Chapter 2

The First Climb

"I just can't leave Zaun alone for a few weeks, gods know months even!"

"What do you have to worry about?"

"Worry about? You know as well as I do how stupid that is! Without me the Chem-barons will get lose!"

"Then I'll pop in from time to time to remind them of their place. It is bound to happen as always."

"What if they realize I'm gone?"

"Fake a few of your infamous howls, strike terror and make the murders appear like your usual, and they'll never suspect a thing."

"What about gangs then, muggers, murders, rapists, and every other scumbag?!"

"Same question, same answer. I'll remind them of their place as usual and kill them, after all they are nothing but mere children holding toys they don't even know how to use. More tea?"

Warwick growled as he looked down at the small rock formation that was used for a table and at the pot of tea and two small teacups. Across from him was a very tall woman with gray hair, blue eyes that could stare any armed man down, and blades for legs. Her face was mostly impassive for the most apart, besides that small twitch of a smirk she had after answering Warwick's questions, a tiny bit of her amused by all of his concerns being answered within seconds. She grabbed her cup of chamomile, specially imported from Ionia, for her usual tea, and took a small healthy sip and hummed, her eyes closed as she felt peace.

Warwick sneezed as he felt the smell of tea and growled at the Steel Shadow, yes, the Steel Shadow of Piltover who looked over the clans. They were actually partners whenever they needed help in their vicinity, but Camille was the one who usually went to Warwick for major threats, people she couldn't find right away, and the average Chem-baron trying to sneak his or her way into Piltover to try and gain some sense of control or run a business.

When they met Warwick wasn't too thrilled to know he was practically nothing in her eyes but a tool, something he had accepted a long time ago, but after a few months of working together some pasts were revealed, and they found out they had something… much different compared to the people around them. They had a sort of bond with one another, but nothing that you would call 'best buddies' or anything of the sort. It was a deep respect he had for her, but she only saw him as a reliable ally and tool, even openly admitted to it which he did not deny or feel concerned about. They were also allies since he was great to rely on believe it or not.

Camille and he usually had a few chats, just a chat, whenever they had free time during their hunts for barons or threats to Zaun and Piltover and today was one of those days. He had come over, cursing out why she brought tea when he was clearly allergic as usual, to discuss the thoughts he had last night and the concerns he brought with him as well. Every concern, every question, and every counter had been reversed, beaten, or just outright repeated because it was the question but in a different form. They were here, somewhere along the roofs of the Sump in Zaun's abandoned factories, a lot of them were always online but a few just didn't manage to cut through all the fog and were lost to time.

So as of now he was conflicted, and still angry by the fact she kept bringing tea he was ALLERGIC too, which always pissed him off, but enough to go on some rampage and start murdering her, even though they were quite evenly matched. How did he know they were evenly matched?

Well when one gets angry over certain topics many fights tend to ensue. They both ended up practically half dead, sometimes the other having the advantage over the other. She would constantly proceed to stab at him, sometimes almost cutting a limb that would heal within seconds to minutes as he healed off of his healing factor. In a straight up fight though he tends to win most of the time, and she knew it, but they merely joked from time to time.

During one of his frenzied states he had even caught one of her blades with his teeth!

"…I'm not sure I can even go through with this. I am the only one in all of Runeterra, nothing else is like me, I lose control over the smell of blood, and then there are the memories." He replied to her as he held his head with both claws, lightly scratching at his skin that would heal in a bit.

"What seems to be the real issue? You wanted to go on this trip last night, did you not? What changed? Better yet," she stood up and approached the engineered beast and leaned up so that her eyes were practically inches away.

"What are you afraid of happening?"

Warwick growled and stood a bit taller to show some form of dominance but Camille remained calm as he growled at her, which tends to spook practically everyone else he had met who had met a rather unfortunate death for the right reasons though, and merely scoffed at his meager display of threatening her.

"Warwick."

"Camille."

They both stared hard at one another, Warwick's yellow eyes gazing down at those unnatural blue ones, eyes that were so cold, uncaring towards anyone outside of the clans she truly cared about, and the last thing most of her enemies saw before they died. He refused to back down but she didn't even seem to care and for what felt like hours on end Warwick growled sharply and huffed, quickly turning to the side as Camille finally relaxed, seeing that she had won their little stare-off and had a small smug smile.

"Fine, but where am I supposed to start off? I'd rather avoid any unnecessary places and just get straight on this trip. The sooner I'm done with it the sooner I can return back home to get back to the killing." He asked the Steel Shadow.

Camille's gaze did not falter or change in the slightest as she brought the tea to her lips. "However, I should warn you that the world out there fears what they do not understand, simply put, if you aren't human and something else entirely they will judge you, insult you, or fear you which seems to be the biggest chance concerning your appearance. They won't take the time to talk to you, maybe children will, but it's more than likely the parents would pull them away from you."

She paused, placing her tea aside and looked at her blades that she had washed earlier. Their meetings weren't always just meetings, but rather meetings after a successful hunt which she didn't mind in the slightest.

"Be warned though that there are also many dangers lying outside of Zaun and Piltover. Although I doubt you will have much trouble being who you are, but either way I don't care if you leave Zaun at all. The city will be as normal as it has always been, conquered by chaos, and by the few people you call leaders."

She sighed and picked up her tea and took another sip, enjoying the nice sweet taste that the Ionians used to ward off predators, which Warwick also had an allergic reaction o apparently, and kept on drinking despite the sudden sneezes.

"Can you promise me to watch over Zaun? Take care of the major threats?"

His question made her think, and merely shrugged. She was practically doing that every day, so he didn't really need to ask, but decided to calm down his worries with a mere nod.

