us from a distance. As soon as we had got to the bottom of that hill the river had disappeared, the forest had been replaced by an incredibly polluted lake, and the bear had gone. The only thing that remained consistent was the smell. And god damn that was a smell. I could taste that smell, it was so pungent.
It was no surprise that Bilgewater of all places would smell worse than it looked. We were a couple hundred metres away and I could already see people setting up to mug us, along with another group setting up to mug the people who mug us; yet my major complaint was the smell.
At least we wouldn't have to worry about the muggers at all. Everyone except me looked very threatening, so they would probably run away as soon as we got close enough for them to see us. If they didn't call off the ambush soon, Renekton would notice them and he hadn't had a full lunch. It's not that I wanted to see him tear into them, but I did have a bit of morbid curiosity about just how he would do it.
I suppose it could be considered fortunate in an odd way that we didn't get in range before all of the would-be attackers were killed, horribly, by a bunch of Summoners. After they had killed all the original ones through various painful means, the other group of ambushers attacked the Summoners. Somehow they actually won, and left with a considerable amount more stuff than they had when I first saw them.
Shen caught up to me and questioned: "Do you think that is a bad omen?"
"Oh definitely. We're gonna have to get through about two… hundred ambushes before we meet someone who doesn't immediately try to slit our throats."
"Who do you think that will be?"
"Uh… Gangplank? Maybe?"
"What about Sarah Fortune?"
"No, no… we weren't on good terms with her last I remember."
"How bad?"
"You know, the usual 'punched her in the face really hard' bad."
"Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing about that."
"Yeaaaaah, so she's off the table. Anyone else in Bilgwater you can think of?"
"Twisted Fate and Graves used to frequent here, but they haven't been seen for some time now. Illaoi has potential."
"Who?"
"She's a priestess of a deity named Nagako- Nagakabo- Nagoka… it's a big tentacle monster."
The second Shen stopped talking Zoh butted in hastily: "Nope! Nu-uh, out of the question, not a chance, no way."
Shen shifted his focus over to Zoh and made the mistake of asking: "Why?"
"Why? Well, walking next to me is an incredibly beautiful fox-lady. Now, I've been on the internet enough to know what happens when you mix someone like Ahri with tentacles."
Shen opened his mouth to ask the fatal question, but thankfully I managed to shush him before he got a chance: "Don't. Just… don't ask. He'll say something weird if you ask."
Everyone stopped walking and quiet fell on our group. It was still pretty damn loud out there from all the gunfire and screaming, but none of us were talking. Mostly because we had reached the city limits, if that place even counted as a city. It was pretty much just a wall of ship hulls with a massive variety of options in case you ever wanted to impale yourself on a spike. Personally, it wasn't an aspiration; however if I was an angsty teen who just got rejected by a boy for the first time there was a very nice spike not too far from me that looked like it was made from an anchor.
I don't think any of us wanted to walk around until we found an entrance or stepped on a mine, so I went with the only solution that made sense at the time: "Zoh, how many explosives did you bring?"
"None."
I turned to him and pulled him down to eye-level by the metal collar. He got the idea from the complete lack of emotion in my face.
"Yeah, I was kidding. I brought a shit-ton."
"That's more like it."
Over the course of the couple of minutes it took for Zoh to set up the explosives properly, an ocean fell from the sky. Not literally, but holy shit that rain. It was the kind where you were instantly soaked the second it started and felt like you'd been out in a normal downpour for a couple of hours.
We had gathered about twenty-ish metres away from the wall but apparently that wasn't enough, as Zoh hurried us backwards further until we were hidden in one of the various craters that surrounded Bilgewater. He crouched down next to me and handed the detonator over. Now, at that point, we were all pretty giddy to see the big explosion. Even Shen was staring intently at where the explosives had been placed.
