Chapter 2: Group Selection

Sigh, Zed thought. He was going to have to duel against Akali for the millionth time, and it was getting really repetitive. The duel always ended with the Master of Shadows absolutely humiliating the female ninja, which may have been the reason why she always wanted a rematch. She was also a very proud person who was rather stubborn, which was a thing that he really didn't like. This was a reason why he actually enjoyed crushing her during the first few times he fought her. But eventually it got boring and repetitive for Zed, making it a waste of his time. He hated wasting his time. This was why he now sighed whenever he was supposed to duel the Fist of Shadow.

Akali and he were standing face to face on the Summoner's Rift, which was available to them due to there being no League of Legends matches, or LoL matches booked at this time. Zed called the League "LoL," for he found it annoying to say the full name for he found it long. The difference between a normal match and the duel the two were about to have was that one could actually die permanently in this duel since they were not participating in an officially sanctioned match. Akali got ready to fight and said, "I will defeat you this time." Zed replied, "Yeah, yeah. Because this isn't the hundredth goddamn time you've said that. Let's just get this shit over with." Akali threw one of her kamas at him as soon as he finished talking, and Zed caught it with his left hand while saying "Is that it?" and then dropped her kama. Akali then dashed towards him with her Shadow Dance and attempted to strike him. He created a Living Shadow behind her and waited for her to get close to him.

For Zed, his Living Shadows were his bread and butter. He used them to give him incredible mobility and deal more damage during fights, for they mimicked his moves and the mimicked attacks dealt the same amount of damage as his actual attacks. They also enabled him to be a smart-ass to the Fist of Shadow and piss her off, which did still give him a little bit of joy. Just a little. As soon as she got close enough to hit him, he switched places with the shadow so that he was right behind her and then smacked the back of her head. He then said, "Too slow, dipshit." She turned around to face him, and the expression in her eyes showed pure anger and hatred towards this ninja she despised.

She picked up her kama that Zed dropped in a fraction of a second, and then dashed towards Zed using her Shadow Dance again. This time he traveled backwards using his shadow, and then clotheslined the female ninja using the clone that was standing where he used to be. He said, "Aren't you tired of this yet? We've done this way too many times and I find you boring now to be honest." "I will kill you, no matter how many times I need to try," replied the Fist of Shadow while getting up again. "You have killed my master, and you must die for your sins." "Ugh, that old geezer? As far as I'm concerned, he deserved everything that I did to him," replied the male ninja. This made Akali absolutely furious, and she dashed towards him while screaming "Burn in hell!"

The Master of Shadows decided that he has pissed off the woman who is called a fist enough and initiated his signature move, the "Death Mark." He used his forbidden techniques to create a shadow portal and then went in it. Then three Living Shadows suddenly appeared and converged on Akali, and she thought Zed was going to take the place of one of those. So she got ready to defend from the side, but then something unexpected happened. Zed actually appeared from above her and proceeded to grab and slam her head into the ground while diving towards the ground, and the shadows aided in slamming her. This obviously hurt her quite a bit, and she stayed down after this. Zed had thought about this move for a while, but didn't have anyone to try it out on. He had used the female ninja to try out new moves during numerous duels, which made them a little bit less of a waste of time. But not enough to justify the repetitiveness of the duels.

He had also fought against Shen countless times, but the Eye of Twilight was different from our dear Ms. Fist. Akali built her style around her Shadow Dance, but the dash was rather predictable and got pretty repetitive after a while. Also, this style resulted in her being forced onto an extremely aggressive style which could be easily exploited by the enemy. Her fellow member of the Kinkou Order had a different style, which was extremely defensive and required great reactions in order to be effective. The blue ninja had absolutely phenomenal reaction time, which was superior even to the Master of Shadows. This style and his reflexes made him extremely good for trying out new moves. This made Shen very entertaining to duel, for he always used the perfect counter to Zed's move. Even the dark ninja admitted the fact, though he didn't like to do it.

