I wanna write a fight sceeeene.
All the chapters so far have been alot of character introspection and setting the seeds for future stuff. Basically a whole lot of yapping. So I went the classic Fire Emblem route and threw bandits into the mix, cause why not.
On another note, while checking online to see how my fanfic was doing, turns out there was another F/SN and LoL with the same name, "Fate of Legends".
Guess great minds think alike. Only problem now is that I need to think of a new title for the story...
Please enjoy the chapter!
"Aw come on this is just Zaun all over again." Ezreal muses to himself as Ezreal, himself and the kids are all surrounded by various adults.
"Look kid, we don't want to hurt anybody. We saw you gave out the food and coins to the kids. Can't you spare anymore for us?" One of the adults mentions back.
"Geh...I would, but I really got nothing else on me. Uh, look. I'm handing out lessons on treasure hunting and exploring. You can listen in, probably help out the kids if they do decide to do this line of work-" Ezreal knew this would happen, just not so soon. When giving something, more people want more from you, and feel wronged if they are not provided.
"Look man, we need it more than you do. Can't you just hand us something valuable to sell?" Some of said adults start to close in around the children who hide behind Karna.
"..." Karna merely looks to Ezreal, despite Karna being the hero of charity, despite Ezreal renouncing his title as Master, Karna is indeed loyal to Ezreal and shall act to fight or stand by, not exactly trusting Ezreal's judgement but following through with it as a soldier would.
"I..." Ezreal hesistates, he looks back at the children and then at the other adults for a moment "I would be a hypocrite if I didn't at least try. Ok, how about this?"
Ezreal moves to take off his coat and hands it to one of the people in front of him.
"The signature coat of the famed Jarro Lightfeather!" Ezreal points to it and makes a thumbs up afterwards.
"Jarro what?"
"Only the national hero of Demacia. Trust me, if you are able to head there and sell the coat you'll make big bucks-"
"Are you shitting me kid!? I'm not that dumb to believe that, the hero of Demacia ia Garen Crownguard. Even if there was another national hero I didn't know about, why would they be out here helping out a bunch of brats in an outskirt town?" The man throws Ezreal's coat to the side dismissively and brandishes an axe, seeing this the surrounding men and women that moved to surround Ezreal, Karna and the kids follow suite, revealing the adults are all armed in some way.
"Hey! I really wasn't lying though! We really doing this now?" Ezreal steps back and prepares a basic stance, while he was never trained, Ezreal naturally held a position ready to use his gauntlet if need be "Lancer! Get your lance out and prelare to defend the kids."
"Of course, Explorer." Karna summons his signature spear while in this class, however comes with repurcussions.
"The white haired one's a damn mage!" The mand that threw Ezreal's jacket to the side calls out at seeing Lancer summon his spear from seemingly nothing, most of the adults attempt to attack Karna at the same time but he skillfully disarms them and keeps them away from the children who watchnin awe.
However...
"Ghhk!..." Ezreal seems visibly in pain "Wh-What the...my head feels as though I went through hours of looking at maps..."
Seeing the sudden dizzy and pained state of his adversary, the axe weilding man moves to strike Ezreal.
Seemingly breaking out of the trance at just the right moment, Ezreal blinks as his eyes return to focus and he steps back to avoid the axe at just the right moment, cutting a few strands of his hair as he dodges back.
"They're serious!..." As a response to nearly losing his life at the hands of this man with the axe, Ezreal tries to surround his gauntlet with the familiar feeling of magic in order to summon up his magic bow.
Keyword, tries.
Ezreal attempts to build up his magic and focus it into the gauntlet, yet it was to no avail. He still was able to produce the feeling of magic and move it around and focus it on specific areas like he used to, the actual amount was a lot less more than he was used to, let alone the required amount to use the gauntlet and his sole weapon.
While he was certainly caught off guard from this, before Ezreal found the gauntlet of Ne'Zuk, Ezreal was an explorer that by himself was able to move past the traps and trials within the tomb of Ne'Zuk by his lonesome.