But only I got to press the button, and that made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
A while later (17:00):
I, along with everyone else nearby, was thrown onto my back by the shockwave. I stared up to see a dark green fireball blasting out and up, accompanied by an impressively loud cracking sound. When the flames faded away a few moments later, a huge amount of smoke was left behind to float up into the sky. It was fair to say that after the explosion, the majority of the air around us was dust and mud, not oxygen. Not that I cared. That was fucking cool.
To be perfectly honest, I wasn't even entirely sure why that particular building exploded, or why the fireball was green. It was entertaining, for sure, but I couldn't help but be slightly concerned. Zoh had been in that building when it exploded and, while I was pretty damn sure he was absolutely fine, he had been carrying a lot of explosives that were, in his own words, 'the kind that you use when you really just don't want a continent to exist anymore'.
Thankfully, he crawled out from the rubble as I got up to my feet. One of the pirates started getting up next to me as I flicked my hair back and untwisted my sleeves. He got to his feet, still looking quite dizzy, and looked over at me the moment before I punched him square in the face, sending him back down to the floor.
Zoh stepped up to me and I was about to ask him about the explosion, for obvious reasons, when the ground started rumbling. The rickety buildings surrounding us on all sides shook to whatever kind of makeshift foundations they had and a flood of pirates came in from all sides. They just kept coming, quickly forming a circle around our group. There was a lot of yelling and I had no doubt that the vast majority of them were drunk beyond reason. The area of city we were in was not particularly large to begin with, basically just a clearing a few dozen metres in all directions, so having it filled almost completely by angry pirates with many more waiting by in the entrances, prepared to charge in when a gap created itself.
They didn't attack us immediately, probably due to the giant crocodile, but they didn't give us a chance to talk them down. I could barely hear myself think, and I had to shout right next to Zoh for him to hear me ask: "You don't happen to have a way out of this, do you?"
"If I say 'yes' will you feel better?"
"So that's a 'no'!"
"Uh-huh! If you happen to have some sort of hidden, multi-person charm, now would be the time!"
"Nope! I haven't exactly had much of a reason to practice that stuff since I met you!"
Renekton butted in: "Stop the needless talking! We're surrounded by meatbags and I have a massive sharp thing!" Shortly after, he let out a sinister laugh and spun into the pirates, waving his weapon around and instantly lobbing a few in half.
And suddenly, we were in an ultra-violent mosh-pit.
I couldn't finish off one pirate before two more charged in to give it a go. Everywhere I looked it was just a mass of ugly and angry pirates, waving their weapons around all over the place, hoping to hit something. I was doing a good job avoiding most of them and I was slowly building up a pile of dead or unconscious pirates, but it was getting out of hand pretty quickly. When I got a look over the sea Renekton was nowhere in sight, Shen and Akali were getting overwhelmed as quickly as I was and Zoh was essentially just getting dog-piled. Sadly, I wasn't going to get a chance to help anyone else as I was barely holding my own ground. Despite being able to dodge any one of the attacks like they were nothing, the amount of space I had to avoid to was shrinking incredibly fast.
To be honest, it was only a matter of time when we let ourselves get separated and surrounded. All it took was one nasty punch to my gut to tip me off balance and allow for another to make everything go black.
A few hours later (21:00):
How was it still raining so hard? It had been long enough for everything to be pretty much pitch black, but the rain had stuck around. The rain and the soreness on my face from the hit that got me on that ship in the first place.
At least I had the soothing sound of the waves sloshing against the side of the ship to listen to. I wasn't exactly going to get a stimulating conversation from the still-unconscious Akali.
I was horrifically bored though. I'd been awake for an hour with barely anything to do in that room. Our arms and legs were shackled closely to the wall and the only mildly fun thing to look at was the ocean outside the tiny window in the wall next to me. Apart from that, we had a lovely view of some boxes, a candle and what looked like some barrels of alcohol.
It was hard to describe my relief when I heard the distinctive sound of my Zoh shouting: "Don't touch that it explodes! Ha! Fucking got you! It's a pencil dumbass, of course it doesn't explode!"
