CHAPTER 4

I was awoken quite rudely by someone banging on the door of the small cottage I had been living in during my past few years in Ionia. I quickly threw a shirt on and staggered towards the door, I quickly opened the door to see Irelia standing impatiently with her arms crossed over her chest.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit" I said barely stifling a yawn

"Karma and I just wanted to come and ask you a few questions in private"

"Did Karma learn how to become invisible or did you just come early to disturb my beauty sleep"

"I thought I would arrive early and make sure you had some warning so you could make yourself presentable which I suggest you go and do now" she replied to my attempt at sarcasm

Regardless I followed her advice and went into my bedroom to finish dressing myself, I was going through the chest that held all my possessions, as I was digging through the chest trying to find some decent clothing my finger brushed past something cold, scooping it up in my hand I brought it up to see what it was, when I saw what is was I had to force down some rather emotional memories 'A ring?' I heard the voice of Mercy say inside my head, I was going to reply to Mercy's question when I started to hear a voice coming from the ring, I slowly slid the ring onto my finger and I was immediately bombarded by emotions. I started to feel energy building up inside me so I quickly forced the ring off my finger, but that did not stop the energy from building.

I stumbled out the door trying to get out of my house, as I continued to make my way towards the entrance of my house, I eventually passed a startled Irelia who stood up and started to move towards me

"Stay away from me!" I yelled attempting to wave her away as I pushed myself off the floor and fell out the front door of my house, barely missing a rather startled Karma who had her arm raised to knock.

By this point I was nearing my capacity and the energy was threatening to violent expunge itself from my body. And soon after this the stored energy was released and I lost consciousness.

After a day of nonstop walking, Riven and I had just made it back to the Ionian camp where Soraka looked at our injuries. We surprisingly only suffered some nasty bruises in our fight, although my back was still trying to kill me after it had been dragged across the ground by Riven. She told me what had happened when I got knocked out and how she had decided to remove her ties to Noxus. I had suggested for her to join me to the Ionian camp so she could find a way to redeem herself. She had reluctantly decided to accompany me to the camp where we were taken to the infirmary to get healed by Soraka. "Are you sure I will be allowed to fight alongside the Ionians?" Riven asked me as we exited the tent.

"I can't guarantee it but if I was given a second chance then I don't see why you shouldn't." I replied, but Riven didn't seem to be reassured by my response.

"I'm responsible for the deaths of countless innocent civilians and yet you think I will just be forgiven as if what I did never happened?"

"No, they will be suspicious of you for a while but I will do whatever is necessary to allow you a second chance. I just need to argue with Irelia a bit about the issue." As soon as I said those words I saw Irelia and Karma running through the camp, towards the infirmary. Irelia was carrying Gareth over her shoulders, who was wearing nothing but a shirt and underpants. Something seemed to be wrong and I rushed over to Irelia to ask what was going on. "Irelia, what happened to Gareth?"

"We went to ask Gareth a few questions, but as we arrived he lost all control of his power and it left his body quite violently." Karma said as I followed them inside the tent."

"But I thought he had learned to control it, he said that was the entire reason he came to Ionia in the first place."

"I know, I was the person who taught him how to control his powers, but something must have set them loose."

Irelia found Soraka and the healer laid Gareth down on a vacant bed where she began to check on his condition. As soon as Soraka began working on Gareth, Irelia grabbed me by the arm and lead me out of the tent. As soon as we exited the tent Irelia began to question me. "First of all, who is this woman?" Irelia asked, indicating Riven. "And second of all, what happened at the ambush? You are the only soldier I have seen, who was sent to the ambush."

I gestured for Riven to join us as I began to tell Irelia what happened at the battle. "So you're telling me that all those men are dead and that the only reason you survived was because of pure luck?" Irelia tried to sound calm but I noticed the anger that was managing to sneak its way into her voice.

"Yes Irelia, the only reason I survived was because I got lucky."

"And you want me to let this murderer help us in our war against Noxus? Zydan, it was only because of Gareth that your life was spared, yet you want me to trust you in accepting her into our ranks."

"She didn't join the war to slaughter innocents Irelia, she was deceived into joining the war by the leaders of Noxus and now she wants to set things right."

"Fine, but if she brings harm to another Ionian then you will be blamed just as much as her."

"Thank you Irelia" was all I could say as she walked off.

I had left the city of Zaun about 3 weeks ago and the city of Piltover was well within view. When the sun started to set I went off to find a clearing where I could set up camp for the night. It took around an hour to find a clearing and set up my tent, as I was going through my supplies I noticed that I only had enough to last me a few more days.

After a rather plain dinner I was about to climb into my tent and sleep when I heard a rather posh voice from behind me "What are you doing out here so late at night?" I turned towards the voice I saw a fairly young women wearing a rather revealing 'dress' aiming a rather intricate sniper rifle at me.

"I had been travelling and I decided to sleep through the night rather than walking in the dark and possibly end up being eaten or falling flat on my face" I replied to her question trying my best to restrain from laughing at her really bizarre and rather impractical headgear.

"Where were you travelling from then?" she said not pointing her rifle away from me

"Zaun"

"I'm going to have to take you in Sir"

Knowing resisting would end with one or both us dead I then raised my hands towards her which lead to her placing handcuffs on my arms and we started our journey towards Piltover.

It was well past midnight when we finally made it to Piltover and it wasn't soon after that before I was being shoved into a cell waiting to be 'questioned'. Deciding I might as well get some sleep I lay on the bedroll and slowly drifted off to sleep.