The calm and defensive style was already more effective than her's, but there was one thing that set Eye of Twilight apart from the Fist of Shadow. Unlike her he was able to depart from his usual style when necessary, which she was unable to do. When the opponent was passive, he turned aggressive and was able to overwhelm the enemy with his dash which somehow taunted the enemy and made them make crucial mistakes that caused them to lose the fight. Zed missed having duels against his long-time rival, but never admitted it himself. Zed sighed again, for he always did that whenever he compared fighting against Shen to having a duel with Akali.

The Master of Shadows started to walk away from his fallen foe like a badass, but she suddenly grabbed his ankle. He turned to look at her, who was standing back up using his body for leverage. He hated that, always made him feel gross. So he shoved her and made her fall back to the ground. Problem: she still tried to pull herself back up. She said with great anger in her voice, "This isn't finished yet. As long as I can still move, this isn't over." Zed shrugged his shoulders, said "Okay," then proceeded to soccer kick her head as hard as he could. Thankfully for Zed, this knocked her out. He thought, "Thank the fucking lord." He then walked away the way he wanted to and sang the song that went "Cool guys don't look at explosions."

...

It was a sunny morning and Zed woke up feeling bored. The last night's pathetic excuse for a duel had left him dissatisfied, and he wanted to do something entertaining. He wondered what he should do, but had no answers so he just did his usual morning routine along with going out to his favourite cafe for breakfast. He opened the door to his suite, and found a box of in front of it. It had a note saying "I hope you choke to death on these," so he put the cans in his fridge and left. He ate breakfast, left and then went to the lounge. His mind was not exactly there at the moment, so he didn't notice everything that was happening like always. Except for a little Akali stalking and getting ready for an assassination.

He walked in through the door, when he bumped into someone. It was Yasuo, along with the rest of Samsung White. Yasuo said "My bad, I'm sorry about that Master of Shadows." He then left along with the rest of the team, and Twitch said "Watch it asshole. Superstar's walking here." "Shut the fuck up," said Leona. Twitch then shut up. The rest of them knew he wasn't quite all there at the moment, so they remained silent. The ninja walked into the room, and saw his team members doing their usual shtick so he walked to them.

Zed said "Yo, 'sup" with a tired voice, and then sat on the couch. Jax asked, "Had a duel with Akali again?" The assassin nodded his head. Jax said, "Dude, you have got to stop doing that. You always end up being tired the next day." "She tempted me with soft drinks. I couldn't help it," said the ninja with a tired and depressed voice. He also said, "Those duels are so damn boring. I need something entertaining to do, got anything?" Zyra said, "You can always tend the flowers." "I said entertaining, not boring to tears," replied the Master of Shadows. The plant lady puffed her cheeks, turned to her flowers and said, "Don't worry flowers, he's just a meanie." She then went back to tending her flowers.

Lee Sin and Jax had been talking about the brackets of the upcoming Champions Summer, and KT Arrows was a topic they talked about a lot. It was a young team and this resulted in them being extremely inconsistent, but they were near unstoppable when they were good. A lot of teams lost to them in an upset loss, including Zed and his crew. SKT T1 K had dominated Champions Winter, but they were knocked out in the round of eight in Spring, and during the group stage they were absolutely destroyed by Arrows which was a huge upset. They wanted to defeat them this time, so they prepared for their strategies carefully. The Master of Shadows was the main strategist and the shot caller of the team, which meant he had to participate in this conversation so that he could come up with effective strategies.

He said to the two fighters who were talking to each other, "So, got any news for me?" "Well, we're supposed to pick somebody to go to the Group Selection Ceremony," replied Jax. Lee sin followed up, "Yes, and we agree that you, Zed, should be the one to attend." Zed thought, "Shit." The Master of Shadows hated attending those ceremonies, for they were so boring to him. Whenever he was there, all he would hear was "Blah blah blah, interview shit, blah blah blah, group selection shit." What was even worse was that he would sometimes have to answer a bunch of questions that he found generic as hell, which made him want to have a Living Shadow throw a Razor Shuriken at his head. Or have it perform an Aztec ritual involving the human heart on him. The worst part about those ceremonies was all of the goddamn drama. There was always a metric shit-ton of drama, natural or forced. Then there would be a bunch of polite trash talking which made the ninja want to puke.