Apparently it was a pencil that Zoh made, because a small explosion did go off a few seconds later.
"Okay I was wrong about the pencil but trust me when I say, that explodes! It explodes so hard!" He exclaimed, followed by a short pause before continuing: "That was really dumb. Why did you punch me? I'm in armour for fuck's sake, you achieved nothing with that! Hey, don't punch Shen! He's cool! Hey! Okay, you die first and you die horribly."
Funnily, Zoh acted pretty much the same when captured as he did when he was really hungry. The only slight difference was the considerably smaller amount of death threats when he was captured.
The door swung open and two pirates walked in. Both looked like they had spent the last few years fighting, drinking and not sleeping. Or bathing. To be brutally honest, they made the rest of Bilgewater seem like a field of roses in terms of smell and looks. For every tooth they'd lost they'd gained a crooked nose or dent in the skull, and both were having a serious lack of teeth.
One of them stepped near me and the other went to Akali while hollering: "Oah look! I git the fockin sleep one! That ain't fair!"
"Stawp yor whining! Jus wake the bitch up if ya 'ave to!"
I glared at the one nearest to me before threatening: "If either one of you gets an inch closer to either one of us, this will get incredibly painful for you. Walk. Away."
The one nearest me lazily pulled a flintlock pistol from his belt and levelled it at me, asking: "The fawk ya gonna do? We got gawns and you got focking shackles!"
I smiled at him as he started to unbuckle his belt with his free hand. His friend made the great mistake of stepping slightly closer to Akali, and they were both instantly consumed in flame. My friend woke up just in time to see the last of their skin burned off their bodies as they screamed bloody murder. By the time the flames were most of the way through their muscles, the life fell away from them and they both collapsed to the floor.
Akali looked over at me with an eyebrow raised so I explained: "They were gonna do some bad things but I had a better idea."
"Clearly. Who'd have thought guys like those would scream like little girls?"
"Haha, yeah. I wonder if their buddies will come check or just think the noise was us."
More pirates burst through the door with their weapons drawn, quickly noticing the charred corpses on the floor. I guess my smile must have given away who made them that way.
"You bitch! Take 'em to the plank and lob 'em alon wit their friends!"
We were taken out of our shackles and dragged through the interior of the ship. When we got near the stairs we came upon another group of pirates dragging Shen and Zoh, the latter being wrapped up in so many ropes that it would be impressive if he could move at all. We were all pulled upstairs and knelt down next to the plank as the crew gathered around. I was next to Zoh, so I tried to make cheer up the mood a bit: "I did say we should try BDSM, but I think you're taking it a bit too far right now."
He had his helmet on but I was pretty sure I made him smile at least a little bit.
"Hey, I thought, what better time to go overboard on something?"
All four of us giggled as the usual shouting of the pirates died down to nothing. When he had gone quiet, the only sound that could be heard through the rain battering against the deck was the heavy steps of a single man. The crew parted before him as he made his way towards us and, eventually, emerged from the crowd.
"Hey Gangplank… you don't look happy to see us."
"Why, that's cus I'm not lass. You alone have killed dozens of my men, and that is simply unacceptable. Do you realise how long it takes to torture some men into pledging allegiance? Months of my painstaking work went down the toilet because you decided to visit my kingdom with no idea of what you'd do when you got here."
"We did know. We came here to kick the Summoners out and hopefully get some pirate help for doing the same all over the place."
"And why the hell would we want to get rid of the Summoners? They're the most fun we've 'ad in yars!"
"So you like having hundreds if not thousands of people out to kill everyone in this city?"
"If that's their intention they can get in line. Right behind everyone else in Bilgewater." He chuckled before turning around and waving back at us: "Throw 'em."
I scowled at him as his crew pulled us to our feet and, one by one, we were sent over the plank. The seawater was incredibly cold when we dropped into it, and that was the least of my problems with it. Water, generally, was not meant to be tinted green.