As I slowly started to regain consciousness I could hear people talking although I couldn't make out what they were saying I had a vague idea of who they were, I eventually managed to open my eyes and I saw both Karma and Soraka sitting at a nearby table discussing something, Soraka must have heard me getting up as without even turning away from Karma she said "No, Karma and I did not spend hours trying to stabilize you and make sure you didn't explode and take about half of the camp with you so you could just strain yourself and do that exact thing" I knew trying to argue with her would end with me getting scolded I lowered myself back onto the bed. Eventually the two women finished their conversation and walked over to my bed.

"Ok Gareth I want you tell me exactly what happened" said Karma looking at me with a look of concern on her face

After a few seconds of trying to remember what exactly had happened "Irelia had come early to so I could make myself presentable and while I was searching through my things I found a ring, one of the few items I kept from my life in Noxus, and when I put it on I felt my energy start to rise uncontrollably so limped out of my house than proceeded to explode and fall unconscious, I then wake up here and that's about it"

"Was there anything special about the ring?" asked Soraka

"Um….it's enchanted" I said

"Ok and what does this enchantment do exactly" asked Karma clearly annoyed at my attempt to get out of telling her.

"itsathingthatletsmetalktothepersonwearingtheother ring" I quickly exhaled

"Ok one more time, but slower and just accept that you can't avoid this question" said a now very annoyed Soraka

Resigning myself to my fate I took a deep breath before saying "It's one of two rings with the same enchantment and it allows the two wearers to share thoughts with one another, and to my knowledge the other one still belongs to Cassiopeia Du Couteau in Noxus and the reason this caused me 'explode' was because when I put it on I was overwhelmed by all her thoughts and emotions." To their credit they seemed to be taking this information quite well.

I was quite roughly shoved out into what seemed to be an Arena, it was quite bare except a raised pedestal on top of which a man stood a man who wielded two rather well made axes, one of which he was twirling around his finger, all of sudden a loud booming voice came from one the stand "Ladies and Gentlemen you are all here this fine afternoon to watch Draven, The Glorious Executioner claim another victim, I know most of you will know the rules of these executions if our poor victim here can get out the gates he will be allowed to go free, but from what we've seen of Draven I doubt anyone will ever get out those gates"

The announcer's speech went on for a few more seconds before the man standing on top of the pedestal started to spin his axes while looking detachedly towards me. 'Good, his ego seems to be so large that he underestimates his opponents'

I turned towards the gate and started to slowly walk towards it, after I had taken about ten steps I heard an axe being thrown towards, without turning around or slowing my pace I cast a fairly simple spell that caused a slab of stone to rise from the ground so instead of having an axe embedded in my back it embedded itself into a wall of thick stone, the following axes met the same fate and I easily managed to exit the arena.

As I walked out of the Arena I noticed the Guards tighten their grips around their weapons but otherwise made no move to intercept me 'It seems they had such faith in their executioner that they did not what to do if he ever failed' he couldn't help but smile at the misjudged faith they had placed into his would be killer and how it had earned him his freedom without so much as a brawl.

Just before I managed to leave the city a large squadron of soldiers arrived and set themselves up in an attempt to block my path, one soldier that wore a more decorated armour than the rest of them stepped forward "I have been ordered to place you under arrest, now we can do this the easy way or the hard way" he said reaching for the long sword that was strapped to his leg. I raised my hand towards the captain started to channel two spells, the first one turned the captain to stone and the second caused him to explode into thousands of tiny fragments, before either me or the remaining soldiers could make a move a felt a wave of energy and disorientation wash over me.

After a few seconds the disorientation had passed and I was no longer in the city of Noxus but in a large spacious room and I as I looked around I noticed it was filled with people of varying age, gender and body type all wearing the same purple robe.

"Let me be the first to welcome you to the Institute of War, King Orun" came a booming voice, turning towards the voice I saw a fairly short man with a slightly more decorated robe than the others, realising how he had addressed me I couldn't help but let out a loud booming laugh, when the man who had addressed me gave him a puzzled look.

In response to his look I said "It seems you have brought the wrong person into your realm, I am Gorun Dite-Tor, Captain of the Juggernaut military division of the Earthen Army"

"Well regardless of who you are, we are in need of help of a member of your people and since it would take us months to regain the power to be able attempt to summon another person from your realm and frankly we don't have that amount of time..."

"If your quest is just enough I will assist you in completing it" I said cutting him off before he could continue on.

"Well...We recently discovered two rather powerful entities in Runeterra, although we know very little about them we do know two things. They are not physical and seem to take a host and that they came from your realm and we attempted to summon your king because we expected that he would know what it was that we had found"

I pondered the information that he had given me "They're fragments of a Virtue, I'll explain that later, regardless of their intentions I will help find these two fragments and then deal with them in the best way possible" he was about to reply but I quickly cut him off "But first I will need my armour and weapons back" I felt a fairly small amount of power build up in the Summoner in front of me before I felt the comforting weight of my armour strapped to my body and my warhammer hanging off the straps of my armour

"Ok I'll have supplies and Horses readied, but in the meantime I must insist that I send a member of my order with you just as a safety measure, step forward girl" at his order a small figure stepped forward, when she stepped into the light I noticed that she was quite young she couldn't be older than eighteen, she was also very short and thin but I could detect a fairly large amount of magical energy potential inside of her.

"You might not be physically intimidating but you do have considerable magical energy, so you'll do" I said, her reply was to blush and make a face like she was deciding to whether or not to take it as a compliment or an insult. Shortly after this I, with my new companion, made our way to the canteen.

AN: ok we are sorry this took so long but after 3 chapter we have had no reviews, We would have posted this a lot quicker if we had gotten a single review, so can you please just leave a review it can be anything from a single word or a whole paragraph. From "Blargmaster13"