So Ezreal semeelssly flowed into a straight kick at the man with the axe after realising his magic was not mustering itself up.
"Guh!" The man lets go of the axe as he is kicked fairly hard in the chest area as he stumbles backwards a bit.
"Lancer! These guys are fighting to kill, return their hospitality unless if they run away or surrender!" Ezreal yells out as he picks up the axe that was still lodged in the ground below, while not a muscle god, years of exploring experience and running from traps and people did lead Ezreal to be more physically active than most.
"Ghh...damn it kid! I lived for so long, longer than you! I won't die until I get another taste of shimmer, so fork up the money and at least I'll kill you quick!" The man then withdraws a knife from within his jacket.
"Shimmer, that old stuff? Is that why you need all that money in the first place, how the heck did you find all these people to help you with that anyway?" Seeing the knife, Ezreal responds while walking slowly and taking a defencive position "This has got to be one of the dumbest reasons to rob kids, you steal candy from babies as well?!"
If nothing else, Ezreal is second to none when it comes to pissing off people.
The man with the knife charges forward with an angry growl, clearly affcted by the on fhe fly insult that Ezreal came up with. Clearly he was an enotionally sane individual with no anger management issues whatsoever, probabaly thanks to the shimmer.
"Now that I am getting a closer look, wow you really do look ugly, I thought those were just veins and you were really old but I guess thats thanks to the Shimmer huh?!" Ezreal is able to move back and keep the man away with a swipe of the axe, it was a short swing as to not alow for openings.
"Shut. Up! Damn it kid, why can't you just let me get my kick! What are those kids even worth huh? They contribute nothing, it will take too much time and resources to make them useful for anything, those street urchins aren't worth this!" The man makes a quick dash forward for quick stab forwards, taking advantage of the fact Ezreal's weapon is heavier.
As an untrained fighter, the best Ezreal could have responded with was to block the strike with the blade of the axe while making another straight kick towards the man.
The kick meets its mark due to the close proximity of Ezreal's adversary from dashing in, about the same area that was kicked before actually. Once landing it, it seems to do much more damage than before as the man falls backwards and beginning to cough but not out of the count yet "Ugh...weak kick, kid. It'll take more than that to-"
Running in suddenly and not giving a chance, Ezreal swings his axe with a heave, its rough, slightly clumsy, but it gets the job done as the axe cleaves through the man's skull, slightly crushing it.
"Hooo...hooo..." Ezreal takes a few deep breaths at the sudden slightly crushed remains of the man's head, his expression a pitying one for a few moments "If you don't even know what was wrong with what you just said...of course I won't speak to you. You're too far gone."
There was no reply from the man.
Ezreal soon turns to see how Karna was doing on his end "Lancer, you ok?"
Karna on the other hand was surrounded by a few tied up bandits, clearly most had ran away proabably due to seeing Karna's inhumanly proficient technique.
"I'm doing quite all right, Explorer. I have to ask, are you feeling ok? You did just kill a person afterall, even though they were as vile as they are." Karna disperses his spear into nothingness again, as he does so, Ezreal's gauntlet suddenly starts flowing as it held the ghostly copy of a type of bow.
"Gah?! What in the, now you work..." Ezreal soon controls his magic and dials it back, reducing the size of the bow until nothingness "Yeah, I'm ok Lancer. In my line of work, a casualty every now and again is inevitable. Either its me or someone else trying to steal treasures I...borrowed or just some shady people that hate everyone equally and love to start death matches for no reason. Pro tip, never go to Noxus."
Ezreal leaves the axe and retrieves his jacket, while doing so he notices the children still watching him, staring with unsure expressions.
The blonde explorer replies with a smile and takes it in stride as he seemlessly wears his coat and slides his hair back in one motion "What do you need? Or was the performance of Prodigal Explorer Ezreal so amazing you were stunned in awe?"
"..."