Despite the discomfort I was in, everything was going a lot better than expected. We were a couple hundred metres from the shores of one of the islands surrounding Bilgewater proper and I couldn't see any sharks circling. Seeing as how we were all pretty physically fit, I was sure the swim over there would be fine.
Then I remembered about Zoh.
…
Shit.
I took a deep breath and dived down. He'd been thrown off just before me, and I'd only wasted a few seconds treading water on the surface. The water hurt my eyes, but I had to keep looking for him as I swam down further and further.
Thankfully, his armour was very easy to see on the dark-green backdrop. Beyond thankful that I'd found him before he fell too deep into that never-ending abyss, I swam directly for him and grabbed one of the ropes for a handhold. As if my rapidly declining breath and the pressure on every part of me weren't enough issues, I felt something graze my leg. A check of everything around me showed that we were in completely open water for as far as the eye could see which, admittedly, wasn't very far at all.
Whatever had done that, I didn't want to be dealing with it, so I started pulling Zoh up to the surface, wherever that was. We were making good progress until I got slammed in the back by something hard. It wrapped around my waist and yanked me upwards so fast we breached the surface almost instantaneously. Another tentacle grabbed Zoh and I couldn't put up any kind of resistance when it yanked him away.
"No!" I shouted while reaching out for him, but it was feeble. We were both being held quite far from each other and pretty high in the air, so I couldn't do anything to help when multiple smaller tentacles started grappling at him, probably trying to remove his armour.
For the moment he was fine, so I had to focus on saving myself. The leviathan had just emerged from the water so I was having to worry about the thousands of rows of tooth-shaped pain that it was hoping to throw me into. I didn't like the idea of dying in that particular way, so I dashed free of its grasp and fell onto its back. It was covered from head-to-toe in chitinous armour plates, so that was not a very comfortable landing.
When I looked up and searched the skies for Zoh, I realised that it had grabbed Shen and Akali as well. They weren't quite as fucked as he was, both being somewhere along the process escaping the creature's grip.
I wasn't about to try to rely on my levitation ability, I didn't trust it enough. So, I rushed over to the main tentacle wrapped around him and started clambering up it. The laughing coming from Gangplank's ship, which was keeping a safe distance, solidified my hatred of that man and everyone else in Bilgewater.
I tried to ignore it as I reached Zoh and used spirit flames to ward away the smaller tentacles. It immediately began flailing us around in the air as I put all my effort into yanking the ropes off him. I didn't make much progress before a really lucky tentacle dived in and whipped his helmet off. At that point I was wondering how much worse this could get, and then it pulled back and flung us at surprising speed. It caught me at a bad moment and I, along with Zoh, was thrown a vast distance away from it. The last thing I heard of it was a shrill screech, so I assumed Shen and Akali were dealing with it.
The water hurt like hell when I hit it and I was pretty sure I'd broken something, but none of that mattered. Zoh was somewhere underwater without a helmet on and no ability to save himself.
I didn't have much breath left, but I went under anyway. Fish were all around, most having nasty-looking teeth on them. The water was somehow worse than earlier, reducing my vision to a few feet around me in any direction. The further I went, the more the pressure made my head hurt.
That arm was definitely broken. I wasn't sure where, but there wasn't any doubt left.
It started to feel like there was no sea floor after a short while. I was almost out of breath and I would still have to drag myself and Zoh up to the surface.
Suddenly, the coral reef came into view. Like the light at the end of the tunnel, I found the bottom. And along with it, Zoh.
By sheer luck, he was not lodged on anything. I wasted no time in grabbing him and shutting my eyes, which felt like they were seconds away from being burned out of my head.
There wasn't an inch on my body that wasn't in pain as I desperately pulled him upwards. It felt like I hadn't made any progress by the time I started to feel so light-headed I was certain I would pass out. All my muscles were in agreement that death was better than going on like that, but I was always a stubborn person. Utterly refusing to give in, I kept swimming until I opened my eyes long enough to realise the ground had caught up to me. We were near land!
