An entire day went by without the Void attacking.
And in a fashion typical of most Piltovans, her temporary traveling companion spent it shopping.
Kai'Sa honestly did not see a point in purchasing this many cans of hair gel and dried peaches, but the vendors were all too willing to sell. The prices left much to be desired; even after Ezreal managed to score a few discounts with his charisma. Their dynamic had returned to a semblance of what it once was: though it was clear, at least to Kai'Sa, that a bridge had been crossed.
"Thank you, thank you."
With that, they left another stall: the shopkeeper nodding profusely after their generous purchases. The huntress did not appreciate the extra attention everyone was giving her nowadays, but attention was hard to avoid when traveling with the likes of 'Piltover's Number One Explorer'.
"Do you ever get bored of this?" He starts. "I mean, I appreciate civilian life as much as a guy can but - I'm not going to lie, I really kind of want to go on some kind of adventure.
"Adventure?"
"Yeah, I'm literally Piltover's Number One Explorer, Archeologist, Adventurer and Daredevil. I live for the thrill."
"I see you have a new title."
"I mean, I figured I'd deserve one more." The blond smirks. "Like, Daredevil has a nice ring to it, but you do know what that means right? It's a word for a man without fear. And I think all the fear has been squeezed out of me after the Void thing."
Ezreal laughs at his own joke, but Kai'Sa fails to participate in his levity.
The Protean chitters and hums with life from within its prison of rags, a reminder of the lasting effects that the battle had left on her body. One that went beyond the physical scars. The mere thought of facing Him again made the girl's nerves tighten in fear, cold sweat breaking underneath her second skin.
The rattling of Ezreal's overpacked backpack brings her back down to reality.
"Do you need help?"
"I need help?" Ezreal huffs, readjusting the three-box tower he was straining to hold with both arms. "Hah, as if."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure. I'm good. Yeup, all good."
"Hm."
The girl leans over, grabbing all three and lifting them in one hand without breaking a sweat.
Ezreal and even a few passerbys give her incredulous looks at her feat of strength. As soon as the burden was removed, the red-faced Ezreal slumped onto one of the walls to catch his breath.
"Is that all we needed to acquire?"
"Wait, wait give me a sec. I need to - just - sit here for a bit."
"Take your time."
"T-thanks." The huntress patted the heaving Ezreal on the back with her free hand, adjusting her shoulders to better handle the weight on her left. "Ok. Ok I'm good."
The explorer brushes off the sweat on his forehead, readjusting his shawl to hide his marked cheeks from the prying eyes of any zealous followers of the Holy Lady. Even as a mage who couldn't do magic, Ezreal knew better than to flaunt his status - especially as a foreigner.
"All we need is a few new shawls, a couple of towels and - yeah. Unless I'm forgetting something, that's it. With that second skin of yours, we don't even need any water. Speaking of water, I remember this one time - I was looking for a temple in the rainforests on the Eastern Coast of Shurima -"
As he rambled on, Kai'Sa turns her attention elsewhere. She loved hearing his stories, but her instincts demanded her to at least keep an eye on their surroundings.
Zuretta was far busier than it had ever been, especially with the need to repair the holes in the walls from the recent attack. Guards patrolled the area - banners raised far above the crowd. If the rumors were to be believed, the Holy Lady had found the person responsible for the animal killings: and had begun the search to bring them to justice. A futile effort, considering the cunning and invisibility that the Scythe-Armed Voidborn possessed.
The girl's foot shifts, the paper beneath it crackling loudly.
WANTED HERETICS. ALIVE BUT BETTER DEAD.
"Huh? What's that?"
Both of them share a look as the explorer reaches down, lifting it up as Kai'Sa sets the boxes down on top of one of the larger of the rocks in the small alleyway. The boy makes a face: but his attention is drawn back down to the paper folding in his hands.
"Woah, a bounty?"
"Someone must have pissed off the Holy Lady." Ezreal hands the poster over, smiling at the promise of glory. "You think we can turn them in before we go back out to the Void? Might do us some good to practice on easier things before, you know, going right back into the frying pan."
"Someone?"
Plasma shifts, her second skin was sensing a threat nearby.. Kai'Sa leans over, briefly leaving her head on his shoulder by accident. Ezreal hurriedly hands her the poster, and her suspicions are confirmed.
"That look of yours tells me you see something I don't."
"Look closer."
Kai'Sa reread the fine print, a familiar tension worming inside her gut. The boy at her side leaned in closer, his expression gradually moving from curiosity to shock then to his usual deflecting humor.
"'Description: One Gravedigger, yellow hair and rich. Buys dried peaches at the market every night' Oh come on, That doesn't prove anything! There could be another Piltovan here with blonde hair and blue eyes, who just so happens to have a roommate who eats peaches like a bear out of winter. It's probably just a coincidence."
"Read the next part."
His face turns pale.
"Ok, purple and black are very common colors. And 'thing' could mean anything! I mean, you are clearly human. There's probably some other Void-lookalike roaming around the city in those exact colors. And the exact same plasma cannons."
"THERE THEY ARE!"
Dozens of golden warriors flooded into the narrow alley, clogging their only escape point. Kai'Sa activates her cannons, hiding her scowl beneath the protection of the Protean's mask. Unfortunately, that only seems to motivate the guards to push even further into their alleyway, the banner of Zuretta looming above. Onlookers gathered a safe distance away, hushed whispers inaudible thanks to the footsteps of their enemy.