There was no reply for a while, as Ezreal's smile becomes a little strained but he keeps up the confident smile and exaggerated pose.
"Uhh...guys, you can make your thundering applause now. Guys?" Ezreal laughs a little as he walks to the children, they don't step back or look fearful.
"You..." Kor, the oldest and semeingly leader of these children speak first "How were you able to...move like that. We saw, we saw you realise your magic gauntlet didn't work. You wasn't expecting him to try to kill you. You looked sick to your stomach when you killed him but...You were able to. I...when Lisa there was about to get hit by an arrow, I froze. I should've pushed here out of the way, but I froze. Mister Lancer saved her..."
"...Oh." Ezreal pauses for a moment, his usual chipper and confident facade leaving.
Then, Ezreal saw it.
A child without parents, a child who had to grow up with a type of invisible wall against adults. That was where the similarities end with the boy Ezreal was and who Kor is now. While Ezreal was wealthy, Kor is poor. While Ezreal was surrounded by stuffy adults, Kor was surrounded by like minded people, children his age. While Ezreal had no responsibility to care for what others say and think, Kor had the responsibility and duty to care for those he cares about.
No jokes. No misdirection. No lies.
"Because...in the end its either us, or them." Ezreal says, his expression neutral and his voice not trying to please Kor anymore "For me, its for a selfish reason to be honest. I want to live. Unlike you...I didn't really have anyone to care for, look how I turned out."
Ezreal has a slight smile as he goes down to kneel on one knee in front of the children.
"I'm assuming you wanted to protect your sister?" Ezreal asks suddenly.
"Sister? Lisa and I aren't related...I don't have any brothers or sisters, or parents for that matter." Kor replies suddenly.
"I didn't ask if you were blood related. Did you want to protect your sister?" Ezreal asks again.
"..." Kor looks back at Ezreal for a moment "Yeah. Yeah I do. As well as all the other kids here."
"M-Me too! I'll protect you too, Kor!" A very small girl, probabaly Lisa, cuts in "I'll become better so you won't have to aave me from an arrow again!"
"Don't count me out, Kor. We stole so much bread together from that mean baker together, what's a bit of bandits to us?"
"Yeah! I'll protect everyone here, you're more family to me then my deadbeat dad ever was!"
"You don't have to protect all of us bro! Just like before, we got each other's backs, so don't think for a second we will just let you be sad by yourself."
More and more of the kids seem to rouse themselves up as a collective, as they all encourage each other, seemingly bringing Kor himself to another standstill in speechlessness.
"All of you. Remember that feeling." Ezreal says "Not the words, you can forget words easily, even promises. Promises you make in childhood, sometimes people forget as they grow, so remember that feeling in your heart. I've seen Demacians curse family members because they were born with magic. I've seen Noxians outcast their friends because they didn't want to fight. I've seen Piltovians abandon each other for money and status. Zaunites...well, they're hit or miss, you can't ever predict any of them. So, remember that feeling. And maybe, just maybe. You could be a better explorer then I ever was, with a family you can count on for when you fall and help push you up."
"..." Kor stays silent as he looks at Ezreal, and then at the other children who all look eagerly back at him. Soon then closikg his eyes and the reopening them with a determined glint in his eyes "I think I understand you a little better now, Ezreal...you hired me remember? I want to learn how to be an explorer too! You better teach me, I gotta provide for them as the oldest after all."
Kor's statement is soon mirrored in varying degrees from the other children, all sharing that same determined look.
Karna watches from the side once more. He has another faint smile, Karna had actually had smiled quite frequently these past few days. Inwardly affirming his loyalty to his Master, who in the end was indeed a man who was more kind and compasisonate than he himself was willing to admit.
"Alright!" Ezreal himself has his eager smile back as he stands up and dusts off his knees, although, if you were to ask Karna, it was a much more genuine smile than normal "Next week at the morning, prepare food and water and a travel bag."
"We're gonna raid a tomb!"