Changing course and heading up the incline of the sand, I slowly felt the pressure on me loosen until my ears poked up through waves for a brief moment. With all the strength I had left, I hauled Zoh out of the water and laid him on the beach, his legs still submerged in the water.
Unlike him, I gasped for air. I hadn't gone through all that to bring up a body.
I got onto my knees next to him and shoved him onto his back. The main issue was his armour.
"Got off of him you piece of shit!" I cried while hitting it repeatedly.
"Voice signature recognised."
The armour faded away before my eyes and the ropes fell loosely onto him. Clasping my hands together, one on the back of the other, I placed the bottom palm on the lower-centre of his ribcage. Thirty compressions later, I put my ear to his mouth and looked down his body to his chest. There was no breath or movement so I put my lips against his and breathed out for a second. Another time, I put my ear to his mouth and looked over. And again, no movement. So I repeated the breath again. Nothing. Back to compressions.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven-
After coughing out a whole lot of water, Zoh took his first breath of fresh air in entirely too long, He had a surprised look on his face and, when he saw me, he asked: "Are you crying or is it just the saltwater?"
"Both." I smiled while leaning down and hugging him.
"What, not even a kiss? I just drowned!" He joked while wrapping his arms around me.
"We're both covered in disgusting seawater. It'd taste awful."
"Drowned. With a capital 'D' and everything."
"Fine." I pulled away slightly to look him in the eyes: "If it'll stop your whining."
Our lips met and I happily melted onto him, quickly forgetting about the seawater. All that mattered was that I could feel him kissing back against me, his heart beating beneath his chest, his hands caressing my back.
The nice moment was slightly ruined by the ear-splitting death-scream of the leviathan way off in the distance. I stared back just in time to see the utterly beautiful sight of its colossal body held as high above the water as it could go, tall enough to dwarf most skyscrapers, fall limp and lean towards Gangplank's ship. I laughed as they abandoned ship like a bunch of flies avoiding the hand coming down to squish them. Just in time, too, cause the ship practically exploded when the immense weight of the leviathan fell onto it. It sent water and massive splinters of wood flying hundreds of metres into the air, and created a wave tall enough to entirely consume the island we were on if it didn't shrink with distance.
Thankfully, it did. By the time it got to us, it was barely noticeable among the other waves splashing onto the beach. The only interesting thing it brought ashore was a chunk of ship with our ninjas on it along with all the stuff the pirates had taken.
I got up off Zoh and carefully helped him up as they pulled the piece of ship onto the beach. I made sure that he was all-right before congratulating Shen and Akali: "Looks like you took out two birds with one stone."
"Indeed we did. Let us hope that Gangplank takes the rather large hint and keeps out of the situation from this point forward." Shen remarked while returning his swords to his back.
"You don't think that killed him?"
"Trust me when I say, that man has survived far worse in his time. Speaking of which, I am glad to see that Zoh is still breathing. Somehow."
Zoh scoffed before retorting: "I had full confidence in Ahri's ability to save me. When have we ever been in a situation where she was a direct threat, or a threat-by-refusal-to-assist, to my life?"
We were all silent for a second, waiting for him.
"Oh yeah… awkward…"
And next chapter, we get to do more stuff in the shit-stain on the arse of society that is Bilgewater. No idea how long we'll be there, but I doubt it'll be incredibly long. I mean, one of the main reasons for taking the story is a joke I thought up ages ago that I have wanted to use for ages (I think we were on chapter 30-something when I came up with this joke). It's not even that good, I just really want to use it.
I fucking bet I forget to use it. You see. Well, you won't see cause you don't know what it is, but I'll see. Which is all that matters, really, cause I'm the coolest person reading this thing right now. You can trust me when I say that because I'm someone on the internet, and when has someone on the internet ever lied?
See? You can't think of an example.
Unless you can.
If anyone is actually still reading on at this point, just… wow. You have an incredible tolerance for my babbling. Congrats.
