AN: You don't need to know anything about League of Legends or its lore to read this fic.
"Up and attem' boys!" The Captain yelled into the room, "We're off to tunnels six through nine, you have two hours. Anyone not ready is getting goddamned courtmarshaled!"
That woke everyone in the barracks, shooting out of their bunks sending the Captain into a fit of laughter. "Just be ready, I already strong-armed an extra hour out of the eggheads!"
"Sir! Yes, sir!" I roared along with everyone else, moving to the pair of lockers I popped my bunkmates open grabbing his shirt and looking around.
"James!" I hollered, before tossing the shirt across the room.
"Fuck! Damn it, you got me Kujira," Patterson laughed, slapping me on the back, "You better watch out, pay back is gonna be sweet."
I laughed at his response, watching him go off to retrieve his shirt sparking a game of keepaway. After breakfast and getting some bacon thrown at me, we stood at attention just outside of the encampment.
"Good job boys!" Captain McCarthy laughed, "Blahahaha! Twenty minutes early too! What is this, an interview?"
"Sir! Yes sir!" Someone called out, causing the Captain to laugh harder.
"At ease!" He said, wiping a tear from his eye, "The eggheads need us to keep blowing through the tunnels. Tunnels six thr-"
"You already said that at wake up," I said, causing him to pause before breaking into more laughter.
"I guess I did! Blahahaha!" He laugh leaning into a particularly reedy cadet almost crushing them, "Alright, alright! I want three groups of equal numbers, at least a handful of people that know how to use explosives on each. I trust you guys to figure it out, I'm going to go practice some jokes!"
"Sir, yes sir!" We cried before splitting off into the groups from the days before. We didn't know exactly what the eggheads were looking for, but we did have a few guesses. Those being mythical Devil Fruit, or even excavating a great weapon.
"Fire in the hole!" I cried as I pressed on the detonator, a blast coming from deeper in the tunnel. Grabbing my tools I went back to work, we had been at this for a couple of hours now, having just come back from out lunch break.
"Patty," I said shoveling some rubble into a wheelbarrow, "If you could have a Devil Fruit, which would you want?"
Patterson furrowed his brows at that, "Oh that's a hard one, I feel like saying Sengoku's would be some form of insubordination," He said with a laugh, "But for real? Probably the Pika Pika no Mi, Logias are just bullshit man!"
"Agreed!" Rigby hollered from somewhere within the digging squad.
"Well no shit! You were ballsy enough to ask Smoker if you could punch him!" Someone else yelled.
"Worth it!"
"Not worth a month of toilet duty, but whatever," I said, rolling my eyes.
"What about you?" Patterson asked, flicking a pebble at me.
"I don't know if it exists but a cheetah Devil Fruit," I said, "I bet it would be so cool being that fast! Like, imagine just zipping around the battle taking out person after person."
"Yeah the Pika Pika can do that, just in Logia form."
"Being a Logia is so basic though," I said, giving him a flat look.
"They are still coo-" Patterson was cut off as someone yelled down the tunnel.
"I think I found something!" Rigby suddenly yelled down the tunnel, as he dropped his pickaxe and started digging with his hands.
Quickly I moved to join him, using my shovel to clear the rubble fast then Rigby's dumbass using his hands. Eventually we managed to clear enough for me to squeeze through.
On the other side, instead of what I thought would just be a small cave or something it was like a man-made cavern. Four huge pillars held the roof of the cave, faded carvings only marred by hundreds of scratch marks. Littered around there were, almost, displays.
"Hey Kujira!" Patterson said, causing me to jump, "Check this out! I'm Patty the Pirate killer!" Turning I saw he was at another one of the pedestals, holding a sheathed sword above his head, "All who dare endanger the innocent will fall at my- ack!" He let out a yelp as when he drew the blade instead of being a normal sword it seemed to segmented and whiplike, so as it exited the sheathed it promptly went slack cutting Patty's cheek.
"Ha!" I laughed others who were climbing inside to check out the cavern laughing as well as the whip-sword laid limp in Pattys hands, "Having performance issues there Patty? You know, you are around the ag-"
"I'm twenty-four!" He shouted back before lifting the "blade", "Surprisingly sharp for something that's been in here for… eggheads said centuries right?"
"Yeah it is strange… on top of that," I went over to one of the pedestals, picking up the rod that was on the floor near it, "Unless someone got here before us, why a rod? I get the whip-sword, that gem over there," I pointed to the end of the cave where most of the others were at this point, one of them holding the heart sized green and orange gem looking thing, "But why the rods? I saw a greenish one over the-" My voice died in my throat as I looked over at the pedestal Rigby was inspecting.
Climbing down the nearby pillar was a monster. It had six bulky arms with all too human hands set unevenly along its serpent like body. Its head was covered in eyes, each moving independently and had a long cylindrical… mouth? Like a demented butterfly.
"Rigby move!" I yelled in a panic, I only sealed his fate. The thing pounced landing on Rigby, gripping his face and- God I was going to be sick.
The cavern was thrown into chaos, none of us were properly armed, and the only exit was a bottleneck. As the senior officer tried to get order the thing rushed for the closest target- Patterson and myself. It was fast. Way too fast for something of its size.
Within seconds it was on me bodily, throwing me into the pedestal before pulling me to it, plunging its proboscis like mouth into my chest.
I coughed up blood as I tumbled to the floor when it removed its mouth from my chest. Something in its mouth.
My heart. I thought dumbly as everything faded to nothing.