Zed was having flashbacks of his past experiences attending the Group Selection Ceremonies, which made him zone out for a second. Jax waved his hand in front of his face and said, "Hello, are you there? You just went blank, dude." Zed didn't respond, only saying, "The boredom. So much fucking boredom." "Think he's high, Lee," asked the Grandmaster at Arms. The Blind Monk replied, "I believe so. Maybe some person gave him really bad Acid. It may have had a delayed trigger that our friend here was not aware of." The purple-wearing man said, "I think we should get a doctor on this. The Acid he took May have even worse effects." No, the Master of Shadows had not taken any illegal drugs, for he was not stupid enough to risk his own life just to piss off the Kinkou. The flashbacks he was getting were just so boring he somehow went in a trance-induced state.

The two male fighters decided Shen's clinic was probably the best choice, so Jax took his phone out and called it. The clinic picked up the call very quickly and an energetic yordle said, "Hello, this is Shen's Clinic for the Injured. How may I help you?" Suddenly Zed walked up to them and took Jax's phone and said, "Yeah, I called to leave a message for a certain group of idiot ninjas of the Cockin' Order. The message is, 'Suck my shadowy dick," and then hung up. The ninja asked, "When and where is the fucking boring-fest happening," and then tossed the phone to its owner. Vayne replied, "Six PM tomorrow at the studio where they have all the interviews." "Oh, look who's decided to be useful," said the Master of Shadows. Vayne replied, "Whatever," and put all her focus on her game device.

The shadow user asked, "Got any new info?" "Nope, nothing that we already know," replied the Grandmaster at Arms. Lee Sin said, "I heard that KT Bullets are destined to fail." "Oh, too bad. They always lost to us at the semi finals or finals in every Champions tournament, and I guess they just couldn't take getting their asses handed to them by specifically us and never winning anything. Also, they were absolute fucking garbage during Spring, so saw that coming from five hundred fucking miles," replied Zed with a sarcastic tone. KT Bullets had made huge roster changes, and their scrims (basically practice matches) were apparently so horrible they are predicted to not even qualify for Champions Winter. Some even say they might become KT Academy in the near future. Zed thought about their sister team and whether he should start a petition to change their name to SKT T1 Academy. That would piss those guys off so hard and that amused the ninja. He decided to just hang out with his buddies since he had nothing to do that day.

...

The group had been talking about random stuff for a while, such as cartoons, movies, games and etc. Zed asked after the conversation about whether Michael Bay or M. Night Shyamalan pre-Signs was the worse director, "By the way, which team do you think is going to do worse, one of the IM teams, Bigfile Miracle or MKZ?" A long "Hmmmmmmm" came out from every member of the team except Vayne. She really couldn't give a shit about those teams. Zyra had joined the conversation after the Legend of Zelda series entered the guys' conversation, for she thought they were fun. Well, except when Link destroyed pots containing plants. That was one part she despised.

Jax was the first one to stop the "Hmm"-ing and said, "I'll say MKZ or Miracle. Mostly because they both have no actual experience while the IM teams do. The IM teams are bad even with experience, but at least they have it." "I agree. Experience is very important to one's performance," said Lee Sin. Zyra said, "Yeah, same here. They probably wouldn't even know what to do against really good supports." "Like your best buddy Thresh," said the Master of Shadows. She replied, "You're mean," puffed her cheeks and went back to her flowers. She had a bit of a thing for Thresh, but never quite had the courage to ask him out. Everybody in the team knew this, but they usually didn't bring it up because they weren't assholes. Well, except the only ninja in either one of the SKT T1 teams. All of the other guys were just staring at Zed, and Jax said, "Dude, not cool." Even Vayne was staring at him, though she still looked uninterested.