"It's my job, Warwick. It is to be expected of me to cut down the threats that threaten the clans. However, if it even pleases you, then expect me to do so as normally. Now if you shall excuse me I have matters to attend to as of now and the clans require me as always. I bid you farewell, Warwick. Do have a good day."

With a quick set up and packed away with what was left of her tea she leapt off of the rooftop only for grappling hooks to pop forth and slam into the walls of Zaun's canyons where she began to make her way back up to the society above the one that resided below. Warwick watched this with a mere stare as she ascended above Zaun and back home towards wherever she lived. He looked back down to his claws, both natural and pneumatic, before gripping them tightly and growling.

"…Do I want to go or am I to afraid to leave because the world scares me? No, it isn't because of that," he muttered as he crouched down and took a mighty leap up at least 20 feet into the air and clutched onto a canyon wall, beginning to slowly make his way up as he thought hard on all these new thoughts.

'I know practically next to nothing of the outside world besides a few of the City States such as Noxus and Demacia. Then we have the Freljord, the people who are closest to us I think. They're a… a mountain type of people, right?' He leapt to the right and wrapped his claws around a sharp rock poking out and swung himself upwards onto another bump on the walls.

He already had the map packed within his pockets, the shorts that were torn to hell due to his transformed state and what covered his modesty, and was deciding what to do before he came to Camille. Sure he worried about the criminals running amuck but Camille did pop in from time to time to slaughter the Chem-barons which sent them hiding in for weeks on edge at points since she was as efficient as he was, but the only difference concerning them was that his methods were a lot more terrifying and messier while she was tactical and precise.

Together they were the most terrifying people in Zaun and Piltover, and it only served to show with their jobs they worked on together.

He made his way up to the Promenade and looked around after a few leaps to skip his way up and once he was there he began to travel along the alleys, taking in the rooftops as proper places, as he searched for a body. The one good thing about Zaun was that there was always a dead person somewhere or something shady going on, and when he arrived you can guarantee that no one made it out alive, if they did they came out as an amputee.

After sniffing the area and avoiding a few watchful eyes he finally found a dead body near a chemical spill, obviously taken in by the Gray at some point and had no food for weeks along with water. He searched the man and found his camp, a set of covers and leather hides and with a quick grab he had taken a few of the hides and began to wrap it around his form to hopefully cover himself up, but the one thing that he couldn't cover up was the chemical-chamber…

The thing that made him this way.

He remembered the hours on end on Singed's lab table, the way he was treated, the feeling of that scalpel cutting into his skin only for it to heal later, and even his hand. He looked at the pneumatic claws that flexed and extended, and what surprised him sometimes was that they felt so… real, so alive, like they were really a part of him, they probably were more than just an extended appendage. His skin grew into the proto-limb and as it was it had proved to be more effective than his average claws, which were still able to cut through steel, but the pneumatic ones cut through so much more. These claws were just as much a part of him just as the rest of his appendages and hoses were, and while he may have tried to tear them away, he learned that this was his existence now.

It didn't matter either way to him. Claws or no claws he was still an effective killing machine. His ears twitched and in an instant he was bounding for the nearest side of Zaun he could get to on the Promenade. He could take one of the Hextech-conveyors but he didn't really trust those contraptions that much, especially if he was near someone who decided to grab his foxlike tail which would also end in painful murder for said person to grab it. He made his way through an alleyway once more, successfully avoiding the gazes of most of the resident Zaunites and few Piltovans who merely saw him as some large scavenger, while others knew just to leave it alone and let whatever they saw be on its way, otherwise they would be the next victim of Zaun's Underworld when they wee so far from the truth.

15 Minutes Later

Piltover Bridge

Two claws gripped the edges of a bridge as he finally hopped alongside the wall and grabbed onto the railings of one of the bridges near the Tower of the College of Techmaturgy, a place Warwick both despised and admired, for it was one place where many people used its knowledge to turn into sick, twisted people who would do anything for a decent experiment even if it meant using the lives of the innocent, while the good people made Zaun the best they could, some trying with the help of golems such as that one sentient one, Blitzcrank apparently was also one of these golems who was trying to make Zaun better, but in his eyes Zaun was to bad and corrupted to be helped with mere upgrades, or fixing a house, or even bringing in laws! He saw what those men were, the Underworld was more than just a name, it truly was the Underworld here and every man had a monster inside them.

A monster he tore out with ease.

He flipped himself over and onto the bridge and took one last look at Zaun below, lifting the hood a bit with his ears that popped up a bit so he could see clearly, before sighing. This was it, he thought, there was no going back right now and he knew that as he took one look around the bridge and saw a few well dressed people staring at him with a mixture of confusion, shock, and of course the one emotion Camille had warned him of, fear. He ignored their stares and began to walk off through the people who soon began to back away from his form which was bigger than practically most humans at all, he lifted large ones with ease too, and growled at a few people who dared step to close.

As he walked he stopped and took in all of Piltover, taking a deep breath, and moving forward. He was going to explore Piltover and see what it was like, maybe grab food that wasn't involved with... blood for once, but a part of him knew that was going to be impossible with only a few cogs as well.

"...By Janna's blessing I am doing something stupid," he muttered and walked on, unaware of the journey he had just begun here.

AN; Hello to all and I hope this cheered up any people who are surprised. If you have seen me posting a chapter than you know I usually take a while but I wanted to squeeze one more in before I started getting grades up because I suck. We will be beginning in Piltover for now, and we will begin making our way up to many of the other cities and places in Runeterra such as Noxus, Demacia, The Plague Jungles, Freljord, and many more. He will also be meeting other famous figures throughout the land, don't expect any royals though, and on some of these trips he will learn a thing or two about himself, a thing or two about humanity, and the comedy aspect is there to fit in at some points which will begin early in the story.

I hope you are all enjoying this because typing with claws isn't easy. Warwick out.