Neither of them truly wanted to fight humans, but Kai'Sa was not going to hesitate if push came to shove. Her warning shot kicks up the dust beneath their feet, the muzzles of both her cannons leaking smoke. Her voice is distorted by the mask, but the meaning is clear.
"Back away."
"Ok everyone just calm down." The blond pipes up, holding up his hands in faux surrender. "You sure you wanna do this to the people who literally just saved your city from an army of alien monsters?"
The stand off grows tense, the strip of clear blue skies belying the storm bellowing below. An arrow suddenly shoots past their foes, both of them dodging in the nick of time to let it embed into the rocky wall.
"Well, just try and keep up!"
Plasma missiles are shot to intentionally miss, detonated mid-air by a Mystic Shot. As everyone panics at the purple explosions, Ezreal grabs onto her hand and teleports the both of them behind their enemies. What few guards were behind the pack were easily dealt with by her claws, Kai'Sa careful to keep the plasma out of them lest she accidentally kill.
"Told ya you wouldn't want to mess with us!" Ezreal taunts, firing at legs and tripping the armed guards rushing towards him. "Anyways, I think that we've made the point clear enough, so why don't we all just-"
Of course, the boy talked a little bit too much to notice the guard behind him - the same one had wrapped his arm around the explorer's neck. As Ezreal fumbles to get the other person off, Kai'Sa found herself swarmed with assailants in armor. Armor that her claws could do nothing but scratch.
"KILL THEM." The Protean hisses in her mind. "THEY ARE ONLY HUMAN. WE ARE MORE."
"Shut up."
Kai'Sa elbows another guard in the chin, and shoves another one back with her leg. Catching an arrow in one hand and snapping it, the huntress notices an opening in their ranks. Her rockets fire up in an instant, turbines burning with ignited plasma.
A rope wrapped around her leg, followed by one on her neck.
The huntress grunts, her human instincts reaching upwards and clenching at the tight fibers. Her jets continued to roar and tremble against the force of the dozens of grown men weighing her down. With the narrowing air entering her throat, Kai'Sa begins to glow - restraint outweighed by the urge to survive.
"Enough!"
The pressure on her throat is loosened.
The huntress drops to the ground, recovering in the snap of a finger. At the same time, Ezreal wiggles his way out of his captor's grasp: gasping for air and kneeling on the ground.
"Violence is not the answer, is this really how the Holy Lady taught us to fight?"
A taller leaner man pushes past their minions, status denoted by a billowing red cape behind his back. His lion-shaped helmet was removed to reveal a familiar face: it was the same man Kai'Sa had saved from the Scythe-Armed Voidborn back at the garden.
"You two." The man nods. "The Holy Lady wants to see you. Come quietly, and no more harm will be done."
"And what if we don't come?"
"While I do not condone unnecessary violence, my fellow believers and I will not cease until the will of the Lady is done. You two would do best to cooperate lest more blood be spilled."
It would be so trivially easy for Kai'Sa to just blast every single person here with plasma and take off into the desert.
But there was of course the matter of Ezreal. The archeologist gives her a pleading look, and the huntress decides to play along - at least for a moment.
She glares coldly at the guards binding her as she lands, brushing off the dust on her obsidian scales and removing her mask. Ezreal was thankfully moderately healthy: the only thing that was bruised was his ego.
"You know, you guys should work on your guest etiquette." The blond snarks, smirking at the guards with the careless bravado of a self-proclaimed daredevil. "I mean, my throat aches from what that one guy did."
Of course, the boy was just being dramatic. Kai'Sa knew that Ezreal had begun to hoard Zaunian potions, after all that was why his bag weighed significantly more than it did before they came here. The explorer's caution was understandable, the red liquid could fix everything from minor scars to-
Too much worse. Her body shivers involuntarily.
"Is that a yes or a no?" The captain narrows his glare, and the Piltovan is quick to speak for the both of them.
"Alright, fine. We'll play nice- though it's only because we don't want to get banished from here."
As the guards relax, Kai'Sa brushes past her captors to rejoin Ezreal - lowering her voice to a whisper. The boy was all smiles, but the trembling of his hands and the subtle way he could not make eye contact were telltale signs of his true feelings.
"Tell me you have a plan to get us out of this."
"Plan? Oh, totally. I do."
It was later that Kai'Sa would learn that Ezreal's definition of a plan was to come up with one as they went.
A/N: It's been awhile, hasn't it?
Sorry for the delay, I know I said I'll update every Wednesday but - I don't think I can do that anymore. I had the worst bout of food poisoning the world has ever seen - which comes at a bad time considering that I am leaving my home country and moving abroad. Expect updated every two Wednesdays or so, maybe even once per month even.
Rough stuff aside, we're here folks! The second arc of TFY2 begins! I can't wait to show you what I have planned, and what I've cooked up with Shurima's huge roster of iconic faces. Expect more Kaizreal fluff as they travel across the region, finding new allies and old enemies.
I hope you guys are enjoying this ride so far, because it's about to get wild. If you loved the City of Men and Monsters, you are going to lose it when you see what happens when Kai'Sa and Ezreal enter into the New Age of the Ascended.
Remember to rate and review, and as always thanks for enjoying!