The Master of Shadows didn't show any remorse in his posture. He probably also wasn't showing any remorse his facial expressions, but you couldn't tell because he was wearing his mask. He never took off his mask in public, so nobody knew what he looked like. That was also the case with Shen, Zed's actual rival. The two of them of them were always masked, so there were a million rumours floating around in Runeterra about their appearance. The mystery of the mask also made them very popular with fangirls, for most thought they were really attractive underneath. Zed had seen the Eye of Twilight's face a lot since they used to train together, and thought his own face was better. Though he thought he was better than everybody, so that wasn't really surprising.

In the Institute of War, the Master of Shadows was known for saying rude things and not apologizing. When he did, it was usually with a rather unpleasant tone. For some reason that got him an even bigger following, which was baffling to most champions in LoL. Apparently people liked hearing somebody trash talk. Sadly for the ninja, being rude was not allowed on a live broadcast. Zed said, "Ugh, it sucks ass that I can't talk trash the way I want to on that show. Wasted potential, like always." "Dude, haven't you watched the news recently," asked Jax, "The institute is now allowing champions to be as rude as they want during broadcasts." "Seriously?" "Yeah." "Well, merry Christmas then. I'm gonna actually have fun with this," said Zed. He was very excited about this, but the others weren't feeling so good about this. They were worried their captain might go a bit far with this, because of his generally douchey attitude. Well, everyone except Vayne because she was too busy playing Fire Emblem on her 3DS.

...

It was the The time of the Group Selection had come, and Zed had not done anything to specially prepare for it. He wanted to just go with the flow, for one never really knew which team was going to be put in which position. He just wanted to trash talk and piss a bunch of people off, and he knew that was what people wanted him to do too. He was the most popular trash talker in the league after all. The Master of Shadows was supposed to wait in the waiting room for SKT T1 K, and he was about to go in when he was interrupted by a familiar voice. It was the voice of Shen, which was gentle, smooth, monotone and extremely boring to Zed. The Eye of Twilight said, "Zed, I hope you're not planning on making a mess out there," as he placed his hand on his former classmate. The other ninja smacked his hand away and said, "None of your goddamn business, Shen. Aren't you a bit busy dealing with your little pet Akali anyways?" "She is not my pet, and I do not tolerate disrespecting her like that," replied the blue ninja with his usual monotone. He never got emotional, which was a part of the job of being the Eye of Twilight.

Jax showed up soon, and said, "Hey guys, save it for the show. We've gotta start preparing for our TV appearance anyways." "That is agreeable. We shall see each other later, Zed." Shen walked away to his team's room, and the Master of Shadows said, "Yeah, fuck you too." The Grandmaster at Arms was bored and didn't have anything better to do, which is why he had decided to join Zed in the waiting room. In the room Jax asked, "What do you think will happen at the ceremony?" "Dude, it's random. How the fuck should I know what's going to happen," replied Zed. Jax replied, "I heard from a friend that the higher ups are planning on changing it so that the higher seed gets to pick one team to be in their group." These words sounded like a choir of angels for Zed, because this meant more chances to trash talk and disrespect the other teams. But then something came to his mind, how come he never heard of it when he literally runs a ninja clan? Zed asked, "How do you know that?" "I'm not a dick to every higher up in the League, that's how," Jax responded. The Master of Shadows was forced to nod in agreement.

...

It was the time for the group selection, and every representative of a team worth knowing was there. And some other teams who never had a chance of winning were there too, though nobody really gave a shit about them. Everyone knew MKZ and IM were never gonna win after all. The hostess had just introduced everyone and the commissioner was about to make his grand speech, which was apparently supposed to reveal to the public something that would change the League of Legends forever. Everyone was waiting for the announcement, on the edge of their seats to make sure they don't miss a single word coming out of his mouth. Well, everyone except Vayne who really didn't give a shit.